Gttingen, January 12th, 1907

Hoher Weg 7

Dear Herr von Hofmannsthal,

You have told me1 how difficult life is for you because of a constantly swelling flood
of letters. But since you graced me with such an exquisite gift,2 I must thank you
nonetheless. You have to bear the consequences of the evil deed, and allow yet
another letter to wash over you. I must also deeply apologize for not thanking you
right away. Long sought-after syntheses of thought suddenly presented themselves, as
if dropped from the heavens. A considerable amount of work was required to quickly
provide them with a stable form. Your short dramas, which were constantly by my
side, were a great source of inspiration, even though I was only able to read certain
parts here and there.
For me, the inner states that are portrayed in your art as purely aesthetic, or not
exactly portrayed, but elevated into a sphere of pure aesthetic beauty, these states
hold, in this aesthetic objectification, a particular interesti.e. not only for the art
lover in me, but also for the philosopher and phenomenologist. For many years I
have attempted to get a clear sense of the basic problems of philosophy, and then of
the methods for solving them, all of which led me to the phenomenological method
as a permanent acquisition. It demands an attitude towards all forms of objectivity
that fundamentally departs from its natural counterpart, and which is closely related
to the attitude and stance in which your art, as something purely aesthetic, places us
with respect to the presented objects and the whole of the surrounding world. The
intuition of a purely aesthetic work of art is enacted under a strict suspension of all
existential attitudes of the intellect and of all attitudes relating to emotions and the
will which presuppose such an existential attitude. Or more precisely: the work of art
places us in (almost forces us into) a state of aesthetic intuition that excludes these
attitudes. The more of the existential world that resounds or is brought to attention,
and the more the work of art demands an existential attitude of us out of itself (for
instance a naturalistic sensuous appearance: the natural truth of photography), the less
aesthetically pure the work is. (To this also belong all kinds of tendency.) The
natural stance of the mind, the stance of actual life, is existential through and
through. Things that stand before us in a sensuous way, the things of which actual
scientific discourse speaks, are posited by us as realities, and acts of mind and will
are based on these positings of existence: joythat this is, sorrow, that this is not,
wish, that it could be, etc. ( = existential attitude of the mind): the opposite pole of
that stance of the mind that belongs to pure aesthetic intuition and the corresponding
emotional state. But just as much the opposite pole of the pure phenomenological
attitude of the mind, which is the only one within which philosophical problems can
be solved. For the phenomenological method too demands a strict suspension of all
existential attitudes. Above all in the critique of knowledge.3
As soon as the sphinx of knowledge has posed its question, as soon as we have
looked into the abyssal depths of the possibility of a knowledge that would be
enacted in subjective experiences and yet contain an in-itself existing objectivity, our
attitude to all pre-given knowledge and all pre-given beingto all of science and all
assumed realityhas become a radically different one. Everything questionable,
everything incomprehensible, everything enigmatic! The enigma can only be solved
if we place ourselves on its own ground and treat all knowledge as questionable, and
accept no existence as pre-given. This means that all science and all reality (including
the reality of ones own I) have become mere phenomena. Only one thing remains:
to clarify, in a pure intuiting (in a pure intuiting analysis and abstraction), the
meaning which is immanent in the pure phenomena, without ever going beyond
them, i.e. without presupposing any transcendent existences that are intended in
them; that is, to clarify what knowledge as such and known objectivity as such mean,
and mean according to their immanent essence. This applies to all types and forms of
knowledge. If all knowledge is questionable, then the phenomenon knowledge is
the only thing given, and before I permit one particular kind of knowledge as valid, I
perform my research in a purely intuiting (as if it were aesthetic) fashion: what
validity in general means, i.e., what knowledge as such means, with and in its
known objectivity. If I am to investigate in an intuiting way, I must of course not
hold on to a merely verbal quasi-knowing (symbolic thought), but to the proper,
evident and insightful knowing, even though the symbolic thought, in its relation
to evident knowing, also requires a phenomenological analysis of essences.
Phenomenological intuiting is thus closely related to the aesthetic intuiting in pure
art; obviously it is not an intuiting that serves the purpose of aesthetic pleasure, but
rather the purpose of continued investigations and cognition, and of constituting
scientific insights in a new sphere (the philosophical sphere).
Another thing. The artist, who observes the world in order to gain knowledge of
nature and man for his own purposes, relates to it in a similar way as the
phenomenologist. Thus: not as an observing natural scientist and psychologist, not as
a practical observer of man, as if it were an issue of knowledge of man and nature.
When he observes the world, it becomes a phenomenon for him, its existence is
indifferent, just as it is to the philosopher (in the critique of reason). The difference is
that the artist, unlike the philosopher, does not attempt to found the meaning of the
world-phenomenon and grasp it in concepts, but appropriates it intuitively, in order to
gather, out if its plenitude, materials for the creation of aesthetic forms.
*
What a hopeless and typical professor! He cannot even open his mouth, without
giving a lecture. But happily enough, part of the philosophical essence of a lecture
is the absence of a demand for an answer, and the same thing holds for the essence of
academic freedom, that one can fall asleep or skip school as much as one wants.
But I wish you all the best, dear H, in the new year. And what I wish you, I wish the
entire world of people who take such a great interest in your inner development and
growth, with its blossoms and flowerings.
P. S. I find myself reluctant to say anything about your work. I think that you would
be indifferent to praise and scorn, and wise talk of any kind. And the three golden
rules for the artist (in the widest sense), which at the same time are the public secrets
of all true greatness, are surely familiar and evident to you: 1) He shall have genius
obviously, otherwise he is not an artist. 2) He shall follow, purely and solely, his
daimonion, which, from within, drives him to an intuiting-blind production. 3)
Everyone else knows better, thus he observes them allin a purely aesthetic and
phenomenological fashion.
With best regards, from all of us to all of you
Yours truly

E. Husserl