La Unidad de La Fenomenologia de Husserl

Revue Internationale de Philosophie
THE UNITY OF HUSSERL'S PHILOSOPHY

Author(s): J.N. MOHANTY
Source: Revue Internationale de Philosophie, Vol. 57, No. 224 (2), HUSSERL (JUIN 2003), pp.
115-132
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THE UNITY OF HUSSERL'S PHILOSOPHY
J.N. MOHANTY
There was a time when it was taken for granted that Husserl 's think
ing passed through several distinct phases, such that each of these
phases was marked by a clear break from what went before it. These
phases are, to take a standard account: an early psychologistic phase
culminating in the Philosophie der Arithmetik (1891), an anti
psychologistic phase which found its classic exposition in the
Prolegomena to a Pure Logic (1900); a falling back in psychologism
of a sort in parts of the second volume of the Logische Unter
suchungen (1901) as well as in the Ideas I (1913); a clearly idealistic
phase, a Bewusstseinsidealismus, that continued through the Ideas and
the Cartesian Meditations (1931); and finally an overcoming of this
idealism in the emergence of the theme of the Lebenswelt (1936).
Now we know that this account is not quite sustainable. We know that
the early work Philosophie der Arithmetik was not psychologistic in
the perforative sense in whicht the Prolegomena rejected psycholo
gism. We know that the early conception of phenomenology as
descriptive and eidetic psychology was also not a reversal to psycho
logism, and also that the phenomenological idealism which Husserl
explicitly espoused was not the Bewusstseinsidealismus of the Neo
Kantians. It is also now well known that the thematic of "Lebenswelt"
was not new in the Crisis book, but was already present in the manu
scripts as early as the Tagebuch zum Raum of the nineties of the 19th
century and that this thematic was introduced in the Crisis lectures not
to overcome transcendental idealism but rather to radicalise it still
further. Thus one can say that there has been a remarkable continuity
in Husserl's thinking, centering around a few major problems and
themes from the very beginning.
© Revue Internationale de Philosophie

2/2003 - n° 224 - pp. 115-132.
116 J.N. MOHANTY
More recently, several other more radical breaks have been noticed
by Husserl scholars. I wish to draw attention to some of these claims,
and again to defend the continuity of Husserl's thinking as agains
such putative discontinuities. There is however an important diff
rence between the scholarship which sustained the earlier claims
regarding the 'breaks' in Husserl's thinking, and the more recen
scholarship which argues for a similar thesis. The difference lies i
this that now a large number of manuscripts from Husserl's Nach lass
have been published, and an increasingly larger number of scholar
have been using the Nachlass that have not been published. Th
claims for new interpretations of Husserl's philosophy have been sup
ported by reference to such unpublished material, but also materi
that have been published in the Husserliana volumes. In this respec
these interpretations would seem to be on better textual ground.
I should begin by drawing attention to some risks inherent in such
textual research and basing conclusions on it. First of all, we all know
that Husserl also thought through writing. His regular practice of writ
ing was such that even when he had not arrived at a definitive position
on a matter, he would try to make a beginning afresh without an
thought of, or plans for, publication of the resulting manuscript. In
other words, much of the Nachlass consists of what may be called
"Research manuscripts" which contain attempts to think through
theme, attempts to formulate possible positions and/or possible objec
tions against such positions. Many such manuscripts have bee
appended to the Husserliana volumes by their editors. Unless one
extremely careful, one may mistake such "Research manuscripts" t
be reflecting his changed views at the time of writing, which would be
a serious mistake. Scholars using the Nachlass must first make th
determination about the nature, purpose and occasion of writing the
manuscript, before using it for interpretive purposes.
The second risk would consist in overlooking the fact that although
in the Nachlass Husserl's primary concern has been to elaborate th
various aspects of his transcendental phenomenology, he also, like any
other thinker, was thinking about various themes which directly did
not serve that purpose but which presented challenges to phenomeno
logical philosophising in general. A thinker's thinking may have many
different concerns belonging to many different levels. In Husserl'
case, not all these concerns to which he would devote pages of writing
directly went into his exposition of development of transcendenta
THE UNITY OF HUSSERL'S PHILOSOPHY 117
phenomenology — although this is what he perhaps would have liked

to have rendered possible. If a researcher is not sensitive to what I
have called 'multi-levelled nature of thinking', one may be misled to
suppose that some of these concerns, if not all, contradict his overall
philosophical position. Thus he was responding to questions about
cultures and languages, about myths and religious practices, to con
cerns of sociologists and ethnologists, to think them through, some
times suggesting interesting solutions, sometimes positing hypotheses,
but more often not using them for the purpose of supporting or oppos
ing transcendental phenomenology.
Besides, one should also take into account the context of some of
the manuscripts. A remarkable case, which, for a proper estimation of
how it bears on Husserl 's thought, is the manuscripts which came into
being on the occasion of his "dialog" with Eugen Fink. So firmly
grounded was Husserl in his philosophical position that even with the
best of his students and younger colleagues earlier in his life, he could
not enter into a real dialog. Two such were Heidegger and Ingarden.
But the influence which Fink's conversations seem to have had on him
is remarkable. In this case, the difference was not due to Fink's bril
liance (the other two were no less so), but must have been, in a large
measure, due to the circumstances of those conversations. Those were
the years when Husserl was old, his health was failing, the Nazi perse
cution had left him lonely and sad, he had few visitors, and it was at
this time that the young Fink remained his only companion with
whom he entered into conversation and to whom he entrusted the task
of making drafts of things he had planned to write himself. If Fink's
questions led him to question some of his own positions that must be
due, to a large extent, to the context in which Fink came to play the
role he did in Husserl's life.
Finally, the texts, published and unpublished, are in need of inter
pretation, and it is only as interpreted that they serve the purpose they
are made to serve. To interpret any such text is to place it in the total
context of Husserl's thinking. We should, if possible, avoid the sud
den, initial excitement on the discovery of a paragraph in which the
Master seems to be rejecting his well-known position. We should
rather ask, how and why could he write what he did? We, as inter
preters, should try our best to avoid being motivated by the search for
"retractions", and must rather be guided by the principle of charity
which aims at making the thinker maximally self-consistent.
118 J.N. MOHANTY
It is in the light of these remarks that I would like to recall the

several distinct lines of Husserl interpretation which are there. I will
distinguish between the Austrian, the German, the American and the
French readings of Husserl. The Austrian reading focuses on the
Logical Investigations, sets aside the allegedly Neo-Kantian Husserl,
appropriates Husserl into the Gestalt psychology group, and sees him
as a realist and an essentialist. The standard German reading sees
Husserl as one who accords primacy to the Ego within whose
"reduced" life all constitution takes place, and who is therefore con
cerned with to what extent this egological theory can make room for
history, time and body Thus Landgrebe could emphasise history and
body in Husserl's tought, and Klaus Held the living present as con
taining intersubjectivity and so transcending the egological thinking.
Landgrebe reflects on how each monad's "inner historicity" is "com
munalised with others" and how thereby history is internalised. Held
finds a fundamental equivocation in Husserl's thinking such that al
its basic concepts such as "intentionality", "immanence", "transcen
dence", "life-world", "reduction", "noema", "hyle", "living present"
are all equivocal. Amongst the German interpreters, Fink stands apart,
and exercises more influence than any one else on the French inter
preters who drew upon Husserl. Fink emphasises the necessity of a
non-intentional dimension in phenomenology, raises the question of
being within phenomenology, identifies being with the world, and
regards the world as pre-given, beyond constitution and beyond
epoché, emphasises the "splitting of the ego" into the consistuting
trancendental ego, the philosophising reflecting ego and the observing
ego, raises various questions about the relation between the transcen
dental, the empirical and human egos. Many of these themes and
apories arising from them influenced such thinkers as Derrida.
But the French simply found a different Husserl, a Husserl who was
competing with, while challenging from within, Hegel and Freud.
Genetic phenomenology, the consequent question of origin, the phe
nomenology of inner time consciousness with its race after the reten
tional traces, the questions of facticity and affection within inten
tionality, are moved to the center. However, while the mainstream
German interpreters recognised a rupture between the Logical
Investigations and the Ideas I, Derrida uses the Leitfaden of the later
transcendental phenomenology to read even the very first of the
Investigations, and when this author in his early book Husserl 's theory
of Meaning proposed to abstract from transcendental phenomenology

in order to develop a theory of meaning, Derrida had questioned
whether such an abstraction was in the long run possible. Some read
the early Logical Investigations as uncontaminated by the later trans
cendental thinking, others find them all to be of a piece.
American Husserl understanding has fallen into two groups : on the
one hand, the Gurwitsch reading, influencing the "New School" tradi
tion, of finding in Husserl a theory of consciousness as a field of
transformations in which the "noema" stands out as an invariant,
understood in the manner of Gestalt-theoretic "figure" with no hyletic
data to be animated; on the other, there is a logical-analytic reading
either by understanding the noema as but the Fregean Sinn extended
over the entire domain of acts or by using the "possible world seman
tics" to understanding intentionality and constitution theory.
It is against the background of these possible readings of Husserl
that we shall consider some recent attempts to speak of the "Other
Husserl".
II
I will begin with considering the contrast between static and genetic
phenomenology, a contrast which has provided a support for the claim
that Husserl's thinking at some point of time did undergo a radical
transformation from the static to the genetic. Next I will consider a
host of new themes which have occasioned a spate of attempts to
interpret Husserl anew, such themes as "facticity", "passivity" and
"alterity". After these, I will turn to the claim that a new kind of
phenomenology called "generative phenomenology" marks a radical
departure from Husserl's earlier transcendental phenomenology.
First, with regard to the distinction between static and genetic phe
nomenology. I will begin with a brief account of the distinction, and
would maintain that contrary to some interpreters, genetic pheno
menology does not mark a departure but rather a deepening of the
original project of constitutive phenomenology, a deepening which
requires that the earlier, static phenomenology, remains in place, valid
within its limits. Static phenomenology begins from static objects, or
rather from object-senses as ideal unities, and investigates — both
noetically and noematically — into the rule-governed interconnected
120 J.N. MOHANTY
ness of experiences through which those object-senses come to b

presented in the originary manner appropriate to them. Genetic phe
nomenology begins with relatively stable identities as they form
within the flow of consciousness, and proceeds to investigate into how
these unities are formed. The clearest account of the distinction is
given by Husserl in Appendix II, 2b, of Formal and transcendental
Logic as follows :
"'static' analysis is guided by the unity of the supposed object. It

starts from the unclear manners of givenness and, following the refe
rence made by them as intentional modifications, it strives towards
what is clear.
Genetic intentional analysis, on the other hand, is directed to the
whole concrete nexus in which each particular consciousness stands,
along with its intentional object as intentional. Immediately, the pro
blem becomes extended to include the other intentional references,
those belonging to the situation, in which, for example, the subject
exercising the judicative activity is standing, and to include, therefore,
the immanent unity of the temporality of the life that has its "history"
therein, in such a fashion that every single process of consciousness,
as occurring temporally, has its own "history" —- that is : its temporal
genesis." (E. tr., p. 316)
Explaining this further, Husserl writes :
"... the fact that we objectivate physical things, and even see them at
a glance... refers back, in the course of our intentional genetic analy
sis, to the fact that the type, experience of a physical thing, had its rise
in an earlier, primally institutive, genesis..." (ibid., p. 317)
Obviously, the immanent temporality of consciousnes is the ulti

mate place where genetic constitution takes place, and that the laws of
this temporality constitue the identity of an object, an identity that is
constituted by the retentional modifications in and through which "the
same" is presented and represented. Every present experience derives
from past sedimentations and past constitutions of sense.
In this rather quick sketch, several things need to be brought into
prominence. First, the thesis of the internal time consciousness as the
horizon within which all constitution, even of ideal meanings, takes
place is now added to the static phenomenology from which Husserl
had deliberately, as he says in the Ideas I (§ 81), excluded. Second,
temporality, by itself, does not exhaust the theme of genetic phenome
nology. Time, even inner time consciousness, may be treated purely

formally. But Husserl's treatment of it is inseparable from contents,
and in the last analysis these contents are hyletic. Their constituion
requires, besides the temporal laws of modifications, also the prin
ciples of association and passive synthesis. A remark about 'hyle' may
be in order at this point. It is well known that when the Ideas I intro
duced the distinction between the hyletic data and noetic acts which
animate them, the idea of hyle proved a source of nagging problems. It
was attached to the content-Auffassung scheme which Husserl at some
point abandoned. But with the deepening of his investigations into the
internal time consciousness, the hyle moves to the center of attention,
no more as meaningless data to be animated by the noetic acts, but as
the ultimately irreducible contents of time consciousness in its flux.
Their identity becomes a theme for genetic constitution.
Third, with the genetic constitution of hyletic contents, we have
also the genesis of the concrete life of the ego which consists in all
acquired cognitions, habits and dispositions bound together in the
unity of a history, the history of the ego.
Fourth, it should not be forgotten that none of this is outside of the
epoché. When speaking of the ego, in particular, we still have the
epoché in place, and the ego whose genesis Husserl talks about is still
the transcendental ego.
Finally, while much of genetic constitution is concerned with the
lower level of the ego's life, namely, the hyletic, we cannot overlook
the fact that the same is true of the higher and founded strata of judg
mental thinking which also is temporally constituted step-by-step as
Husserl famously shows in Formal and transcendental Logic.
In order to show how the above mentioned account of genetic con
stitution works, and how it is related to static constitution, let me con
sider as an example my perception of a patch of red there which can
be articulated as :
(1) I see a patch of red over there.

From (1), by applying the epoché, we get
(2) "I see a patch of red over there."
(Note that the " " enclosing the sentence in (2) transforms the
direct reference of (1) to a state of affairs in the world to a thought in
the life of the reduced I. As Husserl tells us in the Ideas I, in the
reduction everything remains, though with a "change of signature".)
122 J.N. MOHANTY
I overlook here the steps by which the judgment "That is a patch o

red" is possible (e.g. the steps by which the pre-judgmental perceptio
develops into a perceptual judgment, and then the latter into th
reflective judgment (1).
For my present limited purpose, one can say that (2) consists o
three constituted unities: the unity of the reflecting ego, the "I"
the unity of the noetic act 'seeing', and the unity of the noema
"the patch of red over there". Of these, the unity of the noem
first needs a static analysis : the "patch of red over there" is an iden
tity of an objective entity which can be sensed from different pe
spectives and by different perceivers, but each such sensing wou
be a hyletic experience which has its own identity in time, and
can be given only a genetic constitution in terms of iterated ret
tional modifications. Likewise, the identity of the ego's life also
has a genetic constitution, so also the unity of the act of seeing
which has its temporal strech. Thus (2) has its genetic constitutio
in
(3) the inner time consciousness and its on-going flux.
Now compare these steps of "vertically deep" constitution analysis (as

contrasted with the "horizontal static analysis") with what happens in
physics. Let us start with the empirical judgment:
(1*) "This is water"
(1*) transforms, in accordance with the chemical theory of elements,

into
(2*) "This is H2O" (in which abstraction is made from how

water is used in every day life, from the fact that water is a
colourless, tasteless liquid that one may drink, etc.)
The atomic theory of the composition of water, however, trans

forms, in quantum theory of elementary particles, into
(3*) which describes the process by which such particles enter

into a structure which generates the states of liquidity, as
described in the statistical mechanics of phase transition.
Just as (2) preserves the sense of (1) and (3) shows how, in the long
run, both (1) and (2) are possible, so does (3*) with regard to (1*) and
(2*).
What this brief sketch is intended to show, is that genetic phenome

nology and static phenomenology are not only not mutually exclusive,
but presuppose each other, the movement of thought which obtains
between them being as follows :
empirical and a priori first level object cognitions
! t
constituted unities of sense
I t
genetic (temporal, dynamic
The continuous lines with arrow

The broken lines with arrowheads stand for the order of constitution.
Hence the unity of these two phases of Husserl's thought.
Just as (3*) does not entail that either (2*) or (1*) is not valid, to
the contrary the purpose of (3*) is to give a satisfactory theoretical
account of how (2*) and (1*) come about, analogously (3), far from
implying that either (2) or (1) is not valid, rather presupposes and
gives an account of the possibility of the validity of the latter two. (2)
provides the guiding clue, Leitfaden, for the enquiry back (Rück
fragen) to (3). The very meaning of "Leitfaden", which Husserl often
uses, requires that the constituted sense in this case is presupposed by
the constituting process.
There is a misleading impression that the one-one correlation
between consciousness and its noema as recognised in genetic phe
nomenology replaces the many-one correlation between noesis and
noema of static phenomenology. This point is misleading at least
because there is at all levels a one-one correlation betwee conscious
ness and its full noema, even for static phenomenology, where the full
noema includes the Fülle of adumbrations as well as the temporal
stretch, while it is only with regard to the ."»/««-component of the full
noema that one can speak of a many-one correlation in static analysis.
In genetic phenomenology, since the temporality of an experience is
important, the full noema is what is in view, it is equivalent to the
sensory field at a certain level. Thus it is easily seen that the two
doctrines are compatible.
If the guiding clue provided by the constituted sense is abandoned,
then genetic phenomenology would relapse into a dangerous psycho
124 J.N. MOHANTY
logism which Husserl would have compromised with at no sta

his thinking.
Ill
In this section of the paper, I will briefly touch upon the them
facticity, hyle and alterity as they function in Husserl's thinking. I
following section, I will discuss the status of what has recently be
called 'generative phenomenology".
With regard to the themes of facticity, alterity and passivity,
do not better, in this essay, than draw attention to a new volume
essays entitled Alterity and Facticity. New Perspectives on Hu
(Kluwer, Phaenomologica, Vol. 148, 1998), edited by Nathalie D
and Dan Zahavi('). The authors who, we are told 'have all defe
their dissertations in this decade', i.e. are young phenomenolog
have sought to emphasise that the "prevailing Husserl interpretat
must be regarded as outdated" in the light of the Nachlass mat
that continue to be published. In their Preface, the editors su
some aspects of the new emerging interpretation. First of all, Hu
can no longer be regarded as a mere precursor to Heidegger. Secon
Husserl can no longer be regarded as concerned only with a p
spontaneous and theoretical subjectivity Third, fantasy, imagin
and the practical-actional consciousness play a more foundational r
in his thinking than was earlier supposed. Fourth, consequent rein
pretation of the earlier published texts bears out "a unity and con
tency in the development of his (Husserl's) thinking, which w
otherwise have remained concealed."
With these goals and accomplishments of the newest Husserl
scholarship, I find myself in considerable agreement. I have never
rgarded the Heideggerean reading of Husserl as credible, even when
one takes into consideration the Husserl texts available in Heidegger's
life time, not to speak of the new material now available. In the same
way, the lectures on passive synthesis — but not alone they — show
that it is false to take Husserlian constitution to be the activity of a
thinking subject. As I have argued elsewhere, the Husserlian transcen
(1) The page references within brackets refer to this volume.
dental subjectivity is "corporeal" (at least in one of its fundamental

strata) characterised by kinaesthesis, necessarily contains a hyletic
stratum, and has practical motivations. That fantasy brings essences to
givenness and that imagination permeates perception are parts even of
the traditional Husserl understanding. At the same time, it is plausible
that these accomplishments of traditional Husserl understanding are
both enriched and, in some respets, modified by the new researches, as
the work of the above mentioned younger scholars demonstrates. Let
us take a quick look at their results.
1. Vincenzo Costa shows on the one hand that genetic constitution
presupposes the eidos (p. 19), and yet that these eidetic structures are
the result of a "necessary becoming". The search for this "becoming"
shows that while we cannot reach back to a first beginning (p. 22), we
nevertheless discover that a phenomenological aesthete of a primor
dial sensuousness provides the foundation for all cognition. The ques
tion that is to be asked is : did Husserl completely give up the philoso
phy of essences by 1930?
2. Natalie Depraz distinguishes between three levels of passivity:
the primary, the secondary and the tertiary. The primary passivity is
Husserl's Urhyle, Uraffektion and the Urimpression — concepts
which become, for Husserl in the thirties, the same as what is foreign
to the I inside the I (das Ichfremdé) (p. 35). The secondary passivity is
being-affected in a communal way because of sharing a common
history and life environment (p. 36). The tertiary passivity is said to
surpass both the above in an experience in which the ego is captured
by a transcendence (p. 36) which Natalie Depraz describes as "an
absolute power, a power whose force excludes domination" (p. 37).
This last amounts to being completely open towards the other. It is not
clear how much of the third kind of passivity is to be found in
Husserl. Depraz is clearly in search of a mode of passive imagination,
and eventually locates it within a passive synthesis in which the sensi
ble is originally idealized through an "originary imaginative figura
tion" : "within the very originary passivity of consciousness ... imagi
nation is operating under the immanent lived experience of the
originary figurative sensations." It is already functioning as constitut
ing facticity, so that 'facticity' and 'fictionality' are equivalents. The
fact is a perceptual Fictum in this sense (p. 47).
3. Nam-in Lee points out that in the M-manuscripts of 1900-1914,
Husserl develops a phenomenology of feelings in a direction which
126 J.N. MOHANTY
reverses some of his theses regarding fealings which one finds in his
Fifth Logical Investigation. The changes affect, in particular, the phe
nomenology of non-intentional feeling sensations which he had earlie
distinguished from intentional feeling acts. To be distinguished from
both are moods, which are separate unities of feelings. In the M
manuscripts, Husserl recognises that a feeling sensation may have an
implicit intentionality, and also ascribes to moods an unclear inte
tionally. At the same time, Husserl also comes to question the nec
sary primacy of objectifying acts, and even suggests the opposi
thesis — namely the primacy of the non-objectifying acts in the sens
that moods may be regarded as one component of "world-conscio
ness" (p. 117).
4. Finally, let me mention that according to some younger Husserl
scholars, jus as genetic phenomenology replaced the static, so di
something called "generative phenomenology" replace the genetic.
the last period of his life between 1930 and 1937, so writes Steinbock
Husserl developed his generative phenomenology which treats ph
nomena such as 'home-world' and 'alien world', 'normal' and 'abno
mal', 'community' and 'tradition', 'birth' and 'death', phenomena
which are historical, cultural, intersubjective and normative, whic
concern individuals and communities in the process of their historica
development (p. 179). As Steinbock sees it, Husserl now thinks o
"geographically and historically social constellations", which in hi
revised view were the most concrete phenomena.
My present task is not to critique these above-mentioned claims, be

they the philosophical positions of the scholars who propose them or
if they truely represent Husserl's own views. I only want to argue that
even if they are Husserl's views at a certain stage in his life, they are
consistent and continuous with his earlier thinking, and if they ar
new, they arise out of, and preserve the earlier positions in their bas
structure.
It does not look like, to me at least, as if Husserl, in the thirties,

rejected his earlier essentialism altogether. I can here give only a few
citations from the Nachlass of that period — if such citations express
his views at that time. Thus at the beginning of 1930's, in AIV 10,
Husserl writes "A real must have apodictically essential structure",
although he proceeds to assert that all idealities are founded in reality
(p. 6). In A VII 20, from 1930, we find: "... there must be an essential
structure which remains constant, that consciousness can present a

unitary object and a world." (p. 17). In A VII 11, from 1932, he
writes: "for any conceivable world, what is to be determined is the
invariable Wesenssinn of this, and of a world in general, as the
Wesensform of all disjunctive, possible, facticity." (p. 8). A little later:
"I need to vary, in freedom, the factual world and bring out its struc
ture in every possible world." My final citation is from A VII 3, a text
from 1934: "Die Voraussetzung der Natur als definite Mannigfaltig
keit, jede Aussage begründbar." (p. 3).
All this does not go against the thesis of a "phenomenological
aesthetics of a primordial sensuousness". The transcendental
Aesthetic comes increasingly in the focus of interest. I would refer to
a Nachlass, A VII 26, from November 1925; then to A VII 14 from
1920-26; finally to A VII 15 from 1932. In these papers, there is on
the one hand a continuing attempt to discover deeper levels of
sensuousness, and at the same time, on the other, to "reconstruct" out
of these depths the surface level of perception of unitary objects with
their "aspects", "sides" and "meanings". It is a testimony to Husserl's
sense of philosophical responsibility that he never lost sight of both
these tasks and the problem of bringing them together.
The attention that is being given by recent scholars to the role of
"affection" and "passivity" in Husserl's thinking is well-deserved. The
central role of intentionality is never to be confused with the same
role for the ego's active performance of acts. 'Intentionality' is wider
than 'activity'. The use of 'act' is that of terminus technicum. Horizon
intentionality is not an active performance. Considering the fact that
every active cogito contributes to the formation of ego's habitualities,
which may then be "awakened" and reactivated, activity leads to a
domain of passivity. "Being affected by" covers a whole range of phe
nomena, there are degrees of passivity as well as degrees of activity,
degrees of intermingling of activity and passivity The passivity of the
ego is exemplified either in the experience of something as already
there as pre-given, or in the potentiality which static analysis makes
use of, or in the awakening of the ego whereby the implicit becomes
explicit, or in the phenomenon of associative synthesis. "Affection"
can be had in many different ways: as the conscious attraction
exercised by a conscious object upon the ego (Hua XI, p. 148), as
something entirely a matter of feeling i.e. a feeling sensation; as a
kinaesthetic "doing" in which there is an egoic moment ; or finally as
128 J.N. MOHANTY
the Urhyle affecting the consciousness which is not yet an ego's. The
awakening or waking up may be either "waking that reveals" ("enthül
lenden Weckung") or waking up that casts a ray backward ("rück
strahlenden Weckung"). Kinaesthetic consciousness may be either
receptive or habitual, or the freedom expressed in the "I can". The
idea of horizon which has its own components of passivity contain
several possibilities : for one, the potentiality for identification and re
identification, for another, horizon of memories that are deep within
but which can be awakened, leading to identification in re-cognition;
also horizon of the unfamiliar; the inductive horizon within which
there is a distinction between what is actually "induced" in a relative
determinateness and what is not actually "induced" ; also, the horizon
of "dark" remembrance; an empty consciousness which is there
accompanying experience as a potentiality for fulfillment.
It is the Urhyle and the Urimpression which apparently present
difficulties for the transcendental-philosophical part of Husserl's
thinking. However, I do not think this needs to be so. Some are of the
opinion that the Urimpression, for Husserl, is intended to be that core
of the now which is not itself a retentional modification of an impres
sion. It therefore is to be the pure presence. But Husserl at the same
time seems to hold that the impressional now, no sooner than it arises
becomes a retention, and the retentional modification of the now
passes over into a retention of retention, in which case we would neve
come to have the Urimpression but always a retention, i.e. an absence.
It is clear that such an admission would disrupt the very basis of
Husserlian phenomenology. But let us look at the situation this way : i
the retention and protention threaten the integrity of the Urimpression
the fact that, on Husserl's showing, retention and protention are intui
tions of the past and of the future respectively puts the two back into
the circle of impression. If, according to Derrida, the difference
between the living present and trace disrupts the former's claim to be
pure presence, the same difference may be said to disrupt the repr
sentational character of the trace, transforming it into a faded living
presence. If, as Derrida says, the punctuality of the present is a myth,
so is the difference of the primary retention. They both form a unity
within the texture of the now.
In addition, the structure retention-now-protention, the sinking back
of this structure, the transverse and longitudinal intentionalities, the
non-identity of the trace with the now, as well as the continuity of the
retention with the primal impression — all these are descriptive,

phenomenological data which are disclosed to intuition, and so are
presented to the reflecting consciousness. The suspicion against pure
presence is made to rest on phenomena which are themselves present,
and the denial of presence therefore is self-contradictory. I think the
same may be said of the Urhyle. The primal sensation "welling up
ever anew in a new now" is experienced as the Ichfremde, such that
within the very heart of the ego there is anounced an alterity, an ich
fremd moment affecting the pre-ego ( Vorich) within the living present.
But this alterity should not be confused with the sense of 'alterity'
when one speaks of the alter ego. Dan Zahavi rightly draws attention
to this in his contribution to the volume Alterity and Facticity. Husserl
does describe hyle as a type of alterity and speaks of it as a core of
non-ego within the life of the ego. I do not find in this admission any
thing that contradicts his earlier theory of intentionality.
The thesis that Husserl abandoned the priority he at first had
assigned to objectifying thought over non-objectifying acts in favor of
either a priority or a sort of equiprimordiality of non-objectifying acts,
may indeed be true. In my early work Edmund Husserl s Theory of
Meaning I had suggested that Husserl ought to have recognised the
equiprimordiality of non-objectifying acts. However, the underlying
issues are complicated, and here I can only attempt a brief recapitula
tion of the core ones.
Brentano held, as is well known, that judgmental and emotional
intentionalities presuppose the intentionality of Vorstellung. Husserl
subscribed to a similar view. Emotional acts, for example, on his view
derive their objective reference from the intentionality of some under
lying objectifying act — judgment or presentation. In loving a person,
the latter is object of love only through first being the object of a pre
sentation or of a thought. This is true of other non-objectifying acts
such as desire and hope.
Many phenomenologists, prominently Heidegger and Merleau
Ponty, rejected this thesis, and held that the world (as well as things in
the world) are primordially experienced in non-objectifying acts. This
is all well-known. But let us pause to take stock of where we stand.
Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty do not want to say that the non-objecti
fying acts originally objectivate their intentional correlates, i.e. pre
sent them. They rather want to say that the world (and worldly things)
is originally experienced non-objectively through our concerns, emo
130 J.N. MOHANTY
tions, projects, desires, love and hatred, amongst others. As contraste

with them, Husserl held that the intentional correlates of non-object
fying acts are objectified only through some Vorstellung or thought.
Where exactly is the incompatibility, mutual opposition between thes
two views? Husserl may still hold that non-objectifying acts are
necessary component of our experience of the world, while insisting
that the world is objectivated, however, only in the objectifying acts.
IV
I will now make a few remarks in connection with the so-callend

generative phenomenology claimed to be heralding a new and final
phase of Husserl's thinking. According to Steinbock, who is an articu
late exponent of 'generative phenomenology', Husserl's thinking
progressively shifts from consciousness to the world, "from the
description of individual sense constitution to the normative participa
tion in the generation of historical meaning." (p. 177) Along with this
movement, there is also a movement from static to genetic, and from
the latter to the generative method. Both static and genetic phenome
nologies remained confined to an individual ego. Only generative phe
nomenology can treat phenomen that are historical, cultural, inter
subjective and normative. There are generative phenomena, which
occur across generations, examples of which are : "Home-world/alien
world", "tradition", "birth and death", "language and communica
tion". Generative phenomenology is developed by Husserl during the
years 1930-37. It becomes the most concrete phenomenology. Stein
bock also remarks that only while doing this kind of phenomenology,
Husserl comes to question the distinction between the transcendental
and the mundane as well as the posture of disinterestedness.
My remarks that follow are intended to give a different reading of
Husserl's concern with the themes mentioned above, especially with
what are called concrete generative phenomena. To begin with some
general remarks: first, the concern with 'world' characterises
Husserl's thinking at least since the Logical Investigations. To mention
two places where one finds it : the Third Investigation, concerned as it
is with the part-whole relation, points to the world as the whole, to
which other wholes belong as parts. But, more importantly, the idea of
formal logic as delivering a formal ontology entails a theory of cate
gories for any world whatsoever, i.e. in the language of the Ideas I, for
the empty region of object in general. One needs to recall, along with
these, the idea that geometrical space is an idealisation of everyday
space, to be found in the Tagebuch zum Raum of the nineties, which is
an early statement of a major thesis of the Crisis. To say that the world
had to be bracketed in order to reach transcendental subjectivity is to
miss the significance of "bracketing". The natural thesis of the world
had to be bracketed in order to discover the world as the inseparable
correlate of consciousness; Note that, in terms of the definition of
'concreteness' given in the Ideas I the transcendental subjectivity
alone is concrete, anything else including the world can only be as an
inseparable moment of that concrete whole. So the world as posited
by the natural standpoint is abstract.
Now to come to the more specific concerns of the so-called genera
tive phenomenology. Here I should say that in the pages where
Husserl introduces the themes of generative phenomenology his
interest is still the constitution of the world quâ objective world. The
answer of the Crisis that the objective, scientific world is an idealiza
tion of the life-world is still valid, only that answer is now ramified
into a much more detailed thesis. The life-world now divides into
many home worlds and corresponding alien worlds, and the objective
truth of the sciences now is said to arise out of the situation-truths of
every day practical life. Likewise, situation-judgments are idealised
into scientific judgments. That this is the nature of his concern is
borne out by the title of AIV 1 (from 1932): "Kantianisierende
Fragestellung Möglichkeit objectiv gültiger Tatsachenurteils". Like
wise in A VII 3 from 1934, Husserl distinguishes between Umwelt
causality and exact causality and asks : how is a unique infinite Nature
constituted from the Umweltlichkeit? The Umwelt is then said to
divide into the earth and the heaven, the far and the near, while Nature
i.e. scientific Nature is said to imply a "definite manifold" such that
every statement is "begründbar". How does the mathematical world
schema arise? A IV 4 from 1933 contrasts the world of pre-scientific
life and the world in itself. The large manuscript of A V 5 from 1930
takes up the theme of "the pre-given generative horizon". I have my
"inheritances", I create my Umwelt, my personal inheritances such as
habits and abilities — from which through many stages of reflection I
arrive at a conception of absolute norm and ascription of an absolute
meaning to history. In A IV 4 from 1933, Husserl contrasts the natural
132 J.N. MOHANTY
attitude of life with the theoretical attitude of philosophy towards un

versality, towards universal truths in themselves and Being-in-itse
"under the presumption of determinable in itself" and finally epoché
of the world. Again the fragment A IV 12 of 1934 where phenomena
such as "Volk" (as a closed humankind), world as the interest- an
function-field, persons and person-horizon, are discussed, bears th
title "Das faktische in der geschichtlichen Welt in der universalen
eidetischen Einstellung".
It seems to me therefore that there is no further radically new them
in these papers, or a new method, to deserve the title of "generative
phenomenology". There is the same overarching interest in the consti
tution of scientific truth, scientific meanings and scientific world, so
"being in itself", from the relativities which characterise the human
worlds,meanings and truths. Husserl, as a genuine and responsib
philosopher, kept both ends, the beginning and the end point, in view
and traced a path which leads from the one to the other. The diff
rences of these reflections from the Crisis is that in the Crisis the life
world is subjected to the epoché leading to the transcendental subjec
tivity in which the life-world is constituted, while in these reflections
that move is not retracted but the other Crisis thesis of "idealisation"
is elaborated and much more ramified.
If the exposition of this essay is valid, then Husserl's long life of
thinking bears testimony to a remarkable unity.
Temple University.

La Unidad de La Fenomenologia de Husserl

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Revue Internationale de Philosophie

THE UNITY OF HUSSERL'S PHILOSOPHY

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phenomenology — although this is what he perhaps would have liked

It is in the light of these remarks that I would like to recall the

of Meaning proposed to abstract from transcendental phenomenology

ness of experiences through which those object-senses come to b

"'static' analysis is guided by the unity of the supposed object. It

Explaining this further, Husserl writes :

Obviously, the immanent temporality of consciousnes is the ulti

nology. Time, even inner time consciousness, may be treated purely

(1) I see a patch of red over there.

I overlook here the steps by which the judgment "That is a patch o

(3) the inner time consciousness and its on-going flux.

Now compare these steps of "vertically deep" constitution analysis (as

(1*) "This is water"

(1*) transforms, in accordance with the chemical theory of elements,

(2*) "This is H2O" (in which abstraction is made from how

The atomic theory of the composition of water, however, trans

(3*) which describes the process by which such particles enter

What this brief sketch is intended to show, is that genetic phenome

empirical and a priori first level object cognitions

The continuous lines with arrow

logism which Husserl would have compromised with at no sta

(1) The page references within brackets refer to this volume.

dental subjectivity is "corporeal" (at least in one of its fundamental

My present task is not to critique these above-mentioned claims, be

It does not look like, to me at least, as if Husserl, in the thirties,

structure which remains constant, that consciousness can present a

retention with the primal impression — all these are descriptive,

tions, projects, desires, love and hatred, amongst others. As contraste

I will now make a few remarks in connection with the so-callend

attitude of life with the theoretical attitude of philosophy towards un

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