Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology

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The Theoretical Reformer: on Husserl’s Plato

(Husserl and the Figures of the History of
Philosophy)

Daniele De Santis

To cite this article: Daniele De Santis (2020): The Theoretical Reformer: on Husserl’s Plato
(Husserl and the Figures of the History of Philosophy), Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology, DOI: 10.1080/00071773.2020.1732584

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2020.1732584

Published online: 24 Feb 2020.

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THE JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2020.1732584

The Theoretical Reformer: on Husserl’s Plato (Husserl and the

Figures of the History of Philosophy)*
Daniele De Santis
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The present research contributes to the elucidation of an important Edmund Husserl; Plato;
aspect of Husserl’s interpretation of the history of philosophy, that is, reason; dialectic; first
his reading of the beginning of Western thought. In particular, it philosophy
aims to clarify the sense in which Husserl deems Plato the father
of the idea itself of philosophy as a science. As will be maintained,
Husserl thinks of Socrates and Plato together as providing the first
reform of philosophy, whose overall goal is to give reason
(Vernunft) a universal method of self-justification against the
general skepticism of the sophists. The analysis will be both
systematically and historically oriented, for, it will try to both
reconstruct Husserl’s interpretation of the background against
which Plato first introduces the idea of philosophy as a science,
and to show that what is truly at stake for Husserl is the nature of
philosophy itself.

1. Introduction: the Ur-Vater of Philosophy

One could rephrase what was once brilliantly said of Lotze, and exclaim that Edmund
Husserl is the most pillaged philosopher of the twentieth century: few thinkers have
been so pillaged; few thinkers have had their philosophical corpus so dismembered and
its shreds used in ways that widely depart from their original context. Just as in The
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp by Rembrandt, one could picture Husserl’s phenomenology
laid down on the anatomy desk of the history of philosophy, encircled by solemn-faced
scholars busy deciding what of his thought is living and what is dead. One aspect, in par-
ticular, would surely receive the death sentence of scholarship: his conception of philos-
ophy and, intertwined with it, that of the history of philosophy.1 These two together
are the only elements of his otherwise widely influential philosophy that do not seem to
have survived Husserl’s physical death in 1938.
That a tight relation obtains that ties together the two (philosophy and history of phil-
osophy) is hard to deny; not only in the quite naïve sense according to which one’s

CONTACT Daniele De Santis daniele.desantis@ff.cuni.cz

*This paper is part or a larger research project on Husserl’s interpretation of the figures of the history of philosophy, includ-
ing Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Spinoza, etc., and revolving around the many configurations of the dichotomy Vernünftig-
keit-Rationalität. So far, it includes “The Practical Reformer. On Husserl’s Socrates” and also “‘Das Wunder hier ist die
Rationalität.’ Remarks on Husserl on Kant’s Einbildungskraft and The Idea of Transcendental Philosophy (With a Note on
Kurd Laßwitz)’” (both published in 2019).
1
We are referring to Hussel’s conception of “first philosophy” and the interpretation of the history of philosophy that he
developed based upon it.
© 2020 The British Society for Phenomenology
2 D. De SANTIS

conception of philosophy necessarily shapes and even determines a relevant understand-

ing of the history of philosophy. There is a more profound linkage between them, which
could be presented in the following words: One’s conception of what philosophy is all
about, its very nature and innermost character, intertwines with one’s interpretation of
the birth of philosophy, of why, when and precisely thanks to which figures what we
still label, by resorting to the Greek term, φιλοσοφία, made its first appearance on that
stage that goes by the name of “world”.
The present paper’s aim is to explore this more profound connection between philos-
ophy and history of philosophy, notably, its origin, in the thought of Husserl, with a special
focus upon his books, lectures and manuscripts from the 1920s and 1930s — these being
the years in which Husserl feels the urgent need not only for a philosophic-historical legit-
imization of his speculation, but first and foremost for a critical elucidation of the nature of
philosophy, of which his phenomenology would represent the ultimate realization. Hence,
Husserl’s urge to trace back the origin(s) of philosophy.
Now, if the question was when and through the speculation of which thinker(s) one
could start speaking of philosophy strictu sensu, Husserl’s answer would sound pretty
straightforward:
Only in a loose sense do we still call sciences the philosophies of the pre-Platonic period, or
similar cultural formations of other peoples and times. Only as preliminary forms and as pre-
liminary stages to science, do we accept them. Science in a new sense arises in the first place
from the Platonic foundation of logic (Hua XVII, 5/1).2

It should be immediately clear to what extent the study of Husserl’s Plato will be for us of
crucial importance: the investigation of when and why “science in a new sense arises” with
Plato will help us clarify the nature itself of philosophy according to Husserl.
However, it is not difficult to imagine all the indignant reactions that a bold statement
such as the one just recalled may cause, especially on the part of those who would lay claim
to the crucial role of the pre-Socratic philosophies,3 or, more generally, to the ex Oriente
lux-sort of principle.4 Preliminary forms and preliminary stages (Vor-Formen Vor-Stufen):
such are the two expressions that would never escape the critical aim of the (politically
correct) scholar.
However, and without getting into any detailed discussion of this latter issue, a series of
remarks can be made to shed some light on Husserl’s statement.
Husserl does not deny that we can talk of philosophy in reference to whatever comes
before Plato and to other cultures (whether temporally or spatially distant). The distinc-
tion here is not the one between pre-philosophy or non-philosophy, on the one hand, and
philosophy on the other hand. The distinction is between philosophy in general and a phil-
osophy that alone deserves to be labelled science. Moreover, the turn of phrase “the phil-
osophies of the pre-Platonic period” entails that also Socrates (as a pre-Platonic thinker)
belongs to the history of philosophy prior to its becoming a science. However, the situation
is not as easy as one might first think. For the relation that binds the master and the pupil
is so tight that Husserl quite often writes “Socrates-Plato” (Hua VIII, 8/211–212; Hua

2
For the full list of the Husserliana volumes and the translations quoted in the present article, see the bibliography at the
end of the paper.
3
See A. Lasks and C. Louguet, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie présocratique?; M. Sassi, Gli inizi della filosofia.
4
See F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy; M. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient.
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 3

XXXV, 52), as if they were just one and the same thinker: hence, the question is to under-
stand what both binds and separates Socrates and the founder of the Academy. The answer
to the latter issue is in nuce already contained in the excerpt above: it is Plato’s founding of
logic.
Now, in order to clarify what all this means, a crucial “methodological” distinction
needs to be introduced upon which Husserl often relies, but which is nevertheless system-
atically addressed only in §56 of Krisis (Hua VI, 194/191): the distinction between
“initiators” (Urheber) and “great philosophers” (große Philosophen). “Great” are in fact
those philosophers that continue to have their “effects” in “all the subsequent historical
periods,” thereby “exerting” a long-standing “influence” in virtue of such and such an
aspect of their doctrine. Yet, this is not sufficient warrant to speak of “initiators,” for
initiators are the “representatives” of “developments, which have a unified sense (Einheits-
sinn) because of their work.” In sum, an initiator is a philosopher who yields a motif
(Motiv) that gives “unity to a historical sequence and possibly concludes one line of devel-
opment, namely, a motif that works as a driving force and sets a task that must be
fulfilled.”
What makes philosophers great is their doctrine, and the influence that such doctrines
can exert on the following generations; what makes philosophers initiators is their ability
to open up a new line of sense, a line of development that—the plurality, irreducibility and
heterogeneity of the doctrines notwithstanding—bestows unity onto a “historical
sequence.”
Accordingly, and to come back to our main topic, what is in question here is not
Plato as a “great philosopher,” but Plato as an “initiator.” Here Husserl is not inter-
ested in exploring such and such an aspect of Plato’s speculation (be it the theory of
forms, the ἀνάμνησις-doctrine, his specific view of the ψυχή, the ἄγραφα δόγματα
issue, and so forth5), but the motif which he originally delivered: that of philosophy
as science, as ἐπιστήμη in the strongest sense possible (hereafter: ΦΕ). If “initiators”
are usually called by Husserl “trailblazers,” “beginners” (Anfänger) (Hua VII, 7–8, 74/
7–8, 76; Hua XXV, 365), and “pioneers” (Hua XXXV, 54; Hua-Mat IX, 25), Plato is
the only one to be called “father” (Hua VII, 12/12; Hua XXXV, 53) or “original
father” (Urvater) (Hua-Mat IX: 28). Such is the case because Plato’s motif does not
simply inaugurate a new line of sense among others, a new line of development
that overcomes a previous line, and which eventually will in turn be surmounted
by an another one. Plato delivers the one and only ideal (Ideal) of philosophy (see
Hua VIII, 324): thus, philosophy is or should be for Husserl Platonic through and
through.
In order to investigate the latter issue, what follows will be divided into three parts:

. A first section will be dedicated to a brief exposition of how Husserl understands the
history of philosophy from the beginning until before Socrates;
. A second section will be on the transition from Socrates to Plato;
. The last section will tackle ΦΕ.
5
“auf den konkreten Gehalt seiner Philosophie darf ich nicht eingehen” (Hua-Mat IX, 28). As we will see, Husserl de facto
takes into account a specific content of Plato’s philosophy (dialectics), but only in order to show that this is the content
out of which the “ideal” of philosophy was born.
4 D. De SANTIS

2. A Narrow Concept of Philosophy

At the very beginning (with Thales)—Husserl would say—what we have, in a very broad
sense, is only “a pure striving towards the truth” (ein reines Wahrheitstreben) (Hua-Mat
IX, 7), which is supported and driven by no other reason than “the pure pleasure of pos-
sessing or holding the truth” (am Besitz der Wahrheit). Such a purely theoretical attitude
and interest gives birth to what Husserl calls “a narrow or restricted concept of philos-
ophy” (ein begrenzter Begriff von Philosophie) (Hua-Mat IX, 8): a concept to be further
characterized as “cosmology,” or “as a descriptive and clarifying science of the entire uni-
verse of being” (Hua-Mat IX, 9).
This being preliminarily admitted, three further traits of such an initial idea of philos-
ophy (“narrow concept of philosophy” or NCP) need to be spelled out.
(NCP.1): What is sought for is the “principle” of “unity and order” (Prinzip der Einheit
und Ordnung) able to account for the “unity of being” (Hua-Mat IX, 191).
(NCP.2): As a consequence of NCP.1, the theoretical interest never develops or specializes
into a multiplicity of branches, “regions” or “sub-domains,” nor does philosophy
ever branch out into many different special sciences (Hua-Mat IX, 9).
(NCP.3): As a consequence of both NCP.1 and NCP.2, there quickly arises “a plurality of
mutually conflicting philosophies” that are in fact all-encompassing “yet very
poor as regards content”6 (Hua-Mat IX, 11).

The beginning of philosophy is thus characterized by a plurality of philosophies laying

claim to a plurality of different, and conflicting “principles” meant to account for the
“unity of being” in ways that are mutually exclusive (for each one of them claims to
clarify and explain the totality of being as such). The more principles, the more philos-
ophies (and vice versa).
Husserl’s examples all seem to be quite clear and to perfectly match the description just
provided. It is Pythagoras’s claim that everything in the world is “number,” and “the
essence of number is order, harmony;” the Heracliteian Ἀνάγκη as “the order of the
λόγος that rules all over the world” in its never-ending becoming (Hua-Mat IX, 11 or
190). It is Xenophanes’ ἕν και πᾶν, “the doctrine of the divinity that rules all over the
world;” and Anaxagoras’ νοῦς as the spiritual principle of the rational “order” and consti-
tution of the world (Hua-Mat IX, 191-192). Now, even if with Anaxagoras and Empedo-
cles a first distinction between the material and the psychical obtains (Hua-Mat IX, 192)—
albeit not an essential one—the main characteristic of NCP is yet to be overcome.
The incipient Greek science or philosophy (for the two are still undistinguished) focuses on
the universe by an unlimited activity of the gnoseological impulse: hence, it is cosmology.
Nevertheless, it could not reach the level of a rigorous and ultimately justified or grounded
science. At first it is caught up with premature, un-developed and vague universalities. What
arises in rapid succession is hence a series of philosophies that contradict one another, and
are not logically binding. (Hua-Mat IX, 13)

Philosophy was not born great, one could say with Husserl.7 This is the case, he remarks,
because it failed to develop in a consistent and critical way (nicht kontinuierlich weiter im
Sinne einer stetigen kritischen Besserung). In short, what we are confronted with at the very
6
“Nicht eine Philosophie, sondern eine Vielheit < von > miteinander streitenden Philosophien erwachsen in rascher Folge
und dabei von Philosophien, die zwar weltumspannend, aber inhaltlich sehr arm sind.”
7
In opposition to E. Severino, La filosofia antica, 17–19.
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 5

beginning of philosophy is a bellum principiorum contra principia, and the reasons for
such situation can be listed as follows:

(NCP.A): The “great geniuses” who inaugurated the development of human philosophy
and science had no “logical” method or tools at their disposal. (keine logische
Kunst)
(NCP.B): Their investigations were simply “unmethodical and uncritical.”
(NCP.C): The “universalities” they arrived at were “vague”. (Hua-Mat IX, 19)

This being pointed out, it should be clear by now why Husserl speaks of a “narrow” or
“restricted” concept of philosophy. In a few, yet blunt words, such “narrowness” derives
from:

. Their being “methodologically” unfounded (NCP.B), both logically (NCP.A) and

. As regards the many domains of being that compose the totality (NCP.1 + NCP.2);
. As well as from their being poor (NCP.3) because of the vague universality of the prin-
ciples they propose (NCP.C).

Enter sophistês. There is no better way to describe the function of Protagoras and
Gorgias vis-à-vis NCP than to say that they bring to the fore the “skepticism” implied
by “the new philosophies.” Indeed, and as Husserl frames it, what men like Protagoras
and Gorgias did was to diabolically play off against such philosophies their own under-
lying and implicit “contradictions” (die Widersprüche in und zwischen den neuen Philoso-
phien gegen diese ausspielen) (Hua-Mat IX, 12).
Based on the conflicting character of the “principles” proposed by the philosophers,
hence of the mutually exclusive nature of their philosophies, the sophists surmise that:
“Everything and anything can be demonstrated, and everything and anything can be
rejected” (Hua XXV, 126). In sum, and as far as we understand Husserl on this matter,
if the sophists aim at denying the possibility itself of philosophy, it is only because such
an impossibility already inhabits the nature of these philosophies themselves (“die Wide-
rsprüche in und zwischen den neuen Philosophien gegen diese ausspielen”) (NCP.3). Let
us elaborate on this latter point.
Already in his 1903 lectures on theory of knowledge Husserl defines the notion of
“skepsis” as the situation in which reason enters in contradiction with itself (in Widerstreit
mit sich selbst) (Hua-Mat III: 85). As a consequence, it could be argued that: if skepticism is
in general designated as reason’s being in contradiction with itself, and if NCP is in turn
characterized by a plurality of conflicting philosophies due to the plurality of mutually
exclusive (and contra-dictory) principles supposed to account for “the unity of being,”
then it follows that the situation in which NCP finds itself is to be deemed inherently
“skeptical.”
This is the reason why Husserl can maintain that “the great historical significance” of
the sophistic skepticism consists in the change of attitude towards a new dimension, that of
the critique of reason (Vernunftkritik) (Hua-Mat IX, 12). It is no accident that Husserl
speaks exclusively of direction and change of attitude: “These theories were epoch-
making in that by means of effective skeptical arguments they forced philosophers to
focus on the radical difficulties entailed in the essence of all knowledge” (Hua-Mat IX,
12–13).
6 D. De SANTIS

Now, if, since the beginning of philosophy, “reason” as Vernunft is what designates the
correlation between truth and being as what truly is (ὄντως ὄν8) (Hua VI, 10–11/13), then
it should be clear why Husserl holds: (i) pre-Sophistic philosophies to be skeptical in a
sense to be better clarified, and (ii) why the sophists eventually prompt philosophy to
embark on a critique of reason.

(i) They are skeptical in that reason itself is in a skeptical and self-contradictory situation:
for, if it were able to reach the ὄντως ὄν, it could not be the case that so many different
philosophies arise, each of which proposes a different exclusive principle of the unity
and totality of being.
(ii) Accordingly, by posing the question as to the possibility of attaining knowledge of the
world (Hua-Mat IX, 15), the sophists make perceptible and visible (fühlbar machte)
for the first time the difficulties involved in the “consciousness-being” relation (Hua-
Mat IX, 12).

As will soon become apparent, Husserl provides the diagnosis just sketched based
on what can be characterized as Plato’s great achievement, namely, the demonstration
that reason is actually able to apprehend what really is. In sum, it is from the angle of
the already accomplished Platonic “reform” that Husserl can retrospectively describe
the situation in which pre-Sophistic philosophy ends up as “skeptical,” and thus
characterize the new direction imposed by the sophists as “the direction of the
theory of reason.”
For, if, Platonically speaking, reason is in a position to set the “correlation” between
truth and the ὄντως ὄν, then it cannot be the case that there exists a plurality of
(mutually exclusive) principles of the unity of being, with each one of these principles
claiming to be the one and only principle of the unity and totality of being (NCP.1 +
NCP.2). If, by contrast, a plurality of conflicting principles of the unity of being is pro-
posed, then it means that reason is not yet in a position to properly fix that correlation:
hence, the self-contra-dictory situation in which it finds itself.9 In this specific respect,
the contribution of the sophists consists in (indirectly) raising the question as to the
relation between consciousness and being by (directly) bringing to light the contra-
dictory character of those various and mutually conflicting philosophies.10 With the
sophists, what was held to be true in itself turns out to be a mere “deceptive illusion”
(Hua VII, 8).

8
Husserl resorts to the Platonic expression ὄντως ὄν to simply designate the overall correlate of reason. In short, reason is
understood by Husserl as the ability to properly grasp beings according to their specific mode of being and existence.
9
It might be assumed that a reference is here implicit to the following passage from Sophist: “Theaetetus: Express your
meaning more clearly. Stranger: It seems to me that Parmenides and all who ever undertook a critical definition (διορ-
ίσασθαι) of the number and nature of beings (τὰ ὄντα) have talked to us rather carelessly. Theaetetus: How so? Stranger:
Every one of them seems to tell us a story (μυ̃θόν τινα ἕκαστος φαίνεταί), as if we were children. One says there are three
beings (τρία τὰ ὂντα), that some of them are sometimes waging a sort of war with each other, and sometimes become
friends and marry and have children and bring them up; and another says there are two, wet and dry or hot and cold,
which he settles together and unites in marriage. And the Eleatic sect in our region, beginning with Xenophanes and
even earlier, have their story (τοι ̃ς μυθ̀ οις) that everything (τω̃ ν πάντων), as they are called, is really one. Then some
Ionian and later some Sicilian Muses reflected that it was safest to combine the two tales and to say that being is
many and one (τό ὂν πολλά τε και ̀ ἕν ɛ̀στιν), and is (or are) held together by enmity and friendship” (242C-E).
10
In sum, with the sophists “reason” becomes aware of the self-contradictory situation in which it has fallen.
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 7

3. Socrates’ Practical Reform

As Husserl repeatedly explains, Socrates represents a “reaction” against the sophists and
accomplishes a first “reform” of philosophy (Hua VI, 280/302–303; Hua VII, 9; Hua
XXV, 52–53; Hua-Mat IX, 22). On Husserl’s view, however, Socrates is nothing but a prac-
tical reformer (“As is known, he reacted against the skepsis only as a practical reformer”
(Hua VII, 9)): practical meaning here that Socrates accomplishes the reform not by means
of a doctrine but primarily through his practice, and his effectiveness is of a “purely prac-
tical nature” (Hua-Mat IX, 25).11
This being recognized, an ambiguity bearing on Husserl’s Socrates should be under-
lined. On the one hand, Socrates is understood in relation to the sophists, not only per
viam oppositionis because of his reaction to them, but also because he belongs to the
same philosophical period (Hua VII, 8), i.e. that of the theory of reason first inaugurated
by Protagoras (Hua-Mat IX, 20). On the other hand, Socrates and Plato are so tied together
that Husserl often speaks of Socrates-Plato (Hua VII, 8; Hua XXXV, 52), as if the achieve-
ment of the former’s “practical reform” could be made fruitful only thanks to the latter’s
“theoretical reform” (Hua-Mat IX, 103). As far as we understand Husserl here, only by
virtue of the combination of the two reforms (practical reform + theoretical reform) —
or, better, only by way of understanding the former in light of the latter — can one prop-
erly speak of “the beginning of a proper and radical philosophy” (Hua VII, 8).
In what, then, do Socrates’ reaction and reform consist?
He is to be credited with three main innovations. (A) Socrates is the first who acknowl-
edges “the necessity of a universal method of reason” (Hua VII, 206); (B) He is also the first
one who sets up the ideal of a rational life rooted in an intuition-based form of knowledge
(Hua VII, 206; Hua-Mat IX, 26); (C) He recognizes for the first time “the fundamental
opposition of all waking and personal life: the one between unclear intention and evi-
dence” (Hua VII, 206; Hua-Mat IX, 27).
Accordingly, Husserl can broadly describe Socrates’ “method” as a “return to the evi-
dence” by making clear to oneself the fields of pure possibilities based upon a system of
free modifications that uphold the identity of sense, namely, “the identity of the object
as a substrate of determination, and makes it possible to intuit this identity” (Hua VI,
280/302). Socrates exercises a critical method that consists in the return to the “evidence”
of what is given. Such is the meaning of Socrates being only a “practical reformer:” his
method amounts to clarifying the identity of sense of the object as a substrate of determi-
nations, only upon whose basis all “the essential possibilities and essential impossibilities”
can eventually be fixed. In so doing, Socrates “restored the trust in reason and in its ability
to intuitively reach an objective truth.” Thanks to his practice of “returning to the evi-
dence,” reason was not anymore deemed the “philosopher’s pretentious” and “higher
faculty” of knowledge, whose authority could be considered questionable due to the
many controversies among philosophers (Hua-Mat IX, 34; and also 38).
It will only be with Plato, however, that Socrates’ practice of method will be replaced by
a science of method, in such a way that the practical reformer will make way for the theor-
etical reformer.

11
See the recent systematic analyses by D. De Santis, “The Practical Reformer.”
8 D. De SANTIS

Enter Plato. When it comes to Plato’s relation to Socrates (hereafter: S-P), Husserl
speaks of both “overcoming” and “application.” Indeed, Plato is seen as overcoming this
or that limitation that affects Socrates’ position by applying or extending his insight over
to such and such a new domain or problems.
(S-P.1): If Socrates recognizes “the necessity of a universal method of reason” as a practice
to adopt, Plato improves “Socrates’ impulse” by looking at the method itself as a
problem (Hua XXXV, 313; also Hua VII, 7-8/7-8; and Hua-Mat IX, 29).
(S-P.2): Plato applies or extends Socrates’ “ideal” of an evidence-based conduct of life (A)
to science and knowledge in general. For, in perfect compliance with Socrates, the
early Plato (zunächst) realizes that knowledge, too, is part of life (ein Zweig des
Lebens), namely, a practice or activity: the scientific activity is itself a Tun,
hence is to be based on the same form of life (Hua VII, 11/11-12; Hua VIII,
323; Hua XXXV, 52; Hua-Mat IX, 30-31).
(S-P.3): Plato overcomes Socrates’ limitation in that the ideas themselves become the object
of scientific investigation (Hua-Mat IX, 42).
(S-P.4): Plato overcomes Socrates’ limitation in that the Echtheiten recognized by the
former are now taken to belong to a true and self-sufficient “sphere of being,”
and are called “ideas” (“ἰδέα, εἶδος are their names”) (Hua-Mat IX, 39, 42).

Plato can hence be deemed a theoretical reformer in two distinct senses. In the first place,
because he recognizes the method itself as a philosophical problem (i.e. the method is no
longer simply a practice but something to reflect upon (S-P.1)); and also because the ideas
become the object of philosophical speculation (S-P.3 + S-P.4). As a consequence, Plato is a
theoretical reformer in that he switches from a practical to a theoretical attitude vis-à-vis
both the method and the ideas.
However, Plato can be called a theoretical reformer also because he “extends” Socrates’
“ideal” of a reason or evidence-based conduct of life to what we may identify as the theor-
etical or scientific practice (S-P.2). In this sense, Plato should be better called a theoretically
practical reformer, who recognizes theory and science as a practice in the Socratic sense (the
“theoretical reason” being a form of the practical one (Hua VIII, 9/211-212)), therefore as
something to be guided by the same (Socratic) ideal (Hua VII, 9/9).
Now, if we combine these two aspects, then what we obtain is the following picture.
Plato first recognizes that knowledge is as a form of practice, namely, a scientific practice
or activity that is to be guided by the (Socratic) “ideal” of an evidence-based form of
life (Lebensform, as Husserl writes in Hua XXXV, 52). However, Plato does not simply
confine himself to practicing and exercising this activity; rather, he tackles the question
of the possibility of knowledge by assuming the method as the actual object of philosophi-
cal speculation. Hence, Husserl can conclude, Socrates’ “practical dialectic becomes the
Platonic dialectic as a science, namely, as a science of method, a science of ideas as the
eternally valid norms for all rational knowledge” (Hua-Mat IX, 33).

4. Plato’s Theoretical Reform

Husserl concisely presents the significance of Plato’s “reform” at the very beginning of
Formal and Transcendental Logic. He first remarks that science in the Platonic sense of
the term is “no longer a merely naïve activity based on a purely theoretical interest
(…), but a science consciously justifying its method and theory by means of norms”
(Hua XVII, 5/1). He then writes:
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 9

Plato’s logic arose from the reaction against the universal denial of science by sophistic skep-
ticism. If the skepsis denied the de jure (prinzipielle) possibility of any such thing as “philos-
ophy,” as science in general, then Plato had to weigh and establish by criticism precisely the
de jure possibility of it. (…) Thus Plato was set on the path to the pure idea. (…) his dialectics
(in our words: his logic or his doctrine of science) was called on to make science of matters of
fact possible for the first time and to guide its practice. And precisely in fulfilling this vocation
the Platonic dialectics actually helped create sciences in the pregnant sense, sciences that were
consciously sustained by the idea of logical science and sought to realize it so far as possible.
(Hua XVII, 5-6/1-2)

Unlike Socrates’ reaction, which consisted in showing that philosophy is de facto possible
as a “practice” to be carried out, Plato’s reaction seeks to establish its de jure possibility,
which can be successfully achieved by means of the διαλεκτική as a “doctrine of science.”
It is crucial to emphasize that Plato’s reaction does not prima facie bear on philosophy
or science per se, but on its conditions of possibility, namely, logic or dialectics. In other
words, Plato’s effort is directed towards the foundation of logic, upon whose basis alone ΦΕ
can be built. For Husserl, as we have already announced, Plato’s concern consists in the
foundation of a “science of method,” namely, dialectics, able to yield “the eternally valid
norms for all rational knowledge.” The latter, as Husserl would also affirm, carries
within itself the ideal of “philosophy as a science.” Or, to put it the other way round: in
order for philosophy to leave skepticism behind and become a science (ΦΕ), some “eter-
nally valid norms for all rational knowledge” are required. To this end, the διαλεκτική is
introduced as the science of ideas. Husserl can thus describe Plato both as the father of ΦΕ,
and the creator or author of the science of method (Hua VII, 7-8/7-8; Hua VIII, 313; Hua
XXXV, 53).
It might be argued that whereas by the expression Plato’s reaction Husserl intends to lay
emphasis upon his foundation of the science of method (dialectics), by means of which
Plato reacts against the skepsis; when he speaks of Plato’s reform he means to point to
the new ideal of philosophy implied by the former (ΦΕ). In contrast to Socrates, Plato’s
reaction consists in turning the method into the subject-matter of speculation; in contrast
to NCP, philosophy is no longer held as a mere theoretical interest, but as a science that
proceeds by “justifying” its mode of working. However, in compliance with both NCP and
Socrates, philosophy is still understood as an activity, yet not a naïve one.
This being preliminarily introduced, the following sub-questions need to be assessed:

(i) How does Husserl characterize the διαλεκτική? (4.1)

(ii) How is such science of method itself possible? (4.2)
(iii) What are the consequences of it? (4.3)

4.1. What is Plato’s Dialectics?

As Husserl bluntly frames it, this methodology or science of method is “the first historical
attempt at a universal doctrine of science, a doctrine relating to the essential conditions for
any possible science whatsoever” (Hua XVII, 12/8). As Erste Philosophie also explains:
“Plato is the creator of the philosophical problem and of the science of method, that is
to say, the method of systematically realizing the supreme end-idea of ‘philosophy’
implied in the essence of knowledge” (Hua VII, 12–13/12–13). Husserl is not interested
10 D. De SANTIS

in discussing how Plato presents and describes “dialectics” in his dialogues as an art of
“combination” in the sense of κοινωνία, μέθεξις, μεῖζις;12 rather, his interest bears upon
the overall significance of dialectics as that by means of which the theoretical reform is
accomplished—thereby fully realizing the reform initiated by Socrates, albeit only practi-
cally. On Husserl’s view, Plato’s dialectics has two tasks: that of “obtaining pure and rig-
orous concepts;” that of working out the “formal conditions of possibility” for all
objectively valid statements (Hua-Mat IX, 31).
If all scientific knowledge results in “systematic connections of theoretical statements,”
then what is primarily required (erstgefordete) is a doctrine of science:
This science should regard the modes of experience de jure prescribed by the essence of intui-
tive knowledge; it should investigate in absolute (prinzipieller) generality the universal norms
for all methods, whose violation entails also the violation of the possibility of an intuition-
based (einsichtiger) validity, which in turn results not in truth but necessarily in falsity. In
particular, such doctrine of science should also concern the forms of the contents that, as
meanings, inhabit the acts of predicative knowledge, that is, those immanent formations
(…) which we call “concepts,” “propositions,” “inferences,” “demonstrations” (Hua-Mat
IX, 32).

If for Plato knowledge is an “activity,” and should hence be “guided” by the Socratic “ideal”
of an evidence-based conduct of life (S-P.2), then it is clear why “dialectics” (understood as
a science of method) should lay out its conditions of possibility by clarifying the ideal
forms of its contents, that is to say, “pure concepts” and the kinds of “connection”
(read: συμπλοκή) in which the latter can or cannot stand to one other (in Husserl’s
language: propositions, inferences, demonstrations). This is why Husserl can in general
characterize “logic” (here, Plato’s dialectics) as “the self-explication of reason (Vernunft)
itself; or, ideally said, the science in which pure theoretical reason accomplishes a complete
self-reflection” (Hua XVII, 34/30).
What we have here is no longer a Socratic method that practically restores the trust in
the activity of reason and in its ability to intuitively reach an objective truth. “Trust” is no
longer enough. With Plato, Husserl would say, reason reflects for the first time on itself
and theoretically makes thematic the very same method that used to be only “exercised,”
yet not reflected upon. This is what Husserl means by “complete self-reflection:” by reflect-
ing on itself, reason identifies and spells out all those conditions of possibility thanks to
which it can now proceed by constantly justifying itself.
In so doing, reason does not simply confine itself to practically showing its ability to
reach what “truly is” (as was the case with Socrates), but theoretically works out the
norms, whose application and respect allows reason to claim that it is indeed in a position
to grasp the ὄντως ὄν. The trust in the activity of reason (Socrates) makes way for the self-
justified activity of reason (Plato).
We are now in a position to better appreciate why Husserl writes “Socrates-Plato,” as if
they were just one and the same thinker accomplishing just one and the same overall
“reform” of philosophy.
Indeed, if without the practical reform of the gadfly of the Athenian people reason
would never be deemed to be able to reach out to what really is, without the theoretical
reform of the founder of the Academy reason would not be capable of actually justifying

12
N. Notomi, “Dialectics as Ars Combinatoria,” 152.
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 11

its success, thereby also claiming that the latter is not something merely factual and acci-
dental, but a de jure success.13
One can assert that with Plato the pure ideas: authentic knowledge, authentic theory and
science and, embracing all of these, authentic philosophy make their way for the first time
into the consciousness of humanity. (…) Authentic knowledge, authentic truth (…), being
in the true and authentic sense (…): these become for him essential correlates. (Hua VII,
12-13/12-13)

Authentic knowledge—authentic truth—what truly is: such is the essential correlation that
reason can now establish once and for all. For, “the correlate of what is true in itself is
being in itself”—the latter as a substrate of true ontological determinations (Hua XXV,
130; Hua VIII, 322). In sum, by means of self-reflection, reason is now able to fix the essen-
tial forms or conditions of possibility of its own activity, of every judging rationally whose
ambition is precisely to get hold of the ὄντως ὄν.

4.2. How is Dialectics Possible?

If Husserl can define dialectics as “a science of ideas,” it is precisely because Plato moves
Socrates’ impulse to a superior level by acknowledging that the universalities the latter was
striving to clarify represent indeed a new type of objectuality (Gegenständlichkeit) which
he labels essences or ideas (Hua-Mat IX, 39).
Without getting into any detailed discussion of Husserl’s overall interpretation of the
so-called doctrine of ideas (Ideenlehre),14 we will limit ourselves to the following
remarks, with absolutely no ambition of offering a complete picture (this being a task
that goes beyond the goal of this article).
Plato—Husserl would go on to point out—recognizes that whenever we “judge” ration-
ally, we are dealing with a system of ideal laws characterizing a new domain of objectua-
lities. What follows is the widening of the notion of object, which henceforth will no longer
coincide with the concept of “real being” or “real objectuality:” “object” meaning thus
everything and anything that “can be truly determined by means of predicates” (Hua-
Mat IX, 43). Moreover, and as already asserted in S-P.3, Plato makes precisely such
“ideas” the very object of speculation (Thema seiner wissenschaftlichen Forschung)
(Hua-Mat IX, 48), and his dialectics was born in fact in the attempt at elucidating “the
idea of truth” (die Idee der Wahrheit) and its relation to the sphere of judgment, here
understood as the activity of theoretical reason: the ambition being to systematically
map out the totality of those normative laws that alone can make possible correct judg-
ments (Hua-Mat IX, 48–49).15

13
Based on Husserl’s account of the transition from Socrates to Plato, the difference between Greek and Indian thought
consists in that Buddha is a Socrates who nevertheless never gave birth to a corresponding Plato: “Has Indian thought
produced a science of being? Did it ever have that in view?” (E. Husserl, “Sokrates-Buddha,” 5).
14
Even if contemporary English-speaking scholarship on Plato tends to speak of “form” rather than “ideas,” we opt for the
latter instead in order to stay closer to Husserl’s terminology. Husserl speaks in fact of Ideen and Ideenwissenschaft.
15
Reference should be then made to the Sophist, where the question is tackled as to whether there exists false speech and
what its difference from true speech is (which for Husserl represents the condition of possibility of philosophy): “Our
object was to establish λόγον as one of our classes of being. For, if we were deprived of this, we should be deprived
of philosophy (φιλοσοφίας ἂν στερηθει ̃μεν), which would be the great calamity” (260A) (A. Havlíček, “Die Aufgabe
der Dialektik,” 174–75). For a research addressing the textual roots of Husserl’s reading of Plato, which is something
that goes beyond the scope of this paper, see the work by T. Arnold, Phänomenologie als Platonismus.
12 D. De SANTIS

Figure 1. Philosophy as a science.

What is of vital importance for Husserl is that ideas are primarily introduced by Plato in
order to make sense of the very possibility for reason to grasp what “truly is.” In other
words, Plato arrives at the discovery of such formations or “objectualities” that he labels
ἰδέα or εἶδος while trying to shed some light upon “the forms of the contents that, as
meanings, inhabit the acts of predicative knowledge,” as well as on the truths that
derive from them and without which knowledge in general would not even be possible
(Hua-Mat IX, 69). Hence, the invention of dialectics as a science of ideas, that is to say,
of pure concepts and their combinations in propositions, inferences, and demonstrations,
only on whose basis can one establish the eternally valid norms for all rational knowledge
(Vernunfterkenntnis).
With this recognized, and in perfect compliance with the distinction between logic as a
theoretical science and as a normative one (which Husserl originally propounded in the
Prolegomena to a Pure Logic), it is important to always keep in mind the distinction
between dialectics as a science of ideas and dialectics as a science of method or, better: as
a science of the method of reason. For, and even if Husserl seems to make no distinction
between the two, dialectics can be the science of the method of reason, thereby establishing
all the valid norms of its procedure, only and primarily because it is the science of ideas.
Now, it is in relation to the former, yet not to the latter, that Husserl can speak of “the
idea of logic as a τέχνη, a technique of thinking, a technique of knowledge,” in which
ideas take up a normative “function” (Hua-Mat IX, 61 and 65) (Figure 1).
We have finally arrived at ΦΕ. Indeed, henceforth “philosophy”—in the Platonic sense
—can be conceived as the science of logos in the most pregnant sense (Hua XVII, 22/18): it
is the “ideal” (Hua VIII, 324) that consists in “the production of a system of a universal and
absolutely justified truth” (Hua VII, 24/25–26). We can thus speak of the beginning of a
new era (Hua VII, 13/13), in which philosophy strives toward realizing itself as the
sum-total of all true knowledge, whose correlate is “the totality of what truly is” (Hua
XXXV, 53): what Husserl refers to by the Platonic expression ὄντως ὄν.
If we are on right track, what we are here confronted with is “the beginning of a new
era” within a new “philosophical era.” Husserl seems to distinguish between the philoso-
phical period inaugurated by Protagoras’s rupture (Hua VII, 8/8)—which opens up the
dimension of the “critique of reason”—and, within it, the beginning of a new era, the
one started by the Platonic “foundation of logic,” in which philosophy becomes ΦΕ. A dis-
tinction is thus to be made between pre-Sophistic philosophies and pre-Platonic ones: if the
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 13

Figure 2. The two-step conception of philosophy.

former phrase points to the lack of a need for any preliminary critique of reason, the latter
embraces any philosophy that has not yet become a science.

4.3. What are the Consequences?

With Plato’s dialectics, Husserl emphasizes, it becomes clear that philosophy is possible
only based on the fundamental preliminary investigation into the conditions of possibility
of philosophy itself (Hua VII: 13). “Herein lies,” he further adds, “the idea, so important
for the future, of a necessary foundation and division of philosophy into two stages, i.e.
into a ‘first’ and a ‘second’ philosophy.”
On the one hand, there arises the idea of a first philosophy construed as a “universal
methodology” that justifies itself absolutely; or, theoretically put: “a science of the pure
(a priori) principles of all possible knowledge.” In this way, Husserl also explains, “the
unity of all a priori sciences ever to be realized is circumscribed, and which is inseparably
bound together by the essential connections of all universal fundamental truths” (Hua VII,
14/14). On the other hand, there also appears the idea of a second philosophy, construed as
the totality of the sciences as to matters of fact that refer in all their “justification” back to
first philosophy and to the a priori system of any possible rational method whatsoever:
“these sciences derive through their constant application a universal rationality.” In so
doing,
these sciences take on (always ideally speaking) the unity of a rational system in accordance
with the known systematic unity of the supreme a priori principles themselves. They are the
disciplines of a ‘second philosophy,’ whose correlate and domain are the unity of factual
reality. (Hua VII, 14/14) (Figure 2)

5. Conclusion
The ambition of the present research was to clarify in what sense for Husserl Plato is to be
deemed the father or, better, the original father of the idea of philosophy as a “science.”16
As it soon turned out, Plato is called by Husserl the “father” of the ΦΕ-motif because of his
invention of dialectics as the science of method (which goes hand in hand with his
16
For an analysis of why Plato himself could not fully realize such an ideal, see C. Majolino, “The Infinite Academy,” 176.
14 D. De SANTIS

discovery of ideas), and whose task is to provide reason with the methodology necessary in
order to justify its own mode of procedure. From now on, Husserl further say, philosophy
will strive toward realizing itself not simply as a mere form of knowledge based upon a
purely theoretical interest, but primarily as a connected system of truths whose ultimate
“correlate” is the unity of all factual reality.

* * *
Let us then conclude by adding that in relation to the emergence of the ΦΕ-motif,
Husserl roughly distinguishes five different philosophical periods.

(A) The era of what we called bellum principiorum contra principia characterizing pre-
Sophistic philosophies (Philosophy seeks to establish the principle(s) of the unity
and totality of being prior to any analysis of the possibility itself of philosophy).
(B) The era inaugurated by Protagoras’s rupture, which imposes upon philosophy a new
direction, the direction of “the critique of reason” (The previous era is brought to an
end by the generalized skepticism that reveals the self-contra-dictory situation in
which reason has fallen into. Because of the controversies among philosophers,
reason is deemed to be nothing but a pretentious faculty).
(C) The “new philosophical era,” the one characterized by the first great reform of phil-
osophy, the theoretical reform accomplished by Plato on the basis of Socrates’ prac-
tical reform, who managed to restore the trust in the activity of reason: it is the
beginning of philosophy as a science (By means of self-reflection, reason is able to
establish the conditions of possibility of its theoretical activity. If reason puts itself
in a position to grasp the ὄντως ὄν, then philosophy can be conceived as the sum-
total of all true knowledge whose correlate is the totality of what truly is).
(D) What Husserl calls the era that follows Descartes and Galileo (Hua XVII, 7/2): “The
sciences made themselves independent,” and logic in the original Platonic sense “lost
its historical vocation,” for it itself becomes a “special science” (Hua XVII, 8/3).
(E) Finally, the “present situation” (Hua XVII, 9, 10/5, 6), in which science in general is
no longer understood as the “self-objectivation of reason,” nor does it aspire
anymore to be the ideal sum-total of true knowledge (Philosophy has abandoned
the Platonic ideal and hence lost its unity: there are “almost as many philosophies
as philosophers” (Hua XVII, 10/6)).

Such is the way in which the Platonic ideal has become a fable, and against which
Husserl strives to react. How such a situation should be described and understood is a
problem that goes beyond this paper, whose sole ambition was to elucidate why
Husserl calls Plato the father of philosophy.
Such further research would have to address the following questions: in what sense can
we still speak of φιλοσοφία if Plato’s idea of philosophy was not merely an idea among
others, but the one and only ideal of philosophy? What will happen to philosophy if this
line of development is to be considered fulfilled, or even exhausted? What is the difference
between the nature of philosophy proper to the plurality of philosophies prior to Plato’s
reform and the plurality that results from its end?
 JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY 15

Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to the anonymous reviewer for the comments and his/her help to improve the
present text.

Funding
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).

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