References
- June 1936
- We (the translator and editors) are grateful to the Husserl Archives, Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, and Springer for the permission to publish this translation; thanks also to Dr Thomas Vongehr of the Husserl Archives, University of Leuven and Dr Julia Jansen of University College Cork for their invaluable help in commenting on earlier drafts of the translation.
- Naturally one always has a biological a-priori starting point from the human being: here we have the a-priori of the body's instincts, originary drives (Urtriebe), which bring to fruition (eating, mating, etc.) the a-priori itself. Of course, this holds for animals, to the extent that animality is actually experienced through empathy. Thus we have a generative a-priori. Beyond the structure of animal environment, in which every animal has the ‘social’ horizon of its species—in the world of dogs, the horizon is an open multiplicity of dogs in the interconnections possible for dogs (im möglichem Hunde-Konnex). This a-priori is anticipated as a hypothesis within the hypothesis ‘other animal’, while it is not directly experienceable as animal, and even more so in the case of plants. Of course, one has with animals the structure of the world of other animals (tierische Mitwelt)—not only the species, but instead the understanding of other animals and of the sociality of their species—and the counter-structure (Gegenstruktur) of the non-animal world, things (Dinge), etc. Thus one already has the beginnings of a real, and not altogether paltry, animal ontology from the inside and the outside. Yet what one has lies in an infinite horizon as of an unknown ontology (unbekannte Ontologie) prefigured in its infinity. See Teleology.
- Husserl uses the term Handwerk here, meaning a craft or trade, e.g. carpentry—translator's note.
- The term Rückfrage, meaning a questioning-back or regressive inquiry appears frequently in the Krisis text as a key component of genetic-historical phenomenological method. Rückfrage is a tracing back, so to speak, of the genesis or development of sense, e.g. ideal objects, to the transcendental sense-bestowing activitities of the constituting ego—translator's note.