Alfredo Ferrarin - Dermot Moran - Elisa Magrì - Danilo Manca - Hegel and Phenomenology-Springer (2019) PDF

Contributions To Phenomenology 102
Alfredo Ferrarin
Dermot Moran
Elisa Magrì
Danilo Manca Editors
Hegel and
Phenomenology
Contributions To Phenomenology
In Cooperation with The Center

for Advanced Research in Phenomenology
Volume 102
Series Editors
Nicolas de Warren, Department of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University,
State College, PA, USA
Ted Toadvine, Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
Editorial Board
Alweiss Lilian, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Elizabeth Behnke, Ferndale, Memphis, USA
Rudolfh Bernet, Husserl Archive, Leuven, Belgium
David Carr, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Chan-Fai Cheung, The Chinese University Hong Kong, Xianggangdao, Hong Kong
James Dodd, New School University, New York, USA
Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University, Florida, USA
Alfredo Ferrarin, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Burt Hopkins, University of Lille, Lille, France
José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada
Kwok-Ying Lau, Chinese University Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
Nam-In Lee, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
Dieter Lohmar, University of Cologne, Koln, Germany
William R. McKenna, Miami University, Ohio, USA
Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, Ohio, USA
J.N. Mohanty, Temple University, PA, USA
Dermot Moran, University College Dublin, Belfield, Ireland
Junichi Murata, University of Tokyo, Minato-ku, Japan
Thomas Nenon, The University of Memphis, TN, USA
Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany
Gail Soffer, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy
Anthony Steinbock, Southern Illinois University System, Carbondale, USA
Shigeru Taguchi, Hokkaido University, Yamagata, Japan
Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA
Scope
The purpose of the series is to serve as a vehicle for the pursuit of phenomenological
research across a broad spectrum, including cross-over developments with other
fields of inquiry such as the social sciences and cognitive science. Since its
establishment in 1987, Contributions to Phenomenology has published more than
80 titles on diverse themes of phenomenological philosophy. In addition to
welcoming monographs and collections of papers in established areas of scholarship,
the series encourages original work in phenomenology. The breadth and depth of
the Series reflects the rich and varied significance of phenomenological thinking for
seminal questions of human inquiry as well as the increasingly international reach
of phenomenological research.
The series is published in cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in
Phenomenology.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5811

Alfredo Ferrarin • Dermot Moran
Elisa Magrì • Danilo Manca
Editors
Hegel and Phenomenology

Editors
Alfredo Ferrarin Dermot Moran
Department of Philosophy Philosophy Department
University of Pisa Boston College
Pisa, Italy Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Elisa Magrì Danilo Manca

School of Philosophy Department of Philosophy
University College Dublin University of Pisa
Dublin, Ireland Pisa, Italy
ISSN 0923-9545 ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic)

Contributions To Phenomenology
ISBN 978-3-030-17545-0 ISBN 978-3-030-17546-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17546-7
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims
in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Editors’ Introduction
Hegel and Phenomenology
Pursuing the history of philosophy appears wholly unlike pursuing the history of
any other discipline. An inner connection between the subject-matter and the story
we are telling animates and organises our work. Unless we philosophise along with
the thinkers we consider – and are therefore prepared to run the risk of arbitrariness
as we examine their arguments from what is necessarily a perspective external to
theirs – the result we are likely to get is little more than an assemblage of moot facts.
The ideal of historiography, clothed in the seemingly noble garments of respectful
self-restraint inviting us to forsake originality to let things speak authentically for
themselves, is the restitution of other philosophers’ thought to be preserved unal-
tered and intact by contamination with ours. This ideal is correctness. But as long as
we let ourselves be guided by this ideal, we wind up condemning ourselves to silent
repetition.
For a historiography that looks for influences, appropriations and derivations,
and fears getting astray by superimposing on its questions something undocumented
that was not already there, nothing seems more futile or otiose than a comparative
analysis of Hegel and Twentieth-Century Phenomenology. Truth be told, Husserl’s
neglect of Hegel is nothing more than a sign of his indifference and ignorance;
Hegelians, in turn, find it hardly interesting to examine Hegel in light of phenome-
nology or learn anything from what they see as a form of subjective idealism. For
historiography, there is no room for a dialogue.
Hegel thinks that the history of philosophy is philosophy at its best when it
engages in a living exchange with the past and does not limit itself to reporting a
gallery of dead opinions. As he says, the realm of truth is the eternal essence of
spirit, a life neither moths nor thieves can enter or corrupt (Hegel 1986, 57–8). To
use and paraphrase now Husserl’s language, taking philosophical positions as
indexes of possibilities rather than facts (which requires imagination’s eidetic varia-
tion, including counterfactual considerations of what we examine) allows us to
establish an invariant core, so that Husserl goes to the point of saying that fiction,
properly understood, is the vital element of phenomenology as well as of all eidetic
v
vi Editors’ Introduction
sciences (Husserl 1976, §70). For an imaginative history of philosophy in search of

fresh insights and provocative challenges, a discussion of certain thematic relations
between dialectic and phenomenology can prove more than interesting. It does not
have to compromise on rigour, for it can become a compelling manner to test criti-
cally the respective key theses. In the end, what guides us is not the life of spirit as
in Hegel or the supposed realm of fiction as in Husserl but a different standard of
truth than in the positivism and historicism historiography tacitly assumes.
An Overview of this Volume
According to the line of thought that inspires this book, we as readers and philoso-
phers are not compelled to choose between Hegel and Husserl. Our task is rather
that of unearthing the philosophical relevance of those problems that both Hegel and
Husserl taught us to rethink in a radical way. Starting with a historical appraisal of
the Hegelian heritage in the phenomenological tradition, the book proceeds by
addressing core issues revolving around the topics of history, being, science, subjec-
tivity, and dialectic. In this way, the book complements and integrates recent schol-
arly works on this subject,1 shedding light not just on the unwritten philosophical
dialogue between Husserl and Hegel but also on the motifs that underpin the phe-
nomenological reception of Hegel’s philosophy and dialectic.
The goal of this volume is to provide readers with a theoretical framework for
appreciating the reaches of the Hegelian dialectic as well as the richness of the phe-
nomenological method across different traditions. As the approach of this book is
both interpretative and critical, the papers collected in this volume are interrogative,
soliciting new parallels that help reconsider established concepts of the phenomeno-
logical tradition (e.g. synthesis, evidence, a priori, genesis) against the backdrop of
Hegel’s dialectic and systematic philosophy. One of the major upshots of this criti-
cal work is the possibility of reading Husserl, Hegel, and their respective interlocu-
tors not only in dialogue with each other but also beyond standard labels that
invariably set them apart from each other.
The first part of the volume is dedicated to the theme of history. Dermot Moran
in “Husserl’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reading of the Crisis of European
Sciences and Related Manuscripts” traces the revival of Hegel studies in the early
twentieth century, showing how phenomenology incorporated Hegel into a mature
conception of transcendental philosophy. On the one hand, Moran argues that
Heidegger and his students (Fink, Marcuse, and Löwith) were responsible for the
retrieval of Hegel’s philosophy in Germany, after Heidegger moved to Freiburg in
1928 as the successor to Husserl in the Chair of Philosophy. On the other hand,
Moran demonstrates Husserl’s indebtedness to Hegel’s philosophy, suggesting that
Husserl’s engagement with Hegel evolves across three phases. The first one is
marked by the influence of Brentano and Neo-Kantianism, when Husserl rejects
1
Staehler (2003, 2016), Russon (2010), Fabbianelli and Luft (2014), Manca et al. (2015), Manca
(2016), Moran and Magrì (2017), Magrì and Petherbridge (2017) and Stone (2017).
Editors’ Introduction vii
Hegel’s philosophy due to its lack of a transcendental basis. The second phase is
characterised by a renewed approach to classical German philosophy, which is
mediated by Husserl’s engagement with Kant and Fichte. Finally, the last period
corresponds to Husserl’s work on The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology and the Vienna Lectures, when – perhaps now
influenced by Fink’s portrayal of phenomenology in Hegelian terms as “the self-
comprehension of the absolute” – Husserl proposes explicit Hegelian formulations,
such as the idea of a teleology of reason that unfolds itself in history.
Tanja Staehler in “How is a Phenomenology of Historical Worlds Possible?”
explores the concept of teleology of Hegel and Husserl, emphasising their most
relevant difference: while Hegel notoriously describes history as a progress, Husserl
speaks of a history of crises. Yet Staehler shows that both Hegel and Husserl are
concerned with the analysis of the absolute present. While this perspective tends to
limit the appraisal of the future, it provides an insight into Hegel’s account of the
completion of history, as well as into Husserl’s phenomenology of cultural worlds.
On Staehler’s view, neither Hegel nor Husserl conceives history as an endless rep-
etition or as a contingent stratification of event. By uncovering the teleological
dimension of historicity, both Hegel and Husserl seek to explore connections
between the concept of historical development and reason’s invariant forms.
Danilo Manca in “Hegel and Husserl on the History of Reason” examines Hegel’s
and Husserl’s views of the history of philosophy, considering them as an integral
part of their philosophical-theoretical investigation. Starting with Kant’s idea of a
philosophising history of reason, Manca considers the similarities between Hegel’s
and Husserl’s reappraisals of this idea in contrast to that of Windelband. This allows
for a comparison between Hegel’s account of the history of philosophy as reason’s
self-actualization and Husserl’s perspective of a critical history of ideas. According
to Manca, a fundamental point distinguishes Hegel’s concept of telos from Husserl’s,
i.e. two different ways of conceiving the role of reason. For Hegel, reason coincides
with an objective principle that actualizes itself in history and finds in human spirit
the highest manifestation of its becoming, even if not the sole one. By contrast, for
Husserl, reason is the historical manifestation of transcendental constituting life.
The second part of the book deals with the topics of being and science and meth-
odological issues concerning Hegel’s, Heidegger’s, and Fink’s respective approaches
to ontology and transcendental phenomenology. Chong-Fuk Lau in “Hegel’s
Critique of Foundationalism and Its Implications for Husserl’s Dream of Rigorous
Science” compares Hegel’s anti-foundationalist method in the Science of Logic,
which pursues the goal of a presuppositionless science, with Husserl’s foundation-
alist approach rooted on the notion of evidence. By examining Hegel’s argument for
the presuppositionless beginning of the Science of Logic, Lau argues that a truly
presuppositionless philosophy can only consist in the process of self-reflection and
self-critique that Hegel’s philosophy as a whole exhibits. Accordingly, Lau shows
that in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology,
Husserl revises his early approach to science, delving deeper into the concept of
lifeworld, which brings him closer to Hegel’s view of self-reflection and
self-critique.
viii Editors’ Introduction
Antoine Cantin-Brault in “Archeo-Logos: Hegel and Heidegger on Finding the

Principle in Heraclitus’ Saying” focuses on Hegel’s and Heidegger’s interpretations
of Heraclitus’ fragment on the logos as the arche of phusis. Cantin-Brault argues
that the difference between Hegel’s and Heidegger’s approaches to ontology can be
examined in light of their different interpretation of Heraclitus’ fragment. For
Hegel, the logos corresponds to reason as the power that unifies opposites, and it
also represents a way to criticise the absolute of Parmenides, which is devoid of
becoming and movement. For Heidegger, instead, Heraclitus was unable to break
with the ontic commitments that are embedded in his conception of phusis. Yet
Cantin-Brault also notices that after the Kehre, Heidegger develops a different inter-
pretation of the fragment, which culminates in the appraisal of the arche as disclos-
ing, rather than positing, the truth of phusis.
The third part of the volume is concerned with the theme of subjectivity. Andrea
Altobrando in “The Phenomenology of the Pure Ego and Its Dialectical Actuality”
argues that Husserl and Hegel share significant views concerning one of the most
difficult and often contested philosophical concepts, namely, the idea of a pure Ego.
On Altobrando’s view, both thinkers ascribe to the pure Ego the following qualities:
purity, simplicity, indeterminacy, emptiness, and negativity. Altobrando proceeds by
reconstructing the problem of the pure Ego in Husserl from the Logical Investigations
to Ideas I, showing that, ultimately, the pure I is neither a synthetic nor a forming
principle, as it can only be characterised in relation to its concrete and actual exis-
tence. Similarly, Altobrando shows that in Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit as
well as in Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in the Encyclopaedia, the problem
of the pure Ego, while not being univocally stated and often described in negative
terms, points towards a full-fledged, constant, and inexhaustible realisation of the
free spirit.
Alfredo Ferrarin in “Hegel, Husserl and Imagination” discusses the unsuspected
centrality of the notion of imagination in Hegel and Husserl. Drawing on the contra-
dictory nature that both Hegel and Husserl ascribe to perception, Ferrarin illustrates
how the function of imagination is both discontinuous and plurivocal with respect
to the modes of intelligence (Hegel) and to consciousness (Husserl). By considering
Hegel’s Psychology, particularly the transition from the sphere of representation to
that of language and memory, and Husserl’s different notions of image conscious-
ness, imagination, and phantasy, Ferrarin uncovers the role of negativity in structur-
ing and determining these different experiences. This leads Ferrarin to conclude that
for both Husserl and Hegel, imagination is not essentially alternative to, or discon-
nected from, reality, but rather its unreality helps us constitute a sense of reality.
Elisa Magrì in “Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, and the Paradox of Expression” explores
the concept of expression in both Hegel and Merleau-Ponty, suggesting that expres-
sion is not exclusive to any specific domain, but rather it emerges across all the
spheres of meaning as a process. Such process is rooted in distinct forms of passive
and corporeal self-determination, and it sediments in intersubjective acts of com-
munication. Starting with Kant’s appraisal of the institutional power of artistic
creation, Magrì examines Hegel’s and Merleau-Ponty’s developments of the rela-
tion between expression and institution. Her analysis takes into account both Hegel’s
Editors’ Introduction ix
critique of expression in the Science of Logic and Hegel’s appraisal of expression in

his philosophical anthropology, which both resonate with Merleau-Ponty’s view of
speech and gestures as forms of expression. According to Magrì, both Hegel and
Merleau-Ponty reject a view of expression as manifestation of a pre-existing logos.
On the contrary, they favour a genetic approach to the self that brings to light not
just the relevance of bodily self-experience but also the critique of all model of
expression that rules out the link between processuality and self-relation.
The final part of the book is dedicated to the theme of dialectic, conceived as the
subterranean and often implicit revival of Hegelian and Husserlian motifs in con-
temporary thinkers (Adorno, Ricœur, Sellars) in their approaches to knowledge, ethics,
and meaning. Giovanni Zanotti in “Adorno on the Meaning of Phenomenology”
discusses Adorno’s concerns with Husserl’s early phenomenological project.
Zanotti considers in particular Adorno’s critique as this is developed in the article
Husserl and the Problem of Idealism (1940), as well as in the book Against
Epistemology: A Metacritique (1956). According to Zanotti, Adorno’s critique of
Husserl contains Hegelian motifs in that Adorno ascribes to Husserl a lapse into
logical antinomies that ultimately reveal the inescapable stakes of the present and
the failure of idealism. By unmasking the “involuntary dialectic” that, for Adorno,
is distinctive of Husserl’s accounts of first philosophy and categorial intuition,
Zanotti shows in what sense the failure of Husserl’s idealism paves the way for a
reinterpretation of Hegel’s project, emancipated from the claustrophobic pursuit of
systematic philosophy.
Gilles Marmasse in “Ricœur as a Reader of Hegel: Between Defiance and
Nostalgia” sheds light on the ambivalent role played by Hegel in Ricœur’s reflec-
tions. Marmasse explains why, for Ricœur, Hegel’s philosophy appears animated by
a quest for meaning which is, however, overshadowed by the concept of absolute
knowledge. From Ricœur’s point of view, interpretation cannot take as its point of
departure the whole, but only a certain perspective. Thus, Ricœur ultimately sug-
gests that a philosophy of interpretation is only possible in a quasi-Hegelian fashion
or at least by engaging in a debate with and against Hegel. However, Marmasse also
points out Ricœur’s appraisal of Hegel’s ethics as opposed to Kant’s view of moral-
ity, discussing in detail Ricœur’s critique of Hegel’s theory of the state. By acknowl-
edging Ricœur’s diagnostic errors, Marmasse expands on the reasons why Ricœur
rejects the Hegelian view of history, focusing on the chapter of Time and Narrative
(1983) entitled “Renouncing Hegel”.
Daniele De Santis in “Méditations Hégéliennes vs. Méditations Cartésiennes:
Edmund Husserl and Wilfrid Sellars on the Given” offers a thought-provoking read-
ing of Husserl’s Cartesianism against the backdrop of the so-called Hegel
Renaissance that characterises some trends in contemporary analytical philosophy
inspired by Sellar’s diagnosis of the Myth of the Given. After presenting Sellars’
view of the Myth, De Santis elaborates on the general Hegelian character of Sellars’
reflections. The Hegelian motifs include a critical core (or threefold argument,
namely, a genetic explanation of evidence), a historical counteraccount of the
origins, and a conceptual holism. By critically examining these elements in relation
to Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, De Santis shows not only that Husserl does not
x Editors’ Introduction
fall prey to Sellars’ version of the Myth at all but also that Husserl’s accounts of
evidence and synthesis provide the opportunity to question some implications of
Sellars’ philosophy.
Acknowledgements The papers collected in this volume were originally presented
at the International Colloquium devoted to “Hegel and the Phenomenological
Movement” organised by the Zetesis Research Group at the University of Pisa in
June 2014. The editors wish to express their gratitude to all the collaborators and
participants in the event for their support and to all the authors in this volume for
their insightful contributions.
Department of Philosophy Alfredo Ferrarin

University of Pisa
Pisa, Italy
Philosophy Department Dermot Moran
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
School of Philosophy Elisa Magrì
University College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Department of Philosophy Danilo Manca
University of Pisa
Pisa, Italy
References
Fabbianelli, Fausto and Luft, Sebastian., eds. 2014. Husserl und die Klassische
deutsche Philosophie. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hua 3/1: Husserl, Edmund. 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phän-
omenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine
Phänomenologie. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Magrì, Elisa and Petherbridge, Danielle., eds. 2017. Intersubjectivity and
Recognition. Metodo. Internationational Journal in Phenomenology and
Philosophy V (1).
Manca, Danilo, Magrì, Elisa and Ferrarin, Alfredo., eds. 2015. Hegel e la fenomeno-
logia trascendentale. Pisa: ETS.
Manca, Danilo. 2016. Esperienza della ragione. Hegel e Husserl in dialogo, Pisa:
ETS.
Editors’ Introduction xi
Moran, Dermon and Magrì Elisa., eds. 2017. Hegel and Phenomenology, Hegel
Bulletin, 38/1 (75).
Russon, John. 2010. Dialectic, Difference, and the Other: The Hegelianizing of
French Phenomenology. In Phenomenology. Responses and Developments, ed.
Leonard Lawlor, 17–42. Durham: Acumen.
Stähler, Tanja. 2003. Die Unruhe des Anfangs. Hegel und Husserl über den Weg in
die Phaenomenologie. Phaenomenologica, 170. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stähler, Tanja. 2016. Hegel, Husserl, and the Phenomenology of historical worlds.
Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield International.
Stone, Alison. 2017. Hegel and Twentieth-Century French Philosophy. In Oxford
Handbook of Hegel, ed. Dean Moyar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
W 18: Hegel, G.W.F. 1986. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I.
(Band 18). In Werke in zwangig zwanzig Bänden, ed. E. Modelnhauer and K. M.
Michel. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Contents
Husserl’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reading

of the Crisis of European Sciences and Related Manuscripts�� 1
Dermot Moran
How is a Phenomenology of Historical Worlds Possible?�� 29
Tanja Staehler
Hegel and Husserl on the History of Reason �� 45
Danilo Manca
Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism and Its Implications
for Husserl’s Dream of Rigorous Science�� 61
Chong-Fuk Lau
Archeo-Logos: Hegel and Heidegger on Finding the Principle
in Heraclitus’ Saying�� 77
Antoine Cantin-Brault
The Phenomenology of the Pure Ego and Its Dialectical Actuality�� 93
Andrea Altobrando
Hegel, Husserl and Imagination �� 115
Alfredo Ferrarin
Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, and the Paradox of Expression�� 131
Elisa Magrì
Adorno on the Meaning of Phenomenology�� 147
Giovanni Zanotti
Ricœur as a Reader of Hegel: Between Defiance and Nostalgia�� 163
Gilles Marmasse
Méditations Hégéliennes vs. Méditations Cartésiennes.
Edmund Husserl and Wilfrid Sellars on the Given�� 177
Daniele De Santis
xiii
Husserl’s Phenomenology of Spirit:
A Reading of the Crisis of European
Sciences and Related Manuscripts
Dermot Moran
It is true not only for nineteenth-century Germany but also for

the whole of Europe that philosophy developed under the sign
of Hegel.
(Brunschwicg 1927, 35)
For the spirit alone is immortal [Denn der Geist allein ist
unsterblich].
(Vienna Lecture, Husserl 1954, 348)
Abstract In this paper I trace the revival of Hegel in France and Germany in the
early twentieth century and point especially to the crucial role of phenomenology
(both Husserl and Heidegger, as well as their students, e.g. Fink, Landgrebe and
Marcuse) in incorporating Hegel into their mature transcendental philosophy.
Indeed, Martin Heidegger was responsible for a significant revival of Hegel studies
at the University of Freiburg, following his arrival there in 1928 as the successor to
Husserl. Similarly, Husserl’s student, Fink characterised Husserl’s phenomenology
in explicitly Hegelian terms as “the self-comprehension of the Absolute”. The late
Husserl seems to embrace the Hegelian vision when he presents his approach in the
Crisis itself as a “teleological historical reflection”.
Keywords Husserl · Hegel · Phenomenology · Spirit · History ·

Self-consciousness
D. Moran (*)
Philosophy Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
e-mail: morandg@bc.edu
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

A. Ferrarin et al. (eds.), Hegel and Phenomenology, Contributions
To Phenomenology 102, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17546-7_1
2 D. Moran
1 T
he Twentieth-Century Revival of Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit: The French Wave
Hegel’s influence dominated academic philosophy in Germany during the first half
of the nineteenth-century. As is well known, his successors could be grouped
between Left (Feuerbach, Marx) and Right Hegelians (Karl Friedrich Göschel, the
successor to Hegel in Berlin, Georg Andreas Gabier, and Bruno Bauch). But Hegel
suffered a significant eclipse in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, for
instance, in his Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, Karl Barth wonders
why Hegel never became a guiding figure for Protestant theology, equivalent to
Thomas Aquinas for Catholic theology (Barth 2002, 370). In fact, it was the revival
of Kantianism in Germany,1 along with the rise of positivism (to which versions of
Marxism also became aligned), which delivered the death blow to Hegel’s influence,2
both of which movements were suspicious of what they saw as Hegel’s speculative
mysticism and lack of appreciation of modern scientific method.3 In this regard,
Franz Brentano, in Vienna, was a significant figure in the rejection of Hegel as a
windy mystic whose irrationalism marked the final phase of the decline of philosophy
understood as a rigorous science.4 Edmund Husserl, trained as a mathematician but
then a student of Brentano in Vienna, from 1884 to 1886, was for a long time also
hostile to Hegel. Thus, he regarded Hegel as having no regard from the logical
Principle of Contradiction.
The reception of Hegel was somewhat different in France, Italy, and England,
where varieties of Hegelianism flourished in the late nineteenth century. Hegelian
Idealism became a dominant force in British philosophy after 18655 up to the time
of Bertrand Russell (Bosanquet, Green, Bradley, McTaggart).6
Benedetto Croce famously produced his book What is Living and What is Dead
of the Philosophy of Hegel in 1906 (Croce 1915), which saw Hegel as primarily
interested in charting the very logic of philosophy itself, philosophy as an activity
of comprehension that proceeds dialectically and whose aim is to think the universal
in all its concreteness and dynamism. Croce claims that the “logic of the dialectic is
therefore to be considered a true and original discovery of Hegel” (Croce 1915, 49).
Yet Croce also sees Hegel’s exploration of the dialectics of the negation as the
1
Alexandre Koyré offers reasons for the collapse of Hegel, which include his lack of appreciation
for mathematics as an instrument in science in his 1931 Rapport sur l’état des études hégéliennes
en France, reprinted in Koyré (1961).
2
In fact, Auguste Comte was somewhat appreciative of Hegel. They shared a view of the organic
nature of society, and they had a mutual friend Gustave d’Eichthal, who alerted Hegel to Comte,
see Singer (2005, 172 n.11). Comte’s view of the evolution of society placed Hegel at the meta-
physical rather than the scientific stage.
3
See Higgins and Solomon (2003) and Beiser (2014).
4
See, for instance, Brentano (1999, 14–28).
5
The Scottish Idealist J. H. Stirling published his The Secret of Hegel in 1865. He saw Hegel as the
exponent of the “concrete universal”. See Stern (2007).
6
See Mander (2011).
Husserl’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reading of the Crisis of European Sciences… 3
culmination of a long history that includes Plato’s Parmenides and the work of
Nicholas of Cusa, Jacob Boehme, G. B. Vico, among others.7
Among Hegel’s published works, the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) was par-
ticularly neglected in the nineteenth century, until it was enthusiastically revived in
the 1930s in France by Delbos, Koyré, and Kojève.8 Victor Delbos taught a course
on Hegel and post-Kantian Idealism at the Sorbonne from as early as 1909 to 1929.
This revival of philosophical interest in Hegel’s Phenomenology began not in
Germany but in France,9 primarily inspired by Alexandre Kojève’s lectures delivered
in Paris between 1933 and 1939 (Kojève 1947, 1980). In fact, Kojève had replaced
Alexandre Koyré who had earlier lectured on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in
Paris at the École Pratique des Hautes Études from 1931 to 1933.10 Interestingly,
Kojève himself acknowledged the inspirational impact on him of Martin Heidegger’s
reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, showing that the German revival of Hegel was
in fact behind Kojève. Kojève, inspired by the newly discovered 1844 manuscripts
of Karl Marx, presented Hegel’s Phenomenology as a “phenomenological
description of human existence” as it manifests itself to the one experiencing it
(Kojève 1980, 261). Both Koyré and Kojève construed Hegel’s Geist as the
specifically human spirit and understood the driving force for the historical
movement of human existence as negativity (equivalent to freedom).11 Inspired by
Koyré’s and Kojève’s interpretations, and by the magnificent French translation of
the Phenomenology by Jean Hippolyte (Hegel 1939–1941), a new generation of
French philosophers—and among them, notably, prominent phenomenologists such
as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Wahl, and Paul
Ricoeur12—combined Hegel’s conception of the dialectical struggle for recognition
7
In this regard, see also Kolakowski (2005).
8
I refer to Hegel (1952, 1979). For an excellent discussion of the history of the term “phenomenol-
ogy” in Hegel and others, see Johannes Hoffmeister’s introduction to the 1952 Meiner edition. For
a discussion of the historical reception of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, see Pöggeler (1973,
170–230).
9
See Roth (1988) and Althusser (1997). Althusser records that Kojève claimed that he could not
have understood Hegel without the influence of Heidegger (Althusser 1997, 171). Of course, fol-
lowing on the earlier work of Delbos, Jean Wahl had already re-introduced Hegel into France with
his Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel (Wahl 1929). Koyré reviewed
Wahl’s book in 1930.
10
Koyré studied with Husserl in 1908 but left for Paris when Husserl did not approve his thesis.
Nevertheless, Koyré always acknowledged the impact of Husserl on him. Indeed, Koyré’s reading
of Hegel is strongly phenomenological. See Wahl (1966, 15–26). Kojève himself acknowledged
that he was following many of Koyré’s interpretations. See also Baugh (2003), who claims that the
French tradition of interpreting Hegel in an “anthropological” manner began with Victor Delbos’
lectures on post-Kantian Idealism in the Sorbonne in 1909 (Baugh 2003, 19). See also Canguilhem
(1948). Delbos had been teaching Hegel in Paris since 1909 and it is probable that both Sartre and
Merleau-Ponty attended his lectures.
11
See, for instance, Kojève (1980, 216).
12
Of course, phenomenologists were not the only French philosophers to take up Hegel; many
philosophers inspired by the rediscovered early writings of Marx were similarly enthused. But in
this essay, I shall concentrate on Hegel within phenomenology.
4 D. Moran
between Master and Slave with the Husserlian methodology for the description of
consciousness, to produce dynamic and challenging accounts of the intersubjective
encounter of free, intentional subjects acting in the world (e.g. Sartre’s account of
the look and of shame in Being and Nothingness, published in 1943).
Later in the twentieth century, Emmanuel Levinas,13 Hans-Georg Gadamer,14 and
Landgrebe (1968, 1977), and others, continued to build on and develop the Hegelian
interconnections with phenomenology originally made by Koyré and Kojève, as did
more recent commentators such as Hartmann (1988), Marx (1988), Otto Pöggeler,
Findlay (1958), and Carr (1974).
A neglected chapter in the revival of Hegel in Germany in the first half of the
twentieth century is the role played by phenomenology and especially by Heidegger
and his students (Fink, Marcuse and Löwith). It is clear that Hegel was revived
within the phenomenological movement, as I shall now explain.
2 T
he Freiburg Revival of Hegel: Heidegger, Fink, Marcuse,
Löwith
Prior to this French revival of Hegel, it is a little acknowledged fact that the phe-
nomenologist Martin Heidegger was responsible for a significant revival of Hegel
studies at the University of Freiburg, following his arrival there in 1928 as the suc-
cessor to Husserl in the Chair of Philosophy. Recent publications in the
Gesamtausgabe series of Heidegger’s lecture courses on Hegel confirm the extent
and depth of the Messkirch master’s sustained engagement with Hegel especially
during the 1920s and1930s, and continuing throughout his career.15 At Freiburg,
Heidegger made a determined effort to read Hegel (and especially his 1807
13
Derrida points out that Levinas is closer to Hegel than he is willing to admit (Cf. Derrida 1978,
99).
14
Gadamer’s first publications were primarily on Greek philosophy, but he did publish an article on
Hegel (Gadamer 1939). After 1945, Gadamer was instrumental in founding the Internationale
Vereinigung zur Förderung der Hegel-Studien. Subsequent studies include Gadamer (1976). On
Gadamer’s reading of Hegel and relationship with Heidegger, see Pippin (2002) and Dostal (2002).
15
Heidegger had a much deeper interest in Hegel than is often appreciated. He regularly lectured
on Hegel in the 1920s and 1930s at Marburg and Freiburg, including courses entitled: Hegel,
Wissenschaft der Logik I. Buch (1925/1926); Ontologie des Aristoteles und Hegels Logik (1927);
Anfanger: Über Idealismus und Realismus im Anschluss an dei Hauptvorlesungen (Hegels
‘Vorrede’ zur Phänomenologie des Geistes), (1929); Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes
(1930/1931); Hegels Jenenser Realphilosophie (1934) and Hegel, Über den Staat (1934/1935).
Volumes relating to Hegel in Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe include: Der Deutsche Idealismus
(Fichte, Hegel, Schelling) und die philosophische Problemlage der Gegenwart (Sommersemester
1929) (Heidegger 2011); Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (Wintersemester 1930/31)
(Heidegger 1997); Hegel und das Problem der Metaphysik (Heidegger 2016), and Hegel. 1: Die
Negativität (1938/39), 2: Erläuterungen der “Einleitung” zu Hegels “Phänomenologie des
Geistes” (1942) (Heidegger 2009). Heidegger also 1published a number of essays on Hegel
(Heidegger 1970, 1988). On Heidegger’s reading of Hegel see Schmidt 1988.
Phenomenology of Spirit)16 in new and exciting ways. In part, Heidegger was sig-
nalling his break with the Neo-Kantianism of his teachers, e.g. Heinrich Rickert,17
as well as distancing himself from the Neo-Kantianism of Ernst Cassirer (whom
Heidegger famously debated in Davos in 1929). Heidegger had arrived in Freiburg
from Marburg (another centre of Neo-Kantianism under Paul Natorp and others) but
he came deeply influenced by the hermeneutics of the Marburg theologians.
Heidegger was insistent that Hegel’s conception of phenomenology had nothing
to do with the Husserlian method of the same name.18 Nevertheless, inspired by
Heidegger, a whole generation of phenomenologically trained students, e.g. Eugen
Fink, Ludwig Landgrebe, Herbert Marcuse,19 Karl Löwith,20 and Hans Jonas,21 all
read Hegel and especially his Phenomenology of Spirit, seeking for ways to address
the meaning of history and of human being in time. For Hegel, phenomenology
refers to the description of the process of spirit coming to self-consciousness of
itself and in so doing actualising its infinite potential.22 Heidegger, with his emphasis
on the finitude and historicity of Dasein, departed from the classic Hegelian
approach that emphasised eternity.
16
On the Phenomenology of Spirit, see Pippin (1993).
17
For Heinrich Rickert’s interpretation of Hegel in relation to whether his system is ‘open’ or
‘closed’, see Przylebski (1993, 154–59). Several of Rickert’s students were Hegel scholars, and
Wilhelm Windelband himself in his later years had called for a revival of Hegel.
18
Heidegger rejects a number of misinterpretations of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, including
that it is a kind of typology of worldviews (presumably he has Wilhelm Dilthey in mind). For a
study of Hegel’s relation to Husserl’s phenomenology, see Williams (1992, 95–120).
19
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) completed his doctorate in literature in Freiburg in 1922 with a
dissertation on the German novel, Der deutsche Künstlerroman. Following a period as a bookseller
in Berlin, he returned to Freiburg to study philosophy with Martin Heidegger from 1928 to 1932.
In 1928 he published an article on the relationships between phenomenology and dialectical mate-
rialism (Marcuse 1928, 45–68). In this article Marcuse argued that Marxist thought had rigidified
and needed to be vivified through phenomenological exploration. In 1930 he completed his
Habilitation thesis, Hegels Ontologie und die Grundlegung einer Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit
(originally published in 1932 by Vittorio Klostermann; reprinted with a slightly different title,
Hegels Ontologie und die Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit in 1978. Due to the Nazi rise to power in
1933 the degree was not awarded. Marcuse wrote in a letter to Löwith that the work read Hegel’s
Logic and Phenomenology of Spirit as providing the ‘foundations for a theory of historicity’,
quoted in Wolin (2003, 153).
20
Karl Löwith was writing about Hegel, Marx and Weber, in the early 1930s (Cf. Löwith 1964,
1993).
21
See Jonas (1966). Jonas was extremely critical of Hegelian dialectics that tried to see history as
the abstract “cunning of reason” rather than as the work of mortals, see Jonas (2008).
22
As is well known, Hegel rarely uses the term “phenomenology” in his Phenomenology of Spirit.
The term “phenomenology” appears in the Preface and in the last section “Absolute Knowing”,
where he writes: “Whereas in the phenomenology of Spirit each moment is the difference of
knowledge and Truth, and is the movement in which that difference is cancelled, Science on the
other hand does not contain this difference and the canceling of it” (Hegel 1979, § 805). [“Wenn in
der Phänomenologie des Geistes jedes Moment der Unterschied des Wissens und der Wahrheit und
die Bewegung ist, in welcher er sich aufhebt, so enthält dagegen die Wissenschaft diesen
Unterschied und dessen Aufheben nicht…”]. The phenomenology of Spirit documents the self-
unfolding and return to itself of conscious culture.
6 D. Moran
3 Edmund Husserl’s Engagement with Hegel
In contrast with Heidegger’s early championing of Hegel in his seminars and lecture
courses, the old Freiburg master Edmund Husserl had comparatively little familiarity
with Hegel until the 1930s.23 Husserl’s former assistant, Ludwig Landgrebe, records
that “Husserl scarcely knew Hegel’s works and at no time studied them” (Landgrebe
1972, 36). Indeed, when Herbert Marcuse sent Husserl a copy of his newly published
1932 Hegels Ontologie und die Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit,24 Husserl replied that
he did not have sufficient knowledge of Hegel to enable him to appreciate Hegel inter-
pretations.25 However, in the same letter, he also attests—against Hegel’s speculative
approach—that only phenomenology can give a proper treatment of the Absolute.
The person who most awakened Husserl’s attention to Hegel was not Heidegger
but his own student and assistant Eugen Fink (Bruzina 2004). As a young student,
Fink attended both Husserl’s and Heidegger’s lectures in Freiburg. After Husserl’s
retirement, Fink continued to attend Heidegger’s courses, including his famous
1931/1932 lecture course on Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes (Heidegger
1997a, b). Fink’s Hegelian-style speculative thinking greatly influenced Husserl’s
thought, especially in the period after 1933, when Husserl was intellectually isolated
due to the National Socialist enforced Beurlaubung. Recent studies by Bruzina
(2004) and Luft (2002), among others, have shown the close and complex relations
between Heidegger, Husserl and Fink in the period in question (1928–1938). Fink
played a major role in contextualising Hegel in relation to Husserl’s phenomenology
and indeed in provoking Husserl to take Hegel seriously.26
Fink saw it as his own task to keep speculative philosophy alive within phenom-
enology. As he remarked to Ludwig Landgrebe in 1939: “I myself see the task of
phenomenology to lie in getting philosophy going again in phenomenology”.27 By
this Eugen Fink appeared to mean speculative philosophy of the Hegelian kind.
During the early 1930s, Fink assisted Husserl in the development of his
phenomenological system and in expanding the German version of the Cartesian
Meditations, with which Husserl was still dissatisfied because of “major
23
See, for instance, Lauer (1977, 39–60), Staehler (2003) and Geniušas (2008, 27–36). See also
Spiegelberg (1994, 12–19). Earlier discussions of the relationship between Husserl and Hegel
include: De Waehlens (1959, 221–237) and Janssen (1970).
24
Marcuse discusses Hegel in relation to Aristotle and Dilthey through the lens of Heidegger’s
Being and Time but without explicitly discussing him. Marcuse sees Hegel in Heideggerian terms,
his central category is “movement” (Bewegheit). See Abromeit (2004, 131–51). See also Feenberg
(2005). Marcuse’s second work on Hegel, Reason and Revolution was published in the USA in
1941 and was more explicitly Marxist in orientation.
25
See Husserl’s letter to Marcuse of 14th January 1932 in Husserl (1994, 401). Indeed, Bruzina
also contends that Husserl seemed unable to grasp Hegel’s thought, see Bruzina (2004, 401).
26
See Bruzina (2004, 570). Although some of Husserl’s students, including Edith Stein, felt Fink
was misrepresenting Husserl’s relation to Fichte and Hegel, see Luft (2002, 157 n. 40).
27
Quoted in Bruzina (2004, 539–40).
shortcomings in its presentation”, as Fink put it.28 As Husserl’s Assistant, Fink’s role
was to impose order and system on Husserl’s reflections and to make his method
more explicit.29 Between 1930 and 1932, he worked with Husserl on his planned
systematic presentation of phenomenology, even drafting a “layout for Husserl’s
System of Phenomenological Philosophy”.30 Fink sought to impose a system on
Husserl and the system he chose was a version of Kant’s framework (architectonic)
as found in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Fink was deeply influential not just in ordering Husserl’s research notes but in
drafting and co-writing texts. As a result, it is in fact notoriously difficult, if not
impossible, to disentangle Husserl from Fink in the early 1930s. It is safe to say,
however, that Husserl’s approach parallels or intersects with Hegel’s on many
themes. Indeed Husserl’s later writings may be regarded as an independent effort to
rethink the meaning of transcendental first philosophy and an attempt to understand
the trajectory of spirit (Geist), a term Husserl uses with increasing urgency during
the 1930s. We can say therefore that Husserl’s own aim was a new phenomenology
of spirit, of human consciousness, existence, historicity and sociality, of everything
that is included under the concept of Geist.
Fink was particularly preoccupied with Husserl’s idea of phenomenology as an
absolute science which therefore had to ground itself by self-conscious reflection,
through what both Husserl and Fink will call paradoxically the “phenomenology of
phenomenology” (Husserl 1954, 250, 1970, 247), in other words making phenom-
enology’s starting-point and procedures self-transparent and presuppositionless so
that phenomenology can be a genuine grounding science for all other sciences.
Phenomenology must first ground itself, in order to be the ultimate “first philoso-
phy”. In this regard Fink was especially drawn to the methodological self-awareness
and narrative character of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.31 Fink—perhaps guid-
ing Husserl or perhaps simply expressing Husserl’s own intentions in more Hegelian
language—characterises phenomenology as “the self-comprehension of the
Absolute”.32 Furthermore, for Fink, the Absolute exists only in its self-manifestation.
Phenomenology, then, Fink argues, is the “theory of the appearance of the
Absolute”.33 In general Fink thinks the Hegel and Fichte are intimately connected
with Husserlian transcendental idealism (Fink 1995, 156). For Fink, however,
Husserl’s use of the reduction is superior to Hegel’s, while Hegel’s account of the
movement of absolute life is superior to Husserl’s (quoted in Bruzina 2004, 408).
28
Husserl had published the French text as Méditations cartésiennes: introduction à la phénomé-
nologie in 1931. He withheld the German text, however, with the intention of revising and expand-
ing it. It was not published until 1950 as Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge
(Husserl 1950). The English translation by D. Cairns is Husserl (1960).
29
See especially Husserl’s letters to Albrecht 29 December 1930 and 22 December 1931.
30
See Bruzina (2004, 212).
31
See Denker (2003, 107–137).
32
See Fink (1995, 152). See for instance: “The truth is that the Absolute is not the unity of two
non-self-sufficient moments that, while indeed mutually complementary, also delimit and finitize
each other, but is the infinite unity of the constant passage of one ‘moment’ (constitution) to the
other (world)” (Fink 1995, 146).
33
Fink as quoted in Bruzina (2004, 407).
8 D. Moran
Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations presented phenomenology as making the first

genuine breakthrough into transcendental subjectivity. Husserl often presents the
“self-explication” (Selbstauslegung) of the transcendental ego as part of the “great
tasks” (Husserl 1954, §29) of transcendental phenomenology. This topic is beset by
paradoxes such as: How can the ego be that which constitutes the world and also
that which is concretised, mundanised and corporealised in the world? Both Fink
and Husserl seriously maintain that the performance of the epoché effectively strips
away everything human. As Fink puts it, Husserl’s philosophy, because of this
reduction, is no longer “captivated in the horizon of the world” (Fink 1995, 158).
The natural attitude is much more than one attitude among many, it is the specifically
human attitude; and once suspended, the phenomenological subject becomes one
(in a kind of Hegelian synthesis) with the Absolute process itself. There is a
suspension of the human in the epoché as Husserl’s Ideas had already indicated. In
this regard, Fink maintained that the traditional interest of philosophy in specifying
the nature of non-human (i.e. divine) consciousness and German Idealism’s interest
in intellectual intuition were forerunners to phenomenology’s concept of “the
disengaged spectator” or “transcendental onlooker” whose own status is such a
puzzle (Fink 1995, 77).
Certainly, Husserl often speaks of a certain internal “splitting of the ego”
(Ichspaltung) that is brought about by the interruption of the natural attitude by the
transcendental epoché. Fink in fact pushed the distinction between the constituting
transcendental ego and the phenomenologizing ego much further than Husserl
wanted (Fink 1995, 1). Fink claims that the phenomenologizing ego (the
transcendental onlooker) is not an “ego” at all in the mundane sense, rather it is a
kind of “pre-ego” with its own “pre-being”, a kind of nothingness, a “meontic”
(Fink’s term) source for both the self-constitution of the ego and thereby the
constitution of the world. Indeed, Fink even claims somewhat cryptically that
phenomenological knowledge is knowledge of the meontic, i.e. knowledge of the
non-being that precedes being (quoted in Bruzina 2004, 377).
4 H
usserl on Intersubjectivity, Historicity,
and Transcendental Life
Let us now look in more detail at Husserl’s evolving understanding of Hegel and
German Idealism generally. Although some commentators have claimed that
Husserlian phenomenology can never reach to exhibiting the infinite transcendental
subject of Hegelian Idealism, there is a great deal of evidence that Husserl from the
1920s on conceived of phenomenology (both constitutive and genetic) as exhibiting
the history of transcendental life in its inner teleology and full concreteness. Indeed,
Husserl’s genetic phenomenology is an explicit attempt to comprehend
phenomenologically the domains of birth, death, waking, sleep, and other
“generative” phenomena (Husserl 1954 §55), regions that cannot be brought directly
to intuitive fullness in human experience (a point of course that Heidegger makes in
different register primarily about our anticipation of dying) but which can be
accessed indirectly through eidetic variation of the present ‘waking’ ego in its
rational maturity. Husserl even claims (quite frequently) that while humans die and
necessarily so, the transcendental ego is immortal (e.g., Husserl 1954, 338). Husserl
also wants to understand human spirit in its sociality and historicity. He speaks of
the “the discovery of absolute intersubjectivity [die Entdeckung der absoluten
Intersubjektivität] …objectified in the world as the whole of humankind” (Husserl
1954, 275, 1970, 340).
Husserl always situates this discussion (as in Crisis) in terms of his attempt to
understand the inner teleology of modern philosophy. In fact, Husserl’s parallels
Hegel’s interests in several dimensions, for instance: rethinking the meaning Greek
“origins” or breakthrough into philosophy, discovery (Entdeckung) of the theoretical
attitude, the intersubjective constitution of culture, the forms of spiritual life, and
the notion of “reason in history”.
Edmund Husserl’s early training was primarily in mathematics, hence his philo-
sophical formation was somewhat limited. Through his friend and mentor Thomas
Masaryk (1850–1937), he was introduced to the classical empiricists; and this inter-
est was reinforced by Franz Brentano, an admirer of J. S. Mill and Auguste Comte
(1798–1858), the so-called “father of positivism”.34 In his Göttingen years, as the
First Philosophy (1923–1924) lectures make clear, Husserl developed a deep under-
standing of the history of modern philosophy from Descartes to Kant. Earlier he had
relied heavily on survey works such as Ernst Cassirer’s Das Erkenntnisproblem
(Cassirer 1906–1907) especially the first two volumes (1906, 1907), for its accounts
of modern philosophy. But in later works such as his Formal and Transcendental
Logic (1929), especially §100 which sketches a history of transcendental philosophy
beginning with Hume, “the first to grasp the universal concrete problem of
transcendental subjectivity” (Husserl 1969, 256), and Crisis of European Sciences
(1936), Husserl demonstrates his ability to think through in an original manner this
tradition of modern philosophy as in fact a ‘breakthrough’ into transcendental
philosophy.
Nineteenth-century Kantians and Positivists had a particular contempt for
Hegel’s woolly “mysticism” and Husserl often expresses admiration for the
intellectual élan of positivism. In Ideas I (1913), he is even happy to call himself a
“positivist”:
If “positivism” is tantamount to an absolutely unprejudiced grounding of all sciences on the
“positive,” that is to say, on what can be seized upon originaliter, then we are the genuine
positivists. (Husserl 1983, 39, 1997, 38)
He felt, however, that positivism too quickly denied the validity of intuiting essences
(Husserl 1977 §25) and completely ignored the subjective dimension. In that sense,
positivism with its refusal to see beyond facts “decapitates” philosophy (Husserl
34
Husserl’s Second Logical Investigation, for instance, is a sustained critical engagement with
empiricist conceptions of knowledge.
10 D. Moran
1970, 9). Nevertheless, Husserl also sees phenomenology as a completion of both

the positivist and the rationalist projects:
Phenomenology is the most extreme completion of rationalism, it is also to reckoned just as
much as the most extreme completion of empiricism. (Husserl 2002a, 288)
His main claim is that previous philosophies—be they positivist, empiricist or

rationalist—have underestimated the complexity and diversity of thought forms.
Phenomenology then proposes a more inclusive way of attending to the diversity of
experience, the diversity of givenness, as he would say. Indeed, as his thought
developed, he came to see phenomenology as expressing the inner essence of all
genuine philosophy. In this sense, phenomenology, as he writes in 1922/1923, is the
“original method (Urmethode) of all philosophical methods” (Husserl 2002a, 51).
As a philosopher in Germany in the early twentieth century, Husserl could not
avoid exposure to Neo-Kantianism. The slogan “zurück zu Kant” had already
appeared in German thought in 1865 in Otto Liebmann’s (1840–1912) Kant und die
Epigonen (Liebmann 1865) and indeed Neo-Kantianism was the dominant
philosophical position in Germany in the first part of the twentieth century,
challenged primarily by Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl admired Hermann
Lotze (especially his Cosmology) and was personally close to Paul Natorp, with
whom he regularly corresponded. In his Freiburg years he maintained professional
relations with Rickert and Cassirer, as their correspondence attests. Kant, however,
always presented a major challenge to Husserl. Already in the Prolegomena to the
Logical Investigations he expressed his unhappiness with then current psychologistic
readings of Kant (Benno Erdmann). Later, in his transcendental period, Husserl
criticised Kant’s lack of philosophical radicality (in contrast to Descartes). In the
Crisis Husserl talks about the revival of a “multicoloured” Kant [ein vielfarbiger
Kant] (Husserl 1954, 198) and complains that this has given rise to confusion and
that the “history of philosophy has been substituted for philosophy of philosophy
has become a personal worldview” [zur persönlichen Weltanschauung] (Husserl
1954, 199, 1970, 196).
5 T
he Early Husserl’s Suspicion of Hegel: The Influence
of Brentano
In these extended interpretative engagements with the history of modern philoso-

phy, however, although Husserl regularly engages with Kant, he never confronts
Hegel. For instance, in Erste Philosophie (1923–1924), Hegel merits only a single
mention in connection with the movement of rationalism in modern philosophy
from Descartes through Spinoza, Leibniz to Kant and Hegel (Husserl 1956, 182). At
least until the early 1930s and his collaboration with Fink, Husserl’s attitude to
Hegel had been primarily not just negative but indifferent. He was deeply influenced
by his teacher Brentano’s conviction that Hegelian philosophy was a kind of ground-
less speculation that weakened the claim of philosophy to be a rigorous science. In
his 1895 essay, The Four Phases of Philosophy, Brentano maintained that philoso-
phy inevitably progressed in four phases, including alternating phases of abundance
and different stages of decline (Brentano 1999, 14–28). According to this periodiza-
tion, all great periods of growth in philosophy were characterised by the preponder-
ance of the purely theoretical interest (ein reines theoretisches Interesse) and
develop a method proper to the subject matter (Brentano 1999, 9). In this stage
philosophy is pursued as a theoretical science. Thus, in the period from Thales to
Aristotle, there was the steady growth of pure theoria (similarly, with Aquinas in the
thirteenth century, and Bacon and Descartes in the modern period).
After a while, theoretical activity weakens, and practical interests begin to domi-
nate, (e.g., Stoicism, Epicureanism). This phase of applied philosophy is in turn
followed by a third phase when scepticism grows, counterbalanced by the construc-
tion of sects and dogmatic philosophies (among which Brentano includes Kant).
Finally, in a fourth phase, mysticism, intuitionism and irrationalist world views,
“pseudo-philosophy”, and religious Schwärmerei, start to proliferate (e.g., Plotinus;
Eckhart and Cusanus; Schelling and Hegel) leading to a moral and intellectual col-
lapse (Brentano 1999, 58). Then the cycle begins again.
Brentano’s schematic approach to the history of philosophy strongly influenced
Husserl and left him with a permanent distaste for speculative systems in general,
and especially the Hegelian. For example, Hegel’s is named only twice in the
Logical Investigations in the Prolegomena §40 (Husserl 1975, 147, 2001a, 93). He
is listed among philosophers (beginning with Epicurus) who rejected the Law of
Contradiction (Husserl 1975, 147, 2001a, 93). For Husserl, this rejection puts Hegel
in the company of madmen. Of course, Husserl’s real target in Prolegomena §40 is
in fact not so much Hegel as the Neo-Kantian Benno Erdmann (1851–1921) whom
he accuses of psychologism. In Prolegomena Appendix to §61 Bernard Bolzano is
described as belonging to the time of Hegel (Husserl 1975, 228, 2001a, 143) and it
is clear that Husserl contrasting the logical approach of Bolzano with the illogical
approach of Hegel.
In his next publication Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (1910–1911), Husserl
directly targets the “worldview philosophy” of thinkers such as Dilthey, often seen
as being a development of Hegelian historicism. Husserl singled out Dilthey’s
“philosophy of world-views” [Weltanschauungsphilosophie] as denying the
objective validity of cultural formations.35 In this essay, Husserl gives a very
Brentanian verdict on Hegel’s philosophy and its influence. Husserl writes:
However much Hegel insists on the absolute validity of his method and doctrine, his system
nevertheless lacks the critique of reason that first makes possible the scientific character of
philosophy. Connected with this, however, is that Hegel’s philosophy, like romantic
philosophy in general, acted in the ensuing years in the sense of either a weakening or a
falsification of the drive for the constitution of rigorous philosophical science. (Husserl
1910–1911, 292, 2002a, 252)
Years later, in his 1925 lectures, Husserl made amends, acknowledging Dilthey’s contribution to
35
descriptive psychology.
12 D. Moran
This last sentence is a purely Brentanian sentiment. In fact, Husserl sees Hegelianism
as giving rise to the reaction of naturalism, which “with its skepticism, which
abandoned all absolute ideality and objectivity of validity, has determined the
worldview and philosophy of recent years”, Husserl writes. For Husserl, Hegelianism
was right (as was positivism) only in so far as it recognized the demand that
philosophy be a systematic science, but it failed completely, as a form of
Romanticism, to carry through its task.
Hegel’s philosophy had in fact a quite different outcome: “worldview philoso-
phy” that ends in scepticism:
With the sudden turn of Hegel’s metaphysical philosophy of history into a skeptical histori-
cism, the emergence of the new “worldview philosophy” was essentially determined that
precisely in our days seems to be spreading rapidly and that, incidentally, judging by its
largely antinaturalistic and occasionally even antihistoricistic polemics, by no means wants
to be skeptical. However, insofar as it shows itself to be, at least regarding its whole inten-
tion and procedure, no longer dominated by that radical will to scientific doctrine that con-
stituted the great march of modern philosophy to Kant, the talk of a weakening of the drive
for philosophical science referred specifically to it. (Husserl 1910–1911, 293, 2002a, 252
Even in this essay, however, Husserl, echoing Hegel, recognises that the “life of
spirit” [Geistesleben], as he calls it, takes many forms. Furthermore, like Hegel, he
believes that philosophy has the function of unifying spiritual life and reflecting it:
Every great philosophy is not only a historical fact, but in the development of the spiritual
life of mankind it also has a great, indeed unique teleological function, namely as the
highest intensification of the life-experience, culture, and wisdom of its age. (Husserl 1910–
1911, 329, 2002a, 284)
In this essay, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, Husserl also recognizes that there is
a need for a systematic science of spirit:
If through inner intuition we immerse ourselves in the unity of the life of spirit, we can feel
our way into the motivations prevailing therein and also “understand” the essence and
development of the respective form of spirit in its dependence on the spiritual motives of
unity and development. In this way everything historical becomes “understandable,”
“explicable” for us in its peculiarity of “Being,” which is precisely the “Being of spirit,”
unity of internally mutually-conditioning moments of a sense and therefore unity of taking
shape and developing in accordance with inner motivations and that sense. Also in this way,
then, art, religion, morals, and the like can be intuitively inquired into. Likewise the
worldview, which is closely related to them and at the same time comes to expression in
them, and which, if it assumes the forms of science and lays claim to objective validity after
the manner of science, used to be called ‘metaphysics’ or even ‘philosophy’. Hence with
regard to such philosophies the great task arises of exploring their morphological structure
and typology, as well as their developmental connections, and of bringing to historical
understanding the motivations of spirit that determine their essence by living in the most
inward accord with those philosophies. How much that is of significance and indeed
admirable is to be achieved in this regard is shown by Wilhelm Dilthey’s writings, particu-
larly the recently published treatise on the types of worldview. (Husserl 1910–1911, 323,
2002a, 279)
These sentiments, written during Husserl’s early middle period, is surprisingly close
to a Hegelian understanding of the development of spirit.
6 T
he Mature Husserl’s Engagement with German Idealism
(Kant, Fichte)
During a sustained period of intensive research (and few publications) Husserl

devoted an enormous amount of energy to explicating the genuine sense of—and
various possible approaches into—transcendental philosophy, which, from around
1908, he explicitly construed as an idealism, with a growing sense that he was
recovering the true sense of past German idealisms (especially Kant and Fichte).
The first published announcement of this idealism (without using the word) came in
Ideas I (1913), a move widely repudiated by Husserl’s more realist Munich and
Göttingen followers.36 Husserl later conceded that this “scandal” affected the
reception of Ideas I. In the twenties, beginning with his Introduction to Philosophy
lectures and his London Lectures (both 1922) Husserl now planned an ambitious
and far-reaching “system” of transcendental philosophy (Husserl 2002b, 49).37
Although he subsequently explicitly rejected the term “system”,38 nevertheless he
continued to emphasise his idealism in all his later works, e.g. Formal and
Transcendental Logic (see §99), Cartesian Meditations (§41), Crisis (§26 ff) and in
1930 Author’s Preface to the English translation of Ideas I (1930).
Given Husserl’s early hostility to Hegel, it is somewhat surprising to find Husserl
lecturing regularly on Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen (1800)39 between 1903
and 1918 (Husserl 1986, 1995). This is an Enlightenment text on human self-
development, which is among the more popular of Fichte’s works. It focuses on
human cultural perfection including treating others with freedom and dignity,
recognising the need for a political order and even discussing world peace. In order
to achieve this end, one must go beyond the sensible world to the “supersensible
world” [übersinnliche Welt] or “world of reason” which is governed by rational
laws. This “second world” [zweite Welt] is the moral world—not in the future but in
the now, that in which human beings act. This world has to be seen and envisaged
and this needs a spiritual eye.
Husserl’s interest in Fichte had been originally stimulated by his student Emil
Lask’s 1902 study on Fichte, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte,40 as well as
through his contact with Jonas Cohn (1869–1947), a professor at Freiburg from
1901 to 1933, who was one of Rickert’s first Habilitation students and was deeply
36
Most of Husserl’s students, including Adolf Reinach, Edith Stein, Roman Ingarden, Hedwig
Conrad-Martius, Gerda Walther and Martin Heidegger, rejected this idealist turn.
37
See Husserl’s letter to Roman Ingarden of 31 August 1923, in Husserl (1968a, 26).
38
Letter of Husserl to Robert Parl Welch, 17/21 June 1933, in Husserl (1994, 459).
39
See Nuzzo (2010, 97–118).
40
Husserl lectured on Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen for the first time in the summer semester
of 1903 and repeated the course in the summer semester of 1915 and again in 1918. Husserl had
read Emil Lask, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte (Tübingen, 1902), reprinted in Lask (2002).
See also Schuhmann and Smith (1993). Lask was also an important influence on Georg Lukacs,
see Rosshoff (1975) and Heinz (1997). Heidegger was also drawn to Fichte in that period, see
Denker (1997). Fichte, in fact, is the source of the term “facticity”.
14 D. Moran
influenced by Georg Simmel’s life-philosophy. Cohn wrote on the history of dialec-

tic, Theorie der Dialektik. Formenlehre der Philosophie (Cohn 1923) and on the
concept of the infinite, Geschichte des Unendlichkeitsproblems in abendländischen
Denken bis Kant (1896).41 Husserl is especially interested in Fink’s understanding
of Kant’s notion of the transcendental ego. He writes in Fichtes Menschenideal that
the Fichtean ego is not the individual human ego:
The I of Fichte, the pure or absolute I, is nothing other than this subjectivity in which
(according to the systematic play of actions) the phenomenal world with all its human I’s
first comes to be. To write the history of the I, of the absolute intelligence, is therefore to
write the history of the necessary teleology in which the world as phenomenal comes to
progressive creation, comes to creation in this intelligence. This is no object of experience
but a metaphysical power. Because we knowing humans, nevertheless, are I’s in which this
absolute I has split itself, we can, through intuitive immersion in that which belongs to the
pure essence of the I, of subjectivity, reconstruct the necessary teleological processes out of
which the world inclusive of ourselves (in what for us is an unconscious holding sway of
absolute intelligence) is formed in teleological necessity. (Husserl 1986, 276, 1995, 118)42
Husserl is therefore interested in tracking the “necessary teleology in which the

world as phenomenal comes to progressive creation”. Husserl continues:
If we proceed so, we are philosophers. And the only genuine task of philosophy is to be
found here. It consists in grasping the world as the teleological product of the absolute I
and, in the elucidation of the creation of the world in the absolute, making evident its
ultimate sense. Fichte believes he is able to achieve this and to have achieved this. (Husserl
1986, 276, 1995, 118)
Against Fichte, Husserl does not believe in the idea of “deducing” the world from
transcendental subjectivity but he does affirm that transcendental subjectivity is the
source of all “meaning and being” [Sinn und Sein] or “meaning and validity” [Sein
und Geltung]. Indeed, Husserl continues to acknowledge the importance of Fichte
in the Crisis (Husserl 1954, 227).43
While many of Husserl’s earlier followers at Munich and Göttingen were realists
who were unhappy with Husserl’s turn to the transcendental ego, Eugen Fink sought
to make sense of it by giving it a source in a “pre-ego” [Vor-Ich] or “original ego”
[Ur-Ich]. Of course, Husserl himself often appears quite Fichtean in some of his
pronouncements concerning the transcendental ego, e.g.: “the I is not thinkable
without a not-I to which it intentionally relates” [Das Ich ist nicht denkbar ohne ein
Nicht-Ich, auf das es sich intentional bezieht] (Hua XIV 245). In the Crisis §54, he
speaks of the Ur-Ich as the ego that is performing the epoché and which is ‘personally
indeclinable”.
From around 1905, Husserl was reading Kant seriously. Indeed, he sympathised
with the Neo-Kantians in their repudiation of naturalism. Thus, in a letter dated 20
December 1915, addressed to Heinrich Rickert, Husserl commented that he found
41
See Klockenbusch (1989) and Heitmann (1999).
42
Husserl seems only to have read Fichte’s popular works and did not read the Wissenschaftslehre.
43
For Husserl’s relationship with Fichte see Fisette (1999), Hyppolite (1959), Rockmore (1979),
Mohanty (1952), and Tietzen (1980).
himself in alliance with German idealism against the common enemy: “the
naturalism of our time”.44 In this letter, Husserl says that even “in his naturalistic
beginnings” his soul “was filled with a secret nostalgia [Sehnsucht] for the old
Romantic land of German Idealism” (Husserl 1994, vol. 5, 178). In his 1924 Address
to the Kant Gesellschaft he sought to address directly the relationship between
transcendental phenomenology and Kantian transcendental philosophy and this is
an important document for Husserl’s growing engagement with Kant.45 Indeed he
more or less repeats this critique of Kant in his Crisis of European Sciences more
than a decade later.
Kant failed to make a proper breakthrough to transcendental subjectivity and to
chart its true domain (Husserl 1954, 202). Husserl insists, with Kant, that
transcendental idealism is also an empirical realism. Husserl is not in any way
attaching a doubtful or illusory status to the objects in the world. It is rather the
sense [Sinn] of world that is forever altered by the transcendental approach.
Moreover, Husserl endorses transcendental philosophy’s opposition to scepticism
and especially to Hume’s mitigated scepticism:
The genuine transcendental philosophy … is not like the Humean and neither overtly not
covertly a s sceptical decomposition of the world cognition and of the world itself into
fictions, that is to say, in modern terms, a “philosophy of As-If.” Least of all is it a
“dissolution” [Auflösung] of the world into “merely subjective appearances,” which in some
still senseful sense would have something to do with illusion. It does not occur to
transcendental philosophy to dispute the world of experience in the least …. (Husserl 1956,
246–7, 1974a, 22)
In his Cartesian Meditations, originally delivered as lectures in Paris in 1929,

Husserl proclaims that “… phenomenology is eo ipso ‘transcendental idealism’,
though in a fundamentally and essentially new sense” (Husserl 1950, 118, 1960,
86). Here again he affirms that this idealism is not the product of arguments against
realism, but emerges rather from close investigations of constituting consciousness
in all its possible modalities. Thus, he asserts:
The proof of this idealism is therefore phenomenology itself. Only someone who misunder-
stands either the deepest sense of intentional method, or that of transcendental reduction, or
perhaps both, can attempt to separate phenomenology from transcendental idealism.
(Husserl 1950, 119, 1960, 86)
Husserl’s critical engagement with Kant and his embrace of phenomenology as a

radical ––indeed the only true version––of transcendental idealism, however, did
not immediately lead him explicitly to appreciate the problematic of history or the
role of Hegel especially in attempting to recognise the inner rationale of history.
An important text for Husserl’s commitment to German Idealism, albeit in a
renewed and radical sense, is his Author’s Preface to Boyce-Gibson’s English
translation of Ideas I that appeared in 1930 which reaffirms that Ideas I is a work of
44
Cf. Husserl’s letter to Rickert, 20 December 1915, in Husserl (1994, vol. 5, 178). See Kern
(1964, 35).
45
See Kant und das Idee der transzendentale Philosophie, in Husserl (1956, 230–87). See also
Husserl (1974a, 9–56).
16 D. Moran
“pure or transcendental phenomenology”, an a priori eidetic science which explores

a new “absolutely independent realm of direct experience”––“transcendental
subjectivity” (Husserl 1931, 11). Husserl claims that this realm of experience is
only reachable through a radical alteration of the natural attitude. By performing the
“transcendental-phenomenological reduction” the domain of the ego and
transcendental subjectivity comes into view. Husserl is preoccupied with the
parallelism between this inquiry and psychological subjectivity of the inner life and
hence places a great deal of emphasis on the change of attitude (which he
acknowledges can seem like a mere “nuance”, Husserl 1931, 15) required by the
epoché. In this Preface, Husserl admits that Ideas I lacks “the proper consideration
of the problem of transcendental solipsism or of transcendental intersubjectivity, of
the essential relation of the objective world, that is valid for me, to others which are
valid for me and with me” (Husserl 1931, 18). Husserl says these issues should have
been addressed in a second volume but opposition to idealism and the alleged
solipsism of Ideas I, “seriously impeded the reception of the work” (Husserl 1931,
18). Husserl insists he has taken nothing back and his objections to self-standing
realism and its opposing idealism remain. Husserl will concede only the
“incompleteness” of his exposition (Husserl 1931, 19).
Husserl is constantly seeking a fresh formulation of the transcendental problem-
atic. Husserl wants transcendental phenomenology not to begin with assumptions
but to reflect on its own beginning: “Philosophy can take root only in radical reflex-
ion upon the meaning and possibility of its own scheme” (Husserl 1931, 27). One
must adopt the “radical attitude of autonomous self-responsibility” (Husserl 1931,
29). Transcendental phenomenology, he insists, is not a speculative theory, but a
self-grounding science that lays the a priori framework and condition for all other
sciences but the natural and the historical sciences. The sole task of this transcen-
dental science is clarifying the meaning of the world and “the precise sense in which
everyone accepts it… as really existing” (Husserl 1931, 21). For Husserl the non-
existence of this world always remains thinkable. The existence and meaning of the
real world is relative to transcendental subjectivity (Husserl 1931, 21). Husserl
speaks of the “transcendental society of ‘ourselves’” (Husserl 1931, 21–22). It is
within intersubjectivity that the real world is constituted as objective, as being there
“for everyone”. This 1931 Preface to the English translation of Ideas I is very close
to what Husserl had already attested in his 1929 Formal and Transcendental Logic
(Husserl 1974b, §§100 ff).
7 H
egelianism in the Late Husserl’s Crisis of European
Sciences
Husserl reconciled with German Idealism in his later writings and especially in the
Crisis. Indeed, Hegel’s name appears most frequently (of all the works Husserl
published in his lifetime) in the Crisis. Hegel features prominently in Husserl’s
Crisis Part Three B, especially in §§ 56 and 57. He now acknowledges that German
Idealism had grasped the true sense of philosophy although it had failed to ground
it appropriately. Husserl is moving closer to Hegel especially when he develops his
historical introduction to transcendental phenomenology. Following the Neo-
Kantians, Husserl had been increasingly preoccupied with the problematic of the
methodological relationships between the natural and human sciences (Natur- and
Geisteswissenschaften) especially in his Natur und Geist lectures. He saw the need
for phenomenology not just to address the growing crises in the natural sciences but
also the human sciences. In the Crisis, accordingly, Husserl addresses not just
modern mathematical and natural sciences, but also the human sciences
(Geisteswissenschaften). The proper methodology of the human sciences had been,
of course, a subject of serious debate among German philosophers, including
Wilhelm Dilthey and the Neo-Kantians (especially Windelband, Rickert, Cassirer),
as well as among the followers of French positivism (Comte, Durkheim, etc).
Husserl had been discussing it not just in Philosophy as a Rigorous Science but also
in Ideas II and in his Nature and Spirit Lectures (Husserl 2001b). Already in Ideas
I § 1 Husserl leaves it as an open question whether the cultural sciences share the
method of the natural sciences. Human cultural history, especially as reflected in the
history of philosophy, comes to the fore in Husserl’s lectures in Natur und Geist and
also in Erste Philosophie. Similarly, in a text associated with the Crisis (but written
prior to 1930) Husserl raises the question on the methodology of the natural sciences
and asks whether there can be a similar methodology also for the human sciences
and for history:
Is there a method for encompassing the realm of the “spirit,” of history, in all its essential
possibilities, so that one can arrive at “exact” truths through exact concepts for this realm?
(Husserl 1954, 301n, 1970, 322n)
Having acknowledged that the natural sciences now claim a privileged position in
specifying the “truth of the world”, with almost a desperate tone, he now asks a
question concerning the meaning and teleology of history at the outset of the Crisis:
Scientific objective truth is exclusively a matter of establishing what the world, the spiritual
as well as the material world, is in fact. But can the world, and human existence in it
truthfully have meaning if the sciences recognize as true only what is objectively established
in this fashion, and if history has nothing to teach us than that all the shapes of the spiritual
world [Gestalten der geistigen Welt], all the conditions of life, ideals, norms upon which
man relies, form and dissolve themselves like fleeting waves, that it always was and ever
will be so, that again and again reason must turn into nonsense, and well being into misery.
Can we console ourselves with that? Can we live in this world where historical occurrence
is nothing but an unending concatenation of illusory progress and bitter disappointment?
(Husserl 1954, 4–5, 1970, 6–7)
Husserl’s opposition is sceptical relativism and the relativism of competing historical

world-views simply replacing one another historically, is as strong here as it was in
his 1910/1911 Philosophy as a Rigorous Science essay. Over and over, Husserl
insists that we are committed as rational beings (following the Greeks) to believing
in the inner rationality of history. Furthermore, his reference to the “forms of the
spiritual world” has a distinctly Hegelian ring.
18 D. Moran
In Crisis § 56, Husserl attempts to understand the meaning of philosophical

progress and why transcendental philosophy failed. As part of a “history of
transcendental philosophy” (Husserl 1954, 202, 1974b §100), Husserl rethinks his
relationship with Hegel and German Idealism in terms of thinking of the emergence
of the “transcendental motif” in Descartes, Hume, Kant and Hegel, and indeed in
Mill (Husserl 1954, 198)46! He acknowledges that the great system of Hegel had a
temporary impact but was not fated to endure (Husserl 1954, 196)—he even speaks
of the “collapse of the Hegelian philosophy” (Husserl 1954, 201) and indeed
provoked a reaction (especially the positivism of Schuppe and Avenarius) that
threatened all of transcendental philosophy. Husserl believes that transcendental
philosophy can never be transformed into techne. Rather the whole force of
transcendental philosophy has been trying to begin, to come to clear self-
understanding about its task (Husserl 1954, 202, 1970, 199). Husserl says one can
be convinced of the “teleological meaning of history” [der teleologische Sinn der
Geschichte] (Husserl 1954, 200) but raises the question as to whether philosophy
has achieved the purpose originally and essentially accorded to it. Husserl wants to
understand why the great project of philosophy failed. It failed because of the
difficulty of performing the inversion from the natural outlook and attaining the
transcendental outlook (Husserl 1956, 204, 1970, 200). For Husserl, German
Idealism too had failed (Husserl 1992, 107), and reaction to it produced a new anti-
metaphysical positivism, a new objectivism—a development that has produced the
current “existential catastrophe” [eine existenzielle Katastrophe] (Husserl 1992,
108).
In the manuscript that the editor Walter Biemel includes as Section 73 of the
Crisis47 Husserl sees the period of modern philosophy from Descartes to the present
irrationalism as essentially a closed era. He now looks forward to a new era driven
by phenomenology and involving the re-appropriation of the Cartesian discovery of
transcendental subjectivity and a radical rethinking of the demand for apodicticity.
He even speaks obscurely of a “life in apodicticity” [Leben in der Apodiktizität]
(Husserl 1954, 275, 1970, 340). This new era involves what Husserl calls (in
Hegelian mode) “the discovery of absolute intersubjectivity” [die Entdeckung der
absoluten Intersubjektivität] which he sees as “objectified in the world as the whole
of mankind” (Husserl 1954, 275, 1970, 340). Husserl here talks of an “infinite
progress” of coming to self-understanding and of ego-subjects as “bearers of
absolute reason”. For Husserl, universal intersubjectivity cannot be anything other
than humankind (Husserl 1954, 183, 1970, 179). Moreover, everything objective is
“resolved” [auflöst] into this intersubjectivity.
Already in his Amsterdam Lectures (1928) Husserl had stressed the importance
of transcendental intersubjectivity:
Husserl includes Mill as a line of transcendental philosophy that came from Hume not Kant.
46
David Carr disputes Biemel’s editorial decision here because the manuscript in question is
47
marked by Husserl as belonging rather to Crisis Part One and because the style of the text is radi-
cally different from what goes before in Crisis Section 72 (Husserl 1970, xx). In my view the text’s
Hegelian echoes may owe considerably to the influence of Fink.
Transcendental intersubjectivity is the absolute and only self-sufficient foundation

[Seinsboden]. Out of it are created draws the meaning and validity of everything objective,
the totality of objectively real existent entities, but also every ideal world as well. An
objectively existent thing is from first to last an existent thing only in a peculiar, relative and
incomplete sense. It is an existent thing, so to speak, only on the basis of a cover-up of its
transcendental constitution that goes unnoticed in the natural attitude. (Husserl 1968b, 344,
1997, 249)
Husserl draws on all these locutions to trying to articulate his sense of the meaning
of subjective life in its first person, individual consciousness with its many layerings
(including those that might properly be described as “pre-ego” [Vor-Ich] and “pre-
personal”), as well as in its connection with other selves and in its moral, social and
rational nature, amounting to its communalised “life of spirit” [Geistesleben], the
life of “we-subjectivity” [Wir-Subjektivität]. In fact, Husserl insists that subjectivity
understood as “primordial, concrete subjectivity”
…includes the forms of consciousness, in which is valid nature, spirit in every sense, human
and animal spirit, objective spirit as culture, spiritual being understood as family, union,
state, people, humanity…. (Husserl 1973, 559, my translation)
From one perspective, Husserl’s Crisis attempts to recover the meaning of human
historicity and cultural becoming from within phenomenology. Indeed, the Crisis is
Husserl’s most sustained effort to develop a phenomenological approach to issues
concerning temporality, historicity, finitude and cultural and generational
development (which Husserl calls ‘generativity’, Generativität, see Husserl 1954,
191, 1970, 188).
Almost re-inventing the project of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Husserl
presents his approach in the Crisis itself as a “teleological historical reflection”
(Husserl 1954, xiv n. 3, 1970, 3) or “teleological-historical way” (Husserl 1954,
435, 1970, 102), a kind of intellectual “reconstruction”, backwards reflection
[Rückbesinnung] (Husserl 1954, 16), “backwards questioning” [Rückfragen] of the
history of western culture (and philosophy) in order to produce an “eidetic history”
and identify its hidden goal (telos) and “hidden innermost motivation” [verborgene
innereste Motivation] (Husserl 1954, 9, 1970, 11). Indeed, in his Foreword to the
Continuation of the Crisis (Beilage XIII) Husserl himself points out the historical
mode of exposition is ‘not chosen by chance’ (Husserl 1954, 441), but rather is
central to his task since he wants to exhibit the fact that the whole history of
philosophy has a “unitary teleological structure” [eine einheitliche teleologische
Struktur] (Husserl 1954, 442). Similarly, in Crisis §14 Husserl discusses the tension
in modern philosophy between objectivism and transcendentalism and speaks of
phenomenology as the “final form” [Endform] of transcendental philosophy.
This final form of philosophy must include an exhibition of the inner rational
teleology of human culture in opposition to the current scientifically-inspired
objectivist rationalism that has made history into meaningless nonsense. Several
times in the course of the main body of the Crisis (and in associated essays such as
the Vienna Lecture), Husserl emphasizes that the crisis is a crisis of reason.48
As Husserl asserts in the Vienna Lecture: “the European crisis has its roots in a misguided ratio-
48
nalism” (Husserl 1954, 337, 1970, 290).

20 D. Moran
Scientific rationalism has forgotten its source in human subjectivity. According to

Husserl, the Greek breakthrough to philosophy has enjoined on Western culture the
requirement to live life according to reason. Human beings have freely given
themselves this task. Repeatedly Husserl endorses the ancient Greek insight that
human beings are in essence rational animals (see Husserl 1954, 13, 1970, 15):
The human being is called animal rationale not merely because he has the capacity of rea-
son and then only occasionally regulates and justifies his life according to the insights of
reason, but because the human being proceeds always and everywhere in his entire, active
life in this way. (Husserl 1988, 33)
This rationality emerges in practical striving that has given itself the goal of reason,
which in its ideal limit, is also the idea of God (Husserl 1988, 34). “All specifically
personal life is active life and stands as such under the essential norms of reason”
(Husserl 1988, 41).
Husserl’s teleological understanding of rationality as a demand of human beings,
a demand that must be instantiated historically, is what brings him closer to Hegel.
In the Crisis §6 Husserl writes:
To be human at all is essentially to be a human being in a socially and generatively united
civilization [in generativ und sozial verbundenen Menschheiten]; and if man is a rational
being [animal rationale], it is only insofar as his whole civilization is a rational civilization,
that is, only with a latent orientation toward reason or one openly oriented toward the
entelechy which has come to itself, become manifest to itself, and which now of necessity
consciously directs human becoming. (Husserl 1954, 13, 1970, 15)
In the Crisis, therefore, Husserl openly and explicitly embraces a qualified version
of the Enlightenment project, especially in its Kantian sense, whereby enlightened
humanity leaves behind enslavement to prejudice and enters the new realm of
freedom by giving the law to itself, and freely undertaking to be bound by laws that
are commanded by universal reason itself. Today rationalism is in the grip of
objectivism and naturalism. The Enlightenment had too narrow a conception of
reason (Husserl 1954, 337, 1970, 290). We must return to the “genuine” sense of
rationality inaugurated by Greek philosophy, he writes in the Vienna Lecture:
Rationality, in that high and genuine sense of which alone we are speaking, the primordial
[urtümlich] Greek sense which in the classical period of Greek philosophy had become an
ideal, still requires, to be sure, much clarification and self-reflection; but it is called in its
mature form to guide [our] development. (Husserl 1954, 337, 1970, 290)
The concept of history is closely connected to the concept of “reason”. Husserl is

interested in much more than a critique of cognition. He is interested in understanding
the meaning of reason. Reason plays an important but often neglected role in Ideas
I, Part Four where there is a whole chapter devoted to the “Phenomenology of
Reason” (§§136–145) and another chapter on the connection between reason and
universality. Reason has a number of levels (theoretical, axiological, practical) and
covers the whole field of culture. There is a dynamic element to reason, it is seeing
to realize itself, come to self actualization and also self-clarity (as Husserl writes in
§73, which Walter Biemel placed as the concluding section of the Crisis):
Thus philosophy is nothing other than [rationalism] through and through, but it is rational-
ism differentiated within itself according to the different stages of the movement of inten-
tion and fulfillment; it is ratio in the constant movement of self-elucidation, begun with the
first breakthrough of philosophy into mankind, whose innate reason was previously in a
state of concealment, of nocturnal obscurity. (Husserl 1954, 273, 1970, 338)
8 Husserl on the Self-Sufficiency of the Life of Spirit
Husserl’s 1935 Vienna Lecture employs throughout a strikingly Hegelian tone.

There he proclaims:
The spirit, and indeed only the spirit, exists in itself and for itself, is self-sufficient [eigen-
ständig]; and in its self-sufficiency, and only in this way, it can be treated truly rationally,
truly and from the ground up scientifically. (Vienna Lecture, in Husserl 1954, 345, 1970,
297)
The spirit is both “in itself” and “for itself”. There is a dynamic element to reason,
it is seeing to realize itself, come to self-actualization and also self-clarity (as
Husserl writes in Crisis §73, controversially placed as the concluding section of the
Crisis):
Thus philosophy is nothing other than [rationalism] through and through, but it is rational-
ism differentiated within itself according to the different stages of the movement of inten-
tion and fulfilment; it is ratio in the constant movement of self-elucidation [Selbsterhellung]
begun with the first breakthrough [Einbruch] of philosophy into mankind, whose innate
reason was previously in a state of concealment [Verschlossenheit], of nocturnal obscurity.
(Husserl 1954, 273, 1970, 338)
As we have seen, Husserl had been explicating the strata of the “world of spirit”
from the time of his Ideas II manuscript. Husserl is absolutely clear that human
consciousness exists and develops only within a communal culture. In a late text of
1934 entitled “human life in historicity” Husserl expresses the manner in which
humans live within a spiritual culture:
Man lives his spiritual life not in a spiritless world, in a world [understood] as matter, but
rather as a spirit among spirits, among human and super-human, and this world-totality
[Weltall] is, for him, the all of existing living, in the way of spirit, of the I-being, of the
I-living among others as I subjects, life in the form of a universal I-community [Ich-
Gemeinschaft]. (Husserl 1992, 3)
As with Hegel, Husserl turns to the history of philosophy to supply him with a road-
map for the teleological development of reason. As he writes in Crisis Section 15:
Our task is to make comprehensible the teleology in the historical becoming of philosophy
[die Teleologie in dem geschichtlichen Werden der Philosophie], especially modern
philosophy, and at the same time to achieve clarity about ourselves, who are the bearers
[Träger] of this teleology, who take part in carrying it out through our personal intentions.
(Husserl 1954, 71, 1970, 70)
This statement has a typical Hegelian ring. Both Husserl and Hegel believe that the
development of culture is illuminated by the development of philosophy. Philosophy
22 D. Moran
is in a particular way mirrors the development of culture; philosophy represents

historical humanity’s self-reflection and hence it represents (in more Hegelian
terms) the human spirit’s coming to self-consciousness about itself.
On Husserl’s mature view, transcendental phenomenology does not just describe
life rather it actually leads or guides life into its rational self-reflexive “absolute”
form. Transcendental phenomenology is now the science that grasps in a fundamental
way the meaning of the accomplishment of spiritual life in all its forms, that is, what
makes rational human intersubjective life possible as such. Husserl, in a manner
increasingly close to Hegel, also believes that transcendental philosophy takes up
and completes all previous philosophy; it embraces and redeems the entire
philosophical tradition.49
Husserl does not claim to be doing history in any straightforward sense of col-
lecting historical facts. This is what he calls “external history” or “factual history”.
History is not a “storehouse” of items that lay before one; rather one picks and
choses depending on one’s motivation. Husserl sees himself as trying to gain access
to the “inner meaning and hidden teleology” of history; he is seeking, in quasi-
Hegelian fashion, “reason in history”:
We shall attempt to strike through the crust of the externalized “historical facts” of philo-
sophical history, interrogating, exhibiting, and testing their inner meaning and hidden tele-
ology. Questions never before asked will arise … In the end they will require that the total
sense of philosophy, accepted as “obvious” throughout all its historical forms, be basically
and essentially transformed. (Husserl 1954, 16, 1970, 18)
Husserl’s “historical reflections” [historische Besinnungen] (Husserl 1954, 58,

1970, 57) aim at “self-understanding” [Selbstverständnis] or “inner understanding”
[das innere Verständnis] (Husserl 1954, 12, 1970, 14). These “sense-investigations”
or “self-reflections” [Selbstbesinnungen] (Husserl 1954, 72–73) will reveal the
“hidden unity of intentional inwardness” which alone is responsible for the “unity
of history” (Husserl 1954, 74, 1970, 73), “our history” (Husserl 1954, 72, 1970, 71).
It is quite surprising to find Husserl talking about the “inner sense” of history and
attempting to trace the teleology of the modern philosophical tradition, for instance.
But Husserl thinks of the field of the transcendental as a field of life, and individual
lives are oriented towards goals and unified in terms of their overall goal or purpose.
Finally, Husserl’s former assistant Ludwig Landgrebe sums up Husserl’s task in
terms that express both his nearness to and distance from Hegel as follows:
The task of describing the human “life-world” therefore includes a higher level. Having
brought to light the all-pervading “aesthetic” structures of the world and world-experience
the structures pertaining to Nature as the basis of every surrounding world-we must look for
the possible types of world, as the surrounding worlds of particular human communities.
This may be conceived as an empirical enterprise, namely, as the task of reducing to types
the environing worlds and the world-pictures that have in fact been produced by past or
present communities of various levels, and investigating their development and the
evolutionary levels to which these worlds belong. But the empirical task is, in itself,
secondary to the task of elaborating the essential possibilities and fundamental structures,
the essentially possible types, of surrounding worlds. (Landgrebe 1940, 47)
49
Husserl (1956, 256, 1974a, 30).
A more apt summation of Husserl’s efforts to understand the history of culture and
the history of philosophy as mirror of culture cannot be found.
Acknowledgments An earlier version of this paper was given at the conference, Hegel and the
Phenomenological Movement, Pisa, Italy, 10–13 June 2014. I want to thank Elisa Magrì, Danilo
Manca, and Alfredo Ferrarin, for their comments.
References
Abromeit, John. 2004. Herbert Marcuse’s Critical Encounter with Martin Heidegger (1927–1933).
In Herbert Marcuse. A Critical Reader, ed. John Abromeit and William Mark Cobb, 131–151.
New York: Routledge.
Althusser, Louis. 1997. The Return to Hegel. In L. Althusser, Early Writings: The Spectre of Hegel,
ed. Francois Matheron. Trans. G.M. Goshgarian. London: Verso.
Barth, Karl. 2002. Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History.
Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.
Baugh, Bruce. 2003. French Hegel: From Surrealism to Postmodernism. London: Routledge.
Beiser, Frederick C. 2014. After Hegel. German Philosophy 1840–1900. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Brentano, Franz. 1999. The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Present Condition (Die vier Phasen
der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Status, first published 1895, then Leipzig: Meiner,
1926, reprinted Hamburg: Meiner, 1968). Trans. Stephen Satris. Philosophy Today Vol. 43 No.
1/4.
Brunschwicg, Léon. 1927. Le Progrès de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale. Paris:
Alcan.
Bruzina, Ronald. 2004. Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink. Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology
1928–1938. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Canguilhem, Georges. 1948. Hegel en France. Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 27:
282–297.
Carr, David. 1974. Phenomenology and the Problem of History: A Study of Husserl’s Transcendental
Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Cassirer, Ernst. 1906–1907. Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der
neueren Zeit. Erster Band, Vol. 1–2. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer.
Cohn, Jonas. 1923. Theorie der Dialektik. Formenlehre der Philosophie. Leipzig: Meiner.
Croce, Benedetto. 1915. What Is Living and What Is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel. Trans.
Douglas Ainslie. London: Macmillan.
De Waehlens, Alfons. 1959. Refléxions sur une problèmatique husserlienne de l’inconscient,
Husserl et Hegel. In Edmund Husserl 1859–1959. Recueil commémorative publié à l’occasion
du centenaire de la naissance du philosophe, ed. H.L. Van Breda and J. Taminiaux, 221–237.
The Hague: Nijhoff.
Denker, Alfred. 1997. Der junge Heidegger und Fichte. Fichte-Studien 13: 1997.
———. 2003. In the Spirit of Hegel’s Phenomenology: Heidegger and Fink. In Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit: New Critical Essays, ed. Alfred Denker and Michael Vater, 107–137.
New York: Humanity Books.
Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Violence and Metaphysics, in Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dostal, Robert. 2002. Gadamer’s Relation to Heidegger and Phenomenology. In The Cambridge
Companion to Gadamer, ed. Robert J. Dostal. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Feenberg, Andrew. 2005. Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History.
New York: Routledge.
24 D. Moran
Findlay, John N. 1958. Hegel: A Re-Examination. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Fink, Eugen, 1995. Sixth Cartesian Meditation. The Idea of a Transcendental Theory of Method
with Textual Annotations by Edmund Husserl. Trans. with an Introduction by Ronald Bruzina.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fisette, Denis. 1999. Husserl et Fichte: Remarques sur l’apport de l’idéalisme dans le développe-
ment de la phénoménologie. Symposium: Journal of the Canadian Society for Hermeneutics
and Postmodern Thought III (2): 195–207. Special Issue: Fichte: Perspectives contemporaines,
ed. Donald Ippercie.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1939. Hegel und der geschichtliche Geist. Zeitschrift für die gesamte
Staatswissenschaft 100 (1–2): 25–37.
———. 1976. Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. Trans. C. Smith. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Geniušas, Saulius. 2008. Self-Consciousness and Otherness: Hegel and Husserl. Santalka. Filosofi
ja. 16 (3): 27–36.
Hartmann, Klaus. 1988. Studies in Foundational Philosophy. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1939–1941. La Phénoménologie de l’esprit. Trans. Jean Hyppolite. Paris: Aubier,
Editions Montaigne, voll. 1–2.
———. 1952. In Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.
———. 1979. Hegel’s phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller with a foreword by J. N.
Findlay. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1950. Holzwege. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
———. 1970. Hegel’s Concept of Experience. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
———. 1997. Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (Wintersemester 1930/31). In Gesamtsausgabe,
ed. Ingtraud Görland, vol. 32, 3rd ed. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
———. (1997a). In Der Deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling) und die philosophische
Problemlage der Gegenwart (Sommersemester 1929), ed. Claudius Strube. Frankfurt:
Klostermann. GA Band 28.
———. (1997b). In Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (Wintersemester 1930/31), ed. Ingtraud
Görland, 3rd ed. GA Band 32. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
———. (1988). Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
———. 2009. Hegel. 1: Die Negativität (1938/39). 2: Erläuterungen der “Einleitung” zu Hegels
“Phänomenologie des Geistes” (1942). In Gesamtsausgabe, ed. Ingrid Schüßler, vol. 68.
Frankfurt: Klostermann.
———. 2011. Der Deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) und die philosophische
Problemlage der Gegenwart (Sommersemester 1929). In Gesamtsausgabe, ed. Claudius
Strube, vol. 28. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
———. 2016. Hegel und das Problem der Metaphysik, in Vorträge Teil 1: 1915–1932. In
Gesamtsausgabe, ed. Günther Neumann, vol. 80. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Heinz, Marion. 1997. Die Fichte-Rezeption in der südwestdeutschen Schule des Neukantianismus.
Fichte-Studien 13: 109.
Heitmann, Margret. 1999. Jonas Cohn (1869–1947): Das Problem der unendlichen Aufgabe in
Wissenschaft und Religion. Hildesheim: G. Olms.
Higgins, Kathleen, and Kathleen Solomon, eds. 2003. The Age of German Idealism, Routledge
History of Philosophy. Vol. 6. London/New York: Routledge.
Husserl, Edmund. 1910–1911. Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft. Logos. Internationale
Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Kultur 1: 289–341 (Reprinted in Husserliana Vol. XXV).
———. 1931. Ideas. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. W. R. Boyce-Gibson.
London: George Allen & Unwin.
———. 1950. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. In Husserliana, ed. Stephan
Strasser, vol. I. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1954. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. In Husserliana, ed.
Walter Biemel, vol. VI. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1956. Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil: Kritische Ideengeschichte. In Husserliana,
ed. R. Boehm, vol. VII. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1960. Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology. Trans. D. Cairns. The
Hague: Nijhoff.S
———. 1968a. In Briefe an Roman Ingarden, ed. R. Ingarden. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1968b. Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. In
Husserliana, ed. W. Biemel, vol. IX. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1969. Formal and Transcendental Logic. Trans. Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An
Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
———. 1973. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil.
1929–35. In Husserliana, ed. Iso Kern, vol. XV. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1974a. Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy. Trans. Ted E. Klein and William
E. Pohl. Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 5: 9–56.
———. 1974b. Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft.
Mit ergänzenden Texten. In Husserliana, ed. Paul Janssen, vol. XVII. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1975. Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Text der 1.
und der 2. Auflage. In Husserliana, ed. E. Holenstein, vol. XVIII. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1977. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie 1. Halbband: Text der 1–3.
Auflage, Husserliana. III/1, hrsg. K. Schuhmann. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1983. Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy,
First Book. In Husserl Collected Works. Trans. F. Kersten. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1986. Fichtes Menchheitsideal, in Aufsätze und Vorträge 1911–1921. In Husserliana, ed.
H.R. Sepp and Thomas Nenon, vol. XXV, 267–293. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1988. Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1922–1937. In Husserliana, ed. T. Nenon and H.R. Sepp,
vol. XXVII. The Hague: Kluwer.
———. 1992. Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937. In Husserliana, ed.
Reinhold N. Smid, vol. XXIX. The Hague: Kluwer.
———. 1994. Briefwechsel. In Husserliana Dokumente, ed. Karl Schuhmann in collaboration
with Elizabeth Schuhmann, vol. 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1995. Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity [Three Lectures]. Trans. James G. Hart. Husserl Studies
12: 111–133.
———. 1997. Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with
Heidegger (1927–31). The Encyclopaedia Britannica Article, The Amsterdam Lectures
“Phenomenology and Anthropology” and Husserl’s Marginal Note in Being and Time, and
Kant on the Problem of Metaphysics. Trans. T. Sheehan and R.E. Palmer, in Collected Works,
Vol. VI. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
———. 2001a. Logical Investigations. Trans. John Findlay, ed. with a new introduction by Dermot
Moran and new preface by Michael Dummett, 2 vols. London/New York: Routledge.
———. 2001b. Natur und Geist: Vorlesungen, Sommersemester 1927. In Husserliana, ed. Michael
Weiler, vol. 32. Dordrecht: Springer.
———. 2002a. Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. Trans. M. Brainard. New Yearbook for
Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy II: 249–95.
———. 2002b. Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23. In Husserliana, ed. Berndt
Goossens, vol. XXXV. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Hyppolite, Jean. 1959. L’idée fichtéenne de la doctrine de la science et le projet husserlien. Husserl
et la pensée moderne. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Janssen, Paul. 1970. Geschichte und Lebenswelt. Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion von Husserls
Spätwerk. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Jonas, Hans. 1966. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. New York: Harper
and Row.
26 D. Moran
———. 2008. In The Legacy of Hans Jonas: Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life, ed. Hava
Tirosh-Samuelson and Christian Wiese. Dordrecht: Brill.
Kern, Iso. 1964. Husserl und Kant. Eine Untersuchungen über Husserls Verhältnis zu Kant und
zum Neukantianismus. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Klockenbusch, Reinhold. 1989. Husserl und Cohn. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Kojève, Alexandre. 1947. Introduction à la lecture de Hegel. 2nd ed. Paris: Gallimard.
———. 1980. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit.
Trans. James H. Nichols. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kolakowski, Leszek. 2005. Main Currents of Marxism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Koyré, Alexandre. 1961. Études d’histoire de la pensée philosophique. Paris: Libraire Armand
Colin.
Landgrebe, Ludwig. 1940. The World as a Phenomenological Problem. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 1 (1): 38–58.
———. 1968. Phänomenologie und Geschichte. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus G. Mohn.
———. 1972. The Problem of the Beginning of Philosophy in Husserl’s Phenomenology. In
Life-World and Consciousness. Essays for Aron Gurwitsch, ed. Lester Embree. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press.
———. 1977. Phenomenology as Transcendental Theory of History. In Edmund Husserl.
Expositions and Appraisals, ed. F. Elliston and P. McCormick, 101–114. Notre Dame: Notre
Dame.
Lask, Emil. 2002. Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte (Tübingen, 1902). Reprinted in Lask,
Kleine Schriften: Sämtliche Werke Band I. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.
Lauer, Quentin. 1977. Phenomenology: Hegel and Husserl, in Essays in Hegelian Dialectic.
New York: Fordham University Press.
Liebmann, Otto. 1865. Kant und die Epigonen: Eine kritische Abhandlung. Stuttgart: Schober.
Löwith, Karl. 1964. Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.
———. 1993. Max Weber and Karl Marx. London: Routledge.
Luft, Sebastian. 2002. Phänomenologie der Phänomenologie. Systematik und Methodologie der
Phänomenologie in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Husserl und Fink, Phaenomenologica
166. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Mander, W.J. 2011. British Idealism, A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1928. Beiträge zu einer Phänomenologie des Historischen Materialismus.
Philosophische Hefte 1: 45–68.
Marx, Werner. 1988. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Commentary Based on the Preface and
Introduction. Trans. Peter Heath. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mohanty, J.N. 1952. Fichte’s Science of Knowledge and Husserl’s Phenomenology. Philosophical
Quaterly 25: 113–125.
Nuzzo, Angelica. 2010. Phenomenologies of Intersubjectivity: Fichte between Hegel and Husserl.
In Fichte and the Phenomenological Tradition, ed. V. Waibel, D. Breazeale, and T. Rockmore,
97–118. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Pippin, Robert. 1993. You Can’t Get There from Here: Transition Problems in Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit. In The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick C. Beiser.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2002. Gadamer’s Hegel. In The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, ed. Robert J. Dostal.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pöggeler, Otto. 1973. Hegels Idee einer Phänomenologie der Geistes. Freiburg: Alber.
Przylebski, Andrzej. 1993. Das Hegelbild im Badischen Neukantianismus. Hegel-Jahrbuch, ed.
Andreas Arndt, Jure Zovko, and Myriam Gerhard: 154–159.
Rockmore, Tom. 1979. Fichte, Husserl, and Philosophical Science. International Philosophical
Quarterly 19: 15–27.
Rosshoff, Hartmut. 1975. Emil Lask als Lehrer von Georg Lukacs. Bonn: Bouvier.
Roth, Michael S. 1988. Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century
France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Schmidt, Dennis. 1988. The Ubiquity of the Finite: Hegel, Heidegger and the Entitlements of
Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schuhmann, Karl, and Barry Smith. 1993. Two Idealisms: Lask and Husserl. Kant-Studien 83:
448–466.
Singer, Michael. 2005. The Legacy of Hegel. Dordrecht: Springer.
Spiegelberg, Herbert. 1994. The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, 3rd,
revised and enlarged. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Staehler, Tanja. 2003. Die Unruhe des Anfangs. Hegel und Husserl über den Weg in die
Phänomenologie, Phaenomenologica. Vol. 170. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stern, Robert. 2007. Hegel, British Idealism and the Curious Case of the Concrete Universal.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15: 115–153.
Tietzen, Hartmut. 1980. Fichte und Husserl. Letzbegründung, Subjektivität und Praktische Vernunft
im transzendentale Idealismus. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Wahl, Jean. 1929. Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel. Paris: Rieder.
———. 1966. Le rôle de A. Koyré dans le développement des études hégéliennes en France. Hegel
Studien Beiheft 3: 15–26.
Williams, Robert R. 1992. Hegel and Phenomenology. In Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the
Other, 95–120. Albany: SUNY Press.
Wolin, Richard. 2003. Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and
Herbert Marcuse. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
How is a Phenomenology of Historical
Worlds Possible?
Tanja Staehler
Abstract A phenomenology of the historical world, if successful, could provide us

with a descriptive account of our historical world that does not pre-decide how the
world should be organized on the political, economic, or cultural level. Yet in order
for such a phenomenology to be successful, a plausible perspective on history is
needed that is not limited to a mere succession of contingencies, but that allows
exploring their connections. Teleology is what emerges from the description of
these connections. According to both Hegel and Husserl, teleology is justified
because history is (at least partly) shaped by human beings who act on reasons – but
who can also be mistaken or manipulated. The thesis of the current article is that
Husserl’s phenomenology radicalizes Hegel’s in such a way that a plausible account
of history as teleology emerges, yet in such a way that history does not need to have
one goal set from the beginning. Moreover, Husserl’s phenomenology allows for a
plurality of historical worlds; it does not need to settle on an account of progress,
and it allows to explore crises. Finally, on the issue of critique, a Husserlian response
would be that understanding the crisis in its origins and different historical manifes-
tations is a necessary first step to addressing it.
Keywords Hegel · Husserl · Historical world · Teleology
1 Introduction
Why is it important to develop a phenomenology of historical worlds? Given the

changing and complex nature of historical worlds, it might be more obvious why
such a phenomenology is difficult than why it is significant. Let me therefore
address its advantages before responding to some of the difficulties. Phenomenology
is characterized by its descriptive nature. It does not prescribe how things ought to
be, but it describes how things are. This is consistent with phenomenology’s starting
point as both Hegel and Husserl characterize it: phenomenology should strive for a
T. Staehler (*)
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
e-mail: T.Staehler@sussex.ac.uk

30 T. Staehler
presuppositionless beginning, should aim to make as few presuppositions as possi-

ble and carefully examine everything that could prove an implicit assumption.
Such an approach might initially appear restrictive when it comes to historical
worlds, since ‘mere’ description would not seem to allow for critique. Yet a critical
approach tends to involve presuppositions, and our current perspective on the world
makes us more than ever susceptible to taking certain political frameworks for
granted, such as democracy. Yet the political is itself a peculiar realm. If we look
more closely, we might well find that we neither fully understand the current politi-
cal scenery nor the current economic crisis, nor the relationship between them. We
could, however, learn from Hegel that politics (‘the state’) and economics (‘civil
society’) are different realms, and having allowed for their inextricable intertwine-
ment might be an important factor contributing to our current crisis.
The fact that there is a crisis is barely debatable, and in that sense, starting with
a description of the crisis of our historical world would seem the best way of not
violating the phenomenological principle of presuppositionless beginnings. The
strongest objections to there being a crisis might be these two questions: (1) Have
there not always been crises? and (2) Has there not been so much progress that any
talk of a crisis is just an unwarranted historical pessimism? In both respects, Hegel
and Husserl will be our best candidates for discussing the issue. Husserl will allow
us to describe how indeed there has always been a crisis in a certain sense; yet this
allows us to see the current crisis in relationship to the origin of crisis (in Ancient
Greece), tracing different manifestations of the crisis in different historical worlds.
The second question takes us to what seems the most important difference between
Hegel and Husserl: Hegel notoriously describes a history of progress, Husserl a his-
tory of crisis. In order to see the extent to which this is true, we need to examine
what unites, and then again separates them: the idea of goal-directedness or teleol-
ogy in history, which they both hold, yet in different ways.
2 Hegel and the Completion of History
It is by no means a new accusation against Hegel that his philosophy lacks a dimen-
sion of critique concerning the historical situation, and that it is thus conservative in
the literal sense of preserving the current condition. Already because of its popular-
ity, this criticism needs to be treated with care. At the same time, the accusation
appears to have a certain justification, especially since such criticism has not only
been uttered in general, but on the basis of a thorough knowledge of Hegel’s philoso-
phy.1 A very explicit passage in which Hegel confirms that he does not want to state
what ‘ought to’ happen can be found in the “Preface” to the Philosophy of Right:
1
To give just one example which is chosen here because of its close connection to our current
theme, let me quote Ernst Tugendhat: “The possibility of a self-responsible, critical relation to the
state is not allowed for by Hegel; instead, we learn: the existent laws carry absolute authority; the
community determines what the individual is supposed to do; the individual conscience has to
How is a Phenomenology of Historical Worlds Possible? 31
This treatise, therefore, in so far as it deals with political science, shall be nothing other than
an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity. As a philo-
sophical composition, it must distance itself as far as possible from the obligation to con-
struct a state as it ought to be; such instruction [Belehrung] as it may contain cannot be
aimed at instructing the state on how it ought to be, but rather at showing how the state, as
the ethical universe, should be recognized. (…) To comprehend what is is the task of phi-
losophy, for what is is reason. As far as the individual is concerned, each individual is in any
case a child of his time; thus philosophy, too, is its own time comprehended in thoughts.
(Hegel 1821, 26/21)2
This passage is so unequivocal that it hardly needs interpretation. Hegel’s refusal

to give a presentation of the state “as it should be” appears to be motivated by the
danger that such a presentation would fall into arbitrary speculation. If theorists lose
sight of how the state is, they also lose sight of reality – and it cannot be our task to
“construct” an ideal state. Yet it can also not be our task to merely observe what is
the case but to examine how the state “should be recognized.” This statement implies
that there are various possibilities to do so, and the way in which the recognizing
takes place influences what is being recognized. When we look at the state ratio-
nally, we will also find reason in it. Moreover, the reality is so rich that it can tell us
a lot if we only know how to read it. Reality itself can tell us what we should do, i.e.,
what we should do in the face of this reality (rather than in empty space, so to
speak).
Even though Hegel never literally speaks of an “end of history,” there are many
passages in his work which show that he regarded his time as the completion of his-
tory. This is particularly obvious in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History when
Hegel says that the “ultimate result” of the process of world history has become
realized in the present (Hegel 1970, 141/116). Spirit has become present in reality,
which becomes apparent on an external level in the fact that state and church are
co-equal. When compared to the life history of a human being, so Hegel explains,
the Germanic world corresponds to the “old age” (Greisenalter); yet in contrast to
the individual’s old age as a time of weakness, the old age of Spirit signifies its
“perfect maturity and strength” (Hegel 1970, 140/115). Hegel cautions us to avoid
hasty parallels, and it would be hasty to conclude from the designation “old age”
that this age will be followed by Spirit’s death. And yet, if the goal of world history
has been realized, what else should follow? On the basis of a teleological concep-
tion of history, how could there be a next step after the goal has been reached?
A further argument to show that Hegel indeed assumed that history could be
completed lies in the parallel between world history and system of logic: history is
the system in its development.3 Spirit externalizes itself into space and time; its
externalization into space is nature, its externalization into time is history (Hegel
disappear, and reflection is replaced by trust – this is what Hegel means by the sublation of moral-
ity into Sittlichkeit” (Tugendhat 1979, 349).
2
Hereafter, the page number of the English translation follows the corresponding page number of
the German edition.
3
See Hegel (1807, 491/589): “Conversely, to each abstract moment of Science corresponds a shape
of manifest Spirit as such [eine Gestalt des erscheinenden Geistes überhaupt].”
32 T. Staehler
1807, 492/590). If the development of Spirit runs parallel to the levels of actual his-
tory and if this development can be presented in a highly complex, yet accessible
system, the question about a possible end of history indeed becomes pressing. Of
course, such an end would not mean that nothing would happen in the future; but it
is implied that nothing essentially new would happen any more, i.e., nothing which
had not already been treated at one point of the system or the other. Concerning the
Phenomenology of Spirit, this means that all essential shapes of consciousness have
been dealt with. They can be repeated, and they might even be repeated in a modi-
fied form. But to the extent that Spirit reached itself in the end, there is no motiva-
tion to pass from the shape of absolute knowing to a fundamentally new shape.
The idea of such an end does not mean that time stops. However, whether a
development which does not allow for anything truly new can be called history is a
difficult question. Not only would it be arrogant to state how the world will need to
be, but “the insight to which philosophy should lead us is that the actual world is as
it should be” (Hegel 1970, 53/38). This is the case because God has accomplished
the world and has come to reign: “God reigns over the world; the content of his
government, the fulfillment of his plan is world history” (Hegel 1970, 53/38). God’s
government of the world has two implications. It means that nothing is lacking;
there is nothing we should – and could – hope and wait for. Furthermore, it means
that time has been annulled and that time and eternity have been reconciled.
Spirit belongs to eternity (Hegel 1970, 141/116).4 What is meant here by eter-
nity? For Hegel, eternity is not the negation of time; that would be bad eternity since
it remains dependent on time. This theme is connected to the distinction between the
“bad” and the “good” infinite. The bad infinite is defined in opposition to the finite,
hence determined by and dependent on it. If infinity is supposed to be true infinity,
nothing can be opposed to it. As a result, Hegel rejects infinite progress because it
remains related to finitude. Infinite progress is merely the negation of finitude; it
means to go beyond the limit again and again.
The image of infinite progress is the “the straight line, with the infinite on both
ends” (Hegel 1812, 164). Its problematic nature becomes obvious when imagining
such a line. We can only imagine a finite line; thus, with respect to both endpoints,
the question arises as to how to continue. The line continues just in the same fash-
ion. The limits, the endpoints of the line are being surpassed again and again, yet
only to reach new endpoints which need to be surpassed. In contrast, the image of
true infinity is the circle, “the line that has reached itself, that has closed and entirely
present, without beginning point and end” (Hegel 1812, 164). Eternity is the “abso-
lute present” (Hegel 1830a, 26) which will not be, but is. Spirit is eternal, i.e., “it is
not over, and neither is it not yet, but is essentially now” (Hegel 1970, 105) – as the
present Spirit which encompasses all earlier levels. The concept of absolute present
evokes an association with the “living present” (lebendige Gegenwart) in Husserl.
Both philosophers are thinkers of the present.
4
See also Hegel (1830b, § 577): “(…) and this movement is just as much the activity of knowing
in which the eternal idea in and for itself engages, creates, and enjoys itself as absolute Spirit.”
3 Open Teleology in Husserl
Husserl also considers history to be determined by an inherent teleological directed-

ness; in characterizing this directedness, his formulations are strikingly similar to
those of Hegel. Yet in contrast to Hegel, Husserl emphasizes the openness of history.
The telos is an idea of absolute perfection lying in infinity.
In this part, I will first briefly present Husserl’s ideas regarding the teleological
character of history. Afterwards, the accusation that Husserl’s conception of history
entails an image of the future which does not do justice to the nature of future will
be examined, first on the level of inner time-consciousness, then on the level of his-
tory. Concerning both levels, I shall argue that Husserl’s phenomenology provides
the possibility to account for the phenomenon of the future in a satisfying fashion.
However, Husserl sometimes goes beyond the frame of his own philosophy and
overemphasizes the way in which the future can be planned, rather than acknowl-
edging how the future not only crosses out our plans, but it comes toward us as that
which we truly did not expect.
If the horizontality of all experience is taken seriously, the strength of Husserl’s
philosophy emerges as that of a “working philosophy” (Arbeitsphilosophie) which
he did not want to end, but to begin. On the level of history, horizontality comes to
manifest itself as the relation between homeworlds and alienworlds. Husserl’s phi-
losophy thereby acquires a fundamental ethical dimension which prevents his con-
ception of history from sliding into a mere relativism.
“The teleology which is now our topic as an ownmost feature of philosophy’s
history certainly designates nothing less than some kind of a metaphysical substruc-
tum [Substruktion], no matter how this substructum would be presented” – Thus
runs Husserl’s opening sentence for a manuscript on teleology in the history of
philosophy from the texts supplementing the Crisis (Husserl 1992, 362). For
Husserl, teleology designates an inner sense, a tendency which shows “what,
through all these philosophers, ‘the point of it’ ultimately was” (Husserl 1954,
74/73). Is Husserl thus only concerned with the history of philosophy, not with the
history of mankind as a whole? Is teleology only at work in the history of philoso-
phy? The fact that Husserl speaks of the “crisis of European sciences” or, as the title
of the original Vienna lecture has it, the “crisis of European mankind,” shows that
Husserl is not merely concerned with the history of philosophy. Philosophers are
“functionaries of mankind” (Husserl 1954, 16/17); their ideas are supposed to have
a guiding function, and in that sense, their reflections show what “the point of it”
was. Yet in contrast to Hegel, Husserl does not really thematize the relation between
the history of philosophy and the history of mankind.5
When relating Husserl’s conception of the present to Hegel’s, an objection arises
concerning Husserl’s thesis of a teleological directedness of history: Husserl does
5
However, he asks rhetorical questions like this one: “Is philosophy perhaps merely a primary
example of the universal truth that the deepest and truest history is the one which takes place in the
common history of external, motivational contexts, as a history of ideas in the sense which has to
first be clarified with respect to philosophy?” (Husserl 1992, 418).
34 T. Staehler
not consider his times as a period of completion, but as a situation of crisis. How can
a teleological development yield a crisis? Such a crisis can occur if philosophers did
not truly realize what “the point of it” is, i.e., if they interpreted the primordially
instituted sense (Urstiftungssinn) in a one-sided fashion. What justifies the teleo-
logical designation of the development is the primordially instituted sense, which
was given to philosophy and sciences in ancient Greece. This sense has been modi-
fied or re-instituted during the course of history; it is not a static sense, but a histori-
cal sense, keeping its unity as it undergoes modification. The primordially instituted
sense has become blurred, misdirected, and misunderstood in various ways during
the course of history. While originally the goal was to gain reliable insight into
being as a whole, there has been an emphasis on objective knowledge, ignoring the
subject-relativity of all knowing and its grounds in the lifeworld. This misunder-
standing is thus ultimately not a function of the philosophers’ blindness, but stems
from an ambiguity in the primordially instituted sense itself.
Husserl states that the “end of the development is rather a beginning,” namely,
a beginning of the “infinite task for the open infinity of future scholar genera-
tions” (Husserl 1992, 408). Although Hegel also considers the end as the begin-
ning – hence the image of the circle –, he does not regard it as the beginning of
something new, extending into infinity. From Husserl’s perspective, the preceding
history of thought has been determined by imperfection and deficits; yet these
deficits are shortcomings caused by a lack of self-reflection. They can therefore
be overcome, and this is the task of phenomenology. At the same time, such short-
comings in the history of philosophy do not result from contingent difficulties of
specific philosophers, but are founded in the objectivist tendency which is already
prepared for in the Greek primordial institution of philosophy and which becomes
effective particularly during the modern era. Yet is it possible, considering this
background, to conceive of transcendental phenomenology as history’s telos?
After all, the present experience is an experience of crisis, and Husserl himself
states: “Indeed, philosophy since Descartes exhibits nothing less than the image
of a teleology completing itself” (Husserl 1992, 398). We thus need to undertake
a closer examination of this teleology within the history of philosophy as diag-
nosed by Husserl.
Husserl presumes that we not only bring our rationality to bear on history, but
that we aim at reason’s success and at being enlightened. This assumption is related
to the concept of intentionality as the dynamic directedness toward intuiting the
object more and more closely. Does the concept of intentionality with its basic
schema of expectation and fulfillment or disappointment offer enough room for the
surprising and the new? Considered on the level of history, does Husserl’s philoso-
phy sufficiently account for the nature of the future, given that future appears to be
more than and different from the process of increasing rationalization?
Husserl has often been criticized for his conception of the future. His view would
not allow for the “essentially new”6 or for the “unexpected, surprising future.”7 The
most prominent expression of this criticism can be found in Emmanuel Levinas’s
philosophy. Levinas points out that, in its true nature, the future is absolutely other
and cannot be grasped or anticipated. The future is absolutely surprising; this has
been missed by all theories of time, from Bergson to Sartre, since they considered
the future to be a projection of the past (Levinas 1987, 82). The concept of inten-
tionality which is so central to Husserl’s phenomenology makes it impossible,
according to Levinas, to conceive of the future as absolutely other: in the “inten-
tional relation of representation (…) the same is in relation with the other but in
such a way that the other does not determine the same; it is always the same that
determines the other” (Levinas 1969, 124).
To be sure, it is possible to confront Levinas’s concept of the “absolutely other”
with the (more Hegelian than Husserlian) question as to what absolute otherness is
supposed to mean, if it is absolute, i.e. in no way related to the same. Phrased in
phenomenological terms and related more concretely to the future, the question is,
how can the future surprise us if surprising is not supposed to mean running counter
to an expectation or being different from all expectations?
This problem shall first be considered here with respect to individual time-
consciousness and its intentionality. The basic schema of intentionality as devel-
oped, for example, in Analyses Concerning Passive Synthesis, involves having an
expectation about the further continuation of my perception. This expectation will
be fulfilled or disappointed. In this process, a retroactive crossing-out can occur, as
when we realize that what we took to be a human being is, and has been, in fact a
mannequin. Such an expectation is obviously grounded in the present perception;
but it can always be disappointed, and we know about the possibility of such disap-
pointment. This basic schema can also account for the difference between intersub-
jectivity and the perception of an object: the Other is accessible in the mode of
inaccessibility. Here as well, I have expectations, and I might even expect the Other
to behave like myself, but I constantly encounter the failures of such assumptions.
The Other surprises me, offering more and at the same time less than I had expected.
6
Janssen (1970, 114). Janssen first explains with respect to Hegel’s concept of history: “In this
way, historical teleology lets the future become inessential because the present, as preserving com-
pletion of the past, contains the essence of the future such that nothing ‘essentially new’ can come
from it.” And a corresponding footnote explains: “This feature also holds for the historical teleol-
ogy in Hegel as well as in Husserl. In Husserl, this is less obvious since he considers the future as
an infinite horizon for phenomenological research and development. But this future horizon is
defined by the conditions of transcendental phenomenology which determine in advance that only
something which conforms to it can occur.”
7
See Bernet (1983, 30 f.): “The analysis of time as epistemologically oriented expands further the
primacy of the now-present as naturally assumed. However, it employs the unnatural reduction of
the passed present to the present remembering [Vergegenwärtigung] and the future present to the
current expectation [Entgegenwärtigung] of the future. It thus denies the forgotten past and the
unexpected, surprising future.”
36 T. Staehler
Husserl can well be accused of not sufficiently examining the dimension of the
unexpected, although his late philosophy attends more to this dimension (without,
however, explaining how the basic concepts of his philosophy need to be modified).
The “positive” function of that which crosses out would need to be emphasized
more; such an objection could be brought forth against Husserl, with the help of
Hegel. Crossing out is not merely an “obstacle” (Hemmung) (Husserl 1992, 366) or
“disappointment” (Enttäuschung) (Husserl 1966, 25/63). Although the expressions
“obstacle” and “disappointment” do not hold negative connotations for Husserl, it is
not by chance that he uses these expressions rather than stating that something
comes toward us or overcomes us.
On the level of history, the situation is doubtlessly more complex than on the
level of time-consciousness, and our plans – individual and communal ones – are
crossed through in a less obvious fashion. Does the future perhaps indeed play a
marginal role in Husserl’s conception of history, given that he appears to be mostly
interested in “rationalization”? This claim could be supported by the fact that tran-
scendental phenomenology, for Husserl, has the task of fulfilling the primordially
instituted sense which was at work, albeit in a concealed fashion, in past philoso-
phies. The tasks, possibilities and limits of phenomenology thus appear to be set in
advance. The expression “reactivation” is significant in this context because it des-
ignates a turning back. What is being reactivated is a first instituting act (Husserl
1992, 371), such as the act of primordially instituting philosophy and science. Yet
this reactivation harbors – and this is essential – a directedness toward the future
which consists in “me having this abiding direction of will ‘from now on [hinfort]’”
(Husserl 1992, 371f.). Reactivation thus means that, upon reflection, I take up a
decision or a task again. This means, first, that I do not simply repeat this task, but I
revive it for myself (and modify it in such a way that it can be presently alive for
me). Second, the mere revival of a task or direction does not yet tell us anything
about its actual execution; that would be too easy. Rather, we reflect on the past in
order to get a better sense of how we should try to shape our future – and this is more
difficult than just enjoying the day.
The fact that we have a future and worry about it distinguishes us from animals,
according to Husserl.8 This concern is rooted in the “world’s structure of fate and
death”9 – and it is this structure which human beings meet with reason and with
rational planning. How does reason manifest itself, how does it come to appear?
Already in the Kaizo articles, it becomes obvious that Husserl conceives of reason
in the sense of the Greek logos, designating that in which humans participate. That
which humans share then finds its expression in logos qua language.
8
Manuscript E III 4, Teleologie, 3a: “The life of the animal as life in the concrete present with its
small component of future. The human life as life into a wide future of life, as life in care which
turns into universal care for the entire future of life” [Das Leben des Tieres als Leben in der konkre-
ten Gegenwart, mit ihrem kleinen Bestand von Zukunft. Das Menschenleben als Leben in eine
weite Lebenszukunft hinein, als Leben in der Vorsorge, die zur universalen Sorge für die ganze
Lebenszukunft wird]. I would like to thank the Husserl Archives for permission to cite from this
manuscript.
9
Manuscript E III 4, 10a: Schicksals- und Todesstruktur der Welt.
4 The Problem of Singular and Plural
It thus becomes obvious that intersubjectivity plays an essential role in Husserl’s

teleological understanding of history. At the same time, language is not a unified
phenomenon; we are usually dealing with a native tongue, potentially some more or
less familiar foreign languages and a multiplicity of entirely foreign languages.
Within the context of a phenomenology of history, Husserl’s theory of intersubjec-
tivity acquires a new form which is essentially determined by the relation between
home- and alien worlds. Accordingly, the question arises as to how the limits
between home and alien can be transgressed without being neglected or violated.10
Respecting these limits means that the points of view of home and alien are not
interchangeable. We always remain bound to our homeworld and can only cross its
borders as coming from within; there is no bird’s-eye view that would allow us to
survey different worlds (Held 2000, 11). The fact that a bird’s eye view of this kind
does not exist means that homeworld and alienworld cannot be dissolved into a
higher unity. In spite of the fact that borders shift and move all the time, it will never
be possible to extend the borders of the homeworld such that there would be one
world only. The prospect of a possible single world can with good reasons be called
imperialistic: we always have to start from our homeworld and can, at most, extend
its limits; we cannot leap over all existing limits and gain a homogeneous world in
this way.
Husserl talks a lot about “the common objective world,” the “world in itself”
(Husserl 1973, 436f.), or the “true world” as the topic of transcendental phenome-
nology (Husserl 1973, 215 fn.). At the same time, he says explicitly: “The world in
itself (...) is never given” (Husserl 1973, 614). Is Husserl here contradicting him-
self? Even if Husserl might use misleading formulations at times, his position seems
to be the following, non-contradictory one: the world in itself is indeed never given,
namely, never given in experience. However, phenomenology searches for “invari-
ant” structures of the lifeworld, which belong to the project of a lifeworld ontology.
The twofold character of the lifeworld as world-horizon (Welthorizont) and earth-
ground (Erdboden) are examples for such structures, as well as the relativity of
homeworld and alienworld itself. Although every world has in one way or the other
the character of earth-ground, the “one” earth-ground, the earth-ground in itself is
never given to us. Given is this particular, relative earth-ground, as it comes to
appearance in the context of a homeworld. Nevertheless is it legitimate for phenom-
enology to search for those structures if we keep in mind that they are ‘ideas’ and
not something given in experience. Likewise, we have a “right to the idea of a com-
plete understanding” (Husserl 1973, 625), even though there are actually always
limits to our understanding, because of the limits of homeworld and alienworld.
By designating reason as omnitemporal, Husserl is creating the impression that
there is one reason common to all humans. It seems indeed to be Husserl’s convic-
tion that there is such a unified concept of reason; but it makes a difference whether
10
Steinbock (1995, 250 ff). See also Waldenfels (1991, 39).
38 T. Staehler
there is the “idea” of such reason, coming to manifest itself in various shapes, or
whether unified reason is postulated as truly existing. Although some of Husserl’s
formulations sound as if he held the second of these two positions, he only remains
true to the principles of his phenomenology if he holds the first position.11 To see
this better, reason should once again be understood as logos. Even though there is
no homogenous ground of communication amongst people, we nevertheless assume
that communication is possible. We can convey12 our opinion to the Other but need
to keep in mind that misunderstandings are possible and that there is no guarantee.
This situation becomes obvious in the way logos manifests itself in different lan-
guages. Translation makes the communication between home and alien possible,
yet it does not preclude misunderstandings.
These considerations also offer new possibilities for thinking philosophy as sin-
gular. We do have a unified idea of philosophy which we utilize when distinguishing
the philosophical from the non-philosophical. But is not philosophy concretely
always given as philosophies which are closer and more familiar to us and those
which are more distant, depending on our point of departure? Is not analytic phi-
losophy, for example, something which is at first alien to phenomenologists, albeit
not inaccessible?
Within certain limits, we can understand the alien. This is due to the fact that
something alien can already be found in ourselves. For example, my transcendental
ego in its functioning is not entirely accessible to me, but it withdraws.13 Yet despite
various crucial moments of insight, Husserl does not sufficiently consider phenom-
ena of withdrawal (Entzug). The withdrawal corresponds to the coming of a future
which is ultimately not in our hand. It is undeniably “good” for us to plan and proj-
ect and strive to realize rational goals. Yet we need to be aware that this is not the
full picture, and that we might sometimes even be successful against our intentions
(and without being able to give an account).
It is part of the nature of horizons to be limited, even though these limits can be
shifted and modified. Furthermore, there are always some horizons in the dark. The
horizontality of all knowledge and experience means that we never survey all con-
nections; “no thing is entirely isolated” (Husserl 1988, 79). When it comes to his-
torical horizons, we are always confronted with various home and alien horizons
rather than a unified world. Analogously, history cannot be reduced to a unity; open
horizons extend into the future.
11
See also Ladrière (1960, 187).
12
Drawing on Kant’s third critique, Klaus Held suggests the appropriate German term “ansinnen”
to describe this conveying (Held 2000, 12).
13
See also Bernet’s convincing article in Bernet (1998), in which he shows the strengths of
Husserl’s interpretation in comparison to Levinas’s: “Sticking to the First Interpretation and its
conception of an analogous apprehension of the Other, one would then have to say that there must
be a strangeness in myself the understanding of which guides me in my apprehension (or appre-
sentation) of the Other’s strangeness. Several texts of Husserl seem to be willing to go as far as
this” (Bernet 1998, 97).
5 Historical World in Crisis
The relevance of Husserl’s considerations for our times finds some confirmation in
the fact that Derrida, in his late text Rogues. Two Essays on Reason (Derrida 2005)
turns to Husserl’s Crisis and especially to the notion of crisis. He certainly does not
take it for granted that our crisis is Husserl’s crisis, but since it is rare for philoso-
phers to focus on crises and especially historical crises, Derrida seems to suggest
that we take Husserl’s considerations seriously, at least as a starting point. On this
basis, we might then ask: “What would have changed for us since 1935–36, since
this Husserlian call to a philosophical and European coming to awareness in the
experience of a crisis of the sciences and of reason?” (Derrida 2005, 124). Perhaps
we need to try to think “something other, in any case, than a crisis of reason, beyond
a crisis of science and of conscience, beyond a crisis of Europe” (Derrida 2005,
124), Derrida suggests. However, as his reflections unfold, it appears that the crisis
is actually still a crisis of reason and perhaps of the sciences and also of Europe; it
is just not limited to Europe and to sciences, but it is more encompassing. And it is
still a crisis of reason, but it involves reason in a more entangled or interdependent
fashion than it initially seemed.
Maybe ‘our’ crisis goes back to the same primacy of quantification that Husserl
identified as problematic, no longer only embodied by the natural sciences but
rather, the economic sciences, their laws and predictions? A boundless capitalism,
coupled with a global expansion of that which for Hegel was called ‘civil society’
and which originally held a subordinate position in the system to that of the politi-
cal – this is not the place to develop a response to this explosive combination, from
a phenomenological perspective. A first step, from a Husserlian perspective, would
certainly consist in reflecting back from the abstract to the concrete, and thus to the
concrete lifeworld. Economics considers relations which have their basis in the life-
worldly activities of trading and exchange. It was exactly in trading, according to
Husserl, that the Greeks encountered alien trading nations. Such encounters can
lead to a productive ‘crisis’ of the home convictions. While the levelling of all dif-
ferences and the illusion of a unified lifeworld only veils the crisis and thus exacer-
bates it, it is in the encounter with the alien that the kind of wonder might arise
which leads us into philosophy, according to Husserl.14
Traditional philosophy has resembled the sciences by placing an emphasis on the
identical being-in-itself in contrast to the various subjective ways of grasping it.
Phenomenology, in contrast, strives to examine both the relative ways of givenness
and the non-relative core, and the difference between them. It is this twofold empha-
sis, and the focus on the relation between objectivity and subjective givenness, that
justifies Husserl’s otherwise peculiar claims at the end of the essay on The Origin of
Geometry. Husserl here explains that his phenomenological approach to history is
closely linked with the existence of a “universal historical a priori” and an a priori
14
See Husserl (1954), 331 on wonder and Husserl (1992), 387 about the relevance of encountering
the alien.
40 T. Staehler
of the lifeworld. In fact, he seems to claim (although his formulations are somewhat
ambiguous in this respect) that the existence of such a priori forms the presupposi-
tion of his method.
Husserl deemed the project of an “ontology of the lifeworld” quite significant
(Husserl 1954, §37), but he never really carried it out.15 For him, such an ontology
would be a crucial component of a phenomenology of historical worlds. Such an
ontology would be concerned with identifying irrelative or invariant structures of
the lifeworld which form a “lifeworldly apriori” (Husserl 1954, 139/142). Husserl is
convinced that the lifeworld has “in all its relative features, a general structure’
which is ‘not itself relative’” (Husserl 1954, 139/142). The assumption of such an
apriori is dubious to Derrida. At the same time, it is Derrida who alerts us to one of
Husserl’s most plausible examples for such invariant structures: the earth-ground
(Erdboden) which designates the phenomenon that every culture rests on some kind
of earth-ground, even though its actual appearance varies, in accordance with the
culture and historical epoch (Derrida (1989), 84 ff.).16 Each culture and each epoch
needs some version of earth-ground on which to build their dwelling, and this earth-
ground forms their point of orientation, their ‘here,’ which is experienced as resting
(so that motion can be defined in relation to it). Although the actual givenness of this
earth-ground varies from culture to culture and epoch to epoch, it makes sense to
identify the structure of earth-ground as constitutive of every lifeworld.
This example works well to show the strength of the phenomenological method:
phenomenology can identify the one, unified, irrelative structure (in this case, of
earth-ground), but it also attends to the multiple forms of givenness. Phenomenology
thus does not undermine the project of the sciences, it but complements it by trying
to understand it better. By thematizing the relation between ideal objects and life-
world, phenomenology can also describe what a remarkable accomplishment the
spiritual idealisation is, and how it allows us to take an extreme distance from our
entanglement in the vagueness of the lifeworld. It is this vagueness which prevents
Valentine, a scientist in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia, to continue his work on a
mathematical model of the grouse population. Close to tears, he decides that he
“can’t do it” because there is “just too much bloody noise!” (Stoppard 1999, 62) or,
as Valentine described it earlier: “Distortions. Interference. Real data is messy”
(Stoppard 1999, 46). There is no solution to this problem; but it might help to the-
matize the ‘noise’ as such, rather than trying to forget about the noisy lifeworld.
15
In addition to the Crisis and supplementary manuscripts, Husserl provides indications for such a
project in a manuscript entitled The Anthropological World (Husserl 1992).
16
Husserl suggests a closer examination of the lifeworld’s ground-function in the Crisis (Husserl
1954, 158), but he conducts it elsewhere, see Husserl (1941, 2002). Already the titles of these
manuscripts indicate that the earth-ground is taken here to constitute the spatiality of the lifeworld.
In order to investigate the nature of the earth-ground, Husserl revisits his reflections on the lived-
body (Leib). Just like the lived-body presents a zero point in relation to which rest and motion
acquire their meaning, the earth-ground exhibits this function on the larger scale. Cf. Steinbock
1995, Chapter 7.
To sum up, the differences between Hegel and Husserl regarding the concept of
teleology are rooted in their divergent conceptions of history’s telos. For Hegel, this
telos is attainable and unchangeable; for Husserl, it is unattainable and it can be
modified in the course of history. While it might seem likely that a teleological con-
ception of history would lead to an emphasis on the future, this is the case neither
for Hegel nor for Husserl. Hegel considers the present as completion of a teleologi-
cal development. In Husserl’s philosophy, the present plays an essential role as the
dividing line between the primordially instituted sense and the goals of the future.
Our expectations and goals for the future are (partly) known to us in the present, as
yet unfulfilled; whether they will become fulfilled in the future is later on measured
back against these expectations.
Although it has turned out, in this essay, that it is justified to describe a surprise
from the phenomenological perspective as that which runs counter to our expecta-
tions, Husserl does place too little emphasis on the “positive” and not merely disap-
pointing aspect of the way in which the future comes toward us as new and
surprising. It is thus true that Hegel and Husserl, in different ways, do not give suf-
ficient room to the phenomenon of the future in their conception of history. In
Hegel’s case, this shortcoming is grounded in the essence of his philosophy while
Husserl’s phenomenology would allow him to place more emphasis on the coming
of the future. Hegel thus holds on the primacy of the present in accordance with his
philosophy; Husserl holds on to the same primacy, yet against the possibilities of his
phenomenology.
This also becomes obvious on the level of communal history: Husserl’s attempts
to transcend the various home- and alienworlds toward one world run counter to his
own philosophy. Furthermore, Husserl discusses homeworlds in much more detail
than alienworlds. To be sure, a phenomenology of the alien has an entirely different
character than that of the home; it requires considering the different forms of rup-
ture in the home experience and the different ways of being called into question. It
sometimes seems as if Husserl wanted to stay on safe, homey ground as long as
possible – even though he has already realized that the home is always already per-
meated by the alien and that even the traditionally self-certain transcendental ego
withdraws.
In a similar fashion, Sartre criticizes Hegel, here in respect to intersubjectivity,
by accusing him of an ontological and epistemological optimism. According to
Sartre, Hegel takes the perspective of the whole and thereby takes position outside
of consciousness; he attempts to surpass the “plurality” toward the “totality” (Sartre
1943, 243). Yet it is not possible for us to take up the standpoint of totality: “No logi-
cal or epistemological optimism can cover the scandal of the plurality of conscious-
nesses. If Hegel believed that it could, this is because he never grasped the nature of
that particular dimension of being which is self-consciousness” (Sartre 1943, 244).
The desire to attain the viewpoint of an encompassing totality is understandable and
human. But we gain a future only by giving up on complete transparency.
42 T. Staehler
References
Bernet, Rudolf. 1983. Die ungegenwärtige Gegenwart. Anwesenheit und Abwesenheit in

Husserls Analyse des Zeitbewußtseins. In Zeit und Zeitlichkeit bei Husserl und Heidegger,
Phänomenologische Forschungen, ed. E.W. Orth, vol. 14, 16–57. Freiburg: Alber.
———. 1998. Encounter with the Stranger: Two Interpretations of the Vulnerability of the Skin.
In Zeit und Zeitlichkeit bei Husserl und Heidegger, Phänomenologische Forschungen, ed.
E.W. Orth, 89–111. Freiburg: Alber.
Derrida, Jacques. 1989. Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry. An Introduction. Trans. J.P. Leavey.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
———. 2005. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Trans. P.-A. Brault, and M. Naas. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1807. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Werke, vol. 3, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969. Phenomenology of Spirit.
Trans: A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
———. 1812. Wissenschaft der Logik, I. Erster Teil: Die objective Logik. Werke, vol. 5, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1969. Hegel’s Logic.
Trans: W. Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
———. 1821. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft
im Grundrisse. Werke, vol. 7, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a.
M.: Suhrkamp, 1970. Trans. T. M. Knox, 1942; Trans: H. B. Nisbet, 1991. Elements of the
Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1830a. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften II. Die Naturphilosophie.
Werke, Vol. 9. Ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt, a. M.: Suhrkamp,
1970.
———. 1830b. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III. Werke, vol. 10, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1970. Trans. W. Wallace.
Together with the Zusätze in Boumann’s Text (1845). Trans: A.V. Miller. Hegel’s Philosophy
of Mind: Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830). Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971.
———. 1969–1971. Werke in 20 vol., ed. E. Moldenhauer und K.M. Michel. Frankfurt a. M.:
Suhrkamp.
———. 1970. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Werke, vol. 12. Ed. Eva
Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Held, Klaus. 2000. The Controversy Concerning Truth: Towards a Prehistory of Phenomenology.
Husserl Studies 17 (1): 35–48.
Husserl, Edmund. 1941. Notizen zur Raumkonstitution (1934), ed. A. Schütz. Philosophy and
phenomenological research 1: 21–37.
———. 1950. Husserliana. The Hague: Nijhoff. 1950–1987; Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer
1988–2004; Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer, 2011-.
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. In Husserliana, ed.
Walter Biemel, vol. 6. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1966. Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs-und Forschungsmanuskripten,
1918–1926. In Husserliana, ed. Margot Fleischer, vol. 11. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1973. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil.
1929–35. In Husserliana, ed. Iso Kern, vol. 15. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1988. Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1922–1937. In Husserliana, ed. T. Nenon and H.R. Sepp,
vol. 27. The Hague: Kluwer.
Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937. In Husserliana, ed.
Reinhold N. Smid, vol. 29. The Hague: Kluwer.
———. 2002. Foundational investigations of the phenomenological origin of the spatiality of

nature: The originary ark, the earth, does not move. In Merleau-Ponty. Maurice. Husserl at the
limits of phenomenology. Including texts by Edmund Husserl, ed. Leonard Lawlor and Bettina
Bergo, 117–131. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Janssen, Paul. 1970. Geschichte und Lebenswelt. The Hague: Kluwer.
Ladrière, Jean. 1960. Hegel, Husserl, and Reason Today. The Modern Schoolman XXXVII:
171–195.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity. Trans. A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP.
———. 1987. Time and the Other. Trans. R. A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1943. L’être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard.
Steinbock, Anthony J. 1995. Home and Beyond. Generative Phenomenology after Husserl.
Evanston: Northwestern UP.
Stoppard, Tom. 1999. Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber.
Tugendhat, Ernst. 1979. Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Waldenfels, Bernhard. 1991. Der Stachel des Fremden. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Hegel and Husserl on the History
of Reason
Danilo Manca
Abstract In the present essay, I will compare Hegel’s and Husserl’s conceptions of
the history of philosophy. I will show how Hegel and Husserl recast Kant’s idea of
a philosophizing history of philosophy in two different ways. Both Hegel and
Husserl share the conviction that reason unfolds itself in history. Nonetheless,
whereas Hegel identifies the history of philosophy with the contingent manifesta-
tion of the self-actualization of the Idea, Husserl develops a critical history of ideas.
On the one hand, Hegel conceives of the history of philosophy as a complex whole
and each determinate philosophy as interpreting a specific articulation of the logical
deduction of thought-determinations. On the other hand, perhaps influenced by
Windelband, Husserl appropriates the Kantian thesis according to which the objects
of the history of reason represent specific constellations of problems.
Keywords History of philosophy · Reason in history · Historicity · Hegel ·

Husserl · Kant
1 Introduction
Any attempt to embark on a comparison between Hegel and Husserl meets a simple
objection: in his works, Husserl takes scarce interest in Hegel’s philosophy, and his
few references to Hegel are quite disputable. In the present essay, I would like to
demonstrate that this objection presupposes a view of the history of philosophy that
is far from that which Hegel and Husserl conversely share. In particular, such an
objection presupposes the idea that a comparison between two thinkers can be con-
sidered not just significant, but also possible, only when the influence of one phi-
losopher on the other is philologically attestable. This is not the case with Hegel on
Husserl, as is easily demonstrable. But this idea does not belong to either Hegel or
Husserl; rather, they portray the history of philosophy as an ongoing whole, which
encompasses all determinate philosophical perspectives coming in succession over
D. Manca (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

46 D. Manca
the course of history, and which takes them to be the moments of reason’s self-
actualization in the contingent field of history.
In the first section of this essay, I will focus on Kant’s idea of a history of reason.
This will allow me to deal in the second section with the problem of the historicity
of philosophy and to examine the different solutions that Hegel and Husserl have
provided in their works. In the third section, I will deal with the different models for
a history of reason that both Hegel and Husserl develop by starting from a confron-
tation with Kant’s idea that the history of reason should deal with some particular
constellations of problems.
2 Kant and the Philosophizing Historiography of Philosophy
Kant introduces the notion of “a pure history of reason” at the end of the Critique of
Pure Reason. In the fourth chapter of the transcendental Doctrine of Method, he
employs such an expression for “a place that is left open in the system and must be
filled in the future” (Kant 1781/1787, A852/B880). Here he only limits himself to
casting a cursory glance, from a transcendental point of view, on the becoming of
reason in history. His sketch of the history of philosophy is, however, catastrophic,
since he sees the history of pure reason as characterized by a series of edifices in
ruins, which convey the alteration of metaphysics over the centuries. In such a way,
Kant repeats the argumentation of his preface to the first edition of the Critique of
Pure Reason, whereby metaphysics is described as the battlefield of endless contro-
versies and as a queen of all the sciences that, however, mourns, outcast and for-
saken, like Hecuba (Cf. Kant 1781, AVIII).1
In the last chapter of his masterpiece, Kant points out that in the infancy of phi-
losophy, metaphysics enjoyed a privileged position, since human beings began
where modern philosophy rather ends, namely, “by studying first the cognition of
God and the hope or indeed the constitution of another world” (Kant 1781/1787,
A852/B880). Furthermore, he lists three different points of view from which one
could evaluate the stage of conflict characterizing metaphysics in modern times:
they are the object of rational cognition, the origin of pure cognition of reason, and
the method ruling philosophical inquiry.
The fact that here Kant provides a historical sketch of the development of rea-
son’s self-understanding could seem at odds with the claim of the Architectonic of
Pure Reason, where Kant identifies historical cognition with cognition ex datis
1
Yovel (1980, 6) distinguishes two different sense of Kant’s conception of the history of reason.
The first is practical; according to it, the history of reason coincides with the process whereby
“human reason imprints itself upon the actual world, reshaping its empirical organization in light
of its own goals and interests”. The second sense is manly theoretical, since it identifies the history
of reason with the process through which “human reason gradually explicates its latent paradigm,
articulating its essential concepts, principles, and interest within a coherent system”.
Hegel and Husserl on the History of Reason 47
because it does not arise from the spontaneous activity of reason, but depends on
instruction and imitation (cf. Kant 1781/1787, A836/B864ff.).
Kant sets historical cognition against philosophical cognition, which arises from
principles and is strictly related to the essential ends of human reason. And, conse-
quently, he states that philosophy cannot be learned; we can at best only learn to
philosophize. A philosophical cognition based only on instruction and history pro-
ceeds in a scholastic way. It is erudition rather than authentic cosmic philosophy,
since it is not effectively driven by ends which reason spontaneously produces by
itself and adopts as regulative ideas. In other words, a historical inquiry of philoso-
phy seems to provide, from that perspective, an external cognition which allows
reason in no way to lead back to the origins of its own activity.
Thus, at the end of the Critique of Pure Reason the reference to the history of
pure reason seems to be merely another way to strengthen the idea that, at this level
of the history of philosophy, the only path still open is that of critical philosophy,
since it is the only way to bring human reason to full satisfaction.2 Nonetheless,
Kant further develops his analysis by expressing the need of a historical cognition
of pure reason in his Fortschritte zur Metaphysik.
In an appendix to this essay, he deals with the concept of “a philosophizing his-
tory of philosophy” (Kant 1942, 340/417).3 He begins by noting that all historical
knowledge is empirical, hence it is concerned with the things as they are. This does
not, however, imply that things necessarily have to be that way. A historical presen-
tation of philosophy is just an account of how philosophizing has been done there-
tofore, and in what order. More specifically, it is characterized by the absence of
necessity. However, Kant even acknowledges that “philosophizing is a gradual
development of human reason, and this cannot have set forth, or even have begun,
upon the empirical path, and that by mere concepts” (Kant 1942, 340/417). The
object of a philosophical historiography is the same activity of philosophizing. It
cannot be properly presented in an empirical way, by means of an account proceed-
ing rhapsodically, without any kind of order except that of time. A history of phi-
losophy should be philosophical in turn: “A philosophizing history of philosophy is
itself possible, not historically or empirically, but rationally, i.e., a priori” (Kant
1942, 341/417). The historian of philosophy does not have to assume chronological
events as clues in his or her inquiry, but one must be able to grasp “a need of reason
(theoretical or practical) which obliged it to ascend from its judgments about things
to the grounds thereof” (Kant 1942, 340/417). More explicitly than in the final chap-
ter of Critique of Pure Reason, here Kant proposes an analogy between the process
through which philosophical reason becomes conscious of its own spontaneous
thinking (Selbstdenken) and reason’s historical work. Indeed, he explains that rea-
son initially starts from world-bodies and their motion, then it understands that
rational grounds can be sought concerning all things. This leads to the enumeration
2
On reason’s history in connection with Kant’s idea of system in philosophy see Ferrarin (2015b,
ch. 1).
3
the German edition.
48 D. Manca
of the concepts of reason by analyzing thinking in general without any kind of

object. In other words, the path that philosophy has followed in its own historical
evolution is similar to that which pure reason followed in the deduction when striv-
ing to fully know itself. The history of philosophy begins by tracing the ontological
principles in material entities such as water or air. In a similar way, the critique of
pure reason begins by analyzing sensible experience. If general logic has been com-
plete since Aristotle, it is due to the fact that it pertains to reason to seek its own
principles by considering thinking without any object. The facts of the history of
reason offer evidence of the outcomes of critical philosophy, and they lay the foun-
dations of a teleological account of the history of philosophy.4
Kant’s analogy between reason’s becoming in history and reason’s inner devel-
opment undoubtedly represents the starting point of any other attempt to sketch a
philosophizing history of philosophy such as those of Hegel and Husserl.
3 The Historicity of Philosophy
By insisting on the fact that history appears as a series of edifices in ruin, Kant dem-
onstrates his skepticism in attributing a historical development to reason. In the
Critique of Pure Reason, the reference to a history of pure reason seems to be
merely instrumental for justifying the validity and the necessity of critical philoso-
phy. In other words, the fact that the philosophy’s past is characterized by a series of
failures could suggest that the only reason Kant speaks of a history of reason is that
the right approach in philosophy had not yet been discovered before the advent of
the critical method. However, in the posthumous documents, Kant realizes more
explicitly than in the Critique that this situation of philosophy is not contingent;
rather, the historicity of reason is an effect of reason’s nature.
Reason grows internally; for the task of a philosophizing historiography of phi-
losophy should consist of reconstructing the moments of pure reason’s develop-
ment. From this perspective, the failures of philosophy in history appear as
consequences of reason’s innermost tendency toward totality. Kant points out that
reason has a natural propensity to overstep the boundaries of experience, finding
itself burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss; often, in history, this ten-
dency has led reason to build great edifices without solid foundations. Therefore, a
philosophizing historiography of philosophy serves to account for the limits of pre-
vious determinate philosophies and contributes to enlightening the task of a phi-
losophy to be.
Hegel and Husserl tackle the issue of how to conciliate the historicity of philoso-
phy with the aim of philosophical cognition to dealing with eternal truths in two
subtly different ways. I will analyze their accounts separately.
In the introduction to his Lectures on the history of philosophy, Hegel’s starting
point is that history is the field of what is transient, whereas philosophy seeks to deal
On the significance of Kant’s historiographical project see Micheli (2015).

4
with the eternal truth, namely with that which is necessary, not subject to change.
And yet philosophy undoubtedly has a history. This highlights two different issues
to be addressed.5
Firstly, the philosopher that deals with the problem of the historicity of philoso-
phy has to question the conviction that no eternal truth could be ascribed to a histori-
cally determined kind of knowledge. Secondly, he or she has to explain how it is
possible that truth is one, and philosophies, which aim to grasp it, are many.
Natural sciences have a history, too. They follow a continuative path character-
ized by successes and, of course, failures. However, whereas they share the same
goal and avoid continuously re-thinking their models and paradigms, the history of
philosophy seems conversely to be scattered in a mass of contrasting points of view,
which share no parameter, no task.
Regarding the first issue, notice that in Encyclopaedia § 6 Hegel claims that
“existence (Dasein) in general is partly appearance and only partly actuality.” In
common life, any transitory event could wrongly be called actual, but “even our
ordinary feelings are enough to forbid a fortuitous existence (Existenz) will not be
deemed to deserve the emphatic designation of being actual (wirklich); for by fortu-
itous we mean an existence which has no greater value than that of something pos-
sible, which may just as well not exist as exist” (Hegel 1830, 47/33, trans. emended).6
In his Science of Logic, Hegel identifies contingency with that which is merely
possible: “The contingent is an actual which is at the same time determined as only
possible, an actual whose other or opposite equally is” (Hegel 1813, 205/480).
Possibility stands in contrast to necessity. However, necessity in turn emerges from
a process involving the transformation of possibility into actuality. Hegel distin-
guishes between formal and real possibility. Formal possibility pertains to what is
merely conceivable. The opposite of a fact taken to be formally possible is formally
possible in turn. However, the conceivability of a fact is not enough to assure that a
possibility can be actualized. Each possibility requires the preliminary actualization
of some conditions to be actualized: “Whenever all the conditions of a fact are com-
pletely present, the fact is actually there” (Hegel 1813, 207/483). What is necessary
cannot be otherwise. Since real possibility depends on the actualization of a com-
plex set of conditions, it is, according to Hegel, only apparently different from
necessity. Necessity is relative. Since the range of conditions making a fact actualiz-
able appears to be a mere possibility in turn, then, the process through which a pos-
sibility becomes real depends on the contingent existence of its connected conditions.
This explains why Hegel concludes that necessity takes its start from, and thus
contains, the contingent.7
Substance must express itself throughout its own accidents. This entails not only
that the determinateness of necessity consists in having its negation, namely contin-
gency, within it, but also that it is necessity that determines itself as contingency.
5
See Hegel (1994, 1–10).
6
On the relationship between existence and actuality in Hegel see Marcuse (1987, 80–111).
7
See Henrich (1971, 157–165) and Mabille (1999, 177–212).
50 D. Manca
Substance has to be expressed by a range of contingent conditions. It is the capacity

of being one with its negation.
Applying this logical argument to the case of the historicity of reason, we may
claim that reason’s self-unfolding process necessarily assumes the form of contin-
gency in history.8 This does not imply that there is no eternal truth. The historical
form of reason’s development does not depend upon the limits of reason, but upon
the limits of the element through which reason manifests itself. Once the eternal
truth appears in history, it expresses its nature and, at the same time, differentiates
itself from that which is contingent. In other words, the eternal must come up against
the finite.
The history of philosophy tells us about the encounter of the eternal with the
finite. Such an encounter makes the destiny of two elements evident. The finite col-
lapses. The eternal stays alive. Both elements show what they are. The eternal makes
its necessity actual. The finite reveals itself to be transient. On this point Hegel is
particularly clear, in the introduction to his Lectures on the history of philosophy,
when making a distinction between two different ways to account for the self-
unfolding process of truth. One is that of logical philosophy. The other is that of
philosophical historiography. The logician focuses on such a process by being con-
scious of its necessity, whereas the historian investigates the same process by being
aware that its form is contingent. In the Encyclopaedia § 13 Hegel explicitly claims
that the history of philosophy portrays the stages in the evolution of the Idea as fol-
lowing each other “by accident” (Hegel 1830, 58/42).
Regarding the question as to how the unity of truth can be preserved before the
multiplicity of determined philosophies, we have to point out that Hegel resolutely
rejects the idea that truth is tautology. Truth is not undetermined. The truth is the
whole, and the whole is not only the result, but also the entire process through which
reason, understood as an ontological principle, actualizes itself. Truth is the unity of
many and diverse determinations. The most appropriate example of that is the life
of spirit: it is initially an embryo, that is, a person only in itself, but not for itself.
The human being is an individual spirit for itself when it has cultivated its own
rationality by making its own self-conscious freedom actual. However, in order to
actualize its own nature, spirit needs to undergo a development from the condition
in which it is like a child, “who after a long silent period of nourishment draws his
first breath and shatters the gradualness of merely quantitative growth,” to the con-
dition of cultural maturity (Hegel 1807, 18/5). The moments of this formation pro-
cess are not only distinguished from each other, but they are also incompatible with
each other. However, they have at the same time a fluid nature, which allows us to
take them to be moments of an organic unity that, in Kant’s terms, grows internally
and within which each moment is seen as being not only in conflict with the others,
but also as equally necessary as the others.
Applying this structure to the history of philosophy, we may say that no histori-
cally determined system of philosophy could yearn for being the full exposition of
8
By pursuing this idea, in Manca (2015b) I have outlined Hegel’s position regarding the quarrel
between the ancients and the moderns.
truth. Each particular philosophy is, however, a moment of the development of

truth. Each mirrors the whole from a partial point of view. Hence, past philosophies
are all modifications of the same truth and steps through which truth reaches the
current point of view. Of course, they are replaced and confuted by the systems that
follow. However, each determinate philosophy is equally as necessary as the other
and takes part in the life of a whole.9
Let me turn now to Husserl. In his Philosophy as rigorous science, Husserl
apparently excludes any possibility that a history of past philosophies could sustain
the development of philosophical investigation. Rather, he thinks that a historic-
philosophical activity diverts the attention of the philosopher from the impulse to
make philosophy a rigorous science. In the conclusion to his 1911 essay, indeed, he
states that “the impulse to research must proceed not from philosophies but from
things and from the problems connected with them; remaining immersed in the
historical dimension, forcing oneself to work therein in historico-critical activity
leads to nothing but hopeless efforts” (Husserl 1987, 61/196).
Nevertheless, Husserl paradoxically interprets this need of taking a distance
from the historico-critical activity as related to the historical situation of philosophy
in his times. This becomes explicit when he distinguishes the approach of Hegel
from that of some historians of philosophy who wrote between the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. In particular, historians such as Erdmann, Fischer and
Windelband clung to Hegel’s statement, according to which philosophy cannot
overstep its own time in order to proclaim the end of theoretical investigation after
Hegel, and, consequently, to establish that the future of philosophy would only have
been that of dealing with the history of philosophy. However, Husserl writes that the
doctrine according to which every philosophy finds a justification of itself in its
epoch alone, “in Hegel’s system, which pretended an absolute validity, had an
entirely different sense compared to that historic one attributed to it by those genera-
tions that had lost, along with their belief in Hegelian philosophy, any belief what-
soever in an absolute philosophy” (Husserl 1987, 7/31). Husserl is not an accurate
reader of Hegel at all. Nonetheless, he realizes that past philosophies like that of
Hegel “were surely philosophies of worldview, but they were scientific too, since
they keep the task of philosophy to become rigorous science alive” (Husserl 1987,
51/52).
In The Crisis of European Science, Husserl adopts a perspective that is not far
from that which he had attributed to Hegel since his 1911 essay.10 When the
9
On the relationship between determined philosophies and the universal idea of philosophy see
Ferrarin (2001, 31–54).
10
In the introduction to his Logos article, Husserl evidently misunderstands Hegel’s perspective
when criticizing it, because even though “Hegel insists on the absolute validity of his method and
his doctrine, still his system lacks a critique of reason, which is the foremost prerequisite for being
scientific in philosophy” (Husserl 1987, 5/168). By using a metaphor that Husserl adopted a page
before this statement, we may say that Husserl erroneously suggests here that Hegel’s system
keeps the traditional form of a system in metaphysics, according to which a system appears “like
a Minerva springing forth complete and full-armed from the head of some creative genius”
(Husserl 1987, 4/167). Instead, Husserl thinks that a philosophical system should be understood as
52 D. Manca
p henomenologist turns his or her attention to the role that philosophy plays in the
culture of his or her time, he or she realizes to be not only a disinterested onlooker,
but also a functionary of mankind. The phenomenologist is called to work to break
out of the normal way in which mundane subjectivity lives and thinks in order to let
human beings rediscover their own immanent telos.
More explicitly than in the past, in his last reflections, Husserl becomes aware of
the fact that the emergence of idealities out of the contingent sphere of history does
not occur by accident. The facticity of the contents of experience and the generativ-
ity of sense are two essential features of the world’s constitution.11 In other words,
it is necessary that the philosophical cognition of essences starts from that which is
acquired by historical experience, and it is equally necessary that philosophical cog-
nition improves and enhances its method and knowledge over history thanks to a
conflicting but steady relationship with its own tradition. This leads Husserl to dis-
tinguish the inner history of reason’s self-revelation from the mere history of facts.12
From this perspective, the intentions of a scientist like Galileo, for instance, can be
understood as a step toward the actualization of a transcendental comprehension of
the world. The idea of a geometric idealization allows Galileo to figure out a world-
horizon made up by form-limits. This is a necessary moment for the future, con-
scious adoption of eidetic seeing as a method to grasp the invariant elements of
variable experiences.
4 Some Models for the History of Reason
Though the binding affinities between Hegel and Husserl regarding the idea that the
history of philosophy plays a motivating role in the actualization of a scientific con-
ception of philosophical activity, the models and methods for a history of reason
that they outline and adopt do not necessarily coincide. In this final section I would
like to demonstrate that their points of contrast depend not only on a different mode
the product of “a gigantic preparatory work of generations, really begins from the ground up with
a foundation free of doubt and rises up like any skilful construction, wherein stone is set upon
stone, each as solid as the other, in accordance with directive insights” (Husserl 1987, 4/167).
Think of Hegel’s idea that spirit inwardly works in history like a mole. It would be enough to real-
ize that the model that Hegel adopts for his system in philosophy is not the traditional one. On
Hegel’s metaphor of the mole see Bodei (2014). For a comparison between Hegel’s idea of a think-
ing historian, which inspires his Phenomenology of Spirit, and Husserl’s depiction of the philoso-
pher as a functionary of mankind see Manca (2016, ch. 2.3).
11
On these key concepts of Husserl’s late phenomenology see Moran (2012, 142–146). On the
problematic issue of the presence of the ideal in the historical world see Dodd (2005, in particular
ch. 2).
12
In his groundbreaking study of 1974, Carr have demonstrated to what extent Husserl’s theory of
historicity paradoxically allows the philosopher to aspire to a ‘transhistorical truth’. On Husserl’s
concept of historicity in comparison with Hegel see also the recent study Stähler (2018).
of interpreting Kant’s idea of a history of reason, but also on an alternative mode of

conceiving reason itself.
Following Heidegger, scholars have often described Husserl as a thinker who
pays scarce attention to the history of philosophy. Yet, starting from his time in
Halle, Husserl taught courses in the history of philosophy.13
An important turning point occurs in the winter semester of 1923/1924 when
Husserl introduces the expression Kritische Ideengeschichte instead of the usual
term Geschichte der Philosophie. In this way, he emphasizes that when the histori-
cal activity of philosophy becomes a part of philosophical activity, the task is no
longer that of dealing with past philosophies, but that of shedding light on theoreti-
cal problems with the help of a historical look back (historischer Rückblick; cf.
Husserl 1959b, 5). In particular, here Husserl insists that the meaning of philosophi-
cal research can be illuminated only if one penetrates into the history motivating
such a research. However, the aim of a critical approach to the history of philosophy
does not consist in the revitalization of a perspective of the past, but in the themati-
zation of the history of a theoretical problem, starting from the needs of the
present.
This argumentation places Husserl very close to Kant’s view according to which
the history of reason should be focused on problems and issues rather than on the
experiences of past philosophers. In fact, similarly to Kant, in his 1923/1924 lec-
tures and in the first part of Crisis, Husserl describes the history of philosophy as a
battle between factions who adopt alternative approaches and defend different solu-
tions to the same problems.
Windelband sets the view of Kant against that of Hegel, according to which the
history of philosophy must proceed by grasping the inner principle animating the
peculiar perspective of each past philosopher. By contrast, in Husserl, the relation-
ship between a critical history of ideas and a history of past philosophies is extremely
ambiguous (Cf. Windelband 1907).
For instance, the reason Husserl appropriates Aristotle’s notion of ‘first philoso-
phy’ in his 1923/1924 lectures must not be found in the purpose of restoring an
Aristotelian approach to philosophy.14 Husserl explicitly states that he reintroduces
that expression because it has not been contaminated by historical sedimentation,
such as metaphysics. Husserl is more interested in the fact that that expression is
scarcely employed in modern times rather than in outlining the original meaning
that Aristotle ascribed to it (Cf. Husserl 1959b, 5). And yet, this way of proceeding
appears to be alternative to the one Husserl assumes in Crisis, whereby the inner
13
In Halle and Göttingen Husserl taught classes in the history of philosophy yearly. In Freiburg he
taught two courses in the history of philosophy between 1916 and 1918 before that of 1923/1924
concerning the critical history of ideas.
14
Sokolowski (2000, 62) held that “phenomenology restores the possibilities of ancient philoso-
phy, even while accounting for new dimensions such as the presence of modern science.
Phenomenology provides one of the best examples of how a tradition can be reappropriated and
brought to life again in a new context.” However, the way in which Husserl justifies his re-intro-
duction of the term “first philosophy” shows that a re-appropriation can never be considered as a
restoration, but rather as a re-elaboration, which always presupposes a sort of misunderstanding.
54 D. Manca
history of reason is seen as aiming to rediscover the original intentions of a philoso-

pher of the past, since they reveal the unconscious goals and instincts of reason’s
self-unfolding movement. When Husserl deals with Galileo’s revolution of the sci-
entific attitude, he is certainly interested, as has already been said, in establishing
the opportunities that this operation provides for the elaboration of a rigorous
method in philosophy; however, he does not see this interest as at all conflicting
with that of penetrating into the original motivation prompting Galileo to figure out
the possibility of an indirect mathematization of sensible data.
Thus, in Husserl, there is a tension between two models. One is much closer to
Kant’s conception of the history of reason and coincides with the approach that
Husserl calls “critical history of ideas.” The other conversely share more affinities
with Hegel’s view and can be identified with what Husserl calls “inner history,” but
which Fink and Klein designate as “intentional history.”15
Such a tension also explains why Jacob Klein and Derrida described Husserl’s
teleological conception of the history of philosophy in two contrasting ways.
Referring to Husserl’s definition of phenomenology as a science related to the
roots of all things, in his essay on Phenomenology and the History of Science, Klein
points out that it is particularly striking that Husserl employs the Empedoclean term
‘rhizome’ (rizoma in ancient Greek) instead of the much more frequently used
arché:
A ‘root’ is something out of which things grow until they reach their perfect shape. The
arché of a thing – at least in the traditional ‘classical’ sense of the term – is more directly
related to that perfect shape, and somehow indirectly to the actual beginning of the growth.
The ‘radical’ aspect of phenomenology is more important to Husserl than its perfection.
This is the attitude of a true historian. But it is obvious that the phenomenological approach
to the true beginnings requires a quite special kind of history. Its name is ‘intentional his-
tory.’ (Klein 1985, 69)16
Here Klein is implicitly contrasting Husserl’s view of a teleology of reason with that
of Kant, who in the Architectonic of Pure Reason describes philosophy as “a mere
idea of a possible science, which is nowhere given in concreto, but which one seeks
to approach in various ways until the only footpath […] is discovered, and the hith-
erto unsuccessful ectype […] is made equal to the archetype” (Kant 1781/1787, A
838/B 866).
In the appendix to Fortschritte zur Metaphysics, Kant explicitly shows that his
distinction between objective philosophy as a model and the determinate subjective
philosophies as after-images of it can be interpreted from the point of view of a his-
tory of reason. Subjective philosophies are the facts of reason, whereas the objective
system of philosophy represents the model on the basis of which one could assess
the capacity of each subjective philosophy to develop the inner principle of reason.
Accordingly, a philosophizing history of philosophy, which draws the facts of rea-
son from the nature of human reason, can be described as a “philosophical
See Hopkins (2011, 26) and Moran (2012, 168–170).

15
On Klein’s understanding of Husserl’s theory of the history of philosophy see Hopkins (2011,
16
11–32).
a rchaeology,” that is as a research aimed at accounting for the teleological develop-

ment of reason in history by taking as a parameter its original model.
In his essay entitled ‘Genesis and Structure’ and the Phenomenology, Derrida
states that Husserl’s concept of telos is more akin to that of Kant—according to
whom the telos (or Vorhaben) would be “an infinite anticipation which simultane-
ously is given as an infinite practical task-for” (Derrida 1967, 250/209)—rather than
to that of Hegel. Derrida interprets Hegel’s system of philosophy as a closed meta-
physics, whereas he holds that, since in Husserl’s philosophy telos is totally open,
and is opening itself, it represents “the concrete possibility, the very birth of history
and the meaning of becoming in general. Therefore it is structurally genesis itself,
as origin and as becoming” (Derrida 1967, 250/210).17
In other words, Derrida thinks that Hegel treats history in a way that keeps the
presuppositions of classical metaphysics intact. In Hegel’s view, history would only
be the field within which an independent logos, separately investigable, manifests
itself. On the contrary, by restoring a Kantian transcendental point of view, instead
of the speculative one, Husserl would revitalize the idea that the logos, namely the
meaning of the things themselves, occurs in history in an asymptotic way. In so
doing, Husserl would leave out the difference between the empiric and the eidetic
emerging without, however, presupposing a transcendent principle which is totally
foreign to human experience.
Although I do not agree with Derrida’s interpretation of Hegel’s metaphysics, I
acknowledge that there is a difference between Hegel’s and Husserl’s concept of
telos. It is rooted in differing ways of conceiving reason. For Hegel, reason coin-
cides with an objective principle which actualizes itself in history and finds in
human spirit the highest manifestation of its becoming, even if not the sole one. By
contrast, for Husserl, reason is the historical manifestation of transcendental consti-
tuting life. Such a manifestation regards exclusively human spirit, which in the
Crisis Husserl identifies with the self-objectification of transcendental life. By self-
objectification Husserl means the moment in which transcendental life makes itself
an object of the reflection of the ego. In other words, the self-objectification is the
condition for acquiring awareness of the constitutive process. However, the exis-
tence of reason in the form of human spirit coincides with the existence of transcen-
dental life in the form of being-outside-itself, or in that of forgetfulness.18
Accordingly, for Husserl, philosophical historiography can only deal with the mun-
dane manifestation of reason in history, just as for Hegel the philosophical histori-
ography deals with the accidental appearances of reason in time. However, while
Hegel acknowledges the primacy of reason’s self-actualization over its potential
17
See Lawlor (2002, 11–33).
18
Dealing with the awakening of philosophical reason, in his Sixth Meditation § 11c Fink (1988)
insists on the crucial role that the natural attitude of mundane subjectivity plays in the formation of
a phenomenological method. When he writes that “transcendental subjectivity becomes for-itself
in the constitutive dimension of ‘being-outside-itself’,” Husserl comments in the margin: “good.”
Accordingly, the constitutive dimension of “being-outside-itself” coincides with the self-objectifi-
cation of transcendental intersubjectivity in the teleological dimension of the history of human
reason.
56 D. Manca
development, Husserl is more interested in the formation of reason’s powers than in

their actual existence and exercise.
In Husserl there is always a gap between the actualization of world-constitution
and the self-actualization of transcendental life. The first form of actualization is
carried out when the life-world and the opposite pole of the mundane psychological
ego are constituted. Conversely, the second form of actualization reaches a full con-
stitution when philosophical subjectivity wakes up and, by means of the practice of
epochē, finds out that it is the principle guiding the world-constitution, namely
when it becomes aware of being the medium through which transcendental life
actualizes itself.19
In order to facilitate the full self-constitution of transcendental life, mundane
subjectivity has to train itself to think in a philosophical way. The history of philoso-
phy plays a key role in the formation of such a disposition, since it lets the phenom-
enologist focus on the previous attempts at carrying out the task of comprehending
the world in a philosophical way and acquiring more awareness of the potentialities
and the powers of reason.20
In light of all this, we may understand more profoundly why and to what extent
Husserl’s critical approach to the history of philosophy differs from Hegel’s specu-
lative approach.
First of all, Husserl tends to focus on the problems of philosophy rather than on
the singular interpreters of them. In other words, he aims to illuminate the powers
of reason. Similarly to Kant, Husserl takes into account the past philosophies only
as examples of failed attempts to put philosophy on the path to becoming science.
This does not entail that he sees in some perspectives of the past (such as the “dou-
ble star” Socrates-Plato, Galileo’s theoretical physics, Descartes’s meditations,
Hume’s skepticism, Kant and Fichte’s transcendental projects) some necessary
steps nourishing the impulse of philosophy to become a full science. However, it is
equally true that he seems to pay attention to these past philosophical experiences
only for the meaning that they can assume in light of, and on behalf of, his own
perspective. This becomes particularly evident in one of Crisis supplementary texts,
whereby Husserl glimpses the possibility of taking advantage of the dissemination
of historical reconstructions of past philosophy for strengthening the search for a
scientific method:
19
I deal with this issue in an article where I have discussed Husserl’s use of Aristotelian notion of
hexis for the account of the phenomenologizing subject. See Manca (2017).
20
With the reference to the powers of reason, I naturally intend to evoke Kant’s project. However,
notice that, as Kern 1964 and Ferrarin 2015a have already stressed, Husserl tends to expunge the
adjective ‘pure,’ which in his view coincides with formal, since the limit of Kant would be that of
overlooking the sphere of material a priori. In so doing, Husserl unwillingly finds himself to be
close to Hegel’s re-elaboration of Kant’s project, even if the final solutions of the two thinkers are
the antipodes of each other. I mean that, similarly to Hegel, Husserl thinks that philosophy should
not deal with pure reason only, but it should strive to overcome the opposition between the sphere
of the a priori and that of experience. On the other hand, while this conviction leads Hegel to speak
of a speculative and objective thinking, Husserl introduces the alternative idea of a transcendental
experience. On this point see Manca (2015a) and (2016).
In our epoch everyone has in his surrounding world […] a science of history, and in particu-
lar a scientific history of philosophy. […] What is, what must be, the significance of this for
the philosopher who thinks for himself? Is the lost work that he, unconcerned about scien-
tific historical study, has done under the guidance of, through the use of, his ‘unhistorical’
Plato, etc.? What kind of ‘poetic invention’ (Dichtung), what kind of historical interpreta-
tion is this? What kind is appropriate, and to what extent, to help us? How must we carry it
on […] in order to clarify our unclear consciousness of our telos? (Husserl 1959a, 512/394)
In Husserl’s view, for millennia philosophy could advance in naïve theorization; in

other words, through naïvely developed concepts, the philosophers of the past raise
ingenuous problems by in turn adopting naïve methodology. Even if skepticism
criticizes this approach from the outset, the sense of philosophy was never under-
mined. According to Husserl, this occurs because genuine philosophers have pro-
gressively learned throughout the history to conciliate the poetical elements of their
research with a critical approach. More specifically, they have learned that their
‘poetic invention of the history of philosophy’ would not remain fixed, but that
every invention of the past serves them in understanding themselves, their aims and
their relations to the inventions of others.21
Therefore, in Husserl’s view, the historical activity of the philosopher can be
divided into two moments. The first is the poetical one. It puts the philosopher in
connection to the historical tradition which “entered into him or her in a motivating
way and as a spiritual sediment” (Husserl 1959a, 513/395). The second is the criti-
cal one. It allows the philosopher to grasp what is common to the inventions of past
philosophers, and to learn from the errors of others.
This view of the historic-philosophical activity is quite close to that which Hegel
adopts in the Phenomenology of Spirit. His 1807 masterpiece is nothing but the
research through which Hegel reconstructs the tradition influencing the culture of
his epoch. Here the poetic element lies in the choice to present the development of
spirit in history through a succession of figures (Gestalten), while the critical ele-
ment can be found in the ongoing skepticism bringing consciousness to question its
certainties and to seek new images for describing the acquired awareness of its
historical condition. However, Hegel’s aim in this text is to get rid of all historical
conditions in order to distinguish that which is contingent from that which con-
versely has to be understood as the manifestation of eternal truth in a determined
epoch. Thus, unlike Husserl, through the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel releases
his philosophical approach from the dichotomy between poetic invention and criti-
cal consideration and lays the foundations for a thinking consideration of history.
After, and thanks to, the Phenomenology of Spirit, the starting point of Hegel will
no longer be the culture of its epoch, but at most the philosophical principle of his
own epoch, that is, Kant’s and Fichte’s idea that subjectivity has to be conceived as
producing the a priori forms of the world. More specifically, after the Phenomenology
of Spirit, Hegel progressively abandons the idea of presenting history as a gallery of
21
As Moran (2012, 146) has explained, here Husserl maintains that “philosophers engage with
their history as poets do with their tradition, reconstituting it and re-founding it through their own
creative activity and engagement in a kind of poetic invention or ‘poetizing’”
58 D. Manca
images and endorses the idea that each determinate philosophy could be seen as
interpreting a specific articulation of the logical deduction of thought-determinations.
From this point of view, Spinoza, for instance, becomes the interpreter of the idea
of substance as causa sui, namely as self-determination. Kant’s idea of an a priori
synthesis should be understood as the modern re-elaboration of the ancient concep-
tion of a unity of the opposites (subject and object, the sphere of thinking and that
of being).
To conclude, Hegel could not share Husserl’s interpretation of the history of
philosophy in terms of a history of ideas. Husserl appropriates the Kantian idea
according to which the objects of a history of reason are specific constellations of
problems. Windelband rightly sets this idea against that of Hegel,22 according to
which the sequence in the systems of philosophy in history is the same as the
sequence in the thought-determinations of the Idea. Such a statement of Hegel is
undoubtedly disputable.23 However, the choice of configuring the history of reason
as a history of the ways in which some specific constellations of problems have been
treated in history misses a key point of Hegel’s speculative perspective. Instead of a
history of ideas, Hegel thinks that we should more accurately speak of a history of
the Idea. In his view, by keeping the plurality of the ideas one cannot realize that
each constellation of problems represents a particular determination of the logos
understood as a complex whole.
References
Bodei, Remo. 2014. La civetta e la talpa. Sistema ed epoca in Hegel. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Carr, David. 1974. Phenomenology and the Problem of History. A Study of Husserl’s Transcendental
Derrida, Jacques. 1967. “Genèse et structure” et la phenomenology. In L’Ecriture et la differ-
ence, 229–252. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Trans. Alan Bass: ‘Genesis and Structure’ and
Phenomenology. In Writing and Difference, 1978, 193–211. London/New York: Routledge.
Dodd, James. 2005. Crisis and Reflection. An Essay on Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences.
Dordrecht/London/New York: Kluwer.
Ferrarin, Alfredo. 2001. Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2011. Hegel’s Aristotle: Philosophy and Its Time. In A Companion to Hegel, ed. Stephen
Houlgate and Michael Baur. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
———. 2015a. From the World to Philosophy, and Back. In Phenomenology in a New Key:
Between Analysis and History, Essays in Honor of Richard Cobb-Stevens, ed. Jeffrey Bloechl
and Nicolas de Warren, 63–92. Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer.
22
It is probable that Windelband’s approach influenced that of Husserl. In a letter to Rickert from
December 20, 1915, Husserl states that the reading of Windelband’s Geschicte der Philosophie
makes him feel longing for the “old romantic land of German Idealism” (Husserl 1994, 179).
23
For instance, Ferrarin (2011) demonstrates that Hegel’s interpretation of Aristotle is not compat-
ible with his claim according to which philosophy is and remains its time grasped in thought.
Nuzzo (2003) shows the limits of the idea according to which there is a strict parallelism between
thought-determination in logic and the determined philosophies in history.
———. 2015b. The Powers of Pure Reason. Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy. Chicago/
London: The University of Chicago Press.
Fink, Eugen. 1988. VI Cartesianische Meditation. Teil 1: Die Idee einer transzendentalen
Methodenlehre. Texte aus dem Nachlass Eugen Finks (1932) mit Anmerkungen und Beilagen
aus dem Nachlass Edmund Husserl (1933/34), Husserliana Dokumente, vol. 2/1. Ed. Hans
Ebeling, Jann Holl, and Guy Van Kerckhoven. Dordrect/Boston/London: Kluwer. Trans.
Ronald Bruzina: Sixth Cartesian Meditation: The Idea of a Transcendental Theory of Method,
1995. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1807. Phenomenologie des Geistes. In Hegel 1969-71, vol. 3. Ed.
Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. Terry Pinkard:
The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Terry Pinkard, updated 10 July 2013, draft for Cambridge
University Press available on translator’s personal blog http://terrypinkard.weebly.com/phe-
nomenology-of-spirit-page.html. Accessed 30 July 2018.
———. 1813. Wissenschaft der Logik, II. Zweites Buch: Lehre von Wesen. In Hegel 1969-71,
vol. 6. Ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans.
and ed. George Di Giovanni: The Science of Logic: The Doctrine of Essence, 2010, 337–505.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1830. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Wissenschaft der
Logik. In Hegel 1969-71, vol. 8. Ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt
a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. and ed. Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom: Encyclopedia
of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline. Part I: Science of Logic, 2010. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
——— 1969–71. Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel,
Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1983. Vorlesungen. Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte. Hamburg: Meiner.
———. 1994. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I. Einleitung, Orientalische
Philosophie. In Hegel 1983, vol. 6. Ed. Pierre Garniron and Walter Jaeschke, Hamburg:
Meiner. Trans. considered (often emended though) Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and Frances
H. Simson: Lectures on the History of Philosophy, on the basis of Michelet’s edition 1940,
originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, London: Trübner, 1892–1896, new version with
an introduction of Frederick C. Beiser, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.
Henrich, Dieter. 1971. Hegel im Kontext. Frankfurt a. M: Suhrkamp.
Hopkins, Burt. 2011. The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics. Edmund Husserl and
Jacob Klein. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Husserl, Edmund. 1950-. Husserliana. The Hague: Nijhoff. 1950–1987; Dordrecht/Boston/
London: Kluwer 1988–2004; Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer 2011.
———. 1959a. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. In Husserl 1950-,
vol. 6. Ed. W. Biemel. The Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. David Carr: The Crisis of European Sciences
and Transcendental Phenomenology. An introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, 1970.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1959b. Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil: Kritische ideengeschichte. In Husserl
1950-, vol. 7. Ed. Rudolf Boehm. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1987. Philosophie als Strenge Wissenschaft. In Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1911–1921.
In Husserl 1950-, vol. 25. Mit ergänzenden Texten. Ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner
Sepp, 3–67. The Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. Quentin Lauer: Philosophy as rigorous science, in:
Phenomenology and the Crisis of Man, 1965, 29–196. New York: Harper & Row.
———. 1994. Briefwechsel: Die Neukantianer. In Husserl 1950-, Dokumente, vol. 3.5. Ed.
Elisabeth and Karl Schuhmann. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781/1787. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In Kant 1902-, vol. 3 and 4. Berlin:
Reimer. Trans and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood: Critique of pure reason, 1998. Cambridge:
———. 1902-. In Akademie-Ausgabe, ed. Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.
Berlin: Reimer 1902–1921; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1922.
60 D. Manca
———. 1942. Preisschrift über die Fortschritte der Metaphysik. In Kant 1902-, vol. 20, 253–
332. Berlin: Reimer. Trans. and ed. Henry Allison, Peter Heath, Gary Hatfield, and Michael
Friedman: What real progress has metaphysics made in Germany since the time of Leibniz and
Wolff (1793/1804). In Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, 337–424. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2010.
Kern, Iso. 1964. Husserl und Kant. Eine Untersuchung über Husserls Verhältnis zu Kant und zum
Neukantianismus. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Klein, Jacob. 1985. Phenomenology and the History of Science. In Lectures and Essays, ed. Robert
B. Williamson and Elliot Zucherman. Annapolis: St. Johns’s College Press.
Lawlor, Leonard. 2002. Derrida and Husserl. The Basic Problem of Phenomenology. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Mabille, Bernard. 1999. L’épreuve de la contingence. Paris: Aubier.
Manca, Danilo. 2015a. Hegel e Husserl sull’intelligibilità della filosofia. In Hegel e la fenomeno-
logia trascendentale, ed. D. Manca, E. Magrì, and A. Ferrarin, 141–160. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
———. 2015b. Hegel e la disputa tra Antichi e Moderni. Revista Eletrônica Estudos Hegelianos
XII (19): 21–55. http://ojs.hegelbrasil.org/index.php/reh/article/view/5/6 Accessed 30 July
2018.
———. 2016. Esperienza della ragione. Hegel e Husserl in dialogo. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
———. 2017. The phenomenologizing subject as an active power: An Aristotelian model
for Husserl’s theory of subjectivity. In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and
Phenomenological Philosophy, XV/2017, 247–268.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1987. Hegels Ontologie und die Grundlegung einer Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit,
Frankfurt a. M: Klostermann 1968. Trans. Seyla Benhabib: Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of
Historicity, Cambridge/London: MIT Press.
Micheli, Giuseppe. 2015. Philosophy and Historiography: The Kantian Turning-Point. In Models
of the History of Philosophy, The Second Enlightenment and the Kantian Age, ed. Gregorio
Piaia and Giovanni Santinello, vol. III, 697–768. Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/
London: Springer.
Moran, Dermot. 2012. Husserl’s Crisis of The European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology. An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nuzzo, Angelica. 2003. Hegel’s Method for a History of Philosophy: The Berlin Introductions to
the Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1819-1831). In Hegel’s History of Philosophy. New
Interpretations, ed. David A. Duquette, 19–34. Albany: SUNY.
Sokolowski, Robert. 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Stähler, Tanja. 2018. Hegel, Husserl and the Phenomenology of Historical Worlds. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Windelband, Wilhelm. 1907. Geschichte der Philosophie. In Die Philosophie im Beginn des zwan-
zigsten Jahrhunderts. Festschrift für Kuno Fischer, ed. W. Windelband, 529–554. Heidelberg:
Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung.
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. 1980. Kant and the Philosophy of History. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism
and Its Implications for Husserl’s Dream
of Rigorous Science
Chong-Fuk Lau
Abstract Hegel sees philosophy as the only rigorous science that does not have
any presupposition, but he rejects the possibility of an absolute foundation for phi-
losophy, instead maintaining that only the system as a whole can be free from all
presuppositions. Hegel’s system lays claim to presuppositionlessness, not on the
ground of any presuppositionless beginning, but rather as a holistic system of con-
cepts in which inevitable presuppositions are made transparent and comprehended.
This paper examines Hegel’s analysis of the concept of immediacy and his critique
of the foundationalist conception of philosophy. Although Hegel’s critique is tar-
geted against his predecessors and contemporaries, it has important implications for
Husserl’s phenomenology, which represents one of the most ambitious foundation-
alist projects in the history of philosophy. The final part discusses the later develop-
ment of Husserl’s thought and his introduction of the concept of lifeworld in light of
Hegel’s critique.
Keywords Hegel · Husserl · Foundationalism · Presuppositionlessness · Lifeworld
1 I
There is hardly any philosopher who pursues a more ambitious philosophical proj-
ect than Hegel. Standing on the summit of German Idealism, Hegel explicitly
defines his philosophy as the system of absolute truth, even considering the content
presented in his Science of Logic to be “the exposition of God as he is in his eternal
essence before the creation of nature and of a finite spirit” (Hegel 1832, 44/29).1 For
such an ambitious philosophy, the problem of a secure foundation occupies a par-
ticularly crucial role. Hegel believes that philosophy as the only true science cannot
1
the German edition.
C.-F. Lau (*)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
e-mail: cflau@cuhk.edu.hk

62 C.-F. Lau
be based on any presupposition, but it has to meet the demand for “the complete
absence of any presupposition [gänzliche Voraussetzungslosigkeit an allem]”
(Hegel 1830, § 78, 168/125).2
For Hegel, it is clear from the outset that, if there is an ultimate foundation for
philosophy, the foundation must be something that is absolutely immediate.
Otherwise, it would not be an ultimate foundation, as it would be mediated by
something which is, ex hypothesi, more fundamental than it.
The beginning must then be absolute or, what means the same here, must be an abstract
beginning; and so there is nothing that it may presuppose, must not be mediated by anything
or have a ground, ought to be rather itself the ground of the entire science. It must therefore
be simply an immediacy, or rather only immediacy itself. (Hegel 1832, 68–69/48)
It is interesting to note that the major systematic works of Hegel, the Phenomenology
of Spirit, the Science of Logic, and the Logic of the Encyclopedia, all include, in
their beginnings, a criticism of the concept of immediacy or the philosophical stand-
point that is based on it. While the discussion of “sense-certainty” in the beginning
of the Phenomenology is a refutation of the standpoint of immediate knowledge, the
first chapter of the Science of Logic on the category of Being can be understood as
a logical analysis of the internal inconsistency of the concept of immediacy. In addi-
tion, before the main texts of the Logic of the Encyclopedia and the Science of
Logic, Hegel uses in each case a separate section to eliminate the common misun-
derstandings associated with the problems of immediate knowing and beginning.
While in the “Preliminary Conception [Vorbegriff]” of the Logic of the Encyclopedia,
the position of immediate knowing is analysed as the third position of thought
towards objectivity, there is a whole section in the Science of Logic dedicated to the
question “With What Must the Beginning of Science be Made?”. In all these pas-
sages, Hegel argues consistently against the possibility of an absolute beginning of
philosophy, or, more precisely, against the idea of an absolute philosophy according
to the traditional foundationalist conception.
While ancient philosophy is primarily interested in a metaphysical first principle,
such as the One, nous, idea, or substance, modern philosophy since Descartes turns
to focus on an absolute beginning qua an absolutely grounded cognition. Pure
thinking, sensuous experience, consciousness, or subjectivity itself prove to be rep-
resentative candidates in this direction. Yet, Hegel points out that each and every one
of the above candidates is immediate in one or another sense, but none is absolutely
immediate. Hegel claims that the same thing can be, or even must be, immediate and
mediated at the same time:
there is nothing in heaven or nature or spirit or anywhere else that does not contain just as
much immediacy as mediation, so that both these determinations prove to be unseparated
and inseparable and the opposition between them nothing real (Hegel 1832, 66/46).3
2
More precisely, “[p]hilosophy lacks the advantage from which the other sciences benefit, namely
the ability to presuppose both its objects as immediately endorsed by representation of them and
an acknowledged method of knowing, which would determine its starting-point and progression”
(Hegel 1830, §1, 41/28).
3
In another passage, Hegel explains that “[i]t is only the ordinary abstract understanding that
regards the determinations of immediacy and mediation each for itself as absolute and supposes
itself to have a firm distinction in them” (Hegel 1830, § 70, 160/119).
Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism and Its Implications for Husserl’s Dream… 63
According to Hegel, it is the ordinary understanding which is responsible for the

abstract separation between immediacy and mediation. Therefore, if philosophy
pursues a presuppositionless and absolutely immediate beginning, it will be con-
demned to failure.
If there is an absolute foundation for philosophy, it would be a kind of “immedi-
ate knowledge”, no matter what is taken to be the primary source of knowledge. But
the very idea of immediate knowledge is internally inconsistent. It is clear that
knowing, just like thinking, cannot do without concepts. Every concept obtains its
specific content by virtue of its complex relation to other concepts, by distinguish-
ing itself in a specific way from other concepts. Conceptual thinking is thus, in
Kant’s word, discursive in nature (Kant 1781/1787, A 68/B 93). Since knowing is
always based on thinking of something in a determinate way by means of concepts,
it is also necessarily discursive, unless one possesses a kind of God-like power such
as “intellectual intuition” (Kant 1787, B 72), which would allow direct access to
reality. Immediate knowledge, therefore, contradicts the ordinary conception of
knowledge, as it would mean knowing without (discursive) thinking. For this rea-
son, those philosophers who advocate immediate knowledge tend to avoid using
words such as “knowledge” or “cognition”, but prefer using terms such as “intel-
lectual intuition” or “faith” (Glaube).
The inclination to immediate knowledge at Hegel’s time was mainly motivated
by the Romantic movement, which responded to Kant’s critical philosophy with a
skeptical attitude toward the capability of discursive thinking and human language
(Lau 2004). Jacobi’s argument against the possibility of comprehending the
Absolute or God by means of conceptual thinking contributes substantially to the
spirit of that epoch. Jacobi recognizes that the comprehension of an object consists
in grasping what it is by means of appropriate concepts. The concepts specify the
conditions under which the object is what it is, distinguishing it from other objects
to which the conditions do not apply. Accordingly, to comprehend an object is
always to grasp it conceptually in the form of something conditioned. The prob-
lem, however, is that the Absolute or God is, ex hypothesi, something that is infinite
and unconditioned. To acquire conceptual knowledge of God would require us to
grasp and express the conditions of something that is unconditioned, which is,
according to Jacobi, a logically impossible requirement that accounts for the nec-
essary failure of all attempts to comprehend God in human language and concepts.
Any conceptual comprehension of God would unavoidably distort what it should
be, reducing it to something that is conditioned and mediated. Considering this,
Jacobi suggests that God can never be “known” in the ordinary way, but it is only
accessible to us through “faith” (Jacobi 1994, 370–78). This is Jacobi’s way of
reinterpreting Kant’s famous maxim “to deny knowledge in order to make room for
faith” (Kant 1787, B XXX).
Although faith is supposed to be a kind of immediate, noninferential, and
extraconceptual “knowledge”, Hegel points out that even this conception of faith
necessarily involves mediation. As long as what is expressed under the name of
faith still lays claim to truth in the traditional sense, then it supposes that a belief
corresponds to what is the case in reality. This means, in fact, that the very idea of
faith involves mediation between subjective belief and objective state of affairs.
64 C.-F. Lau
In Hegel’s words, the principle of immediate knowing insists on “the unity of the
idea with being”, in which “it is posited that one determination possesses truth only
by virtue of being mediated by the other or, if you like, that each is mediated with
the truth only through the other” (Hegel 1830, §70, 159–60/119). The mediation
between believing and being belongs necessarily to the nature of faith.
What the position of immediate knowledge can at most strive for is that this
mediation is not further mediated by any other grounds. But even in this weakened
sense, the idea of immediate knowledge is still problematic. Since immediate
knowledge, ex hypothesi, is not based on any rational, inferential grounds, its valid-
ity is either unexplained or is quasi-explained by an appeal to an exotic source, such
as divine revelation or intellectual intuition. The position of immediate knowing
normally excludes direct sensuous perception as a legitimate source of immediate
knowledge, since perceptual knowledge is mediated by our sense apparatus and
subject to various kinds of perceptual illusions. The advocates of immediate know-
ing, therefore, prefer to trust other mystical powers of the intellect which promise a
direct and faithful access to the ultimate reality. This, however, means a straight
denial of rational discourse and logical argumentation. In this connection, Hegel
complains that “[i]ntellectual intuition might well be the violent rejection of media-
tion and of demonstrative, external reflection” (Hegel 1832, 78/55).
The upshot of this rejection is not a direct access to reality, but rather an arbitrary
affirmation of subjective convictions. In fact, what is affirmed through faith or intel-
lectual intuition is mediated by a complex set of historically, socially, culturally
conditioned factors.4 Immediate knowledge is considered to be immediate only
because the complex mediations are ignored. Immediate knowledge is nothing bet-
ter than an assertion of what is subjectively considered valid. Every particular indi-
vidual mind can arbitrarily assert under the name of immediate knowledge what it
happens to find convincing at a certain time moment. Hegel diagnoses the problem
as follows:
Because the fact of consciousness rather than the nature of the content is set up as the crite-
rion of truth, the basis for what is alleged be true is subjective knowing [Wissen] and the
assurance that I find a certain content in my consciousness. What I find in my consciousness
is thereby inflated to mean what is found in everyone’s consciousness and alleged to be the
nature of consciousness itself. (Hegel 1830, §71, 160/119)
There is, indeed, a deep-rooted paradox in the foundationalist conception. If there

is an absolutely grounded or immediate knowledge, then there can be, ex hypothesi,
no further justification for it; otherwise, the justification would be more fundamen-
tal than that knowledge itself. However, if there can be, in principle, no further
4
A good example is Jacobi’s famous claim that “[t]hrough faith we know that we have a body, and
that there are other bodies and other thinking beings outside us. A veritable and wondrous revela-
tion!” (Jacobi 1994, 231). The claim indeed shows the opposite of what it intends to show. There
is a complex process of learning through which we acquire the basic criteria for judging validity.
On the basis of the adopted criteria, this common-sense belief appears to be immediately evident
in normal circumstances. But a simple philosophical reflection already suffices to show that that
belief is far from being certain and infallible. Its objective validity is subject to rational evaluation,
and it is not immediate in the required sense.
justification, there will never be any explanation for why the immediate knowledge
is true instead of false, or why this belief instead of another one constitutes the abso-
lute foundation. Hegel, therefore, points out that the alleged foundation is, in the
final analysis, nothing but a contingent “fact of consciousness”.
2 II
Nevertheless, there are a few concepts or principles which seem to enjoy a privi-
leged position in the pursuit of absolute foundation. Since Descartes, modern phi-
losophy has cultivated special affection for the thinking subject itself. It appears to
be more than a contingent “fact of consciousness” whereby I affirm my own exis-
tence. Hegel also sees the privileged status of this candidate, leading him to deal
with it in greater depth:
For the “I,” this immediate consciousness of the self, appears from the start to be both itself
an immediate something and something with which we are acquainted in a much deeper
sense than with any other representation; true, anything else known belongs to this “I,” but
it belongs to it as a content which remains distinct from it and is therefore accidental; the
“I,” by contrast, is the simple certainty of its self. (Hegel 1832, 76/53)
According to Hegel’s interpretation, the “I” combines two significant characteristics

in itself, granting it a special status. On the one hand, the “I” is something with
which everyone is directly familiar. If there is anything that is immediately known,
the straightforward answer will be my own self. On the other hand, the “I” is some-
thing that must be presupposed in every conscious experience. While different con-
scious experiences come and go in a continual flux, there must be an identical self
in which the changing experiences take place. In this sense, the “I” is not something
merely contingent, but something of which one is immediately certain.
However, Hegel points out that two different dimensions of the “I” have been
mixed up. If the “I” is taken as a pure self or transcendental consciousness, then
this pure “I” is now not immediate, is not the familiar, ordinary “I” of our consciousness to
which everyone immediately links science. … that pure “I,” on the contrary, in its abstract,
essential nature, is to ordinary consciousness an unknown, something that the latter does
not find within itself. (Hegel 1832, 76/53–54)
This resembles Hume’s argument against the traditional conception of the soul,
which points out that one can never “perceive something simple and continued,
which he calls himself”, but only “a bundle or collection of different perceptions,
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement” (Hume 2000, 165). Hegel agrees with Hume’s thesis that a simple
and continued self is not perceivable in one’s mind, but he does not subscribe to
Hume’s conclusion that the self is nothing but a “bundle of perceptions”. Even if the
pure “I” is not an object of empirical perception, it does not mean that there is no
such thing as a pure “I” or transcendental consciousness. Although the “I” is not a
directly accessible object in empirical consciousness, it is a proper object of
66 C.-F. Lau
philosophical reflection through an “elevation to the standpoint of pure knowing”

(Hegel 1832, 76/53). How this elevation can be achieved does not concern us here,
but since an elevation is needed, this pure “I” cannot serve as a point of departure.
Instead, the comprehension of the pure “I” is the goal that philosophy strives to
attain.
If the self is taken as an empirical object, then it is the one with which we are
acquainted. The problem, however, is that it is no longer simple consciousness, but
rather “the consciousness of itself as an infinitely manifold world” (Hegel 1832,
76/53). In this sense, the self is equally mediated by all sorts of contingent condi-
tions that lie behind other conscious experiences. It is quite obvious that the self, as
it appears in the inner sense, is not an identical and continued consciousness but a
changing and indistinct consciousness. Internal consciousness lacks even the regu-
larity that is observed in external experiences, leading philosophers such as Kant to
deny the possibility of empirical psychology based on inner sense (Kant 2002, 186).
Empirical self-consciousness lacks the kind of universality and necessity that an
absolute foundation of philosophy demands. Hegel thus concludes that neither the
pure nor the empirical “I” can serve as an absolute beginning for philosophy.
However, the objection could be made that empirical self-consciousness does
enjoy a kind of epistemological privilege. As Descartes suggests, even though I can
be mistaken in my judgment about the external world, the fact that I have a certain
conscious experience in my mind can never be wrong, provided that I am really
conscious of it and do not take it as an objective judgment about the external world.
There are, of course, events that temporally precede and cause the emergence of a
particular conscious experience and thus can be considered as the conditions of it.
But what is given directly to consciousness can still claim to be evident and immedi-
ate in the sense that there is no external criterion for its validity. In other words, a
first-person description of private conscious experiences is noninferential and infal-
lible. Does this kind of introspective statement offer a reliable foundation for
philosophy?
In the first chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel deals with the alleg-
edly most primordial and immediate form of knowledge called “sense-certainty”. In
a way, Hegel’s phenomenological analysis does respond to the previously stated
problem, although the formulation of the position of sense-certainty is a different
one. The self-proclaimed immediate knowledge of sense-certainty assumes that if
we avoid all kinds of subjective interventions and stick strictly to what is presented
directly to the mind, the knowledge attained is the truest, the richest, and the most
certain, since, in so doing, things appear truly and authentically as they are without
any distortion. In Hegel’s words:
The concrete content of sensuous-certainty permits itself to appear immediately as the rich-
est cognition, indeed, as a knowing of an infinite wealth for which no limit is to be found,
whether we venture out into the reaches of space and time as the place where that wealth
extends itself, or when we take a piece out of this plenitude, divide it, and thereby delve into
it. In addition, it appears as the most veritable, for it has not omitted anything from its
object, but rather, has its object in its complete entirety before itself. (Hegel 1807, 82/63)
In order to achieve this passive ideal, the position of sense-certainty is not allowed
to use any concept to address its objects. In other words, the price of avoiding all
subjective interventions is that objects cannot be identified conceptually or termino-
logically; the final resort is to use an indexical term such as “this” or “that” to refer
to what is meant or intended.
Taking up the basic stance of sense-certainty, Hegel proceeds to unveil the inter-
nal inconsistency of this position. If asked which one is the object intended, the
advocate of sense-certainty can only answer by saying “this” or “that” with a point-
ing gesture. One might mean a particular object here or there, but the answer itself,
the “this” or the “that”, does not specify anything, since it can be used to refer to
anything. In ordinary situations, we can certainly use the words “this” or “that” to
address a specific object, but the successful application of an indexical term presup-
poses an understood context, which again presupposes a conceptual and linguistic
background for communications. However, in order to be faithful to the position of
sense-certainty, the application of the indexical terms must be abstracted from their
linguistic-conceptual background, which is thought to be a kind of subjective
restriction that will distort the true appearance of objects. However, the words “this”
or “that”, taken abstractly, do not refer to anything specific. Without language and
concepts, the position of sense-certainty cannot even determine which object is
intended, let alone formulate or express any knowledge about the object. That is
why Hegel concludes that “this [sense-]certainty in fact yields the most abstract and
the very poorest truth” (Hegel 1807, 82/58). The position of sense-certainty proves
to be a preconceptual, prelinguistic, and thus precognitive attitude toward objects,
having not yet entered into the sphere of cognitions at all.
The insight Hegel obtains in the phenomenological analysis of sense-certainty is
a simple but penetrating one. Identification of objects necessarily involves language
and concepts, without which we could not even distinguish among different private
conscious experiences. Without language and concepts, it is not only impossible to
say or tell anything determinate, but also to determine internally what one really
means or intends. We cannot fix a private conscious experience by merely looking
or gazing at it in one’s consciousness. In order to attend to a specific conscious rep-
resentation one has to be able to distinguish it from others, but this again presup-
poses a linguistic-conceptual framework under which the differences between
different representations can be articulated. In other words, everything that appears
in consciousness, in so far as it is identifiable, has already been mediated by our
linguistic-conceptual understanding that penetrates into every activity of our mind.
As language and concepts are developed and continuously developing in a complex
process involving various contingent factors, the access to anything that seems to be
presented directly and immediately to consciousness is inevitably mediated by a
complex set of social, cultural, and historical conditions. Stated somewhat exag-
geratedly, the totality of a linguistic-conceptual system together with its correspond-
ing worldview is hidden behind every “immediate” consciousness.
68 C.-F. Lau
3 III
Suppose that Hegel’s arguments are sound, then, with what can his Logic, the foun-
dation of his philosophical system, begin? Hegel’s answer is: “Being, pure being –
without further determination” (Hegel 1832, 82/59).5 The underlying reason for this
choice is as follows:
It [the beginning] must therefore be simply an immediacy, or rather only immediacy itself.
Just as it cannot have any determination with respect to an other, so too it cannot have any
within; it cannot have any content, for any content would entail distinction and the reference
of distinct moments to each other, and hence a mediation. The beginning is therefore pure
being. (Hegel 1832, 69/48)6
In terms of reflection-expressions (Reflexionsausdrücke), which express the concep-

tual content of a concept and could be called second-order expressions, the begin-
ning is indeterminate immediacy. The true concept, or the first-order expression, of
this formal characteristic of a true beginning is, according to Hegel, nothing but
“pure being”. The point is that, in the very beginning with which philosophy begins,
where further determinations have yet to be made, nothing has yet been determined.
It is simply indeterminate and empty. The true beginning is presuppositionless in the
sense of being determinationless (Lau 2000, 307–14). In a sense, every determina-
tion is a presupposition. If philosophy aims at a presuppositionless foundation, the
beginning can only be something completely indeterminate and empty.
Hegel has also considered a beginning which is very close to the maxim of phe-
nomenology, namely, beginning “directly with the fact itself [Sache]”. But Hegel
points out:
well then, this subject matter is nothing else than that empty being. For what this subject
matter is, that is precisely what ought to result only in the course of the science, what the
latter cannot presuppose to know in advance. On any other form otherwise assumed in an
effort to have a beginning other than empty being, that beginning would still suffer from the
same defects. (Hegel 1832, 75/53)
In the very beginning, pure being is so empty that it cannot yet be distinguished
from other concepts. “If any determination or content were posited in it as distinct,
or if it were posited by this determination or content as distinct from an other, it
would thereby fail to hold fast to its purity. It is pure indeterminateness and empti-
ness” (Hegel 1832, 82/59). Beginning with such an empty being, however, does not
really look attractive for an ambitious philosophical project. Is this empty or pure
being really free from all presuppositions? Doesn’t the reflection through which
5
Noteworthy is the fact that the first sentence of the main text of the Logic is, in fact, not a complete
sentence, but an anacoluthon (Wieland 1978).
6
Another formulation in the Logic of the Encyclopedia is as follows: “When beginning with think-
ing, we have nothing but thought in the sheer absence of any determination of it, since for a deter-
mination one and an other are required. In the beginning, however, we have as yet no other. The
indeterminate, as we have it here, is the immediate, not the mediated absence of determination, not
the sublation of all determinacy; but the immediacy of the absence of determination, the absence
of determination prior to all determinacy, the indeterminate as the very first. But this is what we
call ‘being’” (Hegel 1830, §86, 184/137).
Hegel arrives at this beginning itself presuppose a good deal of operational con-
cepts, argumentative principles, and an idea of presuppositionless philosophy? Isn’t
Hegel’s criticism also applicable to the beginning of his Logic? Well, of course, it
is! And Hegel is certainly aware of it.
Pure being is absolutely immediate, not because it is not mediated by anything
else, but rather because it is taken or considered as absolutely immediate in so far as
all mediations are set aside. From another point of view,
It is in this respect that this pure being, this absolute immediate, is just as absolutely medi-
ated. However, just because it is here as the beginning, it is just as essential that it should be
taken in the one-sidedness of being purely immediate. (Hegel 1832, 72/50)
It does not yet have any content and determination before the “movement of con-
cept” begins, a movement that proceeds to explore what is implicitly contained in
the beginning. It is empty and determinationless because all determinations or con-
tent are ignored. In a sense, the Logic never departs from its first category, “Being”.
This is why the forward movement of the Logic turns out to be a circular one, with
its end returning to the beginning, as “progression is a retreat to the ground, to the
origin and the truth on which that with which the beginning was made, and from
which it is in fact produced, depends” (Hegel 1832, 70/49). In this respect, the abso-
lute beginning of the Logic does not rule out its being mediated and conditioned;
instead, it expresses an attitude toward the project of pure thought. Hegel even con-
cedes that
if no presupposition is to be made, if the beginning is itself to be taken immediately, then
the only determination of this beginning is that it is to be the beginning of logic, of thought
as such. There is only present the resolve, which can also be viewed as arbitrary, of consid-
ering thinking as such. (Hegel 1832, 68/48)
What pure being incorporates is the simple resolve to consider thought as such, a
resolve which is in some sense arbitrary. This “arbitrary” beginning, however, is a
carefully chosen one to show the impossibility of making an absolute and radical
new beginning for philosophy. The beginning of Hegel’s Logic is, in fact, a criticism
of the demand for an absolute beginning of philosophy, showing that the beginning
has already been made—a situation which philosophy must learn to live with.
Philosophy can never disregard its history. Even such an empty concept as pure
being cannot be free from the complex social, cultural, historical, and linguistic
conditions that mediate our language and thought.
The problem, however, becomes how Hegel still dares to claim his philosophy to
be presuppositionless. The crucial point is that denying the possibility of an abso-
lute beginning does not rule out the possibility of an absolute philosophy. Hegel’s
system lays claim to presuppositionlessness not on the ground of a “presupposition-
less beginning”, but on the ground that the presuppositions which could not actually
be dispensed with are made transparent in the dialectical movement of the Concept.
As Hegel emphasizes:
Essential to science is not so much that a pure immediacy should be the beginning, but that
the whole of science is in itself a circle in which the first becomes also the last, and the last
also the first (Hegel 1832, 70/49).
70 C.-F. Lau
The presuppositions are integrated into the system in a way that they no longer rep-
resent a restriction. The total comprehension of the presuppositions at the same time
makes them lose their “pre-suppositional” character. For Hegel, a truly presupposi-
tionless philosophy is the consistent and thorough process of self-reflection and
self-criticism in which the inevitable presuppositions are “sublated [aufgehoben]”
(Lau 2007). In Hegel’s philosophy, the word “presuppositionlessness” does not
refer to any concept, any judgment, or any beginning at all but only to the system as
a whole. Strictly speaking, any claim to presuppositionless beginning is self-
defeating. Isn’t the demand for a presuppositionless beginning itself a presupposi-
tion? The principle of foundationalism is itself a presupposition that is questionable.
What Hegel offers is a counterproposal that proves to be, as a whole, more
consistent.
4 IV
Hegel’s criticism of the foundationalist conception is targeted against his predeces-

sors and contemporaries such as Descartes, Reinhold, Fichte, and Jacobi. It has,
however, particularly interesting implications for Husserl’s phenomenology, which
represents one of the most ambitious foundationalist projects in the history of
philosophy.
As we know, Husserl maintains that: “From its earliest beginnings philosophy
has claimed to be rigorous science” (Husserl 1987, 3/71). Husserl has made a num-
ber of attempts to realize the ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science or even a
presuppositionless philosophy, aiming at “a scientific critique and in addition a radi-
cal science, rising from below, based on sure foundations, and progressing accord-
ing to the most rigorous methods” (Husserl 1987, 57/142). The crux of this
foundationalist ideal is, of course, to establish a philosophical system on a secure
foundation, which, according to Husserl’s main work Ideas I, is guaranteed by what
Husserl calls the Principle of All Principles:
that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that every-
thing originarily … offered to us in “intuition” is to be accepted simply as what it is pre-
sented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there. ... Every
statement which does no more than confer expression on such data by simple explication
and by means of significations precisely conforming to them is … actually an absolute
beginning called upon to serve as a foundation, a principium in the genuine sense of the
word. (Husserl 1976, § 24, 51/44)
Husserl aims at a pure descriptive eidetic science based on the “data” given in pure
consciousness. The Principle of All Principles operates on the evidence presented in
pure consciousness, as “the primal source of all legitimacy lies in immediate evi-
dence and, more narrowly delimited, in originary evidence” (Husserl 1976, § 141,
326/338).
The concept of evidence has proved crucial for Husserl’s philosophy since his
Logical Investigations. From its early qualification as the “experience of truth”,
evidence is considered the ultimate ground for the truth and legitimacy of cognition.
What is adequately evident is free from presuppositions and thus qualified as “an
absolutely grounded cognition” (Husserl 1974, § 104, 283/277). There is and can be
no further ground for justification behind what is immediately self-evident. That is
why it is difficult to explain and clarify the concept of evidence, but Husserl did try
to give a more detailed analysis of the concept in the Cartesian Meditations. For
him, evidence is intimately and inseparably connected, if not even identical, to see-
ing: “Evidence is … precisely a mental seeing of something itself” (Husserl 1973a,
§ 5, 52/12). In a more elaborated way:
In the broadest sense, evidence denotes a universal primal phenomenon of intentional life
… the quite preeminent mode of consciousness that consists in the self-appearance, the
self-exhibiting, the self-giving, of an affair, an affair-complex (or state of affairs), a univer-
sality, a value, or other objectivity, in the final mode: “itself there”, “immediately
intuited”/“given originaliter”. (Husserl 1976, § 24, 92–93/57)
In Husserl’s theoretical enterprise, evidence is such a fundamental and irreducible

concept that the concepts used in clarifying it are often clumsier and less clear than
the concept of evidence itself. Yet, the essential point in the previous elucidation is
that evidence is not something derivative, but is self-appearance, self-exhibiting,
and self-giving. The most conspicuous word in the explanation is the prefix “self-”.
The word here does not primarily refer to a self in the sense of a subject or a think-
ing being, but signifies a structure of “selfness”, which consists in the radical exclu-
sion of all “otherness”. Self-appearance, self-exhibiting, and self-giving mean a kind
of appearance, exhibiting, and giving which is not mediated by anything else.
Instead, it is given originaliter or immediately. The complex characterization can
therefore be summarized, in a logical term, by the concept of immediacy.
Evidence is the “primal source of all legitimacy” just because it is not mediated
by anything else; in this sense, it is “immediately intuited” or “given originaliter”
prior to all possible distortions and prejudices. The immediacy of the “originary
presentive intuition” guarantees that its legitimacy does not depend on a further
ground that is itself not immediately self-evident. Evidence is the absolute and ulti-
mate foundation in so far as it is absolutely immediate. Husserl’s radical new begin-
ning of philosophy, realized through the phenomenological epoché, is a radical
exclusion of all mediations, exclusion by means of putting everything that comes
from outside, from society, and from history into brackets so as to rediscover to
what is truly immediate. Eugen Fink aptly summarizes as follows:
The pathos of phenomenology, its enthusiasm, results in the radicalism of the “beginner”,
in the belief that human spirit freed from the burden of history has the ability to acquire an
immediate relation to the existent. (Fink 1981, 34)
However, if Hegel’s criticism of immediate knowledge is right, then there is

neither immediacy as such nor an absolute beginning. The pursuit of an absolute
foundation for philosophy, and accordingly the ideal of philosophy as rigorous sci-
ence, are doomed to failure. As Hegel points out, everything that appears in con-
sciousness has been mediated by our linguistic-conceptual understanding that
penetrates into every activity of our mind. Even if Husserl succeeded in guaranteeing
72 C.-F. Lau
“a seeing consciousness that directly and adequately apprehends itself” (Husserl

1973b, 59/47), what is seen in the eidetic seeing has to be described by language,
which turns out to be a necessary mediation from which there is no escape.
Later phenomenologists such as Heidegger and Gadamer departed from Husserl’s
foundationalist position due particularly to their understanding of the inevitable
mediation through language. Gadamer is right in emphasizing our unsurpassable
bondage to language (Gadamer 1989, 421). The language with which we think,
speak, and understand constitutes an unsurpassable basis for our being. In
Heidegger’s words: “Language is the house of being. In its home human beings
dwell” (Heidegger 1998, 239). Our thinking of or seeing the world is necessarily
shaped by the worldview that comes with natural language. Instead of fantasizing
about getting rid of all the inescapable preconceptions and preunderstandings, we
learn from Gadamer’s idea of hermeneutic circle the necessary and constructive role
of “prejudices” in the structure of understanding. If the prefix “self-”, as explained
previously, could be considered symbolic of Husserl’s concept of evidence and his
eidetic phenomenology, then the hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger and
Gadamer might be characterized by the prefix “pre-”. While “self-” signifies the
ambition of a philosophy to stand on its own, to become an autonomous, pre-
supposition-less enterprise by virtue of an unmediated, intimate, and direct access
to what is evident, “pre-” is the word expressing the recognition and appreciation of
various preconditions, preconceptions, presuppositions, and prejudices with which
philosophy has to cope. Indeed, this hermeneutic attitude has driven the later devel-
opment of phenomenology more and more away from Husserl’s original conception
of presuppositionless philosophy.
In response to the challenge of the hermeneutic phenomenology as well as to the
political turbulence in Europe, a major turn in Husserl’s philosophical project is
observable around the 1930s. Husserl’s last major work, The Crisis of European
Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, departs significantly from his earlier
works, incorporating a number of novel ideas and new themes, among which the
concept of “life-world” (Lebenswelt) stands out as a leitmotif. By “life-world”,
Husserl means the pre-predicative, pre-conceptual, pre-reflective, and pre-scientific
world in which we human beings live. It is the “actually intuited, actually experi-
enced and experienceable world”, not the objective world of natural scientific inves-
tigations, but the world of everyday life which serves as the “Forgotten
Meaning-Fundament [vergessenes Sinnesfundament] of Natural Science”:
It is this world that we find to be the world of all known and unknown realities. To it, the
world of actually experiencing intuition, belongs the form of space-time together with all
the bodily [körperlich] shapes incorporated in it; it is in this world that we ourselves live, in
accord with our bodily [leiblich], personal way of being. (Husserl 1959, § 9 h, 50/50)
The concept of life-world suggests that all theoretical reflections operate on the
basis of a pre-predicative, pre-conceptual, pre-reflective, pre-objective world of
background understandings and experiences. The life-world, therefore, proves to be
more fundamental than the methodological device with which Husserl attempts to
guarantee a presuppositionless foundation, insofar as the pre-conceptual and pre-
objective character of life-world makes a direct, explicit, and adequate description
of it impossible.
Husserl’s phenomenology was conceived to be a rigorous science or even a pre-
suppositionless philosophy which should lay the ultimate foundation for all human
knowledge including logic, mathematics, and natural sciences. However, the intro-
duction of the concept of life-world means the abandonment of the original project,
leading Husserl to make the controversial claim in “Denial of Scientific Philosophy”,
appendix 9 to the Crisis: “Philosophy as science, as serious, rigorous, indeed apo-
dictically rigorous science – the dream is over” (Husserl 1959, 508/389). Admittedly,
philosophy in the form of rigorous science on the basis of a presuppositionless
foundation is a dream that can never be realized. The problem, however, is not the
incapability of philosophy, but rather that the dream itself is grounded on a preju-
dice that leads up to an unrealizable project.
Over a remarkable philosophical career, Husserl has long been guided by the
foundationalist conception of knowledge, searching for a secure foundation of phi-
losophy. The fact that Husserl’s major works are almost always subtitled “introduc-
tion” documents his ever-repeated search for a new, reliable beginning. Yet, the
Crisis as Husserl’s last “Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy” comes up
finally with a new approach to the old project, which could be represented by the
following “paradox”:
From the beginning the phenomenologist lives in the paradox of having to look upon the
obvious [das Selbstverständliche] as questionable, as enigmatic, and of henceforth being
unable to have any other scientific theme than that of transforming the universal obvious-
ness [Selbstverständlichkeit] of the being of the world – for him the greatest of all enig-
mas – into something intelligible [Verständlichkeit]. (Husserl 1959, § 53, 183–84/180; see
Carr 1974)
Husserl seems, in the Crisis, to have come to realize what Hegel had explained in
his critique of immediate knowledge. Philosophy cannot refuse to acknowledge
what has already been taken for granted and thus appears as obvious. These are the
presuppositions with which philosophy begins, but which have to be “sublated” in
the progress of philosophical reflections. The job of philosophy is not to search for
what is selbstverständlich, but rather to transform Selbstverständlichkeit to
Verständlichkeit, to understand and to make transparent the presuppositions that
cannot be dispensed with. Freedom from all presuppositions can at best, as Hegel
suggests, be projected as the ideal or the result that philosophy strives to achieve,
but never as its point of departure. In this connection, the paradox is that the ideal of
presuppositionlessness is to be attained by first acknowledging the fact that philoso-
phy cannot be free from presuppositions at the beginning. The ideal is still a presup-
positionless philosophy and, in this sense, a rigorous science, but it is, at best, to be
realized in an infinite process of self-reflection and self-criticism.
74 C.-F. Lau
References
Carr, David. 1974. Phenomenology and the Problem of History: A Study of Husserl’s Transcendental
Fink, Eugen. 1981. The Problem of the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. In Apriori and
World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. ed. and trans. W. McKenna,
R.M. Harlan, and L.E. Winters. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. Trans. J. Weinsheimer and D.G. Marshall, 2nd
rev. ed. New York: Continuum.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1807. Phenomenologie des Geistes. In Werke, vol. 3, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. and ed. Terry
Pinkard. The Phenomenology of Spirit, 2018. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1830. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1830. Erster
Teil. Die Wissenschaft der Logik. Mit den mündlichen Zusätzen. In Werke, vol. 8, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. and ed. Klaus
Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic
Outline, 2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1832. Wissenschaft der Logik I. Erster Teil. Die objektive Logik. Erstes Buch. In Werke,
vol. 5, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. and
ed. George di Giovanni. Science of Logic, 2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1998. Letter on “Humanism”. Trans. F.A. Capuzzi. In Pathmarks, ed.
W. McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hume, David. 2000. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. D.F. Norton and M.J. Norton. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Husserl, Edmund. 1959. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. In Husserliana, vol.
6. ed. W. Biemel. The Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. David Carr. The Crisis of European Sciences
and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, 1970.
———. 1973a. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. In Husserliana, vol. 1, ed.
S. Strasser. The Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. D. Cairns. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to
Phenomenology, 1960. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1973b. Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. In Husserliana, vol. 2. The Idea
of Phenomenology, 1999. Trans. L. Hardy. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1974. Formale and transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft.
In Husserliana, vol. 17, ed. Paul Janssen. The Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. D. Cairns. Formal and
Transcendental Logic, 1969. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenlogie und phänomenlogischen Philosophie. Erstes
Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. In Husserliana, vol. 3/1, ed.
W. Biemel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Trans. F. Kersten. 1983. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure
Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to a
Pure Phenomenology. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1987. Philosophie als Strenge Wissenschaft. In Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1911–1921. In Mit
ergänzenden Texten, ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner Sepp, 3–67. Husserliana, vol. 25. The
Hague: Nijhoff. Trans. Quentin Lauer. Philosophy as Rigorous Science. In Phenomenology and
the Crisis of Man, 1965, 29–196. New York: Harper & Row.
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich. 1994. Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Moses
Mendelssohn (1789). In The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill. Trans. G. di
Giovanni. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Akademie-Ausgabe vol. 4: 1911. Berlin: Reimer.
Ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Critique of Pure Reason, 1998. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 1787. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Akademie-Ausgabe vol. 3: 1904. Berlin: Reimer. Ed.
Paul Guyer and Allen Wood: Critique of Pure Reason, 1998. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
———. 2002. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Trans. M. Friedman. In Theoretical
Philosophy after 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lau, Chong-Fuk. 2000. Voraussetzungs- und Bestimmungslosigkeit: Bemerkungen zum Problem
des Anfangs in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Perspektiven der Philosophie: Neues Jahrbuch
26: 287–323.
———. 2004. Die Sprachlichkeit des Wahren und Hegels Kritik des “unmittelbaren Wissens”.
In Hegel-Jahrbuch 2004: Glauben und Wissen II. Teil, ed. A. Arndt, K. Bal, and H. Ottmann,
203–208. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
———. 2007. Absoluteness and Historicity: Hegel’s Idea of a Self-Transcending System. In Von
der Logik zur Sprache, ed. R. Bubner and G. Hindrichs, 109–134. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Wieland, Wolfgang. 1978. Bemerkungen zum Anfang von Hegels Logik. In Seminar: Dialektik in
der Philosophie Hegels, ed. R.-P. Horstmann, 194–212. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Archeo-Logos: Hegel and Heidegger
on Finding the Principle in Heraclitus’
Saying
Antoine Cantin-Brault
Abstract The logos of Heraclitus, the all-encompassing saying of the arche of

phusis, is a complex notion. Moreover, in regard to phusis (beingness), arche can be
understood in at least two ways: as an appreciation of beingness in regard to a
supreme being, or as an appreciation of Being as permitting the disclosure of being-
ness. This article aims to show that Heraclitus’ logos is, in its entirety, onto-proto-
logical and, therefore, can support these two seemingly different appreciations of
the arche of phusis. It will do so by showing how Hegel’s and Heidegger’s interpre-
tations of Heraclitus can coexist in the Obscure’s remaining fragments. Furthermore,
this article aims to show that the Heideggerian interpretation of Heraclitus rests on
the Hegelian reading, and that for Heidegger to finally posit that phenomenology is
tautology implies a break with Hegel, but also from Heraclitus and from any other
expression of metaphysics. Heidegger’s relationship to Heraclitus (and to Hegel,
who inevitably lies in the background) reveals how Heidegger radicalized his own
phenomenological thought.
Keywords Metaphysics · Onto-proto-logy · Arche · Phusis · Logos · Heraclitus ·

Hegel · Heidegger
1 Introduction
Several of Heraclitus’ remaining fragments1 suggest that “logos,” perhaps the most
prevalent notion in the Obscure’s saying, has at least two different meanings.
According to T. M. Robinson, these two meanings are: 1- “logos in the sense that it
is formulated in human speech of his [Heraclitus] own, but [2-] at a deeper level it
is, via Heraclitus, the logos of ‘that which is wiseʼ” (Heraclitus 1987, 114). Stated
In particular fragments DK B 1, 50 and 108.

1
A. Cantin-Brault (*)
Université de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Canada
e-mail: acantinbrault@ustboniface.ca

78 A. Cantin-Brault
more bluntly, Heraclitus’ logos, without further precision, means Heraclitus’

account (logos in its first sense) of the arche of phusis2 (logos in its second sense).
The arche, the first principle, incepts and steers beingness, phusis, so that phusis
becomes explainable out of a sacred and divine logos in order to be expressed and
communicated as human logos. “That which is wise” permits phusis’ unity through,
or by taking distance from, plurality, revealing a grounded truth, an arche, which
Heraclitus recorded in his remaining fragments. However, logos in the second sense,
this deeper logos, this arche of phusis that articulates truth and molds human logos
accordingly, has at least two other meanings as well: the arche of phusis can be the
dialectical and determinate truth of beingness, i.e. truth of the unified articulation of
the means of existence; or it can also be the indeterminate truth of Being, i.e. the
unveiling of that which is concealed but which nevertheless brings to light the uni-
fied articulation of the means of existence.
This splitting in two of the arche of phusis is not clearly indicated in Heraclitus’
articulation of his own logos. However, in considering how Hegel and Heidegger
understood the wisdom of, and in, Heraclitus’ saying, this splitting in two is revealed
to be one of the most radical contradictions that drive phusis in its universal strife.
Hegel and Heidegger opposed each other philosophically in relation to the meaning
of Heraclitus’ arche of phusis because they chose to present it in two different
lights: Hegel presented Heraclitus in the clear light of beingness itself, while
Heidegger presented Heraclitus in the very dim light of Being. Nonetheless, how-
ever, it would seem that even in insisting on their respective splitting of this arche
of phusis, neither is able to disprove the other because Heraclitus’ logos resists all
one-sided interpretations as it can be understood in an onto-proto-logical constitu-
tion of metaphysics. This onto-proto-logical constitution of metaphysics – as it can
be found in Bernard Mabille’s work and as will be presented in further detail
below – encompasses both sides of the splitting of the arche of phusis because it is
in itself an onto-theo-logical understanding of beingness and a me-onto-logical
understanding of Being. Thus, it is not because Heraclitus is obscure that Hegel and
Heidegger were able to use his logos to present opposite views of metaphysics. On
the contrary, Heraclitus’ obscurity may be in part explained by his attempt to show
those two forms of understanding as constituting, in a never-ending negative rela-
tionship, the unity of phusis. It is thus unsurprising that Heidegger’s interpretation
2
We could go so far as to say, as Heidegger did, that “Φύσις is ἀρχή, i.e., the origin and ordering
of movedness and rest, specifically in a moving being that has this ἀρχή in itself” (Heidegger 1976,
247/189). Hereafter, the page number of the English translation follows the corresponding page
number of the German edition). In the following, however, I will keep them separate because phu-
sis can indicate its arche in two different ways: the absolute becoming (if we understand the arche
of phusis from beingness itself) or Being (if we understand the arche of phusis out of beingness
and phusis as Being itself). To be clear, phusis is to be understood here as beingness – the gathering
and the essence of beings -, and the search for its arche means to make sense of this essence of
beings, with the help of another (supreme) being or Being itself. The following considerations
regarding onto-proto-logy will clarify this separation.
Archeo-Logos: Hegel and Heidegger on Finding the Principle in Heraclitus’ Saying 79
of Heraclitus’ logos cannot be appreciated without Hegel’s: Heidegger would not

and, finally, could not entirely free Heraclitus’ logos from its Hegelian interpreta-
tion. This, in turn, suggests that Heraclitus cannot be isolated in only one of these
two metaphysical understandings of the ultimate principle and, furthermore, that
Heidegger’s thinking has to be understood in close relation to Hegel’s.
In an attempt to understand Heidegger’s relationship to Heraclitus and to show
how Hegel is always “in the mirror” when Heidegger approaches Heraclitus, it will
first be useful to present briefly Hegel’s understanding of Heraclitus’ logos. Then, it
will be necessary to consider more specifically the period (extending from around
1930 to 1960) in which Heidegger tried to completely isolate Heraclitus’ logos from
Hegel’s, in order to show how this Heideggerian attempt must necessarily fail both
in the context of the remaining fragments of Heraclitus and, more importantly, in
the context of metaphysics as constituted onto-proto-logically. This is due to the fact
that the battle between Hegel and Heidegger about the original arche to be found in
Heraclitus’ logos is a battle fought on the same ground, i.e. onto-proto-logical meta-
physics and, moreover, because any attempt to disengage from metaphysics com-
pletely by radicalizing phenomenology assumes a disengagement from Hegel, from
Heraclitus and from logos altogether as well as from any other archeo-logical
positioning.
2 Hegel’s Arche in Heraclitus’ Logos
Hegel’s Absolute requires negativity to articulate itself out of itself and to produce
infinite meaning. This negativity – dialectics being more than a mere method – is
initially found in becoming, Heraclitus’ arche, which permits the systematic
understanding of philosophy in Hegel. In this sense, Heraclitus’ logos “is essential,
and hence it is to be found in my Logic, right after ‘being’ and ‘nothing’” (Hegel
1971, 325, 1989, 72–73, 1990, vol. 2, 75). Heraclitus, for the first time and hereafter,
introduced truth as the identity of identity and non-identity (Hegel 1970a, 96).
Becoming is in itself a negative force that must be applied to something, i.e. the
Dasein (Hegel 1969a, 116), to be truly thinkable, although it is precisely this
negative force that will drive the determinative process of the Idea logically and
philosophically.
Hegel expresses Heraclitus’ logos with several concepts that are interconnected:
relationship (Verhältnis. Hegel 1971, 337, 1989, 79, 80), reason (Vernunft, Hegel
1971, 338, 341, 1989, 79) or even divine understanding, or divine logos, (göttliche
Verstand, Hegel 1971, 341, 1989, 79). All these names used to designate logos are
determinate notions that aim to rationalize and to define being in an ontic dimension:
divine understanding is given by way of negative contradiction in the Logic; it splits
itself so that it does not remain abstract. Furthermore, it arises in relationship with
the different (the other), which reason grasps due to its ability to find unity in what
80 A. Cantin-Brault
was previously separated, and against simple understanding (Verstand), which sees
only fixed identity against non-identity, missing the truth of the identity of identity
and non-identity. Heraclitus’ logos is understood here as reason since reason unites,
and gives meaning to, the absolutely indeterminate and unilateral notions of pure
being and pure nothingness that are set forth as absolutely opposed by understanding.
Becoming involves contradiction, contradiction between the finitude of being that is
first understood as separated from nothingness and its turning into nothingness.
Becoming permits infinite knowledge, true philosophical knowledge: stated bluntly,
Heraclitus makes philosophy possible. Logos is, in other words, the Idea that sub-
sumes its finitude negatively to speak itself in its entirety. Heraclitus’ logos is thus
used by Hegel to show that determination does not hinder the Absolute in its infinite
self-affirmation. On the contrary, the Absolute can articulate itself only by a process
of determination that is made possible by the negativity of becoming. It is Heraclitus
that led Hegel to write that: “it is least of all the logos which should be left outside
the science of logic. Therefore its inclusion in or omission from this science must
not be simply a matter of choice” (Hegel 1969a, 30/39). Logos as “the absolute,
self-subsistent matter at stake [Sache] […], the reason of that which is, the truth of
what we call things” (Hegel 1969a, 30/39) cannot be excluded from the Logic, since
the Logic (just as Heraclitus’ own logos) is the spoken and preserved deployment of
the pure logos, i.e. the arche of the determination of the truth in its purity and isola-
tion from reality. This deeper logos found by Hegel in Heraclitus is “this process,
this determinateness of movement that permeates the all, this rhythm or measure, an
ethereal being that is the seed for generation of the whole – this One is the logos”
(Hegel 1989, 79, 1990, vol. 2, 81). Heraclitus’ logos is the saying that initiates the
Logic, but it is also the logic(al) in the Logic;3 logos is the arche from which begins
the determination process of the Absolute in itself that the Logic gathers. And this
logos truly becomes the arche of phusis when the Idea experiences its pure and logi-
cal logos systematically by setting itself in reality, namely nature and spirit.
Regarding the significance of Heraclitus, the Encyclopedia, can be read as the nega-
tive determination of the logos (Logic) that serves to carry out the negative determi-
nations of reality given as the spurious infinite (Nature) and sublated as true infinity
(Spirit). Becoming is the logos that moves the Idea, it is its arche as the Idea system-
atically and completely determined is phusis in its entirety. Heraclitus, by thinking
the becoming, the negative process itself, cannot come to the point of thinking the
true infinity of absolute spirit, but he can truly think becoming and its real incarna-
tion: time, the “intuited becoming” (Hegel 1970c, § 258, 48, 1971, 329, 1989,
76–77) that affects negatively beingness in its entirety, that is, nature and spirit
(Cantin-Brault 2013).
3
“The logic(al) [le logique]: this is the unfolding explication of all that is, or, more precisely, all
that exists. The Logic – The Science of Logic – is the discursive and organisational space where,
from the perspective of Hegel and his time, the logic(al) finds its proper ‘placeʼ and the space from
out of which it pronounces itself according to its own economy” (Jarczyk and Labarrière 1986,
290–291. My translation).
Finding his arche in Heraclitus’ logos is also a way for Hegel to criticize
Parmenides. By sublating the Eleatic being through becoming,4 Heraclitus pre-
vented philosophy from falling back into tautology and, ultimately, from condemn-
ing itself to silence. Determination demands contradiction and contradiction
demands that opposites be thought together, which Parmenides’ notion of being
impedes. Identity without difference is, from a Hegelian standpoint, a hollow con-
cept without any depth to ensure its truthfulness. Eleatic thinkers are engaged in a
“conversation which merely reiterates the same thing […] But since only the same
thing is repeated, the opposite has happened, nothing has emerged. Such identical
talk therefore contradicts itself. Identity, instead of being in its own self truth and
absolute truth, is consequently the very opposite” (Hegel 1969b, 44/415). The
Absolute of Parmenides is no logos, it does not need to begin by being said, it is no
arche since it posits phusis in its still unilateral vacuity.
Heraclitus understands that “God is contradictory, since he embraces self-
negation” (Hegel 2001, 7/4), negation of its abstract identity. Of course, it is the
Atomists and Anaxagoras who deserve merit for thinking this God as a true, self-
conscious Absolute. Hegel writes that “Anaxagoras is praised as the man who first
declared that the Nous, the thought, is the principle of the world, that the essence of
the world is to be defined as the thought” (Hegel 1969a, 44/50), so that thinking is
posited as the ultimate truth. Nevertheless, for Hegel, Heraclitus was the first to set
forth determination as a necessary component of the Absolute, after having first set
a logos that works as the arche of Hegel’s philosophy. Therefore, for Hegel, all that
can be understood as metaphysics – the form of philosophy that is not just a “love
of knowledge” but effective knowledge (Hegel 1970b, 14) – must contain determi-
nation, or at the very least be articulated through logos, the negative becoming of
the Idea.
4
“Heraclitus utters the bold and more profound dictum that being no more is than is non-being – τὸ
ὂν οὐ μᾶλλον ἔστι τοῦ μὴ ὄντος – but no less either” (Hegel 1971, 323; 1989, 71;
1990, vol. 2, 73). From a philological standpoint, it is strange that Hegel cites these Greek words
since we cannot find any occurrences of them in his remaining fragments. Michelet sends us to
Aristotles’ Metaphysics Γ, 7, 3, and and P. Garniron to Α, 4, but there is no clear occurrence of this
saying or Heraclitus himself in those two passages. Therefore, what Hegel cites seems to be a
construction of his own, or of one of his disciples. And because Heraclitus says that being is no
more than non-being, Hegel must place Parmenides before Heraclitus in his rationalized history of
philosophy, since one must posit that being is the Absolute before Heraclitus can posit that being
is no more than non-being. Hegel says that Heraclitus is “a contemporary of Parmenides” (Hegel
1971, 320; 1989, 69; 1990, vol. 2, 70), but he still comes logically after Parmenides. Except for
Karl Reinhardt in his book of 1916 (reprint 1959, 201 ff.), no scholar subsequent to Hegel has
thought, in light of all the philological and historical work done since Hegel on the study of the
Presocratics, that Heraclitus came after Parmenides. Hegel’s position poses a real problem in terms
of an understanding of Heraclitus, although it does not affect Heidegger’s interpretation of
Heraclitus or its relationship to Hegel. Furthermore, Heidegger seems to give credit to Hegel and
Reinhardt for positing philosophically, and against the historical tradition, Heraclitus after
Parmenides (see Heidegger 1993, 230).
82 A. Cantin-Brault
3 Heidegger’s Arche in Heraclitus’s Logos
To say that Heidegger found Heraclitus’ logos as his arche cannot be understood in
the same way as in Hegel, because Heidegger’s thought underwent a Kehre that, as
Marlène Zarader (1996) has shown, was two-phased. Until the Kehre (around 1930),
Heidegger was concerned with fundamental ontology, i.e. a re-positioning of Being
in the light of a more profound understanding of the Dasein. For this project,
Heraclitus, like all of the Presocratics, was of little importance because only
Aristotle had truly posited the different modes of Being in their relation to the
Dasein.5 It is only through the Kehre that Heidegger found Heraclitus’ logos as an
arche for a-letheia: in abandoning his much too anthropologically centered funda-
mental ontology, Heidegger signified Being in its lethe, its concealedness. But in
entering the last phase of the Kehre (around 1960), and by increasingly appreciating
the concealedness and setting-aside of Being, Heidegger abandoned Heraclitus
because he provided no historical site for the Ereignis: this light that had shined on
beings without any philosopher, except maybe Parmenides, as its bearer. For
Heidegger, every “principle” (arche) was an errant one as the Ereignis cannot be
simply understood as an arche. Let us consider these three phases, insisting more
specifically on the second one.
Until the Kehre, and because fundamental ontology had sought to position Being
in relation to the Dasein, Heraclitus’ logos, which shows that “oppositionality con-
stitutes the very Being of the being” (Heidegger 1993, 56/46), was not aligned suf-
ficiently with Dasein and, thus, was not to be thought of as a site for its articulation.
Surely, understood as oppositionality, “Being is only consciousness and is unthink-
able otherwise” (Heidegger 1993, 61/51), i.e. oppositionality can only be under-
stood through reason, but reason has not been radicalized as a Dasein that is more
than just something. Thus, Being remains infra-worldly, and its opposite, nonbeing,
has not been radicalised in regard to Dasein as anxiety.6 However, this unification of
Being with its opposite nonbeing in the concept of oppositionality shows that for
Heidegger Heraclitus is here to be understood as Hegel understood him. What is the
meaning of oppositionality? Heidegger answers: “The oppositional is, conflict; the
dialectical itself in the Hegelian sense. The movement of constant opposition and
sublation is the principle. Therefore Hegel already places Heraclitus after
Parmenides and sees in him a higher level of development. Being and nonbeing are
abstractions. Becoming is the first ‘truth,ʼ the true essence, time itself” (Heidegger
1993, 60/50–51). Time, as discussed above, is the becoming as the Idea proves its
infinity and freedom through the finitude of reality. Heidegger seems to suggest that
5
Aristotle partakes in “the question of the being of human Dasein and the more radical appropria-
tion of the question of the being of the world” (Heidegger 1993, 21/17). This course (Heidegger
1993), given by Heidegger in 1926 at the University of Marburg, is the most important source for
Heidegger’s position on the Presocratics and the Greeks as a whole in his period of fundamental
ontology.
6
“Heraclitus has taken nonbeing itself ontically and has understood this ontic determination as an
ontological one” (Heidegger 1993, 61/51).
Heraclitus could not think a true logical becoming because he had thought the oppo-
sitionality always and already in nature, phusis. This, in turn, implies that in think-
ing phusis he could not totally break from beingness and that his conception of the
Dasein was always ontical and never ontological. But Heidegger’s critique is not
directly aimed at Heraclitus; it is aimed at Hegel himself: in Heraclitus’s logos,
“The mode of Being of life or of the soul does not come to be delimited against the
mode of Being of nature or of the world. [...] Likewise for Hegel: he also grasps the
spirit as substance, to be sure in a very broad sense. That is connected to the domina-
tion of Greek ontology” (Heidegger 1993, 245/191). Hegel’s Idea as becoming
absolute spirit is a process occurring from and in beingness; his logos, as well as
Heraclitus’, is the arche of phusis in and from phusis itself, nothing else. Thus, at
this point, Heidegger cannot find his arche in Heraclitus’ logos, because this logos
is already in the form proposed by Hegel: a logos that posits truth as substance,
which is to be understood infra-worldly, i.e. as the negative process of the determi-
nation of things in the world for the sake of the Absolute’s absoluteness and not as
the radical presence and absence of the Dasein itself in phusis. Heraclitus is here for
Heidegger too Hegelian to be considered a decisive thinker.
But after the Kehre, Heidegger reads Heraclitus differently, and he does so by
insisting mainly on a specific meaning of the term logos, and by putting little
emphasis on the play of opposites and contradiction; in short, by losing interest in
the notion of (intuited or not) becoming.7 Heraclitus thus becomes the thinker of the
disclosure of Being which is beyond what is, i.e. beingness. The change in tone is
flagrant: “I only want to make clear the gulf that separates us from Hegel, when we
are dealing with Heraclitus” (Heidegger 1986, 199–200; Heidegger and Fink 1993,
123). The importance of the Presocratics is now to be situated for Heidegger in the
way they think without the weight of the dictatorship of subjectivity, which leads to
the necessity of determination, since subjectivity requires discursive language as a
condition for saying and understanding something, making it its own. The
Presocratics mark a fundamental beginning,8 that of the origin of the swaying of
Being, which is opposed to those metaphysical perspectives, such as Plato’s and
Aristotle’s, that resort to a supreme being in order to make sense of beingness.
According to Heidegger, Hegel is probably the most accomplished representative of
this tradition. Presocratic thinkers are not clearly aware of having answered the call
of Being, the call that joins both light and darkness (Heidegger 1979, 345). But we
must conceive of the Greeks as even more “Greekly” in order to find the origin of
7
“By freeing Heraclitus’ words from the rigidity into which these words are placed and by situat-
ing his words within the fundamental occurrence of disclosure, Heidegger shows us a Heraclitus
who is no longer primarily and exclusively the author of a metaphysical doctrine of becoming”
(Maly and Emad 1986, 5).
8
“The first beginning experiences and posits the truth of beings, without inquiring into truth as
such, because what is unhidden in it, a being as a being, necessarily overpowers everything and
uses up the nothing, taking it in or destroying it completely as the ‘not’ and the ‘against.’ The other
beginning experiences the truth of be-ing and inquires into the be-ing of truth in order first to
ground the essential swaying of be-ing and to let beings as the true of that originary truth spring
forth” (Heidegger 1997, § 91, 179/125–126).
84 A. Cantin-Brault
the call of Being.9 From there, what counts in Heraclitus’ thought, according to
Heidegger, is not that pure being sublates itself in becoming, as to ensure that it was
always and already the Absolute in its initial determination, but that there is Being
that never enters beingness because it is the light that discloses beingness. Becoming
becomes secondary to Being, since becoming is only the phenomenon of beingness,
the way beingness shows itself. “Heraclitus knows neither something of opposites
nor of dialectic” (Heidegger 1986, 25; Heidegger and Fink 1993, 11),10 contrary to
what Hegel thought, and, as the Kehre continued to influence Heidegger’s thought,
contrary to what Heidegger thought in his period of fundamental ontology, and to
what he would come to think of Heraclitus at the end of his life.
“Heraclitus, to whom one ascribes the doctrine of becoming, in stark contrast to
Parmenides, in truth says the same as Parmenides.” (Heidegger 1983, 105/103). In
trying to find an arche for indeterminate Being, it is pointless to attempt, as Hegel
did, to contrast Heraclitus’ logos with Parmenides’ tautology because they seem to
say, or point out, the same “thing.” Heraclitus’ logos can now be an arche for
Heidegger precisely because it points to the same truth as Parmenides. They both
understood truth as aletheia, which is what it is to think before anything else, since
aletheia proves to be the meaning of Being, the meaning of real truth. “It suffices
that this saying of Heraclitus expresses the fundamental experience in which and
from which is awoken an insight into the essence of truth as the unhiddenness of
beings. This saying is as old as Western philosophy itself, giving expression to that
fundamental experience and orientation of ancient man from which philosophy
begins” (Heidegger 1988, 14/11). Philosophy begins with aletheia because aletheia
reveals Being that philosophy, contrary to traditional metaphysics, must gather in its
absence with regard to beingness. Heidegger works with Heraclitus’ logos to sig-
nify aletheia as the arche of phusis, not as subjective truth, but as the movement of
unconcealment of that which draws back to give presence to beingness: “The
ἀλήθεια is, as its name suggests, not vain openness, but rather unconcealment of
self-sheltering” (Heidegger 1979, 175. My translation). Thus, in order to grasp
Being, we ought not to seek to contain it in discursive language, because to do so
would entail losing its withdrawal. We must seize the openness of what is always
hidden in this hidden way-of-being, which is the meaning of a-letheia.
This aletheia is the truth of phusis for Heidegger, because phusis, in Heraclitus’
logos, shows clearly the lethe of aletheia: “The world’s real constitution [φύσις] has
a tendency to conceal itself.” (DK B 123: Heraclitus 1987, 71). We cannot not try to
grasp Being because of our Dasein constitution,11 although phusis cannot clearly
9
Heidegger insists that aletheia is the main objective of Heraclitus’ thought, but only once can this
word be found in Heraclitus’ remaining fragments (DK B 112). Heidegger comments on this
notable absence in the following manner: “With Heraclitus, ἀλήθεια, nonconcealment, stands in
the background, even if it is not mentioned directly” (Heidegger 1983, 205; Heidegger and Fink
1993, 126). This is conceiving of the Greeks as even more “Greekly.”
10
More precisely, “When Heraclitus thinks γένεσις in γινομένων, he does not mean a process. But
thought in Greek, γένεσις means ‘to come into being,’ to come forth in presence” (Heidegger
1986, 20; see also Heidegger and Fink 1993, 8).
11
See DK B 16. Even after the Kehre, the Dasein is still essentially linked to Being, but Being is
more decisive now than the Dasein: Da-sein leads us to Sein.
appear at the risk of becoming a being, it “must remain the invisible of all invisibles,
since it bestows shining on whatever appears” (Heidegger 2000, 279/115). In other
words, “Phusis is Being itself, by virtue of which beings first become and remain
observable” (Heidegger 1983, 17/15). There is a relation between Being and noth-
ingness, but not as Hegel understands it: the relation between being and nothingness
in Hegel’s thought is to produce becoming, but in Heidegger’s thought, it is to show
more clearly that Being is non-being, beyond beingness. Therefore, the task of the
thinker engaged in a silent discussion with the Presocratics12 is to disclose this phu-
sis without losing its concealment against the metaphysicians, who reduce Being to
the ontic dimension. Phusis then is radicalized by Heidegger to refer not only to
beingness itself, but also to its topos, this unseen place from which beingness
emerges. Therefore, the whole expression “arche of phusis” for Heidegger points to
Being; a logical distinction between arche and phusis seems now irrelevant, because
phusis, as Being, is the arche of beingness.13
Heraclitus’ logos is an arche for the indeterminate Being because this logos is,
in summary, lesende Lege: logos is not a saying, as traditional metaphysicians
believed it to be; it is an originary recollection of the signs of Being. “We must
inculcate us, that λόγος does not mean ‘word’ and not ‘speech’ and not ‘language’”
(Heidegger 1979, 239). Rather, “Λόγος is in itself and at the same time a revealing
and a concealing. It is ʼΑλήθεια” (Heidegger 2000, 225–226/71). Heidegger tried,
and succeeded in part, to isolate Heraclitus’ logos from its Hegelian interpretation.
In insisting on more ambiguous fragments than Hegel, Heidegger is able to show
the richness of Heraclitus’ logos; he is also able to show that Heraclitus is “a phi-
losopher of language who understands language ambiguously as both saying and
not saying, so that in the saying we are to hear also what is not said, or hidden from
the saying” (Brogan 1999, 269). “The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither indi-
cates clearly nor conceals but gives as sign” (DK B 93: Heraclitus 1987, 57)14: this
lord gives a sign of Being as a concealed arche/phusis, but gives more than a sign
by also determining the articulation of beingness through a dialectical arche of
phusis, where phusis is here understood as the terrain on which beingness is articu-
lated. By isolating Heraclitus’ logos from its Hegelian interpretation, Heidegger
did not erase this interpretation as an error brought upon Heraclitus’ logos, but
rather showed the depth of Heraclitus’ logos as it can be an arche for both interpre-
tations, constituting metaphysics as an onto-proto-logy, as it will be discussed in
the following section.
12
These Presocratic thinkers know how to listen, they are not dominated by subjectivity: “Heraclitus
wants to say: human beings do hear, and they hear words, but in this hearing they cannot ‘hearken’
to – that is, follow – what is not audible like words, what is not talk but logos. […] But genuine
hearkening has nothing to do with the ear and the glib tongue, but instead means obediently fol-
lowing what logos is: the gatheredness of beings themselves” (Heidegger 1983, 138/136–137).
13
See footnote 2 in regard to this indistinctness between arche and phusis.
14
Heidegger understands it as follows: “The oracle does not directly unconceal nor does it simply
conceal, but it points out. This means: it unconceals while it conceals, and it conceals while it
unconceals” (Heidegger 1976, 279/213).
86 A. Cantin-Brault
4 The Metaphysical Pulse
In a discussion with Hegel about the ontological difference that must not relapse
into the ontical dimension by a necessary relation to identity, Heidegger defines
metaphysics as onto-theo-logy, a twofold science composed of onto-logy (science
of being, on an ontic level) and theo-logy (the systematic study of the divine and its
relationship to other beings and to beingness itself).15 This constitution is used by
Heidegger to show that metaphysics, in its essence, cannot apprehend the ontologi-
cal difference since it always conceives the divine as causa sui,16 and causes being-
ness out of the level of beingness. As metaphysics traditionally thought logos as a
way of thinking cause and effect in a rational way, classical metaphysics could
never escape the ontic level, which then allowed Heidegger to read the unthought
that lies in the ontological difference, which is Being, that he found in Heraclitus’
logos. To be clear, for Heidegger, “there is no metaphysics where there is no ques-
tion of being, god and logos” (Mabille 2010, 114. Hereafter translation is mine).
This understanding of metaphysics is problematic, mainly (but secondary to us
here) in regard to Neoplatonic thinking, which Heidegger situates in classical meta-
physics. Neoplatonism is most certainly metaphysical, although Bernard Mabille
shows that it does not necessarily fit into Heidegger’s metaphysical constitution:
“Neoplatonic thought regarding the Principle is radical (and perhaps the most radi-
cal possible) because it extends to the point of declaring the Principle beyond being-
ness and logos” (Mabille 2006, 11). Indeed, not to confuse the principle with what
it is the principle of, the Neoplatonic One is placed beyond beingness, so that it
becomes non-being in regard to the ontic level of reality: “To state that the principle
is ‘non-being (me on)’ is not to threaten it, but to protect it from degradation, from
slipping from the originary to the derivative” (Mabille 2006, 12). Placing the One
out of beingness protects it in its function as principle: “That which reveals the
henologic thought-positioning – as it is meontological – is the irreducible contin-
gency of a principle identified with a determined being or, more generally, which
remains in the realm of beingness” (Mabille 2006, 22).
So how does the One appear in Heidegger’s onto-theo-logical constitution? The
One is beyond beingness, thus it is ultimately incommunicable in a determinative
logos; if the One can be the Absolute, it can only be approached by negative theo-
logy. To allow the inclusion of Neoplatonic thinking into metaphysics, Bernard
Mabille modifies Heidegger’s constitution of metaphysics by replacing theo with
15
“When metaphysics thinks of beings with respect to the ground that is common to all beings as
such, then it is logic as onto-logic. When metaphysics thinks of beings as such as a whole, that is,
with respect to the highest being which accounts for everything, then it is logic as theo-logic”
(Heidegger 2006, 76/70–71).
16
Beingness thought as reason “needs to be properly accounted for by that for which it accounts,
that is, by the causation through the supremely original matter – and that is the cause as causa sui.
This is the right name for the god of philosophy. Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god.
Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance
before this god” (Heidegger 2006, 77/72).
proto: “Wherever there is a ‘metaphysics,’ there is a question of being, of principle

and of logos. The principle is not necessarily God or a god. It is, as admirably shown
by Heidegger himself, the instance that begins (anfangt) and steers/controls
(beherrscht). So rather than speak of onto-theo-logy, let us use the term onto-proto-
logy” (Mabille 2010, 115–116). The Neoplatonic One can now be included into this
constitution of metaphysics, but not without collateral damage: Heidegger’s think-
ing can now also be included into this new constitution because he is in pursuit of a
first principle (arche or proto), even if this first principle is beyond beingness and
found in a barely meaningful logos. “If metaphysics is thinking of the prime (a pro-
tology) and if this prime is not necessarily the primary being of the onto-theo-logy
as described in the 1957 conference on Constitution but can also be a non-being or
a beyond beingness, then the thinking of Heidegger remains thinking of principles”
(Mabille 2004, 331). Heidegger and the Neoplatonists think in a similar way: “Even
if they are not identical, this ‘meontological difference’ is equivalent to Heidegger’s
‘ontological difference.’ To say from what beingness is, is to transform it into a
being. Alteration of the One or ‘becoming-a-being’ of Being” (Mabille 2010, 131).
In these two expressions of the first principle, the essential point is to preserve the
principle’s nature by isolating it from beingness, so that it can initiate and command
beingness; as such, we can include both of them in a metaphysics understood as
onto-proto-logy. To be sure, “If metaphysics is onto-theo-logy in the narrow sense
of a discourse that brings the entirety of being to a supreme being from the identity
of being and what is hidden in the background of logos, then Heidegger clearly
thinks beyond this constitution of metaphysics, thinks from what is unthought in
this constitution. But if onto-theo-logy as protology, as a quest for the Prime,
involves a splitting in two of this principle as ontological Principle (more precisely
ontical) and as meontological Principle, then Heidegger’s way of thinking belongs
to metaphysics” (Mabille 2004, 335). If the first principle can both be a negatively
determined supreme being (the divine dialectical thought as causa sui) and a prin-
ciple beyond beingness, a me-ontological principle (Neoplatonic One or Heidegger’s
Being), it seems that to propose anything other than metaphysics in pursuit of a first
principle, an arche, is destined to fail. We cannot liberate ourselves from metaphys-
ics; rather it is metaphysics that needs to be liberated from its excessively restrictive
constitution.
From this “dilemma of the principle” (Mabille 2006, 38), a simple metaphysical
pulse emerges, which plays out in all three parts (onto-proto-logy) of the metaphysi-
cal constitution. If the first principle at which thought is aimed lies in beingness – as
it is the becoming of the Idea – then its logos, the way it is expressed by reason, will
be determining, because the principle has been articulated in a way that can be
grasped by predicative language. And if the first principle at which the thought is
aimed is beyond beingness – as it is Being – then its logos will be unspeakable in a
predicative language: the revelation of this principle is only possible through the use
of signs and puzzles.
Mabille summarizes these two accents of this single pulse with the terms thesis
and arsis, following Plotinus. Thus, the metaphysical pulse is composed, on the one
hand, of the strong beat of thetic thinking, which situates and determines beingness,
88 A. Cantin-Brault
and on the other hand, of the weak beat of thinking, which lifts and abolishes thetic
thinking. These two accents are probably present in all expressions of metaphysical
thought to varying degrees. In a high concentration of determination, we find Hegel
and in a high concentration of indetermination (or a low concentration of determina-
tion) Heidegger (Mabille 2004, 337). Metaphysics is liberated from the constant
longing of its overcoming, since the overcoming itself, arsis, the logos of Heidegger,
is included in the constitution of this metaphysics.17 Therefore, in a metaphysics
understood as onto-proto-logy, Heraclitus’ logos is rich enough to be an arche for
both onto-theo-logy and for me-onto-logy. This also clarifies why Heidegger’s
interpretation cannot set aside the Hegelian interpretation of Heraclitus’ logos, for
they both need to be thought in connection with each other to reveal the depth of
Heraclitus’ logos.
5 Conclusion
What was proved through the metaphysical pulse – namely that the arche of Hegel
(the becoming of the Idea in its systematic process) and of Heidegger (Being as
concealed to permit beingness) can only be understood jointly, and that, in this
sense, Heraclitus’ logos contains both Heidegger’s and Hegel’s arche – has, how-
ever, to be considered in light of the fact that Heidegger himself, at the end of his
life, abandoned Heraclitus’ logos as his arche. This implies that for Heidegger,
Heraclitus was not, after all, a decisive thinker, and he was always, in a way, too
Hegelian to show the accent in which he finally decided to set himself. After 1960
(and even before), Heidegger radicalized his conception of the concealedness of
Being to the point where the term “Being” is somewhat set aside in favour of
Ereignis, to suggest that the accomplishment of phenomenology, which he never
abandoned completely, was tautology, a logos foreign to Heraclitus. In 1973, in the
Seminar in Zähringen, Jean Beaufret noted that the position of Heidegger on
Heraclitus and Parmenides had changed: “Indeed, in Vorträge und Aufsätze [pub-
lished in 1954], the primacy seemed to be given to Heraclitus. Today, what place
would Heraclitus take with respect to Parmenides?” To this Heidegger answers as
follows: “From a mere historical perspective, Heraclitus signified the first step
towards dialectic. From this perspective, then, Parmenides is more profound and
essential [...]. In this regard, we must thoroughly recognize that tautology is the only
possibility for thinking what dialectic can only veil. However, if one is able to read
Heraclitus on the basis of the Parmenidean tautology, he himself appears in the
17
“The rhythmic principle that we have outlined implies, in its very concept, a dimension of over-
coming (arsis). In liberating itself from the obsession to overcome or to renounce metaphysics and
in expressing itself as freedom – that is to say as a determining and effectuating activity (a thetic
moment) which always preserves the capacity for drawing back [retrait] and for abolition (a
moment that has the form of arsis) –, the metaphysical exercise liberates itself as infinite inven-
tion” (Mabille 2004, 365, see also 336).
closest vicinity to the same tautology, he himself then appears in the course of an
exclusive approach presenting access to Being” (Heidegger 1986, 400; Heidegger
2003, 81). Any logos of Being that differs from tautology is unable to attain what
Ereignis signifies, because in bringing about a distinction between the arche and
what the arche produces, it brings forth a determination that prevents the Ereignis
from simply “happening” and from being recorded by phenomenology. At this
point, Heidegger does not try to find a tautology in Heraclitus’ logos: if anything,
the last period of his thought (1930–1960) was the closest he came to in achieving
such a task, although it did not seem to have fulfilled its objectives as he went back
to Parmenides.
Thus, in regard to onto-proto-logy, the opposition now seems to regard, on the
one hand, Heraclitus’s logos as the arche of Hegel’s onto-theo-logy, and on the
other hand, Parmenides’ tautological Being as the arche (or at least the bearer) of
Heidegger’s me-onto-logy. Heraclitus is no longer to be associated to this last accent
of metaphysics, and the opposition between Heraclitus and Parmenides is set back
into place by Heidegger. As we have shown, it is possible to read Heraclitus’ logos
as pointing to both accents, and his logos cannot be simply reduced to the thetic
accent of metaphysics. Heraclitus is the author of fragments that point to the dialec-
tical articulation of beingness, but he also left other fragments that conversely point
to the concealment of Being. Heidegger himself here seems to forget, in reading
Heraclitus, that “The barley-drink separates if it is not stirred” (DK B 125: Heraclitus
1987, 71); Heraclitus’ logos seems to portray only one accent of metaphysics, if
metaphysics is not considered in a broadened constitution.
But maybe what Heidegger was trying to do toward the end of his life was to break
free from metaphysics, even understood as onto-proto-logy, and that phenomenol-
ogy, radically conceived as tautology, would permit such a thing: tautology, this
barely recognizable logos that repeats the same, compels silence and requires us to
hear Ereignis. Perhaps any archeo-logical thinking was already and always a means
of metaphysics, even for the metaphysics understood in its me-onto-logical accent.
What remains unsaid in Heidegger would thus be more relevant than what he said.
But, in order to find the meaning in the unsaid, the latter needs to be brought back into
some form of logos, and the ultimate sacrifice capable of preventing such a fall back
into metaphysics would have been to have never spoken at all, only perhaps in tautol-
ogy. Yet, as Jean-François Courtine has already suggested, such a sacrifice would
have been (or it has been, if Heidegger’s logos has finally set itself in tautology) a
disaster for phenomenology,18 and for philosophy as a whole: it would have amounted
to the end of philosophy in its entirety, because philosophy needs, as the bearer of the
logos of “that which is wise,” an arche to direct its own saying of phusis.
18
“In a magnificent letter addressed to Heidegger in July 1942, Max Kommerell concludes an
examination of the commentary on the hymn, ‘Wie wenn am Feiertag…,ʼ by risking the notion that
Heidegger’s essay might well be a ‘disasterʼ (Unglück) for his thought as well as for Hölderlin’s
poetry. I am tempted to end with an analogous question by asking whether the tautological trans-
mutation of phenomenology does not itself also have a disastrous or catastrophic character, both
for the very possibility of phenomenology and for the immense critical potential of Heidegger’s
thought” (Courtine 1993, 255–256).
90 A. Cantin-Brault
Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest thanks to the organizers of the Pisa con-
ference and to the Editors of this book, as well as to Prof. Paul. D. Morris for helping with transla-
tions and to the late Emeritus Prof. Theodore F. Geraets for his philosophical insights on this
article. The present article contains English translations of passages previously published in an
article of 2018 entitled Heidegger, lecteur d’Héraclite: l’ombre de Hegel (Archives de philosophie
81 (2): 311–327). I wish to thank Archives de philosophie for having authorised the republication
of these passages.
References
Brogan, Walter A. 1999. Heraclitus, Philosopher of the Sign. In The Presocratics after Heidegger,
ed. D.C. Jacobs, 263–275. Albany: SUNY.
Cantin-Brault, Antoine. 2013. Héraclite dans la Philosophie de la nature de Hegel. Laval
théologique et philosophique 69 (2): 219–238.
Courtine, Jean-François. 1993. Phenomenology and/or tautology. In Reading Heidegger –
Commemorations, ed. J. Sallis, 241–257. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1969–1971. Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und
Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1969a. Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Teil: Die objektive Logik. Erstes Buch: Die Lehre
vom Sein. Werke, vol. 5, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt a. M.:
Suhrkamp. Trans. A. V. Miller. Science of Logic. Amherst: Humanity Books.
———. 1969b. Wissenschaft der Logik, II. Zweiter Teil: Die Subjektive Logik. Werke, vol. 6, ed.
Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Trans. and ed. George
Di Giovanni: The Science of Logic: The Doctrine of Essence, 2010, 337–505. Cambridge:
———. 1970a. Jenaer Schriften. 1801–1807. Werke, vol. 2, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl
Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1970b. Phenomenologie des Geistes (1807). Werke, vol. 3, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl
———. 1970c. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830). Die
Naturphilosophie mit den mündlichen Zusätzen. Werke, vol. 9, ed. Eva Moldenhauer und Karl
———. 1971. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I. Werke, vol. 18, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1983 ff. Vorlesungen. Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte. Hamburg: Meiner.
———. 1989. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II. Teil 2. Griechische Philosophie.
I. Thales bis Kyniker. Vorlesungen, vol. 7. ed. Pierre Garniron and Walter Jaeschke. Hamburg:
Meiner.
———. 1990 ff. Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 1825–26. Trans. R.F. Brown. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
———. 2001. Vorlesungen über die Logik (Berlin 1831, Nachgeschrieben von K. Hegel).
Vorlesungen, vol. 10, ed. U. Rameil, 2001. Hamburg: Meiner. Trans. C. Butler. Lectures on
Logic 1831. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1975 ff. Gesamtausgabe, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann. Frankfurt a.
M.: Vittorio Klostermann.
———. 1976. Wegmarken. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 9, ed. F.-W. von Hermann. Frankfurt a. M.:
Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. W. McNeill. Pathmarks, 1998. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
———. 1979. Heraklit. 1. Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens (Sommersemester 1943)/2.
Logik. Heraklits Lehre vom Logos (Sommersemester 1944). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 55, ed. M. S.
Frings. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann.
———. 1983. Einführung in die Metaphysik (Sommersemester 1935). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 40,
ed. P. Jaeger. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. G. Fried and R. Polt. Introduction
to Metaphysics, 2000. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. 1986. Seminare (1951–1973). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 15. ed. C. Ochwadt. Frankfurt a. M.:
Vittorio Klostermann.
———. 1988. Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet (Wintersemester
1931/32). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 34, ed. H. Mörchen. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann.
Trans. T. Sadler. The Essence of Truth, 2013. London: Bloomsbury.
———. 1993. Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie (Sommersemester 1926). Gesamtausgabe,
vol. 22, ed. F.-K. Blust. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. R. Rojcewicz. Basic
Concepts of Ancient Philosophy, 2008. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press.
———. 1997. Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936–1938). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 65,
ed. F.-W. von Hermann. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. P. Emad and K. Maly.
Contributions to philosophy (From Enowning), 1999. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
———. 2000. Vorträge und Aufsätze (1936–1953). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 7, ed. F.-W. von Hermann.
Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Partial Trans. D. Farrell Krell and F. A. Capuzzi Early
Greek Thinking, 1975. New York: Harper and Row.
———. 2003. Four Seminars. Trans. A. Mitchell and F. Raffoul. Bloomington and Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press.
———. 2006. Identität und Differenz (1955–1957). Gesamtausgabe, vol. 11, ed. F.-W. von
Hermann. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. J. Stambaugh. Identity and Difference,
2002. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Heidegger, Martin, and Fink, Eugen. 1993. Heraclitus Seminar. Trans. C.H. Seibert. Evanston:
Heraclitus. 1987. Fragments. Trans. and comm. T.M. Robinson. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.
Jarczyk, Gwendoline, and Pierre-Jean Labarrière. 1986. Hegeliana. Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France.
Mabille, Bernard. 2004. Hegel, Heidegger et la métaphysique. Paris: Vrin.
———. 2006. Philosophie première et pensée principielle (le révélateur néoplatonicien). In Le
principe, ed. B. Mabille, 9–42. Paris: Vrin.
———. 2010. La libération de la métaphysique. In Ce peu d’espace autour, ed. B. Mabille, 107–
133. Chatou: Les Éditions de La Transparence.
Maly, Kenneth, and Parvis Emad. 1986. Introduction. In Heidegger on Heraclitus: A new Reading,
ed. K. Maly and P. Emad, 2–8. Lewiston/Queenston: Edwin Mellen Press.
Reinhardt, Karl. 1959. Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie. Frankfurt a.
M.: Vittorio Klostermann.
Zarader, Marlène. 1996. The Mirror with the Triple Reflection. In Critical Heidegger, ed.
C. Macann, 7–27. London/New York: Routledge.
The Phenomenology of the Pure Ego
and Its Dialectical Actuality
Andrea Altobrando
Abstract The notion of the “pure ego” is an expression which seems to have long
been discredited. Even before the twentieth century – in the work of Hume, for
instance – the idea that there is a pure pole of experience, and life, has been consid-
ered to be nothing more than a myth. More recently, criticism of the pure ego has
often been made along the same lines as the criticism against the Cartesian self.
That is to say, both have been regarded as something lacking not only a body, but
also any psychological or historical qualifications. In this article, by means of a
reconsideration of some ideas by Husserl and Hegel, I will try to show how it is
possible to make sense of the pure ego, i.e. what kind of a real and, as it were, con-
crete meaning such an expression can have. I will claim that the capacity to refer to
oneself as a pure ego is fundamental to our achievement of a (perhaps illusory, but
anyway effective) understanding of oneself as a free agent.
Keywords Pure ego · Cartesian self · Husserl · Hegel · Phenomenology ·

Subjectivity
The idea of a “pure ego”, in current theories, investigations, and debates concerning
the self and subjectivity is quite unpopular, almost to the point that discussions of it
are dismissed with prejudice. One of the main reasons for this disrepute can be
ascribed to what, almost half a century ago, Cedric O. Evans has expressed in the
following way: “The pure ego theory preserves the unity and the endurance of the
self, but it does so at the cost of making the self non-experiential, and that is at odds
with our native knowledge of ourselves” (Evans 1970, 30).
A. Altobrando (*)
Philosophy Department, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China
e-mail: andrea.altobrando@cupl.edu.cn

94 A. Altobrando
In what follows, I will defend the opposite view, i.e. I will show that the pure ego
is “phenomenologically” founded, and I will even claim that it is concretely effective.1
In order to achieve my goal, I will take advantage of some observations and reflec-
tions from Husserl and Hegel. Indeed, I will show that Husserl and Hegel share a
similar view on both the legitimacy and the concreteness of the concept of a pure
ego, i.e. an idea of oneself as something different from the totality of oneself, as
well as something void of any determination. The meaning of these latter expres-
sions will become clear over the course of the next few pages. I should, however,
state clearly from the beginning that both Husserl and Hegel consider such an ego,
i.e. a pure ego, as an abstract ego, or rather as an abstract understanding of one’s
complete self. Hence, they assert the need to reach a more concrete and, therefore,
more adequate understanding of what one “really” is – thus assuming that reality
corresponds somehow to totality – whatever the latter can be, but, in our case, rea-
sonably that of a whole individual being, or of a whole human being. Nevertheless,
they also point out that this abstract element, i.e. the pure ego, is not properly unreal.
It is rather abstract in the sense that it is something that cannot subsist alone, and
that, by essence, necessitates something else to subsist, as well as to manifest itself.
This, however, does not mean that it is a false image, or a illusory understanding of
oneself. In other words, incomplete and abstract do not mean false or deceptive.2
It is perhaps interesting to remark that neither Hegel nor Husserl literally start
their philosophical inquiries into knowledge and certitude by affirming the pure
ego. However, they both acknowledge its fundamental role for the development of
a full-fledged self-consciousness, and for the achievement of the ability of a “free”
self-determination, which has to be understood as both epistemic and practical.3 In
this paper I will try to point out this last issue, i.e. how an “abstract” understanding
of oneself is necessary in order to achieve something, at least apparently, as concrete
as (the realm of) freedom. I also believe that such an understanding can contribute
1
I will not fully tackle the question concerning the “causal efficacy” of the pure ego within the
confines of this paper. I will only show that, if we assume something like intra-mental causality,
then the pure ego has to be considered as something effectively existing, although its existence and
its “efficacy” could simply be that of its mere concept.
2
As for Hegel, one could perhaps maintain that incompleteness corresponds to falsity, for only the
totality is the truth (Hegel 1986a, 86/61. Hereafter, the page number of the English translation fol-
lows the corresponding page number of the German edition). However, when affirming this, one
should carefully consider the specific understanding of the relationship between truth and totality
in Hegel. This is not the place for such a discussion. I will limit myself to remarking that the under-
standing of the pure ego as partial and, thus, “false” should not be understood in the same way as
if we were to say that the idea that a pure ego exists is wrong. Rather we should say that, without
an understanding of the whole which stretches beyond the pure ego, and in which the pure ego is
essentially embedded, one cannot properly understand the pure ego as well. In other words, the
pure ego is not an invention or a mirage, it is something real, but to understand it requires a view
of its specific position in the whole, or the totality, of the Spirit. I believe Tom Rockmore’s analyses
of Hegel’s concept of truth and its relationship to that of totality can support, or are at least compat-
ible with, the theses concerning the pure ego and its relationship to the totality of the individual, or
subjective, spirit I propose here: cf. (Rockmore 1986).
3
In this regard, I consider the pure ego as being a fundamental element of what Dieter Henrich
(1982) has famously called the “Ethics of Autonomy”, i.e. one of the main underlying motifs of the
whole Classic German Philosophy.
The Phenomenology of the Pure Ego and Its Dialectical Actuality 95
to a larger debate concerning the self, especially debates currently ongoing in both
phenomenology and “analytic” philosophy of mind. This understanding could be
especially helpful to debates concerning the very concepts of self, self-consciousness,
and the so-called “minimal self.”4
1 Husserl
It is quite well known that the “early” Husserl strongly rejects the idea of a pure ego.
This rejection has to be analysed with care, though. Indeed, it is beyond any doubt
that Husserl has never denied the existence of consciousness, rather he seems to
have considered it as the place where any reasonable edifice of knowledge has to be
grounded. In Husserl’s works, consciousness is mostly used as a synonym of experi-
ence, and without experience we would not be able to meaningfully intend, and
consequently to know, anything. Moreover, Husserl, at least from the Lectures on
the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time onwards, speaks about the
phenomenological field of enquiry, i.e. consciousness aka experience, also as “sub-
jectivity”. The “phenomenologically reduced” field of subjectivity is actually the
field of study of phenomenology, thus the “transcendental” ground of any
evidence.
If the field of investigation and the ground of phenomenology is experience aka
consciousness aka subjectivity, then does Husserl not simultaneously reject the
ideas of subject and of subjectivity in general when he rejects the idea of an ego?
What idea of ego does Husserl specifically reject? As we will now see, what Husserl
rejects under the term “ego” is something different from both consciousness and
subjectivity, both generally, as well as phenomenologically, considered.
In the Logical Investigations Husserl openly writes that in a philosophical
account of experience, there is no place for an ego that is supposed to be the centre,
the support, and the fixed-point of reference of experience, or of consciousness
itself in its flowing (Husserl 1984, § 8, 372/81). The only self, or ego, which can
4
As for the “analytic” side, I believe that the view(s) concerning the pure ego I propose here could
fruitfully be put into dialogue with the idea of Sesmet (“a subject of experience which is a single
mental thing”) put forth by Galen Strawson two decades ago: see (Strawson 1997, 1999, 2009). As
for the specific expression “pure ego”, there are different, and sometimes not compatible, concepts
ascribed to it. For instance, Barry Dainton considers an idea of pure ego as “awareness, purely and
simply”, and he also affirms that “[t]he Pure Ego entered the picture in the first place because it
supplied us with an account of the unity of consciousness.” (Dainton 2014, 110–111). I hope it will
become clear, in the following pages, that the concept of pure ego I try to let emerge from the
works of Husserl and Hegel corresponds neither to a “unifier” of consciousness, nor to awareness.
It is debatable whether the concept of pure ego I derive from Husserl and Hegel is equivalent to the
Cartesian self criticised by Williams (1973). An adequate confrontation, with both Williams’
Cartesian self and Strawons’ Sesmet, as well as with the notion of a “minimal self”, or otherwise
with several other different concepts of pure ego, clearly beyond the limits of this contribution,
though. In another paper, I have tried to show how the notion of a pure ego similar to the one I
present here, can actually withstand Williams’ objections towards a Cartesian self: Altobrando
(2017).
96 A. Altobrando
sanely be found in experience is the stream of experience itself. As such, it is

something changing and variable, and there is nothing permanent aside from some
structures of experience itself (if there is anything permanent at all). In accordance
with the later terminology of the Ideas, we can say that what is permanent are the
noetic and the noematic structures of lived experience.
A few years after the publication of the Logical Investigations, in the aforemen-
tioned Lectures on the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time of
1905, Husserl runs into the “hard problem” of self-consciousness and of reflective
consciousness and knowledge (e.g., Husserl 1966, Beilage VI). All the same, in
these lessons he does not speak of or mention anything which is not itself con-
sciousness, i.e. there is still no room for a self, or an ego, as the basis, permanent
inhabitant, or reference point of consciousness. Husserl does mention the notion of
an “absolute subjectivity” (Husserl 1966, § 36). We should, however, understand
this as a sort of absolute consciousness, the whole of consciousness, or better yet,
what the stream of consciousness is. The consciousness should be considered as
absolute because it refers solely to itself. It entails both the reflecting and the
reflected consciousness; therefore it is at the same time intending and intended
experience, both subject and object. There is not, we could say, anything else
directly, or manifestly, implied by it.5
This idea is decisively restated in the lessons of 1907 on Thing and Space, where
Husserl even claims that the consciousness at stake in phenomenological analysis is
“no one’s consciousness” (Husserl 1973c, 40–41).6
The “pure ego” Husserl is fiercely rejecting in the Logical Investigation is, then,
an ego understood as a “substrate” or “point of reference” of experience, but differ-
ent from this concept, as well as, apparently, from any part of it. One reason for
rejecting this kind of ego could be that Husserl does not want to endorse any meta-
physical assumptions about the soul, thus partially following the teachings of
Brentano.7 More importantly, however, Husserl is strongly inclined to keep to
5
Here, I will leave aside questions concerning the “external world.” With that said, I must note that
Husserl is already developing his transcendental reduction, thus “reducing” the sense of the tran-
scendent world to its appearances, and to the laws of such appearance. This, in my view, does not
entail a form of ontological idealism, though. As for whether phenomenological philosophy can,
or should, be considered as a form of transcendental idealism, is, as is well known, a quite prickly
problem. I will not tackle these specific issues, here. I would just like to mention that, the interpre-
tation of the pure ego I put forward seems to me to compatible with a headstrong anti-transcenden-
talist interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology, like the one put forward by De Palma (2015).
6
One should also consider the five introductory lectures to this course, published as The idea of
Phenomenology, where Husserl openly establishes transcendental subjectivity as the field of phe-
nomenological enquiry, though negating any self of this very field: see Husserl (1973a), especially
30ff.
7
As a matter of fact, Husserl discusses the “metaphysical” questions concerning the soul, espe-
cially that concerning its immortality, only in some manuscripts, most of which have only recently
been published: see, in particular, Husserl (2014). As for Brentano, if one admits that, at least at its
beginning, phenomenology is a development, of course with substantial revisions, of Brentano’s
Psychology from an empirical standpoint, one could see that, in this writing, Brentano clearly
states the possibility of a “psychology without soul”: cf. F. Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen
Standpunkt, Meiner, Hamburg 1973, 8. This does not happen because Brentano thinks that the
e xperience as the sole source of the validity of our ideas, and he “frankly confess[es]
[that he is] quite unable to find this [scil. the pure] ego, this primitive, necessary
centre of relations” (Husserl 1984, 374/92). In this way, Husserl quite openly
restates Hume’s famous assertion that humans “are nothing but a bundle or collec-
tion of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapid-
ity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement” (Hume 1739, I, IV, § VI). Indeed,
Husserl, at least from the Logical Investigations onwards, expressively recognizes
that the descriptive method of phenomenology is a reflexive method. Nevertheless,
he thinks that what reflection discloses is none other than consciousness itself, as
well as its various “ingredients” and laws. The reflective act is a part, or a moment,
of this same stream, and the self it discloses is the stream itself – or rather a part of
it. By reflecting one sees oneself, but this “self” is consciousness itself and not a
“substrate” of it.
This view is essentially maintained in the aforementioned 1907-lectures about
Thing and Space, where Husserl indulges in what is likely his most radical refusal
of the ego. The firmness and vigorousness of his rejection is particularly noteworthy
if we consider that in the very same years Husserl was starting to express, at least to
himself, his doubts about the issue of the ego, as well as the uneasiness he felt
toward it.8 As Marbach (1974, 74–246) has extensively shown, from roughly 1907
to 1911, Husserl was puzzled by the ego, and his first resolute rejection began to
waver, and finally converted into its polar opposite, i.e. a firm affirmation of a pure
ego as the substrate and reference-point of the field of consciousness. This “offi-
cially” – and notoriously – happens in Ideas I. He would later even go as far as
maintaining that the pure ego can be found in any possible consciousness and expe-
rience, even when it, i.e. the pure ego, is inactive and unapparent – or, as Husserl
explicitly says, “out of service” (Husserl 1973c, 156).
It is not easy to understand how, from a fiercely anti-egological position (i.e. a
position which acknowledges no other subject, self, or ego, that is not consciousness
itself or an “objectification” of it), one can come to assert the undeniable existence
of a pure ego as the unmovable Einstrahlungs- und Ausstrahlungspunkt (point of
irradiation, and of emanation) of consciousness, experience, and life. According to
Marbach’s reconstruction, there are two main reasons for this assertion:
problem of the soul is not a philosophical problem, or because he endorses some kind of reduction-
ist, or even eliminativist, view on it. Brentano rather believes that in the empirical psychology he
proposes, the question of the soul as a “substantial support” of mental life cannot be tackled, and
it should be left to ontological and metaphysical enquiries. I would claim that, at least in the
Logical Investigations, Husserl’s phenomenological project respects the division of work put forth
by Brentano. Phenomenology as such can offer some materials for the metaphysical and ontologi-
cal reflections, but cannot by itself perform ontological and metaphysical investigations. These
investigations, indeed, would require one to go beyond what is given in experience – i.e. beyond
the phenomena. They require logical, and indeed ontological reasoning, and not only analysis.
8
See Ms. A VI 8 II, 104a, where Husserl writes: “Ich sehe, ich meine Nichtgegebenes, und das
Meinen ist zweifellos, das Sehen, die Erscheinung. Der Zweifel etc. ist, aber immer sage ich Ich,
mein Sehen, mein Zweifeln etc., ich finde es, darauf hinblickend. Nun wohl, ich will von diesem
‘Ich’ weiter keine Aussagen machen. Es setzt mich in Verlegenheit”. This manuscript is quoted in
Marbach (1974, 64).
98 A. Altobrando
–– The “discovery” of the problem of intersubjectivity. There is not simply a unitary

stream of consciousness, but rather this is always someone’s stream. In other
words, any consciousness has to be individuated;
–– The need to account for experiences which seem to require a kind of “guide” and
reference, which differentiates them from other experiences and forms of con-
sciousness. More specifically, Husserl developed and endorsed the idea of a pure
ego as the centre of experience, because the peculiar experience of attention,
which makes up great part of our waking life, seems to require, and to actually
outgo from, a “point”, which, in turn, directs the attention, and cannot be itself
identified with a moment of experience.
As far as the validity of these motivations is concerned, I mostly agree with
Marbach, who openly restates what was also asserted by Sartre and Gurwitsch: the
reasons mentioned here are not sufficient to abandon a non-egological conception
of experience and subjectivity (Marbach 1974, 185–192). At the same time, I think
that Marbach’s analyses neglect, or do not duly consider, one decisive aspect of
Husserl’s considerations in regard to the pure ego, that is its “Cartesian” evidence.
As a matter of fact, Husserl’s remarks on this point are quite meagre. There are
very few passages, at least in the published works, in which he explicitly speaks
about the evidence of the pure ego – and such passages are, moreover, far from
being clear and perspicuous in their line of argumentation. The pure ego is men-
tioned several times in Ideas I (cf., e.g., Husserl 1976, 86–87, 123–124, 168, 178–
183), but never really justified nor clarified. Indeed, in the first volume Husserl
(Husserl 1976, 124) states that he will deal with the pure ego in the second volume
of the work. However, this second volume, as is well-known, was never published
during Husserl’s lifetime. Moreover, in the manuscripts for Ideas II, we can find
some summary characterisations of the pure ego, but the idea of the pure ego is
never fully worked out. What is even more important is that such an idea of a pure
ego does not properly emerge as a result of a careful and rigorous phenomenologi-
cal enquiry of what experience shows, and it is also not appropriately, carefully, or
critically assessed on the basis of what experience effectively manifests. In other
words, in the writings related to Ideas, there is no proper phenomenological founda-
tion of the concept of the pure ego, nor any examination of its tenability. It is some-
how assumed for functional reasons, to account for (at least some) experiences, and
not because it is displayed in experience.
In his later writings, at least among the published ones, we can find a brief, but
quite perspicuous, characterisation of the pure ego in the Cartesian Meditations.
Here Husserl affirms that in the evidence that the subject has of itself there is, on the
one hand, the “flowing cogito”, and, on the other hand, the “I, who lives this and that
subjective process, who lives through this and that cogito, as the same I” (Husserl
1950a, b, § 31). In § 31 of the Cartesian Meditations, then, we can see that Husserl
advocates an evidence of the pure ego in as much as one can refer to oneself as noth-
ing more than the pole of one’s life and experience. There is no demonstration of
this, indeed, but rather an appeal to experience, to a somehow crystal-clear and
unavoidable evidence. Actually, such an appeal was already present in a footnote to
the second edition of the Logical Investigations, which appeared in the same year of
the first volume of the Ideas. In that footnote, Husserl wrote:
the empirical ego is as much a case of transcendence as the physical thing. If the elimination
of such transcendence, and the reduction to pure phenomenological data, leaves us with no
residual pure ego, there can be no real (adequate) self-evidence attaching to the ‘I am’. But
if there is really such an adequate self-evidence – who indeed could deny it? – how can we
avoid assuming a pure ego? It is precisely the ego apprehended in carrying out a self-
evident cogito, and the pure carrying out eo epso grasps it in phenomenological purity, and
necessarily grasps it as the subject of a pure experience of the type cogito. (Husserl 1984,
368/352)
In other words, Husserl seems to claim that one has an intuition of oneself regard-
less of all attributes that one can ascribe to oneself.
In sum: the evidence of the ego cogito consists in the evidence of an I and of a
being, but, as Husserl will repeatedly maintain at least from 1913 onwards, the “I”
which appears in the effectuation of the pure cogito is somehow different from its
being. This can be interpreted to mean that the ego is (intuited as) different from all
its features, and all its experiences, i.e. from consciousness itself. This is the reason
why in paragraph 57 of Ideas I he defines the pure ego as a Transzendenz in der
Immanenz. We could also make use of a terminology Husserl applies especially in
the Cartesian Meditations, and assert that in the ego sum-experience we achieve an
evidence of ourselves as Sein (being), but not of our Sosein (being-so) (Husserl
1950a, b, § 33). Either way, whatever I am, I am I, I am absolutely certain of this,
and I am certain of myself as something different from all my experiences – includ-
ing those which support the attributions of predicates to myself. Anything I think of
myself could be wrong. However, it is always certain that I am referring to myself
and to nothing or no-one else. I experience myself, indeed, as the reference of my
self-consciousness, and not as coincident with the latter. The ego sum evidence does
not tell me “you are this evidence,” but rather, “you see yourself through me, i.e. the
evidence”. In my apodictic realisation that I exist, I do not identify myself with such
a realisation. Rather, I grasp myself as a kind of entity beyond such appearances. As
we will see, this is exactly what Hegel will point out as well.
As we have already said, in the Cartesian Meditations the difference between the
pure ego as the pole of consciousness and consciousness itself is finally and offi-
cially clearly stated. We must now figure out how to properly understand the pas-
sage, considered by Husserl himself as necessary, from this “polar” and “exclusive”
understanding of the subject as a pure ego, to increasingly complex understandings
of the subject, to an increasingly full-fledged self-exposition (Selbstauslegung) of
subjectivity. The manifest one-sidedness of the understanding of oneself as a pure
ego could give the impression that, to conceive of the self, or the subject, as a pure
ego amounts to a mistaken (self-)understanding of the subject. However, we must
consider that the abstractness of the subject as a pure ego actually means, as Husserl
himself clearly states, that one is grasping only one “part” of the reality of oneself,
and not that this part is a mere deception, or that our understanding of ourselves as
pure egos is false.
100 A. Altobrando
In this regard, I would like to say something about the Husserlian reappraisal of
the Cartesian ego sum. From Husserl’s “Cartesian” musings, it emerges that the
pure ego is a partial, and therefore abstract, result of the Cartesian cogito. In this
regard, it is important to stress that, even if it is only a partial element of the method-
ical reflection we fulfil during the attempt to reach a stable and apodictic field of
evidence, the pure ego corresponds to an intuition and, at the same time, i.e. exactly
in the same intuition, it distinguishes itself from consciousness.
This could possibly be considered as a relevant difference between Husserl and
Descartes. Descartes, in fact, upon having stated the apodictic certainty of the ego,
gradually specifies the meaning of such an ego by saying that it is a soul (or mind).
Famously, Husserl has criticised Descartes in the Cartesian Meditations on exactly
this point. Even if his writing is clearly dedicated to and openly inspired by
Descartes, Husserl argues that Descartes was wrong in substantializing or objectify-
ing his own discoveries about subjectivity, as well as the apodictic evidence con-
nected to transcendental life. Descartes has made an illegitimate step beyond the
evidence of the ego sum, thus misunderstanding the result of his very discovery
(Husserl 1950a, b, § 10).
Given our interest in the present article, and perhaps going beyond Husserl’s
dictum, we could add that Descartes has not simply “objectified” consciousness, but
he has also overcome the “pure” evidence of the ego – that is the ego simply as ego –
by making a res cogitans out of it. Indeed, Husserl’s critique of Descartes has nor-
mally been understood as referring to the reification of the cogito. This is also what
Husserl already mentioned in the lectures of 1907 that we previously brought up.
Husserl always insists on rejecting an understanding of the transcendental field of
consciousness as an objectual substance (Husserl 1952a, § 33). However, we have
to notice that, in some manuscripts, specifically those where he also refers to
Leibniz’ theory of monads and to Spinoza’s conception of substance, Husserl
explicitly states that the field of consciousness can be understood as a substance, in
as much as it in se et per se concipitur, i.e. it is understood in and for itself (Husserl
1973b, 257). Of course, even if we admit this, we can still maintain that conscious-
ness is not anything fixed and homogeneous, if not in terms of some fundamental
structures. In this regard, however, the pure ego clearly is a “wrong” understanding
of the very “substantialist” understanding of the cogito admitted by Husserl in such
manuscripts. The pure ego, indeed, is not defined by Husserl as a substance, but
rather as a substrate, i.e. one of the other main meanings of the (modern) under-
standing of the substance after Descartes.9 As a reference-point and as a Träger of
consciousness, the pure ego is possibly neither self-sufficient, nor independent. This
is the case when speaking from both ontological and epistemological standpoints.
To put it briefly: Husserl criticises the idea of consciousness as a separate sub-
stance, while it should rather be recognized as the field of disclosure of the world
itself. Consciousness should not be considered as an immaterial soul, we could say.
It does not disclose itself as opposite to matter, to body and space. The fact that
9
On the ambivalence of the idea of subject in the history of Western philosophy, and signally on its
relationship with the concept of substance from Descartes onwards, see Natoli (2010).
consciousness cannot be reduced to the body and matter, does not imply that it can
be separated from them. The “things” consciousness does not need in order to exist,
are things in themselves of which there is no evidence. When consciousness intends
a sofa, all that is required is the manifestation of the sofa. There is no need to ques-
tion the noumenal reality of the sofa. Once we have cleared this point, though, we
can acknowledge that, at least within the framework of the reduction, consciousness
can, and somehow has to, be considered as a substance, in the sense of quod nulla
res indiget ad existendum et in se et per se concipitur. The pure ego, in turn, should
be considered as a substance in another sense, that of “support” or “substrate,” not
properly or directly of the world, but rather of consciousness itself, while it should
not be considered as a substance in the sense of being independent.
Now, how can we specifically and positively characterize this “pure ego”? First
of all, one should get rid of a possible misunderstanding: Contrary to what we may
assume because of his “Kantian” heritage, although “Husserl’s” pure ego is also
referred to – quite misleadingly – as “transcendental” by Husserl himself, his con-
cept of a pure ego does not unify the stream of experience nor its contents. Strictly
speaking, even if the pure ego can be considered as a “formal” element of experi-
ence, it is not something which determines the “form” of experience, neither from a
noetic nor from a noematic point of view. It is neither a “synthetic” nor a “forming”
principle. It is not even an epistemic principle, strictly speaking, since it is not pos-
sible to derive anything from it. It can be considered as a principle only from a
practical point of view. This could be the case insofar as, according to Husserl, it is,
from time to time, the source of the fiat toward determinate actions and courses of
actions.10
If one ventures into Husserl’s writings, where the pure ego as content of (reflec-
tive) intuition is considered, it appears to have the following characteristics:
–– Empty: it has no qualities, no proper “identity”, no content (Husserl 1976, § 80,
1952a, §§ 22, 24, 1959, 412, 1962, 207);
–– Concretely abstract, i.e. it is abstract in as much as it is only a part of the subjec-
tivity, but it is nevertheless something really concrete (Husserl 1973b, 44–50);
–– Distinct from consciousness, but also neither transcendent nor empirical object,
and therefore Transzendenz in der Immanenz (Husserl 1952a, 97–98, 111, b, § 2
and Appendix I, 1962, 294, 1976, § 57);
–– Simple, because it is not composed of any “smaller” parts11;
–– Numerically identical with itself throughout the variations of the flux of con-
sciousness it is linked to (Husserl 1973b, 50, 1976, § 57).
10
See, e.g., Husserl (1952a, § 60, 62, Beilage XI).
11
This is not properly stated by Husserl, but it derives from the fact that, being by itself non-indi-
viduated, it is also numerically identical in all its occurrences, and it is characterised in a purely
negative way. Something which is the negation of any determination receives also all its negative
features from the other it is put into relationship with, but by itself it has no parts, otherwise the
difference would also be internal. One can, anyway, see what Husserl says in Husserl (1952a, §
24).
102 A. Altobrando
To these characteristics, we have to add some functions:

–– It “frees” the stream of consciousness (Husserl 1952b, 108–109, 292, 293, 1976,
192);
–– It decides (a part of) the actions of the stream of consciousness it inhabits
(Husserl 1952b, 257; 14, 16–17).
We do not have enough room here to show or discuss the passages of Husserl’s
writings which permit us to draw such a list of characteristics of the pure ego in
detail. I would just like to point out the “emptiness” of the pure ego, because it is
exactly this emptiness that allows one to understand how the appearance of the pure
ego enables a peculiar form of self-consciousness of the subject, which deeply and
concretely affects, and influences the whole rest of the very same life it appears in
and to. In as much as the pure ego is an “empty pole” of experience, it has to be
considered as void of any determination, must thus be taken as something “indeter-
minate”. Husserl, indeed, states that the ego is a “quality-less pole of experiences”,
and as such it “derives all its determinations from this polarization” (Husserl 1973b,
43), i.e. it owes all determination to what happens in the stream of consciousness it
is united to.
This means, on the one hand, that the ego as such cannot be criterially identified,
because there are no criteria to identify it beyond its immediate, plain manifestation.
Nevertheless, in saying, or thinking, “I,” all of us immediately grasp something and
cannot fail to do so. The pure ego does not appear in transcendent world, nor as a
part of consciousness. Therefore, to “catch” it means to catch something which is
given in experience, but for which we have no way to positively characterize it, and
nowhere to situate it. We can characterize it only in relationship to “its” stream of
consciousness, i.e. the stream of consciousness in which the evidence occurs. At the
same time, by means of its actual and concrete experience, it actually enables the
orientation of everything, including the stream of consciousness. If it were true that
it is in relation to this “indeterminate where” that the stream of consciousness is (at
least partly) determined, it follows that what determines the stream of conscious-
ness is intedeterminate. Put differently, its determination cannot be achieved with-
out any reference to indetermination, or to something intedeterminate.
This is exactly one point at which the considerations of Husserl can be more eas-
ily and fruitfully connected to – and, indeed, should be put into synergy with – those
of Hegel.
2 Hegel
Up to now we have seen that a thorough, and sober, insight into the experience of
the ego sum allows us to find evidence for a pure ego. This pure ego appears as
something simple and void of positive features. It seems, in a certain sense, to sim-
ply be the negation of any other content of experience and, to a certain extent, of
experience itself. This negativity has not been thoroughly investigated or worked
out by Husserl, though. On the contrary, this is exactly what Hegel stresses and
develops.
In Hegel’s writings, the “pure ego” makes a systematic appearance signally in
the Phenomenology of Spirit, and in the Encyclopaedia. Although in the
Phenomenology of Spirit the specific meaning of the “pure ego” is not univocally
stated, as it will instead be in the Encyclopaedia, some of its main features and its
peculiar function in the development of consciousness and Spirit can already be
found in the earlier work. Moreover, its treatment in the Phenomenology of Spirit is
particularly illuminating for understanding its complex as well as fundamental role
in the totality of the life of Spirit. Indeed, even if in the Phenomenology of Spirit the
characterisation of the pure ego and, especially, the meaning of such expression is
not stated in a clear and univocal way, we must observe that a certain ambiguity
regarding the reference of this expression is mainly due to the “thing itself”. Still in
the Encyclopaedia, wherein, as we shall see, Hegel is quite precise in defining one
specific meaning of the expression pure ego and in distinguishing it from other
related and partly overlapping, but nevertheless distinct meanings, the fundamental
double meaning which can be ascribed to the expression “pure ego” persists.
So, although the “Archimedean” role of the pure ego for the entrance of the sub-
ject into the realm of free spirit is most clearly stated in the “Philosophy of Spirit”
section of the 1830 edition of the Encyclopaedia, I believe that to better understand
what is going on in that section, and also to better justify what Hegel says there,12 it
is appropriate to consider what he writes in the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807.
Let’s then try to understand what these two main meanings are, starting from his
breakthrough work.
In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the pure ego clearly has its most relevant posi-
tion in the chapter dedicated to Selbstbewusstsein.13 Nevertheless, one can observe
that the pure ego is mentioned, and not at all marginally, already in the Vorrede and
in the chapter on Sense-certainty. I say “not marginally” because, without the pure
ego already somehow being present in these early chapters, there would probably be
no way to come to the following steps of spirit.
That said, one can clearly state that the expression “pure ego” is ambiguous if
one considers a passage like the following: “Ich ist der Inhalt der Beziehung und
das Beziehen selbst; es ist es selbst gegen ein Anderes, und greift zugleich über dies
12
Indeed, the Encyclopaedia section called “Phenomenology of Spirit” is somehow quite puzzling.
It does not possess the strength and richness of the 1807 Phenomenology, and it actually antici-
pates elements which will be developed only in the following sections, of the Encyclopaedia, thus
leaving the reader with doubts concerning the relationship between the order of the exposition and
the order of the “thing itself”. My idea is that, beyond any “systematic” difference between the
1807 Phenomenology and the Encyclopaedia, the treatment of the pure ego in his earlier work can
throw light onto the puzzles posed by the later work. For an insightful as well as accurate analysis
of the systematic differences and relationships between the Phenomenology of Spirit and the
Encyclopaedia, see Houlgate (2006, 144–162). See also Brinkmann (2011).
13
“The force of its truth thus lies now in the ‘I’, in the immediacy of my seeing, hearing, and so on;
the vanishing of the single Now and Here that we mean is prevented by the fact that I hold them
fast” (Hegel 1986a, 86/61).
104 A. Altobrando
Andere, das für es ebenso nur es selbst ist” [“the ‘I’ is the content of the connection
and the connecting itself. Opposed to an other, the ‘I’ is its own self, and at the same
time it overarches this other”] (Hegel 1986a, 137/104).
Roughly speaking, we can say that the ego is the totality, or the absolute, as sub-
ject, in particular in its movement of negation, and, at the same time, a part of this
same movement. In the Vorrede, indeed, Hegel seems to take Thought, or Thinking
(das Denken), the Intellect, or the Understanding (der Verstand), and the pure ego
(das reine Ich) as synonyms.
This is certainly not unproblematic. First of all, it seems to posit the ego on the
side of immateriality. Moreover, as it is understood as Thought and as Intellect, and
considering these also in their active sense, that is as the acts of Thinking and of
Understanding, the pure ego seems to be itself reduced to an activity. As for Thought
and Intellect, Hegel’s aim is quite clear. One of Hegel’s main, as well as famous,
claims is exactly that substance be conceived as subject, and this implies that it can
also be conceived of as something dynamic. Hegel explicitly criticises an under-
standing of the subject as a fixed point of predication, as a self-identity which gets
stuck in its formal tautological identity (Hegel 1986a, 138/105). Thus, a mere char-
acterisation of the subject as made of faculties without the activity of these faculties
would be an abstract understanding of the subject. Thought consists in thinking, as
well as the Understanding consists in the activity, and not merely the faculty, of
understanding. On the other hand, also quite famously, Hegel wants to overcome the
distinction between Thought and Being, Concept and Reality. Therefore a thinking
which simply intends or means its object without assimilating it would also remain
abstract. For this reason, understanding and thinking, in as much as they refer to any
kind of otherness, should not simply be understood as something which keeps itself
in front of such otherness, but rather as the activity which relates and mediates sub-
ject and object.
In both cases, i.e. the overcoming of the distinction between faculty and activity,
on the one hand, and the sublation of the difference between thinking and being, on
the other, there is a polarization of what is at stake from time to time, and the ego is
respectively understood as the totality of the movement of thought and as one of the
poles. Indeed, if the mediation of Thought allows it to overcome the difference
between Concept and Reality, one should not easily accept their identity as well.
One could perhaps dare to say that the pure ego has to be understood as the activity
of “ego-ing” or, maybe better, of “purifying.” One must, however, understand what
such a concept of “purification” amounts to.
As we know, in its utmost development, the subject is the Absolute Spirit. This
implies that the “polar” understanding of the subject as something “distinct” from
its activities, and of the latter as something different from what they are directed
towards, or on, should be sublated. Nevertheless, there are various passages in
which the pure ego is not so simply understood as the whole self-positing and self-
relating subject-activity. We know that Hegel’s Aufhebung should never be under-
stood as elimination or deletion. However, it is also suitable to keep a clear mind
concerning the risk of “deleting” the difference between subject and object, which
would lead to the dejection of the movement of mediation itself as a consequence,
thus leaving us with a dead Spirit, probably with a Ghost, and no longer with the
Spirit as Life.14 The overcoming of mediation, if achieved in the sense of its elimina-
tion, would leave us, in the best case, in the Spinozism Hegel explicitly criticises
(Hegel 1986b, § 415, 203/145).
That said, we have to understand why there is an ambivalence of the pure ego.
Sometimes it seems to be a sort of synonym of Spirit itself, which is process, media-
tion, and totality. At other times, it is one of two extremes of the movement of self-
determination of Spirit. As we know, this depends on the necessity to overcome the
“original unity” as “immediate unity” of the subject with itself – and this is valid on
both an individual and a universal level.15 The truth of the certainty A = A has to be
realised by means of a self-negation and of a “journey” through the Anderssein,
being-other. In this “movement of self-positing”, the pure ego is both an extreme of
the relation and the relation, or the mediation, itself. It is so because the ego is, from
the beginning, living as a part of the relation, and as the subject undergoing the
mediation. The ego cannot understand itself in any form aside from being in such a
relationship. However, it is possible to understand it as something totally different
from anything else, including itself as a qualified being. Such a possibility is neces-
sary for the very positing of the identity of I = I, and for its full concreteness, both
cognitive and practical. Within the limits of this article, I am only interested in
understanding this possibility, which is constituted by what Hegel calls the pure ego
in its “polar” meaning.
There is, indeed, a peculiar way in which the subject posits itself as pure ego and
as something different from the rest of the whole movement of the Geist that is
characterized in a way similar to the Husserlian differentiation between conscious-
ness and ego. This specific way of positing itself on behalf of the subject is consid-
ered by Hegel as essential for the genuine realisation of the truth of absolute spirit
as a free subject. The substance as subject has to realise itself by means of a self-
negation in otherness, but also by negating the self-negation, and so, finally, recog-
nizing itself in its negation. To be able to see oneself as a “pure ego” is necessary to
this development. In turn, the fact that this vision “works,” and that it has effects,
testifies to the “reality” (Wirklichkeit) of the pure ego. Moreover, we can observe
that, in order to achieve all this, the pure ego must keep its negativity, it must persist
in negating its identity both with the Other and with any of its own determinations,
i.e. with any form of being.
In the chapter on Sense-certainty, Hegel shows that what does not disappear dur-
ing the sublation of the empirical certainty is the “I qua universal” (Hegel 1986a,
86/61), as something which is somehow different from all the contents of ‘its’
14
The risk is similar to the one we have seen concerning Husserl’s treatment of the pure ego: once
one realises that the pure ego is an abstraction, one tends to leave such an understanding aside as
nearly erroneous. This, however, as I will specifically point out later, would possibly take us to
neglect its “meaning,” i.e. also its specific “function”, in the totality of a self-conscious subject.
15
In this regard, the “ambiguity” is put forth in order to overcome or, better yet, sublate the problem
of simple identity, and not to reach it.
106 A. Altobrando
e xperience, and finally from experience itself. Concerning the chapter on Sense-
certainty, then, two remarks can be made:
(a) The ego conceived of as the pure seeing or as the reference of the indexical “I”,
is from the beginning something universal;
(b) The pure ego does not refer to any particular content, rather it seems to be the
case that any possible content is understood with reference to it;
(c) Even if it is already present, it is neither known nor properly “conscious.” To
use Hegel’s conceptual coordinates, we should say that it is there for us, but not
for itself. The following steps bring the ego to see itself as an ego. This means
that to see the birth of the ego in the sphere of the elements of thought, we must
wait for the ego to experience itself simply as ego, and for it to “consciously”
determine itself according to this view. In other words, by seeing itself as a pure
ego, the ego’s very self-determination occurs precisely in accordance with this
specific kind of consciousness.
The following phase, Wahrnehmung (Perception), does not actually seem to be par-
ticularly important, in as much it does not suggest any new feature of the pure ego.
Nevertheless, there are some elements of the way of determining the objects of
experience which are quite important for understanding how the ego must be when
it comes to have itself as its own object:
–– The perceived thing is apprehended as an excluding unity [ausschließende
Einheit] (Hegel 1986a, 103/76).
–– It is therefore “being for itself, or as the absolute negation of all otherness, there-
fore as purely self-related negation” [Fürsichsein oder [...] absolute Negation
alles Andersseins, daher absolute, nur sich auf sich beziehende Negation] (Hegel
1986a, 103/76).
–– The unity of perception, thus, ultimately consists in the “sublation of itself; in
other words, it has its essence in another” [Aufheben seiner selbst oder [dies,]
sein Wesen in einem Anderen zu haben] (Hegel 1986a, 103/76).
We must also keep in mind that the criterion of truth is the identity-with-itself
(Sichselbstgleichheit), and that, as a result, all features of the perceptual Thing just
mentioned will be operative also in Selbstbewusstsein when, so to say, the ego will
become the Thing to be known.
The following chapter of the Phenomenology, devoted to the Understanding
(Verstand), seems to prepare the ground for putting the ego on the scene, but a scene
which is a Jenseits (Beyond) of pure negativity against the world of phenomena.
The Understanding can be said to be the medium of determination of various
matters. We are here on the extreme of the being-for-itself (Extrem des Fürsichseins).
Consciousness (which here is Verstand) does not yet have itself as content. Therefore,
Hegel says that “for consciousness, the object has returned into itself from its rela-
tion to an other and has thus become Notion in principle [an sich]; but conscious-
ness is not yet for itself the Notion, and consequently does not recognize itself in
that reflected object” (Hegel 1986a, 108/79). This lack of knowledge of itself as
identical with itself implies that, at this level “consciousness plays no part in its free
realisation, but merely looks on and simply apprehends it” (Hegel 1986a, 108/80).
This means that the realisation of oneself is not free, yet, because the I still does
not know, and thus does not possess, itself. At this stage, one is in the realm in which
the truth of the appearances is judged as an empty “beyond.” But this empty beyond
is understanding itself, even if understanding itself does not know it (Hegel 1986a,
124/95).
To know what it is really doing, consciousness needs to posit itself as ego, i.e. as
different from what it presumes itself to deal with in terms of “reality.” In order for
this position to be possible, the ego must first become consciously void of any deter-
mination, and even of any substantial relationship with otherness. This is what hap-
pens in the first phase of self-consciousness.16
Hegel states that “Self-consciousness has in the first instance become a specific
reality on its own account (für sich), has come into being for itself; it is not yet in
the form of unity with consciousness in general.” This clearly means that a moment
at which self-consciousness is consciousness of something detached and different
from every other moment of, both “internal” and “external”, consciousness and
experience is necessary.17 Only after this peculiar object has appeared “in” con-
sciousness, i.e. only in as much the ego as pure ego has become a content of thought,
the reconciliation and the identification with the whole of consciousness and experi-
ence become possible.
Now, how does the ego appear to consciousness at this stage, which is also the
first stage at which the ego becomes properly conscious of itself as ego? “What”
does consciousness see as “itself”? The ego is consciousness, but consciousness as
object of itself. Therefore, the ego is a specific form of self-understanding of
16
Hegel believes the process of self-consciousness takes three steps: “The notion of self-conscious-
ness is only completed in these three moments: (a) the pure undifferentiated ‘I’ is its first immedi-
ate object. (b) But this immediacy is itself an absolute mediation, it is only as a supersession of the
independent object, in other words, it is Desire. The satisfaction of Desire is, it is true, the reflec-
tion of self-consciousness in to itself, or the certainty that has become truth. (c) But the truth of this
certainty is really a double reflection, the duplication of self-consciousness. Consciousness has for
its object one which, of its own self, posits its otherness or difference as a nothingness, and in so
doing is independent. The differentiated, merely living, shape does indeed also supersede its inde-
pendence in the process of Life, but it ceases with its distinctive difference to be what it is. The
object of self-consciousness, however, is equally independent in this negativity of itself; and thus
it is for itself a genus, a universal fluid element in the peculiarity of its own separate being; it is a
living self-consciousness” (Hegel 1986a, 144/110). I will here mainly consider the first moment,
that is, the one in which the ego appears in its purest form.
17
“The identity of the mind with itself, as it is first posited as I, is only its abstract formal ideality.
As soul in the form of substantial universality, mind is now subjective reflection-into-itself, related
to this substantiality as to the negative of itself, something dark and beyond it. Hence conscious-
ness, like relationship in general, is the contradiction between the independence of the two sides
and their identity, in which they are sublated. The mind as I is essence; but since reality, in the
sphere of essence, is posited as in immediate being and at the same time as ideal, mind as con-
sciousness is only the appearance of mind” (Hegel 1986b, § 414, 201/144). It is difficult not to see
the similarity between what asserted by Hegel in this passage and Husserl’s idea concerning the
Korrelationsforschung (see, e.g., Husserl 1950, §41).
108 A. Altobrando
c onsciousness, which becomes self-consciousness in as much as it differentiates

itself from any of its contents. Therefore, self-consciousness is a splitting of con-
sciousness, a splitting in which a part of consciousness is considered by conscious-
ness as being itself. However, since consciousness is thus separating from itself, the
pure ego it identifies itself with is also different from the whole consciousness as
such. In other words, consistently with what we have seen in Husserl, the emer-
gence of the subject as a pure ego amounts to an understanding of the subject as
different from its very consciousness.
Self-consciousness happens when the ego as pure ego comes into the scene as a
specific content of experience. When it finally makes its first appearance, the ego
delineates itself as both simple and persistingly identical, with no differentiations
nor variations. In other words, it does not allow for any difference or variation. It has
no plurality of aspects. Indeed, it has no aspects at all.
The first step into a both epistemologically and practically appropriate self-
consciousness is what Hegel calls a bewegungslose Tautologie, a motionless tautol-
ogy: Ich bin Ich, I am I. This self-certainty is abstract inasmuch as the self has
detached itself from its own being. The being is actually what has been constituted
during the previous steps of consciousness, when the self had no “idea” of itself,
including the idea of “being itself”. Now, the ego seems to reach the idea of itself,
but as something which still does not entirely know itself, thus still looking for sat-
isfaction outside of itself.
The really Sichselbstgleiche, the Identical-with-itself, entzweit sich, duplicates
itself. The unity of the resulting two poles of identity is actually only a moment of
the duplication (Entzweiung): “[such unity] is the abstraction of the simplicity or
unitary nature over against the difference” (Hegel 1986a, 133/100). The self-
identical duplicates itself. It overcomes itself as already duplicated and as being-
other. In this process, unity is a moment of duplication. It is an abstraction of
simplicity which is put in front of the differences. But it is also the duplication. It
could not be unity as simplicity without differentiating itself. The becoming-
identical-with-oneself is a duplication. What becomes the same as itself, puts itself
in front of the duplication. It puts itself on the side, it becomes a duplicated entity,
as it were. In reality, we have here an internal difference, which means that we have
two poles, each of which subsists only in opposition to the other. They are in them-
selves as Entgegengesetzte, in opposition, therefore they are only one unity (and,
thus, one “entity”). Each of them is simple in itself thanks to its being different from
the other. The ego, thus, differentiates itself from itself, though it does not know it,
and considers itself in an extreme polarisation which excludes consciousness from
itself. This form of self-consciousness emerges per differentiam. Self-consciousness,
at this stage, is consciousness of a self which does not grasp its identity with
consciousness.
According to Hegel, otherness must not be kept in its fixed otherness, but must
be acknowledged as belonging to the ego itself. It must not persist in its otherness,
because in this way the ego can be only negativity. It is still “only” finite, it is still
the negation of the positive, i.e. of Life and Substance.
This position is confirmed in some of the main writings of the later Hegel. I will
here only briefly consider some passages from the Encyclopaedia of 1817 and the
one of 1830, which can help us to further dig out the specific as well as systematic
meaning of the pure ego.
In the 1817 version of the Encyclopaedia, Hegel states: “The judgment, in which
the subject is “I” in contrast to an object, as if in contrast to a foreign world, is thus
reflected immediately into itself. Thus the soul becomes consciousness” (Hegel
2001, 193–194). It is clear that, in this self-reflection, the ego defines itself only
negatively, i.e. in contrast to all other contents. Therefore, it is a self which is differ-
ent from the one we find in “self-feeling” (Selbstgefühl).
Later, in the Encyclopaedia of 1830, Hegel stresses that reflection has to be
included in the understanding of the absolute. This means that the movement by
which a subject becomes an object is necessary in order to have the full, real, effec-
tive, and concrete realisation of what the subject already is, but only an sich, or in
other words, unrealised. To reiterate, we need the Fürsichsein of the ego, and this
means self-objectivation.
Self-objectivation, though, needs an experience, or an understanding, of oneself
as nothing else than an ego, as a pure and abstract ego, a form with no content, a
formal principle with no definite shape, that kind of pure negativity that is “me.” In
other words, in order to achieve the realisation of the Spirit as in-and-for-itself, an
act of consciousness directed towards oneself as something different from any pos-
sible determination must occur. For this reason, in the Vorrede to the Phenomenology
of Spirit, Hegel differentiated ego and substance, and stressed, recalling the ancient
philosophers, that emptiness is what moves (Hegel 1986a, 39/21). In the
Encyclopaedia of 1830, Hegel restates even more clearly that the pure ego is not
only simple, but also that it needs to be defined as something different from Life and
Substance, terms apt to express the plurality of experiences and of their various
respective contents and contexts.
To summarize, we can say that in Hegel’s work there is a need to overcome the
motionless tautology of “ego = ego” by means of an inner movement of the identi-
fication it refers to. The ego that is stated in the “immediate” reflection, which states
the identity of the ego with itself, is indeed inadequate to what it pretends to grasp.
The ego caught in its fixed identity is something numb. It is cognitively inadequate
because it does not acknowledge the very same movements by means of which it is
grasping itself, hence that it has been going through an alienation from itself which
is essential to its very same full identity. It is also practically inadequate, because it
neglects its own power of determining itself by acting in the “outer” environment.
Nevertheless, even if Hegel stresses the necessity to overcome the numb identity
“ego = ego,” he does not want to eliminate it, nor to get rid of the pure ego as an
“abstract” part of the realisation of self-consciousness. The moment of abstractness
that the pure ego entails, or, perhaps, that the pure ego is, is necessary to the move-
ment and especially to the development of the full-fledged self-consciousness of the
Absolute as Spirit. Indeed, if Spirit does not achieve an understanding “purely” of
itself, it gets stuck in the phase of the Intellect, where it assumes itself to be busied
only with itself, and does not realise that it is rather already dealing with outer
110 A. Altobrando
r eality. To realise this, a lucid distinction between self and its other is necessary. It
is solely on the basis of such distinction that a free shaping of the very unity between
the two poles becomes possible. We could then say that, at the level of the subjective
Spirit, or alternatively at the level of the individual subject, this amounts to stating
that the element “pure ego” is necessary in order to have subjects which can think
of themselves as individually responsible beings.
From Sense-certainty to Understanding, the ego has been somehow already
working as “absolute negativity.” This negativity has been the identical element of
experience, but “im Anderssein,” in being other. The ego was there from the begin-
ning, but it has not properly appeared until the moment of self-consciousness. Thus,
the ego, that is the principle of both freedom and of reason, is initially not free “for
itself,” but only for us, for the spectators of its phenomenology. To be concretely
free it must become aware of itself as being itself, thus re-appropriating its other-
ness.18 This further means that the ego must also overcome his “abstract” self-
consciousness as empty pole of the relation with other-being. Consciousness of the
ego must become self-consciousness.
In order to satisfy the desire to self-realise itself also by means of self-knowledge,
the subject has to go beyond the understanding of itself as only a pure ego.
Nevertheless, the same subject must stay aware that it is also a pure ego in order to
be able to be properly self-conscious and, thus, to act freely, in this way properly
realising itself as a totality in the guise of a concrete universal spirit. The latter, in
turn, could not be possibly realised without that form of self-consciousness.
Otherwise, as already said, we would always have the risk to fall back in what Hegel
defines as “Spinozism”:
As regards Spinozism, it is to be noted against it that in the judgement by which the mind
constitutes itself as I, as free subjectivity in contrast to determinacy, the mind emerges from
substance, and philosophy, when it makes this judgement the absolute determination of
mind, emerges from Spinozism. (Hegel 1986b, § 415, 199/142)
It follows that the “abstract” difference of the pure ego must be preserved in order
for the development of the very universal absolute spirit to be possible. It is different
from a feeling of oneself, and also from its very content. The content of such a feel-
ing must be left aside, rejected as alien, or at least different from – though necessary,
but not determining – the pure ego. The pure ego must be kept in its negativity. We
can finally say that the specific “activity” of the pure ego, which we tried to identify
with a form of “purification”, could be better defined as the activity of negation.
18
“I is the infinite relation of mind to itself, but as subjective relation, as certainty of itself, the
immediate identity of the natural soul has been raised to this pure ideal self-identity; the content of
the natural soul is object for this reflection that is for itself. Pure abstract freedom for itself dis-
charges from itself its determinacy, the soul’s natural life, to an equal freedom as an independent
object. It is of this object, as external to it, that I is initially aware, and is thus consciousness. I, as
this absolute negativity, is implicitly identity in otherness; I is itself and extends over the object as
an object implicitly sublated, I is one side of the relationship and the whole relationship–the light
that manifests itself and an Other too” (Hegel 1986b, § 413, 199/142).
3 Provisional Conclusions
On the basis of our work up to this point, we can assert that at least some aspects of
Hegel’s and Husserl’s accounts of the pure ego are in agreement. Certainly, there is
still a lot of work to be done in order to achieve a thoroughly accurate evaluation of
their similarities, differences, compatibilities and incompatibilities, even when we
are limited to the issue of the self. My aim, however, was only to show that it is
meaningful to speak about a pure ego from an experiential point of view, as well as
that its appearance has a very concrete meaning, i.e. the experience of oneself as a
pure ego has concrete effects. With that said, in this regard also the “concrete”
understanding of the pure ego I have sketched here is certainly far from being fin-
ished. Indeed, it would seem that this investigation is still at its beginning. In these
provisional conclusions I would like to merely point out some elements which have
emerged, as well as sketch some possible consequences, which can then be better
assessed and developed by means of further investigations and reflections.
From the analyses of Husserl and Hegel I proposed here, we can see that the pure
ego is characterized by its:
1. Difference from the whole of the subject which grasps the pure ego as being
identical with itself;
2. Purity, i.e. the absence of anything alien which is not the egoic reference itself.
The alienness one gets rid of by means of a self-understanding as a pure ego,
includes the manifestations of the ego itself, i.e. its consciousness, and also its
(inner, i.e. psychical, and outer, i.e. physical and social) environment;
3. Simplicity, since it lacks a plurality of aspects, be they spatio-temporal aspects
or otherwise;
4. Indeterminacy, understood as a lack of qualification, as well as a dearth of any
positive quality.
5. Emptiness, since there is nothing one can properly find “in” it, and it is void of
any quality, feature, or content;
6. Negativity, which should mainly be understood as expressing the purity and the
indeterminacy of the pure ego in a kind of activity of opposition to any mixture
with anything else, including its “life” and its “attributes”, as well as to any fol-
lowing determination of itself.19
Hegel has poignantly shown that, especially because of this last feature, the pure
ego is not only an abstract in the sense of partial entity, but it is also an “effective”
element of thought. Its appearance in the consciousness one has of oneself enables
and, to some extent, causes a different course for the totality of the subject or living
being. The main activity of the pure ego consists, thus, in its negation of any given
determination, and of any established order. Hegel clearly shows this consequence.
19
It is obvious that, especially this aspect should be further investigated by means of a confronta-
tion between the work done on the role of the negativity in the Hegelian tradition, including its
critical developments, and the “phenomenological” reflections on freedom and resistance put forth
by Sartre.
112 A. Altobrando
Furthermore, this also seems to be consistent with Husserl’s characterisation of the

pure ego as the source of the fiat, i.e. the act of deliberation by means of which a
subject lets a certain course of action(s) happen. In this regard, we could say that the
feature of “emptiness” is the counterpart to that of negativity: it does not constitute
the negation of something, but rather the possible source both of one’s own evidence
of oneself, and of one’s movement towards self- as well as other-determination.
If we juxtapose Husserl and Hegel, we can say that Husserl allows us to see the
emptiness of the ego as indeterminacy, while Hegel permits us to further take such
emptiness as negation. Although both Husserl and Hegel insist on the role of the
pure ego for the realisation of oneself as a free spirit, the fact that Hegel mainly
speaks of the pure ego – at least in its “polar” definition – in negative terms, and
indeed as a negative power, can lead one to neglect that one could, or should, persist
in intending oneself as free in the sense of purely indeterminate subject, in order to
have a concrete realisation of freedom. Consequently, it is dwelling on the positive
aspect of the “emptiness” as indeterminacy of the ego that makes possible the move-
ment of freedom, i.e. the movement towards a full-fledged, constant, and inexhaust-
ible realisation of the free spirit.
On the basis of these considerations, we can state at least three different experi-
ential accesses to the pure ego:
(A) Its plain evidence in the experience of the ego sum, which does not show any
direct reference to anything beyond the ego, nor to any specific aspect, or fea-
ture, of it;
(B) The negative, or oppositional evidence of the pure ego as somehow resisting
any possible assimilation into any positive determination, as difference from
anything else, including its own attributes;
(C) The feeling of the need, or of the injunction, to determine oneself, which goes
hand in hand with one’s awareness of indeterminacy as indecision.
Access A is the most direct one, and it is the one which Husserl usually advo-
cates. However, as Hegel has clearly shown, it requires several previous steps in
consciousness before being possibly instantiated. In particular, it presupposes the
capacity of the self to differentiate itself from anything else, including its own life
and totality. This means that access A presupposes access B. In turn, access A seems
to be necessary in order to have access C. Indeed, without a grasp of oneself as
something this side of any determination, one would possibly be insensitive towards
the injunction to determine oneself.
To put it briefly, and to conclude: I need to have myself at disposal as indetermi-
nate in order to determine it/me. This capacity, whatever the ontological status of
the pure ego is, must be granted in order to have freedom, at least experientially. My
first attestation of myself as a free being is possibly an act of negation of any given
content, i.e. only if I manage to positively see myself as void of any determination
can I initiate a course of self-determination. Without the capacity to perceive oneself
as indeterminate, which goes at least partially hand in hand with a feeling of irreso-
luteness, one remains in an abstract freedom.
Acknowledgments This paper has been made possible thanks to the initial support of the National
Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 17BZX085), as well as of the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (Kakenhi No. JP25.03791).
References
Altobrando, Andrea. 2017. Imagining Oneself. In Imagination and Social Perspectives:

Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology, ed. T. Fuchs, M. Summa, and
L. Vanzago, 23–43. New York: Routledge.
Brinkmann, Klaus. 2011. Idealism without Limits. Dordrecht: Springer.
Dainton, Barry. 2014. Self. Philosophy in Transit. London: Penguin.
De Palma, Vittorio. 2015. Eine peinliche Verwechselung. Zu Husserls Transzendentalismus.
Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy Special Issue I., ch. 1: 14–45.
Evans, Cedric O. 1970. The Subject of Consciounsess. New York: Humanities Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1986a. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Werke, vol. 3. Frankfurt
a. M.: Suhrkamp. English edition: Hegel, G. W. F. 1977. In Phenomenology of Spirit (Trans:
Miller, A. V.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1986b. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1830. Dritter
Teil. Die Philosophie des Geistes. Werke, vol. 10. Frankfurt a/M: Suhrkamp. English edition:
Hegel, G.W.F. 2007. Philosophy of Mind (Trans: Wallace, W. and Miller, A. V., revised by
Inwood, M. J.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2001. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1817, Gesammelte
Werke. Vol. 13. Freiburg: Meiner. 2000.
Henrich, Dieter. 1982. Ethik der Autonomie. In Selbstverhältnisse. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Houlgate, Stephen. 2006. The Opening of Hegel’s Logic. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University
Press.
Hume, David. 1739. Treatise on Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2014.
Husserl, Edmund. 1950a. Husserliana. The Hague: Nijhoff. 1950–1987; Dordrecht/Boston/
London: Kluwer 1988–2004; Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer 2011.
———. 1950b. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. In: Husserliana, vol. 1. Den
Haag: Nijhoff 1950.
———. 1952a. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Zweites Buch. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. In Husserliana, vol. 4.
Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1952b. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Drittes Buch. Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaft. In Husserliana, vol.
5 Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1959. Erste Philosophie II (1923–24). Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion. In
Husserliana, vol. 8. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1962. Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. In
Husserliana, vol. 9. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1966. Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins. In Husserliana,
vol. 10. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1973a. Die Idee der Phänomenologie. In Husserliana, vol. 2. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1973b. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil:
1921–1928. In Husserliana, vol. 14. Den Haag; Nijhoff.
———. 1973c. Ding und Raum. Vorlesungen 1907. In Husserliana, vol. 16. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
114 A. Altobrando
———. 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.

Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. In Husserliana, vol. 3/1.
Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der
Erkenntnis. Zweiter Band, Erster Teil. Husserliana, vol. 19/1. Trans. from the second German
edition of Logische Untersuchungen J. N. Findaly: Husserl, E. 2007. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Logical Investigations. Vol. II. London/New York: Routledge 2001.
———. 2014. Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der
Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik (Texte aus dem Nachlass 1908–1937). In Husserliana, vol.
42. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Marbach, Eduard. 1974. Das Problem des Ich in der Phänomenologie Husserls. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Natoli, Salvatore. 2010. Soggetto e fondamento. Milano: Feltrinelli.
Rockmore, Tom. 1986. Hegel’s Circular Epistemology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Strawson, Galen. 1997. The Self. Journal of Consciousness Studies 4 (5–6): 405–428.
———. 1999. The Self and the Sesmet. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6: 99–135.
———. 2009. Selves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard. 1973. Imagination and the Self. In Problems of the Self, 26–45. Cambridge:
Hegel, Husserl and Imagination
Alfredo Ferrarin
Abstract In this essay I deal with Hegel and Husserl on imagination. I show both
the unsuspected centrality of this notion for their relative philosophies and the
intrinsic merits of their positions which, though quite far apart in their conclusions,
turn around very similar aspects, such as the relation between imagination and per-
ception, presence and absence, universality and particularity, signitive and intuitive
reference, negation and distance, layers of consciousness.
Keywords Hegel · Husserl · Imagination · Negation
1 Introduction1
This essay deals with Hegel and Husserl on imagination. I should point out right at
the outset that Hegel and Husserl put forth very different views on imagination, and
there is no historical influence of Hegel on Husserl. And yet, there are some the-
matic affinities, as well as some remarkable differences, on which I would like to
dwell. I take Hegel and Husserl as two models of a philosophy of the imagination
which I think are each very insightful, rich and important. For all their differences,
each has much to teach us about imagination.
Another preliminary remark is this. The function of imagination may appear as a
rather limited perspective from which to compare Hegel and Husserl. I suggest it is
not. For Husserl, just consider the richness and importance of the minute analyses
in volume 23 of Husserl 1956 on Bildbewusstsein, which must itself be seen in con-
junction with the lectures on time-consciousness. Rudolf Bernet writes that Husserl’s
transition from a logical-ontological idealism to a transcendental phenomenology
1
Translations from Hegel and Husserl are my own except for Husserl (1973). I quote Hegel’s
Encyclopaedia (Hegel 1969: 8–10) by reference to the section number, whereby A refers
to Anmerkung, and Z to Zusatz.
A. Ferrarin (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
e-mail: alfredo.ferrarin@unipi.it

116 A. Ferrarin
occurs through the transformation of the analyses of image-consciousness.2 As to

Hegel, we should remind ourselves that by being both inwardization and
externalization, imagination is the key aspect of representation. It should suffice to
read again § 457 of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in the Encyclopaedia, where
he writes that it is in phantasy that “intelligence presents itself … as concrete sub-
jectivity” and as the midpoint between inner and outer, between what is one’s own
and what is found.
2 Unreality and Stratification
Both Hegel and Husserl, albeit in very different terms, value the unreality of imagi-
nation. Unreality here does not mean a mode of being alternative to reality or the
non-being of objects. Rather, it invites us to consider the role of absence in intuition.
Differently stated, unreality is a relative non-being, the non-being proper to what is
given intuitively.
In this connection I think it is useful to begin with the definition of imagination we
find in Wolff and Baumgarten taken up literally by Kant in the Critique of pure Reason
(Kant 1787, B 151): in imagination we give ourselves an intuition without the pres-
ence of an object. There is something intuitive about imagination, but at a step
removed from perception, for imagination works quite differently from perception. In
imagination we presentify, in Husserl’s word, an object in its absence. This quasi-
intuitivity is equally at the root of Hegel’s remark in the Aesthetics that a painted lion
is superior to a real one because it stems from spirit and is a production of human
ingenuity, and of Husserl’s famous pronouncement in Ideas I (§ 70) that fiction prop-
erly understood is the vital element of phenomenology as well as of all eidetic sci-
ences. Notice that whereas for Hegel this implies a form of anti-Platonism, for Husserl
it points us to a realm of being, i.e., essences, irreducible to the world of facts.
If we now consider a different point made by Kant, in § 59 of the Critique of the
Power of Judgment, that unlike in the Leibnizian tradition we must keep sharply
separate signs and images and bring back to life the supersensible notion of symbol,
we can narrow down further the limits of our discussion. Hegel treats imagination
as a family term that assumes a continuity stretching from images to signs and sym-
bols up to linguistic memory. By contrast, Husserl begins to define his mature con-
ception of imagination as he realizes the difference between signitive and imaginative
consciousness in empty intentions, until in Ideas I (§ 43) he emphasizes the insur-
mountable difference between these two and perception, which gives us the object
originally and in its flesh.
Hegel and Husserl both speak of perception as contradictory. Perception pre-
tends to accomplish what it cannot in principle do (as Husserl’s lectures on Passive
synthesis have it). It starts by assuming that the object will be captured in its entirety.
It soon realizes that this clashes with the discrepancy between what I mean and what
Bernet (2004, 77). See also Bernet (2006, 269–89).

2
Hegel, Husserl and Imagination 117
I perceive. More striking than this ground shared by Hegel and Husserl, however, is
how deeply their solutions diverge. In his criticism of sense-certainty, Hegel inter-
prets this discrepancy as pointing to the superior truth of language. When I express
the fullness of the object, my consciousness is surprised as it realizes how poor its
vocabulary is; but this poverty is actually the beginning of knowledge, because lan-
guage, including indexicals and pronouns which should safeguard individual refer-
ence but ultimately cannot, draws us out of the sensible towards the universality that
alone makes it possible for thought to move confidently in its own element. The
cognitive import of perception does not lie in it, but in language. By contrast, the
discrepancy for phenomenology lies in the fact that all sensuous apprehension will
always be partial. Perception is partial because the three-dimensional object is given
as wholly there, but at the same time it never yields all its profiles at once. All per-
ception is intrinsically finite, partial, successive and refinable over time: there is
nothing like a complete grasp of the object, unlike in imagination or in conception.
For what I imagine is given all at once. Imagination is directed towards itself, its
own exercise, its world, while perception is directed towards the object. If the image
is given as a whole by my activity, the percept is given as a whole to my
perception.
In their conception of imagination, Husserl and Hegel share two fundamental
premisses, it seems to me. The first one is the polemical target, which for brevity’s
sake I will simply call Hume’s imagination. The second one is a view of the life of
the mind as a stratification, a mutual relation of layers that recall and build upon one
another through transformation and negation. Let me explain them in turn.
(i) Husserl admits that his initial inspiration for phantasy comes from Brentano’s
lectures on psychology and aesthetics. Brentano argues that phantasy represen-
tations are analogues of perceptions. As such, they are ‘improper’ (uneigentlich)
presentations, part intuitions and part concepts. In 1904–1905, after the brilliant
criticism of Brentano’s Bildertheorie in the fifth Logical Investigation, Husserl
writes that the dissatisfaction with precisely this point prompted him to investi-
gate further the status of imaginative consciousness. We must not start from the
sensible content of perception and imagination, but from the form of presenta-
tion. Besides, it is not a difference in intensity or vivacity that accounts for the
distinction between sensation and phantasy, as in Hume: the difference is in
essence (Husserl 1980, 92–3).3 What Brentano is not clear about is the differ-
ence of content, sense and form in objectifying apprehensions, and what he does
not see is that phantasy representations are indeed intuitive (hence not improper)
and yet are presentifications, not presentations: the imagined object is absent,
but given as if it were present.
3
When I say that Husserl rejects the model of Hume’s imagination, I do not want to suggest that he
decidedly rejects Hume’s language throughout. Strikingly, at Husserl (1980, 81), Husserl calls the
difference between sensation and phantasma a difference between impressions and ideas, and later
(1910–1912: Husserl 1980, 322) he renews his own opposition between original Erlebnis and
reproduction in terms of impressions and ideas.
118 A. Ferrarin
In turn, Hegel positively rejects Hume’s imagination, despite several points of

contact including the literal tribute to the gentle force of Hume’s imagination in the
“attractive force” of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in the Encyclopaedia (Hegel
1830b, § 455 A). What Hegel objects to is not a Bildertheorie in perception, but a
cumulative model through which the custom of repetition builds ideas relative to
experience and vivacity works as a criterion to mark off impressions from ideas.
What this model cannot account for is the nature of this “gentle force,” which for
Hegel is none other than intelligence itself. The model pursued by Hegel is instead
the subsumption under the universality of intelligence, the infinite self-relation that
the I is. The single intuition is subsumed in the I like a particular under a universal,
whereby the I is the unitary virtuality of thought, the night or pit in which represen-
tations are unconsciously preserved—as he puts it. The main difference is in terms
of normativity and objectivity. And that is, as we will see presently, how Hegel
recasts the relation between representation and image.
(ii) About stratification: for Hegel intelligence is understood as development of
itself in its various stages, and these are mutually related in such a way that
every form becomes matter for subsequent consideration. Intelligence works as
the actualization of what we have sedimented as potentialities in ourselves. This
implies that the life of intelligence grows increasingly distant from the world of
perception and is in ever greater relation to itself and its inferior forms (notably,
intuition, recollection, reproductive imagination, sign-making phantasy, etc.) of
dealing with the world. This increasing complexity is called a liberation from
our dependence on what we at first find.
Husserl argues that in images and memories I have ever new ways to refer to past
perceptions. Through presentification I can “reflect in phantasy” (Husserl 1980,
186–7) on previous experiences, and thus bring to light their content. Particular
aspects I had marginally taken in can become relevant or attract the rays of my
attention later, and that includes the previous I that had made the experience (Husserl
1980, 205). This is possible because I can take certain acts as “substrates” on which
further acts are grounded (Husserl 1980, 301, 312) and which can be brought to
coincidence with them (Husserl 1980, 343). The phantasy act and the phantasy ego
can interact with the real ego, so that a fictional world can become part of the real
world (Husserl 1980, 351). In other words, phantasy can be the ground for subse-
quent modifications (Husserl 1980, 377), including for positional acts and actual
stances (Stellungnahmen). If every stance comes with the possibility of cancellation
and the I is the organized succession of its Stellungnahmen, then I think this is one
of the presuppositions for the famous passage in the fourth Cartesian Meditation in
which Husserl says that the I constitutes itself in the unity of a history.
3 Hegel on Imagination
After this introduction I will now proceed to some more detailed analysis of Hegel
and Husserl in turn.
For Hegel it is crucial not to break up spirit into a series of isolated and unrelated
faculties. As a result, imagination must be seen, like every other stage, as one of the
modes in which intelligence functions. Intelligence is negativity, the potency of hav-
ing an object from which it can abstract, and, in distinguishing itself from it, recog-
nize itself as the identity behind the continuity of experience. The boundaries are
fluid (we do not have clear-cut demarcations but moments), and the different acts
(for example, the acts of recollection and memory, or reproduction in images and
production of signs) refer to and grow out of one another.
I will concentrate on the sections on Theoretical Spirit, from the Psychology of
the Encyclopaedia (Hegel 1830b). Intelligence at first finds contents outside itself,
in intuition. Its first move is to turn what exists in outward space and time into a
second-degree existence for the mind. If nature is the space and time of existence,
the mind is the “where and when” of representations (Hegel 1830b, § 453). Things
become the possession of intelligence, taken out of their immediate singularity.
Hegel calls this the inwardization of an intuition in the form of an image. Which, as
it is apprehended in the universality of the I (Hegel 1830b, § 452), is inevitably more
universal than intuition, even if it retains a sensible-concrete appearance (Hegel
1830b, § 457 Z). What Hegel never says here is how intuition and image differ, and
it seems to me they do insofar as at some point we have drawn explicit attention to
an intuition, put it in relief and taken it out of its undifferentiated flow, even if later
the image has sunken into the unconscious pit of intelligence. This is how intelli-
gence marks its images as its own; this is why for it the essential act is recognition.
The movement of intelligence is a dialectic of inner and outer, Ideelsetzung-
Entäusserung, but this movement itself is run by its telos, the production of thought,
so that the whole point of these sections of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit is a
self-relation known as such. The middle stage of this dialectic of intelligence in the
Psychology is representation, which is a recollected intuition. Recollection here has
nothing to do with memory but with internalization or inwardization (Er-innerung),
and refers to intelligence’s progression from finding itself determined by outward
existence to vanquishing its own autonomy and self-relation. At the end of the pro-
gression there will be no more gap between intelligence and things.
At first representation is recollection in this sense. Its content is the same as in
intuition, the preceding stage at which intelligence found its content, but with the
added character—the form—of being known as now intelligence’s own content. In
other words, intuition is pervaded by intelligence, it is the realm of images floating
in me, more or less involuntarily, as internalized from previous acts: as mine. The
second stage is imagination proper, which elaborates and shapes its own content,
while the third stage is memory, which has signs, and language especially, as its
object.
This is to say that in order to have a representation I need to be able to (1) repro-
duce in intelligence what I have found, (2) establish a bond and a connection among
images, and (3) finally give particular figurative existence once again to the products
of my intelligence. These three moments can be named (1) reproductive imagina-
tion, (2) association and connection of images, and (3) the production of signs and
symbols (Zeichenmachende Phantasie). They are respectively the universality,
objectivity and self-objectification of representation.
120 A. Ferrarin
Representation lives thanks to this relation between internalization and intuition.

For intelligence is the power over images, but it needs to be reminded of contents
through intuition (Hegel 1830b, § 454). This relation between image and intuition
is called “the subsumption of the immediate intuition under what is universal in
form, under the representation which is the same content” (ibidem). What this
means is that by being made the I’s possession an image becomes the permanent
representation that serves as the universal subsuming particular intuitions under
itself. And this shows that Hegel takes imagination to be at once the idealization in
representation and the capacity for variation, on the basis of an abiding representa-
tion, of modes, aspects, and contours of intuited contents. Thus the first image, the
representation, works as the norm for the variation on the further images and intu-
itions, which thus become idealities instead of given singularities. In the terms of
the 1817 Encyclopaedia, the image held fast as a representation is the negative
power which “rubs off the uneven of similar images one against the other” (§ 376).
The image that has become representation can do this insofar as it is a type, and not
a simple singularity. The identity between representation and intuition is not given
but produced through ever renewed acts of identification and subsumption.4
We have just seen that representation needs intuition. Intelligence must be able
to intuit itself in something determinate, and the various determinacies in which it
mirrors itself will tell us the stage at which intelligence is moving.5 The thesis that
thought needs an intuitive determinacy is as old as Aristotle’s point that we think in
images, for thought needs something determinate to turn itself to. But unlike
Aristotle Hegel thinks we think in names, not images. The motivation for this con-
clusion is apparent from the very dialectic from intuition to image to sign we have
attested. In language the thing has being only as a spiritual production, and spirit is
in and through it in relation to itself. Productive imagination’s symbols, metaphors
and allegories are individual sensible figures, so that intelligence intuits itself in
material images: it intuits in the eagle Jupiter’s force. Here the tie between symbol
and symbolized remains immediate; there is no gap between nature and meaning. In
the flag or the cockade, by contrast, we have signs for meanings that remain external
and indifferent to them. The relation is freer because intelligence no longer needs to
rely on material appearance in order to institute a significant relation to it. The rela-
tion is what intelligence has set up, and in the sign the thing’s being is now clearly
intelligence’s activity.
The difference between a material and a linguistic sign is that unlike a cockade,
a word is not the material bearer of an externally intuitable relation; it is not red,
white and blue, for it is a negated intuition, and specifically only a fleeting and van-
ishing sound that has a temporal rather than spatial being. The intuition that the sign
is exists only as disappearing; intelligence is negative in that it does not rest at its
products, nor are its products stable enduring intuitions (Hegel 1830b, § 459).
4
See Ferrarin (2001, 295 ff).
5
For example, if representation needs an intuition we are at the level of imaginative subsumption
and recognition, while if I reflect on symbols we are at the level of symbolic phantasy.
Intelligence’s content exists as a name (a name is “the externality of intelligence

to itself,” Hegel 1830b, § 462). But a name is in itself merely a singular production
of intelligence. What we need is a connection endowed with permanence; memory
is this abiding system, a bond of signs: the preservation of this arbitrary and exter-
nal connection itself. The name “lion” no longer needs to evoke an intuition or
image to be understood, grasped, and used meaningfully. Memory has sublated in
the sign all reference to sensible presence. In understanding a name we need not
associate with it an image or an actual meaning because the name is now seen by
intelligence as the sign of its signified.
This amounts to a recasting of the hierarchy of the senses. Insofar as it is medi-
ated by the productive imagination and transformed into a sign, intuition is only
insofar as it is sublated: that is, it loses spatial and pictorial connotations to become
temporal existence as spoken language. It is now, in Hegel’s words, vanishing
sound, “a disappearing from existence while it is,” thus “a second existence, higher
than the immediate one” (Hegel 1830b, § 459). The primacy of sight is effaced in
favor of hearing; space gives way to time. Thus in Hegel productive imagination—
unlike in Leibniz, for whom it was still a characteristic production of hieroglyphics
for the eyes (and reasoning, however blind, must take its bearings by a vision of
signs)—supplants all priority of sight in order to make itself intelligence manifest in
time: we no longer need to see determinations.6
Speaking generally, we can conclude that thinking is operative from the outset,
from the earliest or still dormant stages of spirit, and not once signs, or a self-
conscious I, have been introduced. There is a definite logic to nature and finite spirit
well before the introduction of language. This is the same thesis we find in the logic
and the Encyclopaedia: thought gives itself a reality, and conversely all reality must
be understood in light of its concept. The logos manifests itself in the logic, in
nature, in spirit: this self-actualization or Sichselbstentäusserung is one of the basic
traits of thinking.7
Three specific consequences regarding imagination I would like to draw are
these. Firstly, as we have seen, imagination internalizes the given and reifies the
rational. Unlike in Kant, in Hegel imagination is first reproductive, and only there-
after is it productive. But reproduction is tantamount to the “issuing forth of images
from the I’s own internality, that is now the power over them” (Hegel 1830b, § 455).
That is, the sense of replicating the given manifold in the mind, implicit in the
requirement that the reproduction be faithful to the object of experience, is disap-
pearing; besides, by productive imagination Hegel means a creation of signs
(Zeichen machende Phantasie), not a schematic effect of the understanding over the
intuition of space and time.
6
See Ferrarin (2007, 135–58), from which I am here drawing several considerations.
7
This general thesis finds recurrent applications throughout his sytem. For example, in the
Phenomenology language is spirit’s Dasein (Hegel 1807, 376, 1977, 308–9). Or, time is the Dasein
of the concept (Hegel 1807, 584, 1977, 487). In the Encyclopaedia, nature is “die Idee als Sein,
seiende Idee” (Hegel 1830a, 393). The soul is an existence among others that spirit gives itself
(Hegel 1830b, § 403 A). For a fuller treatment, see Ferrarin (2016, 2019, chapter 3).
122 A. Ferrarin
Secondly, in this new form, i.e., semiotic phantasy, intelligence is a universal that
objectifies itself in a particular intuition.
Thirdly, unlike in the tradition stemming from Aristotle and reverberating to
most pre-Kantian philosophy, memory and imagination are not the flip sides of the
same coin. Far from being the remnant of sensation in images, memory is rather the
liberation from images and the exclusive focus on signs, and for this reason Hegel
relates it etymologically to thought (Gedächtnis – Gedanke). In turn, imagination is
not defined by or exclusively related to images.
To translate the progression of intelligence into apparently non-Hegelian lan-
guage, the dialectic of intelligence works as the liberation from presence—not so
that absence gets the upper hand, but so that the unreality of thought’s ideal connec-
tions alone is validated.
4 Husserl on Imagination
Rather than the mediation and continuity of different functions of imagination, it is

their discontinuity and distinctness that Husserl’s analyses aim at highlighting.
I said earlier that a phantasy act can be the substrate on which subsequent inten-
tions are grounded, so that phantasy world and real world can interact. That is not
the best-known trait of Husserl’s imagination, in fact some interpreters or followers
deny that, beginning with Sartre. The more familiar version, indeed the starting
point for Husserl’s reflections on imagination is the neat demarcation between per-
ception and imagination. Imagination in turn is taken as phantasy (or memory) and
sharply distinguished from image-consciousness. Let us see how.
Imagination is understood as a modification of perception, which is the genu-
inely original apprehension. This means that an intuitive content can be given in
different presentations: while imagining my brother presentifies my brother to me,
perceiving him is quite different. The two ways to consider my brother are alterna-
tive and cannot overlap; I cannot compare them and put them side by side, for
example (Husserl 1980, 75). For in perception I intend the object as real; the object
is given in flesh, as an individual here and now with its identity. This perceptual
attitude is inseparable from a belief in the object’s existence (Husserl 1980, 221):
that my brother is now here means I posit him, i.e., recognize him, as real. If I imag-
ine him instead he is not given as real. And yet, he is given intuitively, as-if he were
here (unlike if I write his name down, for example). As a result, all intentions to
refer intuitively to my brother, as when I picture him with a moustache he has never
worn, remember him in the blue sweater he had last year or imagine him in a com-
plex narrative, are grounded on an original apprehension that alone can give me my
brother as real. Only perception can teach me something about my brother in his
identity and individuality.
What is my image of my brother? It is always a double-seeing, seeing two in one.
In imagination consciousness is divided against itself. Whereas the positional con-
sciousness of perception is undivided, in imagination and in image-consciousness

we experience a fundamental duality. Here I do not posit an object, but rather sus-
pend all position of reality. While Husserl tends to juxtapose positional and non-
positional consciousness, there is, as Sartre insists, a second-order positing
concomitant with a negation: the positing of an as-if world when I picture my
brother fighting a dragon—whereby I negate the real world he is part of—, that of
recognition when I look at his photo—whereby I negate (silence and suppress) all
focus on the fading colors of the aging photo. Either way, I have a conflicted posit-
ing (Widerstreit) that only exists for an innerly divided consciousness.
Before we see in what ways image-consciousness and imagination differ in this
duality, let us note one last aspect defining perception. As Experience and Judgment
claims, perception is moved by an interest, the drive to fixation: to know and make
the known a stable possession even when intuition is no longer available (Husserl
1973, § 47). We can repeatedly go back to the known object as to our property, to an
invariance we have acquired (§ 48) which remains for us ever available (Husserl
1966, 10–1). That is, every impression needs a reproduction: both in terms of invari-
ance through time and of a self-same intuitive content (the two dimensions that the
A Deduction of Kant’s first Critique assigned to the schematic and the empirical
functions of imaginative synthesis). In other words, rich though Husserl’s percep-
tion may be, it cannot suffice unto itself: consciousness needs reproduction, which
is not part and parcel of perception (or of the living present of time-consciousness)
but a presentification.
In perception there is a gap between what I intend and what appears, between the
present and the absent. Still, if in perception I see the aspects of the object as they
are given, in an image I do not see the image’s aspects, but what is shown in and
through the image, and that means I do not intend what is present in my perceptual
field, but what is absent through what appears in what is present. This is what nor-
mally happens with images.
But what is image-consciousness? It is not to be confused with imagination, for
it is a very peculiar form of perception. When I imagine my brother I do not believe
my brother is there. He is not present or real. I perform acts that differ radically from
those involved in recognizing his image in a photo. What makes this photo an image
of my brother? Interestingly, Husserl and Wittgenstein share much ground here,
beginning with the resolute rejection that resemblance, or any other property intrin-
sic to the image, can help account for this reference. For Husserl in the Logical
Investigations, it is only a specific act of consciousness that makes me grasp an
image as an image (Husserl 1984, vol. 2, 54). A photo is a perceptual object and
must be regarded as one (imagining my brother is not what it means to recognize
him in the photo). And yet, if perception were all there is to image-consciousness,
i.e., if the photo were a piece of paper or polyester in a frame, precisely the image-
character of the photo would escape me. The photo is then a thing, but unlike other
percepts it is a thing that we regard as a stratification of intentional objects. If the
object of perception is undivided, here instead we have three terms, Bildding,
Bildobjekt, Bildsujet. The image-thing, the material photo, is apprehended as an
124 A. Ferrarin
image-object8; the image-thing is thus the substrate (Husserl 1980, 492) for the
appearance of an image which itself represents and refers to my brother. When I
recognize my brother then I see in the image the subject that appears in it (Husserl
1980, 18–9). Notice that I can move from one attitude to the next at will (for exam-
ple, if I want to frame the picture or repair a tear I consider the image-thing; if I try
to remember the day I took the picture, I focus on the image-subject; if I appreciate
the esthetic quality or color of the photo, I focus on the image-object). In sum,
image-consciousness is this seeing-in.
If this is not imagination, why is it not a perception? Because perception is not a
seeing-in but a looking at: the observation and inspection of an undivided object.
Besides, the image is unreal; it clashes with the actual present of the image-thing.
Consciousness is here run through by contrast: either I look at the material object, or
I consider the image, or I see in it its referent. It is this relation of representation send-
ing us beyond the material object to its transcendent subject that is missing in normal
perception. Further, if the photo hangs on the wall, perception apprehends the space
of the wall as a whole. The photo instead beckons me, it wants me to look at it at the
expense of its surroundings (Husserl 1980, 46–7). Its space is deliberately isolated
and discontinuous with the space outside the window that the picture frame is.
What I find particularly interesting and instructive in this juxtaposition between
imagination and perception is where it threatens to break down: the threshold where
the opposites almost merge and neat borders are blurred. For the experience of con-
trast within consciousness and negation of appearance does not first occur in imagi-
nation, because it is already part of what Husserl describes as illusory perception.
Let us consider Husserl’s examples: he visits the wax museum and before some
stairs is fooled by what he at first takes as a charming lady that turns out to be a wax
figure. Or, he takes a mannequin in a shop-window for a man. His explanation of
this misperception is of great interest. Normal perception is the unquestioned doxic
certainty that intends a presumed object in the perceptual appearance. Normally I
need not question this certainty, but if I doubt it, hesitation comes in, I become inde-
cisive, nothingness becomes relevant until I revoke, cancel, negate the initial per-
ception (Husserl 1980, 406–7). I decide that the man I had seen in the mannequin is
a nothing (Husserl 1980, 49). The perception of the man is annulled.
And yet, it is the same appearance that can be a man or a mannequin. Husserl
says in the Fifth Logical Investigation that of the same phenomenon we have two
perceptual apprehensions, and these are intertwined in the manner of contrast
(Husserl 1984, vol. 1, § 27, 443). Because the phenomenon is “a living contradic-
tion,” so that the phenomenon cannot be man and mannequin at the same time, we
need to decide—and decision is disentangling the one apprehension from the other.
Judging is dissociating. But this rests on one premiss functional to a sharp distinc-
tion: perception cannot be fiction of the percept, and fiction cannot be perception of
a fictum (ibidem).
8
As Fink puts it in in Vergegenwärtigung und Bild, in the Scheinkonstitution I neutralize or nullify
the material bearer and only concentrate on the image.
I would like to stress two points about this. First, this cancellation of belief is not
a phantasy; Husserl says it is a figment (Fiktum), the appearance of something real,
while the image in phantasy is not, for the image does not aim at being valid (Husserl
1980, 464, 491). The Fiktum, including the mirror image that presents itself as real-
ity (Husserl 1980, 487), is unlike the fictional imagination, for the imagination
never was the certainty of a reality to begin with and therefore cannot mislead us: I
cannot be fooled by the mermaid I imagine, for she is not in my perceptual field. She
stakes no claim on it.
Second, what is most significant in this perceptual illusion is that we do not have
a simple succession of doxic stances, first ‘man’ then ‘mannequin’: we have a “dou-
ble negation” (Husserl 1980, 406). In other words, we do not limit ourselves to
substituting a new certainty for the old one: the old one survives in me as negated.
If the cancelled belief is a negation, the old certainty bears in it the stamp of nullifi-
cation and is known and retained as such a nothingness. Conversely, my new, now
validated stance contains in itself the negation of the first certainty.
Our consciousness is like the stage of a fight, where one certainty undergoes
cancellation and is “disqualified” as the valid and qualified one takes over. What
happens to the defeated doxa? To those familiar with Hegel on determinate negation
especially, Husserl’s words are striking: it “does not pass over into nothing... it
experiences its ‘not’, its cancellation.”9
Four conclusions I would like to draw are these. One is that, if the present judg-
ment builds on negated past stances, consciousness is a stratification in which dif-
ferent layers are inseparable from, indeed necessarily related to one another. The
idea of a pointlike present, a being without becoming, has rarely appeared more
abstract.
The second consequence is this. Cassirer writes that imagination first says not to
appearance. It is the first way in which we detach ourselves from the world and give
rise to a symbolic world. If Husserl is right that it is through the modalization of
perception that the concept of possibility and negation first arises, so that what
appears as positive is run through by negativity, critique (Husserl 1980, 428), the
possibility of being otherwise, then we are always already detached from the world,
and the real world given in perception already comes with negation.
9
Husserl (1980, 478 (ital. mine)): “die qualifizierte Erscheinung hat den Charakter der
Unstimmigkeit, der hinweist auf den weiteren Erinnerungsgang, in dem die Qualität ‘Aufhebung’
erfährt, d.i. nicht in nichts, in keine Qualität übergeht, sondern die qualifizierte Erscheinung ihre
Aufhebung erfährt im Widerstreit mit einer anderen, sich mit ihr durchsetzenden qualifizierten
Erscheinung... und ihr ‘nicht’, Vernichtung erfährt”.
Hans Jonas illustrates this point with the example of a scarecrow in the perception of a human
being and of a bird. The bird either is scared by the scarecrow or has realized it is a fake: to it, the
object is either identical to its appearance or different. For humans the negated perception that lives
on implicitly in me shows I have simultaneously identity and difference. The human being does not
merely replace the misperception with the correct one: for us, the ‘wrong’ perception “survives to
be confronted as falsified with the right one” (Jonas 1966, 178). Jonas draws the lesson that human
beings are vitally concerned with something other animals do not have: an interest in likeness and
image per se, which they tend to separate from appearance and regard as such.
126 A. Ferrarin
The third consequence is this. After the Logical Investigations Husserl, who in
1901 had not yet fully worked out the difference between image-consciousness and
imagination, treats the misapprehension of the man where only a mannequin is as
the falling back from imaginative to perceptual consciousness. Later, possibly wary
of the ambiguity and indeterminacy of this notion of imaginative apprehension, he
is less definite about it but tends to take illusory perception more and more clearly
as an example of image-consciousness. The reason is straightforward10: the man-
nequin is the image of a man and is on that account misleading (the wax figure in
the wax museum “represents” a woman: Husserl 1984, vol. 1, 230). But images are
not illusions because, as we have seen, they never were the certainty of a reality to
begin with and therefore cannot mislead us. We can now rephrase this difference in
a new way (Husserl 1980, 486–87): an illusion is a nullification, a negation; an act
of imagination is instead a nothing. Differently stated, it did not have to pass from
assertion to negation because it never was a positional act or an assertion of reality
to begin with. What was it all along? A suspension—a suspension of validity, of
belief, of reality. There is then a difference between the unreality of what has been
negated and that of imagination and phantasy (not to mention the unreality of what
might be, i.e., anticipation; Husserl 1980, 508).
Closely related to the third consequence comes a fourth one. Let us leave aside
Husserl’s repeated wavering and ambiguities on figment and image throughout
these pages and recall that the figment in image-consciousness is not a phantasy or
image. Still, if we start from the thesis that a phantasy or image is wholly unlike
both image-consciousness and perceptual illusion, the risk is that we lose sight of a
more fundamental point: all forms of image-consciousness require the work of
imagination, even if not all forms of imagination are forms of image-consciousness.
It is as if after 500 pages Husserl needed to remind himself of imagination’s role:
phantasy image as reproduction in absence as well as perceptual image “are both
cases of imagination [Beides ist Imagination]. This must never be forgotten and is
absolutely certain” (Husserl 1980, 480; the emphasis is Husserl’s).
It is important to dwell on these two last consequences because I do not want to
join Sartre in the unwarranted leap he takes. Inspired by Husserl, Sartre denounces
the illusion of immanence, i.e., the tendency endemic to modern philosophy, which
assumed an identity in nature between sensation and imagination, to take images as
residues that experience left in the mind as if they were things with their own inertia.
Images are instead acts, acts of consciousness. No image lives on unless it is an
image-consciousness; but this is not like Husserl’s Bildbewusstsein, for Sartre takes
images mostly as mental acts. My impression is that, all similarities between Sartre
and Husserl notwithstanding,11 Sartre takes his criticism of the illusion of imma-
nence as a dogma on which he builds an absolute opposition between perception
and imagination. The two are decidedly alternative and have nothing in common:
10
And it shows that Husserl is not simply thinking of material images, i.e., pictures, for image-
consciousness—for example there are beautiful pages on theatrical illusion: Husserl (1980,
490 ff).
11
For example, a page like Husserl (1980, 21) could have been written verbatim by Sartre.
either Pierre is here in Paris or he is in Berlin and I presentify him in absence.

Perception and imagination are as mutually exclusive as presence and absence, as
givenness and freedom.
I believe that Sartre turns to imagination because he is interested in the spontane-
ity and freedom of consciousness, while to Husserl imagination is one of the modes
of consciousness’ constitution. For this reason Sartre tends to understand imagina-
tion at the expense of reality, Husserl in its more or less indirect relation to reality.
Be that as it may, the consequences entailed are important. For Sartre there cannot
be an ontology of images. They last as long as our consciousness needs them to.
They are fleeting and ephemeral, have no identity and therefore cannot be iterated
or repeated. Nor do they have individuality: they are plastic, a contamination of
traits. Because in an image I put what I know and unlike a given percept the image
cannot be inspected, I can never learn anything from it. This is the thesis of the
epistemological poverty of imagination, the upshot of which is that I can understand
and think in images, but not through images.
I think the situation in Husserl is a lot more complicated and involved than in
Sartre. While Sartre denies that in perceptual illusion imagination plays a role at all,
as we have seen Husserl identifies in perceptual imagination its source.
Besides, Husserl asserts the repeatability of images. Even if their temporal and
spatial character is indeterminate, they can work as substrates for further acts.12
Naturally it must also be possible to have consciousness of the sameness of phan-
tasy and percept (Gleichheitbewusstsein, Husserl 1980, 507). We have seen that
Husserl argues that in images and memories I have ever new ways to refer to past
perceptions. If consciousness must be able to compare the presentation of percep-
tion with the presentification of the same thing in its absence, it must be aware of its
internal differentiation. What presentifications and imagination generally show is
that the I is not in coincidence with itself. Distance, negation, non-identity, contrast,
which seem almost absent in perception, mark the life of the imagination, as does
the alterity of my past to me. If for consciousness every actuality includes its hori-
zon of latent and predelineated potentialities, and if every presence rests on presen-
tifications of absent and gone phases, it is not surprising that Husserl takes
consciousness as constituted in temporal, mutually intertwined layers.
Unlike Sartre, Husserl talks about cases in which perception and imagination
converge to yield important conclusions about reality (what would happen, he asks,
if I threw this stone at that house?).13 Another case is this. Husserl is closer to
Merleau-Ponty than to Sartre when he claims that the case of the phantasy of the
hidden face of a three-dimensional object, although given in a possible continuation
of perception (Husserl 1980, 314, 226–7; here phantasy is the Einfüllung of an
impression), is a mixture (Mischung, Husserl 1980, 455) between imagination and
perception.
12
Husserl (1980, 551; 529). On the iteration of acts in presentification, see Husserl (1959, 133).
13
Husserl (1980, 455–6): there is a “moment” of positionality in this phantasy.
128 A. Ferrarin
5 Conclusion
Most importantly, and here I come to my conclusions, if we took Sartre as a lead we

would never be able to understand one of the most innovative and fundamental traits
of Husserl’s imagination, its relation to truth. If I read a fairy tale, my descriptions
and judgments do not aim at reality and yet are “actual” as are the affective acts in
which we live (Husserl 1980, 379, 383). Such stances can be compared to the judg-
ments we carry out regarding a theatre play: here, to quote Husserl, judgments
“have a kind of objective truth, even though they refer to fictions” (Husserl 1980,
520, Husserl’s emphasis). A novel or a play have “intersubjective existence” (ibid.),
unlike a private phantasy.
The problem may not be only with Sartre, however. Husserl shows a remarkable
ambivalence towards imagination. Starting from a conception of imagination as
modification of perception risks making imagination derivative in nature, which can
hardly be squared with the constitutive role imagination has for Husserl at various
levels. Imagination pictures centaurs, dragons and mermaids, Husserl’s favorite and
recurrent examples, but it is also crucial in phenomenology as a methodological tool
for eidetic variation and intuition. Unlike sciences of facts, eidetic sciences rest on
intuition rather than perception. And the examples illustrating this are always geom-
etry and phenomenology. In mathematics, if I imagine a figure I prescribe a system
of possibilities to it (Husserl 1980, 456). Rather than cognitively poor as in Sartre,
imagination is here the source of knowledge.
Upon closer inspection, though, the modalization of perception’s belief is pre-
cisely the required neutralization that results in pure possibilities (Husserl 1980,
559). These are unreal like the essences of Ideas I. Here essences, independent of
facts, are ideal possibilities and the object of pure original intuition in phantasy (§
4, § 7, § 19). This is the decisive point: imagination gives essences in intuition: it is
not an empty or abstract intending, and since knowledge always requires an intu-
ition for Husserl, the intuition of eidetic intuition/variation is higher than that of
perception, which is based on facts. In the 1920s and 1930s Husserl insists more and
more on this point until he writes in the Cartesian Meditations (§ 34) that every fact
can be treated like the example of a pure possibility once we have transferred the
object of perception to the unreality of an as-if world. For essences can be given
either in individuals or as pure possibilities (Husserl 1980, 508), but once we focus
on the relation between essence and example it is phantasy, not experience, that
grasps ideal relations in their necessity.
This is why Husserl writes that phantasy may be subjective alright, but pure pos-
sibilities intuited in phantasy are objective (Husserl 1980, 569). In Experience and
Judgment (Husserl 1973, § 97c), he claims that pure phantasy is the original source
of a pure a priori. In the free variation analyzed in these pages we find the very strik-
ing and to my knowledge unprecedented link between imagination and necessity.
For Husserl like for Hegel then escapism is not what is most important to imagi-
nation. Imagination is not essentially alternative to or disconnected from reality. For
all its unreality, in fact because of its unreality, imagination helps us make sense of
reality. Without it we would not be able to accomplish anything concrete. Reality

and unreality vitally need one another—so does my anti-positivist conclusion
suggest.
If that is true, however, it must also be said that unlike Husserl Hegel seems to
assign imagination virtually no role to play in philosophy. It prepares its own over-
coming as memory and language in the Psychology, but that only tells us something
about the forms of contents not yet thoroughly identical to them. That is, it only tells
us something about representation, which is the way things are at first for us. But
philosophy is about transforming representation into thought. Necessity only per-
tains to thought, not to representation. On the other hand, without the daring and
counterintuitive activity of a speculative imagination dialectic could never invert the
ordinary conception of thought animating modern philosophy. Dialectic needs
imagination to mobilize—melt what is frozen in—our representations.14
References
Bernet, Rudolf. 2004. Conscience et existence. Perspectives phénoménologiques. Paris: PUF.

———. 2006. Intentional Consciousness and Non-intentional Self-Awareness. In Passive Synthesis
and Life-World, ed. Alfredo Ferrarin, 2006, 269–289. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
Ferrarin, Alfredo. 2001. Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2007. Logic, Thinking, and Language. In Von der Logik zur Sprache. Stuttgarter
Hegelkongress 2005, ed. R. Bubner and G. Hindrichs, 135–158. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
———. 2016. Spontaneity and reification. What does Hegel mean by Thinking? In System und
Logik bei Hegel. 200 Jahre nach der Wissenschaft der Logik, ed. Luca Fonnesu, 81–104.
Hildesheim: Olms.
———. 2019. Thinking and the I. Hegel and the Critique of Kant. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1807. Phenomenologie des Geistes. Werke, vol. 3. ed. Eva
Moldenhauer, and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1830a. In Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Wissenschaft
der Logik. Werke, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, vol. 8. Frankfurt a. M:
Suhrkamp.
———. 1830b. In Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Die
Philosophie des Geistes mit den mündlichen Zusätzen. Werke, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl
Markus Michel, vol. 10. Frankfurt a. M: Suhrkamp.
———. 1969. In Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K.M. Michel. Frankfurt a.
M: Suhrkamp. 1969–71.
———. 1977. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Husserl, Edmund. 1950–1987. Husserliana. The Hague: Nijhoff Dordrecht/Boston/London:
Kluwer 1988–2004; Cham/Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer 2011–.
Husserl, Edmund. 1959. Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenolo-
gischen Reduktion. Husserliana, ed. Rudolf Boehm, vol. 8. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1966. In Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten,
1918–1926, Husserliana, ed. Margot Fleischer, vol. 11. The Hague: Nijhoff.
14
I have defended dialectic’s imaginative core in the Introduction to Ferrarin (2019).
130 A. Ferrarin
———. 1973. Experience and Judgment, ed. L. Landgrebe. Trans. J.S. Churchill, and K. Ameriks.
———. 1980. Phäntasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen
Vergegenwartigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925). Husserliana, ed. E. Marbach, vol.
23. The Hague: Nijhoff.
———. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und
Theorie der Erkenntnis. Husserliana, ed. U. Panzer, vol. 19/1–2. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Jonas, Hans. 1966. The Phenomenon of Life. Towards a Philosophical Biology. Evanston:
Kant, Immanuel. 1781/1787. Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, 1998.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1940. L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination. Paris:
Gallimard.
Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, and the Paradox
of Expression
Elisa Magrì
Abstract For Hegel and Merleau-Ponty, the concept of expression is crucial to

understand meaning and signification in a variety of contexts, including the aes-
thetic, anthropological, and psychological domain. However, they also point out the
paradoxical nature of the notion of expression, in that it presupposes what it is sup-
posed to explain, namely its principle of determination. In my reading, both Hegel
and Merleau-Ponty endorse a common strategy to avoid the paradox, and their
approach is rooted in the use of genetic descriptions. In this way, they bring to light
the active side of receptivity without producing any hypostatization of a prior
Logos. Before addressing their common strategy, I briefly present the earlier articu-
lation of the problem of expression in Hegel’s Science of Logic.
Keywords Hegel · Merleau-Ponty · Expression · Manifestation · Genesis
1 Introduction
In section §49 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant describes the work of
the genius in the following way: “[…] Thus, genius really consists in the happy rela-
tion, which no science can teach and no diligence learn, of finding ideas for a given
concept on the one hand and on the other hitting upon the expression for these,
through which the subjective disposition of the mind that is thereby produced, as an
accompaniment of a concept, can be communicated to others” (Kant 1908/1913,
317, Kant 2001, 194–5). This passage is particularly interesting not only because it
tackles directly the notion of aesthetic creativity, but also because it describes the
complex way in which aesthetic meaning is generated and communicated through
an act of expression. Essentially, Kant argues that the work of genius consists in
bringing to light aesthetic ideas, which share significant similarities with the ideas
of reason in that they strive towards something that lies beyond the boundaries of
experience. Aesthetic ideas consist in associations of concepts and representations
E. Magrì (*)
School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
e-mail: elisamagri39@gmail.com

132 E. Magrì
for which no determinate concept can be found to designate them. Kant refers, for
instance, to the use of metaphors and similes that link together concepts such as
virtue and beauty with images or feelings that are rooted in our sensible experience.
Due to their nature, aesthetic ideas are able to serve ideas of reason by stimulating
the mind through representations that arouse new and multiple images or associa-
tions. This inspires the mind to appreciate the value of ideas that are otherwise
irreducible to human representation, as in the case of Friedrich II’s poem, which
Kant cites in section §49. Here, the poem inspires the idea of a cosmopolitan dispo-
sition through the poetic description of a beautiful summer day.
Finding the appropriate representation for a concept or idea is what Kant calls
“finding the right expression.” The capacity responsible for expression is imagina-
tion, which forges a new connection of representations out of those available through
experience. In the aesthetic field, imagination engages in free associations that are
not governed by the rules of understanding, such as spatiotemporal constraints or
laws of causality.1 In the aesthetic domain, imagination creates something new that
can be communicated to others. Thus, expression is creative, not bounded by the
rules of understanding, and open to the variations enabled by the artist’s faculties.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that Kant associates the notion of genius with that of
expression. The task of finding the appropriate and apt expression for an idea is a
process that requires spontaneity and creativity. The artist is not constrained by
some given rules, such as – for instance – the imitation of the artworks of her pre-
decessors. On the contrary, Kant emphasises that the process by means of which the
work of genius comes to expression is in itself indeterminate, for the artist herself
does not know the rules, but institutes them with her creation. The notion of expres-
sion is, then, a shortcut for a process that is irreducible to any antecedents and yet it
generates a product that is communicable, thereby creating a bond between the art-
ist and the product as well as between the artist and her fellows.
From this point of view, it is significant that, already in Kant, the notion of
expression calls into question not just the creative powers of the artist, but rather and
more fundamentally “a process of mediation” (Sassen 2003, 177) between imagina-
tion and reality. This corresponds to the institution of a possibility, which is not
constrained by imitation or by rules of reasoning. Yet, while for Kant such process
of mediation depends on the productive role of imagination, Hegel and Merleau-
Ponty acknowledge the ontological pervasiveness of expression in all aspects of
thought and subjective experience. In doing so, they develop further the relation
between expression and institution in a way that revises and contextualises the pro-
ductive role of imagination within a genetic explanation of meaning. In the follow-
ing, I wish to explore this approach by looking at both Hegel’s and Merleau-Ponty’s
accounts of expression. Due to the complexity of Hegel’s interpretation of the prob-
lem, my discussion of Hegel requires two distinct steps that draw on Hegel’s Science
of Logic as well as on Hegel’s Encyclopaedia, which are preliminary to the analysis
of Merleau-Ponty’s account.
1
For a discussion of the productivity of imagination in both mathematical cognition and aesthetics,
see Crawford (2003). See also Ferrarin (2015) for a unifying account of Kant’s view of reason.
Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, and the Paradox of Expression 133
2 F
rom a Logical Point of View: Hegel’s Critique
of Expression in the Science of Logic
Hegel was particularly concerned with the explanatory power of expression begin-
ning with its logical structure. Indeed, in the Science of Logic, it is possible to find
a compelling argument for the concept of expression. Before considering this, I
would like to briefly point out two important aspects of Hegel’s logical project. For
Hegel, the logic can be considered both as a self-standing and presuppositionless
form of speculative activity (as this is developed in the Science of Logic), and as the
middle term between nature and spirit within the systematic architectonic of the
Encyclopaedia. According to the last paragraph of the Encyclopaedia, logic relates
to nature and spirit in three different syllogisms that explain the whole structure of
the relations between being and thought.2 In both cases, however, logical categories
do not refer to transcendental faculties, nor can they be applied to reality as mere
external forms. On the contrary, the dialectical passages of the Science of Logic
show that the logic does not rely on any externally given assumptions in order to
validate its own categories, forms, and processes. At the same time, the dialectical
consistency of the logic provides the necessary medium for the scientific treatment
of both spirit and nature in the Encyclopaedia. In the following, I will concentrate
on Hegel’s discussion of logical categories as mind-independent determinations of
thought, before contextualising the relevance of expression in the dimension of
Anthropology.
More precisely, I wish to draw attention to the passages of the Science of Logic
that involve the deduction of the concept (Begriff).3 The genesis of the concept as a
distinct logical form represents a turning point in the Science of Logic in that it
establishes the principle of self-reference that is crucial to vindicate the indepen-
dence as well as the presuppositionless character of logical thought. This can be
further explicated by contrasting the concept with the categories of expression
(Äusserung) and manifestation (Manifestation) in the Doctrine of Essence. Both
expression and manifestation, for Hegel, presuppose what they are supposed to
explain, namely the principle of their logical determination. More specifically, the
lack of transparency of these categories reflects a lack of normative determination:
does expression involve a relation between an essence and its outer manifestation,
or is expression the same as the content that is expressed? Hegel proceeds by dem-
onstrating that both alternatives fail to explicate that expression is a process that is
entirely self-conditioning. On Hegel’s view, expression is not the shining through of
a pre-existing essence, or a combination of forms depending on the context, but
rather a process that brings forth its principle of self-determination. From this point
of view, the categories of expression and manifestation described in the Doctrine of
2
For a discussion of the place of these syllogisms in Hegel’s philosophy see Nuzzo (2004).
3
See also Houlgate (2000), Schick (2014), and Magrì (2016a, 2017) for an expanded analysis of
this passage.
134 E. Magrì
Essence reflect a form of intellectual understanding that fails to justify how logical
thought is both self-expressive and self-determining.
It is possible to illustrate Hegel’s first critique of expression by considering the
example of force. In Hegel’s Science of Logic, force stands for an essential relation
between wholes and parts, which represents the dialectical development of the cat-
egory of apperance. An example of this is gravitational force, which animates mat-
ter, although Hegel does not commit to any account of positive sciences in the
Logic.4 Hegel seeks to show that appearance brings forth a dialectic that stands in
critical tension with the Kantian thing-in-itself.5 As a result of this, the categories of
the Doctrine of Essence bring to light both the possibilities and the limits inherent
in the intelligibility of appearance. In this context, the first paradox of expression
revolves around the tautological character of force. To begin with, the notion of
force stands for an expressive relation between passivity and self-reflection (Hegel
1986a, 179, Hegel 2010, 456–459). Hegel argues that force must be either posited
as a factum elevated to the dignity of an explanatory principle, or it must be con-
ceived as the activity of animation of the whole. Yet, since force is not a thing
in either case, it can be solicited and put in motion only by another force. By enter-
ing such an infinite cycle of solicitations and externalisations, force turns out to be
a tautological form, for it does not suffice to explain its underlying essence, but it
presupposes itself all over again. Accordingly, Hegel’s argument is meant to show
the inconsistency that is inherent in the notion of expression as explanatory cate-
gory. Conceived as the appearance of an underlying essence, expression becomes an
occult process of animation.
The category of manifestation addresses only partly the limits of expression.
Unlike expression, manifestation is linked to the categories of modality, referring to
the metaphysical activity of an absolute totality, which actualises itself by bringing
forth its attributes or modes. This is why manifestation is not a formal connection
among parts; on the contrary, it defines the modality according to which totalities
exist (Hegel 1986a, 201, Hegel 2010, 478). In this sense, manifestation is the actu-
alisation of a possibility. The absolute develops by bringing forth its own necessity,
which can only be established by contrast and reference to the realm of possibilities.
Indeed, according to Hegel’s treatment of modality, possibility can only be defined
in relation to necessity. For example, if A denotes possibility, then the negation of A
is not necessary. Accordingly, if A denotes necessity, then it must be the case that
A. In this sense, Hegel considers necessity as the actuality of the absolute, which
does not preclude contingency, but contains it. It follows that the notion of manifes-
tation overcomes that of expression, for manifestation does not consist in the reflec-
tive shining of something into another, but it is a self-differentiating movement.
This also suggests that the absolute is an entirely self-subsisting entity that does not
have any kind of self-relation aside from the “tranquil coming forth of itself” (Hegel
4
Hegel’s account of the category of force contains an implicit criticism of Newton, according to
whom matter and force are two fixed and dead abstractions (Cf. Ferrarin 2001, 206–209).
5
For a discussion of Hegel’s categories of essence in light of Hegel’s critique of the Kantian thing-
in-itself, see Longuenesse (2007).
1986a, 220, Hegel 2010, 490). In other words, by identifying the absolute with the
very activity of manifestation, the notion of Manifestation fails to explicate how the
absolute is self-determining both within itself and in relation to its other. The self-
differentiating movement of the absolute ends up becoming a dogmatic metaphysi-
cal principle as long as it does not determine or make explicit its reason to act. Thus,
Hegel’s argument is that both expression and manifestation fall into the paradox of
presupposing what they are supposed to explain, namely the principle of their logi-
cal determination.
In contrast to this, the concept (Begriff) displays the structure of self-reference
that allows for the overcoming of the paradoxes of expression. What is relevant in
this passage of the Science of Logic is Hegel’s account of the genesis of the concept
as a form that comes out of reciprocal action (Wechselwirkung). Unlike the infinite
cycle of force, reciprocity consists in the reciprocal conditioning of two substances
that are passive and active at once, and that do not therefore maintain their relative
opposition, but rather transform into each other. The most salient aspect that distin-
guishes reciprocity from both expression and manifestation is that the former does
not depend on the difference between inner and outer, or between necessity and
contingency. Reciprocity is a dynamic relation that allows the active side to reverse
its role and to become passive through the interaction with its other. In this way, not
only does reciprocity consummate the very distinction between passivity and activ-
ity, but it also contributes to the sedimentation of their unity in the form of a self-
referential activity. It is indeed by instituting this form of self-reference within the
dialectical determination of substantiality that the concept is eventually generated
as the general principle of subjectivity, namely as the power of self-determination.
As such, the concept is presented as a drive that is not in need of external justifica-
tion, for it is in itself a principle of movement and self-actualisation. The concept is
indeed defined as the drive that moves forward the entire system of logical determi-
nations (Hegel 1986a, 471, Hegel 2010, 677), and also as the drive of subjectivity,
for the corporeity (Lebendigkeit) of the living being is a “reality immediately identi-
cal with the concept.”6
To put it differently, the concept is the generative power that holds together being
and thought, activity and passivity, without falling into the paradox of presupposing
either itself or its other as absolutely given. It is noteworthy that, since the concept
results from the sedimentation of reciprocal action, it does not correspond to a tran-
sition to an alleged higher ontological order. It is rather deduced genetically as the
principle that brings forth the movement of the logic while providing unity to all the
previous categories. These are eventually identified as the proper determinations of
the concept. In this sense, the concept satisfies the logical requirement of indepen-
dence from external constraints, while being open to alterity due to its radical
6
Cf. Hegel (1986a, 475, 2010, 680): “The living being has this corporeity at first as a reality imme-
diately identical with the concept [Die Leiblichkeit hat das Lebendige zunächst als die unmittelbar
mit dem Begriff identische Realität]; to this extent the corporeity has this reality in general by
nature.” I have defended a view of self-reference as a key element of both Hegel’s logic and sub-
jectivity in Magrì (2017).
136 E. Magrì
c apacity for determinability. While the categories of expression and manifestation

need to shine through a medium or to be made explicit by an overarching notion, the
concept is the principle that guarantees freedom from external constraints and self-
reference. Accordingly, it appears that Hegel contrasts expression with a more com-
plex view of self-relation, akin to a passive form of self-determination. Self-reference,
considered as the result of a process that actualizes the capacities to act and to
respond to alterity, brings to light the principle of self-determination that is distinc-
tive of subjectivity in general. Naturally, this account provides only the genesis of a
principle, whose development stretches across different dimensions, building into
more complex theoretical and practical forms I cannot here discuss. I suggest, how-
ever, that the critique of expression in the Logic is consistent with the role that
expression plays in Hegel’s philosophical anthropology, which bears important
implications for understanding the relation between the concept and its emergence
at the level of subjective experience.
3 Hegel’s Appraisal of Expression in the Anthropology
Hegel’s Anthropology represents the first part of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit
in the Encyclopaedia. Hegel’s account of subjectivity is particularly interesting in
that it appeals to a form of scientific investigation, which consists in developing a
“rigorous form” (die strenge Form) that results from the manifestation of the con-
cept (Begriff) in the sphere of living beings:
Just as in the living creature generally, everything is already contained, in an ideal manner,
in the germ [Keime] and is brought forth by the germ itself, not by an alien power, so too
must all particular forms of the living mind grow out of its concept as from their germ. Our
thinking, which is propelled [bewegt] by the concept, here remains entirely immanent in the
object, which is likewise propelled by the concept; we merely look on, as it were, at the
object’s own development, not altering it by importing our subjective ideas and notions.
(Hegel 1979 §379, Addition, Hegel 2007, 7)
According to Hegel, it is possible to undertake a scientific exposition of the intelli-

gibility of spirit in light of the concept. In this sense, subjectivity coincides with the
process whereby the concept becomes finite. It is not the subject that thinks accord-
ing to the rules of the concept, but it is rather the concept that thinks within the
subject. This is the reason why, contrary to the biologic process of growth, the
development of the concept does not cause any alteration in the state of the self-
knowing spirit. It is not subjectivity that changes through the different parts of the
Philosophy of Subjective Spirit (Anthropology, Phenomenology, and Psychology),
but it is the concept, taken in the form of its subjective existence, that unfolds
according to different stages of psychophysical, theoretical and practical
realisation.7
7
See Hegel (1979 §403, Remark, 2007, 88): “The soul is the existent concept [existierende Begriff],
the existence of what is speculative.”
In my view, we can make sense of Hegel’s claim by taking seriously the argu-
ment of the Logic according to which the concept corresponds to a principle of
self-reference that eludes the difference between inner and outer. In particular, I
wish to indicate the sense in which the manifestation of the concept within subjec-
tive spirit counts as an expressive phenomenon that does not reproduce the paradox
of expression. My reading will concentrate on those sections of the Anthropology
that address more closely this aspect. Let’s proceed by considering how the mani-
festation of subjective self-reference becomes apparent at the level of corporeality.
In discussing sensation, Hegel points out that the content of sensation either stems
from the external world or pertains to the inwardness of the soul (Hegel 1979 §401,
Addition). Sensations are prima facie physiological and depend on changes and
variations affecting sense organs. Yet sensations are also felt by the living being,
hence they underpin sensitivity to felt qualities of the environment. This is why sen-
sations are also considered in so far as they “embody themselves,” that is, are mani-
fested through the motions of the body (this includes gestures, emotions, pain and
other physical manifestations), which reveal the permeability of the psyche to the
influence of nature. From this point of view, Hegel’s philosophical anthropology
offers an account of embodiment (Verleiblichung), which is based on spontaneous
adaptability and manifestation of the inner through the outer, connecting the sen-
tient soul to the felt body. Most notably, this process does not presuppose any kind
of idealisation, for Hegel distinguishes between Verleiblichung (embodiment) and
Verkörperung (materialisation) as two different senses of inhabiting a corporeal
dimension.
The notion of Verkörperung appears in the Lectures on Aesthetics, where the
work of art is explicitly defined as the materialisation of a universal idea such that
the artist has to “grasp only those characteristics that are right and appropriate to the
essence of the matter in hand” (Hegel 1986b, 217, Hegel 1975, 164). The form of
art that mostly mirrors such idealisation is, for Hegel, sculpture (Hegel 1986b, 381–
2). Hegel argues that sculpture allows the artist to overcome particular details
related, for example, to the shape of the body, in order to convey a universal and
essential idea that is grasped and elaborated by the artist. The Greeks excelled in
this art of reproducing the liveliness of human bodies with scrupulous fidelity. The
use of the notion of embodiment in aesthetics indicates that the body is here ide-
alised or transformed in order to let spirit penetrate it. In this sense, in aesthetics, the
living body (Leib) cannot be reduced to the organic or physical body (Körper). Yet
works of art are products; as such they reflect the spirit of the artist and express
universality.8 From this point of view, the categories of expression and manifesta-
tion illustrated in the Doctrine of Essence appear closer to the notion of Verkörperung,
not to Verleiblichung, which involves the dynamics of becoming a subject.
More precisely, for Hegel, the exteriorization of inner sensations gives rise to an
involuntary system of sign relations, since by shaping itself into a sign of inner sen-
sation, this embodying become visible to others (Hegel 1979 §401, Addition). The
8
See Ciavatta (2017) for a discussion of meaning in relation to asethetic expression in both Hegel
and Merleau-Ponty.
138 E. Magrì
living body has its own existence that ranges from a variety of different and indi-
vidual expressions. For instance, the voice is capable of various modifications,
while laughter is indicative of the individual’s level of culture (Hegel 1979 §401,
Addition). In this respect, the body in Hegel’s Anthropology is the locus of expres-
sive phenomena. The individual described by the Anthropology draws on a system
of spontaneous and imitative processes that link her experience to that of the envi-
ronment. This is why the feeling subject resembles a tree that is inseparable from its
leaves and dies, if repeatedly stripped of them (Hegel 1979 §402, Addition). In the
Hegelian metaphor, the leaves stand for subjective life, which is rich in activity and
experiences that shape individual existence. Viewed in this way, the individual body
does not simply manifest itself to others, but it is also fulfilled and enriched by its
communication with the environment. This implies that sensations and feelings
form together a complex system between outside and inside, so that the anthropo-
logical individual cannot be absolutely separated from other selves or from the envi-
ronment, since it lives in a system of concrete relationships.
With habit this initial state is subject to a significant change: by means of habitu-
ation expression undergoes a process of mechanisation, which reduces the free
expansion of bodily manifestation in order to make it an instrument of the self
(Hegel 1979 §410). Habit is second nature precisely because it is a form of volun-
tary embodiment, by means of which the subject gives the body its own expression,
thereby accomplishing the transition from involuntary to voluntary embodiment
(Hegel 1979 §411, Addition).9 Unlike involuntary embodiment, the self that is gen-
erated through habituation shapes the body from within by consciously adapting
and adjusting herself to contexts and situations. This stage coincides with the emer-
gence of consciousness, that is to say with the egoic awareness of one’s own abili-
ties and skills. In this light, the process that takes place in habit recalls the dynamics
of reciprocal action of the Logic, whereby an iterative relation enables the transition
to self-reference as the primary form of self-relation. For this reason, habit is only
partially a mechanism, for it facilitates the genesis of self-awareness on a bodily
level of experience, which is precondition to conscious thought and language.10
The relevance of habit for the genesis of the self is also evident from Hegel’s
discussion of madness and derangement, which he describes in terms of alterations
of the affective qualities that permeate individual experiences (Hegel 1979 §408,
Addition). On Hegel’s account, the individual affected by mental illness struggles to
centre on oneself and to detach from her feelings and sensations, hence she finds it
difficult to own herself. Habit facilitates detachment from particular feelings by
training subjective dispositions to respond to contexts and situations in a personal
manner. In this sense, while habit fosters forgetfulness of contingent feelings and
desires, it is at the same time indicative of a more fundamental self-ascription of
one’s stance to the world. As Hegel states, “in habit one enters a relationship not to
a contingent individual sensation, representation, desire, etc., but to one’s own self,
9
See also Ferrarin (2017) for an account of the passive genesis of the “I” in Hegel, which is akin to
Husserl’s.
10
I have discussed Hegel’s account of habit and its relation to psychology in Magrì (2016b).
to a universal mode of action which constitutes one’s individuality” (Hegel 1979

§409, Remark, Hegel 2007, 134). For Hegel, self-reference does not necessarily
equate to self-consciousness or to self-knowledge, for it provides a primordial
ground for individual self-appropriation. In this way, the psyche is also free to move
and engage in further acts that expand her range of actions and movements,
thereby developing consciousness and intelligence. Due to the relevance of passive
self-awareness for the analysis of habit, Hegel would possibly advocate dialectical
therapy and dialogue as ways to bring to light trauma and to potentially heal disor-
ders of emotion regulation by restoring habitual modalities of self-relation.
From this point of view, the emergence of the concept within subjective spirit
does not coincide with either expression or manifestation. The concept does not
inhabit subjective spirit as an ideal that becomes manifested in human form, nor
does it represent an independent logos. On the contrary, the concept manifests itself
in the sphere of subjectivity by instituting activity in passivity, as the learning habit
that enables the subject to self-appropriate her experience and to inhabit situations
by embodying and owning herself. In this respect, Hegel’s critique of expression
does not only bring to light the relevance of bodily experience, but it also suggests
that expression is a process by means of which self-determination is gradually
developed and appropriated by the self at the very levels of sensing and feeling.
4 Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Expression
In this section, I would like to consider the problem of expression in Merleau-Ponty

drawing on some interesting affinities between Merleau-Ponty and Hegel. As
Landes (2013) has shown, Merleau-Ponty acknowledges the pervasiveness of
expression in all aspects of experience and praxis (Landes 2013). Like Hegel, how-
ever, Merleau-Ponty seeks to uncover the self-determining ground of expression,
which institutes the condition of possibility for intersubjective communication.
Following Landes (2013) and Vanzago (2016), it can be shown that Merleau-Ponty’s
account of expression does not presuppose any absolute anteriority of reason or
meaning.11 For Merleau-Ponty, the past, the ideal, and the present are instituted and
11
In his seminal study on Merleau-Ponty and the paradox of expression, Bernhard Waldenfels
stressed the difference between Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of expression and common ver-
sions of logical paradoxes. While the latter can be solved by distinguishing between different lev-
els of explanations, such as between objective language and meta-language, Merleau-Ponty’s view
of expression “can neither be converted into a unified determination nor be sublated in a more
comprehensive or higher determination” (Waldenfels 2000, 92). From the start, Waldenfels evokes,
without explicitly naming it, a Hegelian model. It is not only the reference to sublation, but more
fundamentally the admission that the problem posited by Merleau-Ponty calls into question the
analysis of a process, not a content or a proposition. The process in question is the manifestation
of meaning, which appears indirectly as embedded in different dimensions (linguistic, aesthetic,
historical etc.) and involving a corporeal medium (the Leib). According to Waldenfels, while the
problem of expression is pervasive in Merleau-Ponty’s work, it appears in the early writings “a
tendency to diminish the enigma of expression in favour of an anteriority of experience, in favour
140 E. Magrì
posited by the subject in order to be interrogated. In this sense, expression needs not
to be confused with the manifestation of a pre-existing logos, for it coincides with
the institution of the very possibility of sense. In my view, this conceptual strategy
is aligned with Hegel’s argument, showing implicit and striking resonances between
the two philosophers.
In order to elucidate my argument further, I wish to focus on the relation between
thought and language in both the Phenomenology of Perception and The Prose of
the World. Part I, Chapter VI of the Phenomenology of Perception is dedicated to the
analysis of speech as deliberate power of signification. While in the previous chap-
ters Merleau-Ponty explores the intentionality of the body, particularly from the
point of view of its motor capacities and spatiotemporal configuration, Chapter VI
deals with the function of meaning generation through inner and outer speech. From
the very beginning of this chapter, the issue that Merleau-Ponty raises is whether the
relation between language and signification depends on some intellectual ability or
of a passivity of the event” (Waldenfels 2000, 94). In a sense, Waldenfels suggests that, in works
like the Phenomenology of Perception, a form of hypostatization is at stake, as if the phenomenon
of expression is meant to proceed from an originary Logos that can never reach its full potential.
On Waldenfels’ view, expression for Merleau-Ponty is fundamentally constrained in that it has
already begun before the subject. This is the proper “alienness” that inhabits the phenomenon of
expression and that makes it impossible for us to conceive of it according to the Aristotelian notion
of energeia. The crucial ambiguity that Waldenfels ascribes to Merleau-Ponty consists in the fact
there cannot be any univocal answer as to how the process of expression is set in motion, hence it
is not clear whether and how expression is supposed to fill some ontological gap.
However, more recently, a number of scholars have argued that Merleau-Ponty’s notion of
expression must be read, especially in works like the Phenomenology of Perception, as sense in
movement (Morris 2004), that is, in terms of actuality of meaning which involves more radically
the body-world relation. As Morris writes in his fascinating study, “expression is the movement in
which non-sense folds into sense” (Morris 2004, 89), or to put it in other words, expression is the
intertwining between the order of temporality and the order of bodily experience, including the
dimension of learning, and particularly of learning habits, which create the link between expres-
sion, sense, and perception. On Morris’ view, temporality is key to solve the paradox of expression,
for what is expressed comes into being in expression, as the child becomes the adult (Morris 2004,
85). From a similar point of view, Hass has argued that the problem of expression in Merleau-
Ponty is central to the processes of knowledge and communication with others (Hass 2008, 160).
However, on Hass’ reading, the drive that animates the process of expression is “not necessitated
by some Hegelian telos” (ibid.), for it is contingent upon the work and abilities of the people that
give rise to it. More recently, Landes has investigated the pervasiveness of concept of expression
in Merleau-Ponty’s corpus in order to show that expression appears across different fields, includ-
ing science, ontology, perception, language, thought, politics, and aesthetics (Landes 2013). For
Landes, “the paradoxical logic of expression is not the “secret” of Merleau-Ponty’s texts, but rather
the style of his every philosophical gesture and is thus illustrated across his corpus” (Landes 2013,
4). In contrast to Waldenfels, Landes argues that the very dimension of the paradox in Merleau-
Ponty requires its own, distinct phenomenology. This means that there cannot be any absolute
passivity, nor any anteriority, for expression is “any enduring response to the weight of the past, the
weight of the ideal, and the weight of the present situation, broadly construed” (Landes 2013, 10).
For a conceptual reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression across the Phenomenology
of Perception and his later works, see also Vanzago 2016, who emphasises how language, gestures,
and thought are all forms of expression that are irreducible to given meanings, for they institute the
very possibility of sense.
if the experience of the body is supposed to contribute in a different way to our

understanding of the relation between language and thought. Starting with a consid-
eration of aphasia (i.e. language impairment, which often results from strokes or
trauma), Merleau-Ponty notices that the dissociation between thought and language
at stake in aphasia does not amount to a mere privation of linguistic skills, as if the
patient simply missed a certain stock of words. Rather, Merleau-Ponty points out
that “behind the word we discover an attitude or a function of speech that conditions
it” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 180).
The notion of “attitude” echoes Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on the intentional
arc that underpins the relation between perception, thought, and movement. In the
case of Schneider’s apraxia, the intentional arc is supposed to explain in what sense
Schneider’s inability to perform certain movements upon command needs to be
associated with a more general lack of existential freedom. Having his physical
abilities intact, Schneider had lost a basic form of bodily orientation provided by the
intentional arc, which projects us into space towards the accomplishment of our
movements.12 In this way, Merleau-Ponty proposes an existential analysis against
both the mechanistic and intellectualist interpretations of apraxia. Most notably, his
view centres on the role of the body-schema, namely the primordial habit-matrix of
the body, which makes the latter an “expressive unity that we can only learn to know
by taking it up” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 213). The body-schema is inseparable from
bodily experience, and it is responsible for the way we relate to the world in an
anticipatory manner, generating meaning in perceptual acts of apprehension that are
embedded with affective and existential qualities.
For this reason, Merleau-Ponty argues that any rupture in the power of significa-
tion does not underlie any split between concrete and abstract capacities, but rather
an alteration in the structure of the individual’s intentional relatedness to the world.
In the case of aphasia, what is affected is not speech as opposed to thought, but the
capacity of mastering verbal speech as one’s own attitude to communicate and
express oneself. Taken as an attitude or as a manner of being, speech allows one to
inhabit a situation that is pervaded with sense. We do not look for words as mere
instruments, nor do we recall verbal images as if we possessed a mental lexicon. On
the contrary, language is available to us as a form of spontaneous expression that
guarantees consistency and coherence across our everyday experience. It follows
that, if speech is a manner of expression among other forms, then the power of com-
munication is not restricted to verbal acts. Indeed, individuals affected by aphasia
understand meaning not on the basis of the semantic content of verbal speech.
Instead, they draw on the meaning that their bodily experience contributes to index.
The word “red” that some patients may be unable to subsume under the category of
colour is still related to the individual’s experience of tones and colours indepen-
dently of its verbal sign. In other words, meaning is generated and appropriated on
the basis of one’s own experience, which represents a system of affective, motor,
For a discussion of the body-schema, see Mooney (2011) and (2020). Matherne (2014) has also
12
convincingly shown that Merleau-Ponty’s account of projection is indebted to Kant’s view of pro-
ductive imagination.
142 E. Magrì
and kinaesthetic capacities. Thanks to such repertoire of meaning, the subject pro-
gressively appropriates her experience of the world and expresses such competency
by partaking in intersubjective practices of communication. Accordingly, the
expression of meaning is tied to both self-experience and intersubjectivity.
This connection rests, in Merleau-Ponty’s view, on two main facts. First of all,
signification is crucially dependent on the experience of learning as well as of being
exposed to the others’ acts of signification. However, learning does not consist in
being instructed to designate things according to the rules of a given linguistic com-
munity. In a very dense passage, Merleau-Ponty remarks that “if the child can know
himself as a member of a linguistic community prior to knowing himself as a
thought about Nature, this is on condition that the subject can be unaware of himself
as universal thought and can grasp himself as speech, and on condition that the
word, far from being the simple sign of objects and significations, inhabits things
and bears significations” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 183). Here, it is claimed that the
child can be unaware of himself as universal thought, and then that the mastery of
language by inhabiting specific situations facilitates the child’s belonging to a lin-
guistic community. What is universal thought? Is it a universal logos that pre-exists
ontologically any possibility of speech?
In my view, Merleau-Ponty denies this option, for he suggests that the process of
signification consists in the dialectical awakening of thought through speech and
vice versa. This cannot be achieved without the interaction between at least two
subjects, hence signification is crucially dependent on the power of intersubjective
communication, by means of which the child learns to inhabit situations, hence to
train his bodily awareness to different contexts, prior to becoming conscious of
social and verbal rules. Accordingly, the notion of universal thought refers to the
institution of sense of which individuals become gradually aware by entering prac-
tices of communication, which institute culture and tradition. As Merleau-Ponty
argues in his 1954–1955 lectures on institution and passivity, “the individual institu-
tion of the true [is] in connection with [an] institution that is more than individual:
it takes up an intention which precedes it (the originary Stiftung of geometry) and it
creates an intention out of it which survives it and will go further (the actual Stiftung
of a new sense) and by which there is forgetufulness of origins” (Merleau-Ponty
2010, 51). In these lectures, institution corresponds to Merleau-Ponty’s translation
of Husserl’s concept of originary foundation (Urstiftung), as this appears in the
Crisis and particularly in The Origin of Geometry essay. Urstiftung represents the
primal establishment of a given meaning, for which a genetic analysis of its consti-
tution, including its forms of cultural acquisition and transmission, is required.
Merleau-Ponty radicalises Husserl’s insight, suggesting that the generation of
meaning is a process that, while building on the individual apprehension of sense, is
interlocked at the same time with history and culture in a way that reactivates new
possibilities of thought and expression. Thus, Merleau-Ponty retrieves the Husserlian
concept of originary foundation in a dialectical fashion in order to understand not
just how communication is expressive of meaning, but also how self-consciousness
builds on intersubjective practices of expression.
Furthermore, the notion of expression connects self-experience and intersubjec-

tivity at the level of gestures. Merleau-Ponty does not exactly take a stance against
any clearly identifiable antagonist positions, yet he makes clear that gesture cannot
be reduced to the recognition of some laws (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 191), for the
sense of the gesture is apperceived within the horizon of my body-schema. A threat-
ening gesture affects the horizon individuated by my body, thus it enters my own
field of experience and I unfold its possibilities in virtue of the concordance (or
discordance) established between the sequences of acts of the other person and my
own existential sense of orientation in space. This suggests that, while I understand
the sense of the gesture thanks to the open possibilities instantiated by my body-
schema, my total grasp of the gesture is also a fallible process, which is open to
revision. As Merleau-Ponty notices, I may not understand emotions in the expres-
sions of people that belong to a different cultural milieu (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 190).
Similarly, I do not understand the dog’s sexual gesture or the beetle’s. Yet the sense
of the gesture is “taken up” and followed out because both the other person, the
animal, and I partake in the possibilities projected by motor intentionality.
With regard to this, Merleau-Ponty insists that taking up the sense of the gesture
is an act of communication that is not achieved through interpretation or any other
detached, epistemic process. As he writes: “Communication or the understanding of
gestures is achieved through the reciprocity between my intentions and the other
person’s gestures, and between my gestures and the intention which can be read in
the other person’s behaviour” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 190–1). If gestures had to
depend on intellectual interpretation, it would not be possible to understand the
gestures of animals. Merleau-Ponty’s idea is that gestures cannot be identified with
mental images that we simply observe or elaborate on. Quite the contrary, gestures
are powers of expression that provoke alterations and changes in my own field of
experience, to which I respond by adjusting and attuning through my body-schema.
Thus, the sense of the gesture is understood, that is appropriated, in that it “merges
with the structure of the world that the gesture sketches out and that I take up for
myself” (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 192).
In light of these aspects, it is possible to reconsider the relation between lan-
guage and thought. Thought is not manifested by language but sedimented and
taken up in intersubjective acts of communication (Vanzago 2016). This is why
Merleau-Ponty holds that, if any ideal meaning or form is constituted in acts of
signification, this is not an ultimate fact or a transcendental category, but rather an
attitude, namely a form of habitual coherence between acts and sense that is rooted
in the experience of being someone. In this respect, it is noteworthy that The Prose
of the World contains a number of references to Hegel’s dialectic. These passages
help to clarify in what sense expression is tied to a process that constantly renews
and generates itself rather than being the result of idealisation or manifestation. In
one particularly evocative passage, Merleau-Ponty writes that: “the Hegelian dia-
lectic is what we call the phenomenon of expression, which gathers itself step by
step and launches itself again through the mystery of rationality” (Merleau-Ponty
1973, 85). This reference to the Hegelian dialectic indicates that the institution of
sense is a process that systematically develops itself, appropriates itself and is
144 E. Magrì
thereby projected into further possibilities of development. Expression is then a

shortcut for a dialectical process that occurs in history, society, and even more so at
the level of subjective experience.
Since I cannot address here the implications of this view at the level of
intersubjectivity,13 I would like to restrict my conclusions to the explanatory power
of the notion of institution as opposed to the paradox of expression. In Merleau-
Ponty’s account, expression does not lead to the paradox of a logos that precedes
consciousness. Expression corresponds to a process of bodily and affective institu-
tion that links individuals to a universal power of communication enabled by the
experience of owning one’s bodily experience. This also grounds intercorporeality
as the experience of other subjects as living beings who partake in a common and
shared world. Certainly, intercorporeality is not the answer to all the problems and
issues posited by intersubjectivity. Yet it provides the condition of possibility for
expression and communication. Indeed, if the social world is a permanent, existen-
tial dimension of encountering others and partaking in their acts and meanings, it is
because the experience of one’s own self underpins a system of coherences that
make possible mutual communication.
Accordingly, expression does not compel us to choose between our own dimen-
sion of sense and that of the others. For Merleau-Ponty, the problem of expression
is not a problem of correspondence between my own mental representation and
another’s. Expression alerts us to the fact that meaning is rooted in self-experience
and sedimented in intersubjective acts, which are receptive to changes and altera-
tions brought about by history and culture. In this regard, it is worth noting that sedi-
mentation does not consist in a mere stratification of sense, passed on from
generation to generation. Sedimentation does not consist in the sheer act of letting
something be for the sake of historical continuity, for it essentially a process of
Sinngebung (giving meaning or sense-giving) that is enabled by the experience of
inhabiting the world through one’s own experience.
5 Conclusions
Far from suggesting any asymmetry between logos and flesh, or between anteriority
and posteriority, both Hegel and Merleau-Ponty reconceive the Kantian nexus
between expression and institution. Most notably, they conceive of expression in
dialectical terms as a process that generates sense on the basis of bodily self-
awareness, which is rooted in habit as well as in intersubjective forms of communi-
cation. For both of them, expression is inseparable from the process of
self-appropriation, which informs the whole sphere of receptivity, opening up fur-
ther possibilities of meaning production. In light of these affinities, it is now possi-
ble to pull together the threads and consider the most salient difference between
Hegel’s and Merleau-Ponty’s account of expression. To be sure, the concept in
13
For a discussion, see Daly (2014).
Hegel stands for the principle of self-reference that facilitates the intelligibility of
the deduction of logical categories. As I have argued, the dimension of self-
reference also provides the ground for investigating subjective experience, includ-
ing embodied phenomena. Yet, even though Hegel acknowledges the power of
communication enabled by bodily experience, the universality of the concept is not
tout-court synonymous with intersubjectivity, for the concept appears across differ-
ent dimensions and only in the logic, in the form of pure thought, does it achieve
fullest clarity. By contrast, Merleau-Ponty refers to expression as a power of inter-
subjective communication, namely as a field of possibilities that opens up acts of
commitment, sharing, and partaking in a common world. Thus, it is important to
stress that the Hegelian Begriff does not amount to Merleau-Ponty’s notion of inter-
subjectivity. It is however symptomatic that both Hegel and Merleau-Ponty insist on
the immanence of sense, grounding expression on the self-determining capacities
that are reactivated by the self at both levels of self- and other-experience. Thus,
re-reading Hegel and Merleau-Ponty in light of the paradox of expression helps to
contextualise and bring to light a common strategy that is rooted in the concepts of
genesis and institution. Whether these are understood in terms of Hegel’s systematic
philosophy or in those of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the institution of sense
brings to light the process of owning oneself as a way to vindicate the open dialectic
between self and world.
Acknowledgments I wish to thank Anya Daly, Timothy Mooney, and Alfredo Ferrarin for their
helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, and for improving the English style. The
completion of this work was made possible by a research grant funded by the Irish Research
Council.
References
Ciavatta, David. 2017. Embodied Meaning in Hegel and Merleau-Ponty. Hegel Bulletin 75: 45–66.
Crawford, Donald W. 2003. Kant’s Theory of Creative Imagination. In Kant’s Critique of the
Power of Judgment. Critical Essays, ed. Paul Guyer, 143–170. Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers.
Daly, Aly. 2014. Does the Reversibility Thesis Deliver All That Merleau-Ponty Claims It Can?
European Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 159–186.
Ferrarin, Alfredo. 2001. Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: CUP.
———. 2015. The Powers of Pure Reason. Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.
———. 2017. Hegel and Husserl on the Emergence of the I out of Subjectivity. Hegel Bulletin
75: 7–23.
Hass, Lawrence. 2008. Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy. Bloomington: Indianapolis University Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1975. Lectures on Fine Art. Trans. T.M. Knox, vol. I. Clarendon: OUP.
———. 1979. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Dritter Teil: Die
Philosophie des Geistes. Bd. 10 (vol. 10). In Werke in zwangig Bänden, ed. E. Modelnhauer
and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1986a. Wissenschaft der Logik. Bde. 5-6 (vols. I and II.). In Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed.
E. Modelnhauer and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
146 E. Magrì
———. 1986b. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik. Bde. 13–15 (vols. I, II, III.). In Werke in zwangig
Bänden, ed. E. Modelnhauer and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt a.M.: Surhkamp.
———. 2007. Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. Trans. M. Inwood. Oxford: OUP.
———. 2010. The Science of Logic. Trans. George Di Giovanni. Cambridge: CUP.
Houlgate, Stephen. 2000. Substance, Causality, and the Question of Method in Hegel’s Science of
Logic. In The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, ed. Sally
Sedgwick, 232–252. Cambridge: CUP.
Kant, Immanuel. 1908/1913. Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790). Akademie-Ausgabe Bd. 5 (vol. 5).
In Kants Gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften. Berlin: Georg Reimer.
———. 2001. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Trans. Paul Guyer, and Eric Matthews.
Cambridge: CUP.
Landes, Donald A. 2013. Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression. London: Bloomsbury.
Longuenesse, Béatrice. 2007. Hegel’s Critique of Metaphysics. Trans. N.J. Simek. Cambridge:
CUP.
Magrì, Elisa. 2016a. Hegel and the Genesis of the Concept. Symposium. Canadian Journal for
Continental Philosophy 20 (2): 122–141.
———. 2016b. The Place of Habit in Hegel’s Psychology. In Hegel’s Philosophical Psychology,
ed. Susanne Herrmann-Sinai and Lucia Ziglioli, 74–90. London: Routledge.
———. 2017. Hegel e la genesi del concetto. Autoriferimento, memoria, incarnazione. Trento:
Verifiche.
Matherne, Samantha. 2014. The Kantian Roots of Merleau-Ponty’s Account of Pathology. British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 22 (1): 124–149.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1973. The Prose of the World. Ed. by C. Lefort, Trans. J. O’Neill.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2010. Institution and Passivity: Course Notes from the Collège de
France (1954–1955). Foreword by Claude Lefort. Trans. Leonard Lawlor and Heath Massey.
———. 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. D.A. Landes. London: Routledge.
Mooney, Timothy. 2011. Plasticity, Motor Intentionality and Concrete Movement in Merleau-
Ponty. Continental Philosophy Review 44: 359–381.
———. 2020. The Body Schema and Its Skills. Forthcoming chapter of a book publication on
Merleau-Ponty.
Morris, David. 2004. The Sense of Space. New York: SUNY.
Nuzzo, Angelica. 2004. Hegels Auffassung der Philosophie als System und die drei Schlüsse der
Enzyklopädie. In Hegels enzyklopädisches System der Philosophie, ed. Hans-Christian Lucas,
Burkard Tuschling, and Ulrich Volgel, 459–480. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.
Sassen, Brigitte. 2003. Artistic Genius and the Question of Creativity. In Kant’s Critique of
the Power of Judgment. Critical Essays, ed. Paul Guyer, 171–180. Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers.
Schick, Friedricke. 2014. Freedom and Necessity: The Transition to the Logic of the Concept in
Hegel’s Science of Logic. Hegel Bulletin 35 (1): 84–99.
Vanzago, Luca. 2016. Metamorfosi. La questione dell’espressione nella filosofia di Merleau-
Ponty. Lebenswelt 9: 31–46.
Waldenfels, Bernard. 2000. The Paradox of Expression. In Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty’s Notion of
Flesh, ed. Fred Evans and Leonard Lawlor, 89–102. New York: SUNY.
Adorno on the Meaning of Phenomenology
Giovanni Zanotti
Abstract In this paper I reconstruct Adorno’s arguments against the phenomeno-

logical project as developed by Husserl in the early phase of his thought, with par-
ticular focus on the dialectical nature and meaning of such a critique. Primary
references are Adorno’s article Husserl and the Problem of Idealism, published in
1940, and his book Against Epistemology: A Metacritique, published in 1956. I
argue that, for Adorno, Husserl’s attempt must be understood as both logically
impossible and theoretically productive. After laying down the general framework
of Adorno’s reading in the first three sections, I examine his criticism of Husserl’s
“involuntary dialectic” in detail, also with the help of an independent analysis of
some ambiguities in Husserl’s concept of “categorial intuition”. In the last section,
I explain why and under what conditions, according to Adorno, the original impulse
of Husserlian phenomenology toward an intact knowledge of “things themselves”
needs to be maintained in spite of all.
Keywords Adorno · Husserl · Dialectical critique · Logical investigations ·

Categorial intuition
1 Introduction
Adorno devoted many of his philosophical energies to Husserl. The Marxist soci-
ologist who advocated a “last philosophy” instead of the traditional “first philoso-
phy” (Adorno 2013, 40), the musicologist and man of letters who fought against the
scientific ideal of knowledge even in its stylistic and expressive consequences, also
thought that the man whom he considered “the most static thinker of his period”
(Adorno 1986, 121) deserved the attention and passion of an entire life. Of course,
this attention resulted in the most severe criticism of Husserl’s philosophy. However,
it should be remembered that Adorno’s own method of philosophical analysis as
such is precisely the method he calls “immanent critique” and which he claims to
G. Zanotti (*)
University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil

148 G. Zanotti
have borrowed from Hegel. To Husserl’s credit, no thinker – not even Hegel him-
self – was subjected to Adorno’s immanent critique more intensely and minutely
than he was.
It is true that, throughout his life, Adorno’s confrontation with Husserl was
always essentially focussed on the Logical Investigations (particularly on the
Prolegomena and the Sixth Investigation), with some references to the Ideas, rare
references to the texts of the late 1920s, and (nearly) no references at all to the Crisis
of the European Sciences. This does not amount to carelessness, but to a deliberate
choice. In Adorno’s view, the Logical Investigations already contain phenomenol-
ogy in its whole revolutionary potential – that is to say, in the intact dignity of its
unresolved contradictions. Like other thinkers, Adorno considers the transcendental
evolution of Husserl’s philosophy a “subtly modified neo-Kantianism” (Adorno
2013, 2), that is, straightforward idealism. According to Adorno, some problems are
resolved by the late Husserl, the “static thought” is made more dynamic, but at the
price of losing the originality of the phenomenological falsehood and therefore the
originality of its own truth. Here I will reconstruct Adorno’s argument, with a spe-
cial focus on its dialectical nature and meaning, and without discussing its plausi-
bility in a comprehensive way. Also, the problem of what (if anything) remains of
Adorno’s criticism after Husserl’s transcendental and dynamic turn will be almost
entirely left out of the following considerations. However, at least some of Adorno’s
critical moves probably remain relevant even for the Husserl of the Crisis, and per-
haps for the phenomenological project as such.
2 Adorno on “First Philosophy”
Adorno had already begun his Husserlian studies at the age of 21 in his dissertation
on The Transcendence of the Material and Noematic in Husserl’s Phenomenology
(1924). The project expressed by the Logical Investigations was then criticized by
the transcendental perspective of Adorno’s mentor, Hans Cornelius, the attack to
intentionality being carried out in the name of the “unity of consciousness”. A simi-
lar point of view was defended in 1927 in Adorno’s first postdoctoral dissertation
(Habilitationsschrift) that was rejected by Cornelius, The Concept of the Unconscious
in the Transcendental Theory of the Psyche. Although Adorno’s peculiar focus on
the social and historical world already made first appearance in this text, it was not
until the 1930s, with the overcoming of the so-called “transcendental phase,” that
the philosopher Adorno became himself.1 This, too, was largely accomplished by
means of Husserl. From 1934 to 1937, in Oxford, during the first phase of his exile,
Adorno drew up an extensive manuscript on Husserl that was, with substantial
changes, much later to become the final version of his criticism, the Metakritik der
Erkenntnistheorie (Against Epistemology: A Metacritique). The declared aim of the
Oxfordian research was already the working out of a “materialistic logic” through
See Wolff (2006).

1
Adorno on the Meaning of Phenomenology 149
the immanent critique of idealism in its most advanced form.2 At the end of the
1930s, during his American phase, Adorno published two articles. The first was
called Zur Philosophie Husserls and was later included into the Metacritique. The
second was written in 1939 and published in 1940 in the Journal of Philosophy with
the title Husserl and the Problem of Idealism. The Metacritique appeared first in
1956, long after Adorno’s return from his American exile, in a moment when he was
already concentrating his theoretical efforts on Hegel (the first of the Three Studies
on Hegel was composed in the same year) and thereby developing his major philo-
sophical project of an “open dialectic” (Adorno 2010, 36) – or, as he would come to
call it 10 years later, a negative dialectic. At the end of his life, Adorno referred to
the Metacritique as his most important book after Negative Dialectics, and more
importantly, he referred to the Metacritique’s Introduction – written in the 1950s –
as the major elucidation of his own philosophical program, together with The Essay
as Form.3 The Introduction to the Metacritique and the American article published
in 1940 will be the primary focus of my analysis.
It may first be worth noting an oft-neglected detail. Beyond his theoretical
engagement with Husserl’s thought, Adorno also offers some interesting, although
very rapid contributions for a history of the phenomenological movement, whose
premises and results he situates within the general development of contemporary
philosophy. The premise is the cultural context of the late nineteenth century. He
interprets it as dominated by the crisis of the systems, which, to him, means the
same as the crisis of idealism. The skepticism toward truth that derived from this
crisis expressed itself in the pervasiveness of philosophical relativism and, more
specifically, of psychologism. Except for neo-Kantianism, he says, no philosophy
was tolerated in Germany which did not swear on psychological premises (Adorno
1986, 123). On the opposite pole, the result is the existential and ontological mood
which was dominant in Germany during the 1930s and which Adorno qualifies as
plain irrationalism, as being both dogmatic and devoid of content. Heidegger’s “jar-
gon of authenticity” was, for him, simultaneously a betrayal and a prosecution of
the original phenomenological impulse. In the middle stands the enigma Husserl,
whom Adorno cryptically defines as “the rationalist of irrationalism” (Adorno
1986, 127).
Husserl emerges therefore as a crucial point of mediation between crisis and
conservative reaction, between the fall and restoration of idealism. For the same
reasons, however, he is also viewed by Adorno as an exemplary figure. The book on
Husserl contains Husserl’s name only in its subtitle. Here, in fact, criticism of
Husserl primarily means criticism of epistemology (or better, “theory of knowl-
edge”: Erkenntnistheorie) as such. Adorno writes in the Preface:
The question I shall broach – by means of a concrete model – is the possibility and truth of
epistemology in principle. […] Instead of disputing individual epistemological issues,
micrological procedure should stringently demonstrate how such questions surpass them-
selves and indeed their entire sphere. (Adorno 2013, 1–2; my emphasis)
2
See Tiedemann (1997).
3
See Tiedemann (1997, 386).
150 G. Zanotti
The “entire sphere” of such questions as logical absolutism, intentionality, intuitive

fulfilment, categorial intuition and pure Ego is nothing less than theory of knowl-
edge, which is conceived in turn as the last and most dramatic form of what Adorno
calls “first philosophy” (Erste Philosophie). This concept lies at the heart of the
Metacritique’s Introduction, the great ouverture which is actually the epitome of
Adorno’s overall philosophical project.
“First philosophy” means a philosophy that aims to deduce the totality of being
from one first principle, no matter its specific nature. In this sense, empiricism, too,
belongs to first philosophies inasmuch as it tries to ground the whole of valid knowl-
edge on the immediacy of sense-certainty. At the basis of such projects lies a need
for security, for possession, which expresses itself theoretically as a need for irrefut-
able certainties. This need is all but obvious for Adorno. Far from being an unques-
tionable spiritual impulse, it has its roots in anguish, will to power, and ultimately
in an internal coercion of thought, the coercion of predetermination, the abolish-
ment of the New – or, as Adorno calls it, the constraint to say B because A has been
said (Adorno 2013, 32).
To this extent, however, Adorno’s position is far from original, and it simply
reproduces an old challenge for philosophy – it could be easily subsumed as a case
of the classical, Nietzschean genealogical critique of systems. Still, Adorno adds
something genuinely new, which is condensed in the concept of immanent critique.
The claims of first philosophy, like any other claim, must be confronted with their
own premises, measured on their own criterion, before being declared to be false. In
the Three Studies, Adorno writes that “the concept of determinate negation... sets
Hegel off from Nietzsche [...] as well as from all irrationalism” (Adorno 1993,
77–78). The need for spiritual security must be shown as not only derivative, but
contradictory, and thereby false. Indeed, as Adorno tries to demonstrate, every first
philosophy necessarily fails on its own premises, for the First always needs the
Second, that is, the one principle cannot even be thought without the manifold that
it transforms into chaos, into contingency, in order to dominate it. There is a set of
interrelated German terms that occur throughout Adorno’s analyses, expressing
what may be seen as the heart of Adorno’s Hegelianism, however problematic this
may be: Verweis, Zurückverweis, Anweisung, Bezug, all of which are more or less
translatable as “referring back.” The key to understanding most of Adorno’s argu-
ments is the “referring back” of one concept to another, that is to say, its mediated-
ness, which precisely determines any isolated concept as abstract in the Hegelian
sense. Now, for Adorno, the categories of mediation and mediatedness return the
final verdict on any attempt of first philosophy, provided mediation is conceived as
purely negative, critical, dynamic, and is not in turn hypostatized as a new first prin-
ciple, as Adorno thinks Hegel ultimately does:
Mediacy [Vermitteltsein] is not a positive assertion about being but rather a directive to
cognition not to comfort itself with such positivity. It is really the demand to arbitrate dia-
lectic concretely. Expressed as a universal principle, mediacy, just as in Hegel, always
amounts to spirit. If it turns into positivity, it becomes untrue. (Adorno 2013, 24)
Any single statement, any single concept is untrue insofar as it is mediated, as it

contains abstraction, reflection, thought. Without thought, however, there is no
knowledge, and no first principle can avoid mediation. Even the empiricist sense-
datum, if it is to be able to ground knowledge, must be the concept of the sense-
datum and not the single, empirical fact.4 As a thought-determination, every
“primum” is thought, different from the object it subsumes, and is therefore a part
and not the whole. Adorno concludes:
The first and immediate is always, as a concept, mediated and thus not the first. Nothing
immediate or factical, in which the philosophical thought seeks to escape mediation through
itself, is allotted to thinking reflection in any other way than through thoughts. (Adorno
2013, 7)
First philosophy is therefore torn by internal dynamics. It can never rest. It cannot
help but getting involved in antinomies which it can never solve in its own terms.
Every new possession reproduces the conflict that is immanent to possession itself
on an enlarged scale. The coercion to linear deduction – like any coercion, as Adorno
says – tends immanently to its own abolishment. Any inclusion is an exclusion. By
the very act of establishing itself as a compact whole, systematic thought rejects that
which is not identical to it, and which it needs at the same time for its own internal
constitution. “The inclusiveness [of such philosophies] is their break” (Adorno
2013, 13). If one looked for the logical structure of Adorno’s most celebrated socio-
logical thesis, that is, the “irrational rationality” of antagonistic society, which is
“seamless through its discontinuities [nur vermöge ihrer Brüche bruchlos]” (Adorno
1993, 86; emphasis mine), such philosophical grounding should likely be located
precisely in this passage of the Metacritique.
As a consequence of its own dynamics, first philosophy is forced at the same
time to become more what it is and to fall increasingly into absurdity. It becomes
what it is because it finally reveals itself as what it has always secretly been: subjec-
tivity. The strive for an unshakeable ground forces the nature-dominating subject to
subjectivism, it transforms ontology into Erkenntnistheorie: “epistemology” in the
foundational sense. Erkenntnistheorie is “the scientific form of first philosophy”
which wishes “to raise the absolutely first to the absolutely certain by reflecting on
the subject” (Adorno 2013, 22). In this sense, Adorno claims, every first philosophy
is idealism, and is ultimately method. In finding its own ground, however, it loses
any ground at all, since it withdraws into the immanence of consciousness and
deprives itself ever more of that very objectivity it had sought do dominate as its
primary goal. After the crisis of the great idealistic systems, and therefore the crisis
of the illusion that thought and world coincide, philosophy tends to turn into mere
method, mere subjective procedure, and finally into that tautological “point without
extension” that is mentioned by Wittgenstein at the end of the Tractatus (Wittgenstein
2001, 69–70). Spirit is left with the tautologies of logical positivism on the one side,
and with skeptical confusion on the other.
See Testa (2011).

4
152 G. Zanotti
3 The Antinomies of the Phenomenological Project
Husserl faces precisely this scenario. According to Adorno, Husserl’s fight against
psychologism in the Prolegomena to Pure Logic is an attempt to re-establish the
ideality and objectivity of truth while avoiding speculative dogmatism. In other
terms: an attempt to ground a non-idealistic ontology by means of scientific reflec-
tion. This project, however, Adorno claims, is contradictory from the very begin-
ning. While reading the complex, convoluted arguments of the Metacritique, one
immediately feels the pervasiveness of two dimensions even on the expressive plan:
paradoxicality and sublimation. Husserl’s philosophy appears paradoxical to
Adorno because his attempt to simultaneously evade the subjectivism of positivism
and the subjectivism of idealism is carried out with both positivistic and idealistic
tools. On the one hand, enlightened thought cannot avoid the heritage of self-
reflection. It cannot avoid, so to speak, the irreversible step which injected subjec-
tivity and negativity into first philosophy, thus transforming ontology into
Erkenntnistheorie and the “absolutely first” into the “absolutely certain.” Husserl’s
project therefore appears to be too late an attempt to restore ontology by means of
Erkenntnistheorie. Husserl’s ideal unities claim to be something like non-factual
facts. They must be pure, ideal, eternal, non-contingent truths, in short: truths of
reason, in the Leibnizian sense. At the same time, reason must be expelled from
them, for the weakest trace of subjective participation to absolute truths would
undermine their absoluteness and expose them to psychologistic attacks. This
immanence of subjectivity to reason was precisely the speculative motive of the
critical turn away from pre-Kantian rationalism to transcendental idealism, a move
that Adorno considers the great acme of reason’s self-consciousness – and this is the
motive that the Husserl of the Logical Investigations tries to repress. Hence the
primary and problematic importance of the concept of givenness in Husserl’s phe-
nomenology. Truths of reason without reason need to be given to consciousness and
appropriated by evidence in the very same way as the sense-data of empiricism.
They must be as opaque to reason as the famous, positivistic “stubborn facts”
(Adorno 1986, 128). Thinking is no longer activity, but mere contemplation and
passive acceptance. The Kantian spontaneity of thought must, for the sake of rea-
son, be substituted by a quasi-sensual receptivity. For Adorno, this curious mix of
rationalism and positivism is indeed the ground for Husserl’s success in early
twentieth-century Germany: he “made this tremendous impression [because] the
tendencies by which he became an enemy of the psychologistic positivism of his
time […] have their roots in positivism itself” (Adorno 1986, 123).
This is why, according to Adorno, the pivotal concepts of phenomenology are all
paradoxical: categorial intuition, contingent a priori, the pure Ego, even the notion
of intentionality itself as a noetic-noematic structure (Adorno 1986, 133). Adorno
would certainly argue that many hermeneutical problems of later phenomenological
scholarship, such as the alternative between idealism and realism in the different
phases of Husserl’s thought, could only be solved dialectically, that is, by recognizing
them as the expressions of Husserl’s own internal, primary and unsolved

contradiction.
On the other hand, the strange “facts” of phenomenology must be devoid of any
factual, contingent, temporal character in order to be the solid ground of knowledge
they are supposed to be. However, the enlightened, disenchanted reason has become
too smart not to detect factuality in every single bit of the world. Even the Cartesian
Ego, for the late Husserl, is precisely “a little bit of the world” and must therefore
be expelled from the “region of pure essences.” The price for the removal of contin-
gency from the world is the removal of the world. Hence the sublimating character
that Adorno sees in phenomenology. In Husserl’s concepts, and even in his style,
Adorno feels a distant, pale, rarefied atmosphere. He repeatedly compares Husserl’s
“essences” to the “essences” of the contemporary Jugendstil, to Liberty art, which
he likewise defines as “a paradoxical truce between romanticism and positivism”
(Adorno 1993, 97). In the region of pure essences, he sees a region of ghosts.
Husserl’s motive appears to him as the resignation of reason, the retreat from reality
and the giving up of the ambition to understand it. Adorno approves Hegel’s state-
ment that “[philosophy’s] content is no other than actuality [Wirklichkeit]” (Hegel
1975, 9),5 but he interprets Wirklichkeit as empirical, that is, as historical reality and
nothing else. Husserl instead proceeds in a negative way, that is, by means of elimi-
nation, diminution, subtraction. The phenomenological epoche is “reduction” in
more than one sense. It puts reality into brackets and produces a new world which
is absolutely identical to the empirical one with respect to its content (facts are not
modified by becoming essences), but with a minus sign. Its sole new determination
is its not being real. The organon of such conceptual movement is absolute doubt,
which Adorno treats in the same way as skepticism is treated in the Introduction to
the Phenomenology of Spirit, that is, as an abstract negation and at the same time as
a merely subjective procedure, aiming at learning how to swim before swimming.
Being mere method, reduction is “idealistic.” It does not aim at criticizing the exis-
tent world, but at re-establishing it just as it is on allegedly firmer ground. On the
contrary, Hegel’s determinate negation is critical and, in this sense, “materialistic”
(however paradoxical this may sound), inasmuch as it is the tool for thought to
forsake its own autarchy and open itself to every single bit of the world. In the
Metacritique, Adorno speaks of the “harmlessness of any method” [die
Harmlosigkeit alles Methodischen]:
Only specific [bestimmt] and never absolute doubt has ever become dangerous to the ide-
ologists. Absolute doubt joins of itself in the parade through the goal of method, which is to
produce being out of method itself. […] Doubt simply shifts judgement to preparing for
assuming the vindication of pre-critical consciousness scientifically in secret sympathy
with conventional sensibility [Menschenverstand]. (Adorno 2013, 11–12; translation
altered)
And in the Three Studies:
Quoted in: Adorno (1993, 67).

5
154 G. Zanotti
Hegel felt the sterility of all so-called intellectual work that takes place within the general
sphere without dirtying itself with the specific [...]. The dialectic expresses the fact that
philosophical knowledge is not at home in the place where tradition has settled it, a place
where it flourishes all too easily, unsaturated, as it were, with the heaviness and the resis-
tance of what exists. Philosophical knowledge begins only where it opens up things that
traditional thought has considered opaque, impenetrable, and mere products of individua-
tion. (Adorno 1993, 80–81)
4 “Involuntarily Dialectic” in the Logical Investigations
4.1 Logical Absolutism
Husserl’s ideal is rigorous science. This ideal, Adorno notes, is not itself submitted
to the epoché, although it should be. Husserl aims at a rebuilding of first philosophy
through a rigorous description of data. This project involves two steps (Adorno
1986, 125). The first is the theory of logical absolutism and is carried out in the
Prolegomena. Husserl detaches logical truths from the world, which means detach-
ing them from empirical facts and from human consciousness at the same time.
These two moves are, in fact, one and the same. To protect logic from the empirical
world, Husserl must expel not only physical causality from it, but thought as such,
for thought can be nothing else but human thought, that is, it refers back to human
acts and then to psychology. However, once logical laws are no longer conceived as
acts, they lose their intrinsic functional character and can no longer be applied to
anything. By losing their object, logical laws become objects themselves, they are
reified into a mysterious datum with no reference either to subjectivity or to the
world. They become “stubborn facts” and can no longer be properly understood, but
only passively, positivistically accepted. According to Adorno, this real-ideal dual-
ism “is possibly the most extreme χωρισμον [sic] which has ever been suggested
since Plato” (Adorno 1986, 125). Adorno objects that to transform logic from func-
tional activity into an object in itself (an sich) means to deny logic as such, for logi-
cal acts refer back to thinking subjects, and even to conceive the possibility of a
logic without human beings is no less than logically absurd. From the all-too correct
need to preserve truth from identification with the psychological acts of real indi-
viduals, Husserl draws the wrong conclusion that truth must be an ideal object with
no necessary reference to empirical reality. This is because he does not see the third
possibility which Adorno learned from Durkheim’s theory of collective conscious-
ness.6 For the single empirical person, Adorno argues, logic has indeed an abso-
lutely binding validity that is independent from individual psychological processes.
Such validity, however, does not rest on superhuman objectivity; rather, it is the
objectified result of a history, the tool for the most urgent human need – the domina-
tion of nature –, standing in front of individuals as a second nature, as if it were an
See O’Connor (2004, 127–148).

6
independent thing, in precisely the same way (and for the same reasons) as “social
objectivity,” which the sociologist Adorno defines as both a human product and
something independent from individual human beings.7 Logical and linguistic
validity is human and not individual, for it is social. If one would object that such
theory of the interhuman, yet not transhuman validity still exposes logic to relativ-
ism, since it still presents logic as somehow derivative, Adorno would probably
answer with Marx’s and Engels’s words:
Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises [voraussetzungslos],
we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all his-
tory, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make
history”. (Marx and Engels 1970, 48)
In other words: There is no possible way in heaven and earth to imagine a more
binding character for logic – but also, despite all antagonisms, a more emancipatory
function – than its origin in the most fundamental depths of human life. In one of
the most crucial passages not only of the Metacritique, but of his entire work, which
clearly resounds with echoes from the Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno writes:
Validity and rationality themselves are for such an interpretation of logic no longer irratio-
nal and not an inconceivable in-itself simply to be accepted. They are rather the demand,
more powerful than all existence, that the subject not fall back into nature, revert to a beast,
and leave behind that small advantage whereby humanity, self-perpetuating natural crea-
tures, goes beyond, however powerlessly, nature and self-preservation. But logical validity
is also objective by adopting the standard of nature in order to master it. Every logical
synthesis is anticipated by its object, but its possibility remains abstract and is actualized
only by the subject. They need each other. (Adorno 2013, 80; emphasis mine)
For this same reason, of course, Marx’s and Engels’s statement is also false. For
“matter” is itself a concept. Hence, the material “premise” cannot explain thought
more than, inversely, thought explains and mediates matter. The idealistic claim for
a “presuppositionless” philosophy (voraussetzungslose Philosophie), which was
defended by Hegel and the Hegelian Left and attacked by Marx and Engels, is sub-
lated, so to speak, into Adorno’s ideal of a dialectic which “is not a standpoint”
(Adorno 2004, 4). If such an ideal can be at least consistent, it is because (negative)
dialectic is no first philosophy. Subjective thought does not move from a first prin-
ciple; rather, it follows the self-movement of objective thought in all its mediations.
“Critique means nothing other than the confrontation of judgement with the media-
tions inherent to judgement” (Adorno 2013, 153).
It would be fatal, too, to identify the ubiquity of mediation with the exclusion of
immediacy – it would be a fall back into idealism and first philosophy, into the
autarchy of thought. On the contrary, as Hegel himself claims, everything contains
both mediation and immediacy, and Adorno seems to interpret this as the vindica-
tion of an irreducible natural moment, as an objective constraint to thought that is
independent from thought itself. For Adorno, immediacy exists as a moment, as the
possibility of genuine, non-predetermined experience, as the dazzling insight: “This
is the way it is [So ist es]” (Adorno 1993, 108). As he says in the quoted passage:
See Zanotti (2014, especially 71–76).

7
156 G. Zanotti
every logical synthesis is anticipated and somehow required by its object, like the
butcher of Plato’s Phaedrus (one of Adorno’s favorite references). Inversely, how-
ever, no synthesis can actually exist without subjective mediation. Being a mere
moment, immediacy is in no position to ground knowledge; rather, as Hegel says,
immediacy itself is essentially mediated (Hegel 1962, 162). Subject and object are
constantly fused, intertwined; subjective thought is and is not identical with objec-
tive thought; concepts are and are not their objects; and, according to Adorno, it is
precisely this contradiction that generates the dialectical movement of concepts,
that is, the critical confrontation of every concept with its own object.
4.2 Categorial Intuition
In Adorno’s view, however, the prejudices of first philosophy prevent Husserl from
consciously delivering himself to dialectic. The category of mutual mediation is the
point where Husserl’s project fails, and, specifically, where the second step of his
strategy falls into inescapable contradictions. After establishing his extreme dual-
ism between ideal and real in the Prolegomena, Husserl must somehow reunite what
he separated. This task is assigned to the concept of intentionality and is developed
mainly in the last two Investigations. Here, Adorno says, Husserl “involuntarily
[gives] an example of the Hegelian method” (Adorno 1986, 120–121), he becomes
dialectical against his will. Here, the truths of reason become given data, logical
objectivism makes room for immanent analysis of consciousness, and rationalism
reverses itself into positivism. Here, it could be argued, the premises are already
posited for the subsequent subjective-transcendental turn of Husserl’s philosophy.
The problem is to find access to consciousness for such strange “objects” as logical
truths. While intentionality secures such access in the Fifth Investigation at the level
of meaning and understanding, Husserl’s fundamental concern about knowledge –
that is, evidence and intuitive fulfillment – only finds an answer in the Sixth
Investigation and with the help of an additional concept: categorial intuition.
According to Adorno (and not only to Adorno), this is the cornerstone of the Logical
Investigations and even of phenomenology as such. For the same reason, however,
it is also the most antinomic point of Husserl’s thought. Categorial intuition is meant
to provide an intuitive fulfillment for non-sensual elements of judgments. If, Husserl
argues, knowledge is intuitive fulfillment, and if judgements contain formal ele-
ments that cannot find their fulfillment in sensual intuition, there must be a non-
sensual intuition that does the same service to categorial elements as sensual
intuition does to the remaining parts of the judgement. First, Adorno objects that, as
the “must” betrays, such discovery is hypothetical and not phenomenological.
Categorial intuition is not gained by means of categorial intuition. Secondly, and
more crucially, the concept of categorial intuition expresses the impossible idea of
an immediate knowledge of what is mediated, and therefore an impossible attempt
to identify immediacy and mediation – or, rather, as it has been noted, immediacy
and determination.8 Adorno’s argument is remarkable.9 Immediacy belongs to the

act of achieving the synthesis of judgement, that is, to the act of judging; as an act,
it is lived subjective experience, and in this sense, it is immediate. However, the
simple judging, on Husserl’s terms, is an empty intention. To “fulfill” it, that is, to
verify its truth, requires reflection on the judgement itself, interpretation, abstrac-
tion, confrontation with other judgements, and hence, mediation. In other terms:
Either an act is immediate, and then it is not knowledge, or it involves conceptual
determination, reflection in the Hegelian sense, and then it is not immediate.
“Immediate knowledge” is the square circle. As Kant taught, in fact, what is intui-
tive cannot be conceptual, and a categorial intuition would be a non-intuitive intu-
ition, just as an ideal, that is, not real being, would be for Adorno a non-being being.
Immediacy, which certainly exists as a single moment, dissolves as soon as the
process of thinking is put into motion. This process is subjective, and the notion of
categorial intuition entails all the paradoxicality of Husserl’s own phenomenologi-
cal attempt – the removal of subject, of synthetical activity, of Kantian spontaneity,
the removal of man.
Adorno’s argument about categorial intuition applies far beyond the realm of
what is strictly meant by “categorial intuition” in the Logical Investigations, and
ultimately points to the problem of sensation. Adorno’s reference here is no longer
the Introduction, but the first two figures of the Phenomenology of Spirit, sense-
certainty and perception. Before developing this final point, it may be helpful to put
aside Adorno’s own considerations on categorial intuition and try to elucidate them
through a more detailed analysis of this cardinal Husserlian concept, as this is devel-
oped in the Investigations.
According to an account that is widespread, especially (but not only) among
Heideggerian scholars, Husserl’s categorial intuition would be the self-givenness of
an object’s meaning, as opposed to mere sense-data. It would be “being” in the
Heideggerian sense. As Heidegger says in the Prolegomena to the History of the
Concept of Time: “Originally, one does not hear noises, but the creaking wagon, the
tram, the motorcycle, the north wind” (Heidegger 1985, 368). This would be catego-
rial intuition. The problem is that in the Logical Investigations there is no such a
thing – or, rather, there is, but it is not categorial intuition. That objects of intentional
acts are given to consciousness provided already with their meaning, and not as
chaotic sense-data, is indeed one of Husserl’s central theses. However, this topic
appears in the Fifth Investigations, long before the discussion of categorial intuition,
and Husserl uses the term “apprehension” (Auffassung) to designate it. Sense-data,
which are present in consciousness as real intuitive contents, are “apprehended” by
the intentional component of consciousness, by means of which an object is imme-
diately and primarily “given” as meaningful, as the creaking wagon, etc. On the
contrary, the acts through which categorial elements are both signified and intui-
tively given have nothing primary in this sense. Husserl repeatedly stresses that they
are synthetic, polythetic and grounded on simple, monothetic, “founding” acts. The
See Miller (2009).

8
See Adorno (1986, 129–132).

9
158 G. Zanotti
elements they intentionally refer to are formal and syntactical: “and,” “or,” “not”
and so on, and “being,” too, but in the strict sense of the copula. The term for such
acts is “forming” (Formung). Their task is to syntactically articulate simpler objects,
which are nevertheless already given as intentional objects without the intervention
of categories and are therefore all but mere sense-data. In both cases, Husserl uses
the word “surplus” (Überschuss). In the first case, however, he means the inten-
tional surplus with respect to real, non-intentional sensual contents; in the second
case, he means the categorial surplus with respect to a non-categorized, “simple”
intentional object. They are two different surpluses. Or are they not?
There is a single passage in the Logical Investigations which points in the latter
direction, thereby seemingly contradicting the whole construction of Husserl’s
argumentation – a passage so imperceptible that one is tempted to consider it a
Freudian slip. In the Sixth Investigation, Husserl discusses the example of the words
“white paper” (weißes Blatt), where the German termination “-es” of the adjective,
considered an implicit predication (“paper that is white”), represents a case of cat-
egorial act, a formal surplus beyond the simple signifying acts “white” and “paper.”
Then, he suddenly adds:
Is this form not also repeated, even if it remains hidden, in the case of the noun “paper”?
Only the quality meanings contained in its “concept” terminate in [sensual] perception.
Here also the whole object is known as paper, and here also a supplementary form is known
which includes being, though not as its sole form, in itself. (Husserl 2001, 273)
According to Husserl’s own premises, the answer to his rhetorical question should
be: of course not. The intentional act “paper” does not contain any categorial form-
ing, since behind “paper,” if one carried out the analysis, they would find nothing
but sense-data. These are apprehended, not formed, by an act that constitutes them
for the first time as a simple, monolinear intentional object. Still, Husserl betrays
some hesitation on this point, and this could give some credit even to Heidegger’s
interpretation of categorial intuition.
4.3 Sensation
Husserl’s hesitation points precisely in the same direction as Adorno’s suspicions,

since it is a hesitation about where and to what extent the synthesis should be
located. It is true that this problem is reshaped and clarified by the late Husserl with
the help of the concept of passive synthesis, but at the level of the Logical
Investigations, the first laying down of the phenomenological project, Husserl’s slip
might have some relevance.10 It seems as if, for a single moment, Husserl had sus-
pected that not only explicit, articulating acts, but the whole realm of human experi-
ence is permeated by syntheses. This is also expressed by his terminological
It can also be conjectured that if Adorno had dealt with the idea of a “passive synthesis”, he might
10
have found it no less antinomic – and interesting – than categorial intuition itself.
oscillation between “apprehension” and the more compromising “interpretation.”

Of course, as he considered even the objective correlatives of explicit, judgmental
syntheses as “given” in categorial intuition, he would a fortiori have thought the
same about those implicit syntheses that first constitute the perceptual object in its
own sense. Nonetheless, his need for pure objectivity was so strong that he was
perhaps forced to (nearly) neglect the fact that an articulation, a complexity, a struc-
turing activity – in a word: a mediation – is present even in the most elementary
principle of his phenomenology: the intentional object. He did not see the subject in
the very point where subjective intervention begins, and, precisely for this reason,
he did not recognize the content which is therein revealed as drastically other than
subject. The point is sensation; the content is physical matter. According to Adorno,
sensation is the real outrage for Husserl. The hyle, deprived of all intentionality,
reminds of the irreducible natural-somatic moment and, at the same time, of the
primitive mediation between thought and its counterpart: two constantly inter-
twined, yet non-identical sides. It reminds that thought is the thought of man and not
of pure consciousness, and that it is therefore a part of that very nature it seeks to
dominate. Sensation, Adorno says, is “a threshold. The materialistic element simply
cannot be rooted out of it. Bordering on physical pain and organic desire, it is a bit
of nature which cannot be reduced to subjectivity” (Adorno 2013, 155; translation
altered). This is why Husserl inverts the order of priorities. By conceiving sensation
as an addendum, as a mere function of fulfilling perception, he properly starts from
the already constituted intentional object. The intentional object, however, is the
object of perception, and, as Hegel shows, is therefore already mediated by an entire
set of determinations. The phenomenologist Husserl begins with perception, and
thus he skips the first step of the other Phenomenology: sense-certainty. Making
perception his proper ground, he banishes both mediation and nature. For the sake
of pure thought, he forgets thought as human thinking. He turns the concept into a
given, so that he can turn any given into concepts. The self-forgetfulness of thinking
activity is the price he must pay for his renewed, paradoxical idealism, for the idola-
try of thought. As Adorno claims at the end of the Metacritique: “All reification is a
forgetting” (Adorno 2013, 221).11
5 Husserl, Hegel, and the Dialectic of Thought
Adorno’s criticisms, as they have been presented here, are relevant for phenomenol-
ogy inasmuch, and only inasmuch, as phenomenology is conceived as pure contem-
plation and science of idealities. It is debatable to what extent these features are
maintained by the late Husserl. Of course, much changes with genetic phenomenol-
ogy and the full acknowledgment of subjective constitution, although such a
This well-known formulation had already been used in a letter to Benjamin (Adorno and
11
Benjamin 1994, 417), and then repeated in the Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and
Adorno 2002, 191).
160 G. Zanotti
concept as “reduction”, for example – be it phenomenological or transcendental –

seems to fall under Adorno’s critique right to the end. More generally, however,
Adorno sees in transcendental subjectivism a simple reversal of Husserl’s primitive
objectivism. The shift from pure essences to the transcendental Ego means for him
the substitution of one form of first philosophy with another – maybe a more coher-
ent, but also a less original, one. As Adorno repeatedly claims, Husserl’s – but also
Kant’s, Fichte’s, even Hegel’s – transcendental Ego, too, refers back to the real
individual Egos from which it has been abstracted, and it is therefore no less medi-
ated by them than vice versa.12 The development of Husserl’s philosophy appears to
Adorno to be a prosecution of the “involuntary dialectic” [Dialektik wider Willen]
which he had already seen at work in the Logical Investigations.13
And nonetheless, to Adorno this movement of thought deserves the greatest
respect from its very beginning. In the American article on Husserl, he writes:
His [Husserl’s] struggle against psychologism does not mean the reintroduction of dog-
matic prejudices, but the freeing of critical reason from the prejudices contained in the
naïve and uncritical religion of “facts” which he challenged in its psychological form. It is
this element of Husserl's philosophy in which I see even today its “truth”. (Adorno 1986,
124)
“Today” is 1939. At the beginning of World War II, the Marxist Jew who had been
forced into exile celebrated the actuality of Husserl’s philosophical impulse. This
declaration sounds even more impressive if compared with Adorno’s similar claim
about the actuality of another thinker. In the Three Studies, just after the quotation
about Wirklichkeit,14 Adorno opposes Kant’s “humility” to Hegel’s “hope.” Kant
famously writes in the Critique of Pure Reason:
I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith. The
dogmatism of metaphysics, that is, the preconception that it is possible to make headway in
metaphysics without a previous criticism of pure reason, is the source of all that unbelief,
always very dogmatic, which wars against morality. (Kant 1963, 29)15
Here is Hegel’s “reply”:

The sealed essence of the universe has no power that could withstand the spirit of knowl-
edge; it is compelled to open itself to it and lay out its riches and its depths and offer them
for its enjoyment. (Hegel 1964, 36)16
And here is Adorno’s conclusion:

In formulations like this, the Baconian pathos of the early bourgeois period is extended to
become that of a mature humankind: we may yet succeed [daß es doch noch gelinge]. Seen
against the resignation of the current era, this impulse establishes Hegel’s true contempo-
rary relevance. (Adorno 1993, 68)
12
See for example Adorno (1993, 14–17).
13
See Adorno (2013, chap. 4, especially 224–234).
14
See above, 7–8.
15
16
In both passages emerges the one ideal that animates every single line of Adorno’s
work: intact knowledge. An ideal not that far from the classical struggle for uncon-
ditional knowledge (which is not the same as knowledge of the unconditional). It is
the ideal of thought’s freedom, for, as Adorno says at the beginning of the
Metacritique: “Thought, by actively beholding, rediscovers itself in every entity,
without tolerating any restrictions. It breaches, as just such a restriction, the require-
ment to establish a fixed ultimate to all its determinations” (Adorno 2013, 4).
“Restrictions” as such are the sole criterion of falsehood for a philosophy that
renounces to be a first philosophy, just as the “ruin of illusion” [der Zerfall des
Scheins] is its sole criterion of truth (Adorno 2013, 39). At the same time, however,
this ideal is the Hegelian, and then Husserlian, desire to saturate oneself with the
fullness of objectivity, to know the things themselves, to know them as they really
are, or, as Adorno says, “from the inside out”.17 Critical philosophy that is aware of
subjective mediations nonetheless, or precisely because of this, needs objective
truth to break the social veil of appearances, to overcome “facts” and attain things.
According to Adorno, Husserl never managed to free himself from idealism, because
he criticized it from within by remaining involved in idealistic presuppositions. His
original drive then reversed itself into its own opposite.18 This, however, is precisely
what “involuntary dialectic” means. Husserl’s tragedy is that his “things them-
selves” are not the things themselves at all, but abstractions of thought that are not
recognized as such, and only because of this they become false. The path he went
through with the integrity and radicality of his rigorous philosophy, despite thought’s
self-forgetfulness, is the path of thought itself. “Husserl’s antinomies,” as the sub-
title of the Metacritique calls them, are not eccentricities or contingent mistakes, but
some of the inescapable stakes of the present: individual and universal, reason and
world, theory and experience, method and things. And, like Kant’s antinomies for
Hegel, they are the very driving force of the dialectical movement. Dialectics does
not mean to avoid such contradictions, but to consciously reflect on them, to trans-
form Husserl’s “involuntary” movement into a voluntary one, to carry it out right to
the end, and thus to break its own presuppositions. And this, to Adorno, is what
knowledge means. Husserl’s splendid failure is the necessary premise for something
different from the claustrophobia of systems. His first philosophy is just one step
behind “last philosophy” and the happiness of thought.
17
“The farther Hegel takes idealism, even epistemologically, the closer he comes to social material-
ism; the more he insists, against Kant, on comprehending his subject matter from the inside out”
(Adorno 1993, 68).
18
See Adorno (1986, 120).
162 G. Zanotti
References
Adorno, Theodor W. 1986. Husserl and the Problem of Idealism. In Id. Gesammelte Schriften
in zwanzig Bänden, ed. R. Tiedemann in cooperation with G. Adorno, S. Buck-Morss, and
K. Schultz, vol. 20/1, 119–134. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 1993. Hegel: Three Studies. Trans. S.W. Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA/London: The MIT
Press.
———. 2004. Negative Dialectics. Trans. E.B. Ashton. London: Routledge.
———. 2010. Einführung in die Dialektik. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 2013. Against Epistemology: A Metacritique. Trans. W. Domingo. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Walter Benjamin. 1994. Briefwechsel 1928–1940. Frankfurt a. M.:
Suhrkamp.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1962. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 1. Trans.
E.B. Speirs and J.B. Sanderson. New York: The Humanities Press.
———. 1964. System der Philosophie. Erster Teil. Die Logik. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich
Frommann Verlag.
———. 1975. Logic: Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Trans.
W. Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1985. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. Trans. T. Kisiel.
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. E. Jephcott.
Stanford: The University Press.
Husserl, Edmund. 2001. Logical Investigations. Trans. J.N. Findlay, vol. 2. London/New York:
Routledge.
Kant, Immanuel. 1963. The Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. N. Kemp-Smith. London: Macmillan.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1970. The German Ideology. Trans. C. Dutt, W. Lough, and
C.P. Magill. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Miller, Jared A. 2009. Phenomenology’s Negative Dialectic: Adorno’s Critique of Husserl’s
Epistemological Foundationalism. The Philosophical Forum 40: 99–125.
O’Connor, Brian. 2004. Adorno’s Negative Dialectic. Philosophy and the Possibility of Critical
Rationality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Testa, Italo. 2011. La Metacritica di Adorno nella costellazione contemporanea. Epistemologia
dialettica e post-empirismo. In Percorsi della dialettica nel Novecento, ed. M.L. Lanzillo and
S. Rodeschini, 93–124. Roma: Carocci.
Tiedemann, Rolf. 1997. Editorische Nachbemerkung. In: T.W. Adorno. Gesammelte Schriften,
vol. 5, 385–386. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Trans. D.F. Pears and
B.F. McGuinness. London/New York: Routledge.
Wolff, Ernst. 2006. From Phenomenology to Critical Theory. The Genesis of Adorno’s Critical
Theory from His Reading of Husserl. Philosophy & Social Criticism 32: 555–572.
Zanotti, Giovanni. 2014. La psyché démodée. Psychanalyse et objectivité sociale chez Adorno.
Meta. Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy VI (1): 67–97.
Ricœur as a Reader of Hegel: Between
Defiance and Nostalgia
Gilles Marmasse
Abstract The paper aims to analyse the use made of Hegel in the work of Paul
Ricœur. Hegel is constantly called upon as an interlocutor in Ricœur’s writings, but
he is denounced as often as he is approved of. Hegelianism is a temptation, for
Ricœur, because Hegel proposes a philosophy of mediation, and because mediation
is also the horizon of Ricœur’s project. At the same time, Hegelianism is deceiving,
in Ricœur’s view, insofar as it holds that it is possible to get around the hard work
of practical, iterative mediation. But there is probably a misunderstanding in
Ricœur’s interpretation of Hegel’s “absolute knowledge”. Hegel actually does not
try to transgress the limits of possible experience, but he wants to think of the unifi-
cation of opposites within experience.
Keywords Ricœur · Hegel · Sittlichkeit · History
I would like to discuss here the use made of Hegel in the work of Paul Ricœur. That
use is marked by both fascination and ambivalence—by a certain injustice, but also by
an intimate understanding. As it stands, this sort of relationship between Hegel and his
successors is not unusual, as Ricœur himself points out. In the article “Hegel
aujourd’hui” (Ricœur 2006, 174–194), for instance, he declares that the contemporary
success of Hegel is remarkable, given that interest in him springs from those post-
Hegelian philosophers, like Kierkegaard or Marx, who committed parricide against
him. Moreover, he says, Hegel is read in astonishingly diverse disciplinary and episte-
mological contexts—by theologians, for instance, as well as by structuralists. Finally,
Ricœur says, Hegel provokes contradictory judgements, because he is for some a
thinker of divinity and order, and for others a thinker of humanity and of liberty.
Hegel is constantly called upon as an interlocutor in Ricœur’s work, but he is
denounced as often as he is approved of. Ricœur sometimes presents Hegel’s
thought as a simple moment in a broader movement; in such cases, he is treated
G. Marmasse (*)
University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France
e-mail: gilles.marmasse@univ-poitiers.fr

164 G. Marmasse
favourably. And Ricœur sometimes reproaches Hegel for aiming at an unattainable

‘absolute knowledge’. In fact, this is the objection which he raises most often, for
Ricœur criticises Hegel for transgressing the rules of a philosophy which is con-
scious of its limits. I will discuss here the questions of meaning, of politics, and of
history, my aim being to understand why Hegel is typically presented by Ricœur as
a ‘temptation’ which one must renounce. More specifically, I will show that the key
to understanding the relationship between Ricœur and Hegel, which is at the same
time passionate and critical, lies in Ricœur’s account of “imperfect syntheses”,
which he presents as contrasting with that which he finds too perfect in Hegel’s
mediation.
1 Hegel and the Conquest of Meaning
For Ricœur, Hegelianism is above all a philosophy of meaning. For Hegel, he

explains, experience speaks itself, and proposes an order. The task of philosophy is,
therefore, to discover that this order is precisely that of our thoughts, and to render
it transparent to thought. Philosophy, Ricœur says, shows up in Hegel as a wager:
that the meaning of reality can be mastered and presented by the philosopher (see
Ricœur 2006, 176–177). But Hegel’s originality, he says, lies in his claim that mean-
ing establishes itself progressively. We go from experiences which are poor in
meaning to richer ones (Ricœur 2006, 179). This progress happens dialectically, by
the work of the negative—that is, by contradictions which we live through dramati-
cally or which we think according to a logic of opposition.
Now, Ricœur emphasises, it is the subject which appears as these oppositions
arise and are overcome. For Hegel, the progress of the meaning and that of the sub-
ject go together. In a sense, the more meaning there is, the more consciousness there
is. It follows that subjectivity does not constitute itself in fleeing experience and its
inevitable discomfort, but in confronting it. Subjectivity does not look down on
experience; it is born from it. And because experience is contradictory, we can say
that one does not become oneself except in alienating oneself. Subjectivity is born
from working one’s way, painfully and exhaustingly, across experience: the richer
that experience is, the more acute subjectivity is (Ricœur 2006, 186–187).
Ricœur insists, moreover, on the link he sees between Hegel and Freud. These
two authors share a point of thought, but they look out in opposite directions from
it. Hegel has quite intensely understood the force of human desire: for him, man is
not only a thought, but also a vital force. This is most clearly visible in the text on
mastery and servitude in the Phenomenology. More precisely, Ricœur argues,
human desire for Hegel is not animal desire, because it is desire for another desire.
This desire, which aspires to reciprocity, brings with it the problem of recognition.
Now, we find something equivalent in the Freudian theme of Oedipus. Just like the
problem of master and slave, that of Oedipus is about the production of a reciprocity
from a situation of inequality. But the two authors do not share the same orientation.
Freud looks backwards, in the sense that he is carrying out a sort of archaeology of
Ricœur as a Reader of Hegel: Between Defiance and Nostalgia 165
desire. Hegel, on the other hand, examines the series of experiences by which man
makes himself an adult and enters into more and more elaborate cultural experi-
ences. Hegelianism, Ricœur says, thematises a movement which distances us from
our biological roots. It reflects the progressive constitution of meaning which draws
us out of our infantilism and our archaisms. All the same, the root is not destroyed.
One can only progress if one is, so to speak, re-rooted. And Freud thematises the
sublimation of instinct. In both authors, Ricœur says, one finds the idea of progress
through regress, of a deepening of origins which happens at the same time as the
movement upwards towards a more and more elaborate culture.
Yet Ricœur is troubled by the concept of ‘absolute knowledge’. In particular, he
thinks that the overcoming of ‘spirit’, and then of ‘religion’, in the movement
described in the Phenomenology marks the abandonment of a ‘rationalist’ and
‘humanist’ point of view (ibidem, 180). Ricœur barely defines the concept of abso-
lute knowledge, but apparently understands it in contrast with the Kantian theme of
the limits of knowledge. Kant insists that human experience cannot raise itself up to
an Archimedean point, but is inevitably situated. Hegel, on the other hand, takes up
the point of view of the whole. Of course, he is always examining the limits of
knowledge—but these limits, for him, are always to be overcome (ibidem, 191). For
Ricœur, Hegel can be criticised by asking oneself whether philosophy is really
capable of finding a meaning for everything: do there not exist in human experience
components which are discordant, or insignificant? And we can criticise Hegel too,
says Ricœur, for his inability to admit the presence in this experience of something
which is irreducibly fragmentary, which cannot be totalised—encounter, for
instance, or love, or the approach of death… Furthermore, Ricœur notes, we should
ask ourselves whether Hegelianism is able to conceive of evil. Ricœur does not
clearly formulate this last objection, but it is clear that he criticises Hegel for being
content to thematise the absorption of evil into discourse, and so to have turned
away from thinking, as Kant did, about regeneration or conversion.
Of course, Ricœur argues, Hegel is perhaps closer than is usually believed to the
philosophy of interpretation which Ricœur himself defends. For this philosophy
also rests on the conviction that we are not in the absurd. Yet interpretation, Ricœur
says, always starts from a certain perspective, not from the whole. That is, in a
sense, the weakness of interpretation, which is always in a certain sense circular:
when I try to understand something, I grasp it with what I am. All the same, such a
philosophy is freed from the excesses of absolute knowledge. One can say, in a
certain manner, that, for Hegel, knowledge is safe, while, for Kant or in a philoso-
phy based on Kantianism, freedom—free knowledge—conceives of itself as at risk.
In other words, Kantianism opens up a path towards a philosophy of hope, while
Hegelianism remains a philosophy of reminiscence. Ricœur therefore says that
Kant deserves more praise, for such a philosophy truly has something utopian about
it. It throws itself into the future, it is imaginative, it invents figures for the realisa-
tion of mankind. And that is precisely what Hegelianism refuses at the most funda-
mental level. Nonetheless, Ricœur emphasises, a philosophy of interpretation will
be serious only if it is quasi-Hegelian, or at least in debate with Hegel (ibidem, 192).
166 G. Marmasse
However, we see that Ricœur does not analyse the Hegelian concept of absolute
knowledge based on Hegel’s many texts on philosophy, or based on Hegel’s
philosophical approach in the Phenomenology and the Encyclopaedia. Rather, as
many commentators do, he simply bases his reading on notions of knowledge and
absoluteness taken in their traditional senses. That is what leads him to think that
Hegel wants to transgress the limits of possible experience, whereas he in fact
wants—at least, in my reading of him—to think of the unification of opposites
within experience. Hegel does not argue that philosophy is not situated, recalling,
for instance, that Plato and Aristotle, as Greeks, could not fail to approve of slavery
(see Hegel 1992, § 482 R.). It is no less clear, in Hegel’s mind, that his own philoso-
phy is expressive of the modern spirit. If the epithet ‘absolute’ is taken to be identi-
cal with ‘super-human’, the concept of absolute knowledge is of course unacceptable,
and Ricœur’s criticism of it is quite justified. But if ‘absolute’ is understood to mean
‘unifying’, the concept of absolute knowledge becomes interesting once more, and
Ricœur’s objections to it, it seems to me, become questionable.
What is all the same interesting about Ricœur’s critique is that it contests the idea
of a fundamental unity of experience, capable of being seized theoretically, and one
which consequently places philosophy in a position of sovereignty over the other
sciences. Ricœur is a trustworthy witness for the humbling of philosophy in con-
temporary thought: philosophy cannot nowadays claim, as it could in Hegel’s time,
to master meaning; it must rather admit that meaning makes us at the same time that
we make it. In other works, philosophy must recognise that it is dependent on a
preexisting cultural state of affairs which it cannot give a full account of. Philosophy
is a science of culture among others, at best capable of describing partial experi-
ences. But its finitude is also what drives it to work, and what makes it fruitful:
because meaning is not totalisable, because truth cannot be possessed, philosophy’s
task is endless. Even if Ricœur’s critique of absolute knowledge is simplistic, it
deserves to be heard.
2 Thinking Sittlichkeit in Its Scope and Its Contradictions
Now, Ricœur’s reticence about a knowledge which presents itself as definitive does
not show up only with the question of meaning in general. One finds it in practical
matters, too. But Ricœur’s ambivalence is remarkable here. First, he takes up for
himself the debate between Kant and Hegel on morality. Of course, he does not
align himself entirely with Hegel, but he nonetheless remains close to him. The
Kantian conception of morality, Ricœur says, is certainly fundamental, but it has
only a limited meaning. It allows one to think about the autonomy of a responsible
subject, who recognises himself as capable of doing that which at the same time
he believes he must do (Ricœur 1986, 279). Nonetheless, if the rule of universalisa-
tion of maxims of the will is the criterion by which a moral agent assures himself
of his good faith, it cannot be considered the supreme principle of practical reason.
For Ricœur, Kant is wrong to make obligation the essence of moral behaviour,
which has so many other aspects. One sees that already with Aristotle, who dis-
cusses ethical excellence using the concepts of model, of preference, and of reason-
able orientation. Hegel’s anti-Kantian critique returns, in a sense, to these Aristotelian
intuitions. In particular, Ricœur says, the author of the Principles of the Philosophy
of Right is quite right to oppose himself to the neglect of desire within Kantian
morality, and to the mortal dichotomies which that morality develops: form against
content, duty against desire, a priori against the empirical… “Human behaviour
[…] cannot bear the sort of dismantling which the transcendental method condemns
it to, but requires, quite on the contrary, a sharp sense of transitions and mediations”
(ibidem, 277).
In contrast to Kant, Hegel proposes a dialectical conception of ethical action.
Ricœur insists particularly on the power of the analysis of the will which is found in
the introduction to the Principles. The will universalises itself, first of all, in the
sense that it is capable of transcending every content. Of course, it must, in a second
stage, realise itself in something particular. All the same, it does not give up its lib-
erty, because it is capable, in a third stage, of grasping itself in its movement towards
particularity. In fact, Ricœur says, the “singularity” (in the emphatic sense) of the
willing subject is nothing else than this reflexive grasp, through the will, of the
meaning of its own instantiation in some particular. What does Hegel’s analysis give
us? It allows us to get away from the unpleasant dichotomy between, on the one
hand, a rationality which is undetermined while universal and, on the other, a par-
ticularity which is inevitably irrational (ibidem, 281). It allows us indeed to con-
ceive of the action of a subject which is meaningful while at the same time being a
determinate individual. Secondly, the power of Hegel’s thought comes with show-
ing that action is rooted in a community, and more precisely in a moral state whose
ground is made up of the foundational traditions of this community. The analysis of
the Principles thus appears as a valuable challenge to political atomism (see Ricœur
1990, 296). For Ricœur, Hegel’s Sittlichkeit should be understood as the network of
values which defines what is permitted and what is not within a community. It guar-
antees the progressive victory of the organic link over the exteriority of the only
juridical relation—an exteriority which is reinforced by that implied in the eco-
nomic relation. Hegel thereby returns to the Aristotelian conviction that ‘the good of
man’ is only perfectly worked out within a city (Ricœur 1986, 282). One should
hold onto this idea, Ricœur says, not simply because of its intellectual power, but
also because it expresses a demand that remains unrealised today. The State, as
Hegel understands it, only exists ‘in intention’, in a programmatic way (ibidem,
285). And in fact today, Ricœur argues, the State is withdrawing, in the sense that
the theme of the institutional mediation of liberty and of desires is losing its influ-
ence. Contemporary humanity is nowadays more drawn to the idea of a savage
freedom, outside of institutions, while institutions seem to it essentially constrain-
ing and repressive. Hegel, says Ricœur, associates ‘absolute freedom’, when no
determinate institution is considered legitimate, with the Terror as it appeared in the
French Revolution. On Ricœur’s understanding, Hegel thinks that it is only within
168 G. Marmasse
institutions that the capacities of man can bloom. That is why we have an obligation
to serve institutions (Ricœur 1990, 297).
At the same time, Ricœur sets out a number of reservations about the Hegelian
theory of the State, which amount to criticising Hegel’s State as excessively sure of
itself, and thus authoritarian. First, Ricœur criticises the German philosopher for
believing that there could be a science of praxis: “There is nothing more theoreti-
cally destructive, nor more practically dangerous, that this pretention to knowledge
in ethical and political matters.” (Ricœur 1986, 285) In fact, the domain of action is,
ontologically, that of changing things, and, epistemologically, of the probably.
When a person or a party claims for itself a monopoly over knowledge of the practi-
cal, it claims the right to do people good in spite of what they may want. It is only
the recognition of the intermediate status of ethical rationality, and of the probabi-
listic character of any predictions about the course of human affairs, which guaran-
tees that thought will remain sober and open to criticism and discussion.
Furthermore, asks Ricœur, can we follow Hegel’s indictment of any moral con-
science which is not a product of Sittlichkeit? It is difficult to do so, he says, for
those who have lived through the totalitarian phenomena of the twentieth century.
We no longer believe in a State which is essentially fair. In other words, we no lon-
ger hold that a conscience which is separated from the ethical order would necessar-
ily have gone wrong. It may happen that Sittlichkeit becomes oppressive—even
barbaric—and that freedom of conscience and moral rigour take refuge in a small
number of incorruptible, fearless individuals. Reacting to what he sees as Hegel’s
excessive confidence in the State, Ricœur insists that there need be nothing wrong
in invoking morality against it (Ricœur 1990, 298).
Lastly, while he makes reference to Éric Weil, for whom the Hegelian State is to
some degree liberal, Ricœur nonetheless attacks spirit, as Hegel conceives it, for it
is a ‘hypostasis’ which is raised above individual consciousness and intersubjectiv-
ity. To illustrate this point, he cites § 258 of the Principles, which seems to him
unacceptable: “The final goal [of the State] possesses the highest right with regard
to individuals, whose supreme duty is to be members of the State.” The difference
between consciousness and spirit, for Ricœur, comes down to the fact that the latter
is not directed towards another which it is lacking, but is entirely self-sufficient. For
Ricœur, spirit as Hegel conceives of it puts an end to the separation between ratio-
nality and existence. Now, in this full possession of meaning, intentionality is abol-
ished as an aim. The ontology of Geist transforms, in a way which is quite
unwarranted, the institutional mediation of the State into a transcendent instance
which no longer needs humanity in order to think itself. Hegel’s mistake, says
Ricœur, is to hold that the spirituality of spirit is distinct from that of individuals.
In moving now to critically evaluate Ricœur’s position, I note three points.
–– First of all, when we talk about Hegel’s objective spirit (or, more precisely, about
Sittlichkeit, which is its highest moment), are we really talking about a “hyposta-
tization of the spirit, raised above individual consciousness and even above inter-
subjectivity”? (Ricœur 1986, 283) Certainly, for Hegel institutions do not come
out of agreement between individuals: they have their origin in themselves and
confer onto their members a universalised will.1 Nonetheless, they do not exist
outside of individual consciousnesses.2 If we are right in understanding the con-
cept of hypostasis here as something which transcends individuals, Ricœur has
made a diagnostic error. Sittlichkeit is, to be sure, objective, in the way, for
instance, that a law is: it imposes itself onto a singular subject who does not cre-
ate it himself, it is articulated in itself and with other ethical institutions.
Nonetheless, Sittlichkeit does not appear with the exteriority of a thing, because
it has the status of a will — a unified, public will, expressing the essential will of
individuals.
–– Further, for Hegel, if philosophy can adequately reason about politics, politi-
cians—the monarch or the great man, for instance—do not themselves have
philosophical knowledge. Hegel insists, rather, on the fact that there is no special
competence demanded of the prince, and that belonging to the dynasty is enough
to qualify him for his role (see Hegel 2011, § 280). Moreover, the great man is
presented in Hegel as in a certain sense ‘naïve’ (see Hegel 1996, 416). The phi-
losopher’s knowledge always comes too late, and always limits itself to thinking
what is, without saying what ought to be. It thus makes little sense to denounce
this ‘absolute knowledge’ which Hegel supposedly attributed to politicians and
to the State.
–– Lastly, the objective spirit is, in the general economy of spirit, a moment of con-
tradiction. For Hegel, spirit’s grasp of the world is inevitably fragile. For instance,
the good which I possess may be stolen from me (cf. abstract law). In the same
way, some action or other which aimed at my happiness or that of another can
reveal itself to be harmful (cf. morality). And political legitimacy is only ever
local and provisional (cf. ethical life). It is a pity that Ricœur was not more sensi-
tive to the opposition which Hegel sets up between objective and absolute spirit.3
Objective spirit, for Hegel, is incapable of entirely unifying itself in itself, and of
truly reconciling itself with the world around it. While the works of absolute
spirit—works of art, religious representations, philosophical doctrines—, which
present us with a complete reconciliation between the subject and the object, are
in a sense immortal, the institutions of the objective spirit—particular peoples—
are run through with corruption and death. Ricœur seems to be unaware of the
degree to which, for Hegel, the objective spirit is finite.
Nonetheless, if Hegel is in no way unaware of the fact that some aspect of ille-
gitimacy hinders the activity of the State, it is true that he downplays this illegiti-
macy. Here, Ricœur’s criticisms regain some of their power. For Hegel, there is
illegitimacy when a political action does not embody the State’s spirit. Of course
such a dimension of illegitimacy cannot be entirely suppressed at the level of objec-
1
See Hegel (1955), 113: “What prevails in a state is the habit of acting according to the general will
(nach allgemeinem Willen) and of assigning the universal as one’s goal.”
2
See ibidem, 110: “The stuff in which the rational achieves existence is human knowledge and
will.”
3
Even if he sometimes refers to it: see Ricœur (2006), 184.
170 G. Marmasse
tive spirit, but it is supposed nevertheless simply to be a residuum. Ricœur, by con-

trast, emphasises the character of evil within politics: “There exists a specific sort of
political alienation, because politics is autonomous.” Even when the intention of the
State is reasonable, the State nonetheless acts through decisions, and thus inevitably
submits its citizens to the risk of the arbitrary. Political evil, Ricœur says, consists
in the totalitarian dreams of removing this paradox. Against this fantasy, politics
needs a particular sort of vigilance (judicial independence, access to information,
etc.). Ricœur emphasises the imperfection of the link between the form of the State,
which can be rational (a constitution, an honest bureaucracy, an education in liberty
for all through public discussion…) and the force which characterises it, which is
potentially irrational (for the State enjoys, to use Max Weber’s words, a monopoly
on legitimate violence).4 Once again, here we see Ricœur’s concern for thinking in
terms of a synthesis which is at once real and incomplete.
3 Renouncing Total Mediation in History
For Hegel, the thought of the State ends, as we know, with that of history.
“Renouncing Hegel,” a chapter of Time and Narrative devoted to history, is remark-
able for its violence and, at the same time, for the intensity of the homage which it
renders to Hegel, who is treated there as the major interlocutor. But what is the
meaning of the debate on history between these two authors, and how are we to
explain the special place which Ricœur thinks Hegel holds?
The analysis of Hegel’s philosophy of history in Time and Narrative comes in
the course of a reflection on historical consciousness. The task is, more exactly, to
understand, when one recounts something historically, what allows us to unify the
three dimensions (the three ‘extases’) of past, present, and future. While most of the
classic authors studied in Time and Narrative (particularly Aristotle, Augustine,
Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger) are, Ricœur says, incapable of thinking together of
the flow of time and of its unity, Hegelianism, Ricœur says, proposes a mediation.
In his speculative philosophy of history, Hegel claims to unite the past, the present,
and the future thought the concept. Still, for Ricœur, we have to get past this solu-
tion, whose ambitiousness makes it at the same time seductive and unacceptable.
Denouncing the pretention of Hegel’s solution is, then, the way for Ricœur to make
his own solution credible, solution which consists of recognising that we can only
grasp ourselves in our historical condition through a number of finite transactions
between ‘waiting’, ‘traditionality’, and ‘initiative’.
More precisely, Hegelian history, in Ricœur’s view, essentially expresses itself in
the present. He cites a passage from Reason in History:
The moments which Spirit seems to have left behind, it still possesses in its depth of its
present. Just as it has passed through its moments in history, it must pass through them in
the present—in its own concept. (Ricœur 1955, 183)
See Ricœur (1993, 14–15).

4
These formulations, for Ricœur, prove that the opposition between the past and the
future is inessential for Hegel, and that for Hegel the philosopher ought only to
examine that which avoids temporal becoming. Of course, Ricœur concedes, Hegel
holds that the progress of liberty happens in time. Nonetheless, within this tempo-
ralisation, speculative knowledge must be satisfied with grasping the eternal. The
concept of ‘return to oneself’ reveals that the successive character of layers of his-
tory, for Hegel, is only accidental, so that the speculative viewpoint ought only to
grasp in the past those signs of maturity which have a definitive meaning. The suc-
cession of historical configurations of world history are to be absorbed in the pres-
ent depth of spirit (see Ricœur 1991, 362).
Furthermore, Ricœur objects to the notions of ‘reason in history’ and the ‘ruse of
reason’. First of all, the concept of reason in history is for Ricœur a mere ‘credo’. It
may be true, Ricœur admits, that the Hegelian system considered in its entirety
shows the validity of this concept. But in the philosophy of history itself, it func-
tions only as a postulate, abruptly introduced. And the ruse of reason, Ricœur says,
is only the ‘apologetic equivalent’ of the concept of reason. It is, for Ricœur, the
pretence which allows one to justify evil in history by presenting it as something in
the service of reason. Hegel’s history thus reveals itself, Ricœur says, as a ‘shameful
theology’—which is especially disquieting, as Hegel’s project is supposed to be the
secularisation of theology. And this equivocation between a humanist and a theo-
logical orientation shows up, Ricœur argues, in the ambiguity of the concept of
spirit, which is both human and divine (see ibidem, 365–369).
Ricœur also criticises Hegel for claiming to totalise the spirits of different peo-
ples into a single world spirit. In fact, says Ricœur, there is a vast gulf between the
concept of Volksgeist and of Weltgeist. It is this desire to bring together things which
are objectively separate which betrays most clearly Hegel’s urge to collapse all dif-
ference into a single sameness. For instance, says Ricœur, he habitually analyses all
of the aspirations of different peoples to liberty in the same way. But is there any-
thing connecting them, Ricœur asks, beyond a simple family resemblance?
Furthermore, how much weight should we give to the idea that the passion of great
men guarantees by itself the meaningful transformation of history? Today, says
Ricœur, we are far more aware of the influence of the anonymous forces of history.
And we are shocked by the lightness with which Hegel deals with those who have
suffered and died on account of history. Is it really a consolation that the sacrifice of
men and whole peoples is useful? Confronted with the victims of history, the instru-
mentalisation of suffering seems intolerable to us. Lastly, says Ricœur, the very
project of a philosophy of history of the sort Hegel undertakes is outdated, for the
idea of history conceived of as a totality has become alien to us (see ibidem,
369–370).5
We must recognise, Ricœur says, that there is nothing anodyne about giving up
the Hegelian ambition to think of a total mediation of history. Quite to the contrary:
5
Ricœur writes about the victims of Auschwitz: “Victimisation is that underside of history which
no ruse of reason can legitimate, but which rather makes clear the scandal of any theodicy of his-
tory.” (ibidem, 340)
172 G. Marmasse
the failure of Hegelianism leaves us bitter and abandoned. There is a paradox here:
the reasons given by the adversaries of Hegel are, in general, weak, and even given
in bad faith. But it is nonetheless a fact that Hegel’s project has lost all meaning for
us. We have become incapable of thinking that effecting freedom would be the
supreme stake of history, or that this would be the key which allowed us to under-
stand the paths the latter has taken. We no longer believe, in a word, that history can
be reduced to a general, unifying principle. We henceforth understand ourselves as
finite, in the sense that, in history, we are affected by events without being able to
tell if we produced them or if they simply happened to us.
There is something noteworthy: when it is a question of ethics and politics, Hegel
is a positive figure for Ricœur, even if a rather one-sided one; however, when it a
question of history, Hegel is a mediating figure, but also one Ricœur contrasts him-
self with. Nonetheless, the rejection of Hegel in Ricœur’s analysis is not presented
as a personal position. Rather, it is a feature of the age: in our day, says Ricœur, one
can no longer be Hegelian, alas… We must reckon the importance of the abandon-
ment of Hegelianism as a philosophical event, because it is in a large part a matter
of the abandonment of a native ambition. What has changed is not so much the
understanding of history, as the manner in which philosophers understand them-
selves. That is why the renunciation of Hegelianism is in part a work of mourning
(see ibidem, 372).
We may well ask, nonetheless, whether Ricœur reads Hegel’s texts in a manner
which is entirely rigorous.
–– It is, first of all, remarkable to find him asserting that Hegel was only interested
in a spirit which was constantly identical with itself. There exist in fact numerous
texts in Hegel on the obsolescence of past empires and the impossibility of a
return to the past. Furthermore, Hegel’s texts on the vanity of any anticipation of
the future only make sense if we grant that the future is irreducible (cf. Hegel
1955, 290). In particular, it is because history is a continual flux that it is useless
to seek to draw any lessons from it (see Hegel 1996, 11). The passages which
Ricœur cites, which we noted above, can only be correctly interpreted if we keep
in mind Hegel’s proposed analysis of how each age follows on from another.
These passages mean, in fact, that spirit—which, in history, appears in the figure
of successive peoples—remains constantly itself, in the sense that its identity as
a subject is not yet underway, in spite of the variety of its particular incarnations.
Rather than contesting the reality or importance of the difference between past,
present, and future, these passages are a variation on § 382 of the Encyclopaedia,
which asserts that spirit, as liberty, can preserve itself in an affirmative manner
through all exteriority and all negation of this exteriority. For Hegel, a subject
can transform itself and nonetheless subsist as such. That is why he writes that
“what spirit is now, it has always been,” (Hegel 1955, 183) while at the same time
theorising about an effective transformation of spirit.
–– We find in Ricœur, when he writes about the difference between objective spirit
and absolute spirit, the same blindness about history as about politics. Typically,
he criticises Hegel for conceiving of Weltgeist and Volksgeist together, and in a
way which is contradictory. Now, for Hegel, there is indeed a contradiction here,
but it is implied by the belonging of history to objective spirit: on the one hand,
each people realises the global spirit, in the sense that it unifies itself and univer-
salises itself by giving itself a constitution and by constructing an empire; on the
other, each people realises this only in a manner which is partial and provisional.
That is why each people is condemned to corruption.
–– It is also on the basis of this contradiction that we ought to understand the con-
cept of the ruse of reason. That does not mean an occult, omniscient power, but
rather the way in which reason incarnates itself in peoples and individuals. More
precisely, it expresses the thesis according to which history is, in the economy of
the spirit, a moment of unilateral objectivity, so that the universal realises itself
in the particular, not through infinitisation but through sacrifice. That there is a
ruse in historical reason is not a sign of its sovereignty, but rather betrays its
incompleteness. The ruse of reason expresses the fact that history develops
within peoples who, while autonomous, only ever defend egoistic reasons, and
therefore are condemned to disappear. Of course, the philosophy of history thinks
of diverse people in a unified way. But history itself is not in any way free from
finitude. Ricœur does not seem to take seriously the thought of unhappiness in
Hegel’s philosophy of history, and so, despite what he may say, turns Hegel into
an adversary too easy to overcome.
Ricœur breaks with Hegel’s metaphysics of history, for which we can hardly
condemn him. In his mind, the task of philosophy is not to conceive of the progress
of liberty which is assured by the succession of peoples and of empires, but rather
to grasp what in the narrative of history allows us to respond to the aporias of phe-
nomenological description as well as to the aporias of the cosmological description
of historical experience. For Ricœur, the problem of narrating history is not that of
finding an allegedly objective plan of history, but of tying together heterogeneous
elements. This is the challenge posed to the historical consciousness, the function of
philosophy being simply to understand how historians proceed. If Ricœur’s treatise
has something grandiose about it, it is nonetheless a pity that he attributes to Hegel
a number of choices which the latter can hardly have made—and that on the other
hand he neglects a number of problems which are at the heart of Hegel’s inquiry,
like, for instance, those of the transformation of consciousness and of institutions,
of the identity of peoples, and of the transmission of culture.
***
Ricœur consistently argues that we must resist Hegelianism, that it is a dangerous
temptation for philosophy, and that, once we have vanquished this temptation, we
remain in mourning for Hegelianism. The reader must ask herself: why does Ricœur
at the same time value Hegel so highly, and yet show such hostility towards him?
Especially as, at least in Time and Narrative, Ricœur seems to dismiss Hegel with
ease, and even casually. Do we not find, in the dramatization of his relationship with
his predecessor, a rhetorical move designed to celebrate an intellectual gesture
which is in fact far more limited than it appears?
174 G. Marmasse
We understand the paradoxical relationship between Ricœur and Hegel when we

realise that the former continually proposes (or, rather, discovers) syntheses, but
ones which are imperfect. Those objects which Ricœur most often studies are char-
acterised by their duality. For instance, in The Voluntary and the Involuntary, man
appears as a mixture of will and of character; in Oneself as Another, personal iden-
tity is found in ipseity and sameness; and in Time and Narrative, time is described
on the basis of the soul as well as of the world. There is, nonetheless, an aporia,
because neither pole of the duality can either absorb its other, or entirely ground it.
Nonetheless, as Jean Greisch (2001, 74) emphasises, the two poles are not equal.
There is the infinite, and there is the finite: on the one hand, thought, choice, open-
ness to the other, and, on the other, nature, the given, being closed upon oneself. It
is because of this disproportion that one can discover no unity between the two
poles, and that no such unity can remain valid once and for all. The answer to the
aporia can only ever be practical and progressive. It consists in constructing local,
provisional measures for unity, which can however never be entirely satisfactory.
Hegelianism is a temptation, for Ricœur, because Hegel proposes a philosophy
of mediation, and because mediation is also the horizon of Ricœur’s project.6 But
Hegelianism is deceiving, Ricœur says, insofar as it holds that it is possible to get
around the hard work of practical, iterative mediation by proposing a theoretical,
instantaneous mediation. Ricœur understands Hegel’s totality by contrast with the
Kantian idea: “Our mourning for absolute knowledge […] leads us back to the
Kantian idea. […] How can we speak of mediations, even imperfect ones, except if
we do so within the horizon of a limit-idea which would, at the same time, be an
idea which guides us?” (Ricœur 1991, 461) Ricœur is perhaps attracted by a sort of
irenics. But this attraction is then transformed into a regulative idea, which drives
the production of finite articulations, acceding each time to the irreducibility of each
pole. As Ricœur says about narrativity as a response to the aporias of time, this
articulation is less a matter of resolving aporias than of making them work, of mak-
ing them productive. In an article on Hannah Arendt, he writes, tellingly, that the
crime of totalitarianism is to wish to impose a univocal conception of the good, to
erase the trial and error of history through an authoritarian organisation of power. In
fact, says Ricœur, “there is no absolute knowledge which puts a stop to the polemic
about ends.” (Ricœur 1999, 175) There is no solution to the paradox. We must not
just start from that paradox; we must maintain ourselves in it.
6
The taste for synthesis starting from opposite poles can also be seen in Ricœur’s intellectual inter-
ests: a believer who reads Freud and the structuralists, a phenomenologist who likes analytic phi-
losophy, a Leftist consciously influenced by Heidegger, etc. But it would be wrong to see him as
an eclectic. On the one hand, Ricœur was always ready to privilege one tradition over another; on
the other, he does not set the objects of his inquiry alongside each other, or try to reduce one of
them to the other, but rather tries to make each work on the other in order to develop a third way.
References
Greisch, Jean. 2001. Paul Ricœur, l’itinérance du sens. Grenoble: Milon.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1955. In Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, ed. J. Hoffmeister.
Hamburg: Meiner.
———. 1992. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830). In
Gesammelte Werke, ed. W. Bonsiepen and H.C. Lucas, vol. 20. Hamburg: Meiner.
———. 1996. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (Berlin 1822/23). In
Vorlesungen, ed. K.H. Ilting, K. Brehmer, and H.N. Seelmann, vol. 12. Hamburg: Meiner.
———. 1986. Du texte à l’action. Paris: Points-Seuil.
———. 1990. Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Points-Seuil.
———. 1991. Temps et récit III. Paris: Points-Seuil.
———. 1993. Morale, éthique et politique. Pouvoirs 65.
———. 1999. Lectures I. Paris: Points-Seuil.
———. 2006. Hegel aujourd’hui. Esprit, March–April 2006 (first published in Études théologiques
et religieuses, 1974).
———. 2011. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. In Gesammelte Werke, ed. K. Grotsch and
E. Weisser-Lohmann, vol. 14/1. Hamburg: Meiner.
Ricœur, Paul. 1955. Histoire et vérité. Paris: Seuil.
Méditations Hégéliennes vs. Méditations
Cartésiennes. Edmund Husserl and Wilfrid
Sellars on the Given
Daniele De Santis
Abstract The goal of the present text is to analyze some aspects of Husserl’s own
phenomenology against the backdrop of the quite famous or infamous critique of
the “Myth of the Given” proposed by the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in
his Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Indeed, whereas Sellars’ volume is
usually deemed the (“textual” and “theoretical”) source of what has been recently
referred to as the “Hegelian Renaissance” characterizing analytic philosophy,
Husserl and his transcendental phenomenology are on the contrary seen as the very
expression of a new “form” of “Cartesianism.” Now, after a quick discussion of
Sellars’ “diagnosis” of the Myth of the Given, the present essay elaborates on the
general “Hegelian” character of his argumentations (as they are understood by
Robert Brandom); finally, an analysis of Husserl’s alleged Cartesianism in the late
text known as Cartesian Meditations will be provided bearing upon the notions of
“evidence” and “synthesis.” As we firmly believe, our remarks will show not only
that Husserl does not at all fall prey to the “Myth,” but also that his understanding
of the concept of reason can help us avoid some of the implications directly flowing
from Sellars’ position.
Keywords Husserl · Sellars · Brandom · McDowell · Myth of the Given ·

Cartesianism · Hegelianism
1. As is quite known, Anglo-American philosophy (or “analytic philosophy”) has

gone through a true “Hegelian Renaissance” over the past decades: both John
McDowell and Robert Brandom are usually regarded as the most representative
philosophers of the recent “Hegelian turn” or “re-turn,”1 the former mainly dealing
with the question of the relationship (and its articulation) between mind and
world, the latter giving rise to an inferential approach to pragmatism and thus to a
1
See Rockmore (2001) and Redding (2007), notably the interesting historical considerations in the
introduction (1–20).
D. De Santis (*)
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

178 D. De Santis
pragmatist treatment of semantics. Moreover, according to a broadly accepted his-

toriography (which from time to time assumes the tone of a “philosophical
hagiography”), such a Kehre is to be traced back to the writings of Wilfrid Sellars:
both to the pars destruens contained in his renowned dismissal of the “Myth of the
Given” and to the pars construens of his “inferential” stance on meaning.
This being recognized, the present text will proceed as follows: rather than com-
menting upon the proper name of Hegel by associating him with such and such a
phenomenological theme (as the title of this volume would indeed suggest), we will
be addressing some aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology based upon what might be
called the “textual roots” of such an alleged general Hegelianism.
Now, in order for the label “general Hegelianism” to not just be a fancy, yet
empty box, we must (i) first firmly anchor its meaning and sense in a specific text
and, then (ii) yield a determination of its significant core. As for the former, the text
we will be commenting on is the short, nevertheless groundbreaking essay by
Wilfrid Sellars usually known as Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (presented
as the University of London Special Lectures on Philosophy (1955–1956). Hereafter
EPM). Even though the connection might at first appear “ephemeral,” if not even
obscure and abstruse, the Hegelian tone is clearly and explicitly suggested by Sellars
himself. In § 20 (Section III: The Logic of “Looks”) an imaginary “interlocutor”
(i.e., a “logical atomist”), arguing that the “logical space of physical objects in
Space and Time rests on the logical space of sense contents,” refers to the book as
Méditations Hégéliennes. Indeed, immediately after attacking on Sellars, the inter-
locutor shouts out: “your incipient Méditations Hégéliennes are premature.”2 As
McDowell comments thereupon, in fact: “It is clear that Sellars intends his cam-
paign against the Myth of the Given to be understood as Hegelian, at least in spirit”
(McDowell 2009, 91). With a bombastic yet unperceived “Augustinian” emphasis
(“littera est occidens, nisi adsit vivificans spiritus,” De Spiritu et Littera. Liber
Unus, 4.6), McDowell strives to bring to the fore the Hegelian belebender Geist, as
it were, underlying Sellars’ Méditations. And such a sapere secundum spiritum of
Sellars results, as McDowell does not fail to point out, in the notion of “conceptual
capacities” as already at work, not only in reasoning, but also in perceptual experi-
ence.3 In so doing, McDowell takes EPM’s overall project to be developed in paral-
lel with Hegel’s critique of “immediacy” in the first three chapters of the
Phänomenologie des Geistes.4
2. Now, unlike McDowell, whose philosophical agenda might be described as an
attempt to take Sellars’ Hegelian “critique of sense data theories” to the next level,
in the following we will bring to the fore, and exploit, the allusion to Husserl’s
2
Sellars (1997, 45): “‘Until you have disposed, therefore, of the idea that there is a more funda-
mental logical space than that of physical objects in Space and Time, or shown that it too is fraught
with coherence, your incipient Méditations Hégéliennes are premature.’”
3
McDowell (2011, 31): “Reason is at work, that is, in the perceptual presence to rational subjects
of features of their environment”. On McDowell’s Hegelianism, see Aportone (2011, 75–77).
4
“I presume that no philosopher who has attacked the philosophical idea of givenness or, to use the
Hegelian term, immediacy, has intended to deny that there is a difference between inferring that
something is the case and, for example, seeing it to be the case” (Sellars 1997, 13). On this, see
Selivanov (2012).
Méditations Hégéliennes vs. Méditations Cartésiennes. Edmund Husserl and Wilfrid… 179
Méditations Cartésiennes clearly “implied” by what one could call EPM’s “exoteric
title” (Méditations Hégéliennes). As Sellars points out at the very end of § 1: “If,
however, I begin my argument with an attack on the sense datum theories, it is only
as a first step in a general critique of the entire framework of givenness” (Sellars
1997, 14). As the passage explicitly suggests, “givenness” is a concept broader than
“given” in the sense data theorists’ understanding of it: indeed, if the former stands
for, or designates, the “entire framework,” the latter is to be held as nothing else but
a specification thereof.
That being acknowledged, our paper’s aim is threefold. We will strive to:
(i) Present the different nuances of the theoretical core of what Sellars means by
“the Myth of the Given” (§ 3 a, b, c);
(ii) Make clear what is truly “Hegelian” in Sellars’ Méditations Hégéliennes (§ 4);
(iii) Elaborate on what is properly “Cartesian” in Husserl’s Méditations Cartésiennes
(§ 5, 6, 7).
3. In order to make explicit the semantic “shades” of what is usually assumed to
be given, Sellars begins with a preliminary list: “Many things have been said to be
‘given’: sense contents, material objects, universals, propositions, real connections,
first principles, even givenness itself. […] Often what is attacked under its name are
only specific varieties of ‘given’. Intuited first principles and synthetic necessary
connections were the first to come under attack” (Sellars 1997, 14).
One might already be wondering whether the specific critique of the sense data
variety could be legitimately transferred to the more general framework of given-
ness. For, in Sellars’ view, it seems that the sense data variety entails, so to say, a
sort of metonymical value: what is said of it can be immediately applied—synec-
dochally—to the more general framework. If this is the case, we should first try to
unpack what is given according to the sense data variety and then see in what sense,
and to what extent, it can be “generalized” and therefore taken as expressing fea-
tures characterizing the givenness as such.
In order to do so, we shall distinguish three different orders of arguments in
Sellars’ reasoning: the first is explicitly designated by Sellars himself as “epistemo-
logical”; the second might be referred to as “metaphysical,” while the third one as
“genetic.”
(a) The epistemological argument is by far the best-known aspect of Sellars’ own
diagnosis of the Myth as propounded by sense data theorists. As he himself points
out:
Now, if we bear in mind that the point of the epistemological category of the given is, pre-
sumably, to explicate the idea that empirical knowledge rests on a “foundation” of non-
inferential knowledge of matters of fact, we may well experience a feeling of surprise on
noting that according to sense-datum theorists, it is particulars that are sensed. For what is
known, even in non-inferential knowledge, is facts rather than particulars, items of the form
something’s being thus-and-so or something’s standing in a certain relation to something
else. (Sellars 1997, 15–16)
This passage is worth quoting for three reasons. First of all, it describes the Myth as
derived from the epistemological assumption of a foundation resting on
180 D. De Santis
“non-inferential knowledge.” Secondly, it already paves the way for applying that
diagnosis to a wider conception of the Given, including—according to Sellars—
“items of the form something’s being thus-and-so or something’s standing in a cer-
tain relation to something else.” The third reason, which for the sake of our problems
here is the most important one, is that such statement might be taken as referring to
the phenomenological notions of Sach-Verhalt (or “something’s standing in a cer-
tain relation to something else”) and So-Sein (or “something’s being thus-and-so”),
with which Sellars was familiar following his translation of M. Schlick’s too famous
or infamous essay Gibt es ein materiales Apriori?5 The epistemological argument
allows thereby for a widening of the original sense of the Myth by pointing toward
a new variety, that is to say, the “categorial” one: “To reject the Myth of the Given is
to reject the idea that the categorial structure of the world, if it has a categorial
structure, imposes itself on the mind as a seal imposes an image on melted wax.”
(Sellars, “The Lever of Archimedes” in Sellars 2007, 229–257).6
It seems then that the epistemological critique of the sense data variety, accord-
ing to which there is a foundation resting on a “non-inferential” level, can be also
applied to a wider notion such as the categorial (the non-inferential level being,
alternatively, that of particular sense data or of categorial states of affairs).
Accordingly, the generalization leads Sellars to maintain that “givenness” [i.e., not
just such and such a Given] is “a fact which presupposes no learning, no forming of
associations” (Sellars 1997, 20).
(b) The metaphysical argument upon which the Myth relies is the result of a
confusion or, better, a conflation between two orders: the logical space of causation
and the logical space of reasons or, in a more traditional terminology, of causa et
ratio.7 In a certain way, the epistemological and the metaphysical argument support
each other: indeed, the epistemological thesis that “a sensation of a red triangle is
the very paradigm of empirical knowledge” (Sellars 1997, 25) leads straightfor-
wardly to claiming that what is causally given possesses—as long as it is so
“given”—a normative value. If, in other words, “sensations” are “the very paradigm
of knowledge,” then the causal occurrence of Empfindungen is in itself a “cognitive
or epistemic fact.” Or—to go the other way around—once we lose sight of the dis-
tinction between causa and ratio, any causal occurrence already presents, or
“imposes” itself as intrinsically rational.8
5
Moritz Schlick, “Gibt es ein materiales Apriori?” in Schlick (1938, 28), on the Gesetzmässigkeit
des Soseins.
6
In this sense, arguing that the phenomenological conception of the Given would not be subject to
Sellars’ critique because it takes the Given itself as having a structure of its own, which neverthe-
less is not necessarily and intrinsically imbued with concepts (“avente una struttura (quindi non
bruto), ma una struttura propria e autonoma (quindi non necessariamente intrisa di concetti”, as
is claimed by Lanfredini 2012, 527), is not enough of an argument yet.
7
For this expression, we are of course referring to Carraud (2002).
8
As Sellars (1997, 24) points out: “the grammatical similarity of ‘sensation of a red triangle’ to
‘thought of a celestial city’ is interpreted to mean, or, better, gives rise to the presupposition that
sensations belong in the same general pigeonhole as thoughts—in short, are cognitive facts.”
Unlike (a), it does not seem immediately apparent the extent to which (b) might
be applied to the general framework of givenness: in what sense could the confusion
between causa et ratio, between the causality of sensations and the normativity of
knowledge, be transferred to a different sense of the Given, such as the categorial
variety? Or, to rephrase the question at stake: how could a state of affairs ever be
considered as given in the sense in which a sensation is indeed causally given?
Appealing to Sellars’ later reflections in Science and Metaphysics could provide
an answer to this question. In these lectures, the variety of the given Sellars is strug-
gling with is that of the so-called “constraining element of experience” or “brute
fact” that, as he goes on to point out, is “postulated” rather than “found by careful
and discriminating attention,” being nothing else than “a theoretical construct:”9
(Sellars 1968, 9) what is causally given turns into what is “independent” and “non-
conceptual,” and yet “guides minds” while not belonging to the “concept.”10 The
Myth “arises” then as soon as what is is independent of the mind and exercises an
external yet conceptual constraint on it: what is, as long as it is given in the way it
is, is already conceptually articulated. In this new model, the confusion between
causa et ratio (confined to the “basic variety” of the Myth) turns into the larger
conflation of esse et concipi (upon which the former is nothing but a sensualistic
variation). In this case, then, not solely sensations, but also states of affairs might
perfectly match Sellars’ account.
(c) If we switch now to what we labeled the genetic argument, we find ourselves
confronted with the phenomenologically key notion of evidence. In Sellars’ view,
the idea of evidence is connected to the conception “that there are certain ‘inner
episodes,’” which “occur to human beings and brutes without any prior process of
learning or concept formation,” and which “are the necessary conditions of empiri-
cal knowledge” as providing the “evidence” for all the other knowledge (Sellars
1997, 32–33). It is indeed genetic not only because it supports the misleading con-
ception of a piecemeal acquisition of knowledge from “internal” to “external,” or
from “private” to “public” dimension. It is “genetic” in the strict sense that evidence
is the keystone of both the “epistemological” and the “metaphysical” arguments: it
is the psychological (ψυχή meaning Bewusstsein, notably “consciousness” in gen-
eral) “conjunction” of epistemology and metaphysics, of the empirico-
epistemological claim of a non-inferential ground and the metaphysical conflation
of both causa et ratio and esse et concipi.11
9
See also Sellars (2002, Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 11).
10
See the analysis by Benoist (2004, 522–523).
11
Sellars (1997, 77) himself explains: “The idea that observation ‘strictly and properly so-called’
is constituted by certain self-authenticating nonverbal episodes, the authority of which is transmit-
ted to verbal and quasi-verbal performances when these performances are made ‘in conformity
with the semantical rules of the language,’ is, of course, the hearth of the Myth of the Given. For
the given, in epistemological tradition, is what is taken by these self-authenticating episodes These
‘takings’ are, so to speak, the unmoved movers of empirical knowledge, the ‘knowing in presence’
which are presupposed by all other knowledge, both the knowledge of general truth and the knowl-
edge ‘in absence’ of other particular matters of fact. Such is the framework in which traditional
empiricism makes its characteristic claim that the perceptually given is the foundation of empirical
knowledge”.
182 D. De Santis
4. The “general Hegelianism” we have been expounding so far or, better, its
“roots” in the texts of Wilfrid Sellars entail, in their order:
(A) A critical core consisting in a network of three arguments whose interweaving

might be represented as follows
:
Evidence
Epistemological Argument Metaphysical Argument
Non-Inferential Foundation Causa/Ratio Esse/Concipi
The concept of “evidence” does not only pave the way for both the “epistemologi-
cal” and the “metaphysical” arguments, it also brings about their interconnection
in the understanding of a non-inferential foundation: it is no chance that Sellars
describes it as “the hearth of the Myth of the Given” (hereafter the “threefold
critique”);
(B) A sort of strong historical “counter account” of its own origins according to
which the “dismantling” of the theoretical building grounded on the key notion
of evidence (leading to both the epistemological and metaphysical argument)
refers to the tale of an anti-Cartesian (or anti-representationalist) “birth” (in this
regard, Robert Brandom’s interpretation of Sellars is paradigmatic: “The fun-
damental concept of the dominant and characteristic understanding of cogni-
tive contentfulness in the period initiated by Descartes is of course
representation”12). It is interesting, then, that whereas Hegel saw his idealism
as fulfilling the tradition of thought initiated by René Descartes as the Father of
modern philosophy,13 the general Hegelianism whose beginning is rooted in
EPM depicts itself as an “exodus” out of the philosophy of the cogito. The less
Cartesian, the more Hegelian—this seems to be the motto or the manifesto.
From such a perspective, EPM’s exoteric title’s implicit reference to E. Husserl’s
Méditations Cartésiennes is far from being secondary or merely otiose. In other
words, the hidden allusion to Husserl is to be broadly understood and construed
as expressing the Auseinandersetzung with the philosophy usually taken to be
the most lucid representative of both the theoretical and historical variation on
the so-called “Myth of the Given;”
12
Brandom (1994, 93); see also 9–11 (“From Cartesian Certainty to Kantian Necessity”) and
Chapter 2 (“Toward an Inferential Semantics”). For a more detailed analysis, see Brandom (2000),
notably 45–77 (“Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism”); and Brandom (2011, 203–
206), where it is explained that “representationalism” entails “semantic atomism,” “non-inferential
knowledge” and a generalization of “semantic nominalism.”
13
Hegel (1959, 331 and 335): “[…] with him [Descartes] the new epoch of philosophy begins. […]
Descartes started by saying that thought must necessarily commence from itself.”
(C) What scholars usually refer to as Sellars’ “conceptual holism”: one can have a
concept “only by having a whole battery of concepts of which it is one ele-
ment;” namely, “one has no concept pertaining to the observable properties of
physical objects in Space and Time unless one has them all” (Sellars 1997,
44–45). As Robert Brandom in fact comments: “the inferential notion of
semantic content is essentially holistic. […] In his masterpiece ‘Empiricism
and the Philosophy of Mind’, Sellars exploits this consequence of his insight
into the significance of inferential connections to concept-use, even in the case
of responsive classification” (Brandom 1994, 89–90). It was Hegel, as Brandom
goes on by setting forward a quite unusual parallelism, “who first appreciated
the line of reasoning, made familiar to us by Quine in ‘Two Dogmas’—namely,
that if the content of a claim must at least determine what follows from it […],
then since what a claim commits one to depends on what collateral commit-
ments are available to serve as additional premises […], the significance of
undertaking any particular commitment cannot be determined without appeal
to the contents of all those collateral commitments.” (Brandom 1994, 92)
There are then three key elements characterizing the core of what we have been
referring to as the “general Hegelianism” that we shall consider during our analysis
of the Méditations Cartésiennes: the “threefold critique,” the “historical counter
account” and the idea of “conceptual holism.”
5. If we turn to Husserl,14 it is hard, at least at first glance, to resist the temptation
to agree with Sellars’ “threefold critique.” Is not phenomenology a paradigmatic
example of a true “evidence-philosophy” rooted in the concept of intuition as the
ultimate and firm anchor of all knowledge and according to which what is given, as
long as it is so given, displays an unshakable epistemic value (as we are told in
Husserl 1950b, 52: “every originary giving intuition [jede originär gebende
Anschauung] is a legitimizing source of cognition”)? In other words, such being the
true question that Sellars’ own Méditations Hégéliennes bequeath us: what is
Cartésien in these Méditations, in such a “new kind of transcendental philosophy”
that, according to Husserl, might be labeled “new Cartesianism” even if it has
rejected “nearly all the well-known doctrinal content of the Cartesian philosophy”?
(Husserl 1950a, 43).
It is easy to acknowledge that the so-called basic variety of the given, and thereby
the confusion between causa et ratio, does not apply. Already in the Second
Investigation, Husserl pointed out that “To define the presentation of a content as
the mere fact of its being lived [Erlebtsein], and in consequence to give the name
‘presentations’ to all lived contents [alle erlebte Inhalte], is one of the worst con-
ceptual distortions known to philosophy” (Husserl 1984b, 170). If, in fact, we try to
imagine—as Husserl goes to say—“a consciousness prior to all experience [vor
allen Erfahrungen], it may very well have the same sensations as we have. But it
14
See Soffer (2003).
184 D. De Santis
will intuit no things, and no events pertaining to things, it will perceive no trees and
no houses, no flight of birds nor any barking of dogs” (Husserl 1984b, 80).15
This being asserted, we will have to confront the larger variety of the given,
where the notion of evidence leads to conflating esse et concipi, rather than causa et
ratio. To this end, we will have to submit the Third Cartesian Meditation on
“Constitutional Problems. Truth and Actuality” (Die Konstitutive Problematik.
Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit) to close scrutiny: for, it is in this section that Husserl ties
together the concepts of “evidence,” “being” and, last but not least, the “given.”
6. What is “evidence” if, as Husserl already remarked in the Prolegomena, it can-
not be understood as a “causal consequence of certain antecedents”? (see Husserl
1984a, § 19).
In order to answer the question, we need to introduce a “more pregnant concept
of constitution:” “phenomenological constitution has been for us, up to now, consti-
tution of any intentional object whatever” (Husserl 1984b, 91). In Meditation II,
Husserl takes “constitution” to refer to any analysis of the “intentional correlation”
ego-cogito-cogitatum in a strict regressive manner: that is, from the cogitatum
through the many cogitationes up to the one ego. In Meditation III, by contrast,
Husserl introduces a further and decisive constraint: “It has not mattered up to now,
whether the objects in question were truly existent [seiende] or non-existent [nicht-
seiende] […]. On the contrary, under the broadly understood titles reason and unrea-
son, as correlative titles for being [Sein] and non-being [Nichtsein], they are an
all-embracing theme for phenomenology.”
Two aspects are worth being stressed in order to shed some light on this
passage:
(i) As for the former differentiation between seiend and nichtseiend, Husserl
makes it clear that it is not “excluded from the field of inquiry by abstaining
from decision about being or non-being of the world”. In other words, the con-
ceptual pair “seiend-nichtseiend,” as referring to the world (and already
excluded in Meditation I by the “transcendental reduction”), is not tantamount
to the same concepts as “correlative titles” for reason and unreason (Vernunft
and Unvernunft) as discussed in Meditation III. In a nutshell: the “more preg-
nant concept of constitution” includes—unlike the less pregnant one—both
being and non-being but solely as long as they are correlative titles for “reason”
and “unreason” respectively. And in this latter sense they (both being and non-
being) are indeed “an all-embracing theme for phenomenology.”16 As a
consequence,
(ii) When Husserl himself maintains that “the predicates being and non-being” do
relate “not to objects simpliciter, but to the objective sense,” that is to say, to
15
See also Husserl (1984b, 405): “Closer consideration shows it to be absurd in principle, here or
in like cases, to treat an intentional as a causal relation, to give it the sense of an empirical, substan-
tial-causal case of necessary connection.”
16
We can perceive the difference with respect to the following passage from the Logical
Investigations: “It makes no essential difference to an object presented and given to consciousness
whether it exists, or is fictitious or is perhaps completely absurd” (Husserl 1984b, 387).
what is “meant, purely as meant”—by being and non-being he cannot mean

here the same as being and non-being as preceding the reduction and therefore
bearing upon the world (i).
The distinction between two senses of Sein leads to a differentiation within the
dreadful notion of Gegebene. As Husserl points out in Meditation III: “There is need
of a constitutional theory of what is always given as being [als immer seiend gege-
benen] and that is likewise always presupposed: a constitutional theory of physical
nature, of man, of human community, of culture and so on” (Husserl 1950a, 98). In
this passage, notably in the phrase “always given as being” [als immer seiend gege-
bene], Sein refers to what is given before the reduction and that is not yet a correla-
tive title for reason (i). There seems then to be a difference, say, between what is
given as being (before the reduction) and being which (once accomplished the
reduction) is nothing but a correlative title for reason.
By analogy with (A), we might represent the just sketched state of affairs as
follows:
“As always given as being” Reduction

Being = Given
Being ≠ Given
Pregnant Concept
Correlative Title for Reason Self-Givenness of Constitution
The diagram is to be read, from left to right, in the following manner: what pre-
cedes the reduction (the equivalence being = given) is to be taken as meaning the
same as Sellars’ conflation of esse et concipi; what is imposes (or gives) its onto-
logical seal on the melted wax of consciousness. Yet, as we move right, the phenom-
enological reduction breaks the above equivalence once and for all and brings about
a transformation of both “being” and the “given”. The latter concept then turns into
the notion (introduced in Meditation III) of Selbst-Gegebenheit, while the former is
to be construed as a “correlative title” for Vernunft. The aspect to stress is that the
accomplishment of the reduction does not affect only the idea of “being,” but that of
“given” as well: there occurs a differentiation within the notion of Gegebene which
corresponds to the differentiation within the notion of Sein.
As was already the case with Sellars, here, too, the notion of “evidence” connects
two concepts: it relates the concepts of “self-givenness” and “being” to each other
as a correlative title for “reason.”
7. The notion of evidence—and Husserl speaks of “evidence as self-givenness”
(§ 24: Evidenz als Selbstgegebenheit und ihre Abwandlungen)—polarizes all the
ambiguity of the phenomenological discourse. On the one hand, it consists “in the
self-appearance, self-exhibition and self-givenness of a thing, a state of affairs, a
universality, a value and so on…” (Husserl 1950a, 92). In this sense, as Sellars says,
186 D. De Santis
many things “have been said to be given”); on the other hand, however, “every right
[Recht] comes from evidence, hence from our transcendental subjectivity itself;
every imaginable adequation originates as our verification, is our synthesis, has in
us its ultimate transcendental basis” (Husserl 1950a, 95).
Rather than connecting—as in Sellars’ “threefold critique”—the epistemological
argument and the metaphysical “confusion,” the notion of “evidence” brings about
that what is given (as before the reduction) is now self-given as the result of a syn-
thesis. This is what Husserl means by “being” as a correlative title for reason. As a
consequence, when he contends that by accomplishing the “epoché we effect a
reduction to our pure intention (cogito) and to the meant, purely as meant,” Husserl
means that “being” is reduced, not to its being represented (as in Brandom’s analy-
sis of “the period initiated by Descartes”), but to its self-givenness (Selbst-
Gegebenheit) as the result of a synthesis or, once again, as a “correlative title” for
reason (Vernunft) as a system of syntheses.
Moreover, over the course of Meditation IV Husserl does not fail to explicitly
recognize and stress the distinction between two forms of synthesis: there is indeed
a “passive” as well as an “active” form of synthesis. As is well known, the former is
based on the notion of “association” as a title for intentionality and is thereby “a
fundamental concept belonging to transcendental phenomenology;” on the con-
trary, the so-called active synthesis is the one that “on the basis of objects already
given […] constitutes new objects originally:” “in collecting, the collection; in
counting, the number; in dividing, the part; in predicating, the predicate and the
predicative state of affairs; in inferring, the inference.” (Husserl 1950a, 111–114).
If, at this point, we recall what Sellars claimed about the “epistemological argu-
ment” and the non-inferential foundation (“a fact which presupposes no learning, no
forming of associations”), we can argue not only that Husserl does not at all fall
prey to such a “reproach,” but that he points out the relations between two levels of
synthesis, and thereby of evidence, which rule out, once and for all, that very same
critique. For, if it is the case that Husserl thinks of predicative evidence in terms of
difference between mediate and immediate judgments, it is also the case that the
“immediate” ones bear directly upon “pre-predicative” evidence, not, to quote
Sellars, “as a fact which presupposes no learning, no forming of associations”, but
precisely as a network of “associations” (i.e., of passive syntheses).
8. Let us summarize our arguments up to this point and move toward the conclu-
sion. After having introduced and explained the essential core of Sellars’ “Myth of
the Given” (what we referred to as “the threefold critique,” entailing two variations
upon the Myth, the “anti-Cartesian tale,” and the “conceptual holism”), we have
switched to the Cartesian Meditations. We have shown not only that Husserl’s phe-
nomenology (as a philosophy of Gegebenheit kat’exochen) is not at all subject to
that critique, but also tried to expound on what Husserl means by Cartésien. Indeed,
once the reduction is performed and accomplished, the concept of “being” is
reduced, not to its being-represented (as directly and polemically claimed by
Brandom), but to its being “self-given” as a correlative title for a system of
syntheses.
In a nutshell: evidence is precisely this “synthetic-self-givenness” to conscious-

ness. Husserl goes on to differentiate the concept of synthesis by emphasizing a
distinction between active (predicative activity of reason) and passive synthesis, the
latter being made out of “associations” construed as a “transcendental” concept. In
so doing, Husserl does not simply avoid, but seems to be even able to overcome
once and for all the Myth as rightly denounced by Sellars.
This latter aspect allows us to make a further point. As is quite known, John
McDowell rephrases Sellars’ understanding of the Myth by saying that it entails the
“idea that the space of reasons […] extends more widely than the conceptual sphere”
or that it is “made out to be more extensive than the space of concepts.” (McDowell
1996, 6 and 7) All the ambiguity derives from the English word “reason,” which
might be taken as translating two different German words, thereby meaning two
different notions: Grund as well as Vernunft. “Reason” might then mean Grund in
the sense in which the reason (Grund) for a judgment “lies” in another judgment—
like in Sellars’ motto “to give and ask for reasons,” which is usually translated “im
Geben und Verlangen von Gründen” (or, as Davidson used to claim, “only a belief
can be a reason [it would read: Grund] for another belief”); yet, reason might also
mean Vernunft as the faculty of inference.17 In this case, of course, the former mean-
ing immediately leads to the latter; to give or ask for reasons means to give or ask
for Gründe and then for connections of judgments in such and such an inference.18
The purpose of such an assimilation or conjunction of Grund and Vernunft is to
undermine the idea itself of a “foundation” (Grund-legung) of the logical dimension
upon the non-logical one, which would also be “non-inferential.”19 Brandom points
out: “Sellars’ suggestion is that the key element missing from the parrot and the
measuring instrument […] is their mastery of the practices of giving and asking for
reasons, in which their responses can play a role as justifying beliefs and claims
[beliefs and claims meaning Gründe].” Then, as he goes on to say: “To grasp or
understand a concept is […] to have practical mastery over the inferences it is
involved in [in this case he means Vernunft].”20 Now, as we already know, Husserl
17
As Brandom (2009, 2–3 points out): “To be a rational being [i.e., to have Vernunft] in this sense
is to be subject to a distinctive kind of normative appraisal: assessment if the reasons [read Gründe]
for what one does—in the sense of ‘doing’ that is marked off by its liability to just that sort of
appraisal. Rational beings [read with Vernunft] are ones that ought to have reasons [read Gründe]
for what they do, and ought to act, as they have reason to [read Grund]”.
18
Brandom (2009, 4): “Reasons are construed as premises, from which one can draw
conclusions.”
19
The key passage upon which McDowell’s and Brandom’s interpretation rely is the famous § 38:
“I do wish to insist that the metaphor of ‘foundation’ is misleading in that it keeps us from seeing
that if there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation
reports, there is another logical dimension in which the latter rest on the former” (Sellars 1997, 78).
See Brandom (1994, 90–91, 2011, 87), where he claims that for any judgment “to be a potential bit
of knowledge or evidence […], it must be able to play a distinctive role in reasoning: it must be able
to serve as a reason for further judgments, claims, or beliefs, hence as a premise from which they
can be inferred.” See also McDowell (2009, 221–223).
20
Or, in other words, “The parrot does not treat ‘That’s red’ as incompatible with ‘That’s green,’
nor as following from ‘That’s scarlet’ and entailing ‘That’s colored’” (Brandom 1994, 89).
188 D. De Santis
takes Vernunft to refer not to “an accidental and factual faculty” (Husserl 1950a,
92)21 but to a “system” of syntheses, of which the so-called predicative one (“rea-
son” meaning here a judgment’s being grounded (Grund) upon another one in an
inferential connection22), as a form of active synthesis, is not but a specification. If
it is the case that, in Husserl, “the space of reasons extends more widely than the
conceptual sphere”, it is not because there would be “non-conceptual” reasons (as
Gründe), but precisely because “reason” (namely, Vernunft) embraces active (pred-
icative or inferential) as well as passive (pre-predicative or associative) forms of
syntheses (that is to say, of evidence and self-givenness).23
If now we return to our “logical atomist,” we cannot forget that he referred to
Sellars’ writing as “incipient,” namely, not yet fully accomplished Méditations
Hégéliennes; it is as if Sellars himself were somehow aware of his being only half-
way through it. If we consider now the developments of such Méditations, it might
be pointed out that whereas McDowell mainly focused on taking to the next level
both (A) and (B), Brandom, in turn, developed further (B) and (C). Now, these
developments of that “incipient” Hegelianism have thus far led to two variations on
what has been recently labeled “Myth of the Thought” (Mythe de la pensée24),
meaning that all forms of reason are assimilated to the “inferential” one (as it hap-
pens in Brandom), or that all norms and constraints of experience stem directly from
“within the practice of thinking” (as claimed by McDowell 2009, 105). As we might
want to claim and argue by rephrasing Rorty: it seems necessary to go back to those
incipient Méditations—and to the “critique” of the Given they propound—in order
to usher them out of their Hegelian stage and into the stage of a phenomenological
self-comprehension.
Acknowledgment This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund-
Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated
World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734).
21
See Husserl (1950a, 92).
22
Consider the following passages from the Prolegomena (where Husserl speaks of both Grund
and Begründung): “A group of isolated bits of chemical knowledge would certainly not justify talk
of a science of chemistry. More is plainly required, i.e., a systematic connection in the theoretical
sense, which means finding grounds [Begründung] for one’s knowing, and suitably combining and
arranging the sequence of such groundings” (Husserl 1984a, 14–15); “The unity of science
involves unity of the foundational connections [Begründungszusammenhängen]: not only isolated
pieces of knowledge, but their grounded validations themselves;” “Connections of validation
[Begründungszusammenhängen] are not governed by caprice or chance, but by reason and order”
(Husserl 1984a, 15 and 18).
23
It is interesting to notice that Brandom takes up the concept of “synthesis” by explicitly interpret-
ing it in “linguistic” terms Brandom (2009, 52–77): “Autonomy, Community and Freedom”,
78–108: “History, Reason and Reality”. For an analysis of the problem of synthesis in Husserl, see
De Santis (2018a, b); for what concerns the notion of reason, see De Santis (2018c).
24
Benoist (2004).
References
Aportone, Anselmo. 2011. Rationalism of Intuition. Kant and McDowell on the Relationship
between Conceptual Capacities and Sensory Experience. Fogli di Filosofia 2: 75–89.
Benoist, Jocelyn. 2004. “Le mythe du donné” et les avatars du kantisme analytique. Revue de
Métaphysique et de Morale 4: 511–529.
Brandom, Robert. 1994. Making it Explicit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 2000. Articulating Reasons. An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
———. 2009. Reason in Philosophy. Animating Ideas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 2011. Perspectives on Pragmatism. Classical, Recent and Contemporary. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Carraud, Vincent. 2002. Causa sive ratio. La raison de la cause de Suarez à Leibniz. Paris: PUF.
De Santis, Daniele. 2018a. “Metaphysische Ergebnisse:” Phenomenology and Metaphysics in
Edmund Husserl’s Cartesianische Meditationen (§60). Attempt at Commentary. Husserl
Studies 34: 63–83.
———. 2018b. Synthesis and Identity. Husserl on Kant’s Contribution to the History of Philosophy.
In Husserl, Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy, ed. I. Apostolescu and C. Serban.
Berlin: De Gryuter. (forthcoming).
———. 2018c. Le conclusioni della filosofia del conoscere. Appunti sul programma razionalista
di Husserl e Bontadini. Bolletino Filosofico 44: (forthcoming).
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1959. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie. Dritter
Band. Stuttgart: Fr. Frommans Verlag.
Husserl, Edmund. 1950a. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. Husserliana, ed.
S. Stephan Strasser, vol. 1. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1950b. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Erstes Buch. Husserliana, ed. Karl Schuhmann, vol. 3/1. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1984a. Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik.
Husserliana, ed. Elmar Holenstein, vol. 18. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
———. 1984b. Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil: Untersuchungen zur
Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Husserliana, vol. 19/1. Ursula Panzer. Den Haag:
Nijhoff.
Lanfredini, Roberta. 2012. La fenomenologia e il Mito del dato. In Attualità della fenomenologia,
ed. Carmine Di Martino, 513–535. Milano: Rubbettino.
McDowell, John. 1996. Mind and World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 2009. Having the World in View. Essays on Kant, Hegel and Sellars. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
———. 2011. Perception as a Capacity for Knowledge. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
Redding, Paul. 2007. Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought. Cambridge:
Rockmore, Tom. 2001. Analytic Philosophy and the Hegelian Turn. The Review of Metaphysics
55: 339–380.
Schlick, Moritz. 1938. Gibt es ein materiales Apriori? In Gesammelte Aufsätze 1926–1936,
18–30. Wien: Gerold & Co. English trans. by W. Sellars, Is There a Factual a Priori? In
Readings in Philosophical Analysis, ed. H. Feigl and W. Sellars, 277–285. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Selivanov, Yury. 2012. The “Myth of the Given:” The Hegelian Meditations of Wilfrid Sellars.
Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26: 677–692.
Sellars, Wilfrid. 1968. Science and Metaphysics. Variations on Kantian Themes. New York:
Routledge.
190 D. De Santis
———. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. With an Introduction by R. Rorty and a
Study Guide by R. Brandom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 2002. Kant and Pre-Kantian Themes. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing.
———. 2007. In In the Space of Reasons. Selected Essays of Wilfrid Sellars, ed. K. Scharp and
R.B. Brandom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Soffer, Gail. 2003. Revisiting the Myth: Husserl and Sellars on the Given. The Review of
Metaphysics 57 (2): 301–337.

Alfredo Ferrarin - Dermot Moran - Elisa Magrì - Danilo Manca - Hegel and Phenomenology-Springer (2019) PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Alfredo Ferrarin - Dermot Moran - Elisa Magrì - Danilo Manca - Hegel and Phenomenology-Springer (2019) PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Contributions To Phenomenology 102

In Cooperation with The Center

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5811

Hegel and Phenomenology

Elisa Magrì Danilo Manca

ISSN 0923-9545 ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Hegel and Phenomenology

sciences (Husserl 1976, §70). For an imaginative history of philosophy in search of

An Overview of this Volume

Antoine Cantin-Brault in “Archeo-Logos: Hegel and Heidegger on Finding the

critique of expression in the Science of Logic and Hegel’s appraisal of expression in

Department of Philosophy Alfredo Ferrarin

Husserl’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reading

It is true not only for nineteenth-century Germany but also for

Keywords Husserl · Hegel · Phenomenology · Spirit · History ·

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

3 Edmund Husserl’s Engagement with Hegel

Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations presented phenomenology as making the first

1970, 9). Nevertheless, Husserl also sees phenomenology as a completion of both

His main claim is that previous philosophies—be they positivist, empiricist or

In these extended interpretative engagements with the history of modern philoso-

During a sustained period of intensive research (and few publications) Husserl

influenced by Georg Simmel’s life-philosophy. Cohn wrote on the history of dialec-

Husserl is therefore interested in tracking the “necessary teleology in which the

In his Cartesian Meditations, originally delivered as lectures in Paris in 1929,

Husserl’s critical engagement with Kant and his embrace of phenomenology as a

“pure or transcendental phenomenology”, an a priori eidetic science which explores

Husserl’s opposition is sceptical relativism and the relativism of competing historical

In Crisis § 56, Husserl attempts to understand the meaning of philosophical

Transcendental intersubjectivity is the absolute and only self-sufficient foundation

nalism” (Husserl 1954, 337, 1970, 290).

Scientific rationalism has forgotten its source in human subjectivity. According to

The concept of history is closely connected to the concept of “reason”. Husserl is

8 Husserl on the Self-Sufficiency of the Life of Spirit

Husserl’s 1935 Vienna Lecture employs throughout a strikingly Hegelian tone.

is in a particular way mirrors the development of culture; philosophy represents

Husserl’s “historical reflections” [historische Besinnungen] (Husserl 1954, 58,

Abstract A phenomenology of the historical world, if successful, could provide us

Keywords Hegel · Husserl · Historical world · Teleology

Why is it important to develop a phenomenology of historical worlds? Given the

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 29

presuppositionless beginning, should aim to make as few presuppositions as possi-

2 Hegel and the Completion of History

This passage is so unequivocal that it hardly needs interpretation. Hegel’s refusal

3 Open Teleology in Husserl

Husserl also considers history to be determined by an inherent teleological directed-

4 The Problem of Singular and Plural

It thus becomes obvious that intersubjectivity plays an essential role in Husserl’s

5 Historical World in Crisis

Bernet, Rudolf. 1983. Die ungegenwärtige Gegenwart. Anwesenheit und Abwesenheit in

———. 2002. Foundational investigations of the phenomenological origin of the spatiality of

Keywords History of philosophy · Reason in history · Historicity · Hegel ·

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 45

2 Kant and the Philosophizing Historiography of Philosophy

of the concepts of reason by analyzing thinking in general without any kind of

3 The Historicity of Philosophy

On the significance of Kant’s historiographical project see Micheli (2015).

Substance has to be expressed by a range of contingent conditions. It is the capacity

truth. Each particular philosophy is, however, a moment of the development of

4 Some Models for the History of Reason

of interpreting Kant’s idea of a history of reason, but also on an alternative mode of

history of reason is seen as aiming to rediscover the original intentions of a philoso-

Hegel and Phenomenology

An Overview of this Volume

Department of Philosophy Alfredo Ferrarin

3 Edmund Husserl’s Engagement with Hegel

8 Husserl on the Self-Sufficiency of the Life of Spirit

2 Hegel and the Completion of History

3 Open Teleology in Husserl

4 The Problem of Singular and Plural

5 Historical World in Crisis

2 Kant and the Philosophizing Historiography of Philosophy

3 The Historicity of Philosophy

4 Some Models for the History of Reason

a rchaeology,” that is as a research aimed at accounting for the teleological develop-

2 Hegel’s Arche in Heraclitus’ Logos

3 Heidegger’s Arche in Heraclitus’s Logos

4 The Metaphysical Pulse

c onsciousness, which becomes self-consciousness in as much as it differentiates

c apacity for determinability. While the categories of expression and manifestation

3 Hegel’s Appraisal of Expression in the Anthropology

4 Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Expression

2 Adorno on “First Philosophy”

3 The Antinomies of the Phenomenological Project