E D M U N D H U S S E R L

Critical A s s e s s m e n t s of L e a d i n g Philosophers

E d i t e d b y R u d o l f B e r n e t ,

D o n n W e l t o n a n d G i n a Z a v o t a

Volume V

Horizons: Life-world, Ethics, History, and Metaphysics

Routledge
R Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
 C O N T E N T S

First published 2005 VOLUME V HORIZONS: LIFE-WORLD, ETHICS,

by Routledge
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Editorial matter and selection © 2005 Rudolf Bernet, Donn Welton PART 10
and Gina Zavota; individual owners retain copyright in their own The Concept of the Life-world 1
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin 70 The lifeworld revisited: Husserl and some recent interpreters 3
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or DAVID CARR
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or 71 Husserl's concept of the world 19
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. RUDOLF BERNET
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
72 Heimwelt, Fremdwelt, die eine Welt 39
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A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN (M15-28956-4 (Set)
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PART 11
Publisher's Note
References within each chapter are as they appeared in the original Ethics and Community 59
complete work
73 Husserl's phenomenology of willing 61
ULLRICH MELLE

74 Moral objectivity: Husserl's sentiments of the understanding 80

JOHN J. DRUMMOND

75 Phenomenology, value theory, and nihilism 99

STEVEN CROWELL
 CONTENTS

76 Edmund Husserl: from reason to love 119

ULLRICH MELLE

77 Freedom, responsibility, and self-awareness in Husserl 140

TOM NENON A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

PART 12
Culture and the Problem of History 163

78 Die Phanomenologie als transzendentale Theorie der

Geschichte 165
Volume V
LUDWIG LANDGREBE
The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reprint
79 Husserl's Crisis and the problem of history 184 their material:
DAVID CARR Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint David Carr, "The
lifeworld revisited: Husserl and some recent interpreters", in William R.
80 "Faktum Geschichte" und die Grenzen phanomenologischer McKenna and J. N. Mohanty (eds), Husserl's Phenomenology: A
Geschichtsphilosophie 204 Textbook, Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenom-
KARL-HEINZ LEMBECK enology and University Press of America, 1989, pp. 291-308.
State University of New York Press for permission to reprint Rudolf
PART 13 Bernet, "Husserl's Concept of the World", in Arleen B. Dallery, Charles
Rationality and Metaphysics 217 E. Scott and P. Holley Roberts (eds), Crises in Continental Philosophy,
Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1990, pp. 3-21. © 1990
State University of New York. All rights reserved.
81 Husserl's concept of the "absolute" 219
RUDOLF BOEHM Karl Alber Verlag for permission to reprint Klaus Held, "Heimwelt,
Fremdwelt, die eine Welt", in Ernst Wolfgang Orth (ed.), Perspektiven
82 Entelechy in transcendental phenomenology: a sketch of the und Probleme der Husserlschen Phanomenologie, Phanomenologische
foundations of Husserlian metaphysics 246 Forschungen 24 (1991): 305-337.
JAMES G. HART Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint Ullrich Melle,
"Husserl's phenomenology of willing", in James G. Hart and Lester
Embree (eds), Phenomenology of Values and Valuing, Dordrecht: Kluwer,
1997, pp. 169-192. With kind permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint John J. Drum-
mond, "Moral objectivity: Husserl's sentiments of the understanding",
Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 165-183. With kind permission of Kluwer Acad-
emic Publishers.
Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint Steven Crowell,
"Phenomenology, value theory, and nihilism" (Kluwer, forthcoming).
Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint Ullrich Melle,

VI vn

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

"Edmund Husserl: from reason to love", in John J. Drummond and Lester

I Embree (eds), Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy, Dor-
drecht: Kluwer, 2002, pp. 229-248.
Noesis Press Ltd for permission to reprint Tom Nenon, "Freedom,
Part 10
responsibility, and self-awareness in Husserl", in Burt Hopkins and Steven
Crowell (eds), The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomeno-
logical Philosophy 2 (2002): 1-21.
T H E C O N C E P T O F T H E L I F E
Karl Alber Verlag for permission to reprint Ludwig Landgrebe, "Die
Phanomenologie als transzendentale Theorie der Geschichte", in Ernst
W O R L D
Wolfgang Orth (ed.), Phanomenologie und Praxis, Phdnomenologische
Forschungen 3 (1976): 17-47.
Southwestern Journal of Philosophy for permission to reprint David Carr,
"Husserl's Crisis and the Problem of History", Southwestern lournal of
Philosophy 5(3) (1974): 127-148.
Kluwer Academic Publishers for permission to reprint Karl-Heinz
Lembeck, "'Faktum Geschichte' und die Grenzen phanomenologischer
Geschichtsphilosophie", Husserl Studies 4 (1987): 209-224. With kind per-
mission of Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Noesis Press Ltd for permission to reprint Rudolf Boehm, "Husserl's
concept of the 'absolute'", trans. R. O. Elveton, in R. O. Elveton (ed.),
The Phenomenology of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings, Chicago:
Quadrangle Books, 1970, pp. 174-203.
Philosophy Documentation Center for permission to reprint James G.
Hart, "Entelechy in transcendental phenomenology: a sketch of the
foundations of Husserlian metaphysics", American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly 66(2) (1992): 189-212.

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The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright
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 70

T H E L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D

Husserl and some recent interpreters

David Carr

Source: David Carr "The lifeworld revisited: Husserl and some recent interpreters' in David
Carr, Interpreting Husserl: Critical and Comparative Studies, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1987, pp. 227-44.

The concept of the lifeworld was of central importance to the revived

interest in Husserl's thought during the 1950's and 1960's. In Europe this
revival was influenced jointly by the French existentialists and by the post-
war publication of Husserl's collected works. Maurice Merleau-Ponty had
referred at several points in his 1945 Phenomenology of Perception to the
unpublished portions of Husserl's last work, The Crisis of European Sci-
ences, in which the Lebenswelt figures prominentley, and those portions
were then published in 1954 in vol. VI of Husserliana. As existential
phenomenology attracted interest in North America in the 1960's,
Husserl's late work was seen as part of a trend that included Merleau's
concept of the monde vecu and Heidegger's emphasis in Being and Time
on being-in-the-world.
Inevitably the philosophical landscape has changed since then, and the
lifeworld has been somewhat lost from view. This shift is not without its
historical ironies. Continental European philosophy was contrasted in the
post-war period with a strong Anglo-American preoccupation with lan-
guage. But German and French philosophy has itself taken up language
since then, either literally or as a powerful metaphor for human thought
and experience. Hermeneutics sees human reality as a text to be inter-
preted, and structuralism and post-structuralism analyse everything in
terms of realms of discourse closed in upon themselves. Meanwhile Anglo-
American philosophers have for some time felt the constraints imposed by
taking language as the paradigm for thought, and in some quarters
Husserl's concept of intentionality is being proposed as a mentalistic solu-
tion to the problem of linguistic meaning.
In my view something important has been lost in these developments,
something valuable that Husserl contributed precisely in his concept of the
lifeworld. And by overlooking this contribution some of those who now
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
focus their attention on Husserl are not fully understanding this thought.
By returning to the concept of the lifeworld in this essay I hope to rectify
in some measure this oversight.
What has been overlooked can be characterized in a preliminary and
very general way as follows: Those who focus on language as discourse
tend to dissolve the world into language or equate it with a series of con-
ceptual projections, forgetting or denying that language refers beyond
itself. Those who concentrate narrowly on Husserl's theory of meaning,
and in particular on the noema as the meaning of an expression or its cor-
responding mental act, rightly complain that the above view overlooks the
distinction between sense and reference; but in their interest in the rela-
tion between act, meaning and object meant they forget that the world as a
whole is co-intended (Husserl's term is mitgemeint) along with particular
objects of reference. In the absence of an exploration of how this co-
reference works, the world is sometimes simply posited in an uncritically
realist way, and indeed in a scientifically realist way, as if its status as a
whole were not at issue in phenomenology. Those who focus on language as
discourse at least recognize that language not only permits us to speak of
this and that, but commits us to a whole system of interconnected meanings.
* The conceptual picture we have presented here is not, by the way,
altogether unlike the one which Husserl faced when he wrote the Crisis,
and to which his notion of the lifeworld was meant to respond. Scientific
realism (Husserl calls it 'physicalistic objectivism') was the long legacy of
the modern period, and this is the primary object of Husserl's criticism in
the Crisis; but conceptual relativism and other forms of skepticism were,
his long-standing adversaries as well, and I shall try to show that the
concept of the lifeworld is no less addressed to them. Let us first place
Husserl's idea in the context of its own time before coming back to the
question of how it is relevant to ours.
I has taken over philosophy's function.4
The modern idea of a scientific realism has always contained elements of
paradox, and the paradoxes were growing more and more acute in the
early decades of this century. As physical theory penetrated ever further
into the inner workings of nature, its idea of what is real seemed to differ
more and more markedly from the world in which we find ourselves. The
directly felt and sensed qualities of the world around us were declared
mere appearances, while the reality which supposedly underlay them was
deemed inaccessible to our experience. As this all-encompassing view of
nature includes human beings as well, it seems to present us with a view of
our own nature that we can no longer recognize as ourselves. What
Husserl called the crisis of European science was not an internal crisis hut
an external one: the loss of its meaning for life.1 Since the Renaissance,
. THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
and perhaps since the birth of philosophy in Greece, we have lived in what
Husserl thought of as a scientific culture, that is, a culture which places in
our free, rational, theorizing activity its hopes for our ultimate understand-
ing of ourselves and our place in the universe. But instead of faciliting our
self-understanding science seems to have contributed to our estrangement
from our world and ourselves.
There is a social side to this development of which we are all aware.
The scientist's universe is not only removed from us but also incompre-
hensible to most of us. To those who do comprehend it, the professional
scientists, we cede our right to understanding; they become intermediaries,
like high priests, between us and the true nature of things, even the true
nature of ourselves. And like high priests, with access to the powers of the
universe, they can also direct those powers for our good or ill. The
abstractness of scientific theory can suddenly become very concrete when
its applications can both improve life and threaten our survival.
Husserl has no quarrel with scientists as such. We are all well advised to
follow them if we seek a sophisticated physical theory and if we desire the
technological advantages that result from it. Husserl's criticisms are
directed at philosophers. In the face of the growing discrepancy between
the scientific view and our ordinary sense of ourselves and our world, most
philosophers have simply followed the lead of science. But philosophers
ought not merely to follow but to understand and even evaluate what sci-
entists do, especially when it comes to attributing reality to their objects.
Husserl said that philosophers should be functionaries for mankind, 2 and
' part of what he meant is that they should mediate between the scientists
and the rest of us. But for many philosophers, what counts as real is what
is determined to exist by the latest criteria of physical theory. Reduced to
a mere hand-maiden or cheer-leader for science, philosophy has left the
articulation of man's concrete sense of his world to the novellist and poet.
This is how the novelist Milan Kundera views Husserl's notion of the
crisis.3 And the literary critic Harold Bloom seems to agree that literature
But Husserl believes philosophy can exercise its proper reflective and
critical function in relation to science in its own way. He reminds us that
scientific theory is after all a human activity within a cultural space, and
that this cultural space itself presupposes an everyday world of perceived
things and other people. The scientist lives in the same world as the rest of
us. As laymen we may think that his achievement is to devise instruments
like the microscope so that he can see this world better than we do. But his
real achievements are techniques not of seeing but of thought: the major
accomplishments of modern science are really very specialized ways of
thinking about and conceiving the physical world.
In putting the emphasis on the active and constructive character of the
scientific view of reality, Husserl so far follows the lead of Kant. But Kant
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
still regarded the scientifically constructed world as the best candidate for
knowable reality and thus concurred in the ontological devaluation of the
everyday or prescientific world. What Kant overlooked, according to
Husserl, is the actual context in which scientific thinking takes its point of
departure.
This context is not one of fleeting and subjective sense-data or impres-
sions buzzing about in the scientists's head prior to being fixed and objecti-
fied by the categories of scientific thought. The world of perception has a
nature of its own which, far from being confused and chaotic, is in fact
coherently structured in an intentional way. It is indeed a sense-world, and
its appearance to the perceiver is correlated structurally with the human
body which not only passively receives impressions but actively engages
itself in its surroundings.5 The perceived world as we experience it is corre-
lated with a flowing and synthetic 'bodily subjectivity'6 which remains
'anonymous' 7 in the sense that for the most part we do not notice it.
Husserl builds here on earlier investigations into what he calls 'passive
synthesis'. H e also proposes the title 'transcendental aesthetic', almost as a
reproach to Kant for so severely restricting his analysis of sensibility.
But far more important than this subjective analysis of perception is its
objective side. Husserl had always been a 'direct realist' in his treatment of
perception, and in the Crisis too he stresses that here we have direct
contact with a real world. Only by contrast to the rigorously mathematized-
and idealized scientific world is the perceived world 'subjectively relative'
and changeable.8 In their own domain the objects of perception are stable,
independent, and coherently distributed in the oriented space around our
bodies. Above all they are real, and are directly given (intuited) as such.
By contrast, what is posited as 'real' in the context of a sophisticated phys-
ical theory is what Husserl calls a 'logical constrution'. The entities so con-
structed are 'in principle not perceivable'. 9 The view which declares the
perceived world 'mere appearance' is itself a psychological variant of a
physical theory, in this case about how our experiences are caused. But the
proponent of this theory, like everyone else, lives in the full certainty of
the directly given reality of the world about him. The physical and neuro-
logical entities and events of his theory are objects of his thought; but he
does his thinking in the perceptually 'pregiven', full-bloodely real world of
things and persons.
As we have seen, Husserl is led to these considerations by the growing
discrepancy between the scientific concept of the real and our prescientific
sense of reality, and by the failure of philosophy to come to terms with
that discrepancy. Having introduced the concept of the lifeworld as a way
of reassessing the significance of science, Husserl now recognizes that the
lifeworld has much broader significance as a philosophical theme. Not only
the sciences but any and all conceptual thought and all human cultural
endeavor including philosophy itself arise within and in a certain sense
THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
presuppose the lifeworld. What had seemed a specialized problem for the
philosophy of science is now seen as a 'universal problem for the philo-
sophy' as such.10 This universal problem can be characterized generally as
that of the relation between thought and intuition, but the 'empty and
vague notion of intuition' 11 - the implied reference is again to Kant - is
now grasped as the problem of the life-world and its role in our
experience.
It may be thought that the concept of the lifeworld really represents
nothing new in Husserl's thought, even though the term assumes new
significance in this late work. And indeed we have seen that Husserl's real-
istic view of perception, and even the ideas of passive synthesis and of
bodily subjectivity, which are at the heart of his presentation of the life-
world in the Crisis, had been developed before. But as Husserl's
exposition unfolds it begins to take on features that distinguish it in more
than just emphasis from what has gone before.
One such feature is the prominence of the notion of Vorgegebenheit or
pregivenness. The section's title refers to the vorgegebene Lebenswelt, and
the lifeworld is almost always referred to in this way, sometimes as immer
schon vorgegeben - always already pregiven. It is likewise frequently said
to be 'presupposed' and 'taken for granted'.
'Pregiven', of course, means 'given before'. Before what? In keeping
with the focus on scientific realism with which the section begins Husserl
obviously means 'prior to science', and that in the sense we have already
outlined: people live in the real world of perception before they develop
sophisticated theories about it or the 'reality' which lies behind it and
causes its appearances, etc. Even after the development of such theories,
the real life of any individual is still played out in the perceptual world.
There is also historical sense to this 'before': 'as history teaches us, there
was not always in the world a civilization that lived habitually with long
established scientific interests. The life-world was always there before
science, then, just as it continues its manner of being in the epoch of
science'.12
But a stronger sense of pregivenness begins to emerges as Husserl dis-
cusses the 'most general structures of the lifeworld'.13 The latter is taken
for granted or presupposed in theoretical conscious activity, but it is also
presupposed in perception itself. In perception we are aware of particular
things and events, and we take them to be real. But this means merely that
we count them as belonging to a world to whose reality we are committed
beforehand. Particular real things are like so many aspects of the real
world that present themselves to us in turn, and yet the world is not itself a
large-scale thing or even the sum-total of all real things, considered as an
object. It is the horizon against which all things stand out and without
which they could not appear to us. As horizon, the lifeworld is unique and
unitary, it is not singular as opposed to plural, for 'the plural makes no
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
sense when applied to it'.14 Furthermore, full-blooded as it is, the 'reality'
of particular things is always to some degree provisional: the course of
future experience may place in question even our clearest perceptions. But
such revisions change only the details and in no way alter the 'ontic cer-
tainty of the world' as such.15 Our comittment to its reality is always linked
to our ongoing perceptual experience, to be sure, but does npt require any
particular inventory of objects.
Those familiar with Husserl's works will recognize that even this theme
is not new. In one of the best known passages of the Ideas, in which the
epoche is first introduced,16 it plays an important role. There too Husserl
stresses that in perception we are not merely confronted with this or that
but through them have a direct experience of the world. Just as objects
stand out from their background, so the particular perceptual acts in which
they are given repose upon an underlying 'attitude' or 'standpoint' (Ein-
stellung) which Husserl calls the 'natural' attitude. This is 'not a particular
act' but a fundamental belief in or committment to the world as such.17 It
is our conviction that in and through each and all of our particular percep-
tions we have direct experience not only of particular things but of the
world as their ultimate horizon.
But, as I have tried to show in detail elsewhere,18 this conception, after
its brief appearance, is eclipsed by another description of the world, which
is also developed in Ideas and which gains in importance in works like
Cartesian Meditations. Husserl is so preoccupied with the move from per-
ception to theoretical thought that he treats the objects of experience as if
their sole function in our experience is to be integrated into a scientific
theory. Not only does he suppose that the natural purpose of our con-
sciousness is to know them in the full theoretical sense; he even proposes
an idealized full theoretical knowledge of the totaUty of real objects and
then identifies this latter as the world. The provisional or presumptive
character of perceived objects is extended to the world as a whole, and
world is now described as 'an idea correlative to a perfect experiental evid-
ence'.19 Naturally, such perfect evidence is never forthcoming in our
experience and remains infinitely distant. The world in this sense is the
object of a concept that can never be fulfilled. This contrasts sharply with
the description of the world of the natural attitude in the Ideas. The dif-
ference is between the direct experience of the world, which we actually
have at every moment, and the idea of an experience, which in principle
we can never have. Instead of being given in experience the world is an
object of thought. It is to the former conception that Husserl returns in the
Crisis. It is not merely that he places emphasis on modes of experience
which are prior to scientific and other forms of theoretical interest. Husserl
had always acknowledged that such forms exist. But he had treated them
as in some way deficient and provisional for a consciousness whose
primary aim is to surpass them toward a full theoretical comprehension.
THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
Now he not only stresses the enveloping, pregiven character of the per-
ceived world and the pervasive and deep-lying character of our commit-
ment to it; he is also convinced that in a certain sense we never leave this
commitment behind, however sophisticated our thought about reality may
become. Furthermore, he recognizes that an adequate description of con-
sciousness in all its forms must not give exaggerated importance to one
form - the quest for theoretical comprehension of the real - over all
others.
A second feature which distinguishes the account of the perceived
world in the Crisis from earlier accounts is that this world is repeatedly
described as public or intersubjective: it is 'pre-given as existing for all in
common', 20 as ' 'the' world common to us all'21 'even what is straightfor-
wardly perceptual is communalized'. 22 There is considerable ambiguity on
this point in Husserl's earlier writings about perception. His direct realism
world seem to suggest that the object I perceive is given as the same object
you perceive. But this presupposes the availability to me of the concept
and the actual experience of others within my world. Yet in the Cartesian
Meditations, when Husserl finally gets around to a pubUshed discussion of
intersubjectivity, he introduces it only after the subject of perception and
its world have been introduced, and seems at times to suggest that we
acquire or develop the concept and the experience of others on the basis
of a fuU-fledged perceptual world given beforehand. Husserl speaks of the
'sphere of ownness' with its 'transcendent objects'23 as if these made up a
concrete and self-sufficient world which we then surpass toward the other.
Though it is possible to read the text in another way, such that the 'sphere
of owness' is a mere abstraction from the concrete (as Husserl indeed calls
it at one point),24 this difficult text is ambiguous to say the least. For
example, Husserl says that the ownness sphere stands in a relation of
Fundierung to the intersubjective world, which is to say that I cannot have
the latter without the former, but I can have the former without the
latter. 25 This directly contradicts the view that the ownness sphere is an
abstraction.
While it is not possible to say that the question of what is abstract and
what is concrete here is entirely cleared up in the Crisis, the order of
presentation, at least, is very different from that of the Cartesian Medita-
tions. The lifeworld is dealt with explicity as an intersubjective world and
described as being pre-supposed, with precisely this sense, in any and all
particular- experience. This is then found to include the problem, to be
sure, of how I as an individual experience the others and 'constitute' the
sense of their existence in my own consciousness. But the sense of the
whole section leaves no doubt that the full concreteness of the lifeworld,
including its public and intersubjective character, is pregiven in relation to
this particular type of experience just as much as it is for any other.
A third prominent feature of the Ufeworld can be seen as related to the
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
second. In addition to stressing its pregiven character and its common or
intersubjective status, Husserl attributes certain cultural objects and prop-
erties to the Ufeworld as well. We already know that the concreteness of
the lifeworld extends farther than the mere things given in bodily percep-
tion, since it also includes other persons. But persons come equipped with
their own experiences, and presumably their thoughts too. Husserl is from
the start concerned with the relation between science and the lifeworld,
and has made the point that scientists too live in and experience the world
as do the rest of us, whatever they may think about it in their theory. But
he goes on to include in the lifeworld not only the scientists but also 'the
sciences as cultural facts in this world with their . . . theories'.26 He is obvi-
ously impressing on us the difference between conceiving the world
through the scientists' theoretical concepts and encountering those con-
cepts themselves as ideas put forward by persons in the everyday world and
passed along to us in the classroom, in books, or by hearsay. We encounter
them as 'human formations, essentiaUy related to human actualities and
potentialities'27 and as such they have a reaUty which is integrated with the
reality of concrete things around us. Naturally, the first things we think of
when we hear of 'human formations' are artifacts, which are quite concrete
and particular objects of perception. And we encounter them not merely as
things with their spatio-temporal properties and relations to their surround 1
ings, but precisely as the artifacts they are. Their cultural meaning is given
along with their bodily status; we see them as houses and streets, tools and
ornaments, cars and other machines. As for the products of theoretical
activity, though they are accessible not through the senses but through the
medium of language, Husserl seems to be saying, these products have a
similar status within our world. Scientific theories are of course not the only
cultural products that have this status; there are also other and sometimes^
conflicting 'views' of the world we encounter as weU, such as religion and
philosophy. There are other products which have the status of ideas, such
as stories and poems, without being 'theories' or 'views'. Husserl doubtless
puts so much stress on scientific and other theories because he wants to
make clear the distinction between subscribing to such theories and Uving
in a world in which they count among its constituents.
In these three ways, then, the lifeworld of the Crisis is both deeper and
wilder than the perceptual world of earlier writings: deeper because of its
pregiven character, that is, because of the strength and pervasiveness of
our committment to its reality, whatever theoretical view we may take up
about 'reality' as defined by some theory; wider, because the world to
which we are thus committed is so much richer than the previous discus-
sions of perception would allow. It includes, as we have seen, not just
things but also persons; and persons not just as minds but as bearers of
experiences and thoughts; and it also contains the products of their activity
and even the content or sense of their experiences and thoughts.
10
THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
This is Husserl's new version of the 'natural standpoint' of conscious-
ness, of the world which is the inalienable correlate of that standpoint, and
of the nature of the relation between the two. And the development of this
new version has certain consequences for the exercise of the phenomeno-
logical method. If phenomenology is to understand consciousness in its
various theoretical and practical activities, and if it is to comprehend the
sense of the objects to which consciousness stands related in all its possible
modes, it must trace both to their origins in this original matrix, the
'natural state' of consciousness and the world. It is in this sense that
Husserl calls the analysis of the lifeworld a universal problem for philo-
sophy: it becomes the central theme of phenomenology itself.
II
I said earlier that Husserl's concept of the lifeworld had something valu-
able to contribute to today's philosophical climate, and I shall turn to that
now. It can be seen first of all as an antidote to some of the excesses of
continental philosophy as it has developed since Husserl's time. As indi-
cated before, I am thinking of the predominance of a certain conception
language as the exclusive key to understanding human existence and its
relation to the world. Gadamer's concept of Sprachlichkeif8 is very differ-
ent indeed from Foucault's notion of the episteme29 but they have this
much in common, that human existence and activity are conceived almost
exclusively as the use of and understanding of language. Indeed, this use
and understanding is in turn conceived largely on the model not of speak-
ing and hearing but of writing and reading texts. Perception is either
neglected altogether or viewed metaphorically as itself being a special
version of the deployment of the concepts of our language.
Against this view, Husserl reminds us of the conceretely and sensuously
given, indeed pregiven reality of the world around us. Merleau-Ponty, of
course, followed him in this, drawing on and enhancing Husserl's notion of
the living body as the anonymous subject of perception. One wonders if
the overemphasis on language is not merely the self-centeredness and
even elitism of philosophers and literary critics who spend their time
reading and writing, and project their bookish world onto everyone else.
Husserl was the first to conceive of perception as neither a weak version of
conceptual thought nor a blind causal process but as embodying a
meaning-structure of its own and deploying itself in a world which is pre-
supposed by rather than created by thought.
But there is a second and more important sense in which the lifeworld is
relevant to the over-intellectualized views of recent continental thought.
The emphasis on language has brought with it a conceptual relativism so
extreme that it no longer makes sense to speak of language, as we did
above, as mediating between human beings and the world. Thought and
11
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
experience are viewed as enmeshed through language in radically different
conceptual schemes, whether discontinuous and self-contained or slowly
developing in a continuous tradition. And these constitute our only access
to what is. Different conceptual schemes make up so many different
worlds or universes of discourse. Reality is fragmented or splintered into
these different* domains and the idea of a unity among them is no longer
thought to make sense.
I am convinced that Husserl's concept of the lifeworld was meant to
counter a conception like this, as well as the scientific realism Husserl
actually attacks in the Crisis. In fact, these two are not as far apart as they
may seem. We have already remarked the irony that the scientifically 'real'
has retreated farther and farther from our actual experience of the world.
This makes a view like Husserl's, which emphasizes the constructed and
idealized character of the scientifically real, all the easier to accept. And
indeed, whether due to Husserl's influence or not, this view of scientific
'reaUty' has gained ground among philosophers of science. But this,
coupled with a strong historical sense of the changing character of scien-
tific-theory, recommends the view that modern science is merely one
among many equally valid conceptions of the world, and we are left while
a tolerant and open-ended pluralism of world-views. The difference
between science, religion, superstition and magic becomes just a matter of
opinion. These would be just so many languages or conceptual schemes
which are in the end equivalent to worlds, just so many realities.
Such views are not unlike those of the skeptical relativism, especiaUy of
the 'historicist' sort, which Husserl attacked along with naturalism in his
early essay 'Philosophy as Rigorous Science'. The concept of the lifeworld
would count against such conceptual relativisms by urging that different
ways of conceptualizing reality are still different ways of thinking about
the world, the very same world that we all encounter in our everyday
experience. Husserl insists at one point that for all the differences that
may exist between cultures and world-views, the Ufeworld has an invariant
structure in which aU share.30 This is precisely the basic relations of things,
thing-experience, world horizon and intersubjectivity we have already dis-
cussed. Different persons and different peoples Uve amongst different
ideas and views, just as their surroundings are composed of different
objects and populated by different groups of people. But it is possible to
reach beyond our particular enclaves and understand and communicate
with representatives of different cultures, precisely in virtue of the
common structure of the lifeworld.
A second contemporary strain to which the concept of the lifeworld is
relevant concerns Husserl himself. Some philosophers take Husserl's
concept of the noema, as developed in the Ideas, to be his most important
contribution, and have recently written about it in connection with other
theories of meaning.31 I made the point earlier that Husserl is being
12
THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
appealed to in this context to help solve certain problems which have
arisen in .the philosophy of language. In particular, he is seen as providing
a supplement to Frege's theory of linguistic meaning. One advantage seen
in Husserl's noema is that it derives Unguistic meaning from a source
outside language itself. This in turn makes it possible for Husserl to extend
the notion of meaning to perception, where it is not necessarily linked with
linguistic expression.32
In moving from Unguistic meaning to a broader conception of meaning
these philosophers are, of course, following the path Husserl himself took,
beginning with the First Logical Investigation. But in a sense they are not
moving far enough with Husserl. They could be said to move from the
Logical Investigations to the Ideas, where the noema is introduced, and to
get stuck there. But the focus on the noema, which even in that work is not
as central as some make it out, was a relatively brief episode in Husserl's
development. This is not to say that he dropped the idea; nor did he by
any means solve aU the problems surrounding it. But as he moved beyond
the Ideas his main purpose was to integrate the noema (and the noesis)
into a larger context. Objects with their meanings belong to regions of
being, according to Husserl, and in works like Ideas II and III he sought to
distinguish these regions and relate them to the sciences. Acts of con-
sciousness are related not only to their objects but also to each other in a
temporal flow; and Husserl also devoted himself to the study of the
dynamics of consciousness in its active and passive forms. In a sense the
Crisis, and in particular some aspects of the theory of the Ufeworld, can be
seen as the culmination of this search for the ultimate or full context of the
noesis-noema relation.
Its relevance for those who focus on the noema is this: because they
take their point of departure from'Unguistic meaning, they may view per-
ceptual meaning on the model of linguistic meaning even if they hold that
non-linguistic meaning is somehow prior.33 This is especially true of those
who hold that perception has a propositional content: but it is no less true
of those who describe the perceptual noema as a 'singular meaning'.34
Such meanings are treated in relation to their object and the act of percep-
tion itself, but what may be overlooked is the perceptual horizon of the
world which belongs precisely to the meaning of any perceptual object. H.
Dreyfus speaks of 'Husserl's insistance on the philosophical priority of the
analysis of the representational content of individual intentional states',35
but offers no textual evidence for this purported insistance. It is not
Husserl but those who more recently focus all their attention on the
noema to the exclusion of aU else, who make this mistake. Smith and Mac-
lntyre describe the phenomenological reduction, for example, as Husserl's
answer to 'how to become acquainted with noemata and noematic
Sinne'?6 as if these were individual items, to be discovered one by one. In
fact, from the analysis of the natural standpoint and its world, in the Ideas,
13
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
to the treatment of the lifeworld in the Crisis, Husserl always insisted on
treating perceptual meaning - and indeed any other sort of meaning - in
the broad context to which it actually belongs in the Ufe of consciousness.
Husserl in the Crisis warned expUcitly against a piecemeal approach to
meaning, as if the reduction were a matter merely of abstaining from and
analysing 'individual validities' one by one, and leaving aU the others
intact. This is the sort of reflection which occurs in the natural attitude
when we ask 'what did she mean?' or 'what did I actuaUy see just then?'
But this 'only creates for each instance a new mode of validity on the
natural ground of the world'.37 That is, it leaves intact and unreflected the
overall realistic commitment of the natural attitude. Husserl insisted that
the reduction be extended to include the whole world. But it is very
important to see that this insistance derives not from a commitment on his
part to ideaUsm. Rather, its motivation is purely phenomenological. We
need to include the whole world in the reduction because the whole world
belongs to the sense of each and every perceptual act, and if we do not
include it we have not understood that sense. When those who focus
narrowly on the noema claim that their version of phenomenology can be
reconciled with a physicalistic ontology,38 they are missing the point made
in the Crisis.
So far I have spoken of Husserl's concept of the lifeworld as a
response to certain philosophical problems of his day and ours. But the
lifeworld raises certain questions in its turn which Husserl either did not
see or left inadequately treated. These are questions both about how to
understand the lifeworld itself and about how to reconcile it with
Husserl's overall conception of phenomenology. I shall conclude this
essay with a brief sketch of the most important of these questions as I
see them.
The first concerns the pregivenness of the lifeworld, the notion of its
being presupposed and taken for granted by every particular act, whether
of perception or of thought. We made the point that this can be seen as an
expansion of the notion already included in the Ideas of the natural 'stand-
point' or 'attitude'. This basic stance of consciousness is neither an 'act
proper' nor is it the temporal multiplicity of acts and experiences: it
somehow underUes them all. As we have seen, in the Crisis Husserl
stresses more than before that this stance is literally embodied in the cor-
poreal and 'anonymous' functioning of sense-perception, in the body as an
'I move' or capacity for engagement in its surroundings.39 These surround-
ings, as they are geared to our bodily capacities, constitute the deepest-
lying reality in our experience Here is lodged our most fundamental prior
commitment to the reaUty of the world as the horizon for whatever we do
or think.
Now some argue - and this is one view of Heidegger's and Merleau-
Ponty's revision of their predecessor's phenomenology - that Husserl here
14
THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D
undercuts and finally renders inoperable his phenomenological program.
For what he has done is to make the intentionality of consciousness
depend upon certain non-intentional capacities and practices.40 To be sure,
Husserl in the Ideas tried to express the natural standpoint in a 'thesis',
and in the Crisis he speaks of beliefs that have become 'sedimented' and
can be reactivated and analysed intentionally. But these would make up at
most a complex of particular beliefs, and even if these were somehow
summarized in an overall 'thesis' of the natural attitude this would again
be the particular expression of a belief. But is our perceptual or bodily
engagement in the world just a belief that can be expressed? The argu-
ment here is that to treat it as such is to falsify precisely what Husserl was
the first to discover.
It is to be recalled as well that in the Ideas it was as a thesis that the
natural standpoint could be 'bracketed' and the phenomenological reduc-
tion initiated. 41 It has been argued that 'only what is posited as an object
can be bracketed .. ,'42 But the lifeworld, by Husserl's own account, is not
an object but the prior condition for anything's being posited as an object.
Our commitment to it is so deep we cannot detach ourselves from this
commitment by an act of thought. Thus by penetrating to the level of the
life-world Husserl seems not only to have tacitly questioned the pervasive-
ness and self-sufficiency of intentionality in mental Ufe, but also to have
deprived himself of the means for investigating it phenomenologically.
This is often taken to be the meaning of Merleau-Ponty's famous dictum
that 'the most important lesson which the reduction teaches us is the
impossibility of a complete reduction'. 43
One way to counter this objection is to ask its proponents to tell us
more about the nature of these capacities and practices that are presup-
posed by intentional acts. If they are not-intentional, what sorts of relation
do they involve? Are they simply objective causal relations? It can be
counter-argued that while Husserl's concept of the life-world does indeed
require going beyond a too narrow, noesis-noema concept of intentional-
ity, it calls not for a rejection but an expanded and revised treatment of
intentionaUty. And this is what Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have in fact
given us. The latter, for example, roots consciousness in the body not as an
objective automaton but as the subject of a type of intentionality all its
own. Whatever Merleau may say about the phenomenological reduction,
he still treats the perceived world not as a collection of objects but as a
meaning-structure, and the bodily subject as what understands and grasps
this meaning. To be sure, it does this not by observing, thinking and utter-
ing sentences, but by moving and acting.
The second critical question raised by Husserl's concept of the life-
world is not, I fear, so easily answered as the first. It concerns the fact
that Husserl includes in the lifeworld, as we saw, not only perceived
things and persons but also cultural properties and even ideas. Husserl is
15
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S THE L I F E W O R L D R E V I S I T E D

undoubtedly right that we tacitly and unquestioningly presuppose these 3 Milan Kundera, 'The Novel and Europe' New York Review of Books vol. 31 no
too in our active mental life, that they too form the background for the 12 (July 19,1984) p. 15.
development of scientific theories and the like. But this makes it harder 4 Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (New York: 1975) p. 39. Quoted by
Richard Rorty in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton
for him to claim that the life-world has a universal and invariant struc- University Press, 1979), p. 168.
ture, common to all, underlying whatever theoretical 'garb of ideas' we 5 The Crisis, p. 106.
may cast over it.44 For some of the ideas that populate our world are not 6 Ibid.,p. 108.
merely encountered as items of its furniture but constitute, as in the case 7 Ibid., p. 11.
of science, religion and philosophy, interpretations of reality as a whole. 8 Ibid., p. 125.
9 Ibid., p. 121.
Such ideas can become sedimented in such a way that they affect our 10 Ibid., p. 132.
'view', our whole 'sense' of reality. Husserl seems to recognize this when 11 Ibid.,p. 134.
he says that the results of theoretical accomplishments 'flow into' the 12 Ibid, p. 123.
very subsoil out of which they grow.45 It becomes harder and harder to 13 Ibid., p. 142.
distinguish between the world as experienced and the world as inter- 14 Ibid., p. 143.
preted by this or' that theory. The theory has become part of our way of 15 Ibid.
16 Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philo-
experiencing. Theory in this sedimented and appropriated form may sophy. First Book, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), Part
affect the very structure, and not merely the content, of the life-world. two, Chapter one.
If this is so, the life-world may differ fundamentally from one cultural 17 Ibid, p. 51.
18 See my Phenomenology and the Problem of History (Evanston: Northwestern
group or historical epoch to another, depending on the nature of the sedi- University Press, 1974) Chapter 6.
mented interpretations that have taken hold. And while it remains true 19 Cartesian Meditations trans. D. Cairns (The Hague: Mart Nijhoff, 1960), p. 61.
that some world-structure is pregiven or taken for granted and serves as 20 The Crisis, p. 121.
the background for any new theoretical accomplishment, it will not always 21 Ibid, p. 122.
be the same structure that is thus taken for granted. For example, Husserl 22 Ibid.,p. 163.
repeatedly speaks as if the notion of 'things' and the distinction between 23 Cartesian Meditations, p. 104.
24 Ibid., p. 93.
things and persons were a universal feature of the world. But do such dis- 25 Ibid., p. 96.
tinctions exist for those who think of every being and aspect of the world 26 The Crisis, p. 104.
as ensouled, or those whose world is organized in terms of the elaborate 27 Ibid., p. 130.
totemic systems the anthropologists have called to our attention? Could 28 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Continuum, 1975) pp.
the thing-person distinction be the sedimentation of a system of thought 345 ff.
29 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Random House, 1970) p.
we have inherited in the modern, western world, in part precisely thanks XXII.
to the advent of objective science? 30 The Crisis, p. 139.
These considerations make it hard to consider Husserl's concept of the 31 See Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science ed. H. Dreyfus (Cambridge,
lifeworld, as Husserl considered it, a response to conceptual and historical Mass: the MIT Press, 1982) especially the reprinted articles by D. Follesdal;
and Husserl and Intentionality by Ronald Mclntyre and David Woodruff Smith
relativism. Indeed many see Husserl as having contributed, along with (Boston: Reidel, 1982).
other phenomenologists, to the widespread acceptance of such views. It is 32 A similar strategy is followed by John Searle in his Intentionality (Cambridge
certain that he would not have approved of them. But it is also true that he University Press, 1983), though no debt to Husserl is acknowledged.
does not provide us with arguments which would prevent his thought from 33 Searle (op. cit. p. 5) explicitly follows such a model.
being taken in this direction. 34 The propositional view is held by Searle (op. cit. pp. 40 ff). The 'singular
meaning' view is advanced by I. Miller in his Husserl, Perception and Temporal
Awareness (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1984) p. 55.
Notes 35 Dreyfus (op. cit.) Introduction pp. 2f.
36 'Husserl's Identification of Meaning and Noema' in Dreyfus (op. cit.) p. 91.
1 Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental 37 The Crisis, p. 106.
Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: Nortwestern University Press, 1970) 38 E.g. Smith and Mclntyre in Husserl and Intentionality (op. cit) p. XV.
p. 5. 39 The Crisis, p. 106.
2 Ibid. p. 17. 40 Dreyfus (op. cit.) introduction, p. 23.

16 17
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS

41 See Ideas I sections 30 and 31.

42 See Ernst Tugendhat Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger (2nd.ed. 71
Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970) pp. 263 f.
43 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith (New
York: Humanities Press, 1962), p. XIV. H U S S E R L ' S C O N C E P T O F T H E
44 The Crisis, p. 51.
45 /tod., p. 113. W O R L D

Rudolf Bernet

Source: Arleen B. Dallery, Charles E. Scott and P. Holley Roberts (eds), Crises in Contin-
ental Philosophy, Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1990, pp. 3-21.

The clarification of the meaning of the world was a constant endeavor on the
part of Edmund Husserl. This is seen immediately in the great number of
newly coined "world"-composites, such as "spiritual world" (geistige Welt),
"life-world" (Lebenswelt), "environing-world" (Umwelt), "home-world"
(Heimwelt), "world of interests" (Interessenwelt), "universal world" (Allweit),
"horizon of the world" (Welthorizont), "annihilation of the world" (Weltver-
nichtung), "enworlding" (Verweltlichung), etc. Although much used by phe-
nomenologists, and used with many different connotations, the concept of
"the world" as such, however, has worn out and covers many, often incom-
patible enterprises. Basic questions, such as what it means for the world to
appear and how the subject is involved in the disclosure of the world, are
often taken for granted. The result is that some phenomenologists turn
toward the world, others rather turn away from it, and many remain shut up
in their own worlds. Life-world phenomenologies flourish without their
authors giving much thought to the fact that their descriptions of the life in
the world presuppose a stance at the limit of or beyond this world. There is
also a need to look more closely into the different forms under which "the
world" reveals itself to a subject. In particular, the question how manifold
local and self-contained worlds refer to a common and unique "open" world
deserves more attention than Ufe-world relativists are usuaUy wilUng to
concede.

The phenomenological reduction

The appearing of the world cannot be understood apart from the phenom-
enological reduction. This can seem disconcerting, in that it involves a step
that leads the subject, at one and the same time, to turn away from the
world and to turn toward it. This is the price of a better comprehension of
the appearing of the world, and the phenomenology that is consecrated to

18 19
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
this task cannot economize on the phenomenological reduction. In tran-
scending the things of the world, the reduction reveals at once the world as
world and the subject as subject. Treating the question of the world and
the question of the reduction together offers the possibility of rethinking
the sense of the "reconduction" of the phenomenon to the subject and
grasping better how the subject contributes to the appearance of a multi-
plicity of worlds.
If the aim of phenomenological reduction is to reveal the link between
the diversity of worlds and the modes of life of the subject, as well as the
enduring difference between the subject and its "world," then the reduc-
tion should be something else and, indeed, much more than an outmoded
methodological exercise. To transgress the closed world of our habits, to
assist at the collapse of a cultural world, to be excluded from a particular
world that presents itself as universal, these are daily existential situations
that nonetheless offer an access to the phenomenon of the world and that
therefore must be considered as carrying out a phenomenological reduc-
tion. This then opens up as well the essential philosophical task concerning
the safeguarding of the idea of an indefinitely open common world, which
is inseparable from the idea of human rationaUty.
For Husserl, the analysis of the phenomenon of the world and the doc-
trine of phenomenological reduction are closely related. The increasing
attention Husserl gave to the phenomenon of the world in his later-work
made it necessary for him to clarify and also modify the meaning of the
phenomenological reduction. It is true that Husserl never surrendered the
conviction that a phenomenological philosophy can be estabUshed only
through a Une of thought that in some manner turns away from the world.
It is no less true that this withdrawal from the world will reveal itself more
and more clearly as a necessary detour on the way to the discovery of the
world. This discovery of the world is no sign of abandonment; it is rather
the necessary fulfiUment of the program of phenomenological reduction. It
is not a question of ceasing to think in order to live; it is, on the contrary, a
question of thinking the world as "phenomenon." The phenomenological
view of the life-world already participates in another mode of life. The
phenomenologist is awakened from the dogmatic slumber of a life that is
as entangled with the world as a sleeping dog in his basket. This life in the
world forgets the world because our attention is absorbed in the objects of
the world; objects that appeal to our interests so strongly that they leave us
without reprieve. Something must break this bondage to the things of the
world, this constant entertainment, or "divertissement," as Pascal calls it.
The world can appear only when, somehow, our view wanders among the
things of the world without having anything particular "in view." It is one
and the same movement that takes us away from the world of our pre-
occupations and reveals to us the order of the world.
In a letter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal of January 12, 1908, Husserl
20
.HUSSERL'S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
compares the phenomenological reduction to the attitude of a poet. 1
Nevertheless, the strongest motive for exiling oneself from the world of
things remains for Husserl of a theoretical nature. More precisely, the
point is to understand how the subject is related to the world. This can be
conceived only if the subject is not itself a thing of the world and if the
order of things is not foreign to the life of the subject. For Husserl, what
distinguishes most radically the subject from a thing is the intentionality of
the subject. This is, however, nothing other than the relationship of the
subject to things. Thus, intentionality shows at the same time the dif-
ference and the connection between the subject and things. It also reveals
the world as an order of things, because this order can appear only for a
subject who relates itself to things without being overwhelmed by Jhem.
For Husserl, this means that the order of things appears to the subject as
an instituted order, an order shaped by the subject. This shift from a
world for the subject toward a world by the subject is made through the
phenomenological reduction, understood as retreat from things and as
openness to their appearing. If it is perhaps possible to think the being of
things independently of the subject, the same does not hold for their
being-given. As phenomena, things are the concern of the subject; their
logos is disclosed only to a subject; and the phenomenologist is inclined to
make this subject the owner, instigator, and even founder of the logos of
the phenomena. In this way of thinking, the world appears as a significant
order of things in the manner it has been instituted by the transcendental
subject or posited as its correlate. Rather than showing the belonging-
together of the being of the world and the being of the subject, phenom-
enological reduction then displays a subjugated world, a world colonized
by the constituting subject.
Subjugation and annihilation of the world
This logic of subjugation dominates the first reflections of Husserl on the
world, notably the notions of world view (Weltanschauung) and annihila-
tion of the world (Weltvernichtung). If "world view" witnesses to the sub-
jugation of the subject to the world, "annihilation of-the world" on the
contrary deals.with the subjugation of the world to the subject. In "world
view." the subject in fact remains riveted to the world and to practical
interests, to urgent problems, to vital preoccupations which make up the
world.2 In the actual functioning of "world view" the world is not grasped
in itself but appears as a coUection of things that are urgent to do, reason-
able to hope, necessary to believe. The world of "world view" only
appears as such in a second moment, in a theoretical reflection which is
often animated by a project of comparing different world views and
looking for their possible common ground. For Husserl, this viewed world
is in no way superior to the naively believed-in world of the natural
21
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
attitude, since a subject is lost when engaging itself, body and soul, in a
particular world view, which is provisional and closed in upon itself.
On the contrary, in the "annihilation of the world" of the first book of
Ideas the subject disengages itself radically from the world and sets it up as
an objective correlate. 3 The world of things becomes a pure object of con-
templation for the subject, but under such conditions that this perfect visi-
biUty of the world implies as well the possible disappearance of the viewed
world. Husserl's argumentation is well known: if the phenomenological
reduction consists in making every esse a percipi, one must conclude that
the being-seen of the world depends on the seeing of the subject, whereas
the subject is able to see itself without recourse to the world and thus
depends only on itself. The result is that the being of the subject is of a
higher dignity than the being of the world, as it could survive the abolition
of the world, whereas the world could not subsist independently of the life
of the subject. At the same time, this Ufe of the constituting subject is not
sufficient to guarantee the existence of the world in an absolute manner.
The being of the world is dependent on harmony among the experiences
of the subject, and this harmony is threatened by a rupture that remains
always possible. Thus, the subject, which has gone to great lengths to dis-
tance itself from the world in order to acquire a good view of it, eventually
views helplessly the collapse of the world it so much had wanted to see.
Husserl's criticism, twenty years later, of the hypothesis of the annihila-
tion of the world has the immediate consequence of elevating "world
view" to the dignity of an original project within transcendental phenom-
enology - the latter having "the capability . . . of actualizing the correlation
between the possibility of experience and the possibiUty of the world
under the form of a world view."4 The error of the annihilation of the
world was precisely the severing of this correlation between the seeing of
the world and the world seen. The annihilation of the world goes against
the sense of intentionality, which always carries the subject to an interest in
the entities of the world and their appearing. The hypothesis of an annihi-
lation of the world rests upon an ontological dualism (of a Cartesian type)
whose two poles are the (self-evident) being of immanent consciousness
and the (doubtful) being of the transcendent world; this dualism is totally
foreign to the sense of the transcendental constitution of the world by the
subject. The constituted world is neither purely within nor purely exterior
to the constituting subject. If the sense of its being is said to depend on its
being-given-for-the-subject, this does not mean that the appearing of the
world is nothing other than an immanent experience of the subject. There
is therefore a paradox in the annihilation of the world in that it finally
levels the difference between the subject and the world which it was sup-
posed to put in relief. The existence of the world is treated as if the world
were a singular thing that confirms its existence in a harmonious course of
intuitive appearances or, on the contrary, "explodes" when a new appear-
22
1
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
ance enters into conflict with the preceding appearances. On the other
hand, the subject manifests itself in a deficient and indeterminate form, as
an immanent "residue" of the annihilation of the transcendent world, that
is, still as a "small piece of the world" (Endchen der Welt).
The hypothesis of the annihilation of the world thus does not meet the
aims of the program of phenomenological reduction: it allows to appear
neither the world as phenomenon, nor the transcendental being of the
subject, nor the correlation or belonging-together of subject and world.
The annihilation of the world does not even merit its own name, since the
world (insofar as it exceeds the real existence of things) is not even taken
into consideration.
Horizon and world
If the.world, understood as the surplus of the perception of things, is
already present in the first book of Ideas, it is rather in the term halo
[Hof] or, more frequently, horizon. This notion of horizon owes its sense
to what Husserl calls horizontal intentionality (Horizontintentionalitdt),
and this, at least at the outset, remains marked by the preoccupations of a
psychology of attention. Everything that I already or still perceive
without giving it my whole attention belongs to the horizon of actual per-
ception. This horizontal intentionality has many diverse modes: reten-
tional and protentional horizon, which envelops the present grasping of
an object; active or passive forms of motivation that prompt one to a
series of (other) acts, that make the realization of one possibility of
experience preferable to another, that lead to an enlargement or rather a
retraction of one's field of vision, and so on. Horizontal intentionality
thus establishes a continuity and a unity in one's conscious life. It antici-
pates future possibilities; it conserves the memory of past acts; it assures
the passage from potentiaUty to realization; it is the principle that inte-
grates all acts in a continuous unity of one life, of one subjective flux of
consciousness. Though a principle that is essentially subjective, this hori-
zontal intentionality has nevertheless its objective or noematic correlate -
for instance, a field of vision, where certain things are closer to me than
others, where certain things hitherto simply coperceived appeal to me
more vividly than others, and where the possibility of the future course of
my vision is mapped out.
Still one might be hesitant to foUow Husserl when he calls this noematic
horizon a world (Umwelt; Idl sect. 45). The horizon is more a dynamic
principle of constituting life than an order of constituted objects. Rather
than being an indefinitely open framework within which things are
inserted to receive sense and come to meet us, the horizon is the shape of
the present, future, and past data of my actual experience, a particular
changing gestalt. With the realization of each potentiality, the entire
23
 r
L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
horizon is modified. Besides lacking the objectivity and permanence
proper to the world, the horizon also lacks the possibility of being truly
shared. Any world, even the solipsistic world that Husserl introduces for
methodological reasons, must lend itself to being shared with other sub-
jects. A horizon cannot be shared since it is nothing else than what leads a
particular constituting subject from one experiencing process to the next
and, correlatively, from one object to another.
The richest approach to the phenomenon of the world can be found
in those sections of the first book of Ideas where one discovers, opposed
to the objective reahty of the natural sciences, a "world of appearance"
(Erscheinungswelt; Idl sect. 41) or a "world of experience" (Erfahrungs-
weltr, sect. 47-48). This proto-Lebenswelt is the correlate of the open total-
ity of possible experiences (sect. 45, 47) of an intersubjective community
(sect. 48). In one and the same movement phenomenological reduction
reveals the a priori conditions of possible experience and the a priori con-
ditions of a possible world, for the reduction reveals their correlation.
Nevertheless, the possible world of experience still depends on the possi-
biUty of experience. It is this possibiUty of experience that gives the world
its meaning and its reaUty; it is the experience of the subject that consti-
tutes the world. This possible reaUty of the constituted world should not
be confused with the possible being of a "res," that is, with a particular
thing; the being of the world is the being of any possible thing. If the being
of the possible world thus transcends the possibiUty of particular things,
then one must conclude that the being of the world has a transcendental
value. The world therefore prepares and welcomes the coming into being
and manifestation of things, but this gift and mission of the world is con-
ferred upon it by the transcendental ego.
This means that the logos that orders this possible world is essentiaUy
subjective. The lines of force that cut across and order the world are
understood by Husserl as being motivational in nature. The world under-
stood as an order of possible things is still governed by the anticipation of
the experiencing subject. This is verified in reading the analyses, found in
the second book of Ideas, devoted to the constitution of the "spiritual
world." 5 It is well known that this description of the spiritual world is pre-
ceded in Ideas II by an analysis of the constitution of nature, consisting of
physical objects and also mental states insofar as those remain conditioned
by physical causaUty. This presentation of the spiritual world as a higher
stratum of reality poorly serves Husserl's design, for it suggests that next
to the world of spiritual and ideal objects is a world of real or physical
objects. This is not the case, however, because for Husserl the collection of
objects of nature does not deserve the name world and because natural
objects are in no way excluded from the spiritual world. ActuaUy, the
determination of this spiritual world owes less to the metaphysical division
between nature and spirit than it does to the phenomenon of expression
24
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
which specificaUy reunites them. The things are not in themselves part of
the spiritual world but become so in virtue of the way in which the subject
approaches them, a way that Husserl calls the personalistic attitude. The
spiritual world exists only as the world constituted by a community of
persons; it is the communal "environing-world" (Umwelt) of then-
exchanges and interactions. In this world, things are related to each other
not by causal links but in virtue of the place that they occupy within the
motivational fabric of the Ufe of a person.
The environing-world
The characterization of this environing-world in Ideas II remains
unchanged in the later writings of the 1920s and 1930s. The environing-
world (Umwelt) is a limited world cut off from the more general world.
This cutting-off is a function of theoretical, axiological, and practical inter-
ests of a person or a community of persons. The environing-world is the
familiar world where everything I encounter already has a sense for me
and for others. It is a "meaningful" (bedeutsam) world because "it carries
a spiritual meaning in itself," but it is a meaningful world that remains
open, in that it is "always susceptible to receiving a new sense of this type"
(Idll sect. 51, p. 197). This environing-world owes its meaningfulness to
the activity of a community of persons whose interest in things is aimed
not only at knowledge but also at the appreciation of their ethical or aes-
thetic value or at their capacity to serve as means in a process of practical
production (Idll sect. 50).
The meaningfulness of things of the world is thus tightly connected with
the diverse ways with which the subject approaches them: In knowing and
particularly in perception, the things are given as "present-at-hand"
(vorhanden). "In acts of evaluation . . . the object is given . . . as having a
value, as agreeable, beautiful, etc." In "practical acts," the objects
are able . . . to be apprehended as useful [dienlich] for serving the
satisfaction of this or that need, in virtue of this or that property,
and they are then the object of an apprehension as means of sub-
sistence, as useful objects of whatever type: materials for heating,
axes, or hammers, etc. For example, I view coal as material for
heating, I recognize it and recognize it as useful [dienlich] and
usable [dienend] for heating, as suitable [geeignet] and determined
to produce heat.
Husserl does not hesitate to emphasize that in this relation of persons to
their environing-world, the practical dimension has priority: "In its broad-
est meaning, we are able to describe the personal attitude . . . as a practical
attitude" (Idll sect. 50). These passages deserve to be cited for their
25
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
profound resemblance to Heidegger's analyses in Being and Time dedic-
ated to the Vorhandenheit and Zuhandenheit of things of the world.
The analysis of environing-world in Ideas II resembles Being and Time
in another characteristic, namely, that the environing-world envelops both
familiar things and the persons occupied with these things. My environing-
world contains not only "the real objects that we actually experience" and
"all the things that are found [in the world] without my already knowing
them but which I will be able to experience," but also "other humans
[Nebenmenschen], animals, and . . . the human I denote as . . . being me,
bearing such and such a name, constituted in such and such a way. As a
human, I am part of the real environing-world of the pure ego . . . " (Idll
sect. 27, p. 109). If the environing-world as a world of the significance of
things is constituted by a pure ego, we should add that this constitution of
the world goes together with a "mundanizing" or "enworlding" (Ver-
weltlichung) of the constituting subject. Or to put it in the rigorous
formulation of the Cartesian Meditations:
In that I, as this ego, have constituted and am continually further
constituting as a phenomenon (as a correlate) the world that exists
for me, I have carried out an apperception of myself as belonging
to the world [verweltlichende Selbstapperzeption]. This appercep-
tion makes of myself an ego in the ordinary sense, that is, a human
person [situated] within the totality of the constituted world.6
In its ordinary or, as Husserl prefers to caU it, "anonymous" life the consti-
tuting subject exists-in-the-world. It discovers its power to constitute the
world long after having already been constituted as a worldly subject, that
is, a "human person." The "enworlding" of itself accomplished by the
transcendental ego has always already (anonymously) taken place, and the
world the transcendental subject constitutes has always already been there
as pregiven.
The description in Ideas II of the personalistic approach to the environ-
ing-world thus opens for phenomenology the rich domain that Husserl will
later call intentional anthropology, a domain to which numerous texts in
the Husserliana volumes 14 and 15 are devoted. Phenomenological
anthropology studies human life in the world and can be called intentional
because it is through intentional experience and related tendencies and
motivations that human beings occupy themselves with things and one
another, and also relate themselves to the framework of Ufe common to
them all, a framework that can properly be called life-world (Lebenswelt).
This framework is neither independent of the intentional experiences that
take place in it, nor can it be reduced to those experiences. All intentional
relations to things and to other persons are mediated by consciousness of
this familiar world. In this world, I know how to move in order to reach
26
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
something far away, or how to behave in order to collaborate with a col-
league in view of a common project. Every important occurrence within
this familiar world relates itself intentionally to things and persons and yet
transcends them in understanding them on the basis of what is already
understood in advance (i.e., understood a priori), that is, the world to
which they belong. Inner-worldly comportments are thus constitutive in a
twofold sense: first, their intentionaUty brings them to things and persons;
second, these comportments' transcendence reveals and shapes the world.
As far as the constituting intentionality of inner-worldly comportment
is concerned, a distinction should be made between relations to things and
relations to persons. Similar to the difference between the intentional rela-
tions to inner-worldly entities and the transcending relation to the world
itself, this distinction is de jure and not de facto. In fact, a person under-
standing the things of the world and producing works thus enriches the
world, which in turn will affect the sense of its being-with-other-persons. If
our relations to worldly things are primarily practical (as Husserl emphas-
izes from Ideas II onward), it follows that being-with-others assumes pri-
marily the form of interaction. In the facticity of communal life within the
world, this interaction and the feeling of being-with-others (Miteinander-
sein) precedes empathy (Einfuhlung). Empathy is thus not at the origin of
community but is rather a symptom of decay, the sign of an incomprehen-
sion among inner-worldly subjects and the mark of confrontation with
strangeness.
In a text from January 10, 1931, which clearly shows traces of his
reading of Being and Time, Husserl describes this "being-in-connection-
with-others" (In-Konnex-mit-Anderen-Sein) in the following way: it is a
manner of "living in the same world [Hineinleben], of being concerned in
the "same world [Hineinsorgen]," "while being constantly with one another
[miteinander]" in the same world
which becomes the world of our interests [Interessenwelt], the
environing-world of our practical life [praktische Lebensumwelt].
In this manner of being, we ourselves (that is, I and the others)
belong to the constituted world of objects, and this in a permanent
way, whereas at the same time this "we" is subject of the world, a
we that experiences the world ..., knows the world and acts within
the world, all of which leads to an enriching of the objective
content of the world.
(ZPh 138)
Husserl continues his analysis by pointing out that due to "the historicity
of human Dasein" this "we" is "a historical community," living in an
environing-world which is itself historical (139). This historical environing-
world has a sense extending above and below the actual community of
27
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
"we": the historical environing-world is a part of the historical world which
is the world of all human beings, the world of "humanity." Humanity
(Menschheit) is "a persistent [verharrend] reality of a higher order," main-
taining itself "throughout the coming and going of persons, throughout the
fact that people come into the world at birth [Hineingeborenwerden] and
leave the world at death [Heraussterben]" (139).
The givenness of the world
The world maintains itself and is maintained through the constitution of
inner-worldly objects; and to these objects belong the communal "we" and
the poUtical and social institutions that are the incarnations of this "we."
Our contribution to the maintaining of the world consists as weU in the
present enrichment of the world and its transmission to future generations:
We shape the world we have received with a view to the future of human-
ity. If preserving the human world is a task and even a duty (ZPh 143-44),
and if the world is a willed ethos for which we are responsible, then it
should be added that this responsibility'concerns the future of a world that
has already been handed over or, as Husserl says, pregiven (vorgegeben).
If we transcend ourselves in our concern for the world, we do so toward
that which, however, gives meaning to our existence. In • self-
transcendence, we open ourselves to the world, receive it as a legacy and
become the temporal guardians of it. Our existence in the world in no way
resembles the way in which things are present (vorhanden) in the world,
nor should the world itself be confounded with a thing that is to be known
or possessed. In this way, this openness to the world changes radically our
relations to others and to humanity as such. The human community
receives a new sense from this common concern for a world which tran-
scends particular interests. This community inscribes itself in
an endless chain that runs through the generations of human
beings. . . . Human life, the unity of which is limited by birth and
death, is thus traversed by the extension of the life of humanity,
the unity of which is . . . the experience of all people [allmen-
schliche Erfahrung] and the tradition built upon it. Thus, I under-
stand humanity as historical, I grasp how the time of the world
[Weltzeit] ... surpasses the time of my life [meine Lebenszeit] and
that of my fellow human beings living at the same present time
[mitgegenwdrtig].
(ZPh 169)
The familiar environing-world that is shared by contemporaries is still
not the historical world of all humanity. Nevertheless, the environing-
world can stiU only appear as already pointing to the revelation of the
28
1
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF T H E WORLD
world of humanity. The environing-world, which transcends everything
and everyone within it, can reveal itself only to a subject who is itself
capable of transcending its occupation with inner-worldly objects belong-
ing to this environing-world. That is, the environing-world appears only to
a subject for whom the inner-worldly things have lost their tranquil cer-
tainty, their completely self-evident sense (Selbstverstdndlichkeit). One
could say that the environing-world reveals itself to a subject who is on the
border of this world - not completely in it but also not totally out of it. We
have seen that Husserl gives an existential meaning to this limit-situation
of the subject when speaking of the entrance into the world at birth
(Hineingeborenwerden) and the departure from the world at death (Her-
aussterben). In birth, the world welcomes the person, the world is given to
the person in the form of a gift, which Husserl calls pregivenness
(Vorgegebenheit). Throughout one's life, one is generaUy so avid to take
possession of the riches of the world and so desirous of imposing oneself
upon those with whom one should share these riches, that in fact one fails
to pay attention to this gift of the world. Only in crisis situations, in which
the ground seems to be slipping away, does one experience everything that
is owed to the world. Nevertheless, one inevitably faces the world at the
moment of departure in death, whether this consists in a desperate clinging
to the world or in handing over this gift of the world to future generations.
Transcending the limits of a familiar world
Birth and death are events in which the secure distance between the famil-
iar and the unknown collapses. This holds, too, for the confrontation with
foreign cultures. During a journey in a foreign land, we not only see things
of which we are unable to grasp the meaning, we also recognize things that
are familiar to us but that clearly have another sense. Here, too, the famil-
iar environing-world - or, as Husserl says, the "home-world" (Heimwelt) -
reveals itself to a subject who has reached a limit, a point of intersection
between a home-world that is one's own and a home-world that is foreign.
The home-world is a symboUc system that lets the environing-world
appear in its contingency - but also in its necessity; in its singular facticity
which nevertheless is not unique; in its arbitrary and yet unavoidable
transcendence. In the home-world, relativity has a certain absoluteness:
the arbitrary nature of a symbolic order imposes itself in the form of an
unconditional law. Husserl also asserts that we can "translate" a foreign
environing-world into the idiom of our environing-world, and even that we
can come to an understanding of a total and unique world that embraces
all particular environing-worlds (ZPh 162). Nevertheless, such a transla-
tion will never make the foreign environing-world into a home-world for
me; and I will never completely "Uve" in this universal "aU-world"
(Allwelt) (ZPh 624-25). If it is true that this confrontation with a foreign
29
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
environing-world does not cause one to leave completely one's home-
world, it is equally true that this confrontation is an invitation to take an
interest in the more general world, that is, the world of humanity as a
whole. The intercultural shock has in common with death the fact that it
reveals at the same time both the familiar world (Umwelt) of a person (or
a community of persons) and the universal world (Allwelt) of humanity.
For Husserl, the environing-world and the "all-world" (Allwelt) reveal
themselves as transcending one's being-in-the-world and yet also as yield-
ing meaning for an understanding of one's own existence-in-the-world.
Thus, it can be readily said that for Husserl the transcendent relation to
the world is the most profound determinant of the meaning of the being of
the individual person. Husserl understands the life of this human being as
a constitutive activity. If the world appears as such, and if the sense of the
world is to be constituted by human beings, then the world must appear to
them as being constituted by them. The phenomenologist is thus con-
fronted with the task of describing how and in what type of human com-
portment the world reveals itself as being constituted. I believe that the
numerous analyses that Husserl devoted to normality and abnormality in
the apperception of the world are responses to this preoccupation regard-
ing the letting-appear of the world as being constituted. 7 It is surely no
mere coincidence that, once again, it is in our relation to the unfamiliar
and foreign that the sense of the being of the world reveals itself.
The "abnormals" who interest Husserl are above all the mentally ill,
children, and animals. These abnormal subjects belong to the same world
as the normal subjects, and they comport themselves as having a certain
apperception of this common world. They are thus not merely inner-
worldly entities; nevertheless, they appear as abnormal because normal
subjects do not comprehend them. Indeed, normal subjects understand
neither the way in which the common world reveals itself to these abnor-
mals, nor how these abnormals contribute to the shaping of this common
world. Their place in the world is obscure, because, on the one hand, they
are recognized as subjects having an apperception of and even participat-
ing in the constitution of the common world, yet, on the other hand, the
meaning of their participation remains enigmatic. They are not subjects
"like me" (meinesgleichen) with whom I can agree on the meaning and
destiny of the historical world in which we live together. Their incompre-
hensible contribution to my world has the result that a part of the meaning
of this world remains undetermined and unknown to me (ZPh 627). This
stretch of strangeness within my famiUar world reveals by contrast the
world of which I understand the meaning as being my world, that is, as a
world the sense of which I am able to appropriate in constitution. The
experience of the lack of meaning functions as an appeal to meaning. The
world of the abnormals, limited and closed in upon itself and thus inacces-
sible, reveals by contrast the normal world as a world of infinite openness,
30
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
as a work in progress, as the risky and adventurous quest for meaning.
Rather than being the residue of the order of the world, the disorder of
abnormality evokes, on the contrary, the active quest and constitution of
the ordered world. This constituted world is above aU the intelligible world
that governs the rational exchanges among human beings.
It is in view of this common rational world that the deviation of abnor-
mal comportments reveals itself. The comportment of a child is said to be
abnormal because a child does not yet contribute to the constitution of the
rational meaning of the human world. Maturation is precisely the process
of appropriation or reconstitution of the meaning of the world, which wiU
make the child into "my equal" (meinesgleichen). The case of animals is
different. They are excluded from our rational world, but they constitute
their own world according to the species to which they belong. Nonethe-
less, as the world of certain pets fits advantageously into the human envi-
roning-world, Husserl seems to suggest a partial contribution to the
constitution of the human world on the part of the animals: "One might
object that in the case where animals are considered as relating themselves
to the world, to the same as ours, they might sometimes contribute to the
constitution [mitkonstituierend] of the world as world. When one under-
stands a dog sensing the hunt, the dog as it were teaches us something we
did not already know. The dog enlarges the world of our experience"
(ZPh 167). This possible comprehension of the animals' contribution to
the constitution of my environing-world (which is, to be sure, not yet the
rational "aU-world" [Allwelt] of humanity) depends on a sort of sinularity
between the animal and the normal human subject. Just as in the case of
apperception of a foreign human subject, this similarity primarily concerns
the corporeaUty (Leiblichkeit) of the animal (ZPh 625-26).
As far as the "crazy" or "insane" are concerned (that is, Irrsinnige,
Wahnsinnige, Verritckte), Husserl does not deal with these at any great
length. Nevertheless, these cases, as with all cases of behavior related to
the unconscious, are particularly interesting. My parapraxes surely con-
tribute to the constitution of my life-world (Lebenswelt), even if I do not
recognize myself in them. The psychotic delirium, the logic of which
remains foreign to me, is however of the same material as my rational
apperception of the world and thus contributes to a clarification of the
meaning of my world. So we must concede that there are human com-
portments, the meaning of which I cannot grasp even though they appear
to me as participating in the constitution of the human world. The
unconscious and delirium thus constitute an improper world, which is
nevertheless neither behind, below, nor beside the proper world of
rational subjects. This improper world bursts into and blooms in the
midst of the proper world. This proper world does not thereby become
an improper world but appears as a world shot through with strangeness,
as a haunted house, as a mine field. The proper world of rationality is
31
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
never an established fact. It is precisely this fragility that lends the world
its value.
The appearing of the human world, whether it be the familiar home-
world of a social group, or the "all-world" of humanity, or the disquieting
world of madness, is certainly a phenomenon unlike others. It is hos-
pitable, but its hospitality reveals itself most clearly when we "miss" the
world, for example in anxiety or in facing death. The same can be said for
the rationality of this world, which reveals itself only when it is threatened.
Should we conclude that the appearance of the world is always a dramatic
event? Does it unavoidably reveal the profound isolation of a human
subject that has been expelled from the secure ground of its famiUar sur-
roundings? This seems to be what Heidegger is saying in the period of
Being and Time when he opposes the phenomenon of the environing-
world (Umwelt) to the phenomenon of the "world" (Welt).
The world of Dasein
The environing-world is for Heidegger the everyday world, which Husserl
calls life-world (Lebenswelt). In ordinary life, Dasein is submerged in the
things of the world, and Dasein's constant preoccupation with these things
leaves no occasion for questioning the meaning of this world. Even rela-
tions with other human Daseins are inscribed within the framework of
these preoccupations and thus amount to mere associations of collabora-
tion. If Dasein were to take notice of the environing-world in the midst of
such occupations, it is still only to be assured of the arrangement of things
and persons in view of the efficacy of its own future actions. The environ-
ing-world is viewed in circumspection (Umsicht). This circumspection is
actually an "inspection" by the owner, who assures himself or herself of
the presence of everything contained in the familiar world. Among the
things of the world is Dasein itself, and other human Daseins. Without
confounding things and persons, this concernful circumspection neverthe-
less embraces them in one single view as beings in the world. Seeing the
world and not merely the things of the world, Dasein still remains too tied
to inner-worldly preoccupations to consider the world as such. To have the
world appear as such, one must leave the environing-world or at least
transport oneself to its limit.
Being and Time analyzes the leaving of the world that allows the world
to appear - or, rather, the worldliness of the world - by means of a phe-
nomenological description of anxiety: "The state of anxiety discloses, pri-
mordially and directly, the world as world." 8 In anxiety, the familiar
environing-world collapses, and the world imposes itself upon Dasein in
all its strangeness: "Anxiety . . . brings Dasein back from its fallen absorp-
tion in the 'world'. Everyday familiarity collapses. Dasein has been indi-
vidualized, but individualized as Being-in-the-world. Being-in enters into
32
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
the existential 'mode' of the 'not-at-home' [Un-zuhause]. Nothing else is
meant by our talk of 'uncanniness' [Unheimlichkeit]" (SZ 189; BT 233).
This analysis of anxiety shows us in an exemplary manner the ambiguity
of this "leaving the world" through which the world manifests itself as
world. First, we see that the world we leave and the world manifested by this
leaving are different. This difference is even indicated by the terminology:
we leave the environing-world (Umwelt) and face the "world" (Welt).
Second, the world revealing itself in anxiety concerns only the being of
Dasein itself. The exchanges with inner-worldly things or persons are sus-
pended. Dasein's understanding of the environing-world and of the being of
entities that Dasein is not, does not count anymore: the world and the
being-in-the-world of Dasein itself are "nothing ready to hand [Nichts von
Zuhandenheit]" (SZ 187; BT 231-32). The world of Dasein owes its phe-
nomenalization to an "annihilation of the world," understood as aboUtion of
the environing-world. Third, the world of Dasein that manifests itself in
anxiety isolates Dasein from everything that is different from itself, even
other Daseins. The strangeness of this world is a proper form of strangeness
and not a foreign strangeness. It is true that Heidegger insists on the gift of
the world, on the fact that the world imposes itself upon Dasein in affecting
Dasein, that is to say, in the form of "state-of-mind" (Befindlichkeit) or the
remarkable "mood" (Stimmung) that is called anxiety. Nevertheless, in the
isolation by which Dasein gains access to a proper understanding of its own
being, anxiety becomes a type of self-affection. If, rather than constituting
the world, Dasein receives the revelation of the world as world, it is still true
that it receives this gift of a given world from itself.
This description of the disclosure of the world in Being and Time is
remarkably similar to the one provided by Husserl. The world reveals
itself when its obvious and familiar presence is disrupted and it reveals
itself to a subject that has turned away or has been expelled from the
world. Heidegger's "anxiety" accomplishes some sort of phenomenologi-
cal reduction or even an "annihilation of the world."9 The disclosure of the
world is thus dependent upon the self-transcending comportment of the
subject, on a theoretical or existential "project." No wonder, then, that for
both Husserl and Heidegger the world shows itself as having been "consti-
tuted" or at least "shaped" by the subject.10 Not only does it take a special
sort of subjective comportment to let the world reveal itself, but in this
revelation it becomes clear also that the meaning of the world depends on
the subject. Nevertheless, and despite aU these analogies, Husserl and Hei-
degger fundamentally differ both in the way they understand the world-
revealing and the world-shaping comportment of the subject, and in the
way they characterize the belonging-together of the subject and the world.
These differences made themselves felt as soon as Husserl and Heidegger
tried, in 1927, to put in common their conception of phenomenology for
the Encyclopaedia Britannica?1
33
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
The constitution and gift of the world
For Husserl the possibility of the revelation of the world depends on a
particular attitude, on a specific sort of action, on a will and sense of
responsibility on the part of the subject. For Heidegger, too, at least in
Being and Time, the world discloses itself only for an authentically existing
subject, but this authentic existence is not a matter of voluntary decision
or ethical responsibility. In anxiety, Dasein undergoes the manifestation of
the world; it is unexpectedly overwhelmed by it. The appearance of the
world stops the busy life of human activities. Emmanuel Levinas's descrip-
tion of insomnia - when, in the darkness of the night and while absolutely
nothing happens, one is realizing with fright that "there is" (ity a) unceas-
ingly being - is a good illustration for such a passive experience of the
world.12
But there are certainly other, less dramatic ways in which the world
gives itself and in which we receive its gift. Jan Patocka, in his early text
entitled Le monde naturel comme probleme philosophique, has emphas-
ized with particular force that if the revelation of the world requires
"movements tending . . . towards the Umits," this does not necessarily
mean they take the form of anxiety or of an isolation of the subject: The
step they accomplish leads, one could say,
behind everything that exists, in order to find there the possibUity
of being human in ways other than everyday life; there is thus a
change of the world, not of its content. These movements are
characterized by the fact that it is impossible [possible?] to estab-
lish oneself in them; there is in them a time of rest or rather
dwelling, . . . the philosophers in awe, the artist in admiration,
others in hatred, some in love.13
In love, for example, "it is possible to become for another thrown exist-
ence a warm hearth transforming the anxiety of the uninhabitable into a
possibiUty of acceptance. Without acceptance, there is no human exist-
ence, for we are not only thrown into reality, but also accepted " ten) to the unity of the "all-world" or to abandon the rational quest for
The human being that is "accepted" by the world receives this world as
a gift. It is true that there is no gift without a donation and a donator, no
given world without encountering other human persons and their works.
But it is also true that works of art, for example, that disclose the world
give more than an artist could ever give; the given world has a meaning
that goes beyond what was given to it by a person or even by the infinite
community of all human beings. As we have seen, Husserl did not remain
blind to the phenomenon of a pregiven world. However, this world, which
is given to us as having already been there, as receiving or accepting us, is
a world with a meaning that other, former subjects have "constituted." 14 In
34
HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E W O R L D
its pregivenness the world reveals a meaning that was bestowed on it by
other subjects, known or unknown, explicitly or anonymously.
Husserl's concept of constitution does not quite allow for a satisfactory
phenomenological account of the transcendence of the world. Despite the
important amendments this concept underwent when Husserl discovered
the constitutive function of noematic phenomena, when he investigated
the constitution not only of singular objects but also of the world, when he
took into account passive and anonymous forms of constitution, Husserl
continued to consider "constituting" a subjective achievement and the
"constituted" its objective result. It is true that in his "intentional anthro-
pology" Husserl gave much attention to the being-in-the-world of the
human person and thus to forms of comportments where the subject and
its world are intimately intertwined. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the
constitution of the world belongs to a pure Ego that, while constituting the
world, "enworlds" itself to become a human person. The entanglement
between the person and its world is a constituted form of entanglement.
The constituted world is a world posited by the transcendental subject "in
front of" itself. The world thus opposed to the transcendental subject as its
correlate is a pregiven world with a meaning the subject can fully appro-
priate since it is a meaning it has already bestowed on it, anonymously or
historically. The subject gives everything to the world and the world gives
the subject only what it has received from the subject; the disclosure of the
constituted world celebrates and brings into full light the constitutive
achievements of the subject. Husserl's notion of constitution thus does not
suffice to provide a full understanding of the different forms in which the
subject contributes to the manifestation of the world, and it is unable to
account for the gift of the world to the subject.
In my opinion, Husserl is most convincing in what he says about the
human way to enrich the historical world, to take care of it in view of
future generations, to make it more rational. I also think that Husserl is
right to say that pointing to the universal world (Allwelt) of humanity is a
matter of philosophical responsibility. In doing so he successfully resisted
the temptation either to sacrifice the plurality of home-worlds (Heimwel-
human equality in favor of a celebration of cultural relativism. Husserl's
"all-world" should, of course, be understood as the philosophical telos of
humanity and not as the realization of a world market indistinctly gov-
erned by one-dimensional technological rationality in all the countries of
the world. Making everyone a "citizen of the world" in no way implies
making uniform the different styles and contexts of human Ufe. For
Husserl, the most valuable contribution philosophy can make to the
common work of the constitution of the world is to guide the march of
history toward its telos of a world that would be fully rational. Still, there
exist other ways of participating in the constitution of the world by
35
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
modifying, enriching, preserving, enlarging, and improving its meaning.
These various modes of the constitution of the world might all go together
with a feeling of satisfaction or gratitude for what humanity in its historical
development has achieved. Should we then conclude that whatever is
revealed in the disclosure of the world reveals itself in the form of a
meaning constituted by us? In the event that the world effectively dis-
closes itself in such a manner, is that enough to affirm that we then can
totally appropriate its meaning to ourselves? Is every meaning of the
world a meaning constituted by us, and is every constituted meaning the
result of a deliberate action that lends itself to being "reactivated" with
perfect fidelity? Is the meaning of the world always a human meaning, and
is the human meaning of the world open to a totally comprehensive
"reprise"?
The world and the subject
The world that reveals itself in birth and death, in anxiety, insomnia, reli-
gious devotion, artistic admiration, in hatred and love is much more than a
"human-made" world. It can, and often does, appear as both inhuman and
unmade. Not that this world would not concern us as human beings or that
we could not do anything about it, but it is more than we can achieve and it
is less familiar than what we know. The human shaping of the world is pre-
ceded and guided by a disclosure of the world that reveals the essential
limits of aU human endeavor. Rather than revealing itself as a human
achievement, the world reveals that human existence is interwoven with the
blank pages of what is inhuman. Human beings receive the revelation of
their transcendence from the world rather than - through the effectuation of
a phenomenological reduction - actively bringing the world to show itself.
The disclosure of the world interrupts the identification of human
beings with their familiar surroundings. The world reveals that, considered
as subjects, human beings do not belong (in-)to the world. This is, of
course, not to say that the subjects, to which the world is disclosing itself,
exist outside or independently of the world. The appearing of the world
rather shows both: the essential belonging-together of the subject and the
world and their essential difference. The belonging-together of the subject
and the world is a form of entanglement that reveals a difference, a form
of interdependence that excludes reciprocity. The appearing world shows
itself as being strange and inhuman and at the same time as being in need
of humanization and appropriation by the subject. The subject, in its turn,
discovers that although its entire life takes place in the world, it is itself not
a worldly being, and that although it is different from the world, it is also
in charge of the world. Its shaping of the world contributes to the revela*
tion of the otherness of the world, and caring about this foreign world is
the proper meaning of the life of a human subject.
36
HUSS.ERL'S CONCEPT OF THE WORLD
Notes
1 Letter quoted in R. Hirsch, "Edmund Husserl und Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Eine Begegnung und ein Brief," in Sprache und Politik: Festgabe fur Dolf
Sternberger, ed. C. J. Friedrich (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider Press, 1968),
pp. 108-15.
2 For this early conception of world view see E. Husserl, "Philosophie als strenge
Wissenschaft," first published in Logos 1 (1911): 289-341, esp. pp. 323-41; pub-
lished in the collection, Aufsatze und Vortrage (1911-1921), ed. T. Nenon and
H.-R. Sepp, Husserliana no. 25 (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 1-62,
esp. pp. 41-62; English translation: "Philosophy as Rigorous Science," in
Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. Q. Lauer (New
York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 71-147, esp. pp. 122^17.
3 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen
Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allegemeine Einfiihrung in die reine Phdnomeno-
logie, ed. K. Schuhmann, Husserliana no. 3/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1976), sect. 49. Subsequent references to this volume will be indicated in the
text by "Idl," followed by section and page number. Compare the English
translation: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenolog-
ical Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology,
trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983).
4 E. Husserl, Zur Phdnomenologie der Intersubjektivitdt. Texte aus dem Nachlass.
Drifter Teil: 1929-1935, ed. I. Kern, Husserliana no. 15 (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1973), p. 621. This text comes from 1933. Subsequent references to this
volume will be indicated in the text by "ZPh," followed by the page number;
translations are my own.
5 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phanomenologischen
Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phdnomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitu-
tion, ed. M. Biemel, Husserliana no. 4 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952),
sect. 48-64. Subsequent references to this volume will be indicated in the text
by "Idll," followed by section and page number; translations are my own.
6 E. Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortrage, ed. S. Strasser,
Husserliana no. 1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), sect. 45, p. 130; my
translation. See as well ZPh 492.
7 Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, sect. 55; see also ZPh 133-70, 613-27.
8 M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1977), p. 187;
my translation. Compare English translation: Being and Time, trans. J. Mac-
quarrie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 231-32. Sub-
sequent references to Sein und Zeit will be indicated by "SZ" followed by page
number; translations are my own. References to Being and Time, indicated by
"BT," that follow a reference to SZ, are for comparison.
9 See the excellent article of J.F. Courtine, "L'idee de la phenomenologie et la
probl^matique de la reduction," in Phanomenologie et mitaphysique (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1984), pp. 211-45; see esp. pp. 232-33.
10 For Heidegger's account of such a "shaping" of the world see especially M.
Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt - Endlichkeit - Einsamkeit,
vols. 29-30 of Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1983), pp. 397-532; "der Mensch ist weltbildend."
11 E. Husserl, Phdnomenologische Psychologie, ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana no. 9
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 274-75, 601. Heidegger summarizes
their different approaches when he asks Husserl: "Does not a world in general
belong to the essence of the pure ego?" (p. 274, n. 1.).
12 E. Levinas, De l'existence d I'existant (Paris: Vrin, 1978), pp. 109-10. Compare
37
 T
L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS

English translation: Existence and Existents, trans. A. Lingis (The Hague: Mart-
inus Nijhoff, 1978), pp. 65-66.
13 J. Patocka, Le monde naturel comme problime philosophique (The Hague: 72
Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), p. 175. The next quote is from p. 176.
14 The pregivenness of the world therefore should not be confused with the pre-
givenness of the sensuous "hyl6"; unlike the hyl6 which precedes constitution, H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , D I E
the world is for Husserl always a constituted world.
E I N E W E L T

Klaus Held

Source: Ernst Wolfgang Orth (ed.), Perspektiven und Probleme der Husserlschen Phanom-
enologie, Phdnomenologische Forschungen 24 (1991): 305-337.

Im Zeitalter des planetarischen Zusammenwachsens der Menschheit

gewinnt eine Reihe von Texten in Band XV der Husserliana1 besondere
Aktualitat, die alle um die Problematik der Konstitution der einen Welt in
der Begegnung von Heimwelt mit Fremdwelt kreisen. Die Problematik ist
einerseits noch im Umkreis der 5. Cartesianischen Meditation angesiedelt,
andererseits weist sie aber auch schon voraus auf einen charakteristischen
Aspekt der Krisis. In der 5. Meditation geht es um die Konstitution der
intersubjektiven Welt als objektiver Welt. Die objektive Welt ist eine fiir
alle Menschen uberhaupt. Tragender Gedanke der Krisis ist die teleologis-
1
che Perspektive auf die eine Welt einer verniinftig kommunizierenden
Menschheit. So bildet die Frage nach der Konstitution der einen Welt sys-
tematisch die Briicke zwischen den Analysen der 5. Meditation und der
Krisis. FreiUch springt zunachst ein Unterschied zwischen diesen Analysen
ins Auge. Nach der Konzeption der Krisis vollzieht sich die Konstitution
der einen Welt genetisch, d.h. als Entwicklungsschritt der inneren
Geschichte, in der sich das BewuBtsein mit neuen Horizonten anreichert:
Die historische Urstiftung von Philosophie und Wissenschaft bei den
Griechen stellt der Menschheit die Aufgabe, die wahre, objektive Welt zu
erforschen. Diese eine Welt ist nichts Fertigkonstituiertes, sondern im
Unendlichen liegendes Telos fiir die in der Zeit verlaufende Entwicklung
der sich verwissenschaftUchenden Menschheit. Im Unterschied dazu
setzen die Analysen der 5. Meditation, wie Husserl in § 58 hervorhebt, sta-
tisch an. Sie nehmen den eidetischen Gehalt von fertigkonstituierten
Gegebenheiten - und so auch der Gegebenheit „objektive Welt" - zum
Leitfaden und fragen zuriick nach den gleichsam zeitlosen Motivations-
zusammenhangen, durch die sie dem BewuBtsein begegnen konnen. Die
innere Geschichte des BewuBtseins ist fiir diese FragesteUung irrelevant.
Die Konstitutionsanalyse in der 5. Meditation bleibt aber nicht statisch.
Zwar hat die erste der Konstitutionsstufen intersubjektiver Lebenswelt

38 39
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
(215, 437ff.), auf die sich die erwahnte Feststellung in § 58 bezieht, statis-
chen Charakter, nicht aber die darauf aufbauenden hoheren Stufen. Jene
erste Stufe bildet die analogisierende Apperzeption, mit der ich ausgehend
von meiner Primordialitat den Andern als das an sich erste Fremde konsti-
tuiere; ich transzendiere meine primordiale Welt, indem ich sie als
Erscheinungsweise einer Welt auffasse, die dem Andern und mir gemein-
sam ist. Meine primordiale Welt ist dadurch gekennzeichnet, daB sie ihre
Bestimmtheit ausschUeBlich meinen eigenen Apperzeptionsleistungen ver-
dankt. Methodisch ist der Riickgang auf diese Welt eine Abstraktion: Ich
sehe kunstlich davon ab, daB meine Lebenswelt „immer schon" eine
gemeinsame, d.h. von den Apperzeptionsleistungen der Mitsubjekte
durchtrankte Welt ist. Deshalb bildet die Konstitutionsleistung, durch die
mein Ich die primordiale Welt transzendiert, keinen Entwicklungsschritt
in der Genesis der BewuBtseinshorizonte;2 die Erweiterung des primor-
dialen Horizonts ist keine „Urstiftung", wenn man unter „Urstiftung" die
Erzeugung einer Apperzeptionsmdglichkeit versteht, die es in der
Geschichte des BewuBtseins vorher noch nicht gegeben hatte.
GrundsatzUch anders steht es bei der zweiten Hauptstufe intersubjek-
tiver Konstitution, wie Husserl sie in § 58 der 5. Meditation im UmriB
skizziert hat. Hier geht es um die Uberschreitung der ersten bereits konsti-
tuierten gemeinsamen Welt, namlich der Kulturwelt, in der eine Men-
schengemeinsch&ft heimisch ist, durch die Begegnung mit einer fremden
Kultur. DaB Menschen nur ihre heimische Kulturwelt kannten, war
geschichtlich durchaus mogUch und ist insofern kein bloBes Abstraktions-
produkt des Philosophen. Entsprechend beruht die Offnung der heimis-
chen fiir eine fremde Kulturwelt auf einer Urstiftung, die den Horizont
gemeinsamer Welterfahrung geschichtUch erweitert. Husserl benutzt
deshalb in § 58 auch ausdriickUch den Begriff Genesis (vgl. 437). Obwohl
es sich bei der ursprunglichen Uberschreitung der Primordialsphare nicht
um eine Genesis handelt, kann Husserl die geschichtliche Uberschreitung
r einer heimischen Kulturwelt doch damit vergleichen. Betrachtet man
diese Uberschreitung namUch im Stil statischer Konstitutionsanalyse auf
ihre Motivationsstruktur hin, so zeigt sie einen parallelen Aufbau zur anal-
ogisierenden Apperzeption des Anderen. An diese Strukturver-
wandtschaft, die. § 58 als Leitlinie vorgibt, mochte ich mich im folgenden
halten. Ich versuche auf dieser Grundlage zunSchst die Systematik zu
„rekonstruieren", die in den schwierigen einschlSgigen Texten von Band
XV durchscheint (I.). Die Analyse wird aber zu einem Punkt fiihren, an
dem der genetische Charakter der Problematik nicht langer ausgeklam-
mert bleiben kann. Das genetische Problem wird sich auf die Frage zu-
spitzen, in welchem Sinne die griechische Urstiftung, die der Menschheit
als Entwicklungsziel die eine gemeinsame Welt vorzeichnet, heute ihre
ErfuUung finden kann (II.).
40
1
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE EINE WELT
Die StrukturparaUeUtat beginnt damit, daB die heimische Kulturwelt tat-
sachlich als eine Art Primordialsphare zweiter Stufe angesehen werden
kann: So wie ich in der abstraktiv vorausgesetzten reinen Primordialitat
nur von mir selbst und meiner Welt weiB und „noch" nichts von der Exis-
tenz eines anderen Ich und seiner Weltauffassung, ebenso ist den Ange-
horigen einer vollig abgeschlossenen kulturellen Heimwelt noch nichts
von anderen Kulturen bekannt. Solange Menschen innerhalb einer
isolierten Kulturwelt leben, miissen sie das BewuBtsein haben, sie seien
„alle Menschen" (217), die Menschheit uberhaupt (140f., 165,176,431). Es
ist ja charakteristisch, daB die Selbstbezeichnung der Angehorigen vieler
Volker einfach „Mensch" lautet. Die geschlossene Totalitat einer solchen
Welt kann nicht einmal als heimische oder heimatliche Welt empfunden
werden; das Heimische hebt sich als solches erst durch den Kontrast zum
„Fremden" ab (176). Erst nach der Bekanntschaft mit einer „Fremdwelt"
kann die eigene Welt, die bis dahin die einzige Welt war, als das „uns
Eigene", d.h. als „Heimwelt" erfahren werden; erst vor dem Hintergrund
der Begegnung mit dem Fremden erlebt man das Heimische auch als das
HeimatUche, als Zuhause.
Das „Fremde" sowohl bei der urspriingUchen Transzendierung der Pri-
mordialitat als auch bei der ersten Begegnung mit einer bis dahin fremden
Kultur ist ein umfassender Verweisungszusammenhang von apperzeptiven
Gehalten, d.h. eine „Welt" als Horizont. Konkret erfahrbar wird das
umfassend Fremde an einer „Fremdwelt" allerdings immer nur in einzel-
nen Vorkommnissen innerhalb dieser Welt; jedes solche Vorkommnis ist
gleichsam welthaltig und indiziert die Fremdheit der Fremdwelt. So
kommt die Fremdheit einer bis dahin unbekannten Kultur in alien Ber-
eichen von Vorkommnissen zum Vorschein, die sich innerhalb dieser
Kultur beobachten lassen: in erster Linie in den fremden Menschen, den
„Fremden", mit ihren Handlungsweisen, Gewohnheiten und Institutionen,
dann in den fremdartigen Gegenstanden, die sie herstellen, aber auch in
all dem, was sie zwar nicht hergestellt haben, was ihnen aber doch auf eine
uns fremde Weise, als uns fremde Natur begegnet.
Was eine bis dahin unbekannte Welt fiir „uns" in „unserer" Heimwelt
zur fremden Welt macht, ist der fremde Apperzeptionszusammenhang,
durch den die Fremden sich selbst, ihre Verhaltensart, ihre Produkte, ihre
Natur und was es sonst an „Bestandteilen" ihrer Welt geben mag, anders
auffassen, als „wir" es tun. Die Weise, wie ihnen die Vorkommnisse in
ihrer Welt erscheinen - und damit unthematisch das Ganze ihrer Welt
selbst - , stimmt mit der unsrigen nicht iiberein. Ihre Welterfahrung ver-
lauft in diesem Sinne, wie Husserl sagen wurde, nicht „einstimmig" mit
der unsrigen. Dieses Fehlen der Einstimmigkeit laBt uns ihre Welter-
fahrung als „anomal" erscheinen.
41
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
Nun kennen wir auch innerhalb unserer Heimwelt Verhaltens-
moglichkeiten und Vorkommnisse, die aus der Einstimmigkeit der „ver-
trauten Typik" (221) des normalen Apperzeptionssystems herausfallen.
MaBstab ist dabei das durchschnittUche Auffassen des reifen Erwachsenen
(178, 231) zwischen Kindheit und Jugend auf der einen und Alter auf der
anderen Seite. Was diesem MaBstab geniigt, gilt fur Jedermann" (142,
165); es ist das Normale. Entscheidend ist, daB das heimische „System"
der Normalitat so umfassend ist, daB es die Anomalie mit einbegreift
(142f., 154ff., 211 ff., 230f., 438). Das Anomale mag zwar im Einzelfalle
unerwartbar sein, aber ihrem Typ nach sind die Abweichungen von der
Normalitat im heimweltlichen Erwartungshorizont gleichsam vorgesehen.
Die NormaUtat behauptet sich gegenuber der Anomalie, indem sie ihr ihre
Typik vorgibt.
Eine bisher unbekannte Kultur erweckt den Eindruck umfassender
Fremdheit, weil ihr gegenuber die heimische Typik der Anomalie versagt.
Das heimische Anomale mochte uns „befremden", aber es war in letzter
Instanz nichts Fremdes, es hob die Einstimmigkeit der Wertapperzeption
im ganzen nicht auf. Eben dies tritt nun ein, ein Bruch im gesamten Stil
(198, 431 f.) der lebensweltUchen Erfahrung, der uns die bislang unbekan-
nte Kultur als unverstandlich (233), als etwas „unverstandlich Fremdes"
(432) erscheinen laBt, weil sie auf einem eigenen System der NormaUtat
unter EinschluB einer entsprechenden Typik der Anomalie beruht.
Damit ist der eigentUche Grund dieser Verstandnislosigkeit aber noch
nicht aufgedeckt. Auch innerhalb unserer Heimwelt konnen uns heim Ein-
tritt in ungewohnte Lebensverhaltnisse in gewissem Umfange neue Systeme
der NormaUtat begegnen, etwa bei der Aufnahme in einen Verein oder bei
der EheschlieBung. Vieles mag uns dann unverstandUch erscheinen, und
auch die Typik der AnomaUe ist partieU eine andere. Trotzdem ist die
UmsteUung auf die neuen Verhaltnisse mogUch, weil es sich nur um par-
tieUe Modifikationen (136) innerhalb eines in Geltung bleibenden
vorgegebenen Gesamtsystems normaler Auffassungstypik handelt.
Die normale Typik enthalt in sich bereits die Moglichkeit von Korrek-
turen usw., ohne daB sie im ganzen gefahrdet ware; sie ist eine „flieBende
Typik", wie Husserl sagt (431). Deshalb erscheint keinerlei Neues, d.h.
nichts zunachst als anomal Erscheinendes, fur dessen Aneignung wir
unseren heimweltlichen Horizont erweitern mtissen, in ganz strengem Sinne
als uberraschend. Es begegnet nie als vollig unbekannt, sondern als „vor-
bekannt". So wird jede Erweiterung als Explikation von Moglichkeiten
erfahren, die schon in dem vorangegangenen engeren HorizontbewuBtsein
beschlossen lagen.
Der Horizont der Heimwelt ist offen und geschlossen zugleich. „Hori-
zont" bedeutet „begrenzender Umkreis", aber bildlich gesprochen liegt
der Radius des Kreises nicht fest. Der Horizont als Grenze macht die
Heimwelt endlich, aber die Endlichkeit ist eine „relative Endlichkeit"
42
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE E I N E WELT
(198). Der Einzelne erfahrt die Endlichkeit seiner Heimwelt in Stufen der
Umweltlichkeit, also als Kind vielleicht zunachst darin, daB sich sein
Leben im Umkreis seiner StraBe, seines Dorfes oder StadtteUs abspielt,
dann aber erweitert sich seine Lebensumwelt. Immer bleibt diese Umwelt
endlich, aber sie ist stets nur „relativ geschlossen" (219); sie enthalt in sich
ein Potential der Erweiterung (429), der Uberschreitung (205) des jeweili-
gen endlichen Umfeldes. So ist die Heimwelt im offenen ProzeB einer fort-
dauernden „Aneignung" bewuBt. Das Eigene, das lebensweltliche Heim,
der oikos als Eigenes, als oikeion, bewahrt sich als dieses Eigene durch die
fortschreitende Erweiterung seines Umfangs - eine Konzeption, die struk-
turell - nicht inhaltlich - an die stoische Lehre von der oikeiosis erinnert.
Die Heimwelt bleibt uns immerfort unaufhdrUch zur Explikation (202)
aufgegeben. Sie ist ein „Erwerb, der immerzu im Erwerben ist" (201), „ein
Seinssinn, der fiir mich wird" (201). Sie ist etwas, was uns jederzeit aufs neue
bevorsteht und was deshalb „immerzu Antizipation" (202) ist. So ist uns der
heimweltliche Horizont im Modus der Zukunftigkeit bewuBt. Aber zugleich
besitzt er den Charakter der Vergangenheit; denn alle Explikationen lagen
als MogUchkeiten schon in der bisherigen Erfahrung der Heimwelt
beschlossen. Die Heimwelt ist, um diesen Sachverhalt auf eine Formel zu
bringen, ein explicandum, dessen Zukunfts- und Vergangenheitscharakter
eins sind: Nur indem wir den Horizont unserer heimatUchen Umwelt in die
offene Zukunft hinein explizieren, bewahrt er sich als das immer schon
„Vorgegebene" (171), und nur indem wir uns an dieses Vorgegebene,
unvordenkUch Alte halten, bringen wir das Zukunftige, Neue zum
Vorschein.
Als unabschUeBbar immer weiter explizierbare Vorgegebenheit gibt die
Heimwelt unserem Leben Sicherheit. Denn wenn alles Neue nur als Exp-
likation des vorgegebenen Gesamtsystems normaler Auffassungstypik
begegnen kann, darf ich mich darauf verlassen, daB dieses System als Ver-
standigungsgrundlage mit den Andern nie ins Wanken gerat. Aber die
Frage ist: Was gibt mir eigentlich von vornherein diese Sicherheit, und wie
ist es vor diesem Hintergrund moglich, daB das heimweltUche BewuBtsein
dann doch auf die Fremdheit der Fremdwelt stoBen kann, deren Unver-
standUchkeit in der Kontinuitat des unabschlieBbaren ExpUzierens einen
Bruch hervorruft?
Das Gesamtsystem der Normalitat erscheint jedermann als etwas,
worauf man sich verlassen kann, weil es den Charakter der jeweils schon
eingespielten Gewohnheit (144) hat. Es stammt aus einer Vergangenheit,
die unserer eigenen Erfahrung mit der Normalitat, innerhalb derer wir sie
partieU modifizieren oder erweitern konnen, voraufgeht. Es verweist als
Althergebrachtes unmittelbar auf die Generation derer, die vor uns Heuti-
gen gelebt haben. Aber weil auch die Generation unserer Eltern schon ein
solches - von ihnen eventuell modifiziertes oder erweitertes - System
als Verstandigungsgrundlage voraussetzen muBte, reicht der Verweis
43
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
mittelbar in die vorvergangene Generation zurtick und von da weiter in
eine Generationenkette, die „endlos offen" in die Vergangenheit zurtick1-
geht (138,168 f., 199 f.).
Der gegenwartige Bestand der Normalitat und ihrer Typik ist also
Resultat der Auffassungsarbeit ins Unendliche zuriickreichender Genera-
tionen. Normalitat beruht in diesem Sinne auf der „Generativitat" (431),
sie hat als generativ gewachsene Gewohnheit wesenhaft eine historische
Dimension (139, 205). Die Menschen haben in diesem Sinne im Unter-
schied zu den Tieren durch ihre Heimwelt eine generative, historische
Welt" (160 Anm.).
Nun ist aber die Geschichte der Generationen, denen wir die Normal-
itat unserer Heimwelt verdanken (168f.), „unsere" Tradition. Es waren
nicht beliebige Menschen, die die Normalitat iiber das Absterben der
alten Generationen hinweg (168 f.) weitergetragen und weiterentwikkelt
haben, sondern es waren „unsere" Eltern, deren Voreltern usw. Diesen
Aspekt der Generativitat hat Husserl in den Forschungsmanuskripten von
Band XV nicht eigens hervorgehoben, obwohl gerade er es ist, der dem
heimweltlichen System der Auffassungsnormalitat eigentlich seine Zuver-
lassigkeit und Vertrauenswiirdigkeit verleiht. Der springende Punkt ist die
Herkunft dieses Systems aus einer exklusiv gerade „unserer" Heimwelt
zugehorigen Generativitat; „unsere" Vorfahren sind nicht gegen die einer
Fremdwelt austauschbar. Mit dieser Feststellung hat sich zugleich geklart,
worin die unverstandliche Fremdheit der fremdweltlichen Auffassungs-
normaUtat ihre letzte Wurzel hat. Das Fremde ist das Nicht-Eigene; das
nicht austauschbar Eigene jeder Heimwelt sind die Vorfahren, auf deren
Auffassungsarbeit das geltende System der Normalitat beruht. Dieses
Eigene laBt sich nur generativ „erben", aber nicht von auBen „aneignen".
Wir haben damit den Punkt erreicht, an dem wir den eigentlichen Grund
der EndUchkeit der Heimwelt aufdekken konnen. Husserl betont zwar in
den Texten von Band XV mehrfach, daB die Welt als Lebenswelt notwendig
endlich ist (171, 205, 431, 625), und diese EndUchkeit charakterisiert die
Lebenswelt als Heimwelt. Aber weil Husserl immer ebensosehr hervorhebt,
daB es sich um eine relative d.h. unabscblieBbar explizierbare EndUchkeit
handelt, entsteht der Schein, als sei die Heimwelt entgegen Husserls Ver-
sicherung unendlich. Man muB kritisch fragen: Bedeutet die unbeschrankte
Offenheit fiir kontinuierUche Erweiterung des Horizonts durch vorbekannt
Neues nicht doch UnendUchkeit? So wie Husserl die heimweltUche Kapaz-
itat fiir die unbegrenzte „Aneignung" von vorbekannt Neuem in Band XV
fiber weite Passagen beschreibt, konnte es so kUngen, als sei eine eigene
Konstitution von Einstimmigkeit mit der Fremdwelt gar nicht erforderUch,
weil auch das Neue der Fremdwelt nur Explikat des unvordenklich Alten
der Heimwelt sein kann - und damit nichts wirkUch Uberraschendes. Was
die Heimwelt eigentUch endlich macht, muB dasjenige sein, wodurch das
Neue an der Fremdwelt fiir uns unverstandlich ist und uns iiberrascht.
44
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE EINE WELT
Das tiberraschende ist das, worauf man nicht gefaBt war. Nicht gefaBt
ist man auf das, was einem nicht bloB als unmoglich erschien, sondern was
man wegen seiner UnmogUchkeit fiir die Interessen des Lebens gar nicht
erst in Rechnung gestellt und als irrelevant auBer Betracht gelassen hatte
(232). Das Uberraschende tiberfaUt uns so aus einer Gegend, einer
Dimension, die wir von vornherein lebenspraktisch abgeblendet hatten.
Eine solche Gegend oder Dimension gibt es nun in der Tat fiir das
heimweltUche BewuBtsein. Es weiB - wenngleich nur unthematisch -, daB
es zur in sich unendlich explizierbaren Umwelt der NormaUtat ein AuBer-
halb gibt. Wenn namlich alles Erwartbare nur Explikation sein kann, dann
besitzt die Heimwelt den Charakter eines umfassenden Innenhorizonts.
Als das „immer schon", aus unvordenkUcher Vergangenheit Vorgegebene
ist die Heimwelt ein Drinnen, das Geborgenheit bietet. An dieses ver-
traute Drinnen halt sich die Lebenspraxis; „das praktische Interesse ist iiji
Drinnen" (431). Aber dem Drinnen korrespondiert ein DrauBen (431),
der heimweltUche Innenhorizont hat einen AuBenhorizont zur Kehrseite
(219).
Weil der Innenhorizont das Drinnen umschUeBt und gegen das
DrauBen abgrenzt, kann Husserl die Heimwelt mit einer Kugel ver-
gleichen (430,438). Der Umfang dieser Kugel liegt allerdings - darin hinkt
der Vergleich - wegeri der Relativitat der EndUchkeit nicht fest. Mit ihrer
Selbstexplikation in der heimweltlichen oikeiosis setzt die Kugel wie eine
wachsende Zwiebel immer neue Schalen (430) an, aber sie bleibt endlich,
weil sie einen AuBenhorizont als ihr Anderes hat. Der AuBenhorizont
aber ist deshalb ein Anderes, sein Inhalt also kein Explikat der Heimwelt,
weil jedes Explikat in den Umkreis des Erwartbaren gehort. Der AuBen-
horizont konstituiert sich demgegenuber gerade als die Dimension oder
Gegend fiir das Nichterwartbare, und der Grundcharakter der Konstitu-
tion dieser Gegend ist ihre praktische A.bblendung.
Damit hat sich folgender Zusammenhang herausgestellt: Letzter Grund
ftir die Endlichkeit der Heimwelt ist ihre Vorgegebenheit aus einer unvor-
denklichen generativen Vergangenheit; denn deswegen erscheint alles
Neue als Explikat von „schon" Vorbekanntem. Eben dies aber macht die
Heimwelt zu einem Innenhorizont, einem vertrauten Drinnen, und das
heimweltUche BewuBtsein vom Drinnen impliziert als praktisch inter-
essiertes BewuBtsein die Abblendung eines irrelevanten DrauBen. Durch
diese praktische Abblendung des AuBenhorizonts konstituiert sich das
explicandum „Heimwelt" als notwendig endlich.
Das DrauBen, das AuBerhalb ist der Bereich fiir das Auftreten des
Unerwartbaren. Als Bereich ftir . . . muB es den Charakter einer Dimen-
sion oder Gegend haben, die durch das Auftreten des Unerwartbaren mit
Vorkommnissen „besetzt" werden kann. Weil das AuBerhalb aber abge-
blendet wird, bleibt es volUg unbesetzt, es wird ganz leergelassen. Der
AuBenhorizont der Heimwelt ist deshalb ein Leerhorizont (216, 429) im
45
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
strengsten Sinne von „Leere". Trotzdem besitzt er eine rudimentSre Bes-
timmtheit dadurch, daB er eine Dimension fiir Besetzbarkeit ist. Die jeder
inhaltlichen Besetzung bare Dimension von Besetzbarkeit ist die leere
Raumzeitlichkeit (139, 209, 216). Das praktisch abgeblendete AuBerhalb
ist deshalb, wie Husserl einmal formuliert, die „Au8enraumzeitUchkeit"
(429).
Die erste Begegnung mit einer Fremdwelt vollzieht sich, indem in der
bislang abgeblendeten und leergelassenen AuBenraumzeitlichkeit eine
„Besetzung" (216, 232) stattfindet. Das aber setzt eine VerMnderung dieser
leeren Dimension selbst voraus. Wie mehrfach gesagt wurde, ist jede
Fremdwelt eine „Kultur". Damit ist gemeint, daB sie als Apperzeptions-
system einen Gesamtbereich von Vorgegebenheit iiberlagert, der dem
apperzeptiven Auffassen-als unterUegt. Das Apperzipieren „besetzt", d.h.
iiberzieht oder durchsetzt diesen Vorgegebenheitsbereich mit einem flexi-
blen Geflecht von Auffassungscharakteren, einer flieBenden Normaltypik,
ahnlich wie die erste cultura den rohen Boden der Natur bearbeitet. Die
leere AuBenraumzeitlichkeit bildet fur die potentiellen apperzeptiven
Kultivierungen durch Fremdwelten die „Natur", aber „Natur" aUein als
dasjenige Bestimmbare, das sich in der Dimension der Raumzeitlichkeit
erstreckt, also die reine res extensa. Wtirde diese Natur eine dariiber hin-
ausgehende Bestimmtheit aufweisen, so ware sie bereits ein Stuck weit
durch heimweltUche Auffassungscharaktere kultiviert. Damit aber ware
sie kein vollig leerer AuBenhorizont mehr. Die kulturelle Besetzung
verandert die reine raumzeitliche Natur.
Solange diese Natur als AuBenhorizont ganzUch abgeblendet war, bUeb
sie fiir unbeschrankt viele Besetzungen offen, d.h. sie hatte den Charakter
der UnendUchkeit. Die Kultivierung schrankt diese UnendUchkeit ein. Dies
kann nur so geschehen, daB aus der puren res extensa konkrete Natur wird,
wie wir sie lebensweltUch als „Lebensfeld" (177) erfahren: „Erdboden,
Himmel, Pflanzen, Tiere", wie Husserl einmal formuliert (177). Um sich
eine kultureUe Fremdwelt begegnen lassen zu konnen, muB das
i-r heimweltUche BewuBtsein die unendUch leere Dimension des AuBerhalb
einschranken (206) auf eine endUche Gegend konkreter Natur. Erst damit
wird das DrauBen durch eine bestimmte Fremdwelt mit ihrer EndUchkeit
kulturell besetzbar. Die durch Beschrankung der raumzeitUchen
UnendUchkeit gewonnene Gegend konkreter Natur als Spielraum fiir eine
bestimmte kultureUe Besetzung nennt Husserl Territorium (177, 206 u. 6.).
Das Territorium ist also mehr als ein auf der Landkarte abgegrenzter
Bezirk; es besteht aus der ganzen konkreten Natur in einem solchen Bezirk,
wie Husserl sie in der gerade angefuhrten Formulierung umschreibt.
Nun konnen uns auch innerhalb unserer Heimwelt Sttikke unkul-
tivierter konkreter Natur begegnen, ohne daB wir sie als Territorien fiir
die mogliche Besetzung durch eine fremde Kulturwelt auffassen. Sie sind
fiir uns Leerstellen, die uns geeignet - order auch im Grenzfalle
46
• H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE E I N E WELT
ungeeignet - erscheinen, um sie uns im Zuge einer weiteren Explikation
des heimweltUchen Innenhorizonts durch Kultivierung anzueignen. Um in
ihnen Territorien fur eine mogliche Fremdwelt zu erblicken, muB das
heimweltUche BewuBtsein die bereits beschriebene Erfahrung der
Unbrauchbarkeit seines ganzen normalen Apperzeptionssystems machen.
Erst in dieser Erfahrung wird das „eigene", die zweite Primordialitat
„Heimwelt", mit dem eigentlich „Fremden" zweiter Stufe konfrontiert.
Wie gelingt es nun dem heimweltUchen BewuBtsein, mit diesem neuar-
tig Fremden zu einer ebenso neuartigen Einstimmigkeit zu kommen? Als
Wurzel der Fremdheit hatte sich der Abgrund zwischen den jeweils unaus-
tauschbar eigenen Generativitaten herausgestellt. Auch in der Motivations-
struktur der Intersubjektivitatskonstitution erster Stufe gab es ein
unerreichbar Fremdes: das absolute Hier des Leibes, worin der Andere
„waltet". Das Hier des Leibes des Anderen bleibt fiir mich unaufhebbar
das Dort jenes Korpers, welcher fiir den Anderen sein Hier, das „NuU-
glied" seiner Weltorientierung bildet. Jenes Dort kann ich nur in der
Phantasie, im BewuBtsein „als ob ich dort ware", nicht aber in positionaler
ReaUtat zu meinem leiblichen Hier machen. Das Walten des Anderen im
absoluten Hier seines eigenen Leibes ist das ftir mich schlechthin
UnzugangUche. Ebenso gibt es bei der Intersubjektivitatskonstitution zweiter
Stufe ein prinzipieU Unzugangliches: die eigenen Vorfahren der Angehori-
gen der Fremdwelt.
Die Uberschreitung der Primordialsphare war trotz der UnzugangUchkeit
des fremdleibUchen Hier mogUch, weil der Leib des Anderen nicht bloB
Leib-fur-ihn, sondern ineins damit Korper-fur-mich und damit Bestandteil
meiner primordialen Korperwelt ist. Auch zu dieser Struktur der Intersub-
jektivitatskonstitution erster Stufe gibt es eine Entsprechung in der
zweiten Stufe. Die fremde Generativitat verleiblicht sich gleichsam, indem
das aus ihr erwachsende Apperzeptionssystem ein bestimmtes Territorium
kultiviert. Sofern wir die MogUchkeit haben, dieses Territorium in
Abstraktion von seiner kuturellen Besetzung als unkultivierte Natur auf-
zufassen, konnen wir es als einen Bestandteil unserer Heimwelt behan-
deln, so wie der Leibkorper des Anderen rein als Korper zu meiner
Primordialsphare gehort. Jeder Tourist, der die Natur einer Fremdwelt
bereist, ohne sich um die Kultur derer, die sie bewohnen, zu kummern, ist
fiir diese Moglichkeit ein (freiUch trauriger) Beleg.
Fiir die analogisierende Apperzeption des Anderen geniigt es nicht,
daB sich das Dort des Korpers in meiner Primordialsphare fiktiv, im
Modus des „als ob ich dort ware", in mein Hier verwandelt. Damit die
Konstitution des Anderen wirklich stattfindet, brauche ich einen Anhalt-
spunkt dafiir, jenes Dort nicht bloB in der Phantasie als absolutes Hier zu
betrachten. Diesen Anhaltspunkt bietet das bei dem Korper dort zu
beobachtende „Gebaren". Es bestatigt in der ReaUtat kontinuierlich die
MogUchkeiten erwartbaren Verhaltens, die mein fiktives „Walten" in
47
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
jenem absoluten Hier vorzeichnet. Die kontinuierUche Deckung des realen
Gebarens mit dem fiktiv erwartbaren Verhalten laBt jenen Korper alsXeib
eines anderen Ich erscheinen und bildet zugleich die Grundlage der Ein-
stimmigkeit zwischen ihm und mir.3
Entsprechend braucht nun das heimweltUche BewuBtsein einen Anhalt-
spunkt, einen „Kern der Bekanntheit" (432), um ein Stuck Natur real als
fremdes Territorium, d.h., als besetzt durch eine fremde Kultur zu
erfahren. Das „Gebaren" jenes Korpers dort gab auf der ersten Stufe
meiner Phantasie den AnstoB, in ihm als einem absoluten Hier zu walten.
Ebenso muB auf der zweiten Stufe das heimweltUche BewuBtsein im
moghcherweise fremden Territorium ein „Gebaren" antreffen, das ihm
den AnstoB gibt, darin das Walten einer aus fremder Generativitat
erwachsenen NormaUtat zu erblicken. Dabei spielt es fiir den prinzipiellen
Gang dieser Analyse keine Rolle, ob jenes Gebaren unmittelbar als Ver-
halten von Fremden oder mittelbar in Zeugnissen von Kultur in Erschein-
ung tritt. WesentUch ist nur, daB in dem direkt order indirekt erfahrenen
Gebaren ein Hinweis auf Generativitat Uegt; denn die unaufhebbare
Fremdheit der Generativitat macht die andere Kultur zur Fremdwelt.
Die Generativitat tragt als anonymer geschichtlicher Hintergrund die
NormaUtat des geltenden Apperzeptiofissystems. Sie bleibt in der gegen-
wartigen Geltung dieses Systems als etwas GeschichtUches verborgen. Als
Geschichte der Generationenfolge mit den ftir das Normalitatsbewufilsein
entscheidenden Ereignissen tritt die Generativitat erst hervor, indem diese
Ereignisse von Generation zu Generation durch Erzahlen (145) iiber-
Uefert werden. Dieses den Generationswechsel uberbrukkende Erzahlen
ist fiir Husserl der Mythos (436 f., dazu die Anmerkungen 432 ff.). Er
gehort zu einer geschlossenen Heimwelt, weil er ihren Fortbestand als
endlicher Innenhorizont durch Bewahrung des uralten Eigenen fiber
Geburt und Tod hinweg sichert.
Nun ist der fremde Mythos aber - zumeist schon wegen der Sprachbar-
riere - dem heimweltUchen BewuBtsein zunachst ganz und gar unzugangUch.
Wenn es also im potentiell fremden Territorium direkt oder indirekt auf
ein Gebaren stoBen soil, das auf fremde Generativitat verweist, so kann
diese Generativitat zunachst nicht die in ihrem geschichtUchen Charakter
hervortretende mythisch erzahlte Generativitat sein. Es muB sich um eine
Vorform der Generativitat handeln, die zwei Bedingungen erfiiUt: Ihr
Geschichtscharakter bleibt noch verborgen, aber sie ist schon der Beginn
der Verleiblichung des fremden Apperzeptionssystems in der konkreten
Natur des fremden Territoriums.
Diese Vorform von Generativitat nennt Husserl das „Urgenerative"
(432), und dieses Urgenerative gibt es: Der Wechsel der Generationen
vollzieht sich mit Geburt und Tod, die kein „zufalUges Weltfaktum" sind
(171). Geborenwerden und Sterben sind nun aber nicht nur Grenzstatio-
nen am Rande des Lebens, sondern melden sich auch naturhaft innerhalb
48
1
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE EINE WELT
des Lebens. In alien Mangelzustanden, die wir in unseren Bedurfnissen
spuren, droht am Ende der Tod, und in jeder Befriedigung solcher
Bediirfnisse erleben wir ein Wiedergeborenwerden. Das eigentUch - d.h.
als Mythos erzahlbare - Generative ist in seiner Grundform der periodis-
che Wechsel der Generationen. Das „Urgenerative" ist der naturhafte
periodische Wechsel von Bediirfnis und Bedurfnisbefriedigung (432), die
regelmaBige Regeneration der instinktiven Lebensbedurfnisse (413). In
seiner einformigen Periodizitat braucht dieser urgenerative Wechsel nicht
erzahlt zu werden, und wegen seines naturhaften Charakters ist er die
Weise, wie das fremde Apperzeptionssystem anhebt, sich in der
naturhaften Umwelt des Territoriums zu verleibUchen; vom Urgenera-
tiven her „breitet sich Verstandlichkeit fiber die [im Territorium
konkretisierte] raumzeitliche Natur" (432). So bietet das indirekt oder
direkt erfahrene urgenerative Gebaren im fremden Territorium den
Anhaltspunkt fiir die Entdeckung einer Fremdwelt als Fremdwelt. Dieses
Gebaren ist dem heimweltlichen BewuBtsein einerseits wegen seiner
Naturhaftigkeit in einem „schlichten apprasentativen Verstehen" (436)
zuganglich und bildet so die Briicke zur Apperzeption der Fremden „als
meinesgleichen" (135) und zum Verstandnis ihrer zunachst vollig unver-
standUchen fremden Kultur. Andererseits enthalt es als Vorform des
eigentlich Generativen den Verweis auf eben dieses als das niemals
„anzueignende" Fremde.
In dieses eigentlich Fremde. kann sich das heimweltUche BewuBtsein
nur im Modus des „als ob" hineinversetzen; das „anschauliche Nachverste-
hen" der Fremde ist nur so moglich, „als ob sie Heimat ware" (625). So
wie das leibliche Hier des Andern nur fiktiv mein Hier sein kann, so
konnen wir uns an der Erzahlung der Mythen der fremden Generativitat,
wenn es uns gelingt, vermittels des Urgenerativen in sie einzudringen, nur
so beteiUgen, „als ob" die fremden Vorfahren auch die unsrigen waren. So
wie das primordial dortige absolute Hier nie mein absolutes Hier werden
kann, so konnen wir die generative Vergangenheit der „dortigen"
Lebenswelt und ihrer NormaUtat nie als unsere Vergangenheit haben. So
wie meine Primordialsphare sich nie die PrimordiaUtat des Anderen von
seinem Orientierungsnullpunkt aus aneignen kann, so bleibt der genera-
tive Orientierungsnullpunkt der fremden Kultur der Aneignung durch
unsere heimweltUche Primordialitat entzogen.
Trotzdem kann die Fremdwelt annaherungsweise, in unendlicher
Approximation, verstandlich werden; zunachst im Verstandnis der Urgen-
erativitat mit ihrem Territorium, dann durch „historische Einfuhlung"
(233 Anm.) im Nachverstehen des Mythos und der Geschichte der
fremden Kultur, schlieBlich im Sicheinleben in das fremde Normalitats-
system auf der Grundlage dieser Verstandnishorizonte. In der Wechsel-
seitigkeit dieser Verstandigung - denn aus der Perspektive der fremden
Heimwelt ist „unsere" Heimwelt die Fremdwelt - entstecht eine neue
49
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
Einstimmigkeit und damit eine gemeinsame Heimwelt hoherer Stufe mit
einer neuen gemeinsamen Geschichte.
Es kann sein, daB es innerhalb dieser umfassenderen Heimwelt um die
Verstandigung schlecht besteUt ist. Vielleicht besteht die gemeinsame
Geschichte lange Zeit aus kaum mehr als einer einzigen Abfolge von
Kriegen. Und doch konstituiert sich auch in diesem Grenzfall dann eine
Heimwelt hoherer Stufe, wenn die beiden Grundbedingungen von
HeimweltUchkeit erftillt sind. Erstens muB es wiederum eine Peripherie
geben, an der der AuBenhorizont praktisch abgeblendet wird. Zweitens
muB ein System iibergreifender Auffassungsnormalitat entstehen, das die
Systeme der alten Heimwelten so als Bestandteile enthalt, wie schon jede
dieser Heimwelten ihre apperzeptiven Teilsysteme - etwa die von Dorfern
oder Famihengeschlechtern - in sich einbegreifen konnte. Im Grenzfall
mogen diese Teilsysteme lange Zeit nur so koexistieren, daB sie sich wech-
selseitig unversohnlich als Anomalie denunzieren, und die. iibergreifende
Auffassungsnormalitat mag dann nur darin bestehen, daB ftir den ..Nor-1
malfall" geregelt ist, in welchen Formen man miteinander Krieg fuhrt.
Doch selbst dann entsteht jenes Eigene, das eine Heimwelt als Innenhori-
zont zusammenschlieBt: eine gemeinsame Generativitat, deren Mythos in
diesem FaUe hauptsachlich von den eigenen und den feindlichen Helden
jener unaufhorlichen Abfolge von Kriegen handeln mag.
n.
Da jede - ob friedliche order feindUche - Offnung von ursprUnglich einan-
der fremden Heimwelten ftireinander den Beginn der gemeinsamen
Geschichte einer Heimwelt hoherer Stufe markiert, ergibt sich an dieser
Stelle eine Signatur unseres Zeitalters. Heute ist absehbar, daB auch der
letzte Winkel abgeschiedener Heimwelt auf dieser Erde seine Geschlossen-
heit verUert. So ist die „Weltgeschichte", einst eine bloBe geschichts-
philosophische Idee, zur Realitat geworden. Eine neue, umfassende
Heimwelt ist im Entstehen begriffen: die der einen „totalen ,irdischen' Men-
schheit" (139), der „irdischen Total-menschheit" (440), mit dem ErdbaU
als Territorium und einem alle heimweltUchen Normalitaten iiber-
greifenden Rahmen von Normalitat fiir „jedermann" auf Erden (233).
Spatestens mit der unvermeidlichen Reflexion auf diese geschichtUche
Situation verliert die phanomenologische Analyse der inter subjektiven
Weltkonstitution ihren gleichsam zeitlosen, statischen Charakter. Im Blick
auf die faktische Konstitution einer planetarischen Heimwelt der
gesamten Menschheit muB sie die genetische Frage stellen, durch welche
Urstiftung es bewuBtseinsgeschichtlich zur Erweiterung der alten
heimweltUchen Horizonte in Richtung auf das Ganze der Menschheit und
damit zu einer „einzigen Geschichte der Menschheit" (236) kommen
konnte und ob oder wie sich diese Urstiftung heute erftillt.
50
i
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE E I N E WELT
Faktisch geschichtlich ist das planetarische Zusammenwachsen der
Menschheit unmittelbar oder mittelbar ein Resultat des Ausgreifens der
Europaer auf alle Lander und Kontinente. Die grundlegende ideelle
Vorbedingung der realen Vergemeinschaftung der Menschheit, die sich
damit anbahnte, war die Urstiftung von Philosophie und Wissenschaft bei
den Griechen. In dieser Urstiftung war namlich der Gedanke einer
Offnung aller vorgegebenen Heimwelten in Richtung auf die eine Welt
der einen Menschheit schon angelegt, weil sie dem menschUchen Denken
die Aufgabe stellte, die eine „wahre Welt", die „Welt an sich" (215, 627)
zu erkennen.
Das vorwissenschaftlich-vorphilosophische BewuBtsein interessiert sich
zwar auch schon dafur, was die Gegenstande „an sich" sind, d.h. was
jeweils das Identische ist, das sich in seinen Erscheinungsweisen nur auf
partikulare, endliche Weise zeigt (175, 437). Aber es begniigt sich damit,
die Identitat der Genenstande ausschlieBUch im Durchgang durch ihre
endlichen Erscheinungsweisen zu besitzen. Nach Husserls Interpretation
vergegenstandlicht das beginnende philosophisch-wissenschaftliche
BewuBtsein bei den Griechen die bis dahin immer nur antizipierte Iden-
titat der Gegenstande, indem es diese Identitat als PoUdee, als Flucht-
punkt einer UnendUchkeit von Erscheinungsweisen auffaBt. Das
philosophisch-wissenschaftUche BewuBtsein tut damit so, als hatte es die
unendUche Menge aller moglichen Erscheinungsweisen durchlaufen und
konnte nun vom Zielpunkt dieses .Durchlaufs her, dem Identitatspol
selbst, gleichsam auf die unendUche Mannigfaltigkeit zurtick- und herabb-
likken. Diesen Schritt, mit dem das BewuBtsein die AnschauUchkeit der
endlichen Erscheinungsweisen radikal transzendiert, bezeichnet Husserl
als Idealisierung (236). Da alle Gegenstande durch den horizonthaften
Verweisungszusammenhang ihrer Erscheinungsweisen ihren jeweiligen
apperzeptiven Welthintergrund unthematisch miterscheinen lassen, kann
der identische Pol, auf den die Idealisierungsaktivitat ihre Aufmerk-
samkeit richtet, letztUch nur einer sein: die eine und einzige Welt. In der
Idee der einen identischen Welt kommt dasjenige zum Vorschein, was die
Einstimmigkeit aller Erscheinungsweisen uberhaupt verbiirgt. In diesem
Sinne ist sie die „an sich wahre Welt" (215). Zu erforschen, was diese Idee
impliziert, ist nach Husserl die Aufgabe, die sich das philosophisch-
wissenschaftUche Denken mit seiner Urstiftung gestellt hat.
Die Grundlage der moglichen Einstimmigkeit von divergierenden
Gegenstandsauffassungen ist die vorgangige Identitat des Gegenstandes,
die wir durch Idealisierung als Idee vergegenstandlichen konnen. Indem
wir die Idee der einen Welt als Grundlage moglicher Einstimmigkeit uber-
haupt auffassen, vergegenstandUchen wir sie auf die gleiche Weise. Das
bedeutet aber: Die eine Welt als Idee erscheint als ein Gegenstand, als ein
„Selbiges" (210), das sich in einer UnendUchkeit von endlichen Erschein-
ungsweisen, Auffassungen, Apperzeptionen gleichsam perspektivisch
51
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
abschattet (217, 437). Zu beachten ist aber: In diesen Erscheinungsweisen
zeigt sich nun keiner der uns vorwissenschaftlich vertrauten Einzelgegen-
stande, sondern die Welt, der Horizont ftir diese Gegenstande. Demnach
mussen es Horizonte, Welten sein, in denen die Idee der einen Welt in
Erscheinung tritt - „Sonderwelten", wie Husserl in der bekannten Krisis-
Beilage XVII formuUert.
Zu diesen Sonderwelten gehoren auch die Heimwelten. Vor der Urs-
tiftung von Philosophie und Wissenschaft war die Einstimmigkeit zwis-
chen ihnen nur auf eine Weise denkbar: als der im I. Teil beschriebene
VerstandigungsprozeB, durch den sich zwei - oder jedenfalls eine tiber-
schaubare Anzahl - bis dahin geschlossene Heimwelten wechselseitig
fureinander offnen. Mit der Urstiftung entsteht im Prinzip die Idee einer
neuartigen Einstimmigkeit, die solche partieUe Verstandigung trans-
zendiert. Sie beruht auf der Einsicht, daB alle Heimwelten uberhaupt
vorab zu alien partiellen Verstandigungs-prozessen bereits darin aufeinan-
der bezogen sind, daB sie „Erscheinungsweisen der einzigen Welt" (177)
Ii II als Idee sind. Damit aber ist in der Urstiftung die Vergemein-schaftung
aUer erdenklichen Heimwelten vorgezeichnet, namUch auf der Grundlage
ihrer Zusammengehorigkeit als „Abschattungen" der einen Welt. Das
reale Zusammenwachsen der kulturellen Sonderwelten aller vormals
getrennten „Sondermenschheiten" (217) dieser Erde enthiiUt sich so als
die faktische Einlosung einer ideellen Vorgabe aus der griechischen Urs-
tiftung. In jenem Zusammenwachsen hat „die Idee der identischen Welt
sich bewahrt" (438) und sich damit als die „Wahrheit" (438) bestatigt, auf
die die Urstiftung abzielte.
In dieser Konzeption Husserls steckt eine Problematik, die er selbst
wohl gespiirt hat, ohne sie deutlich zu entwickeln. Die Deutung der kul-
turellen Heimwelten als Abschattungen der einen Welt impliziert die
Vergegenstandlichung dieser einen Welt; denn es ist das Wesen des
Gegenstandes, daB er sich als Identisches in Erscheinungsweisen zeigt.
Jene Deutung ist verfuhrerisch, weil sie sich offenbar auf identische
Gegenstande, die gleichermaBen in verschiedenen Heimwelten auftreten
konnen, leicht anwenden laBt: Dieser weiBe Klumpen beispielsweise
erscheint dem Europaer als Kase und eBbar, dem Chinesen hingegen als
verfaulte Milch und ungenieBbar. Aber die Welt ist kein Gegenstand,
sondern Horizont fiir die Erfahrung von Gegenstanden.
FreiUch kann die Welt vergegenstandUcht werden. Geschieht dies, so
erscheint sie als der niemals anschaulich gegebene Pol, auf den wir uns
beziehen, indem wir jede erdenkliche Heimwelt, ob bekannt oder
unbekannt, als Abschattung der einzigen unendlichen Welt deuten. Als
das im Unendlichen liegende Telos dieser unendlichen „Synthesis" aller
erdenklichen Heimwelten ist die Welt eine bloBe Idee (181 ff., 207, 227,
236). Deshalb kann uns die teleologische Vorzeichnung einer unendlichen
„Synthesis aller Menschheiten" (140) zu einer „AUmenschheit" (140, 668)
52
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , D I E E I N E WELT
mit der „unendUchen Natur als Territorium" (140; vgl. 181 Anm.) die fak-
tische ..Synthesis der endUchen Umwelten" (209) nicht ersparen, und diese
faktische Synthesis darf man mit jener unendUchen Synthesis nicht ver-
wechseln (207). Die faktische Synthesis.»aber bilden die endlichen Ver-
standigungsprozesse zwischen endUch wenigen Heimwelten, und das
GeUngen dieser Prozesse wird von der ganzen Faktizitat-des „Irdischen",
von „Schicksal" und „Zufall" beeinfluBt (181 f. Anm.).
Weil die Idee der einzigen Welt impliziert, daB sie sich in einer
UnendUchkeit von heimweltlichen Abschattungen zeigen kann, weist sie
fiber das gegenwartig zu beobachtende faktische Zusammenwachsen der
Menschheit auf dieser Erde noch hinaus. Denn denkbar sind auch noch
Menschheiten jenseits unseres Planeten. Deshalb erfiiUt die umfassendste
Vergemeinschaftung auf dieser Erde, die „irdische Totalmenschheit"
(440), „noch nicht die Idee der Menschheit im universalsten Sinne" (163).
Diese Idee verschafft uns, so schreibt Husserl pathetisch, „die offene
Moglichkeit weiteren Fortschreitens vermoge der UnendUchkeit der
Natur" (440). Und doch darf man fiber diesem Unendlichkeitspathos nicht
aus dem Blick verlieren, daB die Idee einer unsere Erde transzendieren-
den Allmenschheit mit der unendlichen Natur als Reservoir aUer erden-
klichen Territorien nicht mehr ist als eine gedankUche Extrapolation. Hier
wird nur das ideale Telos formuliert, in dessen Licht der historische Weg,
der faktisch zum Zusammenwachsen der irdischen Menschheit gefuhrt
hat, von uns geschichtsmetaphysisch als ein Fortschreiten auf ein im
Unendlichen liegendes Ziel hin interpretiert werden kann - als ein
Fortschreiten, das sich durch „eine fortschreitende Synthesis historischer
Endlichkeiten" (233 Anm.) vollzieht. Die VorsteUung von diesem Telos
ist, wie Husserl selbst gelegentlich betont, nur ein „Denkgebilde" (227)
und deshalb nicht in konkreten interkulturellen Einstimmigkeitserfahrun-
gen anschaulich erlebbar. Wegen ihrer UnanschauUchkeit bietet sie auch
keine „wahre universale Weltanschauung" (240). AnschauUch erlebbar
sind nur die faktischen endlichen Verstandigungsprozesse, von denen die
Rede war. Trotzdem besitzt die Weltidee der unendlichen Synthesis eine
Faszination, die Husserl so in ihren Bann schlagt, daB er die Endlichkeit
der Verstandigungsprozesse gegenuber der Unendlichkeitsidee beden-
kUch vernachlassigt.
Der Grund fiir diese Faszination liegt darin, daB die Vergegen-
standlichung der unendUchen Welt als Idee fiir Husserl die Grundlage der
modernen Naturwissenschaft bildet, und diese verdankt ihren uberwalti-
genden Erfolg dem Umstand, daB sie eben jene VergegenstandUchung ins
Extrem treibt. Wenn wir die eine und einzige Welt denken, die in den
unendlich vielen Heimwelten erscheint, dann geht das nicht ohne eine
korrespondierende Idee: die Idee dessen, was sich in den Territorien all
dieser Heimwelten abschattet; denn zu jeder Heimwelt gehort ein Territo-
rium. Die gesuchte Idee kann nur die Natur als res extensa in unendUcher
53
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
RaumzeitUchkeit sein; denn, wie im I. Teil erlautert, ist sie es, die in den
territorialen Einschrankungen erscheint, indem sie uns als konkrete
lebensweltliche Natur begegnet. Da jene Natur als Idee nichts anderes ist
als der Gegenstand der modernen Naturwissenschaft, kann man sagen:
Diese Naturwissenschaft beschreibt den idealen Identitatspol aller erden-
kUchen heimweltlichen Territorien - womit u.a. gesagt ist: auch derjenigen
Territorien, die moglicherweise auBerhalb unseres Planeten liegen (163,
219, 226,239, 440, 668).
Aber an eben dieser Stelle verftihrt die Naturwissenschaft dazu, die
Endlichkeit nicht ernst zu nehmen. Die seriosen Naturwissenschaftler
hfiten sich, dieser Verfuhrung nachzugeben. Doch die Science-fiction-
Medien plaudern es aus. Sie schwelgen in der VorsteUung, daB es auBer-
terrestrische Heimwelten auf unbekannten Territorien im Universum
geben konnte und daB die Menschheit die Moglichkeit hatte, auf solche
Territorien auszuwandern. Das Spiel mit solchen Auswanderuhgsphan-
tasien ist der unernste Widerschein der ernst zu nehmenden Leichtfer-
tigkeit, mit der die wissenschaftsglaubige Moderne die Erde, das endliche
Territorium der vergemeinschafteten Menschheit, behandelt hat. Was
man in dem BewuBtsein bewohnt, man sei wegen der UnendUchkeit der
Natur nicht definitiv daran gebunden, braucht man nicht mit auBerster
h Sorge und Sorgfalt zu pflegen.
Gegen die Verfuhrung, die im Unendlichkeitscharakter der Welt als
Idee liegt, gilt es, sich entschiedener als Husserl auf die Endlichkeit der
Heimwelt zu besinnen. Mit dieser Besinnung springen wir keineswegs aus
der durch die griechische Urstiftung begrundeten Tradition heraus. Im
Gegenteil: Husserl unterschiebt der griechischen Urstiftung bereits einen
Gedanken der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft, wenn er untersteUt, die
ursprungUche Thematisierung der Welt im griechischen Denken habe den
Charakter einer Idealisierung gehabt, also einer VergegenstandUchung der
Welt als einer im Unendlichen liegenden Polidee. Im Rahmen der
griechischen Urstiftung wird die Welt, der kosmos, ftir ein vom Staunen
getragenes Anschauen Thema, und als „Gegenstand" solcher Anschauung
kann die Welt nur endlich sein. Diese Korrektur steUt Husserls Interpreta-
tion des Anfangs von Philosophie und Wissenschaft nicht grundsatzlich in
Frage: Indem das frtihe Denken sich in einer menschheitsgeschichtUch
neuartigen Weise fur die eine Welt offnet, stiftet es damit im Prinzip die
MogUchkeit, alle „Sonderwelten" und darunter auch alle bekannten oder
unbekannten Heimwelten durch den Ruckbezug auf die eine Welt, von
der alle Sonderwelten nur Erscheinungsweisen sind, zu „synthetisieren".
Damit ist - auch ohne die Bestimmung dieser einen Welt als unendlicher
Idee - in der Tat eine Vergemeinschaftung aller bisher isolierten Men-
schheitskulturen vorgezeichnet.
Diese Vorzeichnung bedeutet nun freilich nicht, daB das planetarische
Zusammenwachsen der Menschheit, zu dem es in der Neuzeit gekommen
54
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE E I N E WELT
ist, als eine unmittelbare Konsequenz aus der griechischen Urstiftung
aufgefaBt werden dtirfte. Die Entwicklung in der Neuzeit wurde vielmehr
faktisch erst dadurch moglich, daB Europa die moderne Technik, also eine
ganz ungriechische Errungenschaft, mit ihren sozialen Begleiterscheinun-
gen in alle Welt exportierte. Diese Technik ihreseits konnte - um nun
wieder Husserl zu folgen - gerade dadurch entstehen, daB die neuzeitliche
Naturwissenschaft die eine Welt als Feld fiir einen unendUchen
ForschungsprozeB idealisierte. Der uberwaltigende Erfolg der so ent-
standenen Forschung aber wurde mit einer Einstellung zur Welt erkauft,
die Husserl Objektivismus nennt. Der Objektivismus treibt die Vergegen-
standlichung der Welt ins Extrem, indem er von ihrem Horizontcharakter
radikal absieht. Diese NeutraUsierung des Horizontcharakters der einen
Welt in der modernen Wissenschaft beruht aber auf einer Vergessenheit
derjenigen Einstellung zur einen Welt, durch die sie bei den Griechen
ursprunglich tiberhaupt erst zum Thema werden konnte, und damit auch
der Endlichkeit als griechischer Grundbestimmung der Welt. Wenn
Husserl die objektivistische IdeaUsierung der einen Welt, ihre Auffassung
als unendUche Polidee, bereits in der griechischen Urstiftung beginnen
laBt, dann steht er selbst noch im Bann des Objektivismus.4
Das planetarische Zusammenwachsen der Menschheit im technischen
Zeitalter ist mit der Hypothek belaster, daB es faktisch erst durch die
Herrschaft einer EinsteUung zustande kommen konnte, worin die fiir die
griechische Urstiftung konstitutive EndUchkeit der Welt in Vergessenheit
geraten war. Wegen dieser Vergessenheit droht bei der heutigen Verge-
meinschaftung der Menschheit die Endlichkeit als traditionsbestimmte
Eigenart der Heimwelten in einer weltweiten Uniformitat technikbes-
timmter Lebensorganisation unterzugehen. 5 Dieser Gefahr kann eine
philosophische Besinnung entgegenwirken, die daran erinnert, daB
die grundlegende ideeUe Vorbedingung jener Vergemeinschaftung, die
griechische Urstiftung, gerade auf einer Einstellung beruhte, in der die
Welt als endlich erschien. Die Phanomenologie bedeutet keine restaura-
tive Ruckkehr zu dieser EinsteUung, wohl aber ihre Erneuerung unter den
Bedingungen der Moderne. Den Ansatz daffir bietet der Husserlsche
Gedanke, daB die Idee einer unendlich sich abschattenden einen Welt, das
Telos des modernen Forschungsprozesses, von sich her eine komplemen-
tare Einsicht fordert. Diese Einsicht besagt, daB die „Abschattungen", die
Erscheinungsweisen der einen Welt als Welt, nur endliche Sonderwelten
sein konnen. Deshalb muB die eine Welt der vergemeinschafteten Men-
schheit konkret jeweils als eine kultureUe Heimwelt neben anderen
erscheinen.
Wie im I. Teil gezeigt, liegt es an der praktischen Abblendung des
AuBenhorizonts, daB eine Heimwelt endlich ist. Der AuBenhorizont ist
die offene Dimension fiir mogliche fremde Territorien. Mit der praktis-
chen Abblendung dieses Horizonts verzichtet das geschlossene
55
 '•'
L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
heimweltUche BewuBtsein von vornherein darauf, jene Territorien in den
Gesichtskreis seiner praktischen Interessen einzubeziehen. Es handelt sich
hier um einen Verzicht, der aUen bewuBten Verzichtleistungen voraufliegt,
ein seiner selbst nicht bewuBtes Absehen-von, das nicht weiB, wovon es
konkret absieht, und sich nur dessen sicher ist, daB es sich auf das genera-
tiv gewachsene Eigene beschranken will und nicht bereit ist, sich auf das,
was jenseits seiner liegen konnte, das fur alle lebensweltUchen Interessen
unbestimmt Irrelevante, einzulassen.
Inzwischen treten auch die letzten Residuen geschlossener Heimwelt
auf dieser Erde in Bekanntschaft mit den auBerhalb ihrer gelegenen Terri-
torien und ihren kulturellen Besetzungen. Der Verzicht, durch den sich
die ursprunglich geschlossenen Heimwelten als endUch konstituiert hatten,
ist damit unwiederbringlich auBer Kraft gesetzt, die Introvertiertheit der
heimweltlichen Innenhorizonte ist definitiv aufgehoben. Das andert nichts
daran, daB ftir die Endlichkeit der Heimwelt ein lebenspraktisches
Absehen-von und in diesem Sinne eine Selbstbeschrankung konstitutiv ist.
Eine solche Selbstbeschrankung kann heute im Unterschied zur friiheren,
naiven Abblendung des kulturellen AuBenhorizonts nur ein bewuBter
Verzicht sein, ein Verzicht, der nach der Aufhebung der ursprungUchen
heimweltUchen Introvertiertheit weiB, worauf er verzichtet. Der naive •
Verzicht war eine Ausblendung der „drau6en" antreffbaren Territorien
aus dem eigenen praktischen Interessenhorizont. Das praktische Interesse
in bezug auf ein Territorium als Territorium kann nur darin liegen, es
durch Kultivierung mit der heimweltlichen NormaUtat zu besetzen.
DemgemaB kann ein neuer, in der Bekanntschaft mit'fremdweltlichen
Territorien bewuBt vollzogener Verzicht nur darin bestehen, jedes Inter-
esse an der eigenkulturellen Besetzung fremden Territoriums fallenzu-
lassen.
Ein fremdes Territorium laBt sich auf gewaltsame oder sanfte Weise
mit dem eigenen System apperzeptiver Normalitat besetzen: Man kann die
dort lebende Bevolkerung vernichten oder ihr mit physischer Gewalt die
Gewohnheiten aus ihrer Generativitat austreiben .und sie so der eigenen
Kultur unterwerfen. Man kann die fremde Kultur aber auch geistig so
lange unterwandern, bis sie ihr Eigenes zugunsten der dominierenden
Kultur vergessen hat. Alle diese Varianten sind aus der Geschichte
sattsam bekannt. Ein neuer praktischer Verzicht in bezug auf fremde Ter-
ritorien kann nur in dem habitualisierten EntschluB bestehen, keine der
genannten MogUchkeiten wahrzunehmen. Ein solcher Verzicht ist um der
Endlichkeit der Heimwelt wiUen gefordert; denn fiir sie ist die besagte
praktische Abblendung konstitutiv. So hat die phanomenologische Besin-
nung auf die EndUchkeit der einen Welt eine politische Konsequenz. Sie
verlangt, daB alle Heimwelten niederer oder hoherer Stufe der zusam-
menwachsenden Menschheit, seien dies einzelne Volker oder Volkergrup-
pen wie „Europa" oder „die islamische Welt", dem Interesse abschworen,
56
H E I M W E L T , F R E M D W E L T , DIE EINE WELT
andere Territorien auf irgendeine Weise kultureU zu „besetzen". Das ware
die eigentUche Grundlage des Friedens, nach dem sich die Menschen
heute so sehnen wie eh und je.
Der geforderte neue praktische Verzicht hat aber noch einen weiteren
Aspekt. Das Territorium der zusammenwachsenden Menschheit ist die
Erde. Im - zwar nicht mehr ungebrochenen, aber doch weiterbestehenden
- Vertrauen auf die ErschlieBungskraft der modernen Naturwissenschaft
richtet die planetarische Menschheit ihren BUck fiber die Grenzen des Ter-
ritoriums Erde hinaus. In dieser Beziehung ist eine Variante der genannten
Selbstbeschrankung mogUch: Sie besteht d^rin, mit Entschlossenheit zu
akzeptieren, daB es gilt, sich ohne auBerterrestrischen Auswanderungsvor-
behalt auf dem Territorium Erde einzurichten und das territoriale Interesse
der Gesamtmenschheit auf den pfleglichen Umgang mit der konkreten
Natur dieses Territoriums zu konzentrieren. Es ist anzumerken, daB dieser
Verzicht eine praktische Selbstbeschrankung ist. Er impliziert also nicht
den Verzicht auf die theoretische Erforschung des „Weltalls" mit den
Mitteln der Astrophysik; ein solcher Verzicht kame einer Aufhebung der
Urstiftung-von-Wissenschaft selbst gleich.
In den Texten seiner Spatzeit hat Husserl mehrfach betont vom Primat
der Erde gesprochen (vgl. etwa 667f.). In einem Manuskript vom Mai
1934 beschreibt er die Erde mit dem biblischen Bild der Arche. 6 Der
Aufenthalt in der Arche gibt uns Menschen den festen Halt, den wir als
das Ruhen des Erdbodens erleben, der uns lebens-weltlich tragt. Die bib-
Usche Arche ist ein Hausboot. Als Haus, als oikos kann es Sinnbild fiir das
lebensweltliche Heim sein. Aber das Haus ist zugleich Boot. Es schwimmt
in der unendUchen Raumzeitlichkeit des Universums. Die unabsehbare
Flut, welche die biblische Arche umgibt, ist das Unheimische, aber auch
Unheimliche, vor dem man sich htiten muB. Die unbestimmte Angst vor
diesem Unheimlichen ist eine Weise archaisch introvertierter Abblendung
des AuBenhorizonts. Mit dem Okular der modernen Naturwissenschaft
spaht der moderne Mensch vielmehr wie Noah in die unheimische
UnendUchkeit hinaus und versucht so, ihr Lebenspendendes abzugewin-
nen oder sich gegen ihr Bedrohliches zu wappnen. Noah allerdings hielt
Ausschau nach Inseln in der Flut, um die Arche wieder verlassen zu
konnen. An dieser Stelle kann die Besinnung auf die endUche Lebenswelt
dem biblischen Mythos nicht mehr folgen.
Notes
1 Einfache Seitenzahlen im Text beziehen sich auf diesen Band der Hua.
2 DaB es sich bei der ursprunglichen Erfahrung des Andern aber im Grunde doch
um ein genetisches Problem handelt, habe ich zu begrUnden versucht: vgl. Held
1972.
3 DaB Husserl sich die ursprungliche Konstitution des Andern so denkt, habe ich
andernorts nachzuweisen versucht: vgl. Held 1972.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , ETHICS, H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS

4 Diese Kritik an Husserls Griechendeutung und die im folgenden daraus gezo-

gene Konsequenz einer Besinnung auf die Endlichkeit der Welt habe ich
genauer begrUndet und ausgefiihrt: vgl. Held 1989 a.
5 Warum eine planetarisch durch die objektivistische Wissenschaft und ihre
Ableger uniformierte Welt nur eine pervertierte Gestalt von Heimwelt sein
konnte, habe ich eingehender dargestellt: Held 1989 b. Part 11
6 Es handelt sich um das Manuskript mit der Archiv-Signatur D 17, das zuerst in
Philosophical Essays. In memory of Edmund Husserl, hrsg. von M. Farber 1940,
veroffentiicht wurde (Reprint New York: Greenwood Press Publishers 1968).
E T H I C S A N D C O M M U N I T Y

Literaturverzeichnis
11 *
Held, Klaus: Das Problem der Intersubjektivitat und die Idee einer phanomenolo-
gischen Transzendentalphilosophie, in: U. Claesges und K. Held (Hrsg.): Per-
spektiven Transzendentalphanomenologischer Forschung. Ludwig Landgrebe
zum 70. Geburtstag (Phaenomenologica 49), Den Haag 1972,3-60.
: Husserl und die Griechen, in: Phanomenologische Forschungen 22,
Freiburg/Miinchen 1989 a, 137-176.
: Husserls These von der Europaisierung der Menschheit, in: Phanomenologie
im Widerstreit, hrsg. von Chr. Jamme und O. Poggeler, Frankfurt a. M. 1989 b,
13-39.

58

m
 I

73

H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
1
O F W I L L I N G

Ullrich Melle

Source: James G. Hart and Lester Embree (eds), Phenomenology of Values and Valuing,
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997, pp. 169-192.

I. Historical introduction
A large part of Husserl's philosophical work bears on the investigation,
description and analysis of the Ufe of consciousness, of its various forms
and contexts. Hence, it is a non-experimental, reflective investigation of
consciousness. As Husserl says, consciousness is an autonomous field of
being, a field of investigation and work; he even speaks of it metaphoric-
ally as a land, and because of the immense complexity of the structures of
consciousness, he speaks of it as a jungle. One is in need of great effort
and thousands of points of reference in order to clearly distinguish the
phenomena in this jungle and to grasp them in their essential determina-
tions and their manifold and tangled connections. Husserl sees this with a
truly impressive acuity. He recorded the results of his investigative journey
into the innermost reaches of consciousness in thousands of manuscript
pages.
The emphasis of Husserl's analyses of consciousness without doubt is
on the forms and structures of intellective consciousness. On the other
hand his descriptive analyses of emotive and volitional consciousness are
much less comprehensive and developed. Between 1909 and 1914 he
worked on the phenomenology of emotive and volitional consciousness,
investigations, found in not-yet published and rather fragmentary manu-
scripts. These analyses of affective consciousness and volition are a part of
the comprehensive investigation of consciousness in those years during
which Husserl sought to systematically describe the whole of conscious-
ness in aU its act-forms, founding relations, modes of accomplishment, etc.
Even in its fragmentary state, the scope of this investigation of conscious-
ness is extremely impressive. It coyers more than 1,000 manuscript pages.
As Husserl's assistant in 1926-27, Ludwig Landgrebe produced, on the
basis of these collected materials, a very extensive typed manuscript with
I

61

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L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
the appropriate title "Studies on the Structure of Consciousness."2 The
second of its three studies, which, carries the title "Value Constitution,
Affective Consciousness (Gemiit), WiU," is devoted to the structures of
emotive and volitional consciousness. As Langrebe admits in his Preface
to Experience and Judgment? he drew upon the above mentioned manu-
scripts in the preparation of Experience and Judgment.
Husserl's often minute analyses in his investigation serve the philosoph-
ical project of working out a phenomenological theory of reason and of
rational vaUdity, as well as its correlative doctrine of categories and a
theory of true being. A phenomenological theory of reason is constructed
in two-steps. The dicta of reason in the pertinent spheres of acts do not
happen arbitrarily, rather are carried out according to principles. The cor-
responding doctrines of principles make up the superstructure of the
theory of reason. These doctrines of principles are then to be rationaUy
and critically grounded through a phenomenological description of the
forms and networks of acts that fall, along with the noematic correlates,
within the jurisdiction of these principles and, above all, through a descrip-
tion of the teleological relations of fulfillment that exist in these networks
of acts.
The number of the forms of reason depends upon the classification of
the forms of acts. However many basic forms of acts there are, so will
there be as many basic forms of reason; for, according to Husserl, a spe-
cific form of justification and rational validity belongs to every basic act-1
form. Husserl abides by the Kantian classification of types of acts into
intellective acts, valuing acts, and acts of will. Accordingly there are for
Husserl three types of reason: logico-cognitive, axiological and practical
reason.
The insight into the phenomenological apriori of correlation is bound
up with the accomplishment of the phenomenological reduction. Accord-
ing to this apriori of correlation, rational vaUdity and objective being are
inseparable correlates, so that one can say that there are just as many basic
types of rational consciousness as there are basic types of objects.
Axiological and practical characteristics and objects like value, goods,
behavior and goals are the objective correlates of the acts of feeling and
wiUing. As Husserl often puts it, one can see in valuing-feeling acts and
willing-behaving acts that new predicative levels are constituted in the
mere natural object, levels which are those of cultural determination. In
his lecture course of 1919-1920, entitled "Introduction to Philosophy,"
: Husserl says "Everything we in one way or another include under the title
'culture' is related to a sphere of creation that is understandable only as
the correlate of the valuing and practically formative consciousness."4 Our
quotidian life-world is a cultural world and not a world of mere natural
objects. So, in Ideas II Husserl says "In ordinary life we never deal with
natural objects. What we call 'things' are actuaUy paintings, statues,
62
H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
gardens,* houses, tables, clothing, tools, and so forth. AU these are various
types of objects of value, objects of use, practical objects. They are not
natural scientific objects."5 In everyday life we only rarely attend to
objects in a purely observational, purely theoretical way. Our quotidian
worldly behavior has, in the first place, an emotive-practical orientation.
But for Husserl, even our valuing and willing admit of the question of
reason, the question of truth and validity.
In connection to his Logical Investigations, which appeared in 1900-01,
Husserl first worked on the groundwork of a phenomenological theory of
theoretical-logical, which means, cognizing and judging-speaking reason.
In his axiological-ethical lectures of 1908-9, 1911 and 1914,6 he then turns
to the theory of axiological and practical reason. In these lectures what he
is trying to show is that there are formal-axiological and formal-practical
principles analogous to the formal-logical principles, such that alongside
the formal logical discipUnes stand the parallel disciplines of formal axiol-
ogy and practice. The lectures on ethics do not contain any systematically
carried out phenomenological description of emotive-valuing and voli-
tional-acting consciousness. As Husserl said in his lecture of 1911, here
one winds up in a "true jungle of difficulties," a jungle with "lurking behe-
moths." 7 However, the lecture course of 1914 contains a short section on
the phenomenology of willing.8
The descriptive analyses of emotive and volitional consciousness during
the time of the lectures on ethics have an exploratory and extremely frag-
mentary character. The terminology is still not fixed. The following expli-
cation restricts itself to the main themes of Husserl's analysis of
wiUing-acting consciousness.9
II. Historical background to the nachlass texts on the
phenomenology of willing
Extensive analyses of volitional consciousness were performed in January
of 1910. There are about twenty manuscripts of various lengths. Husserl
put these texts together with a smaller number of analyses of emotive con-
sciousness into a collection with the title "Phenomenology of Feeling,
Desiring, WUling."10 One cannot tell whether this collection was to form
the basis of a publication. A few suggestive presentations of a phenom-
enology of willing can be found in an extensive manuscript with the title
"Valuing and Value," a manuscript generated during this same period and
devoted above aU to the analysis of feeling-valuing consciousness.11
In 1911 the short essay on the psychology of willing, "Motive and
Motivation" by Alexander Pfander, appeared. Pfander was the leading
representative of the so-caUed Munich Phenomenology.12 Husserl accorded
great significance to this work. He not only prepared a very thorough
excerpt of it, but was also inspired by it to carry out a series of analyses of
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
voUtional consciousness. Later Ludwig Langrebe compfled the resultant
manuscripts as the so-caUed Pfander-coUection.13 One of the texts in this
collection has the character of a beginning of an introduction, which would
suggest that Husserl composed these manuscripts with the view to publish-
ing them. In this introductory text Husserl writes of Pfander's work that
through deep and careful analyses, it leaves all that the previous literature
offered in terms of a description of the sphere of wflling in its wake. Yet it
does not completely overcome the extraordinary difficulties of the material
and constitutes the beginning of a fundamental investigation of the sphere
of willing rather than its end.14
A further series of manuscripts were produced at the beginning of 1914,
manuscripts which, like the texts in the Pfander-CoUection, are occupied
with the problem of the relation of willing and inclination and which, once
more, were put together into a collection and given the title of "Tend-
ency" (Tendenz) by Landgrebe. 15 An edition of these manuscripts on the
phenomenology of wiUing would yield a volume of the Husserliana with
about 170 printed pages. Shorter presentations of the phenomenology of
willing can also be found in many other manuscripts that are related to the
general analysis of intellectual and emotive consciousness. The presenta-
tion I offer here of Husserl's analysis of voUtional consciousness will draw
principally on the three collections mentioned and the section of the
phenomenology of wilUng from the 1914 lecture course on ethics. But first
a few more remarks about other philosophers with whom Husserl was in
conversation.
Husserl's investigation of consciousness develops through an engage-
ment with Brentano's descriptive psychology. In his psychology Brentano
distinguishes three basic classes of psychic phenomena. Representations
belong to the first class, judgments to the second, and feelings and acts of
willing belong to the third. Brentano does not deny the differences that
obtain between feeling and wflling, but between the phenomena of feeling
and wiUing there are, according to him, continuous transitions, and these
phenomena possess a common basic characteristic: They relate to their
objects either lovingly or hatefuUy. According to Brentano, important
analogies obtain between the second basic class of judgments and the third
basic class of phenomena of affective consciousness and willing. A judg-
ment is a recognition or rejection of the object of representation with
regard to its being, the motive and voUtional acts being a loving or hating
of the object of representation. In the acts of loving and hating, an analogi-
cal characteristic of insight corresponds to the judgmental evidence.16
m 'voluntary,' is to attend to.a difficult object and hold it fast before the
In the Fifth of the Logical Investigations Husserl embarked upon a
penetrating critique and revision of Brentano's doctrine of representation
as the foundation for all other acts of consciousness. Husserl's new
formulation of Brentano's psychic fundamental law stands at the end of a
complex argument. This new formulation goes: AU non-objectifying acts
64
JU
H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
are founded in .objectifying acts.17 For Husserl, these objectifying acts are
representations and judgments; non-objectifying acts are emotive and voli-
tional acts as weU as intellectual acts like questioning.18 Accordingly, for
Husserl non-objectifying acts are secondary intentions. As valuing, willing,
and suggesting, these acts relate to objects and states of affairs that are
given to them through the founding acts of representing and judging. In
his later investigations of consciousness, Husserl does not rest content with
the determinations of the Logical Investigations. Rather the later analyses
are developed and carried out as a substantive critical discussion with the
basic descriptive determinations of the Logical Investigations. The distinc-
tion between objectifying and non-objectifying acts remains, for Husserl, a
basic problem of the description of consciousness.
In his descriptive investigations of emotive and volitional consciousness,
Husserl is guided by the idea of an analogy between the structures of the
basic types of consciousness. In his lectures on ethics Husserl speaks of a
"method of analogy."19 Taking as the point of departure the already inves-
tigated structures of the inteUect, the parallel and analogical structures of
affective and volitional consciousness are to be discovered and described.
However, the parallel and analogy between the basic types of conscious-
ness is tied to manifold interlacing of types of consciousness, and it is this
interlacing that poses great difficulties for description. This is particularly
true of voUtional consciousness, not only because it is in many ways
founded in other acts, but also because the exact demarcation of the
sphere of wiUing already proves to be a difficult problem.
From all of this it should be clear already that Husserl had no doubt
that willing could not be reduced to inteUectual and emotive phenomena
of consciousness. At the very least, Husserl was quite famiUar with two
reductive psychologies of willing: that of William James in the Principles
of Psychology,20 and that of Christian von Ehrenfels. Husserl took from
James the concept of fiat, a concept that plays an important role in
Husserl's own analyses. James' analyses have a clearly reductive tendency:
The will is reduced to prevailing representations and attention. "The
impelling idea is simply the one which possesses the attention." 21 "Will is
the relation between the mind and its ideas."22 "The wflUng terminates
with the prevalence of the idea." 23 "We thus find that we reach the heart of
our inquiry into violition when we ask by what process it is that the
thought of any given object comes to prevail stably in the mind."24 Husserl
underlined the following passage and alongside it in the margin placed a
nota bene: "The essential achievement of the will, in short, when it is more
mind, the so-doing is the fiat; and it is a mere physiological coincidence
that when the object is thus attended to, immediate motor consequences
should ensue." 25 And again on the following page he says: "Effort of atten-
tion is thus the essential phenomenon of will."26 And two pages later
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
James gives a new formulation: "This strain of the attention is the funda-
mental act of will."27 Yet James' volitional-psychological discussions are
not free of contradictions. Thus James also defines "fiat" as "consent," as
the following passage, which Husserl also underlined, shows: "There is
indeed the fiat, the element of consent, or resolve that the act shaU ensue.
This doubtless, to the reader's mind, as to my own, constitutes the essence
of the voluntariness of the act."28 According to James, this "act of mental
consent," occurs when the antagonistic alternatives of behavior that are
represented mutually neutralize themselves. We will see that this defini-
tion of the fiat as the "act of mental consent" is the one to which Husserl
orients his own definition of the fiat.
A second reductive volitional psychology that Husserl studied inten-
sively is that of Christian von Ehrenfels who, above all, is known as one of
the original proponents of Gestalt Psychology. As innumerable underUn-
ings, citations, and annotation show, Husserl read closely von Ehrenfels'
1887 Habilitationschrift, which had the title "On Feeling and Willing."29
Von Ehrenfels denies the existence of a basic psychic phenomenon of
desire, whereby desire is von his general concept for volitional phenom-
ena. For von Ehrenfels, desire is nothing but a special sort of process of
representation. For von Ehrenfels, as for James, desire consists in the
strength and power with which representations impose themselves on con-
sciousness. According to von Ehrenfels, representations struggle for room
in consciousness. Thus, pleasant representations get a boost. Von Ehren-
fels calls this the law of the relative increase of happiness and defines
desire with the help of this law:
Desire is a representation which is accompanied by a relative
demand of happiness and thereby is an accentuated representa-
tion of the causal connection of an object with or separation of an
object from the present subjective reality.30
III. Husserl's analysis of willing
For Husserl, practical acts, acts of willing, are indeed necessarily founded
in intellectual and emotive acts; they are in need of representing and
valuing acts as a basis; but these alone will never produce willing. For
Husserl, practical intentionality indeed is a dependent, yet irreducible
basic type of intentionality.
In what follows I would like to take up four main themes in Husserl's
analysis of the wiU:
1 The founding of wilUng.
2 The types of wiUing.
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H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
3 The objectivities of wiUing.
4 The relation of will and inclination; in connection with this I will touch
upon the problem of the demarcation of the sphere of wiUing.
Obviously these themes are connected to each other; therefore they
cannot be treated as completely separate from each other.
a. The founding of willing
In the ordinary sense, willing is directed toward something in the future
that is to be actualized through a creative act. Willing can only be directed
towards something in the future that is, ontologicaUy speaking, real. It is
necessarily founded in the consciousness of what is practically possible, in
the consciousness of the "I can." The realm of the ideal as well as the past
are closed off to wiUing.31 WiUing presupposes a consciousness of what is
willed, and thus is founded in the representation of a future event, a
representation that is bound up with the consciousness of the "I can."
Indeed willing excludes a beUef in the actuaUty of what is wiUed, but it
implies the belief in its actual becoming. Whoever wants something to
happen thereby also believes that it wiU happen, namely, that it will
happen through the creative, actualizing act.32
What is willed must not only be represented, but it must also be given a
positive value. WilUng is always directed toward an intended value. Value
is the motive of wilUng. According to Husserl, values are given to us in
emotive acts. Therefore, wilUng always implies the emotive act of valuing
of a future event that is represented as practically possible. Thus wilUng is
itself the practical positing, the volitional positing of a creative "So be it!"
Husserl devoted special attention to the relation between wishing and
wilUng. The question is whether wishing is a necessary constituent of
wilUng. In the 1914 lectures on ethics Husserl thus writes: "Mere wishing
contains nothing of a wiUing; it contains nothing of the practical modalities
and is not itself a practical act, an act of the will in the broadest sense."33 As
is the case with wiUing, so wishing is also necessarUy founded in inteUectual
and emotive acts. But in contradistinction to willing, wishing does not
include the consciousness of practical realizability. Thus it can even direct
itself towards something that is known to be completely unrealizable.
If what is wished for has the property of being practicaUy possible,
wishing can become a willing - it can, but it need not. According to
Husserl, wishing must be distinguished from volitional urge, volitional
inclination. When what is wished for is represented as practically possible,
often all that emerges is a tendency, a propensity toward willing. But this
may eventually be blocked by an opposing inclination, or the ethical con-
science exhorts that I ought not follow this inclination. Husserl sees here
important analogies between willing and judging. In judgment too an
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
inclination to judge, a tendency to reach a judgment, often precedes the
concluding of a judgment.
Now, it seems certain that I cannot wiU something that I do not wish for
or desire. (Wishing and desiring are, for Husserl, often synonymous
I i expressions.)34 But according to Husserl this need not mean that an act of
wishing is contained in every willing as a founding component. It would
be, as Husserl says in the 1914 lecture, "irrational to will something that is
not desirable, whether in itself or for the sake of something else. Thus an
implication of reason is present." 35 But that something is wished for need
not mean that it is presently wished. It can also mean that it is desirable*.
Yet, in his earlier manuscript of 1910 on "Valuing and Values," Husserl
had still put it this way: "Thus the will is founded in wishing and through
wishing it is directed to something [held to be] good, and it is directed
toward this in the manner of a making or doing."36 And in an addendum to
the 1914 lectures on ethics Husserl again seems to assume such a founding
of willing in wishing and desiring: "The will does not belong to the series
of desiring acts (joy, wish), acts of reaching for . . . But here ^something is
missing. The wfll is also a reaching for ..., but it introduces something new
that presumes a reaching f o r . . . but is not itself a reaching for . . . (desiring,
wishing): the fiat, the practical "it ought to be!"37 Moreover, an interesting
question not posed by Husserl is that of the type of act to which the acts of
wishing and desiring belong. If they are not acts of will, then in the rubrics
of classification they could only be feelings or emotions.
b. The forms of volitional positing
Husserl distinguishes three essentiaUy different types or forms of voli-
tional positing: the resolution or resolve, the fiat, and will-activity or will-
action (Handlungswille). We wfll first look at the last two forms in the case
of simple action, of the simple "I will and I do." As with every action, we
have an original impulse of the will, the fiat which is supported during its
entire course by a willing, a willing activity. So, we may ask, does the fiat
precede the action, and must it be distinguished from the beginning of the
action? The fiat would then be founded in a mere representation of action.
"It just so happens that in real action, the fiat imparts practical agreement
to this representation." 38 According to Husserl it is difficult to decide this
question descriptively. He finally comes to the conclusion that willing as
fiat immediately and constantly passes over into wilUng as action, and that
both are only able to be abstractly separated from one another. There is
no further inaugural moment lying between the fiat, on the one hand, and
the unity of will-action and the perception of the process that proceeds
from it, on the other hand. Thus there is no presentation of action at the
basis of the fiat, but only a presentation of a process, which does not yet
have the character of an action.
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H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
The fiat is an empty intention of the 'will that immediately passes over
into constant fulfillment by the acting wiU.39 But this willing is itself a con-
stant relation of fulfillment.40 In every phase of action we have a creative
moment that gives to its correlative phase of an action the character of a
creatively realized present. Every such creative moment is always sur-
rounded by continual perspectival profiles, profiles of the past creative
moment and of the volitional moments that are directed toward the mater-
ial of the action that lies in the future.
The deed is in each moment (in each phase of the deed) in a certain
manner directed to the corresponding phase of the action. In the creative
moment, in the practical positing, this moment is posited. But the wilUng
goes through this positing and, in so far as it penetrates it, it is directed to
the subsequent positings and through these to the further ones until the
end of the action.41
Thus the practical positing that occurs at every moment also traverses
the adumbrations of the future volitional moments and is directed, until
the activity ceases, toward the future phases of the action. Living in the
consciousness of action, the prospect of the will traverses the phase of
action, which has the character of the creatively actualized present, toward
the to-be-realized future of the process. Thus during an action we have an
intention of the wiU that constantly maintains itself as an empty intention
that simultaneously constantly acquires the fullness of satisfaction through
a constantly creative positing.42
Yet we now confront the question of that towards which the intention
of the will and the positing of the will are directed. On the noetic side, the
fiat is immediately followed by the willing that carries along the action and
by the perception of the action as an objective process. This process
appears and constitutes itself in perception. But then, does not the willing
primarily produce the perception of the process, and is not the intention of
the will thus directed toward a future perception, or even toward the
future willing of the future perception?
In a manuscript from the coUection titled "Tendency," Husserl takes up
this problem with a dramatic example.
If I want to give someone a slap in the face, then the actualization
of the will calls as an end-point for the perception of the accom-
plished slap in the face. But the wfll is not directed toward a per-
ception as its goal (perception founds the fulfillment of the will
with which the goal is reached, but is not itself the goal). The goal
is the slapping someone in the face.43
Of course, instead of being directed to a process that is to be creatively
actualized, the will can be directed to a perception and cognition of some
objective thing.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
There is also a form of the positing of the wiU that can be directed to a
future willing and acting. It is the third essential form of the positing of the
wfll along with the fiat and volitional activity: the plan or resolve or
making of a resolution (Vorsatz). Planning and making a resolution are
not actually creative positings of the will; they are directed to a future
event that is to be creatively actualized. With plans and resolutions it is a
matter of completely unfulfilled intentions of the will that are fulfiUed in a
future action.44 But in foUowing Husserl we must now "sharply distinguish
the relation of the will to the future event and the 'Become!' which is
directed to the future event, from the relation of the will to future willing
or future acting."45 A plan would thus be based only upon the representa-
tion of the future process toward which the practical positing of the "So be
it!" would then be directed. But, as Husserl must admit, things here are
not so simple. The "So be it!" of the plan can only mediately bring about
the future process, namely by means of the future fiat and volitional
action. Yet, according to Husserl, it nevertheless remains that the voli-
tional positing of the process is directed toward the desired process and
not toward the willing of the process. "It is only through reflection that we
learn that the creative aspect in willing which is directed toward a future
stretch of time necessarily goes beyond the proper theme of wilUng."46 As
Husserl correctly remarks, here we find "very difficult relations that one
must ever again think through." 47
When it is a matter of an action that fulfills a plan or resolution, a recol-
lection of the plan preceeds the fiat. "The recollected will (as resolve)
undergoes a 'fulfiUing' identification through a newly posited creative will
that is posited as having the identical meaning." 48
According to Husserl, the relation between simple action and action as
I the fulfilling of an intuitive plan has its analogy in inteUectual conscious-
ness: simple intuitive judgment just says "It is!" But on the other hand, if
the intuitive judgment steps forward as the confirmation of an originaUy
empty intention, it says affirmatively "It really is thus." However, as
opposed to simple judgment, simple action is already the constant fulfill-
ment of volitional intentions that inhabit action itself. The analogue is here
rather the self-developing perception in which the object constantly shows
itself from aU sides.
The distinction between simple action and action as the carrying out of
a plan is an initial, important distinction in the typology of action. In his
manuscripts, Husserl took up still other distinctions, like that between
simple and composite, mediate and immediate actions. A very important
distinction is between the arbitrary and non-arbitrary. I will come upon
this distinction later when I will speak about the relationship between wiU
and tendency. According to Husserl, the distinctions among the various
types of actions are based upon the distinctions in volitional orientation
and not just different gradations of attentiveness.
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H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
c Objectivities of the will
One of the most difficult problems in the phenomenological analysis of
constitution is the problem of non-natural, or, as Husserl says, extra-
essential determinations of objects, their various types, and how these are
constituted in consciousness. These include doxic qualities, temporal
modes, axiological determinations, emotional colorings, the sign and
image character of an object, and even wish and volitional characteristics.
According to Husserl all these are determinations of what is objectively
given and can be validly or invalidly predicated of it. Thus, e.g., an object
may be phenomenally-objectively characterized as a tool or a process as
an action. Apparently they are immediately perceived as so characterized,
just as the colors of an object are. Nevertheless these characteristics are
radically different from the natural qualities of the object. They originate
from different constitutive sources than such qualities. An object is origin-
ally constituted as having natural qualities in receptive, sensuous percep-
tion. How are the non-natural determinations of an object constituted?
"What is that new noetic element that belongs to the consciousness of
appearing, to the consciousness of the perception? What is woven together
with it when a process becomes action?" 49
In his general analysis of intentional acts in the Fifth Logical Investiga-
tion, Husserl distinguishes between the matter and the quality of an act.
The matter is the part of the act that gives the act its objective reference,
and indeed in its complete material definiteness. The matter not only
establishes that the act grasps the object "but also as what it grasps it, the
properties, relations, categorial forms, that it itself attributes to it."50 The
qualitative part of the act determines then in which manner the act relates
to what is objectivity given through the matter in the 'how' of its determi-
nations. "QuaUty determines . . . whether what is already 'made pre-
sentable' in definite fashion is intentionally present as wished, asked,
posited in judgment etc."51
Later, instead of material and quality, Husserl most often speaks of
apperception or apprehension on the one side, and positing, thesis, and
taking a position on the other side. In the Sixth Logical Investigation he
introduces a concept of representation in which material in the sense of
apprehension is only a part. At the same time there belongs to representa-
tion the apprehended content of sensation and the form of the apprehen-
sion which determines "whether the object is merely signitive or intuitive
or represented in some sort of mixture. The differences between percep-
tual representation and fantasy representation also belong here."52
The apprehensional sense, the form of apprehension, and position-
taking are three different forms of intentionality and constitutive activity
that have correlatively different sorts of object-determinations. So, accord-
ing to Husserl's analyses in the Logical Investigations, the characterization
71
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
of an object as a sign or image is the objective correlate of a specific form of
apprehension of a perceptual act; the qualification of a represented object as
being probable is the objective correlate of a doxic position-taking.
Still another basic form of constitution must be mentioned, namely that
of the creative production of a state of affairs in judging. As is well-known,
in the Logical Investigations Husserl did not make a very convincing
attempt to subsume the categorial acts under the schema of content and
apprehension. But it already becomes clear there that involve categorial
acts an essentiaUy different form of intentionaUty and constitution than
perception. In an explicitly accompUshed predicative judgment a new
object is produced in the form of a ramified state of affairs. Judging is a
creative constituting which, however, is, in the last instance, referred to the
receptive constitution of perception.
Husserl found no definitive answer to the question of the constitution of
axiological or volitional determinations. Do these determinations stand on
the same level with sensible-perceptual qualities, or are they new, non-
doxic thetic characters; or are they related to the creative production of
thinking? On the one hand, Husserl sought to grasp what concerns the
constitution of axiological determinations by means of analogies to sensi-
ble qualities. Correspondingly, there is supposed to be an evaluating per-
ception (Wertnehmung), a value-taking, which is analogous to the
t 'E perception (Wahrnehmung) upon which it is founded. On the other side,
he also understands emotive valuing as a new form of position-taking over
against the doxic position-taking, a new form of position-taking whereby
the axiological determinations would be thetic characters.53
The constitutive analysis of volitonal-practical determinations and
objectivities is particularly difficult. In the first place, there are obviously
different sorts of practical objects: tools, goods, means and ends, actions.
•fM
For the most part, in his manuscripts, Husserl limits himself to the analysis
of the constitution of action. Can one put the character of action on the
same level with axiological determinations? Husserl asks, "But is it not
clear that the character of action is of a completely different sort in the
way it depends 'on' the object than the character of beauty, pleasantness,
etc.?"54 It seems to be quite impossible to understand willing in analogy
with perception and valuing as the apperception of specific volitional sen-
sations whereby a process would then be given and characterized as an
action. Therefore, Husserl always understands willing as a specific sort of
'•*: positing and position-taking. Willing takes a position vis-d-vis a represen-
ted process; it posits a process as an imperative and a creatively evolving
process. But is the character of action thereby constituted?
In the manuscript on "Valuing and Value" Husserl contrasts his older
understanding in the Logical Investigations with a new understanding. In
the Logical Investigations the acts of will belong to the non-objectivating
acts, to secondary intentions. As such, they convey materials for objectiva-
72
H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
tions, but are not themselves objectivation. The character of action is ulti-
mately a determination .of reflexion. First we have the empirical appercep-
tion of the process, then the wiUing that produces the process, and finally a
new apperception directed to the wiU and the process, an apperception
that grasps the process as proceeding from the wfll. The alternative under-
standing to which Husserl feels drawn, even when, as he says, it goes very
much against the grain, is as follows:
The consciousness of a creative effecting is built upon a sensible,
empirical apperception through which the process is constituted, a
consciousness that voluntarily animates the process. And this con-
sciousness is a consciousness of action, of deeds. I have no need of
a further objectivization. Here is the element in which intending
lives, and it suffices in order to say then, in a logical apperception,
'This is an action.'55
It is not clear here whether Husserl is speaking from the point of view
of the person acting or of the person externally observing the action. In his
analyses, Husserl, by the way, does not go into this difference any further.
For Husserl, action is originally constituted in acting. That means it is con-
stituted in the fiat, in the action-wilUng, and in the perception of the
action-process. According to the new understanding, when I will and act,
the process is immediately given to me as an action without any reflection
on the willing. For the external observer, this means that in order to see a
process as action, he does not need to feel his way into some aUen willing
or to perform a reflection in empathy. Nevertheless, there remains the
question of how the observer comes to the consciousness of a creative
effecting and how he is aware of what kind of consciousness this is: Is it an
apperception, or an apprehensional form of the founding perceptual
apprehension, or is it a position-taking, a positing?
IV. Will and tendency
At the middle of the analysis of the wiU found in the "Tendency"-
Collection and the Pfander-Collection is the question of the relation of
wiU and incUnation. In the two manuscript pages that perhaps represent a
beginning of an introduction to the Pfander-CoUection, Husserl observes
that the difference between spontaneity and receptivity permeating, in a
parallel manner, all types of acts is the difference that "ever anew gives
rise to confusions and especiaUy makes more difficult our penetrating into
the essence of the specificaUy rational will."56 As Husserl writes later on, in
every type of act there are "possible different mixtures of spontaneity, and
everywhere spontaneity can pass over into receptivity, and vice versa."57
Receptivity then leads still further back into "the hinterlands
73
 L I F E - W O R L D , ETHICS, H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
(Hintergrunde) where we really can no longer speak of either spontaneity
or receptivity."58 Along with the opposition between receptivity and spon-
taneity, Husserl also speaks of an opposition between sensibility and
understanding, between passivity and activity, between latent and patent
consciousness, between unthematic and thematic consciousness. These
oppositions, which are by no means identical, serve Husserl as the funda-
mental principles for his analysis of consciousness. Discovered, developed,
and contentually concretized, Husserl first used these oppositional
schemata in the description of intellectual consciousness. According to the
method of analogy, he then used these schemata as the guiding thread in
the analysis of axiological and voUtional consciousness. Until now we have
only occupied ourselves with the wholly conscious, the spontaneous, active
and patent will and its forms. But are there also forms of the unconscious
or preconscious, passive wiU?
Husserl opposes drive and activity of a drive as the passivity of the will
to genuine and free willing.
When it is a question of the activity of "drive," one can speak of a mere
drive, and of a being driven toward an end if the end is represented along
with it . . . In voluntary activity, in action, the very same doing is made
present in the resolve; but it functions as "resolution"; an "I will" proceed-
ing from the I achieves an active thesis .. .59
The instinctive deed occurs unintentionally; the I does not accompany
it. Husserl often mentions breathing as an example of such an instinctive
deed. Breathing is a non-voluntary, yet subjective happening. "It is not a
mere process, rather in playing itself out it is a relaxation of tendencies
and a new exertion, a bUnd drive that works itself out and does so without
involving my wiU."60 An act of the I can then direct itself towards breath-
ing in a twofold manner: The I can attentively take note of breathing, or
the I can arbitrarily and consciously breathe; it can also intentionally inter-
vene in breathing: It can slow or accelerate breathing.
The difference between passively-foflowing-a-drive without really
willing and willful resolution is of great significance for the question of
voUtional reason. Thus, the genuine will is a purporting or "meaning to do
. . . " that can be demonstrated as rational, as correct.
As a purporting or 'meaning to do ...,' willing indeed is directed toward
the deed, and it implies that it is esteemed as good and that it exists. As a
willing it itself aims at a being in the mode of realization. But it has its
motives. The motivating evaluing can be incorrect. And the fundamental
judgment of the circumstances itself can be incorrect. In that case the will
taken purely in itself would not be called into question but rather the total
phenomenon, the wilUng with its founding stratum. But the willing, in that
it directs itself, itself thereby assumes something. The directing-itself con-
cerns the willing in its "interior." WiUing fulfills itself in the action, but it
corrects itself through the evaluation of its motives.61
74
H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
The will must affirm itself over against the drives, tendencies, and
stimuU. So Husserl says that the will itself can be carried out in various
degrees of strength and depth. A weak will does not maintain itself against
drives: It is subjected to them; they drag it along and it lets itself be
dragged along. Husserl called the passive following of a drive a passive
willing. Husserl makes the terminological distinction between mere deed
as following from drives and activity as the carrying out of an intention.
"Drives are directed, but they have no intentions." 62
The question is whether the understanding of drives as a passive willing
makes sense. Elsewhere Husserl even speaks of drives as blind desire. But
as we learned above, desire is not a wiUing, but it rather at most is tied up
with a willing.
According to Husserl, there are still other forms of inattention that lie
between the so-called complete voUtional passivity of drives and the active
will. When I am occupied with a theoretical task, I can, in the background
of my consciousness address my fiat or non-fiat to an impulse, as for
example, the impulse to smoke a cigarette. In contradistinction to the
drive, the will is here already present, albeit latently, in the background.
The transition from a latent act of the will into a patient act of the wiU is
therefore also of a completely different sort than the introduction of voli-
tional impulses into an instinctually occurring event.
As the description of consciousness now shows, the mode of tendency,
of tendential striving,63 belongs to consciousness in all its basic types such
that according to Husserl we must distinghish a double concept of inten-
tionality: There is intentionality in the sense of consciousness-of and there
is intentionality in the sense of striving, of tendency.64 This double concept
of intentionality corresponds to a double concept of fulfillment: fulfillment
through the satisfaction of a striving, and fulfillment by passing over to
evident givenness. Tendency is not only a phenomenon of the non-
egological, passive life of consciousness. In every accomplished act qua
accomplishment, an inclination is set in motion, an inclination lives itself
out and is fulfilled in a further accomplishment. As Husserl notes in a
manuscript from the Pfander-CoUection, "The central question is now the
question of the relationship of the will and tendency." 65 Is every tendency
a volitional mode? "If so, then willing would Ue in every act. Willing would
have no content peculiar to it, it would be a general mode of conscious-
ness."66 This would obviously have far-reaching consequences for
Husserl's concept of consciousness, his classification of types of acts and
his analysis of founding relations.
Yet here one must, as did Husserl, distinguish drive as bUnd impulse
from the tendency towards accomplishment found in an act. The tendency
that lives in an attentive orientation and is strivingly directed toward a
deepening of the orientation is still not a desire toward the deepened ori-
entation. Likewise, the tendency that, in the achievement of a judgment, is
75
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
strivingly directed toward completing this achievement, is not an impulse
toward the completion of this achievement. But is this not tendency also
an unconscious striving? And is not the relation of willing to tendency the
same as that to drive? Elsewhere Husserl himself often uses the expres-
sions "drive" and "tendency" as synonyms. Indeed, the will can dispatch
its volitional impulses into events stemming from drives as well as tend-
encies and thereby transform these events into willful actions, or it can
address its wiUful negation in order to inhibit the course of the corre-
sponding activities and accomplishments.
Now, even if tendency is an unconscious striving, the achievements in
which tendency works itself out need not be an unconscious striving. The
explicit orientation and/or articulate achievement of a judgment are free,
spontaneous and active deeds of the I. How does this spontaneity fit in
with an unconscious striving, and how does this spontaneity fit in with
genuine willing? Is all reason, as is said in Experience and Judgment, also
practical reason? In §48 of Experience and Judgment Husserl draws a par-
allel betwen cognitive activity and practical action. He thereby establishes
that cognitive striving has, "structurally, a precise analogy with an action
that is externally realized."67 Even in Ideas I, §121, Husserl finds it neces-
sary to recognize that every thesis has the character of a free spontaneity
and activity, and that its point of initiation is thus something like the fiat,
the point of initiation of willing and activity. But then again Husserl says:
One must not mix up the universal and the specific. Spontaneous resolv-
ing, the voluntary deed that is carried out is just one act among other acts;
its syntheses are specific as compared to others. But every act, whatever
sort it may be, can arise in the mode of spontaneity of the so-called cre-
ative beginning in which the pure I has its commencement as a subject of
spontaneity.68 Husserl tries to stick to his classification of acts of conscious-
ness, but it in fact becomes evident, as Husserl writes in the introduction
to the Pfander-CoUection, that "the general investigation of the possible
structures of wiUing is in need of the difficult investigations of the general
structures of consciousness, since the correct demarcation of the shapes of
consciousness that the word 'will' is supposed to characterize is hardly an
obvious matter." 69
The problem of the relationship between will and tendency and the
problem of the demarcation of the sphere of will are of great significance
for Husserl's concept of consciousness. The description of consciousness
found in the Logical Investigations suggests a static-geological image of
three mutually founded levels of consciousness: at the depest level is
representation and judgment. Upon this is built the level of valuative feel-
ings and then upon this level is the level of willing. But if all consciousness
has the character of a striving-willing intentionality, then this obviously
signifies a basic modification of this static concept of consciousness.
76
H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING
Instead of being rendered in the geographic or geological images of a
terrain or as strata lying on top of one another, consciousness would be
better viewed through the biological image of life. In the fragmentary
analyses of the manuscripts here in question, one does not find such a vol-
untaristic concept of consciousness formulated and worked out. Instead
Husserl tries, in accordance with the above citation from Ideas I, to
prevent the infiltration and occupation of intellectual and emotive con-
sciousness by wilUng. But it is perhaps in these analyses that one finds the
first seeds of Husserl's later ethical-metaphysical voluntarism.
Notes
1 This text was originally given in English in 1990 as part of the program for the
"Touring Scholar in Continental Thought" sponsored by the Center for
Advanced Research in Phenomenology. For this I would like to thank Profes-
sor William McKenna who organized the tour.
2 Landgrebe's typescript is to be found in the Husserl-Archives in Leuven under
the signature M III 31—III.
3 See Edmund Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, Untersuchungen zuer Genealogie der
Logik, edited and published by Ludwig Landgrebe (Hamburg: Claassen Verlag,
1964); Experience and Judgment, ed. Ludwig Landgrebe, trans., by James
Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Evanston: Northwestern, University Press, 1973).
4 Ms F 140,113a. Here I would like to express my thanks to the Director of the
Husserl Archives in Louvain, Professor Samuel IJsseling for permission to
quote from the unpublished manuscripts.
5 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phanomenologis-
chen Philosophie, Zweites Buch, ed. Marly Biemel, Hua IV (Tlie Hague: Marti-
nus Nijhoff, 1952), p. 27.
6 See Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen iiber Ethik und Wertlehre (1908-1914), ed.
Ullrich Melle, Hua XXVIII (Dordrecht, 1988).
7 Hua XXVIII, p. 205.
8 Hua XXVIII, pp. 102-125.
9 Needless to say with regard to my presentation of Husserl's analyses of emo-
tional consciousness I have not been in any way exhaustive. For more detail cf.
my "Objektivierende und nicht-objektivierende Akte," in Husserl-Ausgabe
und Husserl-Forschung, ed. Samuel IJsseling, Phaenomenologica 115 (Dor-
drecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp. 25^19.
10 At the top of the margin of the title sheet (Ms. A VI7,2a) there is to be found in
blue pencil the Husserlian signature "Ph." The Ph-sheets were later paginated
consecutively by Landgrebe. At the present time we have been able to retrieve
about about one-hundred Ph-sheets. Nevertheless the proper place of several
sheets is not clear. Originally there may have been well over one-hundred manu-
script sheets. Most of the Ph-sheets are to be found in Mss. A VI7 and A VI12II.
11 This research manuscript bears the Husserl signature Q II. It encompasses
exclusively appendix sheets and one sheet with a partial table of contents for
thirty-six sheets. With the exception of the last and of the appended sheets all
the sheets are to be found in Mss. A VI7 and A VI30.
12 Alexander Pfander, "Motive und Motivation," in Miinchener Philosophische
Abhandlung: Theodor Lipps zu seinem sechzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet
(Leipzig: 1911); for the English, see Alexander Pfander, Phenomenology of
11
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S H U S S E R L ' S P H E N O M E N O L O G Y OF WILLING

Willing and Motivation, trans, by Herbert Spiegelberg (Evanston: Northwest- 39 "Mit dem fiat setzt die Handlung ein und in seinem Sinn lauft sie ab, immerfort von
ern University Press, 1967), pp. 3^40. dem sich forterstreckenden und erfullenden Willen getragen." (A VI12II, 159a)
13 Of this Pfander-Folder, which encompassed probably about sixty sheets, only 40 For an analysis of the will-action (Handlungswillens) see Hua XXVIII, p.
forty sheets could be retrieved. As a result, of course, the proper ordering of 109-112.
some pages is questionable. The pages are to be found in the three Mss. A VI 41 See A VI12II, 199b. See also Hua XXVIII, p. 110.
3, A VI 30 and A VI12 I. With regard to the Pfander Folder, see Karl Schuh- 42 "Das Wollen ist in jedem Moment des Tuns Willensintention: Dasselbe sagt
mann, Die Dialektik der Phdnomenologie I: Husserl iiber Pfander, Phaenom- das Wort Streben. Das Streben ist die leere Willensintention; das kreative
enologica 56 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), pp. 94ff. Wollen, das praktisch-schopferisch setzende, ist das voile (Wollen), der blossen
14 A VI3,5. Intention im stetig vorangeneden Moment and der stetig vorangehenden vol-
15 Of the estimated fifty sheets of this collection (Konvoluts) at the present only unturen Form uberhaupt. Die Willensintention erhalt sich stetig (sofern sie
about half of them have been retrieved in Ms. A VI121. unrealisiert bleibt) als Intention und erhalt zugleich stetig Ftille der Befriedi-
16 For the classification of psychic phenomena see the rich explications in Franz gung im stetig kreativen Setzen." A VI12II, 200a)
Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, ed. Osknr Kraus (Hamburg: 43 See the Folder "Tendency," A VI 12 I, 168b. The proper place of this page
Meiner, 1969), pp. 17-19. within this folder is not fully certain.
17 See Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. IL, Part I, ed. Ursula 44 "Der fiat ist willentlich der Anfang der Handlung, leitel sie notwendig ein,
Panzer, Hua XIX/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 513 ff. gehort zu ihrem willentlichen Wesen. Es ist der 'Springpunkt' der Handlung
18 This last point is often overlooked. See for this Edmund Husserl, Logische und ohne Springpunkt keine Handlung. Der blosse Vorsatz ist das Gegenbild
Untersuchungen, Vol. II, Part II, ed. Ursula Panzer, Hua XIX/2 (The Hague: der Handlung, es ist der 'leere' Entschluss, der in der wirklichen Handlung
Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), p. 737 and 781. seine Erfullung findet, und somit vor allem in dem einleitenden fiat, dem nun
19 Hua XXVIII, p. 347. die Handlung zu folgen hat." (A VI12II, 202b)
20 William James, Principles of Psychology in two volumes (London, 1890). In 45 Hua XXVIII, p. 108.
Husserl's library there can be found also the German translation of Principles 46 Ibid., p. 109.
of Psychology: William James, Psychologie, trans. Marie Dtirr (Leipzig, 1909). 47 Idem.
The translation has no traces of having been read. Husserl had read carefully 48 A VI12II, 206a.
the comprehensive review of Anton Marty in Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie und 49 A VI3,23a.
Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, Vol. Ill, No. 4, 1892, pp. 297-333. In Husserl's 50 Hua XIX/1, p. 430.
library there is an annotated offprint of this review. In Husserl's copy of Prin- 51 Ibid, p. 429.
ciples of Psychology one minds numerous references to the review by Marty. 52 Hua XIX/2, p. 624.
21 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 559. 53 For this see Ullrich Melle, "Objektivierende und nicht-objektivierende Akte,"
22 Idem. op. cit., pp. 41-47.
23 Ibid., p. 560. 54 A VI, 30, p. 25b.
24 Ibid., p. 561. 55 A VI30, p. 235b.
25 Ibid.,p. 561. 56 A VI3, p. 5b.
26 Ibid., p. 562. 57 Idem.
27 Ibid, p. 564. 58 Idem.
28 Ibid., p. 564. 59 Pfander Folder, A VI121, p. 129a.
29 Christian von Ehrenfels, Uber Fiihlen und Wollen: Eine psychologische Studie 60 Ibid., A VI121, p. 130b.
(Vienna, 1887). 61 Ibid. A VI3,42b.
30 Ibid., p. 15. 62 From the Folder, "Tendenz," A VI121, p. 230a.
31 For a discussion of the impossibility of willing the ideal, see the nuanced analy- 63 "In each act-achievement there lies an achievement, a tendency is released."
ses in Hua XXVIII, p. 106. ("Tendenz" Folder, A VI12 I, p. 208a)
32 "The will is the will's certainty of the creating of the future." See the Pfander 64 "We have therefore intention as position-t.aking and intention as tendency, a
Folder, A VI, 3,19a. tension to be released [Spannung zu scheiden]. ("Tendenz"-Folder, A VI12 I,
33 Hua XXVIII, p. 103. p. 29b.)
34 In the Pfander folder we find in one place the following determination of 65 Pfander-Folder, A VI121,152b.
desire: "Desiring is a longing, a yearning, for something futural, indeed a wish 66 "Tendenz" Folder, A VI121,206b.
that I have something, that something pleasant or good might occur for me." 67 Edmund Husserl, Erfahrung und Urtiel, p. 235; trans., Experience and Judg-
(A VI3,31a) ment, 200-201.
35 Hua XXVIII, p. 105. 68 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phanomenolo-
36 A VI7,8a. gischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch, new ed. Karl Schuhman, Hua III. 1 (The
37 Hua XXVIII, pp. 156 ff. Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 281 ff.
38 See A VI3,21a. 69 A VI3,5a.

78 79

74
M O R A L O B J E C T I V I T Y
Husserl's sentiments of the understanding
John J. Drummond
Source: Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 165-183.
It is manifest great part of common language, and of
common behaviour over the world, is formed upon supposi-
tion of such a [approving and disapproving] moral faculty,
whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or
divine reason; whether considered as a sentiment of the
understanding, or as a perception of the heart, or, which
seems the truth, as including both. Nor is at all doubtful in
the general what course of action this faculty or practical dis-
cerning power within us approves, and what it disapproves.
For, as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists,
or whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars
- yet, in general, there is in reality an universally acknow-
ledged standard of it..., namely, justice, veracity, and regard
to common good.
Joseph Butler
Bishop of Durham1
Edmund Husserl's recently published writings in ethics and axiology2
approach ethical issues from a variety of perspectives. Two stand out. The
first is the axiological, from which Husserl develops an analogy between
formal logic and formal axiology (Hua XXVUI, 3-101). The second is the
"conflict between a moraUty of the understanding (Verstandesmoral) and a
moraUty of sentiment (Gefuhlsmorat)" (Hua XXVIII, 251), i.e, between the
"inteUectuaUsts" (Verstandesmoralisten) and the "emotivists" (Gefuhlsmoral-
isten). From this perspective, Husserl develops a phenomenological descrip-
tion of evaluative intentionaUty, a description which clarifies how
understanding and emotion jointly function in the axiological sphere. This
paper wfll explore these two perspectives in order to sketch anew a phenom-
enological account of practical reason and of the objectivity of moral under-
standing.
80
H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
I have chosen the epigraph of this paper to indicate that the thrust of
Husserl's thought, in a manner I think typical of him, (a) transcends the
modern disputes between inteUectuaUsts and emotivists and between intel-
lectuaUsts and voluntarists and (b) points toward a position in which prac-
tical cognition has an emotive content or, conversely, the emotions have a
cognitive content. My concern in this paper is to develop that thrust. I aim to
show that a phenomenology of moral experience grounded in Husserl's
reflections discloses a view of practical reason reminiscent in certain ways of
the substantive practical reason of those pre-moderns for whom reason and
sentiment are co-constitutive of moral judgments. Butler's expressions "sen-
timents of the understanding" and "perceptions of the heart" also highUght
this' relation between reason and sentiment in our moral judging. But
whereas Butler seems to have been concerned only with what is empirically
true about our moral discernments and not with providing a theoretical
account of the relation between reason and sentiment, Husserl was con-
cerned to discover the essential necessities embedded in our actual
experience, including the essential relation between reason and emotion. I
have borrowed Butler's expression "sentiments of the understanding" for
my subtitle to underscore the particular emphasis on understanding evident
in Husserl's formal axiology and his account of moral intentionality.3
1.
Husserl's axiological perspective intimates a view of ethics as a thoroughly
rational and objective discipline comparable in its rigor and universality to
logic. His intentions are to defend ethics as a pure discipline and to pre-
serve the absolute, a priori validity of moral laws. The rival here is ethical
empiricism, which he understands as a form of psychologism that grounds
ethics in the psychology of emotion (Hua XXVIII, 12). Husserl extends his
well-known criticism of logical psychologism to moral psychologism. He
claims that moral psychologism has anti-ethical consequences insofar as it
undercuts the universal validity of moral norms and makes ethical cogni-
tion and argumentation impossible. Just as logical psychologism cannot
yield suitable notions of truth or logical vaUdity, so moral psychologism
cannot yield suitable notions of the moral good and of what we might call
"moral validity" (Hua XXVIII, 12). To ground ethics in psychology (or,
similarly, in biology) would reduce moral laws to those empirical laws gov-
erning the activities of evaluating and acting rather than the universal and
ideal laws governing the relations among the contents, i.e., the meanings,
intentionally inherent in evaluative acts. To ground ethics in psychology
would thereby undercut the possibility of any unconditional demand, of
any adequate notion of obligation. Evaluative terms such as "good" and
"bad" would refer exclusively to historicaUy and culturally conditioned
usages generally applicable only in particular times and cultures. They
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
would have a merely factual validity, they would refer only to the gener-
ally true fact that in a certain historical culture people feel obligated on
psychological or biological grounds to act in certain ways (Hua XXVIII,
13). Indeed, the claim that ethical norms reflect only the actualities of a
particular human development allows at the extreme-^for a thoroughly
skeptical, perhaps even cynical, behavior which rejects the need to attend
to these norms at all (Hua XXVIII, 16). Such claims and behavior,
although not blocked in fact, have their justification withdrawn by an a
priori ethics.
There are, according to Husserl, norms for correct behavior that are
grounded in a theoretical science whose claims about the rules governing
the contents of moral thinking are absolute and universal. Husserl does
not thereby deny the empirical dimension of ethics. He does not deny, that
religious and political authorities play a role in our moral life, although
blind and unthinking obedience to such authorities leads to an inauthentic
life in which agents do not think and decide for themselves, in which they
exercise neither a "rational" nor "practical" autonomy. 4 Nor does he deny
the differences between the customs, mores, and moral institutions of dif-
ferent peoples and different times, nor that our moral capacities are condi-
tioned by our psychophysical constitution and its position within the causal
nexus of the physical world. But the fact of these empirical factors in our
ethical life is not sufficient to justify the claim that ethics is an empirical
science, for these factors affect only how ethical principles are particular-
ized in different circumstances and the ethical practices in which they are
realized. For Husserl the theoretical part of ethics must be an a priori
science.
The "ethical absolutism" suggested by Husserl's notion of formal axiol-
ogy is mitigated by three considerations. Consider first the very notion of
formal axiology. The formal dimension of any judgment does not exhaust
the judgment; every judgment also has a material content. In response to
questions about how rationally to order one's life, i.e, how rationally to
shape one's entire life as a good life and to attain happiness (Eudaimonia),
Husserl speaks of the need "to define a system of absolute and pure prin-
ciples of practical reason which, free from all reference to the empirical
human and its empirical relations, ought to take over the function of pro-
viding an absolutely normative standard for aU human behavior, whether
these standards are only formal or also material" (Hua XXVIII, 11, my
emphasis). But the standards provided by formal axiology can only be
formal. The material content of our evaluations is not and cannot be pro-
vided by a formal axiology. So, in addition to formal axiology, there is for
Husserl what might be called a "material a priori" of the moral life "free
of all reference to the [merely] empirical human," and this is what gives to
practical reason its substantive content. We shall return below to the
material a priori.
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H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
The second consideration mitigating Husserl's "ethical absolutism" is
his characterization of the formal laws governing our moral life. The
analogy with formal logic is instructive. Just as pure logic concerns itself
with the formal possibilities for the combination of meanings, pure ethics
concerns itself with the formal possibilities for the combination of axiolog-
ical meanings. These combinations of meanings occur on a variety of
levels. In the case of pure logic, for example, Husserl speaks of rules which
govern the combinations of meanings in the formation of judgments; these
rules constitute what he calls the "pure theory of forms of meanings (or
pure logical grammer)." 5 At this level of logic, there is still no concern with
the consistency of judgment? or the truth of conclusions. These latter con-
cerns define the second and third levels of logic. The second level Husserl
calls the "logic of consistency" (Konsequenzlogik) or the "logic of non-
contradiction," and its concern is the possible combinatory forms of judg-
ments (Hua XVII, 58/53, 327-30/330-33). This level constitutes formal
logic as traditionally conceived. It is concerned primarily with the validity
of arguments, and establishes rules which guarantee that the conclusion is
not contradictory of the premises. In the case of deductive systems, which
are Husserl's primary concern, these rules guarantee that the conclusion is
an analytic consequence of the premises. In its exclusive focus on validity
apart from soundness, the logic of consistency is not yet concerned with
the truth of premises and conclusions. But insofar as logic is an art for the
theoretical sciences and insofar as these sciences have a teleological
concern with truth, the logic of consistency is incomplete. Hence, the third
level of logic is the "logic of truth" (Wahrheitslogik) (Hua XVII, 60/55).
While* the first two levels of logic deal with the combinatory forms of
meanings, the third connects the notion of meaning to that of truth. It is
Husserl's notion of intentionality and, more specifically, his notion of evid-
ence - notions to which we shall return - that provide the connection.
If we are to take Husserl's analogy between formal logic and formal
axiology seriously, we can expect corresponding levels in formal axiology.
The first "grammatical" level would have to do, then, with the possible
forms of axiological judgments wherein value-attributes are predicated of
objects and wherein axiological meanings are brought into conjunctive,
disjunctive and hypothetical relationships. These individual axiological
judgments are ordered into consistent unities. Husserl believes "there
must also be in the ethical sphere, in the sphere of rational practice, some-
thing like an analytic, something like a formal theory of practice (formale
Praktik), a complex of principles and laws which in an analogous sense
abstract from the "matter" of the practice and express conformities to laws
of pure form, just as formal-logical laws do with respect to cognition and
just as they abstract from the so-called matter of cognition" (Hua XXVIII,
37). Here we would find Husserl's version of a deontic logic. Adherence to
its laws yields consistency in our moral beliefs and practice; the laws of
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consistency are laws of rational motivation. When a law claims that we
must do something, say, in order to achieve some good, the necessity here
is not logical or physical. The law asserts that a rational person, given a
desire for that particular good, ought to do that thing. The law asserts that
not to do that thing, given the desire for that good, would be irrational.
However, just as in pure logic the truth of a judgment is not the same
as its consistency with other judgments, the correctness of an evaluative
judgment and of the actions executed on its basis do not lie exclusively in
the consistency of a practical conclusion with its premises. The premises
and thereby the conclusion must also be correct in the sense of true or
evident or "insightful" (einsichtig). We must go beyond mere formal con-
sistency to evident and .rationally insightful judgment. An evident judg-
ment, for Husserl, is not merely one for which reasons can be given. An
evident judgment involves the intuitive presentation in what Husserl
calls "categorial intuitions" of the state of affairs as judged, as intended
in the judgment. In this appeal to the need for evident, rational insight,
we are again led back to the material content of our evaluative and
moral life.
Beyond the reference to the material content of our evaluative judg-
ments and laws found in the first two considerations, there is a third factor
mitigating Husserl's "absolutism." It is a universal and formal feature of
our acting that it always occurs in a situation. Consequently, our evalua-
tive judging must always be ordered toward the situation, toward the
goods that are desirable and attainable therein. The material content of
the judgment must be relativized to the situation. To will, Husserl says, is
impossible "without a certain conviction of attainabiUty" (Hua XXVIII,
52). Husserl's first, formal law of moraUty - his categorical imperative -
must therefore be formulated with a formal reference to the situation in
which the wflled act is to occur: "Do what is best among what is attain-
able" or, stated objectively, "The best among what is attainable in the total
practical sphere is not only comparatively the best, but the sole practical
good" (Hua XXVIII, 221). Hence, the universaUty of tire laws governing
practice is itself relativized to the practical possibilities which exist for
agents; the laws governing the combinations of axiological meanings and
evaluative judgments do not vary from situation to situation, but the
material content of the judgments might be relativized to the extent that
the goods identifiable and attainable in concrete historical and cultural
situations might vary.
Both the material and contextual dimensions of our evaluative judg-
ments indicate that the absolute and universal character which belongs to
the laws of formal axiology might not belong to the concrete moral judg-
ments we make. Those judgments have not only a formal dimension but a
material one (both a priori and empirical), and the material dimension is
relative to the context in which the concrete judgment is made. Both the
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H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
material and contextual dimensions, however, point toward the need for
an analysis of our concrete intendings of goods and bads.
2.
The valuable properties of things, according to Husserl, are disclosed by
the emotions or feelings. But the experience of objects qua good, qua
likable and desirable, is a founded one, and the term "founded" here has a
double sense. To say that one experience is founded upon another means
(1) that it presupposes something as necessary and (2) that it builds itself
upon it so as to form a unity with it. The experience of objects as good is
founded on the purely cognitive experience of objects simply qua objects
without value-properties. Husserl claims that objects can be presented in
such purely cognitive experiences, e.g., perceptions, memories, judgments,
suppositions, or theories (Hua XXVIII, 252). It is possible, he thinks, to
conceive of cognitive experiences completely divorced from the emotions
and feelings; I might simply notice things in the visual field, attend to their
color, and register them as trees, grass, or stones. Indeed, at one extreme
the theoretical sciences pride themselves on their separation from the
domain of emotion and feeling and their pursuit of a "pure" cognitive
truth.
While such purely cognitive experiences are existential possibiUties, the
great bulk of our everyday experience is not of this unmixed, purely cogni-
tive character. Even our everyday perception of objects is governed by
practical interests which lead us to explore the object in particular ways
and to a determinate degree. 6 While hiking I need something to hammer
on a loose heel; I inspect nearby rocks until I find one that is long and
relatively flat. Upon finding one, I am satisfied. This rock is good for ham-
mering on the heel; it has an instrumental value for me. The length and the
flatness of the rock are perceptuaUy presented. But its being a good rock
(i.e, good for hammering) is not perceptually presented; its presentation
as a good rock arises in my satisfaction that this rock has the properties I
want (i.e, the properties that I need in order to do what I want done). It is
an essential feature of our evaluative experiences that the desires and
emotions combine with the senses and understanding in presenting objects
qua good or valuable by virtue of having certain properties ordered to the
satisfaction of our desires (Hua XXVIII, 252). The experience of the
object having value necessarily presupposes the cognitive apprehension of
the object .and necessarily involves a moment of feeling which builds itself
upon the cognitive experience of the object (Hua IV, 8-11/10-13). More
precisely, we should say that the value-properties belonging to the object
are founded on that object's "logical" properties (i.e, the sort predicated
in simple, unmodalized, categorical propositions), and the value-properties
are the correlates specifically of a moment,of feeling or emotion in the
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concrete valuing act. In our example, the value of the rock, its being good
for hammering, is grounded in its being long and flat and our awareness
that these properties in a rock are properties useful for hammering.
In the language of Husserl's theory of intentionality, the valuing act is
the "noesis" and the rock as good is the valuing act's "noema," its inten-
tional correlate. The noema is the intended object just as intended and the
intended object itself is an identity presented in a manifold of noemata. 7
Indeed, we can think of the object as an identity in a manifold of noematic
manifolds. So, for example, the rock is the identity in a manifold of per-
spectival presentations. I can look at the rock from above; from its various
sides; I can pick it up and look at its underside. All these views differ from
one another, but all are presentations of one and the same rock. In circling
the rock or in turning it in my hands, what is present at one margin of the
field in one view gradually moves across the visual field to the center and,
finally, disappears at the other margin. This phenomenal continuity reveals
the identity of the rock in its various views. But the rock is not only the
identity manifesting itself in the manifold of actual views we have of it, it is
also the identity in the manifold of possible views we might have of it. The
rock is also the identity in the manifold of its actual and possible proper-
ties, in the manifold of its actual and possible relations (e.g., spatial and
causal) with other objects, and so forth. Equally important, the rock is the
identity in the manifold of the experiences of different subjects. I can see
the same perspectival view of the rock that you now see if I move myself
to your position. You can describe the rock to me so that I can pick it out
from among the many rocks in front of us. The rock, in other words, and
its properties are "objective" in a double sense: (1) they are not really
inherent contents of the experiencing act itself and (2) they are intersub-
jectively experienceable and experienced.
Another example will further illustrate the foundedness and objectivity
of value-properties. I want a table for my computer and its various periph-
erals. But any table satisfying this want must be sturdy, with a certain
surface area, and of a certain height so that it wfll (i) safely hold aU my
equipment, (ii) be large enough also to hold my papers, and (ni) not be too
high for comfortable typing. Sturdiness, of course, would be a property
desired in any table. But the desirable area and height of the table are
identified in relation to the specific purposes for which the table is to be
used. In examining tables, consequently, I look for certain objective, per-
ceptible properties in order to find a good table, a table that wfll be good
for holding my computer equipment and papers and for allowing me to
work in comfort. The "logical" properties grounding the value-property
are objective. But the value-property, the goodness of the table, insofar as
it is grounded in objective, perceptible properties, is also objective.
The objectivity of the value-property can be made manifest in another
way. I want a table to use as a computer table and desk. I do not yet have
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H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
it; I am looking for it. But knowing the purpose for which I want the table,
I know the properties for which I should look in the tables I consider.
When I find a table with suitable properties, I like it and want it; I value
the table as good. The feeUng-moment in the experience (the "liking," my
satisfaction that this table will do what I want done) is directed to the good
in the table. However, my experience can - and often does - move beyond
the feeling directed to the value-property. I can also explicitly judge the
table as good. I expUcitly express my valuing the table in the judgment
"This table is good," and the logical properties which underlay my valuing
the table can be identified in the statement of reasons given in support of
my judgment: "It is sturdy, of good size, and the right height." My attitude
has now returned to a theoretical one; I make a value-judgment. I under-
stand the value of the table and can provide objectively compelUng
reasons for thinking it valuable.
Even in the movement from my simple valuing of the table to the judg-
ment that the table is good and the identification of the reasons underlying
my judgment, there remains a certain emptiness to my value-intention. I
have affirmed that this table has the desired properties and is thereby
good. But the value of the table is a use-value, and my judgment of the
table's value, of the table as good, is fully confirmed only in its use. We still
require, in other words, what Husserl caUs a "fulfilling" intention. We still
require evidence for our judgment that this is a good table, but this evid-
ence is not to be found simply in the statement of reasons. We here move
from the axiological equivalents of the logic of consistency to the logic of
truth. The evidence that the table is good is found in the direct experience
of the table as good. It cannot be gained merely by looking at the table or
by identifying its relevant logical properties and reciting the reasons why it
is a good table. Since the table is good for use, I must use it to gain the
appropriate evidence. So, should the table after three days collapse under
the weight of my computer equipment, I would think the table a bad table.
It would disappoint my expectations. And it would not merely fail to
satisfy but would produce great dissatisfaction. It would now evidentiaUy
present itself as a bad table. In such evidential insights, I gain objective
evidence about the value-property I have attributed to the object. The
valued object is not merely the correlate of my desires and emotions; it is a
complex of objective properties related both to my understanding and to
my desires and emotions. And my value-judgment is fulfiUed in an "axio-
logical" intuition (Hua IV, 9/10) analogous to a categorical intuition. I
direct myself intuitively toward the articulated state of affairs in which the
object as valued concretely appears to me with the value-property predic-
ated in the judgment. I therein recognize the truth of the value-judgment
(cf. Hua XXVII, 26).
Our two examples make clear the central role of the desires and emo-
tions in the evaluative experience. But there need not be an actual desire
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METAPHYSICS
or emotion operative in order to recognize the value of an object. Values
can be apprehended in an experience which includes an "as if" moment of
desire. You who do not want a computer table can recognize that the table
I have picked out would be a good computer table. There are reasons for
valuing this table. It presents itself as sturdy, as five feet long, two and one-
half feet deep, and three feet high, and thereby presents itself as good rela-
tive to the satisfaction of my desire for a work table for my computer.
You, indeed anyone who has wants of the sort identified in the example or
anyone who can consider the table in relation to such wants, can appre-
hend the perceptible properties of the table and recognize that the table
would be a good computer table. Understanding, in other words, knows
the value as befitting the object relative to certain wants or desires a
person might have.
Thus, while the complete experience of value contains an irreducible
moment of feeling or emotion in which the value-property is apprehended,
the complete experience of value, we can now see, contains even more
important cognitive moments. The foundation of the value-predicates on
cognitively apprehended logical predicates, the act of judging the object
valuable and identifying the reasons underlying the judgment, and the
rational insight into the value of an object all point to the central role of
the understanding in the complete and fulfilled experience or judgment of
value. Moreover, the cognitive dimensions of the experience of value
ensure that the value-judgment is intersubjectively objective. The constel-
lation of logical properties is such as to arouse a feeling, a value-reception
(cf. Hua IV, 10/12), and the predication of the value-property to the object
is subject to fulfilmerit or disappointment by any experiencing subject. The
valued object, then, is the identity presentable in a manifold of perceptual
apprehension, of desire, of satisfaction, of judgment, and of evidential
insight. In experiencing valued objects, we identify (a) the object as appre-
hended with relevant logical properties, (b) the object as desired, and - in
the complete evaluative experience - c) the object as the judged value-
object, and (d) the object as the evidentially understood value-object. In
short, we identify the good desired and the good known. Both of our
examples have involved the use-value of objects, but the experience of
value is not limited to the experience of objects' utiUty. However, the
account of the experience of value is similar in other areas. In the aesthetic
domain, for example, upon seeing the bright red of the sunset, we pass
over from the simple perceptual experience, the sensory having of the red
sky, to an aesthetic experience, a taking delight in the brilliance of the red.
We value the pleasurable object, and we judge the sunset beautiful on the
ground of the brilliance of its colors. Similarly in the moral domain, in
watching someone pick up another's dropped package, we appreciate an
act of kindness. In knowing how someone has shared wealth with another
even at some cost to himself or herself, we experience the generosity of
H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
one person toward another and take pleasure and delight in the goodness
of such actions, both in themselves and in their consequences for the
person aided by this generosity.
Since the value-property itself is apprehended in a feeling-moment (or an
"as if" feeling-moment) within the concrete experience of a valued object,
and since feelings belong to our psychic dimension with its causal depen-
dencies, one might still object that value-judgments are relative to particu-
lar subjects or, at least, to the wants of those particular subjects. So, for
example, liking sweets, I find hot fudge sundaes desirable, but someone
who is aUergic to chocolate would not judge them valuable even while
allowing that I could find hot fudge sundaes desirable. Or, one might
object, liking to help others, you are generous, but someone who likes
material goods and does not like to be separated from them might not find
generosity a good, and each of these persons, recognizing what the other's
desires are, might agree that, relative to those desires, generosity is a good
or selfishness is a good. This possibility seems very far from Husserl's
desire for a universal ethics with a strong sense of obligation, and we must
consider how a phenomenology of moral experience grounded in
Husserl's thought would respond.
Our earlier examples were directed toward the utility of the rock and
the table, and this utility is related to my particular needs and wants.
Husserl would certainly agree that universal ethical principles can be
erected neither on the valuing of particular goods related to my particular
needs and wants nor on the value-judgments involved in the experience of
such particular goods. Either path would allow that ethical principles are
empirically grounded and constitute a return to ethical empiricism.
Husserl avoids ethical empiricism not only through his formal axiology but
also through his notion of the material a priori, and we must now investi-
gate that notion. We must determine whether there are goods which are
recognizable as such independent of our particular empirical needs and
wants. We must determine whether there are goods characteristic of
human nature as such. If there are, these goods would provide the content
for the universal laws identified in Husserl's formal axiology and together
the formal laws and a priori goods would constitute a universal ethics.
Two points must be noted. First, Husserl's notion of the material a
priori should not be understood in such a way that the a priori is discover-
able through the operations of reason alone apart from all experience. The
material a priori is discovered through the exercise of what Husserl calls
eidetic or imaginative variation, a method reminiscent in many ways of a
Platonic or Aristotelian dialectic culminating in an essential insight into a
form. Eidetic variation begins with particulars, with an experienced
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instance or instances of the type under investigation. Then particular qual-
ities, aspects, or parts are considered in their relation to the whole. If the
varied component can be eliminated without a change in the type of the
object, a non-essential feature of the object - Husserl calls it a "piece" or
"independent part" - has been isolated. However, if the varied component
cannot be eliminated without a change in the type of the object, then what
Husserl calls a "moment" or "non-independent part" of the object, an
essential characteristic, has been isolated.8 This method of eidetic variation
moves beyond empirical generalization to an a priori consideration,
however, because in systematically varying the parts of the whole it con-
siders possible cases as weU as actual ones. The analysis considers not only
empirical instances of the type, but imaginatively posits possible instances
in order to move toward a set of variations in which each part belonging to
the object is systematicaUy varied so as to determine its necessity for an
object of that type. This imaginative and systematic variation isolates
necessary conditions for an object to be of a certain type. The analysis con-
tinues by identifying what other conditions are necessary for an object to
be of that type, what other conditions are required to complete the whole.
This set of conditions is a set of a priori conditions insofar as its identifica-
tion no longer rests merely on a generalization from actual examples, and
the set of conditions governs not merely actual cases but any past, present,
or future instance - indeed, any possible instance - of an object of that
type.
The goal of the method of eidetic variation is the identification of a set
of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an object of a
certain type. Such an identification would constitute a fuU and adequate
insight into an eidos or essence. However, because of the limitations of our
knowledge we can never be certain that we have identified a set of fully
sufficient conditions. The eidetic insights we can attain are, according to
Husserl, indubitable, i.e, we have no reason to doubt that the conditions
we have identified as necessary for an object to be of a certain type are in
fact necessary, because we find it impossible to imagine or conceive of an
object of that type without those conditions. We have no reason to think
that our identification will ever be negated by subsequent discoveries. But
the indubitability of our insights does not mean they are incorrigible or
infallible. Again because of the limitations of our capacities for under-
standing, our insights might very weU be subject to correction, not so much
by negation but in the form of refinements and quaUfications. Even our
confidence in our identification of individually necessary conditions must
be tempered by the shortcomings of our cognitive powers. Each identifica-
tion of a necessary condition might be grounded in variations which are
insufficient because they either fail to distinguish relevant factors or
mistake irrelevant factors for essential ones, or because the complex of
individual insights might fail to take into account all the novel possibilities
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H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
for the kind of object under question. There are, in other words, theo-
retical and practical limits to our philosophical grasp of essential struc-
tures, but this does not mean that we cannot legitimately make essentialist
claims.
The second point to be noted is that the materially a priori essence is
not completely determinative of any particular. The eidetic reflection on
the nature of the human and the human experience of goods and bads
yields a material a priori of the human which is reminiscent of what
Martha Nussbaum caUs a "thick vague conception of the human being"
and a "thick vague conception of the good." 9 Human goods and practices
must conform to the material a priori of the human to be good, but differ-
ent possibilities for specifying the same good can accord with the material
a priori. The discovery of the human a priori and the subsequent determi-
nation of a priori goods for all humans is not completely determinative of
the particular character those goods might take for different historical cul-
tures or different human individuals. This does not imply that one form
cannot be found better than another. But it will not be found better by an
exclusive appeal to the material a priori. Other reasons which appeal to
the evidence provided by our concrete experience of things and of the
world - an experience which is not only philosophical but also, for
example, scientific, practical, productive, artistic, aesthetic, and reUgious -
would have to be identified. Nor is the materially a priori essence com-
pletely determinative of the practices which might be adopted to realize
those principles. In different circumstances, the same good might be real-
ized in different specifications and through different practices, but not in
any specifications and practices for not aU accord with the material a
priori, and among those that do accord some are for complex reasons
better than others.
Given our reflection on evaluative acts we can already recognize
humans, at least, as thinking and desiring agents. Our reflection has also
revealed a teleological dimension in evaluative acts. In valuing things as
good, we tend toward the judgment and evident comprehension of them as
good. This teleological dimension is present, Husserl's analyses reveal,
throughout our intentional Ufe. It is this a priori fact which provides the
moral urgency at the center of Husserl's philosophy. In addition to any
vocational callings to a central, material good around which we order the
pursuit of goods in our daily lives, we are all as humans caUed to the full
exercise of reason with its teleological direction toward evidential under-
standing (cf. Hua XXVII, pp. 28-34). We are called to the authentic
human life, the life of rational, free, insightful agency. This life is the chief,
but not the only, good for humans. Moreover, certain conditions are
necessary for the exercise of rational, free, insightful agency in the fuUest
degree. Some of these conditions are primarily bodily, e.g., life itself,
health, and the sustenance and shelter necessary for maintaining them.
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These caU forth the virtues of temperance, generosity, justice in the distri-
bution of material goods, and so on. Others are not primarily bodily, e.g.,
education with its concern for both theoretical and practical truth, and the
poUtical freedoms of association and speech. These call forth the virtues of
honesty, sociabihty, forbearance, good judgment, prudence, fortitude,
wisdom, and the like. All these - the conditions themselves, the virtues
called forth by those conditions, and the exercise of thought and agency in
the fuUest degree - are human goods as such. The social and political
issues of how these might be best instantiated given our particular, present
circumstances is a concern which would lead beyond the scope of this
paper, but the identification of the best political institutions to ensure
these goods would yield another set of goods, viz. those political institu-
tions themselves.
The material a priori of the human good recalls Charles Taylor's notion
of "strongly valued goods." Strong evaluations, Taylor teUs us, "involve
discriminations of right or wrong, better or worse, higher or lower, which
are not rendered valid by our own desires, inclinations, or choices, but
rather stand independent of these and offer standards by which they can
be judged." 10 Goods which are the objects of strong evaluations make a
claim upon us. They are not goods simply by virtue of being the object of
my desire as, for example, the hot fudge sundae is a good. They make their
claim upon us independent of our particular desires because they are a
priori goods. Beyond our particular desires and goods, those goods con-
tained in the material a priori of the human make a claim on us precisely
because we must recognize the desirability of those capacities, material
conditions, social circumstances, habits, and institutions without which we
would no longer be truly rational, free agents at aU. Moreover, since they
are human goods as such, they impose an obUgation upon me to seek their
realization both for myself and for others as part of my good. Such goods
are substantive goods and, insofar as they make claims upon us, the ques-
tion of true goods - as opposed to merely apparent goods - arises, and we
are called upon to achieve an understanding of and rational insight into
the true goods. Insofar as I recognize these goods as true goods, I desire
them for their own sake - both for myself and for others - in addition to or
apart from whatever pleasures or pains, beneficial or detrimental con-
sequences might arise for me from their pursuit.
The introduction of the a priori of human goods does not change our
account of evaluative intentionality with its fundamental identification
between an objectivity as known and as desired. Just as certain features of
tables were recognized as practical necessities for the table to serve as a
computer table and were consequently desired, so certain a priori necessi-
ties for realizing our humanity in the full sense are apprehended in the
course of our experience, are desired as human goods, and judged as such.
Since even a fully developed conception of the material a priori provides
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H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
only a schema for strongly valued goods and since these goods are under-
stood and specified in varying ways in different historical and cultural cir-
cumstances, we must remember that our valuations are always directed to
these a priori goods as concretely specified in particular historical and cul-
tural circumstances. Insofar as these goods have a truth grounded both in
the a priori and in the facts of our particular circumstances, our valuings
and judgings.are always open to disappointment and subject to question.
The life of rational, free, insightful being, consequently, calls us to regular
reflection on the truth of our concrete judgments about human goods and
bads. And this investigation, given that our particular understandings and
valuings are affected by the historical and cultural horizons in which we
frame our judgments of value, proceeds best through a reflection not only
upon our own historical and cultural understandings of these goods but
also upon other historical and cultural understandings. We are called
upon, in other words, to undertake an eidetic variation regarding these
substantive goods, a variation which takes actually present historical speci-
fications of the material a priori of the human good as its starting points
but which also considers other possibilities (historical and imaginative). By
means of this variation we clarify and, when appropriate, revise our under-
standing of the material a priori of the human good itself and of our con-
crete instantiations thereof.
If all this is correct, a Husserlian-based phenomenology of moral
experience would respond to the problem raised at the beginning of this
section by arguing that value-judgments are relative only when they are
exclusively related to the empirical, sensuous dimensions of our existence.
Thus, it is perfectly acceptable that I like and value hot fudge sundaes
while someone aUergic to chocolate does not. But it is equaUy important
to note that my valuing hot fudge sundaes occurs in a context and against a
standard defined by a material a priori of the human good, Le., by strongly
valued goods. Ill do value hot-fudge sundaes, I must value them only in
moderation. I would not simply choose to eat hot fudge sundaes without
restraint, for too many hot fudge sundaes are undoubtedly bad insofar as
they do not in numbers conduce to the materiaUy a priori good of health.
This last point leads us to a consideration of the unity of the two perspec-
tives in Husserl's moral philosophy.
4.
In our concrete historical valuings we are faced with a multiplicity of
goods worthy of choice, some of which derive from or particularize the
material a priori of the human good and some of which arise from our
individual capacities and desires. In many cases the choice among compet-
ing goods is relatively easy. I do not choose to eat hot fudge sundaes in
excess because health is better than iUness and because health better
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
enables the pursuit of other goods I seek. But in other cases, e.g., between
the goods of parenting and those of career (including simply keeping one's
job in order to be able to provide for family) or between the good of com-
passion for employees and that of responsibility to the institution for
which one works, the choice can be very difficult. The easy choices,
however, already provide a guide toward understanding how we rationally
order our Uves in the face of competing and sometimes incommensurable
goods. Goods are subordinated one to another, and the agent whose Ufe
and striving are rationaUy well ordered to the attainment of happiness
must choose a life-goal or, as Husserl puts it, a vocation (Hua XXVII, p.
28). What we know about the nature of goods and the material a priori of
the human good reveals that among the goods which are available for
choice some are particularizations of the material a priori and these goods
make a claim upon us, they call to us as goods and our weU ordered voca-
tional choices are dutiful responses to such caUs. We must choose for our-
selves an overarching, material good, what Taylor caUs a "hypergood." 11
Since there is a multiplicity of historical, cultural, and individual particu-
larizations of the material a priori, our choice of one particular good over
another, even one strongly valued good over another strongly valued
good, involves a response to our individual interests and capacities and our
cultural and historical circumstances. We again here see the interplay of
the understanding which is capable of recognizing goods derivable from
the material a priori and the desires and emotions in bringing something to
presence as an overarching good and in judging it valuable enough to give
moral order to a life.
It is at this point of our discussion that we can see how Husserl's
accounts of moral intentionaUty and of formal axiology can be united in a
universal ethical theory. To identify a vocational good - whether making
money or attaining salvation - is to identify a material good which, as the
highest good, orders all other goods under it according to what Husserl
caUs "the law of absorption" (Hua XXVIII, 145). This law, along with
Husserl's version of the categorial imperative, belongs to his formal axiol-
ogy. We are called upon by the categorial imperative to do what is best
among what is attainable. What is best is knowable by reflection on both
the nature of the human and upon the circumstances which affect what is
attainable, circumstances which include our interests, our capacities, and
our resources. Both laws operate not only at the level of our vocational
choice but at the level of individual choices which arise in the course of
Ufe. All goods - even incommensurable goods, the conflicts of which can
impart a tragic dimension to human life - take their place within a hier-
archy of goods as more or less conducive to the overreaching good.
There can, therefore, be material differences among the goods towards
which different individuals within different historical cultures order their
lives and among the goods towards which different individuals even within
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»
H U S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
a single historical culture order their lives. But all these vocational choices
ought to be responses to goods which specify the material a priori of the
human in a concrete historical circumstance; aU these vocational choices
ought to realize those goods which belong to our nature as human beings,
goods from which our fulfilment as individual humans is inseparable.
Moreover, among the different material, vocational goods, we find a non-
manifest identity. There is a good identical to each of these manifest
material goods, a non-manifest good embedded in each manifest material
good. We find the key to identifying this non-manifest or formal good in
Husserl's formal axiology.
Husserl speaks of laws of rational consistency governing our valuing,
wishing, and willing experiences (Hua XXVIII, 237). But rejecting the
Kantian notion of the categorical imperative; Husserl thinks it insufficient
to say that these laws constitute a procedure for determining the good
toward which a rational agent orders his or her Ufe. It is insufficient to say
only that there is a rational criterion according to which goods and maxims
for action are tested. In Husserl's ethical system there must also be both a
material content for the good drawn from the material a priori of the
human and a relation to circumstances. There must also be a material
good which makes its claim upon us, whose goodness we have understood
and insightfully grasped, and to which we have afforded an emotional
legitimation in recognizing it as a vocational good. And this good must be
attainable under the circumstances. Once one emotionaUy, comprehend-
ingly, and insightfuUy gives a material content to the notion of the "best"
in our lives, one has an overarching good which orders all those goods
belonging to the practical domain under it as more or less conducive to the
best, mediately or immediately conducive to the best, and so forth (cf. Hua
XXVII, 31-32).
Insofar as this non-manifest dimension of rationally and freely valuing
what is best belongs to all manifest material goods, it follows that it is itself
a goal sought in any willing of the good for humans or for a particular
human being. Regardless of the differences which might exist between dif-
ferent material conceptions of the good, our moral activity aims at the
ends mandated by the categorical imperative: rational (consistent), free
(actively achieved rather than passively received), insightful (true) think-
ing and willing. This non-manifest good presents itself as one which
encompasses all other goods - insofar as it is reaUzed in the very choosing
of those goods - but which is nevertheless consistent with the identifica-
tion of different material goods as the highest good in terms of which we
order other material goods. Husserl speaks of this good as "authenticity"
(Eigentlichkeit). But this is not authenticity in the fuUy voluntaristic sense
that we find, say, in Nietzsche or Sartre. It is not merely a matter of choos-
ing or willing well; it is also a matter of knowing weU, of being able to give
reasons for our identification of certain goods, and of evidently knowing
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
the good. We here return to the moral urgency at the heart of Husserl's
philosophy: to decide for oneself. But for Husserl, as we have seen, to
decide is both to decide about what is truly good in the light of evidence
(rather than passively accept what others claim as the true good) and to
decide what to do among the alternatives so as best to attain that good.
This gives force to Husserl's claim that the Greeks in their discovery of a
theoretical approach to the world moved beyond appeals to reUgious and
civic authorities and discovered a theoretical autonomy. And, Husserl
says, "theoretical autonomy is followed by practical autonomy" (Hua VI,
6/8). To be truly autonomous is first to gain evidence regarding what is
true about the human and the world and about what goods make claims
upon us independently of our desires and inclinations. The autonomous
agent wills from among these goods that one which gives a vocational
direction and order to that agent's individual Ufe. That agent also orders
his or her life - or attempts to, for this is very difficult - so that everything
done and every good sought conduces mediately or immediately to that
fundamental, vocational good. To be autonomous in this way is to attain
the non-manifest good of authenticity, or - to state it in terms reminiscent
of Aristotle and terms which make the point more clearly than the term
"authenticity" - of thinking well (for oneself), both theoretically and
practically.
Whatever our vocation, then, we are aU called, not necessarily to be
philosophers, but to be philosophical. We are called to reflect upon our
choices so that in thinking and willing we realize ourselves as rational, free
beings who think, decide and act with evidential insight whatever the
material or vocational goods to which we direct ourselves. We are caUed
to reflect upon human activities and capacities and to discover the essen-
tial norms which govern them so that in our pursuit of those material
goods and vocational goods which govern our individual lives we can
recognize that we are Uving the life of the rational, free being. Many ques-
tions are, of course, left unresolved: which goods to choose, how to recon-
cile competing goods even when non-compossible or incommensurable,
how to arrange political institutions to achieve shared, human goods while
preserving the authentic autonomy and political freedom of the individual.
But the answers to these questions must always be cognizant of the urgent
caU central to moral life, the same urgent caU which was at the center of
Husserl's life and philosophizing - a call to thinking and deciding truth-
fully, to an ethics which is both objective and universal, but neither
absolute nor dogmatic.
Notes
1 Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and
Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, to which are added Two
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L
HU S S E R L ' S SENTIMENTS OF THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G
Brief Dissertations: I. On Personal Identity; and II. On the Nature of Virtue,
together with a Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, at the
Primary Visitation, in the Year 1751 (Hartford: Samuel G. Goodrich, 1819), pp.
216-217.
2 Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen uber Ethik und Wertslehre 1908-1914, ed.
Ullrich Melle, Husserliana XXVIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1988). Subsequently, references to Husserliana volumes after the first reference
will be abbreviated as "Hua" followed by the volume and page numbers. When
an English translation is available, references to it after the first reference will
be included with the interlinear reference to the critical edition; the page
number of the German edition will be followed by a "/" and the page number
of the English edition.
3 There are, of course, other aspects of Husserl's thought that lend themselves to
a reflection on ethics. Robert Sokolowski's Moral Action: A Phenomenological
Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) develops Husserl's notion
of categoriality in the moral sphere. James Hart's The Person and the Common
Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub-
lishers, 1992) explores Husserl's ethical views and develops especially his con-
ceptions of social and theological ethics. R. Philip Buckley and Karl
Schuhmann have also examined Husserl's social and political thought; cf.
Buckley, Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992); Buckley, "Husserl's Notion
of Authentic Community," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66
(1992): 213-227; and Schuhmann, Husserls Staatsphilosophie (Freiburg: Karl
Alber Verlag, 1988).
4 For a discussion of authentic life in both the individual and the community, cf.
the third and fourth of the Kaizo-articles ("Fiinf Aufsatze iiber Erneuerung") in
Edmund Husserl, Aufsatze und Vortrage (1992-1937), eds. Thomas Nenon and
Hans Rainer Sepp, Husserliana XXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publish-
ers, 1989), pp. 20-59; cf. also Buckley, "Husserl's Notion of Authentic
Community," pp. 217-223, and Hart, The Person and the Common Life,
passim.
5 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik: Versuch einer Kritik
der logischen Vernunft, ed. Paul Janssen, Husserliana XVII (The Hague: Marti-
nus Nijhoff, 1974), p. 55. English translation by Dorion Cairns, Formal and
Transcendental Logic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), p. 50. Husserl
develops the idea of a pure logical grammar at greater length in Logische
Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, Erster Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phdnomenolo-
gie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. U. Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984), pp. 301-351. English translation by J.N.
Findlay, Logical Investigations, 2 vols. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1970), II: 493-529.
6 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Ding und Raum: Vorlesungen 1907, ed. U. Claesges,
Husserliana XVI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), pp. 128-138; cf. also
John J. Drummond, "Object's Optimal Appearances and the Immediate
Awareness of Space in Vision," Man and World 16 (1983): 182-183.
7 Cf. John J. Drummond, Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational
Realism: Noema and Object (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990),
§§29-32; and Drummond, "De-Ontologizing the Noema: An Abstract
Consideration" in John J. Drummond and Lester Embree, eds. Phenom-
enology of the Noema (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), pp.
89-109.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
8 Husserl discusses eidetic or imaginative variation in several places. See espe-
cially Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phanomenologischen Philoso-
phie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einfiihrung in die reine Phanomenologie, ed. K.
Schuhmann, Husserliana III (rev. ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976)
[English translation by F. Kersten, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology
and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book I: General Introduction to a Pure
Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983)], §§69-70; and Erfahrung
und Urteil: Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik, ed. L. Landgrebe with
f * Afterword by L. Eley (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1972), [English transla-
tion by J.S. Churchill and K. Ameriks, Experience and Judgment: Investigations
in a Genealogy of Logic (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973)], §87.
For an account of the theory of wholes and parts underlying his discussion of
imaginative variation, see Hua XIX/1, inv. 3, and for a related discussion of the
different types of abstraction, see Hua XIX/1, inv. 2. Robert Sokolowski has
written clearly on Husserl's theory of wholes and parts; cf. his Husserlian Medi-
tations: How Words Present Things (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1974), ch. 1; "The Logic of Parts and Wholes in Husserl's Investigations,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 28 (1967-68): 537-553; and "The
Structure and Content of Husserl's Logical Investigations," Inquiry 14 (1971):
esp. pp. 333-337.
9 Cf. Martha Nussbaum, "Aristotelian Social Democracy," Liberalism and the
Good, eds. R. Bruce Douglass, Gerald M. Mara, and Henry S. Richardson (New
York and London: Routledge, 1990), p. 205. Both this article and her "Non-Rela-
tive Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume
XIII. Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue, eds. Peter A. French, Theodore E.
Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettstein (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1988), pp. 32-53 detail a universal account of the human good which
nevertheless allows for historical, cultural, and individual differences. Cf. also
Drummond, Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational Realism, ch. 9; and
Drummond, "Modernism and Postmodernism: Bernstein or Husserl," The
Review of Metaphysics 42 (1988): 275-300.
10 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 4.
11 The Sources of the Self, pp. 62 ff.
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , V A L U E
T H E O R Y , A N D N I H I L I S M
Steven Crow ell
Source: Kluwer, forthcoming.
§1. Human pathos
Pathos. In EngUsh this term does not normally call to mind the project of
the human sciences, scholarly inquiry, or phenomenology. Yet it names
something that lies very much at the intersection of technology, nature,
and life.1 For pathos, as Hegel might say, is that point where nature passes
over into life, and it is my aim to show that the significance of this passing
remains deeply contested precisely in those inquiries - the human sciences
and philosophy - that reflect on our destiny in the age of technology. To
speak of human pathos is to speak of that which touches us, of our capacity
for passivity, of what we undergo. And should not the project of science
and technology, born of the human instinct for autonomy and expressing
the power of freedom, be concerned with what may limit its Promethean
striving? Those sciences for whom "human" is simply a natural-kind term
may see no special importance in the dimension of pathos: to be affeqted
by what is other, to be "determined," is, for such sciences, simply the fate
of every entity in causal interaction, obeying laws to which it can only be
indifferent, toward which it can take no stand.2 But those sciences for
whom the term "human" retains something of its normative character, the
human sciences, cannot ignore the complications for their own scientific
practice that flow from the fact that the human being is neither simply an
inert variable in causal explanations nor the supremely rational creator of
all he surveys, but rather a being who undergoes its world - a creature who
is affected by things, moved by them, afflicted; who suffers, endures, and
remains exposed. Because of this exposure, the problem of method is
incomparably more troublesome in the human sciences than it is else-
where, a fact to which phenomenology has always tried to do justice. It
has, however, not yet met with great success.
Before looking at the problems phenomenology encounters when it
tries to provide a "logic" of the human sciences that does justice to human
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
pathos, let me call upon it to help us see why this theme - the kind of pas-
sivity inscribed in the passions, in what we undergo - is not simply a topic
for the human sciences, but their root soil. For phenomenology insists on
the difference between this sort of passivity and that in which something is
acted upon causaUy to produce an effect. Whereas the latter, as Kant
pointed out, makes sense only in a space of reciprocal casual interaction
(Wechselwirkung), and so in such a way that what is passive is in turn, and
simultaneously, active, the passivity of the passions is not reciprocal. To
undergo, to be moved, touched, affected; to suffer: these are not forms of
interaction with the other but of exposure to the other, modes of being
that take place not in a space of causes but in a space of reasons, 3 a norm-
ative space in which I am not constrained merely to react but am open to
learning. Just this distinction is voiced in the ancient Greek saying, pathei
mathos - learning through suffering - and in a certain sense it is because
undergoing can be learning that human beings can become selves. If
undergoing is a way of being addressed, of being caUed upon to take a
stand, then to be an I is to be capable of exposure to the world in this way,
such that what is undergone is not lost in a causal nexus but is registered
and inscribed, however dimly, in a character. Phenomenologically, it is
impossible to say whether the freedom to take a stand on what one under-
goes (to learn) makes exposure in this human sense possible, or whether
this being exposed is the condition of freedom itself. They belong insepa-
rably together. As Heidegger puts it, Dasein is constituted "equiprimor-
dially" by Befindlichkeit and Verstehen?
Heidegger's account of Befindlichkeit - of the kind of pathos he calls
"thrownness" - contains what is phenomenologically crucial in this theme:
to be a creature of passion is not merely to allow a "mood" to provide
some "subjective coloring" to things already simply there in the world; it is
rather that whereby the world and all that appears in it can matter to us at
all.5 To suffer or undergo is not a momentary event but the very modaUty
in which things as a whole and in particular make a claim upon us, concern
us in some way, take on significance. While a purely rational being, lacking
pathos, might be able to register things (as a computer or a photographic
plate might), it could not respond to them since it would lack motivation to
do so. Things could not move such a being since nothing could matter to it;
such a being could not inhabit a meaningful world. RationaUty, surely a
necessary condition, is nevertheless not a sufficient condition for meaning.
An account of the "affects" - love and hate, rage, joy, boredom, fear,
longing and so on - is thus not an appendix to the real work of explaining
the "mind" in "cognitive science"; it is the window onto a human mind's
most fundamental condition. As yet, however, it has been hard to look
through that window.
If the modaUties of the pathetic - of undergoing, exposure, passivity -
are ways in which things variously matter to us, we may speak generally of
I?
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
human pathos as the ontological dimension that includes them aU, a
dimension inseparable from the constitution of meaning as that which dis-
tinguishes the specifically "human" as being-in-and-of-the-world. Because
dwelling within a space of meaning, rather than merely inhabiting an
environment, is the exclusive prerogative of a pathetic being, we may not
neglect that dimension in favor of reason when we try to understand our-
selves as standing, in Aristotle's phrase, between beast and god. But why is
it so difficult to think this dimension in its own terms? Why do the custom-
ary, mostly cognitivist, approaches conceal as much as they reveal? Why
do we continually faU back on such models of human meaning, no matter
how often phenomenology reminds us of their limits? Here Nietzsche can
help us toward an answer, since he reminds us that human pathos is itself
exposed to a malady; Befindlichkeit can itself undergo a pathological con-
dition, a disease; can suffer a collapse of meaning: nihilism.
That nihilism belongs to the dimension of pathos is evident in Niet-
zsche's description of it as "the feeling of valuelessness."6 By terming it a
feeling of valuelessness, Nietzsche indicates, further, that nihflism is a
deformity of this dimension: in it things lose their meaning, they no longer
claim us, nothing matters any longer. Is there anything to be learned from
the suffering nihilism? Consider Nietzsche's diagnosis: Nietzsche under-
stands nihflism, the pathology of meaning, to be an affliction of values; we
undergo nihilism because "the highest values de-value themselves." Nor-
mally, meaning arises because things take on value in light of goals and
purposes that I posit from my point of view. These goals and purposes
themselves take on the character of values that ultimately come to
measure the worth of my existence itself. When they fail, as in nihilism,
meaning coUapses. From this, says Nietzsche, we should learn a "revalua-
tion of aU values." The sick man of today, with the life-denying values
("ascetic ideals") that have hitherto perversely measured his existence,
must undergo this revaluation by going under, must learn, through suffer-
ing, the meaning of the earth, which speaks in the life-affirming values of
wfll-to-power.7
Nietzsche's prescription for dealing with the nihiUsm afflicting the body
of Western culture draws upon the passions rather than reason. With his
"pathos of distance" the strong human being is to posit a new "order of
rank" among values by enacting it, by "giving style to one's existence"
according to a "great mood," an aesthetic "taste" that shapes one's drives,
feelings, and instincts into an individual whole.8 This gaya scienza is
poetry; there is no "science" of value in which reason poUces the validity
claims made by competing values, since, as Nietzsche puts it, "faith in the
categories of reason is the cause of nihflism."9 And yet Nietzsche's heirs -
or at least those, like Husserl, who occupied chairs of philosophy in
Germany at the end of the nineteenth century - had a very different pre-
scription. For them, it is precisely by restoring to reason her rights over the
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dimension of human pathos that a theory of meaning, a scientific antidote
to nihilism, is to be achieved.10 AU agree that, as Husserl would write,
baldly, in 1935, "the European nations are sick."11 Already in 1911 Husserl
had noted that "the spiritual need of our time has, in fact, become unbear-
able."12 Like Nietzsche, Husserl sees this sickness as a crisis of values, and,
like Nietzsche, Husserl sees values as deeply connected with human
pathos - what he calls the Gemutssphare in which we are affected, moved,
touched by things, in which things matter to us. But Husserl's diagnosis
does not follow Nietzsche's.
According to Husserl, the impasse in Western culture has resulted not
from reason exercising its hegemony over passion and value but from a
failure to exercise the kind of reason - "axiological reason" - appropriate
to passion and value. Husserl's prescription caUs for something like a
• i
i critique of axiological reason, a reflection on its nature and possibiUty.13
Husserl therefore turns to a phenomenology of affective life not for its
own sake but because he hopes to construct a rational theory of value
(Wertlehre). For this reason, our understanding of the role that the
Gemutssphare plays in human Ufe, its contribution to the disclosure of a
meaningful world, is from the start filtered through a distorting cognitivist
lens. In an effort to begin to remove this lens I shall argue, in what foUows,
that the lectures on ethics and theory of value that Husserl delivered peri-
odically between 1908 and 1914 are marked by an irresolvable tension
between phenomenological analysis and analogical reasoning, a tension
that undermines the very notion of a Wertlehre. I suggest that if we hope
to profit from what a phenomenology of human pathos has to teach us, we
must reject the analogy in favor of the phenomenology. 14
§2. The analogical approach to affective life
Husserl approaches the Gemutssphare by way of an analogy between
"logical" or "theoretical" reason (which embraces the laws of cognitive
experience, governed by the norm of truth) and what he calls "axiological"
reason (which, by analogy, would embrace the laws of appetitive and
affective experience, governed by the norm of the good). Why does
Husserl proceed analogically here? His motivation is itself introduced by
il an analogy: just as logical reason emerged in the ancient world as a means
for confronting theoretical scepticism, so "in the modern period" nihflism
It
so threatens practical life that there is an "ever more urgent striving" after
a "system of absolute and pure principles of practical reason" (Hua
XXVIILll). By analogy, then, just as logical reason secured the claims of
cognitive experience against scepticism in the ancient world, so axiological
reason should secure the claims of affective/evaluative experience against
nihilism in the modern world.15 Much of Husserl's text is given over to
developing this analogy - for instance, to rehearsing the arguments against
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
theoretical psychologism so as to motivate similar arguments against
value-theoretical empiricism and naturalism. However, gathered under the
generic term Werten ("valuing"), the text also contains elements of a
phenomenology of the Gemutssphare, reflections on experiences ("acts")
of feeling, desiring, wishing, hoping, taking joy in, fearing, and so on.
Despite Husserl's hope, these two aspects of his text are not in harmony;
indeed, his thinking is marked by an aporia between the analogical projec-
tion of axiological reason and a phenomenological reflection on affective
experience that in fact undermines the analogy at crucial points. This
aporia is, I shall argue, inseparable from the concept of value itself, and to
untie it we must abandon the chimaera of a rational theory of value.
Why does Husserl believe that affective life is governed by a peculiar
form of rationality? For one thing, it seems to be entailed by the way we
express ourselves in "common Ufe" (Hua XXVIII:169): We say, "That is a
beautiful sunset," or "He is a fine fellow," or "This Mont Blanc is an excel-
lent pen." On the one hand, Husserl suggests that such expressions point
back to acts of feeling in which the values expressed are experienced: "The
fact of valuing, of being pleased or displeased, of wishing, and so on, signi-
fies at first nothing more than that we are struck [angemutet] in this or that
way by objects, that we feel ourselves so moved by them, and the like." On
the other hand, the fact that such feelings get expressed as predicates, that
"we ascribe a predicate to the evaluated matters that pertains to them irre-
spective of the contingent act of valuing," signals, for Husserl, "something
new" (Hua XXVIII:86). Thus the ordinary language in which we express
our feelings about things already poses the "problem," for Husserl, of how
we can legitimately move from the mere "fact" of a feeUng in which some-
thing is valued to a "predicate which raises the claim to objectivity," from
"This is valued" to "This is worthy of value, good" (Hua XXVIII:254).
This is the problem that axiological reason - "valuing reason with its law-
fulnesses" (Hua XXVIII:86) - is supposed to address.
Let us note two things about Husserl's point of departure. First, his
phenomenology of value affirms the fact that feelings present themselves
not as mute but as meaningful: undergoing is not simply a causal-psycho-
logical occurrence but a kind of intentionaUty, which Husserl calls
"deeming" (Vermeinung). As intentional, it necessarily involves a norm of
intelligibility. But, second, he immediately construes this normativity as a
kind of rationality - that is, as a "claim to objectivity" and hence, in the
last analysis, as a kind of cognition?6 By construing our linguistic penchant
for assigning predicates to objects as a clue to the normativity of the
Gemutssphare, the latter becomes amenable to the analogy with theo-
retical reason. At the same time, however, the peculiar character of the
normativity embedded in the intentionality of the affects gets covered
over. To support this claim I shaU first examine how Husserl's phenom-
enology discloses, in the affective sphere, a normative dimension that is
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descriptively distinct from cognitive normativity (truth). I will then argue
that Husserl's own examples of the supposed analogy between theoretical
and axiological reason fail to convince. We will then be in a position to
understand why value theory is, phenomenologically, wooden iron (holzes
Eisen).
§3. Affective intentionality
Husserl's phenomenology of the affective dimension has two goals: to
establish the intentionality of the affects, and to distinguish them from
cognitive experiences - or what he calls "objectifying acts." The first dis-
closes pathos as an element in the constitution of meaning, while the
second, because it is shackled to the concept of act, becomes a tangled
confusion that cannot, in principle, be unraveled.
Husserl begins by taking seriously the phenomenological fact that in the
experiences I undergo at the hands of the world my feelings, such as being
pleased or displeased (Gefallen, Misfallen), have intentional content; they
are, in a distinctive way, about something (Hua XXVIII:57). When I take
delight in leafing through my copy of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, I am not
merely directed toward the book. Rather the delight deUghts in the book's
feel, the fineness of its binding, the clarity of its typography. These things
move my delight and are inseparable from it; that is, a "fineness" of the
binding or a "clarity" of the typography that would be accessible to mere
sight would not be the sort of thing that we express by these terms when
describing the affective experience.17 They belong to its kind of intention-
aUty. If I am moved by the sublime landscape, then against psychologism
phenomenology insists that this sublimity is no more something merely
subjective, an inner "representation," than is the landscape itself. The
affects, no less than simple perception, open out onto the world. Yet this
distinction between psychological and intentional content requires that
intentional experiences are, while psychological experiences are not, nor-
matively oriented; that is, their content is a claim that might or might not
be satisfied by the world. For instance, in the case of cognitive acts (which
for Husserl includes perception) the norm is truth: to say that I perceive a
red ball before me (that is, that "red ball" is the intentional content of my
perceiving) is to say that there is in fact a red ball before me if my percep-
tion is true. Something similar must hold for the Gemutssphare if one is to
attribute genuine intentional content to it. Thus Husserl insists both that
affective life is distinct from judgment - that it is "as such not belief, not
cognition; it does not perceive or predicate, it carries out no deductions or
inductions" (Hua XXVIII:64) - and that it is nevertheless normatively ori-
ented, e.g. toward a "valuing that values as it should value" (Hua
XXVIIL57). Were this not the case it would have no intentional content
but would be "blind experience like, for example, experiences of red or
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
blue sensations" (Hua XXVHL63). To explain this, Husserl argues that
though our passions do not judge in the logical sense, they do "judge" in
an analogical sense (Hua XXVIIL64) and thus seem to predicate some-
thing about what they are about: this landscape is sublime, this person is
lovable, this desired state of affairs is desirable and should become reality.
What norm governs such attributions; according to what measure are they
justified?
Husserl notes that it is not, strictly speaking, the norm of truth. Truth is
a matter of the logic of judgment, while the affects are not judgments. As
Husserl puts it, if we "think away" all value predicates "nature remains
nature. Theoretical science" - governed by the norm of truth - "remains
what it is: in itself it never leads to values." Nevertheless, he is convinced
that "the value predicates do truly [in Wahrheit] pertain to [the object]; to
disavow them would be perverse. They belong," Husserl continues, "in
another dimension" - a dimension other than the one accessible through
theoretical reason and assessable in terms of truth (Hua XXVIII:262).
Just this sort of suggestion, however, has led some philosophers to con-
clude that the phenomenology of valuing life is systematically misleading.
Agreeing with Husserl that science neither encounters value properties
nor need appeal to any in its explanations, J. L. Mackie, for instance, held
this to show that all phenomenological attributions of such properties are
in fact in error. How can Husserl's appeal to "another dimension" avoid
this "argument from queerness"? 18
One response, surely, would seize upon the naturalistic assumptions
governing Mackie's argument (and many others of this sort) - the idea
that the set of legitimate explanations is exhausted by the sort of explana-
tion found in natural science. Husserl, for example, argued that this idea
undercuts itself since it leaves no room for any sort of normativity, includ-
ing the logico-cognitive normativity upon which naturalistic explanations
themselves depend. This opens the door to a strategy once championed by
John McDoweU, who, likening value predicates to secondary qualities,
offered a defense of non-reductive explanations couched in terms of such
qualities.19 Once we no longer imagine that all "real" properties must be
like primary qualities ("just there"), we can accept the fact that physical
explanation need not encounter or appeal to secondary qualities, and still
maintain that this is no good reason to deny such qualities to objects.
Though one cannot account for what such a property is - being-red, say -
without reference to how the object shows itself in a certain kind of
experience (otherwise it would not be an account of being-red), this does
not at all tell against the object's actually being red. "Being red" just is
"being such as to look red in appropriate circumstances" and is independ-
ent of its "actually looking red to anyone on any particular occasion."20 If
this is so for secondary qualities, then perhaps something similar is true of
values: to account for what it is for something to be a beautiful piece of
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music is to say that it is "felt to be beautiful under appropriate conditions"
- conditions which, as in the case of looking red, will include features of
the environment as well as of the perceiver. This seems to be close to what
Husserl means by saying that value predicates belong to the object, but "in
another dimension" (Hua XXVIII: 259-60,261-2).
Yet we may still feel that there is a salient difference between sec-
ondary qualities and values here. For one thing, speUing out what "appro-
priate" conditions amount to in the latter case leads us back to the initial
problem: whereas in the case of perception of secondary qualities (an
objectifying act), the cognitive norm of truth is in play, in the case of affec-
tive or evaluative Ufe the very character of the axiological norm itself is in
question. Thus in trying to specify what "appropriate conditions" mean in
evaluative life there is nothing obviously analogous to Husserl's account of
appropriate perceptual conditions in terms of normality and optimality,
i« centered in the "orthoaesthetic" lived body.21 If there is nevertheless an
analogy, as Husserl believes, we have no choice but to look phenom-
enologically at affective Ufe itself to see the norm at work.
But here the real difficulties begin. For in a certain sense it is impossible
to see the distinctive norm that governs the other dimension in which
affective life plays itself out, because the light of theoretical reason shines
too brightly, obscuring the very different intentionality that belongs to our
undergoings. On the one hand, Husserl understands that affects are not
cognitions: "If we ascribe to a joy [Freude] a relation to an object, if we
designate it an intentional experience relating to the enjoyable [das
Erfreuende], then this sort of 'relation-to' is totally different from the one
we ascribe to a perception, for example, or a memory or a judgment"
(Hua XXVIIL336). On the other hand, the norm governing this sort of
intentionality - the norm belonging to "valuing reason" - is available only
as bound up with cognitive acts: "it must interweave [verflechten] with acts
of the logical, doxic sphere" since "only by carrying out such acts can acts
in general, and what they deem, come to objective givenness" such that
"we can see that valuing acts are 'deemings' . . . and further, that they
stand under ideal predicates of legitimacy and illegitimacy [Recht und
Unrecht], etc" (Hua XXVIIL69). Without this interweaving of theoretical
and valuing acts we cannot see affective intentionality for what it is. And
yet Husserl concludes that if "the forms and norms concealed in the
spheres of affect and wiU are to come forth into the bright Ught, the. torch
of logical reason must be abandoned" (Hua XXVIIL69). How then are we
to see the norms of the "other dimension" at all?
§4. Analogy and its discontents
At this point Husserl supplements phenomenological analysis with an ana-
logical approach that is supposed to enable us to see the phenomena of
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
affective normativity in light of logical reason without actually using it as a
"torch." 22 That is, though he admits that undergoing "does not see, does
not conceive, does not explicate, does not predicate" (Hua XXVIIL69), he
nevertheless describes it, analogically, as a sphere of valuing reason. What
authorizes this analogy is simply that Husserl equates the normative with
the rational: "reason" stands for "the essentially closed class of acts and
their appurtenant correlates which stand under the ideas of legitimacy and
illegitimacy, correlatively of truth and falsity, of obtaining and not obtain-
ing, etc. There are just so many fundamental types of reason as there are
acts that we can distinguish of which this holds" (Hua XXVIII:68). Well
then, is the Gemutssphare made up of such acts? A rigorous phenom-
enology of this sphere would be required in order to answer this question,
but one looks in vain in these texts for such a phenomenology. Instead, the
procedure Husserl adopts in the 1911 "Introduction" to his "Lecture on
Fundamental Problems of Ethics and Value Theory" is fairly typical.
Assuming the sphere of "theoretical-objectifying reason" as "analogical
clue" to the affective sphere, Husserl stipulates that though the affects are
not judgments or cognitions they "in turn do support rational questioning"
(Hua XXVIII:204). For instance, "desire has the character of a deeming;23
one can ask about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the desire . . . and in the
objectivations that are built upon acts of this group something stands there
in an objective manner as something that ought to be, as a good; and we
say that it is actually good if the question of its [sc. the desire's] legitimacy
receives a positive and well-grounded answer" (Hua XXVIIL205). It is
obvious that the main claims in this passage - that desire can be ques-
tioned about its legitimacy and that the good is that correlate of desire
which survives such questioning - are not derived from a phenomenology
of the "other dimension" of the passions itself but from the analogy with
theoretical reason. Indeed, Husserl admits that these "preliminary distinc-
tions" call for "penetrating clarifications" in order to see "in what sense
and with what actual justification essential demarcations are really to be
made here, or in which sense we may really speak here of reason and
objective validity" - clarifications that "lead into phenomenology and the
theory of reason." Yet because that is a "veritable primeval forest of dif-
ficulties," Husserl chooses to "avoid this primeval forest and all the mon-
sters lurking within it" by taking it for granted that reason is operative
here, that the normative is eo ipso a matter of reason (Hua XXVIIL205).
Thus if one were to doubt that the claims we experience in the dimension
of human pathos are properly analogized to theoretical reason, one would
have to show that the results obtained by applying this analogy actually
distort the character of the Gemutssphare. And in fact, if we turn to
Husserl's proposal for what he caUs "formal axiology" - the analogue of
formal ontology - evidence for the failure of the analogy is not hard to
find.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
Central to the normativity of the cognitive sphere is the relation of
ground to consequent. Hence, if there is to be a formal axiology something
like this relation must obtain in the affective sphere as well: "wherever it is
possible to speak of valuing and value, there also is a distinction between
value grounds and value consequents, between presupposed values and
the values posited on or derived from them" (Hua XXVIII:71). However,
the passage from one to the other is not governed by truth-functionality,
as in the case of formal logic; rather, it is a function of "contexts of motiva-
tion" - "the ground-valuing motivates the valuing of the derived values" -
and it is this motivation that is assessed as to its reasonableness. If formal
axiology is supposed to be a theory of "laws of consequence" that are
"laws of rational "motivation" (Hua XXVIIL71), the success of the analogy
will depend on whether contexts of motivation behave sufficiently sim-
ilarly to truth-functional contexts to justify applying to them the term
"reason." And though Husserl does not apply the analogy mechanically -
there are, for instance, interesting discussions of the adiaphoron and the
failure of excluded middle - the violence done to the phenomenology of
motivation quickly becomes apparent.
Let us begin with Husserl's distinction between "existential" and "non-
existential" pleasure. Non-existential pleasure is the sort taken, for
example, in the beautiful, which, according to Husserl, is valued in its mere
appearance and not in its existence. Existential pleasure, in contrast, is the
sort that depends on the existence of the thing enjoyed. Now Husserl
believes that the following is a law of rational motivation, that is, an
apriori law of formal axiology: "Whoever takes a non-existential pleasure
(valuing-something-as-beautiful) in A, must, rationally speaking [vernunf-
tigerweise], be glad [freuen] in case it is certain that this 'beautiful' [thing]
is, and must be sad [trauen] in case it is certain that it is not" (Hua
XVIII:73). But this hardly seems to hold at aU, let alone be an apriori law.
Considering only its appearance, I take pleasure in a beautiful sunset with
burning reds, oranges, and yellows spectacularly laid out across the sky.
Now I consider that this thing really exists; perhaps I recall that it is actu-
ally produced by intense air pollution. Must I be glad of this existence, just
because it is beautiful? Is it irrational of me to be depressed that such a
thing exists? Husserl would call that an "affective contradiction"
(Gefuhlswidersinn). Or perhaps I am looking at a painting of nymphs
dancing in a ring in which I take aesthetic pleasure. I may be glad that the
painting exists, but this is presumably not what Husserl means by "rational
motivation" here. Rather, it is the existence of what is depicted that I am
supposedly motivated to value. But it does not seem that I would be irra-
tional not to take pleasure in the existence of a world where nymphs were
dancing in a ring, just because I took pleasure in the depiction of such a
world. Husserl's principle seems not to be an apriori law but rather to
reflect a limited view of the relation between the beautiful and the good,
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
image and reaUty, a view in which I wiU thank God - and not the automo-
bile - for the existence of beautiful sunsets, or in which only those paint-
ings are beautiful that depict things, the existence of which would be good.
A further supposed example of a law of rational motivation is this: "If
one is happy \freut sich] about some actual W, and if one knows that
because A is, W also is, then, rationally speaking, the happiness is trans-
ferred to A " (Hua XXVIIL75).24 But this too seems contingent. It would
make it irrational to be unhappy about any regrettable circumstances upon
which some good and pleasing thing depended. (Perhaps the contraposi-
tive might be a law: if I am happy that something exists - say, a big luxury
car - and then find out that it only exists because something else that I am
unhappy about exists - say, exploitation of workers - then I should be
rationally motivated to change my valuing of the car). Or again, consider
the law, "if a property is valuable, so is every object that possesses such a
property to that extent valuable" (Hua XXVIII:77). Either this is the unin-
teresting tautology that a valuable property is a valuable property, or else
it is false, since a very despicable person might possess a valuable property
(cleverness, for example), though the mere possession of that property
would not, for all that, make him more valuable. I would not be irrational
to esteem him no whit more for having it.
Finally, following the analogy with formal logic Husserl believes that
the law of transitivity holds in formal axiology (Hua XXVIII:91): if A is
better than B and B is better than C, then A is better than C. But as a law
of rational motivation this does not in fact hold: I might be right to prefer
A over B, and right to prefer B over C, but not right to prefer A over C.
Because the argument for this counter-intuitive fact is compUcated,
however, I will not try to reproduce it here but will refer to the account by
Larry Temkin. 25
Now these few counterexamples would not be enough to undermine
Husserl's idea of a formal axiology if there were other good reasons to
think that an axiology is entailed by the phenomenology of the
Gemutssphare. But Husserl provides us with no such reasons, relying
instead on analogy to do the work. Systematically committed to the idea of
value-theory, Husserl develops the necessary formal axiology in spite of
the actual phenomenology of motivation. I say "in spite of" because, being
the honest thinker he is, Husserl does engage in phenomenological analy-
ses that tend at every turn to cut the ground out from under the analogy.
Beyond our critical arguments from consequences, then, let us turn to
some rather more phenomenological criticisms.
§5. A crisis in the concept of act
What finally undermines the analogy between formal logic and formal
axiology is that the phenomenological difference between cognitive
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experiences and affective experiences involves a significant difference in
the movement from the implicitly normative to the explicitly normative in
these realms. Normativity in the cognitive sphere can be traced to a dis-
tinct telos belonging to acts in this sphere: they are "objectifying" or
"object constituting." Such acts can be said to succeed or fail in Ught of the
constitution of a consistent, identical object, whether on the pre-
predicative level of perception or the predicative level of everyday life and
science. The normativity of theoretical reason is nothing but a reflection of
this phenomenological structure of object-constitution. In affective
!• experience, however, things are quite otherwise.26 As Husserl notes, it is
characteristic of such experiences that they do not constitute objects, and
therefore the reason that is supposedly implicit in them is a form of "non-
objectifying reason" (Hua XXVHI:208f). This means that its normativity
cannot be understood to derive from the telos of consistent, identical
;; object-constitution. But since the analogy with truth-functional logic offers
no other way to grasp affective normativity, the tension between analogy
JI
and phenomenology becomes acute.
Above aU, the analogy leads Husserl to distort the phenomenological
i. <
relation between predicative and pre-predicative experience in the
Gemutssphare. For while there is, in the cognitive sphere, a continuity
between the two, there is no such continuity in the sphere of what we
undergo. Since, however, axiological reason will be normative for pre-
predicative affectivity only if there is such continuity, continuity must be
manufactured. To do so, Husserl once again argues from analogy, this time
operating with the phenomenological notion of These (thesis). Rec.aU that
object-constituting experience is characterized by a Glaubensthese: in con-
trast to existentially neutral experiences such as imaginings, object-
constituting experiences include a moment of commitment to, or beUef in,
the object's "truly being" thus-and-so determined. At the pre-predicative
level Husserl notes that "such theses emerge in the spheres of perception,
of memory, of sensibility and the lower intellective forms of consciousness
that lie prior to specific thinking and conceiving" (Hua XXVHL212).
Because all and only "belief theses" are "object-constituting" (Hua
XXVIIL277) there is a normative continuity between these, proto-
intellective acts and "the domain of specifically _ thinking, cognizing
reason" (Hua XXVIIL212); that is, the kind of objective validity that is
claimed in explicit acts of cognitive reasoning, in expUcit predicative doxic
positing of "true being" as truly constituted identical object, is already at
stake at the lower level. The two levels belong together in a most intimate
I way since the higher "takes up so to speak all of the legitimacy and illegiti-
macy of the lower consciousness and in the case of its justification it also
co-justifies the lower consciousness" (Hua XXVIII:212). Indeed, Husserl
defines the "general class of objectifying acts" as those that have a "capac-
ity to enter into contexts of identity and so into contexts of judgment"
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
(Hua XXVIII:332; my italics). Now despite the fact that acts in the
Gemiitssphdre, as non-objectifying, do not exhibit this definitional connec-
tion with the "contexts of judgment," Husserl nevertheless insists that
there is a continuity between pre-predicative and predicative experience
here too: "So it is also in the sphere of affective acts with its novel affective
theses [Gemutsthesen]: we transpose 'what' we value or wiU into predica-
tive form, as when we say: May A be B, A should become B, etc. Every-
thing that we have just expounded in the sphere of belief holds as well for
the sphere of affective acts" (Hua XXVIIL212).
The legitimacy of this last claim, however, depends entirely on the legit-
imacy of talk of affective theses (Gemutsthesen) in analogy to belief theses
(Glaubensthesen). There must be theses at the pre-predicative affective
level if there is to be a continuity between it and the thetic form of evalua-
tive predication. Only then would there be something like a pre-
predicative quasi-object that would implicitly call for (and admit of)
critical justification; and only then would an explicit theory of value,
grounded in axiological "reason," appear plausible. Yet this does not seem
to be the case. When I take pre-predicative joy in the beauty of a flower -
am absorbed in it - the world is indeed disclosed to me in a certain way,
matters to me in a certain way, but I do not find any kind of positing, any-
thing that could be called a "thesis" that might implicitly call for "critical"
assessment as to its "validity." In contrast to cognitive acts, there is here a
discontinuity between pre-predicative experiences and the predicative acts
that subsequently express evaluations - apparently objective and open to
criticism - about things. It is true "that in loving someone I can wonder
whether I should love her, but the answer to that question will not come
from a value theory, however much the form of the question suggests such
a thing.27
Thus everything comes down to whether the dimension of human
pathos, of what we undergo in our exposure to the world, can be construed
as something like an objectifying act and so as amenable to the norms of
correctness and incorrectness that derive from the identity of objects. Far
from convincing us that it is, Husserl's attempt to construe affects in this
way leads to a crisis in the concept of act itself. A brief look at this crisis
will allow us to grasp the essence of the concept of value and see why,
rather than being an answer to nihflism, it is a symptom of it. What, after
all, is a "value"?
In his writings on "The distinction and relation between theoretical and
axiological reason" of 1908, Husserl struggles for many pages with the
relation between "understanding" - the objectifying faculty of judgment
and representation - and "affectivity," which neither objectifies, judges,
nor represents (Hua XXVIII:252). The problem is that even if we recog-
nize that all acts within the Gemiitssphdre are founded on objectifying
acts of some sort - say, acts of perception - this does not exhaust then-
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
intentionality. But how can a non-objectifying act be genuinely intentional
at all - how, Husserl wonders, can they reaUy "constitute" a distinctive
"meaning" (Bedeutung) or "appearance" (Erscheinung) at aU (Hua
XXVIII:324-25)? 28 It would appear that to include the distinctive inten-
tionality of the affects under the concept of act requires that there be a
specific correlate for it, an affective meaning. However, this makes it seem
that "the title 'objectifying act' swaUows up everything" such that "it is
hard to anticipate how one should be able to retain the concept of a non-
objectifying act" (Hua XXVIII:333). But then what would remain of the
distinctiveness of the affective sphere?
This is no merely rhetorical problem for which Husserl has a ready
solution.29 Phenomenologically, the attempt to squeeze human pathos into
the schema of act intentionaUty leads to a crisis in the concept.of act itself.
Husserl confesses that he has not been able to "get to the bottom of the
affective acts and the whole essence of the founding among them and in
their relation to objectifying acts." Given that when we speak of affective
"intentionaUty" what "intentionality means here is phenomenologically
something other than what it means for objectifying acts, there remains an
uncomfortable residue" that requires clarification if "the meaning and
ill function of this intentionaUty" is to be made plain. The existence of this
"uncomfortable residue" means that the concept of act itself is "seriously
threatened": "Does the concept of act still have unity? Is it not exploded
by the knowledge of this double sense of intentionaUty" (Hua
XXVIII:337)? Here we stand at the decisive point in the development of
value theory, for it is precisely in order to save the unity of the concept of
act that Husserl introduces the concept of "value" - that is, precisely not in
response to demands stemming from the phenomenology of the affective
t
sphere itself.30
Let us recapitulate the argument. The concept of act requires a corre-
late. Affective life is non-objectifying, so it is hard to see what its correlate
could be. To save the unity of the concept of act a correlate must be found,
but it cannot be an object lest all acts turn out to be objectifying. "Value"
names this correlate. "Valuing acts are not 'directed' toward objects, but
toward values. Value is nothing existing; value is something that refers to
being or non-being, but it belongs in another dimension" (Hua
XXVIII:340). Values are the quasi-objects that populate the other dimen-
sion in which we undergo the world, suffer it, become exposed, and are
acted upon as it were - because the concept of act requires a correlate.
And the concept of act is indispensable because without it (and the so-
caUed Gemutsthesen) the .analogy with theoretical reason can gain no pur-
chase and loses all plausibility. Therefore values are theoretical postulates
demanded by the analogical project of defining an axiological reason; they
are not phenomenological data derived from the meaning of affective Ufe
itself.
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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
§6. Nihilism, values, and meaning
Husserl's attempt to counteract nihilism through a critique of axiological
reason and a theory of value must be judged a failure on phenomenologi-
cal grounds. The essence of the failure lies in the attempt to construe
human pathos, the sphere of what we undergo, in terms of the concept of
act. The "other dimension" in which the world speaks to us affectively, in
which we are exposed to things such that they matter to us, is not made up
of acts, though in it meaning is indeed constituted. Husserl sees clearly
that our passions are not inert effects but meaningful openings onto the
world, and he holds, quite properly, that a phenomenology of human
pathos can provide a bulwark against nihilism. But he does not see that his
own approach draws fataUy on the very source of the problem. As Heideg-
ger argues extensively in his Nietzsche lectures, thinking in terms of values
is nihilism.
Husserl takes objectifying acts to be the measure of meaning constitu-
tion. For aU that this differs from modern representational thinking from
Descartes to Kant, it remains within the orbit of such thinking insofar as it
demands that Husserl construe our affective exposure to the world in
terms of the concept of act, lest it lose all contribution to meaning consti-
tution. The concept of value is a trace of this demand. As Heidegger wrote
in an appendix to "The age of the world picture,"
Where anything that is has become the object of a representing, it
first incurs in a certain manner a loss of Being. This loss is ade-
quately perceived, if but vaguely and unclearly, and is compen-
sated for with corresponding swiftness through the fact that we
impart value to the object, and that we take the measure of what-
ever is, solely in keeping with the criterion of value, and make of
values themselves the goal of all activity— From here it is only a
step to making values into objects themselves.31
Value, then, is what thinking posits to make up for the fact that it has
reduced being (meaning) to what it can reckon, calculate, and objectify.
Such thinking is helpless in the face of what it knows, namely, that such
objectification cannot do justice to the thing it grasps, that the density of
things has escaped it. Positing values as "belonging" to these things but "in
another dimension" is a mark of this helplessness.
But how do we know that something is missing, that things have suf-
fered a loss of being? We know it because we are exposed to things,
because in feeling we do not merely register the world but hearken to it
and respond, resonate with that which speaks to us, that which matters to
us. Nihflism - the feeling that things lack meaning - is a modern phenom-
enon because modern thinking takes its self-posited representations to be
113
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
the measure of being, and the only kind of being that can be constituted in
this way (i.e. through objectifying acts) does not matter, of itself it presents
us only with "structures" or "identities" - or pictures - to which we are
perfectly indifferent. In nihilism we undergo this indifference. Any
attempt to redress the loss of being in this malady besetting human pathos
by appeal to a theory of value - by insisting that affective meaning can
take the form of value properties that function, logically, Uke objective
properties - is itself nihilistic. We love, suffer, hope, desire, ache as before,
but these modes of our being, of our Befindlichkeit, cannot be made to
look like acts with correlates, do not cluster under an identifiable "region"
of the "axiological," and cannot become the field for a general Wertlehre.
Human pathos itself opens out onto a reform of phenomenology.
In registering the "sickness" besetting Europe, Husserl wondered: "why
is it that so luxuriantly developed humanistic sciences here fail to perform
the service that in their own sphere" - namely, sickness of the body - "the
natural sciences perform so competently?"32 Can the human sciences, phe-
nomenologically guided and grounded, provide "therapies" for the maladies
that beset cultures? Clearly Husserl hoped that a rigorous value theory
would contribute to such therapies, that by bringing reason to this sphere we
could put our priorities in order so that only that would matter to us that
really ought to matter. But our experience of exposure to the world, of the
claims things make upon us, of what we undergo such that things mean
something to us, does not support such a theory.33 What, then, may be
hoped from a connection between phenomenology and the human sciences?
It seems to me that something indispensable opens up once we abandon the
idea that these sciences can yield technologies of culture - namely, access to
the full scope of that "other dimension" in which things speak to us, a
foothold for an approach to meaning that respects the different ways in
which the world gets "constituted" by human beings who can learn through
suffering, undergoing. A collaboration between phenomenology and the
human sciences can help us attend to what is reaUy being said in our "evalu-
ative" sentences, lead us to Usten to ourselves with a sensibility unprejudiced
by the urge toward system, toward axiological hierarchies, divine teleolo-
gies, metaphysical personalisms, and all such substitutions for the loss of
being. In short, it can perhaps help us to forge a language for what we
Iff undergo in which things would not incur a loss of being. In a certain sense,
that would be the sort of therapy required, would it not?
Notes
1 An earlier version of this paper was read at the inaugural meeting of the
Research Centre for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong. I would like to thank the conference participants for
very helpful criticisms, especially Professors Cheung Chan-Fai, Kwan Tse-Wan,
114
P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND NIHILISM
and Lau Kwok-Ying. A shorter version of the present essay was read at a con-
ference on "Technology, Nature, and Life: Contemporary Social and Cultural
Problems in the Light of Phenomenology" at Seoul National University. I
would like to thank the hosts, Lee Nam-In and Jung-Sun Han Heuer, for pro-
viding a challenging context in which to further refine my ideas.
2 No one believes that Dostoevsky's Underground Man, who tried to take a
stand against the laws of nature, is anything other than sick, his freedom
"pathetic" in the colloquial, pejorative sense. On the other hand, as Max
Horkheimer's analysis in "Traditional and critical theory" (Critical Theory:
Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell et al, New York: Continuum,
1972), pp. 188-243, makes plain, the sorts of "law" proffered by the human sci-
ences, broadly construed, are just such as call for those subject to them to take
a stand on them: the reality they reflect can be changed, and it is sheer ideology
to give them the status of laws of nature.
3 This distinction derives from Wilfred Sellars. See Empiricism and the Philo-
sophy of Mind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 76.
4 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson, New York: Harper & Row, 1962, p. 172 [H132].
5 In Being and Time 176 [H137] Heidegger writes: "Letting something be
encountered is primarily circumspective; it ... has the character of becoming
affected in some way;... But to be affected ... becomes ontologically possible
only in so far as being-in as such has been determined existentially beforehand
in such a manner that what it encounters within-the-world can 'matter' to it in
this way. The fact that this sort of thing can 'matter' to it is grounded in one's
Befindlichkeit [attunement, state-of-mind]..."
6 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J.
Hollingdale, New York: Random House, 1967, p. 13.
7 On sickness and "ascetic ideals" see Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of
Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House, 1969, pp. 97-163;
on "going under" and the "meaning of the earth" see Nietzsche, Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche, New York:
Viking Press, 1968, pp. 125,127,137 etpass. "Umwertung aller Werte" ("reval-
uation of all values") is the subtitle that Nietzsche considered for his projected
(but never written) book to be entitled The Will to Power. See "Editor's Intro-
duction" in Kauffmann (ed.), The Will to Power, xvii; also Friedrich Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House,
1966, p. 117.
8 On the "pathos of distance" and a new "order of rank" see Nietzsche, Beyond
Good and Evil, pp. 117-18,201ff; on "giving style" see Friedrich Nietzsche, The
Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Random House, 1974,
p. 232; on the "great mood incarnate" see Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p. 231;
on the "affect of command" see Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p. 289.
9 Nietzsche, Will to Power, p. 13.
10 See Steven Gait Crowell, "Nietzsche Among the Neo-Kantians; or, The Rela-
tion Between Science and Philosophy," in Nietzsche, Theories of Knowledge,
and Critical Theory: Nietzsche and the Sciences I, Babette Babich and Rober S.
Cohen (eds), Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999, pp. 77-86.
11 Edmund Husserl, "Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man," in Phenom-
enology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. Quentin Lauer, New York: Harper
& Row, 1965, p. 150.
12 Husserl, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science," in Phenomenology and the Crisis of
Philosophy, p. 140.
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L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
13 See the discussion in Husserl's "Vorlesungen uber Grundfragen der Ethik und
Wertlehre" of 1914, in Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen uber Ethik und Wertlehre
1908-1914, Husserliana XXVIII, Ulrich Melle (ed.), Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988,
pp. 57-58. Subsequent references to the texts collected in this volume will be
given between parentheses in the body of this chapter.
14 Husserl's approach to questions of value changed in important ways after 1914.
For a fine account of this see Ulrich Melle, "Edmund Husserl: From Reason to
Love" in Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy, John Drum-
mond and Lester Embree (eds), Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002, pp. 229-248.1 shall
ignore these developments here. Though I believe my argument could be
extended to them, to do so would require another paper.
15 Husserl here operates with a general neo-Kantian scheme in which different
"validity spheres" (to use Habermas's term) are distinguished: theoretical,
practical, and axiological. I shall not speak further of practical reason in this
paper. Husserl believes that the practical sphere of "willing" is founded in the
axiological sphere of "valuing" (for instance, Hua XXVIII:47). At the conclu-
sion of this paper we shall find some reason to question this view.
16 Again, crucial parts of the text are devoted \o sorting out the peculiar priority
that belongs to logical reason - oriented toward objective cognition - among
III 1
the various spheres of validity. The issue is introduced at Hua XXVIII:57-8,
1'» and we shall follow it up in more detail below. Here we need only recall that
"cognitivism" is the term that names precisely the tension between acknowl-
edging the phenomenological distinctiveness of an "axiological" sphere and
trying to cash it in in terms of a kind of "reason."
17 Just as the red that belongs to an object solely insofar as the object is con-
sidered as reflecting light of a certain frequency would not be the red that we
express when we say that the object "looks" red. This analogy is elaborated in a
bit more detail below.
18 See J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1977, pp. 38-42; on the "error theory" see pp. 48-^49.
19 John McDowell, "Values and secondary qualities," in Mind, Value, and Reality,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 130-150.
20 McDowell, "Values and secondary qualities," p. 134.
21 See Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a pure Phenomenology and to a Phe-
nomenological Philosophy, Second Book, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer,
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989, pp. 61, 63-80. There have been several recent
attempts to develop an account of similar conditions for moral and evaluative
life - for instance, James Hart, The Person and the Common Life, Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1992; Robert Sokolowski, Moral Action: A Phenomenological Study,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985; John Drummond, "Moral Objec-
tivity: Husserl's Sentiments of the Understanding," Husserl Studies 12(2)
(1995): 165-183; and John Drummond, "Agency, Agents, and (Sometimes)
Patients," The Truthful and the Good, John Drummond (ed), Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1996, pp. 145-157. Nam-In Lee, Edmund Husserls Phanomenologie
der Instinkte, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993, p. 134, suggests that the normativity of
values and valuing has an instinctual basis: "die Instinktintention ist also der
Ausloser des Lustgeftihls und als solcher stiftet sie, indem sie sich auswirkt, das
Phanomen des Wertens." I shall not stop to consider these proposals in detail,
however, since my main quarry in this paper is the concept of value itself.
22 The awkwardness of this procedure, from a phenomenological point of view,
becomes apparent when Husserl remarks that his effort to "clear an open path
l! to the pure disciplines which supposedly belong to the idea of valuing, striving,
fi
116
I
1
P H E N O M E N O L O G Y , VALUE T H E O R Y , AND N I H I L I S M
and acting reason" should proceed "in as presuppositionless way as possible"
while nevertheless being "guided by the analogy with theoretical, objectifying
reason" (Hua XXVIII:204). How presuppositionless can that be?
23 Husserl means by this that, for example, desiring something posits it as desir-
able - a claim that we will have reason to challenge below.
24 This law is formulated in specifically causal terms at Hua XXVIII:78.
25 Larry Temkin, "Intransitivity and the Mere-Addition Paradox," Philosophy
and Public Affairs 16 (1987), 138-187. See also Temkin, Inequality, New York:
Oxford, 1993.
26 Nor is the problem essentially altered if we admit, following Lee, Phanome-
nologie der Instinkte, p. 142f, that objectifying acts - both passive and active,
predicative and pre-predicative - are themselves "wertend" since they are ori-
ented toward a kind of "satisfaction." For the question concerns whether we
can make sense of objective criteria for satisfaction as such, without which we
cannot speak of a special kind of "reason." And because of their orientation
toward object-constitution we can specify such criteria in the case of acts that
seek the satisfaction of truth, whereas we cannot in the case of other sorts of
affective valuing.
27 This of course does not mean that pre-predicative affectivity is discontinuous
with all forms of linguistic expression, or predication. It may, for instance, call
forth the non-objectifying language of lyric poetry in much the way that per-
ception calls forth object-identifying judgments. If something like this is even
conceivable, the general question must be asked: is the judgment-form, used to
express these evaluative "acts," a reliable guide to the normativity that charac-
terizes the realm of feeling? Is it, for example, true that when I take pleasure in
the heft and flow of my pen this entails or tends toward, a claim that, "the pen
is good," that is, toward a norm of correct evaluation? It is certainly true that I
can make an objective judgment about the quality of the pen - that it is objec-
tively a good pen. But this is because I can note that it fulfills its function as a
pen in an exemplary way, and this sort of evaluation does not refer to the
sphere of feeling at all. A computer could make such a judgment. On the other
hand, just because I express myself in predicate form about some delight I take
in something does not mean that that delight is from the start oriented toward a
norm of objective predication in which a property is attributed to an object.
But to question Husserl's assumption here is to question whether, at the level
of affect itself, there is an analogy with theoretical reason, whether it is plausi-
ble to speak of "correct" or "incorrect" desiring, hoping, enjoying, and so on.
Even if we grant a normativity to the affective dimension, it may not be ration-
al - which does not thereby make it irrational either.
28 It should be noted that this sort of language derives from the fact that in this
text Husserl is pursuing his question in the framework of the Kantian schema
of practical and theoretical philosophy.
29 In "Complicating the emotions," a paper deliverd at the 2002 Husserl Circle
meeting in Lima, Peru, John Drummond argued that Husserl in fact possessed
the means to do so already in the Logical Investigations. It remains to explain,
then, why he didn't avail himself of these means in the lectures on value theory.
30 In his "Value-theory and phenomenology," which introduces the volume
Phenomenology of Values and Valuing, James Hart and Lester Embree (eds),
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997, p. 5, James Hart registers an anxiety here: Does "the
topic of value strive to explicate and therefore enrich our appreciation of the
concrete context of experience," or "is it a bogus notion?" Believing that an
"exorcism of value" is not an option for phenomenology, Hart ingeniously
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS

assimilates values to "how we experience the world" rather than to "what we

experience" (6). Whether this leaves anything like a rational "theory" of values
intact is not something we can pursue here. 76
31 Martin Heidegger, "The age of the world picture," in The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt, New York: Harper &
Row, 1977, p. 142. E D M U N D H U S S E R L
32 Husserl, "The crisis of European man," pp. 150-51.
33 I should add that I am speaking here only of the affects; I am not extending this From reason to love
to the question of ethical obligation, which has a different structure and is
related to affectivity differently than the way Husserl conceived of this relation.
Ethical obligation is not a function of our Befindlichkeit.
Ullrich Melle
I.
Source: John J. Drummond and Lester Embree (eds), Phenomenological Approaches to
Moral Philosophy, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002, pp. 229-248.

1. Introduction
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is the founder of phenomenology and the
"phenomenological movement." A mathematician by training, he turned
to philosophy under the influence of Franz Brentano, who grounded philo-
sophy in descriptive introspective psychology. Husserl's first major pubU-
cation - Die Philosophie der Arithmetik (Philosophy of Arithmetic) from
1891 - can be regarded as an application of Brentano's philosophical
method to foundational problems in mathematics. Husserl pubUshed the
Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations) in two volume in 1900
and 1901. The first volume became renowned for its refutation of psy-
chologism, the view that formal sciences such as logic and arithmetic
have to be grounded in psychology as an empirical science. The second
volume contains contributions to what later came to be called a phenom-
enological foundation of the formal sciences and of epistemology. Such a
phenomenological foundation is a foundation in terms of intentional acts
of consciousness in which different kinds of objects, including ideal and
categorial objects, are intended and intuitively given. Phenomenology
was distinguished from descriptive empirical psychology by its eidetic
character. Young philosophers in Gottingen and Munich adopted the
new philosophical method of eidetic description and formed the first
phenomenological movement. They were disenchanted, however, by
Husserl's transcendental turn in his next major publication, Ideen zu
einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie,
Erstes Buch (Ideas to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological
Philosophy, First Book) from 1913. Employing the method of tran-
scendental epoche and reduction, phenomenology now becomes the
analysis of the constitution of intentional objects in transcendental
consciousness.

118 119
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
In 1928 Martin Heidegger edited Husserl's "Vorlesungen zur Phanom-
enologie des inneren Zeitbewusstsein" ("Lectures on the phenomenology
of internal time-consciousness") from 1905. A year later, in 1929, Husserl
published Formale und transzendentale Logik (Formal and Transcendental
Logic). This work was originaUy intended to be the introduction to an
edition of his manuscripts on genetic logic that he had asked his assistant
Ludwig Landgrebe to prepare. Landgrebe's edition, entitled Erfahrung
und Urteil (Experience and Judgment), appeared only in 1939 after
Husserl's death. Inspired by lectures he gave at the Sorbonne in Paris in
1929, Husserl pubUshed Meditations Cartesiennes (Cartesian Meditations)
in 1931. His last work was Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und
die transzendentale Phdnomenologie (The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology). He himself pubUshed only the first two
parts of the work in 1936. The third and final part, which was more than
half of the work, was held back by him for revision.
The number of writings pubUshed by Husserl during his lifetime is relat-
ively smaU compared to the enormous quantity of his unpublished manu-
scripts, which are mostly written in Gabelsberger stenography. While his
published work is largely introductory and programmatic, it is in his
research manuscripts that again and again he reflected upon his methodol-
ogy and its philosophical impUcations. But above aU, it is there that he
tried to describe in minutest detail the constitution of the world, and of
real and ideal objects, in the passive and active Ufe of transcendental con-
sciousness.
Husserl himself published no major work on ethics or practical philo-
sophy. Only recently has a start been made with the publication of his
lecture courses and research manuscripts on axiology and ethics, as well as
his descriptions of emotional and volitional consciousness. These manu-
scripts show that Husserl devoted considerable time and effort to develop-
ing the foundations of a phenomenological axiology and ethics.
Already during his early years as lecturer at the University of Halle,
Husserl regularly gave courses on ethics. Unfortunately, only smaU frag-
ments of these courses are preserved in manuscript, so that we do not
know what he taught in these courses. The largest of these fragments is
from a course on "Ethics and the philosophy of right" from the summer
semester of 1897. In these few pages of manuscript, the central concern in
the whole of Husserl's ethical thought is expressed: the refutation of
ethical skepticism through a scientific ethics that addresses and settles
questions of principle. He defines ethics as "the scientific discipline, more
precisely, the Kunstlehre, that investigates the highest aims of life, but on
the other hand equally strives to formulate rules that should facilitate for
the individual actor a rational order of Ufe and action in relation to these
aims" (Hua 28,384).
Setting aside this early period, there are three different periods during
120
FROM REASON TO LOVE
which Husserl worked rather intensively on axiology and ethics. From
1908 until 1914 he gave three lecture courses on axiology and ethics and
wrote numerous research manuscripts devoted to the phenomenological
analysis and description of emotional and volitional consciousness. From
1920 to 1925 he gave a new lecture course on ethics, published three art-
icles on ethics, and again wrote a great number of research manuscripts in
which he addressed axiological and ethical issues. And from 1930-1935 he
wrote a number of research manuscripts in which he dealt with ethical
questions in connection with metaphysical considerations.
While Husserl's prewar axiology and ethics is strongly indebted to
Brentano, Fichte is a major influence on his later ethical thought. At the
center of aU of Husserl's ethics stands the idea and ideal of reason, the
identification of the good with the rational. The human being has to
become what it is: animal rationale. The highest form of rationaUty is
scientific, i.e., philosophical rationaUty, so that the ethical Ufe as the fully
rational life is a life guided by scientific insights. But in his later ethics
there is a new point of departure that diverges from the dominant rational-
ism. Possibly inspired by Scheler, Husserl now defines the human being as
animal amans rather than solely as animal rationale.
2. Husserl's early ethics
The earUest lecture course on ethics of which substantial fragments in
manuscript are preserved is the course "Foundational problems of ethics"
from summer semester 1902. Husserl deals in this course with the historical
opposition between ethics of feeling (Gefuhlsmoral) and rationaUst ethics
(Verstandesmoral). He sides with rationaUst ethics in denouncing the sub-
jectivism and relativism of the ethics of feeling, but he agrees with the
ethics of feeling that axiology and ethics are ultimately grounded in acts of
feeling and wiUing. The ultimate origin of our axiological and ethical con-
cepts are acts of the heart and the wfll. "It is evident that there is absolutely
no talk of 'good* and 'evil' if we abstract from feelings" (Hua 28,394). Fun-
damental to the whole of Husserl's ethics is the conviction that the founda-
tion of ethics on the acts of the heart and the wfll does not compromise the
objectivity of values and the ideal validity of ethical principles.
This points to a further basic tenet of Husserl's ethics: the idea of paral-
lel or analogous forms of rationality. Rationality, objectivity, ideality, truth
are not privileges of the inteUect, of logical thought; rather, there are par-
allel or analogous forms pertaining to our emotional and volitional acts
and their intentional objects. RationaUty, objectivity, and truth are circum-
scribed by a priori, i.e., universal and ideal, laws. Regarding the intellect
these are the laws of formal logic. If there are forms of emotional and voU-
tional rationality, objectivity, and truth analogous to those of acts of think-
ing, then there have to be formal laws pertaining to our acts of feeling and
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
willing analogous to those acts of thinking. This search for analogues to
the forms and laws of the inteUect in the sphere of the emotional and voli-
tional acts - a search that is already announced in his lecture course of
1902 - dominates Husserl's early ethics, i.e., his lecture courses on axiol-
ogy and ethics from the winter semester of 1908/09 and the summer semes-
ters of 1911 and 1914, as well as his many research manuscripts from this
time analyzing the acts of the heart and of the will. Husserl's early ethics is
then an extension of the phenomenological theory of theoretical reason to
axiological and practical reason, with the overaU aim of elaborating a com-
prehensive and unified phenomenological critique and theory of reason.
There are three forms of reason and rationality corresponding to the
three fundamental classes of intentional acts: acts of presenting and of
thinking, acts of feeling, and acts of wilUng. In acts of presenting and
thinking, objects are given and conceived of in their purely factual deter-
minations; in acts of feeling they are given with value-characters, in acts of
wiUing with practical characters. Each of the three classes of acts com-
prises a number of different kinds of acts with their corresponding inten-
tional objects. The most fundamental act of presenting is perception, in
which an object is given in its bodily presence. Remembering and imagin-
ing are modifications of perception. In these acts an object is intuitively
given - not, however, in its bodily presence, but as being past or being fic-
titious. Acts of thought proper are categorial acts that articulate and expli-
cate in categorial forms objects given in non-categorial intuitions. The
most fundamental value-giving act is the general feeling of pleasure
(Gefallen) and its opposite, displeasure (Misfallen), conceived in a very
broad way as liking or disliking something. Joy and distress are other
important feelings. In the class of the voUtional acts, there is the fundamen-
tal distinction between the voUtional acts preceding the action (the wishing
and desiring, the choosing and deciding); the fiat that initiates the action;
and the volitional act that supports the action and Uves in the action.
The three classes of acts are not unrelated. There exists instead a neces-
sary foundational relationship between acts of the three classes. Acts of
feeling are necessarily founded in acts of presenting and thinking; acts of
willing are necessarily founded in acts of feeling, and through these acts
of feeling in acts of presenting and thinking. Something has to be given in
a presentation or thought that can then give rise to a feeUng giving the
object a value; the object having a certain value can further motivate my
willing and acting.
The emotional and volitional acts are dependent on acts of presenting
and thinking in yet another sense. In pleasure and displeasure, a value or
disvalue is felt but not presented or predicted, i.e., it is not posited and
objectified as a value. It is similar with acts of wilUng: these acts constitute
practical meanings and characters, such as means and ends, desirability, or
action, but to talk about them, we have to thematize and objectify them in
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acts of thought. Husserl compares this with the way states of affairs are
constituted in acts of judging, but thematized and objectified only in sub-
sequent acts of nominalization. In such acts a singular gaze is directed
toward the constituted state of affairs and it is posited as a categorial
object that can serve as a subject for a further predication, in which case
yet another state of affairs is constituted.
To sum up, axiological and practical characters and objects are consti-
tuted exclusively by emotional and volitional acts that are founded in pre-
sentations and acts of thought and that require intellectual acts for the
objectification of these characters and objects.
Husserl later revised his conception of the foundational relationship
between the different classes of acts. He stressed first of aU that a rational
subjectivity cannot be a pure intellect, merely presenting and predicating a
pure factuaUty. It necessarily engages emotionally and practically in the
given world, constituting values and practical objects, i.e., a cultural world.
More importantly, instead of a one-sided foundational relationship
between the intellectual acts on the one side and the emotional and voli-
tional acts on the other side, there is rather a mutual foundation. Intellec-
tual acts themselves are practical acts, doings that in their purest form
strive for truth as their aim, which is chosen as an aim because of its value.
Intellectual, emotional, and volitional acts interpenetrate each other.
According to the "method of analogy," the phenomenology and
critique of theoretical reason can serve as a paradigm for the phenom-
enology and critique of axiological and practical reason. The phenom-
enology of reason is the phenomenology of the ways we acquire truth in
our intentional act-life. These ways are quite different depending on the
kind of object the truth is about, whether it is a mathematical proposition,
a thing, a past event, or a value. But truth is always acquired in particular
kinds of evidencing, in processes of fulfillment of empty intentions by
intentions that bring the intended object to intuitive presence.
According to Husserl, it was the great discovery of Brentano that there
were forms of evidence pertaining to non-objectifying acts (i.e., emotional
and voUtional acts) that are the exact analogue to the forms of evidence
pertaining to the objectifying acts. We acquire truth not only in our intel-
lectual acts of presenting and thinking, but also in our acts of feeling and
willing - a truth, however, that can only be expressed and articulated in
subsequent acts of thought. A value, for example, can first be emptily
intended in a vague feeling. I can then enter into a process of further and
further clarification of my feeling toward that particular object; I can try to
feel the overall value of that object more clearly by running through the
different value-aspects, just as I get to know the object in its factual deter-
minations more clearly by looking at it from different sides. Similarly,
there are peculiar kinds of emptiness, fulfillment, and evidencing in the
domain of the volitional acts.
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Making use of the "method of analogy," a comprehensive phenom-
enology of axiological and practical reason has to analyze and describe
these different kinds of emptiness, fulfillment, and evidencing. As
Husserl's numerous research manuscripts devoted to the analysis and
description of the acts of the wfll and of the heart show, this is a very
demanding task. He himself speaks of "a jungle of interlaced analyses." It
is a major question whether the method of analogy does not prejudge the
analyses, functioning as an unphenomenological straitjacket through
which the emotional and volitional act-life is pressed into a foreign mold.
For example, Husserl's analyses of the experience in which a value is
originally given in feeling leaves unresolved the problem oLto what intel-
lectual act this feeling is an analogue. There are three candidates: a per-
ception, a doxic position-taking, or a categorial act. Depending on the
candidates chosen, the value or value-object has a different ontological
status: in the first case it is a given quasisensuous object, in the second case
a noematic character, and in the third case an actively constructed object
of a higher order. Only rarely does Husserl compare the original value-
giving act with a full categorial act of thought. He does point out that there
are emotional analogues to such categorial acts, e.g , a plural, many-rayed
act of love as a coUective loving. But for the most part, he conceives of the
primordial value-giving act either as a value-perception (Wertnehmung as
the analog of Wahrnehmung) or as a position-taking.
Like the perception of spatial and material objects, value-perceptiqn is
supposed to come about through the apperception, the ensouling interpre-
tation, of sense data; the difference is only that the sense data here are
sensuous feelings founded in perceptual sense data. One of the main prob-
lems with this account is that just as perception is not yet theoretical
reason in the full and proper sense, neither can value-perception be axio-
logical reason in the full and proper sense. The question of rationaUty and
truth is reaUy addressed to the active and spontaneous position-takings of
the ego as they occur in acts of judging. This leads Husserl to conceive of
the value-giving acts as such as non-doxic position-takings. The axiological
and practical characteristics become analogues of doxic characters like
"being doubtful," "being probable," etc. Husserl does not come to a final
conclusion regarding how to conceive of the acts of feeling in which values
are given to us originaUy.
Truth and the acts of evidencing in which truth is acquired are governed
by ideal laws. These laws are the subject matter of ideal sciences. Objectiv-
ity and truth are thus inseparable from ideaUty, from the ideal validity of
principles that express the necessary conditions of objectivity and truth. In
his famous refutation of psychologism in the Prolegomena to the Logical
Investigations Husserl showed that the denial of the ideality of the logical
laws and their empirical grounding in psychological, anthropological, or
biological facts led to a self-contradictory skepticism and relativism in the
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FROM REASON TO LOVE
field of theoretical knowledge. If logic is the ideal science of the laws of
thought, then ethics should be the ideal science of the laws of wilUng and
acting. This parallelism between logic and ethics is the main subject in
Husserl's lecture courses on axiology and ethics from 1908/09, 1911, and
1914.
A crucial distinction regarding the a priori conditions of possibility of
truth is the distinction between purely formal and material conditions of
possibility, in the case of theoretical knowledge between formal logic and
material logic. Formal logic abstracts from aU subject matter investigating
only the forms of meaning; the combination of these forms into meaning-
ful propositions; and the concatenation of these propositional forms into
valid inferences and complex chains of reasoning, and ultimately into
whole theory-forms. Validity is here purely formal and is grounded in the
essence of the fundamental categories of meaning. Beyond these formal
conditions for the truth of propositions and inferences, there are a priori
material conditions grounded in the essence of the particular subject
matter of the proposition. A proposition about a material thing cannot
possibly be true if it fulfills the formal conditions of truth but offends
against the ontology of the material thing.
The difference between matter and form belongs to the essence of
reason in general, and thus not only to theoretical but equally to axiologi-
cal and practical reason. Just as logic in the broad sense has a formal and a
material part, so axiology and ethics must have a formal and a material
part. Ethics thus far lacks the formal disciplines, formal axiology and
formal praxis, that are the analogues of formal logic. Husserl regarded the
development of these formal disciplines in his lecture courses on axiology
and ethics as his most original and important contribution to the history of
ethics. He does'acknowledge his indebtedness to Brentano. Brentano's
seminal 1889 text Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (The Origin of our
Knowledge of Right and Wrong), Husserl remarks, was the impulse to all
his attempts to develop a formal axiology. Brentano had already formu-
lated a number of formal axiological and practical laws, without, however,
conceiving of the possibiUty and necessity of a formal axiology and ethics.
The first candidate for a formal-practical law is Kant's hypothetical
imperative formulated as a general law: "The one who wants a particular
aim equally wants the means that are necessary to reach that aim." This is
neither a psychological nor a logical law. It does not claim that the wanting
of the means is a real part of the wanting of the aim, nor does it say that
the wanting of the means is logically contained in the wanting of the aim.
It is not a logical contradiction to want the aim but not the means; it is
unreasonable in a purely practical sense.
Husserl goes on to formulate a number of formal-axiological laws of the
transference and derivation of values, e.g., "If V is of value and if it holds
that if A, then V, then with regard to this relationship A equaUy is of
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value" or "If a property is valuable, then each object having this property
is valuable because of it." There is a formal-axiological analogue of the
formal-logical laws of contradiction and of the excluded middle. In the axi-
ological realm, however, we have a middle between positive and negative
values in the form of value-neutraUty, so that the formal-axiological ana-
logue to the formal-logical laws of contradiction and of the excluded
middle takes the following form: "If M is in itself of value, then it is not in
itself of disvalue and it is not in itself value-neutral and vice versa accord-
ing to all disjunctive combinations."
Then there are formal-axiological laws that have no analogue in formal
logic. These deal with the ranking of values. Yet other formal-axiological
laws deal with axiological parts and wholes.
From formal axiology we move into formal praxis if we consider the
formal laws of preference and choice. The most fundamental of these laws
is the law of absorption: "In every choice the better absorbs the good and
the best absorbs everything else that is in itself to be valued as good." If
we relate this law of absorption to a Umited domain of practical pos-
sibilities, Brentano's categorical imperative arises: "Do the best that is
attainable!" Husserl formulates it as follows in his lecture course from
1911: "Formal praxis leads to a highest formal principle, which in the first
place rests on the principle 'The better is the enemy of the good.' This
principle says 'Do the best that is attainable!' That is, of course, a noetic
expression. Objectively, the expression would be: the best attainable
within the entire practical sphere is not merely the best comparatively
speaking, but rather the sole practical good'" (Hua 28, 221). This highest
formal principle of praxis is the fundamental law of practical truth. It is
formal in the sense that it does not determine in advance what the best
attainable is in a particular situation. But in contrast to the formal logical
laws, it does not determine only the necessary condition of practical truth.
A proposition that conforms to the formal logical laws can stiU be false,
whereas a willing and acting conforming to the highest formal principle of
praxis is necessarily true.
Noetically, the principle is formulated as a categorical, i.e., uncondi-
tional, imperative but the possibility of such a categorical imperative
depends on the existence of a closed practical field that comprises a finite
number of practical possibflities at each moment the subject deliberates
upon what to do. Such a practical field will necessarily be different for dif-
ferent subjects; accordingly, the best attainble will be different for differ-
ent subjects at each moment. But the best in each field is objectively the
best. The formal conditions of rational preference and choice can then be
summarized as follows: wiUing must aim at its own practical possibilities; it
must grasp the entire realm of its practical possibiUties; and it must find
and choose the highest value from all the values therein.
iii.
Formal praxis cannot tell us whether what we choose is actually the
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FROM REASON TO LOVE
best. For this we need a material axiology and praxis. "Were there no
material a priori, were there no types and famiUes of objects that carried a
priori predicates of values, then the concept of objective value would have
no support, and consequently there would be no support for the idea of an
objectively preestablished prefer ability and for the idea of a 'best'" (Hua
28,139). Formal axiology and praxis are "only a small, albeit the most fun-
damental, part of the task of a scientific and first of aU a priori ethics"
(Hua 28,140).
Husserl did not develop this material part of axiology and ethics
systematicaUy and in detail, neither in his early nor in his late ethics. His
material axiology consists of an elementary classification of values into
existential values and values of appearance, i.e., aesthetic values, and dis-
tinguishes between sensuous, hedonistic values and spiritual values.
Regarding the spiritual values, he usually distinguishes three basic kinds:
aesthetic values, epistemic values, and the values of rational self-love and
of love of neighbor. The altruistic values of love of neighbor are the specif-
icaUy moral values. Occasionally he adds as a fourth category, religious
values. Regarding the ranking of the values, a clear order of rank only
exists between the sensuous and the spiritual values: sensuous values have
value only as means for making spiritual values possible. Among the spir-
itual values themselves no such definite and generaUy vaUd rank can be
established. "If one of the classes, e.g., the class of the moral goods, i.e.,
the goods of the love of neighbor, were distinguished as the absolutely
higher and highest one, then each scientist and artist at once would be an
ethically bUnd or bad person" (Ms. F I 40,140a). This does not mean that
a scientist or artist is never ethicaUy obliged to help others; in some situ-
ations moral values outweigh the epistemic or aesthetic values he is pursu-
ing. But it is not that whenever there is a conflict between moral values on
the one side and epistemic and aesthetic values on the other, the latter
have to yield. The duty of a scientist to his work can and often does out-
weigh the obUgation to help his needful neighbors.
3. The transition to the later ethics
The previous quotation is from the extensive section on axiology and
ethics in Husserl's lecture course "Introduction to philosophy" from
winter semester 1919/20, which documents the transition from his early to
his later ethics. In this section he takes over from his earUer lecture
courses the derivation of a categorical imperative from the law of absorp-
tion: the better is the enemy of the good. But he introduces two important
revisions. First, the practical domain includes at each moment an open
future horizon of practical possibflities that are or might be attainable and
that have to be taken into account at the moment of choice. The categori-
cal imperative demands then "to choose the positive good that is the best
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L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
in the whole, of the practical sphere, this sphere at the moment of choice
stretching into the endless open future" (Ms. F I 40, 132a). But Husserl
does not explain how in the moment of moral deliberation and decision I
can take account of an endless horizon of future practical possibflities.
Second, Husserl stresses that the ethical value of the will does not
depend on objective attainabihty, but only on what the acting subject is
convinced of as being attainable. Nor does it depend on the objective
values or disvalues involved, but only on what the subject posits as values
or disvalues. "If we prefer according to our best knowledge and conscience
the best of what is attainable, we have acted ethically, then and only then
our will is absolutely right" (Ms. F140,132b). If it turns out, however, that
we have been wrong in our convictions about attainability and values, we
may be blamed for not having previously chosen to educate our abilities of
judging, evaluating, and preferring correctly, so that our "best knowledge
and conscience" would not be our actual knowledge and conscience, but
the one we could have had if we had educated our intellectual and moral
abflities properly.
Summing up his exposition of the categorical imperative, Husserl states
that it "expresses an evident, absolute validity, a law, how the motivation
of a will has to be so that the will is an ethically good one, so that what is
wflled is something that absolutely ought to be - indeed not only this: it
expresses lawfully an unconditionally vaUd positive criterion of the ethi-
cally good and bad will" (Ms. F140,133a).
In the middle of the exposition of the categorical imperative, the manu-
script contains a critical note that opens with the statement: "I shall have
to give up the whole teaching of the categorical imperative or else define it
anew" (Ms. F I 40, 131b). The reason for this radical revision is what
Husserl calls in the note "the problem of love." The question is whether
the practical good that is acknowledged by me to be the objectively best is
actually for me that which absolutely ought to be. I can experience a per-
sonal and pure love of particular values that is different from the valuing
as weU as from the enjoyment of the possession of the value.
There is a second supplementary critical note later in the manuscript
that elaborates this point further. Again this second note opens with a
clear renunciation of an ethics based on the categorical imperative.
Already in 1907, Mortiz Geiger, Husserl remarks, had correctly pointed
out to him that it would be absurd to demand from a mother to first delib-
erate whether the fulfillment of the need of her child is the best in her
practical domain. One has to distinguish between the objective value and
the same value as an individual, subjective value of love. A pure and true
love is not only a value-perception, but a loving embrace and choice of the
value out of the most inward center of the subject. For practical reason
these subjective values are of particular relevance.
These critical notes enclosed in the manuscript of the lecture course
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FROM REASON TO LOVE
from 1919/20 point to a central theme of Husserl's later ethics: the
absolute ought grounded in the personal love and calUng of the subject.
The two notes in the manuscript from 1919/20 can be compared with
another note found in a research manuscript from a few years later in
which Husserl refers again to Geiger's criticism and renounces his earlier
axiological and utilitarian ethics, which he had adopted from Brentano.
"Should the mother first deliberate and make such considerations of the
highest possible good? This whole ethics of the highest practical good such
as it was derived from Brentano and taken over by me in its essential traits
cannot be the last word. Essential delimitations are needed! Vocation and
inner calling cannot be done justice in this way. There exists an uncondi-
tional 'you ought and must' that addresses itself to the person and that is
not subject to a rational justification and does not depend for its legitimate
obligation (rechtmassige Bindung) on such a justification for the one who
experiences this absolute affection. This affection precedes all rational
explanation even where such an explanation is possible" (Ms. B 121,65a).
After the exposition of the categorical imperative in the lecture course
from 1919/20, Husserl introduces two other important topics of his later
ethics. The categorical imperative reaUy only becomes properly categori-
cal if I decide from now on to act according to it, if I make it into a law of
my wiUing. The moment I realize that this general lawful wilUng itself is a
practical possibiUty in my practical domain, it becomes the highest ethical
obUgation for me. I can be ethicaUy good only if I decide always to act
according to the law. The truly ethical will is a general will that transforms
the whole life of a person into an ethical life.
A particular form of such a general wiU is the choice of a vocation. The
categorical imperative can and usuaUy does demand that one devote
oneself throughout his whole life to one particular class of values. Weigh-
ing the practical possibflities of one's future life, one comes to the conclu-
sion that one can realize the greatest amount of practical good by
specializing in the pursuit of one particular kind of good, e.g., as a scientist
or an artist. This, of course, does not imply that we can neglect the goods
of the other classes completely. Since there does not exist an a priori order
of rank between the different classes of goods, the categorical imperative
does not demand from anybody to realize goods of one class exclusively.
In his later ethics, the themes of the general will and of the call to a
particular vocation will no longer be linked to the categorical imperative,
but to the absolute ought of love.
The lecture course from 1919/20 marks the transition to Husserl's late
ethics in yet another respect. In it Husserl moves from individual ethics to
social ethics, claiming that any fully developed individual ethics leads
necessarily into community-ethics. Each person is born into a community
and forms a community with other persons in social acts. A true commun-
ity itself functions Uke a person; it has the form of a personaUty of a higher
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order. The categorical imperative demands that the community strive to
realize the best of the attainable common goods. Husserl stresses,
however, that the community has no life and identity separate from the
life and identity of its members. All its valuing, willing, and acting is
executed through the valuing, willing, and acting of its individual
members. "The social-ethical aim that a community has to pursue has its
reason only by being rooted in and being demanded by the individual aims
of the members of the community. The community only lives in the Ufe of
the associated individuals in such a way that the individuals know them-
selves through acts of consciousness of the type of the 'social act' as func-
tionaries of the community, that is, that they know that they execute in
such acts acts of community" (Ms. F140,170a).
The ethically highest form of community, a form that is categorically
required, is the community of humankind. Humankind must not remain a
mere collective unity, but has to transform itself into a unity of a social
personality, a universal community of ends (Zweckgemeinscha.fi) that sees
its highest common end in the highest possible elevation of all individuals.
By the joint work of their members, communities create' a cultural
world out of a pregiven nature. Possible forms of culture correspond to
possible forms of community. Communities are part of their own environ-
ment; they can cultivate and educate themselves. Cultures themselves as
products of common choices and work can be ethically evaluated. The cat-
egorical demand for an ethicaUy highest form of a universal human
community has its correlate in the categorical demand for an ethically
highest form of universal human culture. The best possible culture of an
ethically best humankind is an ethical ideal in the form of an infinite task
that gives our world an a priori necessary ethical teleology. It is the task of
ethics to work out the system of ideals and norms implied in this task.
The lecture course "Introduction to ethics" from the summer semester
1920 (repeated in the summer semester of 1924) resumes the topic of his
early course from 1902: the historidal opposition between an ethics of
feeling and a rationalistic ethics. The lecture course contains historical
expositions and critiques of hedonism, of the ethical rationalism of the
Cambridge Platonists Cudworth and Clark, of Shaftesbury's ethical aes-
theticism, of Hume's naturaUstic ethics of feeling, and of Kant's rationalis-
tic ethics. As to the allegiance of his own position, Husserl remarks at the
end of the manuscript: "not mentioned unfortunately the kinship with the
Fichtean ethics" (Ms. F I 28, 200a). He reaffirms the paraUelism between
intellectual acts of knowing and evaluative acts, between epistemological
and evaluative reason, and correspondingly between logic and ethics;
between formal logic, formal axiology, and formal praxis. What is missing,
though, is the derivation of a formal categorical imperative. But neither
does Husserl talk about love and the values of love. Pointing to this new
ethical perspective in his late ethics is, however, the expUcit distinction he
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FROM REASON TO LOVE
makes at the end of this lecture course between the axiological and the
ethical standpoint. A theory of values and goods is not yet an ethics. To do
the best in axiological terms is not yet to do what ought to be done, even if
the value of what has been done is not irrelevant. One can do the best but
without moral disposition. The question whether I am a moral person is
therefore completely different from the question whether I am a valuable
person. With the ethical self-evaluation, the measure Ues in me - it is the
absolute idea of my moral personaUty, and the question is how close I
have approached this idea.
Husserl then refers to the ethical will that gives itself a norm for the
whole of Ufe and that is directed toward the universal fulfillment of the
norm just as the choice of a vocation is the choice of a certain normative
rule and of the direction toward its fulfillment. The vocational will,
however, does not, as the ethical will does, comprise all spheres of one's
life.
An important theme in the lecture course from 1920 is the ontology of
the spirit and the argument against the naturaUstic reduction of spirit to
mechanical nature. Spiritual life is personal life, be it in the form of an
individual person or in the form of a social personality of a higher order.
Husserl's later ethics is grounded above all in such an ontology of the
spirit or of personal Ufe.
Only a person can form an ethical will because orily a person has a con-
ception of the wholeness and unity of his life, i.e., of its past and future
horizons. The ethical will is the will to change one's life as a whole and to
give it a new form and purpose. Husserl accordingly speaks of the
"amazing phenomenon of the self-direction and self-making of the I by the
I" and of "the most amazing self-renewal" (Ms. F128,134a).
4. Husserl's later ethics
Husserl's later ethical thought is much broader in scope than his early
ethics, and is often connected with theological and metaphysical consider-
ations. It consists of a number of recurrent themes, issues, and views, but it
is not shaped into a coherent and systematic unity. Most of it has not
moved beyond the research manuscript stage.
The indebtedness of his later ethical thought to Fichte is perhaps not as
strong as the indebtedness of his early ethics to Brentano, but as the lec-
tures, on Fichte that Husserl gave to wounded German soldiers in 1917
show, and as Husserl himself acknowledged,. Fichte's ethico-reUgious
idealism influenced him greatly (cf. Hua 25, 267-93). In these lectures
Husserl speaks admiringly of Fichte's reconfiguration of the ideals of true
humanity. He calls Fichte's activist conception of subjectivity, according to
which to be a subject means to be an actor through and through, a thought
of enormous boldness. This conception of subjectivity implies that a
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subject is historical, moving on from action to action in an unending chain
of ends and tasks. The whole creation of the world in the absolute inteUi-
gence is only for the sake of humans, to offer them opportunities for free
action and ethical self-perfection, the final end being a moral world-order.
The world- and self-creation is determined by an ethical teleology. Husserl
points out that in Fichte's later metaphysics and philosophy of religion,
God is no longer identified with the moral world-order, and religious life is
no longer identical with ethical life; the latter is only a step toward the ful-
fillment of the human destination, which consists in unity with God. All
life in its deepest ground is God's life. All life wants to be blissful Ufe and
the truer a life, the more love and bUss.
AU of these Fichtean themes will resurface in Husserl's later ethics and
metaphysics. Fichte's popular ethical writings may even have been the
model for Husserl's important articles on "Renewal" that he published in
1923/24 in the Japanese journal The Kaizo.
These articles express a radical ethical rationalism in which the Kantian
ideas of rational self-rule and of the dualism between irrational impulses
and rational self-determination are central. Husserl defines ethics here as
"the science of the whole acting life of a rational subjectivity under the
viewpoint of reason that regulates this whole life uniformly" (Hua 27,21).
Ethics and the science of practical reason are identical. Ethical life is
guided by the ideal of reason, which is an ideal of perfection. The perfect
life is the fully rational life, a life that can be ultimately justified in all its
activities.
Husserl introduces a new concept to characterize the ethical life. Such a
life begins with a decision for a radical renewal: "Renewal of the human
being - renewal of both the single person and the community— is the chief
theme of ethics. Ethical life is essentially and consciously inspired by the
idea of renewal; it is a life intentionally led and formed by this idea" (Hua
27, 20). The idea of cultural renewal had great currency ^after the devasta-
tions of World War I. The decision for such a renewal is, according to
Husserl, a decision for a radical new beginning, for a new life of rational
self-rule. It impUes a determined struggle with irrational impulses, bad
habits, and false ideals,.a rigorous pulling-oneself-together. Such a renewal
is not a singular event but a permanent task: the wiU to renewal must itself
be renewed constantly. The ethical life is therefore a Ufe of methodical
self-cultivation, self-discipline, and self-control.
Since human personhood is related to a community, individual and
,1 social ethics are inseparable. The concern for my personal ethical life
> includes the concern for the ethical life of the others and of the community
as a whole. The community itself can and should become a personal
subjectivity and an ethical subject that stands under the categorical imper-
ative of reason. A community becomes an ethical community only through
the ethical reflections of the individual subjects about themselves and their
132
FROM REASON TO LOVE
community and through their association in a social movement for the
ethical renewal of their life in common.
True knowledge not only of facts but of values and aims is the precondi-
tion for a rational-ethical life. It is the task of science and of philosophy as
the universal and ultimately justified science to acquire such knowledge. It
is through philosophy that individuals as well as their communities and
cultures reach the highest stage of autonomy and reason so that the ethical
life is a philosophical life, a life guided by philosophical insight. The idea
of philosophy as a science motivated by a purely theoretical interest and
the ideal of a truly autonomous life guided by scientific reason we owe to
the ancient Greeks. But for Husserl this idea and ideal are valid for all
humans and for all cultures; it is a categorical imperative for each indi-
vidual and for all humankind.
The Kaizo articles, and the research manuscripts related to these art-
icles, however, give only an incomplete and one-sided picture of Husserl's
later ethical thought. The theme of love and of the values of love is almost
completely absent. At one place Husserl refers to the love for a particular
class of values as motivating the choice of a vocation. But according to
Husserl,' to follow such a professional caUing is only a pre-ethical form of
self-ruUng.
As already mentioned, the foundation of Husserl's later ethics is an
ontology of the person, both of the individual and of the collective person.
There are three essential characteristics of a person. First, persons make
themselves into what they are by their freely chosen acts. They are
responsible for their own being. The character, habits, and dispositions of
a person are formed by the spontaneous acts of thinking, valuing, and
willing that do not simply evaporate after their actual performance,
making room for new acts, but endure as lasting convictions, evaluations,
and decisions. New acts can reaffirm and strenghten these convictions,
evaluations, and decisions or weaken and change them. The character,
habits, and dispositions of a person are formed by a process of sedimenta-
tion of spontaneous acts.
A person, however, is not pure spontaneity and freedom. She has a
twofold dimension of passivity, original and secondary passivity. Original
passivity precedes any activity and spontaneity, while secondary passivity
is the result of. the sedimentation of prior spontaneous acts. Original pas-
sivity comprises the primary constitution of temporal and associative
unities in the stream of consciousness and of the temporal and associative
unity of the stream itself. It further consists of primal instincts and drives.
The sphere of original passivity is the ground of the spontaneous and
rational activity of the ego; it affects the ego and elicits its responses. For
Husserl, this is not always and only a sphere of irrationality that opposes,
resists, or undermines the autonomy and rationality of the ego; rather, it is
teleologically oriented toward autonomy and rationaUty. Already at its
133
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
deepest level of passivity, personal life is characterised by a tendency, a
general wiU toward rational self- and world-creation.
The second essential characteristic of personal life is implied by the
first: personal Ufe is historical; a person has a history. A person is con-
cerned about her history, i.e., about her Ufe as a whole. Therefore, the
ethical question is always twofold: "What to do in this particular situ-
ation?" and "How to transform my life as a whole into an ethical life?"
The concern about my life as a whole becomes an ethical concern
through an ethical epoche, a bracketing of my whole previous Ufe and a
universal critique of it oriented toward a radical renewal according to
ethical ideals. A person can draw together the totality of her previous Ufe
and can come to the insight that her first life was neither happy nor good
because it was a life of dispersion and drifting or a naive life guided by
unquestioned traditional acceptances. She can then make a solemn
decision that encompasses her entire future life from then on, a decision to
Uve a life determined solely by her own critically tested and rational posi-
tion-takings, that is, a radically self-determined and self-responsible life.
The ideal is a life wherein each "position-taking" is completely and defi-
nitely justified and accounted on the basis of one's own insight. Such
insight founds convictions, evaluations, and decisions that are no longer
threatened by falsification. The ideal is a life based on a completely good
theoretical, axiological, and practical conscience - a life with no regrets.
As it is expressed in a manuscript from 1931: "The T must be able to look
.t at, survey, and appraise its entire active life in such a way that all the
decisions that it accomplishes and has accomplished can be continually
affirmed in the will" (Ms. A V 22, 22a). This ideal of an absolutely rational
Ufe is the ideal of a person who would be absolutely true to herself and
who would preserve herself in all her acts, the "herself" referring here not
to an empty pole of identity, but to the self-formed character of the
person.
A person - and this is the third essential characteristic - is who she is
most inwardly by her love and calling. To each person belongs her own
individual ethical ideal. Every person receives from the depths of her
personaUty her own absolute values, her values of love. Such a value is an
absolute 'ought,' and "to go against this value is to be untrue, to lose
oneself, to betray one's true 'I,'" which amounts to an "absolute practical
contradiction" (Ms. B I 21, 53a). We have to foUow the caU of our indi-
vidual conscience; we have to realize and preserve our true genuine self,
be true to our deepest self, to the absolute ought of our pure love.
The two rather different examples for such personal values .of love
Husserl usually gives in his manuscripts are the love of the mother for her
child and the professional calling to be a scientist, an artist, or a politician.
It may be that Husserl thought of motherhood as being analogous to a
professional calling. He does point out that the love of the mother for her
134
FROM REASON TO LOVE
child has an instinctual ground that is absent in the professional calling. A
purely instinctual love can, however, be refined into a pure love.
Husserl now distinguishes between two completely different kinds of
values: objective values and values of love. The first are given in a value-
reception as objective characters of the object; the second are given to the
object through the love of the subject. This love is something active; in one
place, Husserl calls it "a personal decision of the active heart," indicating
that it can no longer be classified as a mere feeling, but involves an
element of choice.
The values of love take absolute precedence over the objective values.
"Over and against a value that is absolutely rooted in the T itself and that
has arisen from love (as absolute love), over and against such a value an
objective value counts for nothing . . . " (Ms. B I 21, 53b). All absolute
values are equally absolute, so that the law of absorption cannot be
applied to values of love. In case of conflict between absolute values, there
is no rational preference of one value for the other; there is only the tragic
sacrifice of one absolute value for another equally absolute value. And
since I am who am I by loving such a value absolutely, I sacrifice myself in
sacrificing this value.
The categorical imperative and the law of absorption from his early ethics
are now demoted to the status of the rational norm for our non-ethical Ufe.
All non-ethical values are hedonistic values, values of pleasure and enjoy-
ment. Husserl fllustrates the difference between the two kinds of values by
referring to the difference between the dedicated professional scientist and
the amateur of science. The first is not striving for enjoyment; science for him
is a holy cause and it is his destiny. But for the amateur, science or art are
objects of enjoyment and recreation. A rational preference in terms of higher
and lower values and of the best that is attainable is possible only regarding
these hedonistic values. Choosing differently here is not immoral but, foohsh.
Two questions arise now. First, what is the relationship between the
non-ethical or hedonistic and the ethical values of love? Is there still room
for a non-ethical life, a kind of vacation from the arduous ethical task? Or
is the pursuit of hedonistic values ethically only legitimate insofar as it fur-
thers the realization of the ethical projects? Secondly, and more import-
antly, what does practical reason still mean regarding the values of love?
Are these personal values of love - is my individual calling - not an irra-
tional facticity, something that I have not rationally chosen on the ground
of evidential acts of knowing, valuing, and willing?
Husserl does not give a clear answer to the first question. But if the
choice of hedonistic values had to be justified by their instrumental value
for the realization of ethical values, then the categorical imperative and
the law of absorption would no longer have any practical role to play. The
best of the attainable hedonistic values might not be the best in instrumen-
tal terms for the realization of my values of love.
135
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
As for the second question, Husserl acknowledged the irrationaUty of
the absolute ought if it is looked at in isolation. The absolute ought of the
individual person has its rational meaning only in a theological context.
The absolute ought has "its highest, rational and therefore intelUgible
sense in a divine world" (Ms. A V 21,122a).
Basic to Husserl's conception of the divine world and of the ultimate
telos of the ethical life is a communitarian ideal. It is constitutive of the
person to be in community with other persons. A subject becomes a
person only through communicative and social acts. The ethical life of a
person is therefore inextricably interwoven with the ethical life of other
persons.
It is a task of formal ethics to distinguish the different forms and types
of communities and to determine the form of the ethical community. In
two important manuscripts from 1921 on the common life, Husserl distin-
guishes three forms of community (see Hua 14, 165-84, 192-204). The
community of love is a community where the aims and strivings of each
member are part of the aims and strivings Of every other member. The
truly ethical community of love would be a community where aU
the members mutually help each other to realize their true selves. The
community of accumulative production is a historical community where
the work of each member increases a common stock. Husserl's prime
example is the generational community of the scientists. The community
of the scientists is different from a mere community of language because
the scientists form personal relations with each other by addressing each
other and reacting to each other regarding their work. What is lacking in
this form of community, however, is a consciously formed common will.
This common wiU is constitutive of the third form of community, which
has the character of a personality of a higher order. These personaUties of
a higher order are more than the sum of the individual members of the
community. They have their own ethical ideal, their own true and ideal
self, and it is to the communal realization of the true self of the community
that its members are called. The true self, the absolute ought of the
community, must be made communally conscious: it must be clarified and
formed into a common will so that the true self of the community becomes
a moment of the true self of the individual.
I' Husserl variously regards all three forms of community as the ethical
form of community. The second form clearly corresponds to a production
paradigm that was characteristic of Husserl's early ethics. The rationale of
ethics is the maximum production of objective values such as scientific
truths or works of art. His later ethics can be seen as a critique of this pro-
duction paradigm. The community of love seems to be the communitarian
ideal belonging to Husserl's ethics of love and of the values of love. What
is not clear is how the first and the third form of community are related to
each other. Is the ultimate ethical ideal and telos a synthesis of these two
136
FROM REASON TO LOVE
forms of community? What is the ethical ideal of a community beyond the
individual ideals of its members? If the analogy with the individual ideals
holds, it has to be something Uke a calUng to create a culture rich in certain
values, other communities being called to create cultures rich in other
values. The communities themselves then could form a yet higher
community of communities. Ultimately there would be a universal
community of communities that would be a community of love where the
member communities would mutuaUy help each other to realize their true
community-calUng. This universal community of communities would be a
personaUty of a higher order only in the sense that a common will is
directed to the reaUzation of each member's true community-self. But it
would not itself have a true self and an ethical ideal that would transcend
that of its individual member communities.
This possible reconstruction of Husserl's communitarian ideal appears,
however, to be in conflict with the claim that one particular culture and
community - namely the European culture - has a universal calling, the
ethical ideal being a Ufe and culture of reason that for Husserl is identical
with a scientific or philosophical Ufe and culture. What is missing in
Husserl's manuscripts is an expUcit and systematic reflection on the rela-
tionship between love and reason, between the community of love and the
community of reason. It is interesting to note that the discourse of reason
is predominant in Husserl's published writings, whereas the discourse of
love is to be found almost exclusively in research manuscripts.
Reason and love, Husserl seems to think, are one only if placed into
their full context of a divine world-order. Only through faith in God can
we overcome any apparent contradiction between the rule of reason and
the rule of love.
A rational faith (Vernunftglaube) in God gives ultimate meaning to my
absolute ought in yet another sense. Only through faith in God and in a
world led by God am I able to withstand the despair about what Husserl
once caUed "the fate- and death-structure of the world," irrational anom-
aUes such as blows of fate, natural catastrophes, and sudden and early
death, as well as all the suffering and unhappiness in the world. In the pur-
suance of the ethical ideal we have to cope with regular setbacks. This
ideal is an infinite ideal of perfection that we can strive for and work
toward and in some sense approximate, but without ever coming closer to
its realization. In the face of the fate- and death-structure of the world the
desperate question arises whether aU my ethical strivings are not ulti-
mately in vain. I have to beUeve that my life and the world make sense,
that my ethical will counts. "The world must be beautiful and good, it must
be a universally teleological world. Human activity must be led by God,
and still be free and responsible. The free activity and its sinful errors and
aU teleological irrationalities must be a medium of universal teleology, and
everthing therein must bear a teleological function, so that a human life in
137
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S FROM REASON TO LOVE

the world is possible as an energetic life with final ends" (Ms. A V 21,20a).
I have to beUeve that acting in accordance with our ethical caUing has the
power to overcome blind fate and evil because God is with us.
The faith in God is the condition of possibiUty for genuine self-
realization and self-preservation of a self. It is a faith necessitated by a
practical motive, "the motive of a possible Ufe of practical reason" (Ms. A
V 21, 21b). This faith is self-verifying. "In order to be able to believe in
myself and my true self and the development toward it, I have to beUeve
in God, and doing so, I see God's guidance, God's advice, God's opinion
in my life" (Ms. A V 21, 24b/25a). Only in seeing us as children of God
and the world as being guided by God can we reach the highest good
which is the blissful life, a life of pure and final fulfillment.
Selected bibliography
— . The Person and the Common Life: Studies in Husserlian Social Ethics. Dor-
drecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.
"The Summum Bonum and Value-Wholes: Aspects of a Husserlian Axiology
and Theology". In Phenomenology of Values and Valuing. Ed. James G. Hart
and Lester E. Embree, 193-230. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.
Melle, Ullrich. "Objektivierende und nicht-objektivierende Akte." In Husserl-
Ausgabe und Husserl-Forschung. Ed. Samuel IJsseling, 35^19. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.
. "Husserl's Phenomenology of Willing". In Phenomenology of Values and
Valuing, 169-92.
Schuhmann, Karl. "Probleme der Husserlschen Wertlehre." Philosophisches
Jahrbuch der Gorres-Gesellschaft 98 (1991): 106-13.
Spahn, Christine. Phanomenologische Handlungstheorie. Edmund Husserls Unter-
suchungen zur Ethik. Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 1996.

Primary sources
Husserl, Edmund. Vorlesungen uber Ethik und Wertlehre 1908-1914. Ed. Ullrich
Melle. Husserliana 28. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998 (Hua
28).
. "Fichtes Menschheitsideal" [1917]. In Aufsatze und Vortrage (1911-1921).
Ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, 267-93. Husserliana 25. Dordrecht:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1987 (Hua 25).
. "Gemeingeist I. - Person, personale Ganze, personale Wirkungsgemein-
schaften. Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft." [1921]; "Gemeingeist II. - Personale Ein-
heiten hoherer Ordnung und ihre Wirkungskorrelate" [1918 or 1921]. In Zur
Phanomenologie der Intersubjektivitdt. Zweiter Teil (1921-1928). Ed. Iso Kern,
165-84,192-204. Husserliana 14. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973 (Hua 14).
."Fiinf Aufsatze iiber Erneuerung" [1922-24]. In Aufsdtze und Vortrage
(1922-1937). Ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, 3-124. Husserliana 27.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989 (Hua 27).
. "Wert des Lebens. Wert der Welt. Sittlichkeit (Tugend) und Gliickseligkeit"
[1923]. Ed. Ullrich Melle. Husserl Studies 13 (1997): 201-35.
. "Die Idee einer philosophischen Kultur. Ihr erstes Aufkeimen in der
griechischen Philosophie" [1922/23]. In Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil.
Ed. Rudolf Boehm, 203-7. Husserliana 7. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956.

Secondary sources
Drummond, John J. "Moral objectivity: Husserl's sentiments of the understand-
ing." Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 165-83.
Embree, Lester. "Advances regarding Evaluation and Action in Husserl's Ideas
II." In Issues in Husserl's "Ideas II." Ed. Thomas Nenon and Lester Embree,
173-98. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996.
Hart, James G. "Axiology as the form of purity of heart: A reading of Husserliana
XXVIII." Philosophy Today 34 (1990): 206-21.

138 139

77
F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y ,
A N D S E L F - A W A R E N E S S I N
H U S S E R L
Tom Nenon
Source: Burt Hopkins and Steven Crowell (eds), The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and
Phenomenological Philosophy 2 (2002): 1-21.
The following essay is organized around eighteen theses concerning the
relationship between freedom, responsibility, and self-awareness that I
beUeve are both correct and consistent with specific doctrines and the
overall positions advanced in Husserl's published writings. The eighteen
theses are logicaUy interrelated but are not meant to represent a deductive
argument. Most of them are not unique to Husserl or phenomenological
philosophy, but I am not aware of any other thinker who has brought all of
them together as does Husserl.
These eighteen claims are descriptive claims. They teU us how certain
aspects of persons as free agents are dependent upon a fundamental self-
awareness that is at least usually taken to be unique to human beings
(though this is an empirical issue that the following theses leave open).
After introducing and explaining the eighteen theses, I shall also list three
further corollaries that are based on the positions described in the first
eighteen theses but go beyond them to advocate a mode of life that
Husserl considers most consistent with our status as rational agents. These
positions are well known to most readers of Husserl, but they have often
been understood more as expressions of a merely personal conviction, as
historical residues of the classical Western philosophical project Husserl is
trying to revive, or as examples of the typical rhetorical pathos of his age,
than as viable systematic positions based upon serious and careful philo-
sophical analyses. It would go beyond the limits of this paper to discuss the
ultimate legitimacy of the project the three corollaries set out. However, I
hope that the systematic philosophical justification for this project will
become more easily understood when these corollaries are placed in direct
connection with the preceding eighteen theses.
140
1
F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y , AND S E L F - A W A R E N E S S
1. Freedom and responsibility apply to beings to which
motivational (as opposed to simply causal) categories
apply
Freedom and responsibility are not directly observable phenomena. Nor
do they apply to all kinds of entities. They are part of a way of viewing
some things in the world and apply only to those entities whose behavior
we explain in motivational rather than causal terms. In the first of the
Kaizo articles from 1923,1 Husserl makes clear that there is an essential
connection between humans as beings who act on motives and as beings
who possess freedom:
Now there belong to the human mentality [Geistigkeit] a priori as
possibly predeUneated forms of consciousness or motivation also
the normative formations of "reason," and there also exists a
priori the possibility of thinking universally in freedom and of
determining oneself practically and universally according to self-
, recognized a priori normative laws.
(Hua XXVII, 9/329)
The most extensive discussion in Husserl's pubUshed writings until now
of the difference between these two ways of explaining events may be
found in §§ 54-64 of his Ideas II? especially in § 56. The overall project of
Ideas II is to show how different kinds or "regions" of entities are consti-
tuted as correlates of specific epistemic attitudes (Einstellungen). Each
region of beings and its corresponding attitude are constituted around and
on the basis of certain fundamental concepts or principles that essentially
apply to them. In this essay these fundamental concepts wfll be referred to
as categories since they fulfill for various regions of beings a function
similar to that of the twelve Kantian categories for the region of natural
objects. They set the parameters within which our experiences of certain
kinds of things are organized and within which they can appear for us as
the kinds of things they are.
This general project of analyzing the basic concepts that guide and
pertain to a specific epistemic attitude and thereby constitute a region of
beings as the kinds of things they are grew out o i Husserl's analyses in the
Logical Investigations of ideal objects as fundamentally different kinds of
entities from real objects or."things." In the lectures later published as The
Idea of Phenomenology3 Husserl in fact describes the general project of
phenomenology as establishing the essential correlation between various
ways of conceiving of objects oriented on fundamental concepts and prin-
ciples, on the one hand, and the way in which these objects present them-
selves to us, on the other (Hua II, 23). This overall approach, explicitly
formulated as a variation of transcendental philosophy along Kantian
141
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
lines, is given a general formulation in Husserl's Ideas I4 as the project of
displaying the necessary correlation between noesis and noema for any
given sort of object whatsoever and exhibiting how various kinds of
objects can only appear for subjects in light of various kinds of mental
operations or "acts." Moreover, in later sections of the same work, he
makes clear that to each of these regions of beings there corresponds a
particular kind of "evidence" that serves to confirm or disconfirm specific
intentions about these kinds of objects, for example, performing the calcu-
lations for a mathematical equation, experiencing the appropriate sense
perception about the color or taste of a physical object, etc. (Id. 1,296-97).
Husserl's technical term for such physical objects is Ding ('thing').
At the beginning of § 56 of Ideas II in which the concept of motivation
is introduced as one of the fundamental principles guiding a different atti-
tude towards some of the objects that surround us, Husserl states: "A
change in attitude implies nothing other than a thematic transition from
one way of grasping things into another, to which correlatively different
objectivities correspond" (Id. II, 210). The assertion that freedom and
responsibility are terms that make sense only within a framework of moti-
vational versus causal explanation is then analogous to the assertion that
terms like 'odd' and 'even' apply to natural integers and not to tastes, or
that spatial location applies to physical objects but not to numbers.
lit However, one should also note that Husserl does not assert that all
motivations are "free" in the fullest sense. The level that he terms the
"most original and specifically subjective for the ego in the authentic
sense" is the I we consider free, he says (213). Yet' on the other side,
motivations can stiU be attributed to an ego whose mental states are char-
acterized by a kind of "passivity" that is actually, as a state of an ego, still
a kind of activity, but simply the "lowest level of activity." Husserl
describes this level as the ego of "tendencies to which it simply succumbs"
(213). We shall return to this issue further below in the discussion of
Thesis Thirteen.
2. Motivational categories apply to persons
The distinction between explanations in terms of motivation and explana-
tions in terms of external causes is introduced in Section Three of Ideas II
as part of the description of the personalistic attitude. The principle of
causality is identified in Section One as one of the fundamental concepts
for the constitution of nature and natural objects. The principle of motiva-
tion, by contrast, is unique to the personaUstic world and applies only to
those entities whose behavior is most appropriately explained in terms of
motives rather than simply causes.5 The states that are factors in motiva-
tional explanation are "intentional states" characterized by directedness
towards some object. The way they are directed at objects is an essential
142
F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y , AND SELF- A W ARENES S
part of what constitutes them, whereby the actual physical existence of
that object is irrelevant for the purposes of motivation (for example, I run
just as fearfuUy from a falsely perceived tiger as from a genuine tiger, and
I can be just as indifferent to an actual tiger that I fail to perceive as to one
that is not at all present.) For the possessors of such intentional states, that
is, for entities whose behavior is most appropriately described in terms of
such intentional states, Husserl adopts the traditional term of 'person'.
3. Personhood is defined in terms of subjectivity
"As a person, I am what I am (and every other person is what he or she is)
as a subject of a surrounding world [Umwelt]," Husserl states in § 50 of
Ideas II (185). Associated with subjectivity is the concept of "mineness"
for each of the appropriate activities (Akte) or states (Zustdnde) that make
up the mental life of the subject.
In addition to the various traits associated with the subjectivity of
persons described below, Husserl in other places also associates the notion
of a continuous unified style with personhood and sees persons as entities
that possess "personality," not just as the formal trait of being a subject
but as a specific or individual habitual way of thinking or acting.6 This is
the notion of the personal ego introduced, for example, in the Cartesian
Meditations in contradistinction to the ego-pole of subjectivity in the sense
of a merely formal principle of unity that persists throughout all of the
specific moments of mental life.7 This latter point will be important for the
three closing corollaries.
4. Subjects are entities
a whose behavior is appropriately explained in terms of intentional
states such as beUefs, values, and desires AND
b who are aware of (at least some of) their own mental states.
Just as a physical object or "thing" (Ding) is constituted as a unity of
various potentially perceivable physical traits, so too a subject is a unity -
but a unity of mental states each of which is characterized as "mine" for
someone because it belongs to a "me," a subject that knows itself as the
bearer of these states:
The ego is the identical subject of the function in all acts of the same
stream of consciousness; it is the center out of which everything radiates or
rather the center into which all conscious life streams, all affections and
actions, all attending, all grasping, relating, conjoining, all theoretical,
valuing, practical position-takings, all being pleased or displeased, all
hoping and fearing, aU doing and suffering, etc. In other words, all of the
manifold particularizations of intentional relatedness towards objects that
143
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
here are called 'acts' have a necessary terminus a quo from which they
emanate (Id. II, 105).
To say that persons are subjects is to say that the intentional states that
are theirs are always identifiable in terms of a 'for whom'-structure, the
answer to which is the "I" that is the possessor or bearer of that mental
state.8
By introducing the very notion of a "for whom" that is capable of iden-
tifying itself as the "I" who has this mental state or mental trait, the I, as
an ego-pole, as a subject who is aware of the mental trait or state that it
ft'j identifies as its own, must be aware of that trait or state. To be a subject,
ii! then, implies not only that the person must have mental states but also
that it must have an awareness of them as his or her own. It involves self-
awareness or self-consciousness. By itself, however, this thesis does not yet
address the issue of whether this awareness must be direct or immediate
self-awareness, although the latter feature also has been traditionally asso-
ciated with subjectivity for good reason. I shaU return to this question in
Thesis Eight.
It should be noted, incidentaUy, that when Husserl describes persons in
Ideas II as the subjects of an Umwelt, he is also stressing the fact that
persons do not distinguish themselves simply through the fact that they
have mental states that passively represent the world around them. They
are not just theoretical in the original etymological sense of "seeing" or
perceiving the world around them. Rather, he contrasts the Umwelt or
"surrounding world" as a context towards which we are constantly "taking
a stance," "evaluating" in practical and valuational terms, towards the
sphere of "nature" as the realm of objects viewed strictly in a theoretical
sense. The distinction is similar to the Heideggerian distinction, intro-
duced a few years later in Being and Time, between Umwelt as the realm
of Zuhandenheit (being ready-to-hand or available) and Natur as the
realm of Vorhandenheit (being merely present-at-hand). Husserl maintains
that all valuings and desirings are complex, higher-order acts that essen-
tially always also involve some representational element as a necessary
component of that complex act, but his description of persons as the sub-
jects of a surrounding world also emphasizes that our immediate mode of
access to the things that surround us as persons is not neutral and that our
'i ordinary stance towards the world is not simply as observers but rather is
normaUy and from the outset a practically engaged stance. In Ideas II,
then, Husserl describes persons not just as subjects but as practically
engaged subjects.
In the Kaizo articles Husserl even tries to trace ethical responsibility
and freedom back to these everyday and ordinary practical strivings that
ii i arise within daily life itself (Hua XXVII, 23-43). We shaU xeturn to that
issue at the end of this essay.
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5. Subjects are thus beings who have at least some
second-order mental states (i.e. states of being aware of
at least some of their own mental states) directly
This does not necessarily mean that subjects are directly aware of all of
their mental states. Whether a subject can have a mental state and not be
aware of it is a different question. Some of the statements quoted above
suggest that Husserl often leans towards the view that it is part of the
nature of being a mental state for a subject that the subject is at least
implicitly aware of it and can turn its attention to the act and transform
this awareness into an explicit and thematic awareness through a shift in
attitude. However, Thesis Five does not involve this claim. It simply
asserts that subjects are aware of at least some of their mental states.
Moreover, in fact, Husserl's analyses of concrete personality suggest
that he recognized that we know about many of our mental states and dis-
positions only by observing and analyzing our own behavior, and not
through pure reflection (see Theses Ten and Fifteen below).
6. Subjects (and hence persons) are not entities that exist
behind or in addition to physical entities in the world
(their bodies). Rather, subjectivity and personhood are
features of concrete unified entities, specific organisms,
that possess some traits best described in simple physical
terms (location and weight, for example) and other traits
described most appropriately in personalistic, that is,
motivational terms, such as desires, values, and self-
understandings
Husserl is very clear that even the more naturalistically conceived "soul"
(Seele) - more naturalistically as opposed to the concept of 'person' - is
not something that subsists on its own, but is what Husserl calls a 'stratum'
(Schicht) of a physical organism: "The surplus of reaUty beyond the mere
physical thing is nothing separable, not something next to, but part of the
latter, hence it moves 'with' it, it gains a spatial determinacy through its
being as part of this spatial thing itself" (Id. II, 176). Subjectivity and per-
sonhood are traits properly attributable to concrete entities that have
bodies and mental states and are furthermore capable of becoming aware
of themselves, their bodily and mental states, and - in the case of human
beings - of forming beliefs and desires about their own physical, mental,
and emotional states, and even of expressing them in terms of statements
that start with the personal pronoun T (or its equivalent in some lan-
guage). To use the terms Husserl coined in the Third Logical Investiga-
tion: they are "dependent objects" that are actually found only as
"moments" of "independent objects" such as human beings.
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7. Based on one's own experience of subjectivity, one can
also attribute subjectivity to others under certain
circumstances
In the personalistic attitude that guides our daily lives, we are all well
aware that there are other persons in the world. In fact, as we interact
within the surrounding world, we not only recognize other subjects whom
we view as persons but even find ourselves as members of an "association
of persons" (Personenverband) who share the same surrounding world
with one another. 9 In the personalistic attitude, subjects immediately
encounter the other as "a person who is on the same level with us as
persons who are members of an association of persons" (Id. II, 190).
This goes beyond the mere attribution of mental states to the other
person. Even in a naturalistic attitude, one can attribute mental states to
something as part of the causal explanation of its behavior without recog-
nizing that thing as a subject or a person. Husserl terms the stratum of
mental states used in causal (as opposed to truly motivational) explanation
a 'soul' and recognizes that we attribute mental states such as perceptions
and impulses to animals without necessarily attributing personhood or
subjectivity in the full sense to them.
Whether there could be organisms other than human beings whom we
would or should recognize as persons is an empirical question. Empirical
observations of the behavior of these organisms would have to justify the
imputation of subjectivity to them, that is, not only that we are justified in
attributing mental states to them as an essential part of a good explanation of
their behavior, but also that we should recognize that they have second-order
mental states exhibited through self-critical learning processes or the appro-
priate use of words like T in whatever language we discover they employ.
8. The imputation of subjectivity to another does not
imply that one has direct access to any ofhis or her
mental states
The difference between the way in which one is directly aware of at least
some of one's own mental states in a kind of direct perception and the way
one is aware of the mental states of others is terminologicaUy fixed in the
distinction between 'apperception' and 'appresentation' in the Fifth Car-
tesian Meditation (CM, 143-49). Part of the difference is the relative sim-
plicity of the former act as opposed to the more complex, higher-order act
involved in appresentation. Appresentation is always based upon the per-
ception of some externaUy observable phenomenon, such as something the
other person does or says. At the lowest level, this externally observable
event could be described simply in physicalistic terms; however, in the per-
sonalistic attitude we comprehend this event in another way as an "expres-
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sion" (Ausdruck) of a person's intentional states. This does not mean that
the latter way of viewing the event is necessarily less vaUd than the former.
Under the proper circumstances and for many expressions of intentional
states, it is possible to form consistently correct and reliable judgments
about those states, just as it is in theory possible for a subject to fail to
grasp one of his or her own mental states correctly for one reason or
another (for example, if one fails to focus clearly on it), and just as it is
possible for one to be mistaken about the perception of a physical object.
Both purported apperceptions about one's own mental states and pur-
ported appresentations about the mental states of others can be correct or
incorrect, reliable or unreliable, depending on the circumstances. Husserl
does believe that the directness of reflective apperception of one's own
mental states gives them a reliability in principle that does not obtain for
the perception of any external events - be they simply of physical objects
or of the mental states of others as manifested through the externally
observable expressions of those states.10 Moreover, the terminological dis-
tinction makes clear that there remains an irreducible difference between
the two modes of access to mental states and that direct first-person
awareness of even some of one's own mental states is possible only for the
bearers of those mental states.
It should be noted that this is a separate issue from the issue of the
validity or reliabiUty of specific claims to know one's own mental states or
those of another person. For example, there is a very legitimate sense in
which one can say that a mother can know with absolute certainty that her
child is in pain and that she might even feel her child's pain more intensely
than her own. To say that this awareness and this feeling are forms of ap-
presentation rather than original apperceptions is just to say that she must
see, hear, or otherwise observe something about the child or the circum-
stances in which the child finds itself to know this, whereas at least some-
times she can feel pain in herself and thus know about it independently of
any external observations of herself or her circumstances. This does not
necessarily diminish the validity of the knowledge about the child or the
intensity or genuineness of the feelings for it at all.
9. Successful comprehension of the mental states of
someone else through the application of motivational
categories in a specific case is called 'understanding'. It
involves inferring the motives, the mental states of others,
based not on direct acquaintance with their mental states
through direct self-awareness but through motivational
explanations of their observed behaviors
In Ideas II Husserl coins the term 'comprehending experience' (kompre-
hensive Erfahrung) to capture the way we recognize others in our daily
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lives. When we see them not merely as physical objects to be dealt with
but as persons in their own right with whom we genuinely interact as
persons, we "understand" them:
Whenever I am able to put myself in the place of the other by
means of empathy, I say "I understand why the other has decided
this way, I understand why he or she has come to this judgement
(the 'in view of what [woraufhin]')." - All of these "causaUties"
can be intuitively completely laid out precisely because they are
motivations. (Id. II, 230)
Moreover, in the personalistic attitude persons orient themselves in their
mental actions towards each other (the I towards the other and vice
versa). They perform actions with the intention of being understood by
their counterparts and of influencing them in their understanding grasp of
these actions (as expressed with this intention) towards certain personal
ways of behaving. This establishes relationships of mutual understanding
and agreement [Einverstdndnis]" (Id. II, 192). IdeaUy this common
surrounding world constituted by mutual interaction in light of the
persons' interaction with each other achieves the level of a "communica-
tive" world constituted by shared understandings between the persons
who inhabit this common world (193). In fact Husserl notes in the same
passage that the notion of an "egoistic world" inhabited by a single person
in isolation is actually an "abstraction" in which one moves back or
abstracts from the social relationships in which one immediately and con-
stantly finds oneself immersed in one's everyday Ufe.
The key to the move into a common surrounding world and the pos-
sibiUty of a genuinely communicative interaction with others, however, is
the move beyond the categories of mere physical causality:11
It is certainly true that the perception of an T move' includes the
perception of the physical movement in space and so the question
concerning physical causality can be raised. On the other hand,
however, it does not have to be raised and should not be raised in
the personalistic attitude in which solely the active and affected
person is posited as the subject of motivations and the subject of
its surrounding world. (Id. II, 260)
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10. It is therefore possible and often reasonable to
attribute mental states such as valuings, beliefs, or desires
to oneself based on a self-understanding grounded not in
direct self-awareness but on a reasonable application of
motivational categories to oneself and based on an
understanding of one's own behavior
. . . and if I enter into the network of motivations within my cogito,
into the open and the concealed intentionalities of its motivation,
then I experience how I am motivated by them and usuaUy tend to
be motivated, which experienceable unique style I, as the motivat-
ing subject of these motivating circumstances, possess in general:
or what kind of personal subject I am. This aU takes place without
any accompanying conceptual fixation and without thinking back
on it (without "reflecting" on it in a completely different sense, .
namely in the sense of a thinking and stating) [that is, in the
propositional sense].
(Id. II, 248-49)
To view oneself as a person means not only that one is a subject and
that one's own behavior is comprehensible in motivational terms but also
that one has a style of acting that reveals one's personal "character."
Hence part of the way we discover who we are is not through introspec-
tion upon our hidden mental states but by means that Husserl in this quote
caUs "experienceable," that is, by observing how we tend to act and react
and by finding out about ourselves, our values, and our dispositions by
observing and making sense in motivational terms of what we see our-
selves doing. In this sense, we very often understand ourselves (in the
technical sense described in Thesis Nine) in exactly the same way as we
understand other persons.
11. Since the attribution of first- or second-order mental
states to oneself and to others is originally and ultimately
derived from one's direct acquaintance with mental states
in one's own case (a second-order mental state), only
subjects (entities with second-order mental states) can
attribute mental states (consciousness or even
subjectivity) to others
At its simplest level, this statement claims about subjects: "It takes one to
know one." However, it actually involves more than that. It allows that we
might conceivably attribute mental states or consciousness of some kind to
others, perhaps to members of other species, without necessarily having to
attribute fuU-blown subjectivity to them, that is, we might attribute some
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mental states or consciousness to them as part of the causal explanation of
their behaviour without necessarily attributing self-consciousness to them.
However, it also asserts that for an entity to attribute anything like mental
states to any entity whatsoever - be it to oneself or another, to a thing of
one's own kind or of* another kind - one would have to have some direct
second-order awareness of one's own mental states that would provide the
basis for the constitution of a region of beings with anything like a mental
life at all.
It is part of what it means to be a subject in the fullest sense that it must
have some sort of at least prereflective awareness of its own mental states.
Explicit reflective awareness of one's mental states seems to be conceiv-
able only for a being that has such a prereflective awareness of them.12 As
Husserl puts it: "Self-perception is a reflection (self-reflection of the pure
ego) and essentially presupposes an unreflected consciousness" (Id. II,
248). The ability to focus on this prereflective awareness and make it
explicit is what makes a being what in the Cartesian Meditations Husserl
calls a "transcendental ego" (CM, 99-106) or, more often, simply an
example of "self-consciousness." Without at least this pre-reflective aware-
ness, these mental states would not be experiences for us at all. Mental life
as an experience involves a direct, albeit often impUcit and unfocused
awareness of these mental states without having to infer them from an
observation of one's own behavior. The implicit awareness can become
clearer and it can become the object of our immediate attention in an
expUcit reflection upon it, but often we are directly and even explicitly
aware of a desire, of something as valuable or interesting for us, or even
just of a relevant fact as something we know, without any effort at reflec-
tion and without drawing any inferences at all from anything we say or do.
This is not to say that our mental life takes place as a series of expUcit
reflections upon what is going on inside us or that our self-awareness nor-
mally takes the clear and well-defined propositional form "I want this" or
"I know that", or even that all of our mental states are "experiences" in
the sense of things that we are ever even implicitly aware of. However, it
does assert that without such experiences, the very category of mental life
and subjectivity would never arise at all.
When we ascribe a "soul" to another human being or to a non-human
organism, part of what we are doing is describing their typical functions.
We are positing a causal element as part of the explanation of their
behaviour that we do not ascribe to non-Uving organisms. But why do we
take this element to be something like consciousness, why is it evidence
for some kind of mental Ufe? Why call it a 'soul' instead of just assuming
that it is some kind of complicated chemical process that has been dis-
turbed when those organisms cease to be animated or aUve? I take it that
I! the organization of Ideas II is meant to convey not only that we have to
start with our own subjective mental life to attribute a subjective mental
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fife to other human beings but that we must have an awareness of our own
mental life, that is, second-order mental states, if we are to attribute any
kind of states as belonging to another organism as mental - perhaps even
especially so in the case of those organisms whose behavior does not
exhibit the features - such as the habit of saying T believe' or T want' -
that would justify attributing subjectivity in the strong sense of self-
consciousness to them. For an entity to posit mental states to another,
Husserl seems to hold not only that "it takes one to know one" but also
that "it takes one that knows itself to know another one." Hence even
before Husserl moves from the naturaUstic to the personalistic attitude in
Section Three of Ideas II, he begins the analysis of animal nature in
Section Two with an analysis of the "pure ego." He does so in spite of the
fact that we do not normally attribute anything Uke self-consciousness or
personhood to animals.
I therefore take the organization of Section Two as an indication of
Husserl's repudiation of what has come to be called "functionaUsm",
namely the view that although we need something like mental states as
causal factors in our explanation of the behavior of certain entities, these
are at bottom all really natural states whose complete description can ulti-
mately be given in natural terms. Husserl, by contrast, is suggesting that
there is something about a first-person perspective, that is, something
about the abiUty to be directly aware of at least some of our own mental
states, that makes it irreplaceable for us. Only by virtue of this difference
do we have any reason at all for calling these states 'mental states' in our-
selves or in others. He also seems to be suggesting that this something is
something we must first be directly aware of in our own case in order to be
able to attribute it to others.
12. To attribute freedom to an entity involves not only
the attribution of a mental state as an explanatory factor
in an action (causal responsibility) but also some other
mental state in the broadest sense (a value, a decision, a
desire) as part of the explanation of that mental state
itself (freedom as the source of responsibility for that
factor)
In the Kaizo article entitled "Formal Types of Culture in the Develop-
ment of Humanity," Husserl declares that
Freedom is an expression for the abflity and above all for the
acquired habit of critical position-taking towards that which pre-
sents itself to consciousness - at first without reflection - as true,
as valuable, as what practically ought to be, and moreover as the
basis for a free decision that subsequently decides about it. Thus it
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is better to relate freedom back to free decisions, to whose
essence it belongs to follow "on the basis of" deUberations, the
pure freedom of a position-taking, nothing to do with coercion.
(Hua XXVII, 63)
He continues by noting that such critical consideration of one's own
beliefs and desires can serve to inhibit the efficacy of one's initial tend-
encies and lead to better beliefs, values, and willings. It makes no sense to
attribute to an agent freedom as the ability to influence its own actions
through the influence on one's beliefs, values, and willing unless one were
aware of one's actual (and potential) beliefs, values, and wilUngs. That is,
freedom only makes sense for beings with second-order mental states, and
under the additional assumption that the second-order mental states, for
example, one's beUefs about the appropriateness of one's initial beliefs or
desires, one's desires about the kinds of desires and beliefs one should or
could have, might at least have some influence on the beliefs and desires
that one actually continues to adopt throughout the course of a lifetime. In
fact, at the very beginning of the essay "Renewal and Science" both as an
individual ethical project and as a project of social improvement Husserl
states unequivocally that the basis for such a project lies in human beings'
inherent capacity for self-consciousness:
As our point of departure we take an ability that belongs to the
essence of human beings, the ability for self-consciousness in the
pregnant sense of self-observation (inspectio sui) and the therein
grounded ability to relate back to oneself and reflexively take a
stance towards oneself and one's life in personal acts such as self-
knowledge, self-evaluation, and practical self-determination (self-
willing and self-formation).
(Hua XXVII, 23)13
13. Responsibility (in an ethical sense) is a special form of
motivational attribution, one in which the agent is seen as
the source of the mental state, and this involves at the
least the possibility of the agent's possessing second-order
mental states about the mental state that explains the
action
Husserl explicitly claims that the subject is capable of a shift in attitude for
any mental state such that the state itself becomes the direct object of our
attention. "This unique shift in attitude belongs to all acts as an ideal pos-
sibility. That is, aU acts that are not from the outset theoretical acts can be
changed into theoretical acts through a shift in attitude" (Id. II, 8).
Responsibility is not just a fact about human beings and any other species
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that would happen to be persons but also a normative claim. It does not
necessarily describe what happens in fact. In one sense, it describes some-
thing less than that, namely a shift in attitude that is not always a reality
but just a possibility. On the other hand, it describes something more than
a mere fact, since Husserl believes that this capacity is one that is espe-
ciaUy important for persons to exercise. Husserl's description of this shift
as an adoption of a theoretical attitude refers to the fact that any second-
order mental state - including, for example, second-order mental states of
self-evaluation - necessarily involves a form of self-awareness since he
holds that all intentional acts (whether first or second-order) involve a rep-
resentational element that he calls 'theoretical'. In fact, however, as the
examples of the personal attitude in Ideas II and in the Kaizo articles
make clear, one's stance towards oneself and one's own mental states and
dispositions is not normally or primarily theoretical but most often prac-
tical or evaluationally motivated. I find myself not just "confident that I
know this" or "worried that I might not be justified in believing that" but
also "happy to know this," "wondering why I feel this or that way," or
"wishing that I did or did not want that." The possibility of the theoretical
shift in attitude described above simply points to the possibility of making
the act itself the object of my attention. The "theoretical aspect" of this
self-awareness is not normaUy (or perhaps ever) given first of all and
purely by itself but rather is usuaUy (or perhaps always) embedded in a
more complex act of practical and evaluational self-awareness, part of our
own self-monitoring process.
Ethical responsibility for Husserl extends further than strictly moral
responsibility, which is a subspecies of ethical responsibility. The realm of
the ethical applies to any actions that are subject to norms of practical
rationaUty for Husserl, including but not limited to moral norms: "It is
obviously a restriction if we take ethics as morality. Ethics is related in
every sense towards action just as logic is related towards thinking. Just as
the latter is directed towards correct or rational thinking, ethics is directed
towards correct or rational action."14 Since it only makes sense to hold an
agent responsible for an action under any norm if we can also impute
freedom to that agent, then whatever is an essential condition for freedom
will also be an essential condition for ethical responsibility. Moreover,
since freedom also involves seeing the agent not only as the cause of the
action in the sense of the locus of the state that caused the action but also
as having at least the capacity for influencing the mental state that is taken
to be a crucial explanatory factor in the motivational account of what hap-
pened, ethical responsibility must also assume this capacity as a feature of
personhood.
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14. Only subjects - possessors of second-order mental
states - can understand someone (including oneself) as
ethically responsible and, in order to do so, must also
recognize that person as also being a subject
The point is almost obvious but not at all trivial. The ethical responsibility
we attribute to human beings as persons derives from their subjectivity,
that is, their status as bearers of second-order mental states. It also
requires the additional ability to have some of these second-order mental
states influence first-order mental states; but without the second-order
mental states, there could be no question of whether they can influence
them or not. Husserl's position provides a basis beyond mere species prej-
udice for extending the status of ethical (and more specifically moral)
responsibility to human beings and, based on the empirical evidence we
have thus far, to them alone.
This does not necessarily mean that we do not have moral obligations
to anything other than to human beings. That is a different question. It
means only that it would be inappropriate to apply ethical or moral stand-
ards to the actions of anything else. If there are ethical or moral obliga-
tions towards members of other species or the environment in general,
then these obligations hold only for subjects since one has to be a subject
to be free or to be responsible - and thus far human beings seem to be the
only species whose behavior warrants the attribution of subjectivity in the
strong sense.
15. The attribution of subjectivity does not mean that the
subject must have direct awareness of all of its own
mental states
This is particularly true of dispositions and habits. It is true not only for
others but even for the person who is the bearer of these dispositions and
habits:
The ego can be more than the ego as an apperceptive unity. It can
have hidden capacities (dispositions) that have not yet emerged,
have not yet been apperceptively objectified, just as a thing [Ding]
can have properties that have not yet been included in the apper-
ception of that thing. We also make all of these distinctions in the
common personal observation of human beings and hence in the
human sciences (such as history), as well as in our common
experience. Someone does not "know" what he is Uke, he learns
about himself. One's self-experience, one's self-apperception is
continually expanding. "Coming to know oneself" is one with the
development of self-apperception, the constitution of the "self,"
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and this proceeds hand in hand with the development of the
subject itself.
(Id. II, 252)
Husserl does not believe that human behavior normaUy issues from con-
scious and explicit deliberation, or that all or even most human actions are
best explained in terms of second-order mental states (except perhaps in a
deficient mode). 15 Human lives are permeated by what he calls 'passivi-
ties', ways of being affected by things from sense perceptions to one's own
impulses: "Prior to the will with the active thesis of a 'fiat' lies behavior as
instinctive behavior, for example, the involuntary T am moving,' the invol-
untary 'I am reaching' for my cigar, I want it and do that 'without any
further ado,' which of course can hardly be distinguished from complete
arbitrariness in a narrow sense" (Id.II, 258). What makes us ethically
responsible is not that we normally do subject all of our actions to explicit
or even implicit scrutiny through second-order mental acts but rather that
we see ourselves as always in principle capable of doing so if we choose to
reflect on them as our own and capable of evaluating them in terms of the
general norms for practical rationality.
16. Hence responsibility (even in one's own case) does
not necessarily involve explicit or even direct and implicit
awareness of the mental states for which the agent is held
responsible. Responsibility involves only the assumption
of freedom along with the appropriate circumstances for
viewing the action in motivational rather than causal
terms
It follows from the previous theses that one need not consciously choose
an act, much less consciously choose a tendency or a disposition to act in a
certain way, in order to be ethically responsible for it. To be thus respons-
ible for it, the agent must simply be able to become aware of it - either
through direct reflection or through a motivational analysis of one's own
behavior - and thereby at least in principle be able to exercise some influ-
ence on the behavior. Not all behavior, of course, will be subject to such
motivational analyses. One's heartbeat or one's nervous tics might be
explicable solely in causal terms and thereby inaccessible to influence
through second-order mental states. Husserl does not try to define sharply
what the cases may be but simply spells out the Umits of this approach as
the limits of the appropriateness of motivational categories as relevant
explanatory factors. How far these extend is an empirical matter.16
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17. In Husserl's terms this means that responsibility is
attributed to the "personal ego" as the ego that is
constituted over a lifetime through the habitualities of its
position-takings (beliefs, valuings, and desires) that may
not all be directly accessible to reflection
In § 60b of Ideas II Husserl describes very graphically how our knowledge
of ourselves as concrete and individual persons involves empirical el-
ements based on one's own experience with oneself as a concrete person
interacting with other persons and objects in the surrounding world. It also
involves background empirical knowledge about human beings in general
- how people tend to act, how such things as age and general circum-
stances tend to influence behavior. Yet he does not believe that this
absolves the agent as a person, that is, as one who is capable of identifying
oneself as the agent by reflecting on one's actions, from having to take
responsibility for them. It instead provides the starting point for the task
of taking responsibility for those actions to the extent that they are seen as
following from motivations that are one's own:
The autonomy of reason, the "freedom" of the personal subject
therefore does not consist in my passively succumbing to aUen
influences but rather in my deciding on my own. And furthermore
[it consists] in my not allowing myself to be "puUed along" by any
other tendencies or drives but rather in my being freely active,
and doing so in accord with reason.
We must therefore distinguish between the human person, the
apperceptive unity that we grasp in self-perception and the per-
ception of others, and the person as the subject of rational acts,
whose motivations and motivational forces come to be given to us
in our own original experience and in the experiences in which we
understand others. There our view is focused on the specifically
Geistige, the free Ufe of acts. (Id. II, 269)
Our charge is thus to become rational persons by taking responsibility for
those acts that all along have always been our own.
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F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y , AND S E L F - A W A R E N E S S
18. In sum, then, it is our nature as transcendental egos,
as pure consciousness that is directly given to itself in
reflection, that makes it possible for us to constitute
ourselves and anyone else as persons, that is, as free and
responsible agents. Yet the limits of personal
responsibility are not restricted to those actions explicitly
chosen and consciously performed after careful
deliberation of all of the factors involved, but extends to
all of those things that we can attribute to ourselves as
actions based on motives that are our own
We are human beings, freely willing subjects who are actively
engaged in our surrounding world, who continuously have a part
in shaping it. Whether we want to or not, whether we do it well or
poorly, we do it. Can we not also do so in a rational way; are not
rationaUty and virtuousness in oiir power?
(Hua XXVII, 4/326)
One can easily see how this thesis then leads to the three corollaries listed
below. In closing, I shaU briefly elucidate each of these corollaries and
attempt to show how it is a specific application and extension of the posi-
tions laid out in the previous eighteen theses.17
Corollary 1. Subjectivity and personhood are not simply
descriptive terms for essential features of human beings
but rather are possibilities that can be realized more or '
less fully. Moreover, lives are more truly human that
realize these possibilities more fully
If it is true that not all or even most of human conduct is governed by acts
that are "free" in the fullest sense but are more often governed by
impulses and habits that may be hidden to the agent him- or herself and
may or may not be justified in Ught of the overaU goals that the agent
would be able to justify or even accept upon further consideration, then
subjectivity and personhood as the possibility of freely and consciously
positing beliefs, values, and desires that govern action are not always real-
ized in the Uves that human beings lead. For Husserl 'reason' (Vernunft) is
the general formal heading for the sustainability of any sort of epistemic,
that is, theoretical, evaluational, or practical position-taking in light of the
demand for justification. Reason is thus not an external norm imposed on
persons from outside but the demand that they take advantage of their
capacity as subjects and as persons to become aware of the position-
takings that they are enacting throughout their lives, to reflect on them
and their justification, and to adjust them when appropriate:
157
 L I F E - W O R L D , ETHICS, H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
Moral philosophy is just a fuUy subordinate part of ethics, which
must necessarily be viewed as the science that concerns the entire
active Uve of a rational subjectivity from the perspective of reason
that governs and unifies this entire life. And regardless of which
I particular spheres of possible action we view normatively from
this perspective - including, for example, cognitive knowledge
characterized as a kind of action - there ethics has its thematic
domain.
(Hua XXVII, 21)18
Corollary 2. The norms that guide the striving towards
more complete personhood are the norms implicit in
everyday knowing, valuing, and willing as such.
Systematic and explicit reflection can help further and
realize these norms in a human life
One of the more interesting insights provided by the Kaizo articles is the
clear light they shed on Husserl's view that the norms for knowing,
valuing, and desiring grow out of what he calls "pre-ethical forms of self-
regulation" (Hua XXVII, 26). Each of these specific kinds of acts involves
a kind of essential and implicit teleology towards its own unique form of
fulfillment. Cognition essentially aims at truth and finds its fulfiUment or
disappointment through the further course of experience. What is valued
promises its own kind of value-fulfillment that the further course of a life
can confirm or disconfirm, and thereby reveal as "genuine" (echt) or not.19
The aforementioned studies by Zahavi20 and Welton 21 emphasize how all
of these structures can ultimately be traced back to the temporal struc-
tures of protention and retention that underlie all of human consciousness.
They aU strive for unity over a lifetime of experiences, ultimately at an
ideal universality that would provide reliable and complete unity for aU
rational beings and for all possible experiences. That is why Husserl
defines reason as a formal structure inherent within each of these funda-
mental forms of striving for unity, whether in the theoretical realm as
genuine knowledge or in the practical realm as unconditional values or
wilUng. That is also why each of them points to a possible form of evident-
ness as its fulfillment and why in Ideas I Husserl addresses the issue of
Evidenz under the general heading of a "Phenomenology of Reason" (Id.
1,282-323).
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F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y , AND S E L F - A W A R E N E S S
Corollary 3. The project of philosophy in general and
phenomenology in particular is nothing other than a
systematic and sustained effort to articulate and foster
these norms and contribute to their realization in
individual lives and in societies as a whole '
On Husserl's view it is no accident that philosophy and science emerged
together in ancient Greece as the systematic attempt to reflect upon and
identify the ultimate norms for human knowing and acting.22 The crisis of
modern science is not in itself a crisis of reason itself but rather a crisis that
arises from a far too narrow definition of what can count as evidence or
reason, so that only what is observable and measurable in a narrow sense
modeled on the natural sciences counts as genuine science and as gen-
uinely accessible to systematic rational inquiry. This modern development
instead represents a turn away from the inherent possibilities of rational
scientific inquiry in the broadest sense that can be restored if one returns
to the original project of philosophy in the proper way.23 A philosophy
grounded in systematic reflection upon the a priori norms inherent in cog-
nition, valuing, and willing itself, a philosophy that recognizes all of these
operations as the personal acts of free and responsible subjects would
therefore fit into his overaU view of philosophy as a form of rational self-
realization - not just for the individuals that practice it, but for any society
that dedicates itself to the inherent value of human self-realization. We
can then see that, according to Husserl's own self-interpretation, his
repeated and emotional calls to dedicate oneself again to the classic
project of philosophy are not only part of a longer tradition that he con-
sciously embraces. They are also consistent with and arise from many of
the detailed and careful analyses of human persons and human mental life
that he developed as part of that overaU project.
Nothing described in the eighteen main theses normally or necessarily
involves phenomenology as a systematic philosophical enterprise. None of
the acts described in those theses or in the first two corollaries depends
upon phenomenological reduction. However, Husserl not only believes
that philosophy - as a systematic and rigorous investigation of the proper
norms for knowing, valuing, and acting - grows out of and represents the
culmination of the everyday search for the right beliefs, values, and
actions, but also that it is an ethically demanded project precisely because
it can help identify what these are and how to find them. Phenomenology
is particularly suited to this task because it recognizes that knowing,
valuing, and acting are subjective activities and that systematic self-
reflection is the proper means for identifying the norms inherent in the
very nature of these activities. As such, it is particularly consistent with the
personalistic attitude and the overall project of a caU to responsibility for
the actions that every person constantly undertakes in various degrees of
159
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
self-awareness throughout a lifetime. On Husserl's view phenomenology is
a particularly appropriate way, but certainly not the only way, for persons
to exercise the capacities for self-awareness and freedom that make them
persons at all.
Notes
1 In 1922 and 1923 Husserl composed several articles for publication in the
Japanese journal Kaizo. They were entitled "Erneuerung. Ihr Problem und
Ihre Methode" ("Renewal: Its Problem and Method"), "Die Methode der
Wesensforschung" ("The Method of Research into Essences"), "Erneuerung
als individualethisches Problem" ("Renewal as a Problem in Individual
Ethics"), "Erneuerung und Wissenschaft" ("Renewal and Science"), and
"Formale Typen der Kultur in der Menschheitsentwicklung" ("Formal Types
of Culture in the Development of Humanity"). The first three were published
in 1923 and 1924 in that journal. All of them have since been published or
republished, along with earlier versions and related drafts of essays, in Edmund
Husserl, "Funf Aufsatze iiber Erneuerung," in Aufsatze und Vortrage
(1922-1937), ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, Husserliana XXVII
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 3-121. The first of them has been translated into
English by Jeffner Allen and published in Edmund Husserl, Shorter Works, ed.
Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame, 1981), 326-31. (Henceforth, cited as 'Hua XXVII5 with .German
page references. English page references follow the German only when the first
article is cited.) See also Hua XXVII, 8/328: "every mental [geistige] reality has
an internality, a self-contained 'life of consciousness,' that is related to an 'ego,'
so to speak as a pole that centers all of the individual acts of consciousness,
whereby these acts are located in contexts of 'motivation.'" "To these acts and
their motivations belong differences of rationality and irrationality, of 'right'
and 'wrong' thinking, valuing, and wilUng."
2 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologis-
chen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phdnomenologische Untersuchungen zur Kon-
stitution, ed. Marly Biemel, Husserliana IV (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1952); English
translation: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenolog-
ical Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution,
trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andr6 Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989).
Henceforth cited as Id. II with German page reference, which is included in the
margins of the translation.
3 Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phdnomenologie. Funf Vorlesungen, ed. -Walter
Biemel, Husserliana II (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950); English translation: The
Idea of Phenomenology, trans. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1964). Henceforth cited as 'Hua IP with German page refer-
ence, which is included in the margins of the translation.
4 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phdnomenologis-
chen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einfiihrung in die reine Phdnom-
enologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III/l (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976);
English translation: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phe-
nomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure
Phenomenology, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1983). Henceforth cited
as Id. I with the original Jahrbuch-pagination, which is included in the margins
of the German and English editions.
160
F R E E D O M , R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y , AND S E L F - A W A R E N E S S
5 A very thorough discussion of this distinction may be found in Bernhard Rang,
Kausalitdt und Motivation. Untersuchungen zum Verhaltnis von Perspektivitdt
und Objektivitat in der Phdnomenologie Edmund Husserls (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1979).
6 The distinction between the two notions of the ego and their interrelationship
is carefully analyzed in Eduard Marbach, Das Problem des Ich in der Phdnom-
enologie Husserls (The Hague: Nijhoff 1974), 298-339. Marbach's study is a
very careful discussion of the development of Husserl's concept of the ego
throughout all of the major works published until now.
7 Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen in Cartesianische Meditationen
und Pariser Vortrage, ed. S. Strasser, Husserliana I (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950),
41-183, here 101; English translation: Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to
Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960), 67. Hence-
forth cited as CM with German pagination, which is included in the margins of
the translation.
8 See also Id. II, 4: "the subject (understood here as the ego that is inseparably
bound to each cogito, as pure subject)...." The word 'pure' here refers simply
to the possibility of becoming directly aware in a reflective act of this cogito as
"my own."
9 See Id. II, 191: "We exist in relation to a common surrounding world - we exist
in an association of persons: these belongs together."
10 One of the best known formulations of the difference between the ideal reliabil-
ity of direct reflective graspings of one's own mental states as opposed to the per-
ception of external events can be found in Husserl's Philosophy as Rigorous
Science ("Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft," in Aufsdtze und Vortrage
(1911-1921), ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, Husserliana XXV [Dor-
drecht: Nijhoff, 1987], 3-62). Up through his last writings, he makes much of this
difference as a basis for phenomenology as a totally different kind of science
from the empirical sciences. See, e.g., CM, 66-76. However, it is important to
note that Husserl comes to see that even the so-called direct perception of one's
own mental events in reflection contains elements of unreliability that must be
bracketed out for the pure reflection he uses as the basis for phenomenology.
11 Husserl puts it very succinctly in a note published posthumously as part of the
text-critical apparatus to one of the Husserliana volumes on intersubjectivity:
"Human beings as social beings [Geist, egoic subjects], as the bearers of social
and of egoic relations in general are not viewed as something real [Reales], as
the bearers of causal (real causal) relations, but rather as the egoic subjects of
motivational relations." (Edmund Husserl, Zur Phanomenologie der Intersub-
jektivitat, Erster Teil: 1905-1920, ed. Iso Kern, Husserliana XIII [The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1973], 504).
12 Dan Zahavi has made this point clearly in his study Self-Awareness and Alter-
ity: A Phenomenological Investigation (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University,
1999), esp. 52-62.
13 See also the subsequent pages where he spells out the essentially free nature of
persons as the ability to inhibit, call into question, or revise the otherwise
passive operations of mental Ufe through an analysis of them and the justifica-
tion or lack of justification for them.
14 See, e.g., Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen uber Ethik und Wertlehre 1908-1914,
ed. Ullrich Melle, Husserliana XXVIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 33-
15 This level of experience according to Husserl has been described in great detail
by Nam-In Lee, Edmund Husserls Phdnomenologie der Instinkte (Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1993).
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S

16 For examples of the difference and how Husserl applies this distinction, see Id.
II, 259-65.
17 The positions advanced in the first and third of these corollaries can be found
in almost all of Husserl's published works. Until recently, they have been asso-
ciated most closely with Husserl's final works on the crisis of European human-
ity, namely in the so-called Vienna lecture on "Phenomenology and the Crisis Part 12
of European Humanity" and in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcen-
dental Phenomenology. (For the latter, see Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der
europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phdnomenologie, ed.
Walter Biemel, Husserliana VI [The Hague: Nijhoff, 1954]; English translation: C U L T U R E A N D T H E
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans.
David Carr [Evanston, III: Northwestern University, 1970]. The German text P R O B L E M O F H I S T O R Y
of the Vienna lecture may be found under the title of "Die Krisis des europais-
chen Menschentums und die Philosophie" in Hua VI, 314-48, and in English as
"Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity" in Carr's translation of the
Crisis, 269-99.) Both of these works stress and explain Husserl's views on the
third of these three corollaries. More recently, the publication of the Kaizo art-
icles in Hua XXVII connects that corollary more clearly with the positions
expressed in the first two corollaries and in the eighteen theses.
For a helpful and systematic discussion of the philosophical views Husserl
lays out in these essays, see Donn Welton, "Husserl and the Japanese," Review
of Metaphysics 44 (1991), 575-606. A detailed exposition of the positions listed
in these corollaries and their overall status within Husserl's philosophical work
has been provided by Hans Rainer Sepp, Praxis und Theoria. Husserls tran-
szendentalphilosophische Rekonstruktion des Lebens (Freiburg/Munich: Alber,
1997).
18 He describes the results of this process of ethical formation as follows: "This is
how the life-form of 'genuine humanity' arises, and for the human being who
evaluates himself, his life, and his possible actions how the idea of a 'genuine
and true human being,' that is, a rational human being, arises" (Hua XXVII,
33).
h 19 In The Person and the Common Life (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992) James Hart
11 has gathered together passages from Husserl's published and unpublished man-
uscripts and presented a convincing reconstruction of Husserl's normative
theory of a hierarchy of goods and a community of subjects dedicated to the
achievement of the good.
20 See Zahavi, Self-Awareness and Alterity, esp. 63-89. ...
21 See Welton, "Husserl and the Japanese," esp. 585-88.
22 See on this topic Hua XXVII, 79-89 and, even more clearly, Husserl's "Die
Idee einer philosophischen Kultur," in Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil:
Kritische Ideengeschichte, ed. Rudolf Boehm, Husserliana VII (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1956), 203-7,8-10, and 11-17, here 8-10.
23 A good account of this crisis and Husserl's attempt to offer phenomenology as
a response to it has been provided by R. Philip Buckley, Husserl, Heidegger
and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992).

162
 78

D I E P H A N O M E N O L O G I E A L S

T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E
1
D E R G E S C H I C H T E

Ludwig Landgrebe

Iii Source: Ernst Wolfgang Orth (ed.), Phanomenologie und Praxis. Phanomenologische
Forschungen 3 (1976): 17-47.
11
Mit dem Titel ist die These genannt, die in den folgenden Ausfuhrungen
begrUndet werden soil: „Wenn die Phdnomenologie Transzendental-
philosophie sein soil, dann ist sie, konsequent zu Ende gedacht, transzen-
dentale. Theorie der Geschichte." Mit dieser These soil die Frage
dahingestellt bleiben - man konnte sagen „eingeklammert" -, ob die
Phanomenologie transzendentale Phanomenologie sein soil oder sein muB.
Diese Frage war bekanntlich bei den Husserl-Schulern schon umstritten,
if seitdem er in seinen „Ideen", wie man so sagte, die „transzendentale
Wendung" vollzogen hatte. Aber die Schlichtung dieses Streits setzt
voraus, daB geklart ist, welche Bedeutung das Wort „transzendental" bei
Husserl hat, und diese Bedeutung ist nur aus dem Kontext seines Werkes
selbst zu eruieren. Dem Ausdruck darf nicht einfach die Bedeutung unter-
legt werden, die dieses Wort in der Philosophie vor Husserl hatte. So
werden die folgenden Ausfuhrungen selbstverstandlich an* Husserl
anknupfen, aber sie konnen nur mit Vorbehalt als ein Beitrag zur Husserl-
Interpretation verstanden werden. Interpretationen gibt es bald unuber-
i sehbar viele und im Streit miteinander liegende. Fast mag es so scheinen,
als ob ihre Verschiedenheit davon abhinge, welche Partien und Zitate
jeweils aus den vielschichtigen Texten Husserls herangezogen werden, um
sie zu stutzen. Dieser Streit bezieht sich fast auf samtliche der operativen
Grundbegriffe Husserls, die sich alle als nicht eindeutig erwiesen haben.
Aber gemeinsam ist den meisten der neueren Untersuchungen fiber
Husserls Phanomenologie, daB sie vom Spatwerk und den Manuskripten
der letzten Lebensepoche Husserls ausgehen, um die fruheren Arbeiten
als Schritte auf dem Wege zu seinen letzten Einsichten zu verstehen. Sie
gehorchen damit aber nicht der Anweisung einer Modestromung,
dergemaB erst das Spatwerk eines Denkers die letzten und entscheidenden

165
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
Gedanken bringt, von denen aus alles Fruhere nur als Vorbereitung ver-
standen werden muB. Vielmehr hat dieses methodische Prinzip gerade
hier seine Fruchtbarkeit gezeigt, indem mit ihm nachgewiesen werden
konnte, daB sich in der Entwicklung der Gedanken Husserls kein Bruch
finden laBt, sondern daB sie einer von Anfang an leitenden Intention
entspricht, die freiUch in ihrer Entfaltung erst allmahlich zur Klarheit fiber
das kommt, worauf sie von Anfang an hinaus war. DaB es so ist, entspricht
durchaus Husserls Konzeption der Intentionalitat und ihres Verhaltnisses
von Intention und Erfullung als eines Weges vom Dunklen zur Klarheit.
Das Verfahren, mit dem „spaten" Husserl gegen den fruheren zu argu-
mentieren, dessen sich alle neuern Untersuchungen bedienen, welche die
Sache um ein Stuck weitergebracht haben, hat sich durch seinen Erfolg als
legitim erwiesen. Daraus ergibt sich, daB eine Auseinandersetzung mit
Husserls transzendentalphilosophischem Entwurf ihr Ziel verfehlen muB,
wenn sie ihn voreilig an Zielstellungen miBt, die von einem anderen
philosophischen Ausgangspunkt herstammen. Zuvor muB seine Position
mit aUen in ihr enthaltenen Moglichkeiten zu Ende gedacht werden; erst
dann kann einsichtig werden, wo etwa die Grenzen der MogUchkeit einer
transzendentalphilosophischen Reflexion liegen und wo mit einem
anderen Verfahren fiber sie hinausgegangen werden muB.
SoUte sich dabei zeigen, daB Husserls spaten Reflexionen selbst die Hint
weise auf diese Grenzen zu entnehmen sind, dann wtirde seine Philosophie
in berechtigter Weise Anspruch auf den Titel ..Transzendentalphilosophie"
machen konnen: ..Transzendental" in dem Sinne, daB darunter eine Erken-
ntnisweise und ein Erkenntnisweg zu verstehen ist, der es ermoglicht, sich
t
selbst kritisch seine Grenzen zu setzen. Dieser Begriff von „transzendental"
wtirde auch dem entsprechen, was Husserl in einem Manuskript ausfiihrt,
das offenbar nach AbschluB des „Krisis"-Textes und im RiickbUck darauf
geschrieben ist und sich vor aUem auf den Galilei-Abschnitt dieses Werkes
bezieht. Er spricht dort von empfindUchen Schwierigkeiten dieses Textes,
davon, daB „in solchem historischen Gang aUmShhch ein neuer Stil
philosophischen Fragens und eine neue Methode philosophischer Arbeit
aufleuchtet". Zu seinem Gesamtsinn gehort, „das Ineinander von his-
torischer und durch sie motivierter systematischer Untersuchung, von vorn-
herein angelegt in der eigenen Reflexivitat, in der sich die Selbstbesinnung
des Philosophen aUein bewegen kann, der in der Situation ist, keine
vorgegebene Philosophie, eigene wie fremde, voraussetzen zu konnen"
(Hua VI, 364).
Husserls Gebrauch des Wortes „transzendental" ist also formal gemein-
sam mit dem Kantischen, daB er „Kritik" bedeutet: „Kritik des Umgangs
mit Uberkommenen philosophischen Begriffen, die Frage nach dem quid
juris?" ihres Gebrauchs zur Explikation unserer Erfahrung. In diesem
Sinne bedeutet ..transzendental" nichts anderes als den absoluten Gegen-
satz zu jeder Art von Dogmatismus, nicht nur des Dogmatismus der Meta-
166
T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
physik, die Kants Angriffsziel war, sondern* auch Kritik der versteckten
metaphysischen Implikationen in modernen antimetaphysischen Positionen,
allgemein gesprochen also Kritik des ungepruften Gebrauchs aller
uberkommenen philosophischen Begriffe, mir denen Verstandigung fiber
unsere Welt und schUeBUch eine umfassende Welterklarung geleistet
werden soUte. In diesem Sinne ist Transzendentalphilosophie zugleich
Kritik des Sprachgebrauchs und als Auseinandersetzung mit metaphysis-
chen und antimetaphysischen Theorien der Welterklarung selbst Theorie.
Aber weil afle Versuche der Welterklarung in ihrem ursprungUchen Sinne
immer mer mehr waren als ..bloBe" Theorien, sondern vielmehr Versuche
der Verstandigung fiber die Welt, um in ihr den richtigen Weg des Lebens
zu finden, folgten aus solchen Theorien immer praktische Prinzipien des
Handelns. Daher ist auch ihre transzendentale Kritik zugleich Kritik der
Prinzipien des Handelns, die aus ihnen folgen. Diese Verklammerung UeBe
sich schon in der ursprungUchen Pragung des Begriffs der Theoria durch
Aristoteles zeigen, und auch Husserl hat schUeBUch seine transzendentale
Phanomenologie als „Kritik des Lebens" verstanden wissen wollen.
Soviel zur vorlaufigen Verstandigung fiber den Begriff des ./Transzen-
dentalen" und fiber den Sinn, in dem Phanomenologie als transzendentale
Theorie verstanden werden soU. Damit ist noch nichts fiber Geschichte als
das Thema dieser transzendentalen Theorie gesagt. Es ist bekannt, daB das
Wort Geschichte mindestens zwei Bedeutungen hat: Es konnen darunter
sowohl die res gestae wie die Historia rerum gestarum, die Geschichtswis-
senschaft, verstanden werden. Mit der aufgesteUten These soU nun nicht
behauptet werden, daB die transzendentale Phanomenologie hier nur
insoweit erortert werden soil, als sie Theorie der wissenschaftlichen Erken-
ntnis der Geschichte ist, oder gar, daB sie uberhaupt auf eine solche, also auf
die Theorie der frfiher so genannten Geisteswissenschaften beschrankt
werden soU; denn wenn eine solche Theorie als eine philosophische
Aufgabe verstanden wird, dann ist damit eine Reflexionsstufe genannt,
welche der transzendentalphilosophischen Reflexion nachgeordnet ist und
sich erst auf sie griinden kann. Transzendentale Phanomenologie hat es
vorab mit der Frage zu tun „Was ist Geschichte?" bzw. was sind die tran-
szendentalen Bedingungen der Moglichkeit, daB es ftir uns so etwas wie
Geschichte gibt, die dann auch Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Erforschung
werden kann? In diesem Sinne hat Husserl nach dem „Apriori der
Geschichte" gefragt. Es wird sich nun zeigen, daB dieses Apriori ganzUch
eigener Art ist.
Eine transzendentalphilosophische Besinnung kann daher auch nicht
die Gebietsabgrenzungen zwischen den einzelnen Wissenschaften einfach
als gegeben hinnehmen; denn diese Abgrenzungen sind zumeist aus den
Notwendigkeiten ihrer Erkenntnispraxis entstanden und heute in vielem
fragUch geworden. Daher konnen wir auch nicht an Husserls Entwurf
regionaler Ontologien anknupfen, der im II. Band der „Ideen" vorliegt,
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und an dem sich auch Heidegger noch in „Sein und Zeit" orientiert hat;
denn auch dieser Entwurf nahm die damals noch geltenden Abgrenzungen
der Wissenschaftsgebiete einfach als gegebene hin. Er entstammt einer
statischen Betrachtung. Die transzendentale Phanomenologie hat jedoch
u erst als genetische Phanomenologie ihren voUen Begriff gewonnen - was
hier wohl keiner weiteren Begrundung bedarf (Aguirre, 153 ff.). Daher
kann die Phanomenologie als transzendentale Theorie der Geschichte nur
die genetische Phanomenologie sein. Es soil gezeigt werden, daB ihre
Ergebnisse selbstverstandlich auch fiir die Theorie der wissenschaftlichen
Erkenntnis von Bedeutung sind, daB aber unter Geschichte mehr zu ver-
stehen ist als der Inbegriff der res gestae. Daher muB der Sinn, in dem in
der These von Geschichte gesprochen wird, zunachst noch in Schwebe
bleiben.
Nun setzt aber eine transzendentale Theorie der Geschichte eine aus-
reichende Theorie der Intersubjektivitat voraus. Auch sie kann nur als
f genetische entwickelt werden. Es ist nun nachgewiesen worden, daB
I, Husserls Theorie der Intersubjektivitat in der 5. Cartesianischen Medita-
tion daran gescheitert ist, daB Husserl dort den Versuch machte, sie als
statische zu entwickeln (Held, 1972, Iff.). Auch seine spateren Ansatze,
•I die jetzt in Band XV der Husserliana vorliegen, sind nicht ans Ziel gekom-
men, wohl aber kann einigen spaten Reflexionen Husserls der Hinweis
darauf entnommen werden, wie diese LUcke zu schlieBen ist. Darauf soU
spater zuruckgekommen werden.
Nach diesen einleitenden Bemerkungen sei zur Begrundung der These
ubergegangen, die nun etwas erganzt lauten muB: Die transzendentale
genetische Phdnomenologie ist als solche transzendentale Theorie der
Geschichte. Es sei hierzu an zwei Gedanken Husserls angeknupft, die auf
den ersten BUck miteinander unvertragUch zu sein scheinen. Der erste
betrifft die Charakteristik des transzendentalen „Ego", dessen weltkonstitu-
ierende Leistungen das Thema der Phanomenologie sind. Die phanomenol-
ogische Reduktion fuhrt zuruck auf die apodiktische SelbstgewiBheit dieses
Ich. Es ist in dieser Reflexion in einer unmittelbaren Weise fiir sich selbst
gegenwartig. In dieser Selbstgegenwart seiner konstituierenden Funktionen
ist es fiir sich selbst apodiktisch gewiB und kann diese Funktionen in eidetis-
cher Variation als zu jedem uberhaupt erdenkUchen Ich notwendig gehorig
erkennen. Husserl hat freiUch von Anfang an immer wieder betont, daB
eine solche Reflexion jeweils von einem faktisch existierenden Ich ausgeubt
wird. Aber gemaB der schon in den „Ideen" entwickelten Wesenslehre ist
ein singulares Faktum seinem Wesen gegentiber zufallig. Erst seit 1931 wird
in zum Teil noch unveroffentUchten Manuskripten diese These umgekehrt:
„Das Eidos transzendentales Ich ist undenkbar ohne transzendentales Ich
als faktisches" (Hua XV, 385), denn „,Ich' der Umdenkende, der mich
durch Variation der faktischen WirkUchkeit Enthebende bin apodiktisch
das Ich der faktischen Wirklichkeit und bin das Ich der Vermogen, die ich
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
insbesondere als eidetisch denkendes und sehendes Ich mir faktisch
erworben habe. Die Phantasie-moglichkeiten als Varianten des Eidos
schweben nicht frei in derLuft, sondern sind konstitutiv bezogen auf mich
in meinem Faktum, mit meiner lebendigen Gegenwart, die ich faktisch
,lebe'"? Daher ist „die apodiktische Struktur der transzendentalen Wirk-
Uchkeit nicht vermoge jenes Umdenken-konnens eine solche, die kontin-
gent ware - ein zufaUiges Faktum, das einen Wesensrahmen von anderen
Moglichkeiten hatte, die ebensogut hatten sein konnen. So muB dieses Ich,
das ich selbst bin, absolutes Faktum genannt werden" (a.a. O.S. 148). „Ich
bin das Ur-faktum in diesem Gang der Ruckfrage . . . das Absolute, das in
sich selbst seinen Grund und in seinem grundlosen Sein seine absolute
Notwendigkeit hat als die eine .absolute Substanz'. Seine Notwendigkeit
ist nicht Wesensnotwendigkeit, die ein Zufalliges offen lieBe. AUe Wesen-
snotwendigkeiten sind vielmehr Momente seines Faktums . . . sind Weisen,
sich selbst zu verstehen oder verstehen zu k6nnen" (Hua XV, 386). „Das
Absolute, das wir enthUllen, ist absolute Tatsache" (Hua XV, 403).
Diese Thesen klingen im ersten AugenbUck befremdUch. Wird nicht mit
ihnen die Grenze einer Transzendentalphilosophie Uberschritten in einem
Ubergang zu einer Metaphysik des Absoluten, die an ScheUings ..Positive
Philosophie" erinnern konnte? Schon E. Fink hat seinerzeit eine solche
Deutung zuruckgewiesen (Fink, 99 ff.). Er kannte diese Gedanken schon seit
der Zeit ihrer Entstehung (1931), in der Husserl an dem spater aufgegebenen
Versuch arbeitete, den deutschen Text der ..Cartesianischen Meditationen"
zu revidieren: Es handle sich hier keineswegs um einen tjbergang in eine
spekulative Metaphysik, sondern vielmehr um „Verlegenheitsbegriffe
philosophischer Grenzlagen", die aus dem unermudhchen Bestreben
stammen, durch reflektive Analyse den LebensvoUzug des transzendentalen
BewuBtseins sozusagen auf frischer Tat zu ertappen. SoUte dies so sein, dann
ware dies gerade eine Bekraftigung der Legitimitat des Anspruchs der
Phanomenologie auf den Titel „transzendental". Sie hatte damit gezeigt, daB
sie in der Lage ist, sich kritisch ihre eigenen Grenzen evident zu machen.
Um hierin zur Klarheit zu kommen, sei diese These fiber die Abso-
lutheit des transzendentalen Ego mit einer These fiber die Geschichte
konfrontiert, die sich im SchluBabsatz eines Forschungsmanuskripts Uber
„Transzendentale Reduktion und absolute Rechtfertigung" findet. Diese
These lautet „Die Geschichte ist das grofie Faktum des absoluten Seins"*.
Dieser SchluBabsatz hat in Husserls Manuskript den Untertitel „Mon-
adologie" erhalten. Hierzu ist zunachst zweierlei zu bemerken:
1. Dieses Manuskript stammt aus dem Anfang der zwanziger Jahre. Es
ist also nicht so, daB Husserl erst in der letzten Phase seines Denkens die
Bedeutung der Geschichte fiir die Phanomenologie entdeckt hatte. Das
gibt die Anweisung, diese Entdeckung nicht ads einen Bruch in seinem
Denken, sondern als Konsequenz aus seinem fruheren transzendental-
philosophischen Ansatz zu verstehen.
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2. Das Manuskript gibt einen Hinweis auf den Kontext, aus der Husserls
These Uber die Geschichte stammt: Es ist die Monadologie. Die Interpreta-
tion hat bisher diesem Titel zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt und damit
das Problem nicht beachtet, das hinter der Rezeption eines Leibnizschen
!
! Terminus verborgen ist. Es ist eine Rezeption, in welcher die Bedeutung
dieses Terminus verandert wird. Die Leibnizschen Monaden haben keine
Fenster, wohl aber die „Monade" im Kontext der transzendentalen
Phanomenologie als Bezeichnung fiir das transzendentale Ego. In diesem
Sinne spricht Husserl von der transzendentalen Intersubjektivitat als dem
„Monadenall".
Hieran sind zwei Fragen zu knupfen:
1. Was gibt das Recht, fUr das „transzendentale Ego", das in seiner fUr
sich selbst apodiktisch gewissen Gegenwartigkeit „absolutes Faktum" ist,
den Titel „Monade" zu verwenden?
2. Wie sind die beiden Thesen fiber das ..Absolute" mit einander
vertragUch, bzw. wie gehoren sie, sich gegenseitig erganzend, zueinander,
und was ergibt sich daraus fur das Verstandnis des Sinnes von Husserls
Rede Uber das Absolute und fUr den transzendental-phanomenologischen
Begriff der Geschichte?
Es zeigt sich hier, daB beide Fragen nicht getrennt voneinander behan-
delt werden konnen. Gerade ihre Zusammengehorigkeit ist das transzen-
dental-phdnomenologische Problem der Geschichte, das im folgenden in
wenigen groben Grundztigen entfaltet werden soil. Zur Vorbereitung
hierauf sei auf die Bedeutung hingewiesen, welche die Einfiihrung des
Begriffs der Monadefur die Wissenschaftstheorie der Historie hat.
Es ist hierfUr daran zu erinnern, daB auch der Grundgedanke von
Herders Philosophie der Geschichte nachweisUch von Leibniz' Monadolo-
gie inspiriert ist. Es ist der Gedanke der schlechthinnigen IndividuaUtat
und EinmaUgkeit aUes dessen, was geschichtlich ist. Es hat seine absolute
Bedeutung in sich selbst und nicht erst in dem, was aus ihm hervorgeht.
Herder hat damit den Fortschrittsgedanken der Aufklarung und insbeson-
dere Voltaires kritisiert und damit der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft
den Boden bereitet. Sie ist geleitet von dem Interesse an dem individu-
eUen Sein. Leopold von Ranke hat Herders These in fast gleichlautenden
Wendungen in seinen Vortragen vor Konig Maximilian von Bayern uber
die Epochen der neueren Geschichte wiederholt. Sie ist das Credo der
Geschichtswissenschaft, von dem her erst der Sinn der von ihr geforderten
Objektivitat zu verstehen ist. Von der „PoUtischen Historie", insbesondere
von Gervinus wurde diese Forderung Rankes bekampft: Die Historie habe
den Interessen des Tages zu dienen, dem Interesse an der Selbstbehaup-
tung der Nation. Ranke trat dieser These nachdruckUch entgegen, weil er
ihre relativistischen Konsequenzen und darin das Ende der Historie als
Wissenschaft sah. In dieser Auseinandersetzung zeigt sich, daB nicht der
Gedanke der IndividuaUtat, sondern vielmehr seine Mifiachtung zum Rela-
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
tivismus fUhrt und damit den Weg zur Wahrheit der Geschichte verbaut.
Dieser Hinweis mag genUgen, um zu zeigen, daB es sich bei der Erwah-
nung dieses Streites zwischen Ranke und Gervinus nicht um eine bloBe
historische Reminiszenz handelt, sondern um ein Grundproblem der
Erkenntnis der Geschichte, das bis heute noch umstritten ist. Im Anfang
der 50er Jahre berichtete die ..Historische Zeitschrift" Uber eine Diskus-
sion der amerikanischen Historiker um die methodischen Prinzipien,
denen gemaB der japanische Uberfall auf Pearl Harbour dargestellt
werden soil. In dieser Diskussion standen genau die gleichen Positionen
sich gegenuber, wie sie seinerzeit durch Ranke und Gervinus verkorpert
waren. Auch an den Umgang der Bolschewisten mit der Geschichte mag
dabei erinnert werden, die bekanntUch immer wieder nach den Interessen
der Partei umgeschrieben werden muB. Es handelt sich also um das
Problem, ob die Wahrheit dessen, was historisch Uberliefert ist, sich in
dem erschopft, was davon fUr die Interessen der jeweiUgen Gegenwart als
bedeutsam gilt, oder ob es vor alien anderen Fragen in seiner Individual-
itat, so „wie es eigentlich gewesen ist", gewUrdigt werden muB. Die
Geschichtstheorie der SUdwestdeutschen Schule des Neukantianismus
hat um dieses Problem sehr wohl gewuBt, indem sie die geschichtUche
Erkenntnis als „idiographische" von der „nomothetischen" der Naturwis-
senschaften zu unterscheiden suchte. Von einer kritischen Diskussion des
Weges, auf dem die neukantianische Theorie das Problem der Individual-
i s t mittels des Begriffs der Wertbeziehung zu losen suchte, muB hier
abgesehen werden, obwohl eine solche auch heute noch von aktueller
Bedeutung ware; denn diese Theorie der Wertbeziehung hat in dem
gegenwartigen Streit um die Wertfreiheit in der Gesellschaftstheorie noch
immer ihre Nachwirkungen.
Es soil damit nicht behauptet werden, daB Husserl bei seiner „Entdeck-
ung" der Geschichte irgendwie von der Entwicklung der Geschichtstheo-
rie seit Herder beeinfluBt war. Nichts laBt darauf schlieBen, daB er sich
uberhaupt mit ihr und spezieU mit Herder beschaftigt hat. Er ist in der
Konsequenz seines eigenen Weges auf die Bedeutung des „ Urfaktums" der
IndividuaUtat fiir die Geschichte gefuhrt worden, und es laBt sich zeigen,
daB in der Verfolgung dieses Weges zu einer besseren Begrundung der
Wahrheit der Geschichte zu gelangen ist, als es die war, welche die
neukantianische Geschichtstheorie anbot. Zunachst soUte aus diesem
Hinweis nur ersichtlich werden, daB die Ubernahme des Leibnizschen
Titels „Monade" zur Bezeichnung des absoluten Faktums des transzen-
dentalen Ego in seiner lebendigen Selbstgegenwart nicht die EinfUhrung
eines bloBen „Verlegenheitsausdrucks" bedeutet, sondern daB damit das
zentrale Problem der Begrundung der Wahrheit anvisiert ist, so wie es sich
bis heute auch fur den Historiker stellt. Aber es ist nicht nur ein Problem
der Wissenschaftstheorie der Historie, sondern es betrifft darUber hinaus
das Verhaltnis der Menschen je einer Epoche oder Gruppe zu ihrer
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
Geschichte schon vor ihrer wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis. Es hat seine
besondere Aktualitat in einer Zeit, die vom Verlust der Geschichte und
den Tendenzen zur Abkehr von ihr bedroht ist.
Damit sei tibergegangen zur zweiten Frage, die sich auf den Zusammen-
hang zwischen den beiden Thesen fiber die Absolutheit des „Ego" und
Uber die Absolutheit der Geschichte bezieht sowie auf den daraus folgen-
den transzendental-phanomenologischen Begriff der Geschichte. Es
wurde darauf hingewiesen, daB sowohl Herders Geschichtsphilosophie wie
Husserls „Monadologie" auf den Leibnizschen Gedanken der Monade
zuruckgreifen. Der historische Hintergrund der Leibnizschen Monadolo-
gie ist der reformatorische Gedanke der Unmittelbarkeit eines jeden
einzelnen Menschen zu Gott. Diese Unmittelbarkeit fordert, daB jede
menschliche Monade von nichts abhangig ist als von Gott, der sie geschaf-
fen hat. Sie muB also in sich abgeschlossen, „ohne Fenster" sein. DaB die
Monaden untereinander in einem commercium stehen konnen, kann also
nur durch eine prastabiUerte Harmonie gewahrleistet sein. Fur die tran-
szendentale Phanomenologie verbietet sich jedoch eine solche metaphysis-
che Begrundung des Gedankens der Monade und ihres commercium. Sie
muB auf dem Wege der ihr eigentumUchen Reflexion auf die Subjektivitat
die Einfiihrung des Monadenbegriffs in der Weise begrUnden, daB die
These der Absolutheit ihr Recht behalt, aber trotzdem ihr commercium
bestehen kann. Hierfur dUrfen die Monaden nicht als fensterlos gedacht
werden. Es ist also die Aufgabe der phanomenologischen Analyse, den
Punkt zu finden, an dem die „Fenster" zu suchen sind. Dazu bedarf es, wie
schon gesagt, einer Intersubjektivitatstheorie, die imstande ist, diese Frage
nach den Fenstern zu beantworten.
Um das Problem noch scharfer ins Auge zu fassen, ist zunachst einem
Einwand Rechnung zu tragen, der sich gerade aus dem Hinweis auf die
historische Herkunft des Monade-Gedankens als unabweislich ergibt: Ist
nicht der Stil einer solchen Reflexion selbst erst Ergebnis der
neuzeitlichen Geschichte des Denkens mit ihren spezifischen, auf
Descartes zuruckgehenden Voraussetzungen, die ihrerseits in einer noch
weiter zurUckreichenden Geschichte des abendlandischen Denkens ihre
Wurzel haben? Andere Kulturen haben bekanntlich diesen Stil der
Reflexion nicht entwickelt. Der Begriff der Einzigkeit und Einmaligkeit
und in diesem Sinne Absolutheit eines jeden menschlichen, und das heiBt
mit Denk- und Reflexionsvermogen ausgestatteten Wesens ist ihnen
fremd. Ist also dies nicht nur das Resultat einer ganz bestimmten
abendlandischen Kulturentwicklung und Geschichte, ein Gedanke, der
nur unter ganz bestimmten geschichtlichen Bedingungen formuliert
werden konnte? Kann also das, was nur geschichtsbedingte Tatsache ist,
zur apodiktischen Einsicht in unbedingt Allgemeines und Notwendiges
fUhren - eine Frage, die schon Lessing gestellt und verneinend beant-
wortet hat: „Geschichtliche Tatsachen konnen der Erweis ewiger
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
Wahrheiten nie werden." Kann also der reflektive Rekurs auf das „Ich
bin" in seiner geschichtiichen Bedingtheit uberhaupt den Anspruch
machen, der Weg zur Einsicht in das zu sein, was wir aUe, ein jedes Glied
der ..Menschheit" sind. Es ist dies im Grunde die Frage, die sich Husserl
selbst im Krisis-Werk gestellt hat, die Frage nach der allgemeinen Bedeu-
tung dieses seinem Ursprung nach europaischen Stiles der Reflexion.
Diese Frage kann nun in folgender Weise formuUert werden: Dieser
Weg der Reflexion fuhrt Husserl auf den Gedanken der Absolutheit des
..transzendentalen Ego" als Monade und, was deren Verhaltnis zur
Geschichte betrifft, zu einer Bemerkung, die als die letzte Antwort auf
seine Frage nach dem „Apriori" der Geschichte verstanden werden muB:
Die Welt ist eine geschichtliche nur „durch die innere GeschichtUchkeit
jedes einzelnen und als einzelne in ihrer inneren GeschichtUchkeit mit der
anderer vergemeinschafteten Personen" (Hua VI, 381 Anm. I) 4 . ..Innere
GeschichtUchkeit" besagt im Sinne Husserls eine Charakteristik der
monadischen Qualitat der Einzigkeit jedes einzelnen personalen Subjektes.
Sie ist' danach das ..Apriori", das heiBt, die Struktur, auf Grund deren es ftir
uns uberhaupt erst „die Geschichte" gibt. Inwiefern ist damit ein Verhaltnis
genannt, das in apodiktischer AUgemeinheit fiir jedes personale Subjekt
Uberhaupt gilt, und uns dann schUeBUch von einer ..Geschichte der Men-
schheit" sprechen laBt? Warum kann dieser Satz nicht umgekehrt werden,
wenn andereseits das Wort gelten soU „Die Geschichte ist das groBe
Faktum des absoluten Seins"? Er mtiBte in der Umkehrung lauten: Die
Geschichte ist die apriorische Voraussetzung der inneren GeschichtUchkeit
jedes einzelnen Ichsubjektes; dies ware nur dann mogUch, wenn sich die
..Monade" schon vorab im Zusammenhang der Geschichte findet. In einem
modernen Jargon gesprochen hieBe dies: Die innere GeschichtUchkeit ist
nichts anderes als die InternaUsierung der Geschichte. Nur unter ganz bes-
timmten historischen Bedingungen ware eine solche InternaUsierung
moghch und konnte ein Begriff von ..GeschichtUchkeit" gebildet werden.
Ihm kame demgemaB uber den Bereich abendlandischer Kultur hinaus
keinerlei VerbindUchkeit zu.
Nur wenn gezeigt werden kann, wie die transzendental-phanomenolo-
gische Reflexion imstande ist, eine verbindliche Entscheidung Uber diese
Alternative zu treffen, kann yerstandlich werden, wie die beiden Thesen
Husserls zusammengehoren, und kann die Behauptung begrUndet werden,
daB die transzendentale genetische Phanomenologie transzendentale
Theorie der Geschichte ist. Hierzu ist nun der Shin des Reflexionsweges in
aller KUrze nachzuzeichnen, auf dem Husserl zu seinen beiden Thesen
gefuhrt wurde. Es ist die eigentumUche Form der Reflexivitat naher ins
Auge zu fassen, fUr die nach dem schon genannten Zitat das Ineinander
von historischer und durch sie motivierter systematischer RUckfrage
charakteristisch ist.
Die transzendentale Phanomenologie in ihrer vollen Entwicklung zur
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
genetischen Phanomenologie wird von Husserl auch als Ursprungs-
forschung bezeichnet. Zuletzt nennt er sie auch „Archaologie" des
BewuBtseins, weil sie genetisch die „Tiefenschicht" der passiven Vorkon-
stitution zum Thema hat. Ursprung all unserer Vorstellungen von dem,
was wir erfahren und erkennen, sind die der Reflexion zuganglichen kon-
stituierenden Funktionen der Subjektivitat. Nun ist auch schon fiir Kant
die Transzendentalphilosophie geleitet von der Frage nach dem Ursprung.
Er hat Vernunftursprung und Zeitursprung unterschieden (Kant 1793,39).
Aber diese Unterscheidung wird von Husserl abgelehnt: „Das
herrschende Dogma von der prinzipiellen Trennung von erkenntnistheo-
retischer Aufklarung und historischer Erklarung, von erkenntnistheoretis-
chem und genetischem Ursprung ist . . . grundverkehrt" (Hua VI, 379).
Was ist nun die eigentumliche Form der Reflexivitat, im HinbUck auf
welche diese Behauptung begrUndet werden kann? Diese Form findet sich
nicht in der Tafel der gangigen Begriffe von Reflexion, wie sie H. Wagner
in seinem Artikel „Reflexion" im Handbuch philosophischer Begriffe
zusammengestellt hat. Es ist dort freiUch die Husserlsche Form der Reflex-
ion als „Konstitutipns-reflexion" aufgefuhrt. Sie ist der reflektive RUckgang
vom Noema als Produkt zu den es produzierenden und konstituierenden
Akten. Diese Charakteristik trifft ftir Husserls eigenes Verstandnis seines
Vorgehens freiUch zu. Es ist immer orientiert an dem Schema der Gegen-
standskonstitution, in der sich Gegenstand als synthetische Einheit seiner
Erscheinungsweisen bildet, und er sucht die Selbstkonstitution des Ich als
des indentischen in der Mannigfaltigkeit seiner konstituierenden Aktvol-
lztige nach diesem ModeU zu begreifen. In diesem Sinne ist die Reflexion
immer ein „Nachgewahren", ein nachtragliches Sichzurtickwenden auf die
bereits voUzogenen Funktionen (Landgrebe 1963,192ff.). Es ist dies aber
ein statischer Begriff von Reflexivitat, der damit entwickelt wurde. Husserl
selbst hat freiUch die Grenzen des statischen Verfahrens in seinen genetis-
chen Analysen de facto frtih Uberschritten, aber gerade diesen Ubergang in
seiner systematischen Bedeutung nicht mehr zum Thema gemacht. Er sei
hier in einer vereinfachten Weise skizziert.
Statische Reflexion kann nicht auf den Ursprung der Bekanntschaft mit
uns selbst und unseren konstituierenden Funktionen fuhren, welche aller
Reflexion auf schon vollzogene Akte voranliegt. Diese eigentUmliche
Weise der Reflexivitat als einer vorgangigen Bekanntschaft mit uns selbst
kann durch einen Blick auf die Weise verstandlich werden, wie wir im
alltagUchen Leben zum Anhalten unserer AktvollzUge in einer. Reflexion
auf ihr Gelingen oder MiBUngen motiviert werden. Das geschieht zumeist
dann, wenn wir im Vollzug einer Handlung auf Schwierigkeiten stoBen.
Dann wird der naive Vollzug angehalten mit der Besinnung, die sprachlich
formuliert lauten wtirde „Warum hast Du das nicht gekonnt?" So ist
Reflexion primar immer Ruckwendung auf das, was wir vermogen. Aber
was wir vermogen, das erfahren wir erst in der Betatigung unseres
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
Konnens. Husserl ist diesem Sachverhalt sehr wohl auf der Spur gewesen,
wenn er in der Analyse des kinasthetischen Vermogens in „Ideen" II (Hua
IV, 261) sagt „das ,ich bewege' geht dem ,ich kann' voraus". Das gilt auch
schon dort, wo auf einer frtihen Stufe der vorsprachlichen Entwicklung
des Kindes die zielgerichtete Bewegung der Leibesglieder eingeubt und
nachgeahmt wird. In solcher Betatigung, in ihrem Gelingen oder MiBUn-
gen erfahrt sich das Kind schon frtih als Zentrum und Quelle spontaner
Bewegung, mit der es in seiner Umwelt etwas bewirken, ergreifen,
wegschieben etc. kann. Alle Vorstellungen von wirkenden Kraften haben
in dieser Erfahrung ihren Ursprung. In ihr wird ein „weil - so" in
ursprtingUcher Weise erfahren. DaB dieses Zentrum spontaner Bewegung
und Wirkung sich als Ich dem Du gegentibersteUt, ist genetisch ein
Spateres. Es ist schon vorher diese individuelle Existenz und „kennt" sich
als solche aus der Erfahrung des Verftigenkonnens iiber seinen Leib in
der allmahlich erlernten Fahigkeit der Beherrschung seiner Motorik. Sie
eroffnet ihm den ersten Zugang zu seiner Umwelt.
Man konnte freiUch fragen, ob diese Art vorsprachlicher Bekanntschaft
mit sich selbst als Zentrum spontanen Sichbewegenkonnens etwas spezi-
fisch Menschliches und nicht vielmehr auch dem Tier zuzusprechen ist.
Gilt sie nicht ftir einen jeden biologischen Organismus als einer der Selbst-
steuerung fahigen Einheit? Dazu kann hier nur gesagt werden, sie
fungieren selbstverstandlich als Zentren der Bewegung, aber sie wissen
sich nicht als solche. Husserl spricht in diesem Sinne im AnschluB an
Leibniz von schlafenden Monaden. Es wtirde zu weit fuhren, dieses
Problem hier weiter zu erortern.
Was mit dem Hinweis auf den Ursprung all unseres Wissens um ein
Konnen gesagt sein soU, ist nur dies, daB ohne diese ursprungUche Ver-
trautheit mit dem kinasthetischen Konnen es keine hohere Stufe der Reflex-
ivitat geben kann, die auch auf jeder hoheren Stufe immer den Sinn einer
Reflexion auf das Konnen, auf seinen Spielraum und seine Grenzen hat.
Dieses Sichbewegenkbnnen ist die elementarste Form der Spontaneitdt, und
eine Handlungstheorie, die nicht von ihr ausgeht, kann nur zu einem abstrak-
ten and globalen Begriff von Handlung gelangen. Auch das Sprechen, in
dem das Denkvermogen erst artikuUert wird, hat die Struktur des kinas-
thetischen BewegungsvoUzuges. So sind diese kinasthetischen Funktionen,
ohne die es keine Zeitkonstitution gibt, die tiefstUegende Dimension der
transzendentalen Subjektivitat, die eigentiiche Ursprungssphare, so daB auch
der Leib als fungierender Leib nicht ein bloB Konstituiertes, sondern selbst
konstituierend ist als transzendentale Bedingung der MogUchkeit jeder
hoheren Stufe des BewuBtseins und seines reflexiven Charakters (Land-
grebe, Reflexionen 1974,466 ff.).
Husserl hat diese Konsequenz nicht explizit vollzogen. Aber wenn er
von der „Naturseite" der Subjektivitat spricht, und davon, daB die tran-
szendentale Subjektivitat nur per aequivocationem ein Ich zu nennen ist,
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 L I F E - W O R L D , ETHICS, H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
so weist dies darauf hin, daB er die „Natur" nicht als das Andere
gegenuber der Subjektivitat verstanden wissen wiU, sondern als sie selbst
in ihrem untersten Grunde. So verstanden ist sie nicht die zum Inbegriff
des realen Daseins „au6er uns" objektivierte Natur, sondern die Natur, so
wie sie ftir uns unmittelbar erfahren ist in der Bekanntschaft mit unseren
leiblichen Funktionen. Wenn es diese Beherrschung unserer kinasthetis-
chen Funktionen ist, die uns den ersten Zugang zu unserer Welt eroffnet,
so ware es doch falsch zu sagen, daB es der Leib ist, der individuiert. Er ist
es nur insofern, als ihn einer als seinen Leib weiB, iiber den er in gewissen
Grenzen verftigen kann. Auch dies hat Husserl gesehen, wenn er (a. a. O.
Hua IV) sagt „die Entdeckung des Mein geht der Entdeckung des Ich
voran". Aber er hat nicht die Konsequenzen gezogen, die sich daraus ftir
das Verstandnis des Sinnes der Absolutheit des ..transzendentalen Ego"
ergeben und ftir die Einsicht in den primar praktischen Sinn der Reflexion
als Reflexion auf das Konnen.
Das Sichbewegenkonnen ist die tiefstiiegende transzendentale Funktion,
mit der sich ineins die Zeit konstituiert. Es hat also seinen Grund, daB die
erste ausftihrliche Zeitanalyse - die des Aristoteles - im Kontext der Frage
nach der Bewegung ihren Ort hat (Landgrebe 1969). In der Erfahrung
dieses betatigten Konnens erschUeBt sich je mein oder je des Anderen
unaufhebUches Da als apodiktische GewiBheit lebendiger Funktionsgegen-
wart. Von diesem Da gewinnt der Begriff des absoluten Faktums erst seinen
Sinn: „Einerseits ist das letztfungierende Ich vor aUer Betatigung freier
Variation und Ideation von JchUchkeit tiberhaupt' und vor der Setzung
eines allzeitiichen nunc stans schon da; das Ich stoBt gleichsam auf dieses
'Da', das es selbst ist. Andererseits muB gesagt werden, daB dieses Da nicht
in der Weise ,vorgegeben' ist, wie Sinnesreize hoherstufigen Erfahrungen in
der Konstitution voranUegen" (Held 1966,149, cf. Schtitz, XXXI). Das wfll
sagen: um Sinnesreize zu empfangen, bedarf es schon dieses Da. Das muB
richtig verstanden werden: wenn wir von unserem Da sprechen, so ist mit
diesem Demonstrativum schon immer mitgemeint ein Da an seiner Zeit-
stelle, dem andere Da vorangehen und folgen. Aber diese Rede stammt.aus
einer nachgewahrenden Reflexion, in der dieses Da schon vergegen-
standUcht ist als eines unter anderen, denen das in aUen beharrende „ste-
hende und bleibende Ich" korrespondiert. Es ist diejenige Reflexion, welche
Hegels Dialektik der sinnUchen GewiBheit in Gang setzt; sie soU zeigen, daB
diese vermeintUche Unmittelbarkeit selbst eine vermittelte ist. Hier dagegen
handelt es sich um den Nachweis, daB diese lebendige Funktionsgegenwart
ein apodiktisch undurchstreichbar Gewisses ist, ein nicht mehr hinterfrag-
bares Faktum, und in diesem Sinne unmittelbar und absolut, als absolutes
Faktum, das die tiefstiiegende transzendentale Bedingung der Moglichkeit
aUer Funktionen und ihrer Leistungen ist.
Die konstitutiven Funktionen sind immer Vermogenzu . . . aber
Vermogen sind ftir uns nur „da", indem sie betatigt werden. Wird dieses
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
Fungieren zum Gegenstand der Reflexion, die als solche immer ein
Nachgewahren ist, dann wird es nicht mehr als das erfaBt, was es in seinem
lebendigen Vollzug ist. Nur in ihm ist es „selbst da". FreiUch dieses
apodiktisch gewisse Selbstda entspricht nicht den Forderungen, die
Husserl an den RUckgang auf letzte apodiktische GewiBheit gestellt hat.
Selbstdasein bedeuter ftir ihn, in phanomenologischer Reflexion
anschaulich sein. Aber eine Funktion ab Konnen kann nicht angeschaut
werden, sie kann in ihrem Selbst-da nur bewuBt sein in ihrer Betatigung.
Hier ist freiUch eine Grenze nachgewahrender, das Gewahrte thema-
tisierender Reflexion erreicht, jenseits derer es gleichwohl ein unmittelbar
apodiktisch Gewisses gibt. Es ist freiUch vorsprachUch. Wird es ausge-
sprochen, so unterUegt das Aussprechen schon dem Ontifikationszwang,
der mit der Rede unausweichlich verbunden ist, weil die Bedeutung ihrer
Worter immer schon bezogen ist auf bereits Konstituiertes und nicht auf
letztkonstituierende Funktionen. Gleichwohl ist dieses absolute Da nichts
bloB Erschlossenes, sondern eben in seinem Fungieren Bekanntes und
Gewisses, gewiB als die Unausweichlichkeit des Da, von dem wir schon
immer gestellt sind, und dem uns zu stellen wir gezwungen sind. In diesem
Sinne ist es absolutes Faktum, das hinzunehmen, durch keine Reflexion
mehr zu hinterfragen ist. „Das letztfungierende Ich kann sich selbst als
standiges nicht einholen. Das letztfungierende Ich ist seinem eigenen
reflexiven Gegenwartigen stetig vorweg" (Held 1966).
Damit ist in kurzen und groben ZUgen der genetische Reflexionsweg
der transzendental meditierenden Jch-Monade nachgezeichnet. Dieser
Weg ftihrt auf ihr undurchstreichbares Da als den letzten Grund der
apodiktischen Gewifiheit ihrer selbst als lebendiger Funktionsgegenwart.
Dieser Grund selbst kann nicht mehr reflektiv thematisiert werden. Er
wird vielmehr erfahren als die Grenze, auf die die transzendentale Reflex-
ion stoBt und an der sie sich bricht. Wenn nun Reflexion primar den Sinn
einer Reflexion auf das Konnen hat, so besagt dies, daB sie hier an die
Grenze ihres Kdnnens stoBt, der gegentiber aUes Konnen machtlos ist, und
die es einfach hinzunehmen hat. So findet sich jedes Ich-subjekt im
Vollzug seiner konstituierenden Funktionen in unmittelbarer Weise in
sein Da gestellt - in der Sprache von Heideggers „Sein und Zeit" ausge-
drtickt konnte man sagen „geworfen". Es wird dabei mit sich als dem
Zentrum seiner Funktionen und mit ihrem Konnen unmittelbar durch
ihren Vollzug bekannt. Es erfahrt sich dabei, in dem, was es vermag, und
erfahrt von Anfang an sein Konnen als ein zu erlernendes und zu tibendes.
In dieser Erfahrung ist aber bereits die Verweisung auf seine Lebens-
geschichte beschlossen: das Konnen, in dem es sich erfahrt, ist erfahren als
ein gewordenes durch die Geschichte seiner Erfahrung, in der es dieses
sein Konnen ausgebildet hat. Sie kann ihm in Reflexion primar als die
Geschichte seines Lebens bekannt werden, die aber „anonym" schon
immer geschehen ist und gewirkt hat, bevor die Reflexion darauf beginnt.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , ETHICS, H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
Eine solche Reflexion kann z. B. sprachlich artikuliert lauten „Warum ist es
so gekommen, warum habe ich dies getan?". Daher kann Husserl sagen
„Die Frage des Warum ist ursprtinglich Frage nach der .Geschichte'" (Hua
XV, 420). Das wfll sagen, sie ist die Frage nach der „inneren
GeschichtUchkeit", die aUem ausdrfickUchen Sich-erinnern und aller Auto-
biographic vorangeht und der transzendentale Grund ihrer MogUchkeit ist.
Diese „innere GeschichtUchkeit" ist auffindbar auf dem Wege einer
„egologischen" Reflexion und genetischen Ruckfrage. Sie wird gefunden als
die GeschichtUchkeit des je-eigenen Lebens, das durch sein Da unaus-
tauschbar und unaufhebUch von dem jedes Anderen getrennt ist. Nun soil
aber nach Husserl die innere GeschichtUchkeit das „Apriori" der
Geschichte sein, sei diese nun verstanden als die Geschichte der eigenen
Famflie oder des eigenen Volkes, der eigenen Epoche oder ganz allgemein
als die Geschichte der „Menschheit", also immer der Geschichte, die ein
jeder mit den Anderen gemeinsam hat. Wie kommen nun die Anderen in
die je-eigene „innere GeschichtUchkeit" hinein, oder wie kann es evident
gemacht werden, daB sie schon immer in ihr mit darin sind? Diese Frage ist
keine andere als die nach dem „Fenster" der Monade. Nur wenn ein solches
nachweisbar ist nicht bloB als erschlossenes und postuUertes, sondern als
von vornherein erfahrenes, kann die jeweils eigene innere GeschichtUchkeit
als Apriori der Geschichte in Anspruch genommen werden, und kann die
Zusammengehorigkeit der beiden Thesen von der Absolutheit der Monade
und von der Absolutheit der Geschichte verstandUch werden.
Es ist die Aufgabe der transzendentalen genetischen Intersubjektivitat-
stheorie, den Weg zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen freiztilegen. Wie schon
einleitend bemerkt wurde, ist Husserl bei der ersten ausfuhrlichen
Darstellung seiner Intersubjektivitatstheorie in der 5. Cartesianischen
Meditation daran gescheitert, daB er diese statisch zu entwickeln suchte.
Darauf ist nun wenigstens mit einigen Andeutungen zurtickzukommen.
Eine ausfuhrliche Untersuchung wtirde den Rahmen unserer Erorterung
vollig sprengen. Die nun vorUegenden drei Bande Uber Husserls Intersub-
jektivitatsanalysen (Hua XIII-XV) 5 zeigen, daB Husserl bereits 1927 die
Grenzen einer rein statischen Analyse tiberschritten hatte,-indem er die
Konstitution der Intersubjektivitat durch apprSsentierende analo-
gisierende Apperzeption auf ihre passive Vorkonstitution in einer assozia-
tiv gestifteten Apprasentation zurtickzuftihren suchte. Aber auch dieser
Versuch laBt die Frage offen, ob nicht fur solche assoziative Analo-
gisierung die Selbstunterscheidung der Monade von dem Du, dem Wir
und uberhaupt von dem Anderen bereits vorausgesetzt ist, derart, daB ihr
eigenes Da in Korrespondenz stehen kann mit dem D a des Anderen, so
daB ihre je-eigene Zeitlichkeit und innere GeschichtUchkeit apriori .in
einer Beziehung steht zu der der Anderen, so daB eine gemeinsame Zeit
mogUch wird und mit Recht von einer Ur-intersubjektivitat gesprochen
werden kann, die gleichursprunglich mit dem jeweils vereinzelten „Ur-
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
Ich" ist, derart, daB eines nicht ohne das andere sein kann. Es ist also die
Frage zu beantworten „Wie kommen die Anderen in meine eigene Ur-
Zeitigung?" (Hua XV, 353), so daB jede „Seele" „zwar in sich und ftir sich
ist, daB sie aber doch nur Sinn hat in einer in ihr selbst gegrtindeten, aus
ihr selbst zu entfaltenden Pluralitat" (Hua XV, 341).
Husserl ist eine systematische Entfaltung und Beantwortung dieser
Fragen nicht mehr gelungen, wohl aber geben einige spate Manuskripte
den Hinweis in die Richtung, in der sie gesucht werden kann. Dort wird
Husserls schon frtihere Charakteristik der Intentionalitat als „Urstreben in
der Monade" ein Sttick weiter konkretisiert: ..Dtirfen oder mtissen wir
nicht eine universale Trieb-Intentionalitat voraussetzen, die jede urttim-
liche Gegenwart als stehende Zeitigung einheitlich ausmacht und von
Gegenwart zu Gegenwart forttreibt, derart, daB aller Inhalt Inhalt von
Trieberftillung ist und vor dem Ziel intendiert ist" (Hua XV, 595). „Die
Strukturanalyse der urttimUchen Gegenwart (das stehende lebendige
Stromen) ftihrt uns auf die Ich-Struktur und die sie fundierende standige
Unterschicht des ichlosen Strdmens, das durch eine konsequente Rtick-
frage auf das, was auch die sedimentierte Aktivitat moglich macht und
voraussetzt, auf das radikal Vor-Ichliche zuruckleitet" (Hua XV, 598). In
diesem Sinne sucht Husserl den Geschlechtstrieb „als instinktive Ur-
intentionalitat der Vergemeinschaftung" zu verstehen (Ms. E III 10, 1:
Waldenfels, 298). Als Urtrieb ist er von vornherein auf den Anderen
bezogen und hat in ihm seine Erwiderung. „Im Trieb selbst liegt die Bezo-
genheit auf den Anderen als Anderen und auf seinen korrelativen Trieb".
In seiner „ur-modalen ErfUUung haben wir nicht zwei zu trennende Erftil-
lungen je in der einen und anderen Primordinalitat, sondern eine sich
durch das Ineinander der Erftillungen herstellende Einheit der beiden Pri-
mordinaUtaten" (Hua XV, 593f.).
Es sei versucht, diesen Gedanken erganzend noch ein StUck weiter zu
verfolgen.
Die Folge der ErfUUung jenes „Urtriebes" kann die Geburt eines neuen
Menschen mit seiner ihm dann eigenen Geschichte sein, die aber in ihren
Moglichkeiten schon weitgehend durch das Erbe seiner Vorfahren bes-
timmt ist6. So sind Zeugung und Geburt nicht bloB Themen der Biologie,
sondern von transzendentalphilosophischer Bedeutung als Bedingungen
der MogUchkeit von Geschichte. Es grtindet darin der Unterschied der
Generationen, durch den das, was sie gemeinsam haben, aufgrund der
unterschiedlichen Zeit ihres Lebens in unterschiedUchen Perspektiven
erscheint. So bildet sich gemeinsame Geschichte, einer Familie, eines
Volkes, einer Epoche etc. Jedes in sie durch seine Geburt und sein
Erwachsenwerden eintretende Glied hat seine Zeit, die ihm zugeteilt ist.
Erst durch solchen RUckgang auf die tiefstliegenden genetischen Struk-
turen, der hier nur stichwortartig angedeutet werden konnte, ist der Satz
Husserls mit konkretem Inhalt erftillt: ..Geschichte ist von vornherein
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y ; AND METAPHYSICS
nichts anderes als die lebendige Bewegung des Miteinander und Ineinan-
der von ursprtinglicher Sinnbildung und Sinnsedimentierung".
Die „Fenster" der Ich-Monade sind also nicht erst oben in der Apperzep-
tion oder tieferUegend in der assoziativen Analogisierung zu suchen;
sondern im „Urtrieb", der als solcher schon immer auf den Anderen
bezogen ist und in ihm seine Erwiderung und ErfUUung hat. In seiner Ur-
einigung in der Doppefheit grtindet die MogUchkeit der Analogie von Mit-
gegenwart und Selb.stgegenwart, die Held in seiner schon oben genannten
Auseinandersetzung mit Husserls Intersubjektivitatstheorie thematisiert
hat. Die GewiBheit um das Da des Anderen geht also allem Apperzipieren
und alien Assoziationen voran. Ihr letzter Grund ist auch nicht das
„Apriori" der Ich-Du-Beziehung, das Waldenfels untersuchte. Er hat darum
wohl gewuBt, indem er zuletzt nach dem „Untergrund" des Dialogs fragte.
Diese vorgangige Einigkeit und gleichwohl absolute Getrenntheit ist
ursprUnglich passiv erfahren im Vollzung des Strebens zum Anderen, das in
ihm seine Erwiderung findet. Diese Erfahrung ist „absolute Erfahrung"
(Landgrebe 1973, 13 ff.), und auf ihrem Grunde ist die Geschichte absolut.
Aber sie ist mehr als die Geschichte im Sinne der res gestae, sie schlieBt das
in sich ein, was alien res gestae voranliegt, das transzendentale Eins-sein in
Entzweiung, das wieder zu neuem Eins-sein ftihrt, zu einer neuen absoluten
Monade, die schon die generativ gemeinsamen Ztige in sich tragt. Sie sind
gemeinsam, weil die Erfuflung der ursprtingUchen TriebintentionaUtat eine
„Einheit der beiden PrimordinaUtaten", des Einen und des Anderen, her-
stellt. Jede hat im strdmenden Vollzug ihr Da, das in der Erfullung zum
gemeinsamen wird. Dieses Da ist das Da der leibUch sich bewegenden Sub-
jekte. In ihrem leiblichen Sich-bewegen ist ihnen von vornherein „Natur"
erschlossen, weil sie selbst als leibUche in sie „hineingehoren". Es ist ein Da
an seinem „Ort" in der Natur, und damit bezogen auf die „Erde". Sie „ftigt
sich ein in eine universale .Naturhistorie', in die der Mensch als Lebewesen
hineinreicht" (Ms C I u. B III, I: Waldenfels, 336; cf. Hua VI, 304).
Aber die Geschichte ist deswegen keineswegs nur Naturgeschichte.
Wohl aber ist „Naturgeschehen" ihr Boden, aber nicht im Sinne einer
nicht weiter bestimmbaren „Materie", sondern uns bekannt als die
„Erde", und das heiBt, als der Inbegriff der Bedingungen, die allem Tdtig-
sein des Menschen und damit seiner Geschichte im Sinne der res gestae ihre
Grenzen setzen. Gerade dies ist die Situation, in der wir heute Geschichte
erfahren, weil uns diese Begrenzung aller menschlichen Moglichkeiten
desto ausdrtickUcher bewuBt geworden ist, je weiter der Vorgang der
Bemachtigung der Erde fortgeschritten ist. Zur Absolutheit unseres Da
gehort die Absolutheit der Erde als der Grenze jedes moglichen Da. Von
der Raumfahrt soU hier nicht weiter gesprochen werden. Sie wird wohl
kaum jemals anders als „erdbezogen" geschehen konnen. „Erde" in
diesem Sinne ist also ein transzendentaler Grenzbegriff. Sie ist eine Grund-
struktur der menschlichen Lebenswelt und bezeichnet zugleich die
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T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E
Grenze, in bezug auf die alle unsere Reden von „Natur" aUein einen
anschaulich erfullbaren Sinn, ftir uns gewinnen. Es ist ein Grenzbegriff, der
zugleich die Moglichkeit jeder Spekulation iiber eine in sich und an sich
waltende Natur abschneidet. Erdgeschichte und Naturgeschichte gibt es
nur, sofern wir durch unsere Individuation geschichtliche Wesen sind, auf
deren jeweiliges Da alle Zeitbestimmungen des Naturgeschehens letzten
Endes zuruckbezogen sind.
In diesem universalen Sinne, auch das Naturgeschehen in sich
befassend, ist also das Wort von der Geschichte als dem groBen Faktum
des absoluten Seins zu verstehen. Es ist das stehendstromende Geschehen,
das „transzendentale Leben", das sich nur dadurch als Geschehen erfahrt,
daB es sich schon immer als Trennung und zugleich Einigung der zunachst
anonym sich bewegenden Zentren der Bewegung (der „Monaden") vol-
lzieht (Hua XV, 373f.). In diesem Sinne ist es zu verstehen, daB „das Jch'
schon immer voraus ist, aber zugleich das Stromen immer voraus ist" (Ms
C VII, I, 18). Von daher ist es auch zu verstehen, in welchem Sinne der
Satz gilt, daB „Natur" selbst ein Gebilde der transzendentalen Geschichte
ist (Hua XV, 391); denn nur weil die transzendentalen Subjekte, die
Monaden, schon „geschichtlich" sind, „gibt" es auch ftir uns so etwas wie
eine Naturhistorie und dann eine Wissenschaft von der Natur, welche sich
im modernen Sinne erst dadurch konstituieren konnte, daB sie von diesem
transzendentalen Bezug methodisch abstrahiert. In diesem Sinne ist also
die Zusammengehorigkeit von Absolutheit der Monade und Absolutheit
der Geschichte zu verstehen. Inwiefern ist dann die Bestimmung des
„Absoluten" als „Da" eine transzendentale und damit eine apriorische
Bestimmung, und daher die Phanomenologie, die zu diesem obersten
Punkte ftihrt, Transzendentalphilosophie? Sie ist es, weil sie auf das ftihrt,
was allem anderen, von dem wir in irgendeinem Sinne sagen konnen „es
ist", schon immer zuvorgekommen ist. Die Faktizitat dieses Da ist ein
Strukturprinzip (Aguirre). Das Zuvorkommen ist in seinem „zuvor"
„anonym", und so sind „anonym" und „Da" transzendentale Bestim-
mungen, mit denen der aufierste Punkt transzendentaler Reflexion erreicht
ist. Es ist der Punkt, an dem sie die sich selbst gesetzte Grenze findet als
eine solche, die sie nicht tiberschreiten kann. Sie kann das Zuvorkommen
nicht hintergehen. Mit dieser Entdeckung ist das entdeckt, von woher
transzendentale Reflexion und Transzendentalphilosophie sich als Kritik
jedes Dogmatismus verstehen muB. Diese Kritik ist nicht nur Kritik der
alten, vorkantischen Metaphysik, sondern auch zugleich Kritik der verbor-
genen metaphysischen Implikate in den modernen sich antimetaphysisch
dtinkenden Positionen. Sie verbietet auch das Uberschreiten der von ihr
gefundenen Grenzen durch eine Postulatenlehre im Sinne Kants. Aber sie
ftihrt deswegen keineswegs zu einem absoluten Skeptizismus. Gerade im
HinbUck auf die Bedingungen der Moglichkeit daftir, daB es ftir uns so
etwas wie „die Geschichte" „gibt", ftihrt sie zur Einsicht in das, was von
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S T R A N S Z E N D E N T A L E T H E O R I E DER G E S C H I C H T E

uns als oberstes Prinzip der Lebensftihrung angesichts dieser durch ihre cher Forschung (fiir Ludwig Landgrebe zum 70. Geburtstag), hrsg. von U. Claes-
Grenzen bestimmbaren condition humaine in unbedingter Allgemeinheit ges und K. Held (Phaenomenologica 49), Den Haag 1972, S. 3-60.
und Verbindlichkeit gefordert ist. Es wurde zu zeigen gesucht, daB die Kant, Immanuel: Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloBen Vernunft 1793, in:
Faktizitat der Geschichte an der Faktizitat des Da der jeweils vereinzelten Kants Werke - Akademie-Ausgabe Band VI.
Landgrebe, Ludwig: Der Weg der Phanomenologie, Gutersloh 1963.
individuellen Existenz hangt (Landgrebe, Faktizitat, 1974, 275 ff.). SoU es
—: Die Zeitanalyse in der Phanomenologie und in der klassischen Tradition, in:
also ftir diese in ihr Da auf der „Erde" gebannte Menschheit eine Zukunft Phanomenologie - lebendig oder tot? Hrsg. Eugen Fink u. a., Karlsruhe 1969.
geben und ihre Geschichte nicht am Ende sein, so ist die Bedingung daftir —: The phenomenological Concept of Experience, in: Philosophy and Phenom-
nicht nur die Anerkennung aller „unseresgleichen" eben als gleicher, enological Research, XXXIV/1 (1973), S. 13ff.
sondern zugleich als absolut individuell verschiedener. Die unbedingt-aUge- —: Meditation uber Husserls Wort ,Die Geschichte ist das groBe Faktum des
mein verbindliche Forderung ist also die der Anerkennung und der absoluten Seins', in: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie XXXVI/1 (1974), S. 107-126.
Achtung vor der jeweils eigenen individuellen Existenz eines jeden —: Reflexionen zu Husserls Konstitutionslehre, in: Tijdschrift voor pilosofie
„unseresgleichen" und der historisch gewordenen Gruppen, Volker, XXXVI/3 (1974), S. 466^82.
Stamme, Nationen in ihrer „kollektiven" IndividuaUtat. Erst in dieser —: Faktizitat und Individuation, in: Sein und GeschichtUchkeit. Festschrift fur K.
Anerkennung ist es begrUndet, daB die Hinnahme der eigenen Faktizitat H. Volkmann-Schluck, Frankfurt a. M. 1974, S. 275 ff.
Schutz, Alfred: Collected Papers I, ed. M. Natanson (Phaenomenologica 11), Den
nicht die Unterwerfung unter ein undurchschaubares Geschick bedeutet,
Haag 1962.
sondern die MogUchkeit einer menschlichen Welt.
Strasser, Stephan: Grundgedanken der Sozialontologie Edmund Husserls, in: Zs. f.
philos. Forschg. Bd. 29 (1975), S. 3-33.
Notes Waldenfels, Bernhard: Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs. Sozialphilosophische
Untersuchungen im AnschluB an Edmund Husserl (Phaenomenologica 41), Den
1 Eroffnungsvortrag fur die „Internationalen phanomenologischen Studientage", Haag 1971.
Berlin 23.-27. 5.1974.
2 Msk. K III, 12, S. 34 f. - Zitiert nach Held, 1966,147.
3 Zur ausfuhrlicheren Interpretation dieser These vgl. Landgrebe, Meditation
1974,107 ff. und in englischer Fassung: The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy,
vol. V/3, p. lllff. Norman/Oklahoma 1974. Die folgenden Ausfuhrungen
konnen als eine zum Teil erganzende, zum Teil verbessernde Variation dieses
Themas verstanden werden.
4 Das Zitat stammt aus der Abhandlung „Vom Ursprung der Geometrie" von
1936 (Hua VI, Beilage III S. 367-386).
5 Vgl. dazu die ausfuhrliche Analyse von S. Strasser zu Husserls Sozialontologie,
die bei Abfassung dieses Beitrags noch nicht vorlag.
6 Zum Problem der „Erbmasse" als Leerhorizont vgl. Hua XV, 604 ff.

Literaturverzeichnis
Aguirre, Antonio: Genetische Phanomenologie und Reduktion. Zur Letztbegrun-
dung der Wissenschaft aus der radikalen Skepsis im Denken E. Husserls
(Phaenomenologica 38), Den Haag 1970.
Fink, Eugen: Die Spatphilosophie E. Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit, in: Edmund
Husserl 1859-1959, Recueil Comm6moratif (Phaenomenologica 4), Den Haag
1959, S. 99-115.
Held, Klaus: Lebendige Gegenwart. Die Frage nach der Seinsweise des transzen-
dentalen Ich bei Edmund Husserl, entwickelt am Leitfaden der Zeitproblematik
(Phaenomenologica 23), Den Haag 1966.
—: Das Problem der Intersubjektivitat und die Idee einer phanomenologischen
Transzendentalphilosophie, in: Perspektiven transzendental-phanomenologis-

182 183

79
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS A N D T H E
P R O B L E M O F H I S T O R Y
David Carr
Source: Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 5(3) (1974): 127-148.
It has long been claimed that The Crisis of European Sciences, Husserl's
last work, represents a significant new development in his thought. I
believe this is true, but I think this claim has consistently been made for
the wrong reasons. Not the concept of the life-world, which is usually
taken as the new departure, but the emergence of the problem of history,
is what is radically new in the Crisis. To be sure, the two notions are
closely related. But there is a way of considering the life-world which,
although it greatly expands the scope of Husserl's earlier phenomenology,
is entirely consistent with its program. It is otherwise with the problem of
history, as I shall try to show. For what this problem introduces into
phenomenology is neither a new theme for investigation nor even, as in
the case of the life-world, a new conception of the whole domain of inves-
tigation. Rather, it calls forth a new conception of the procedure of investi-
gation itself, a new conception of phenomenological method.
Of course there are also those who have argued that there is really
nothing new in the Crisis. After aU, the work bears the subtitle 'Introduc-
tion to Phenomenological Transcendental Philosophy', presumably the
same transcendental phenomenology that had been introduced in the
Ideas and the Cartesian Meditations. The manner of introduction is new, to
be sure, dispensing with and even criticizing the Cartesian approach of the
two earlier works. But Husserl had experimented with other methods of
introduction before, notably the logical method of Formal and Transcen-
dental Logic and the psychological one of the Encyclopedia Britannica
article. There is certainly no evidence that Husserl himself regarded his
phenomenology as being crucially, much less fatally, affected by the ideas
explored in his last work, that his remarks about the end of the dream of
philosophy as rigorous science should be taken as his own opinion. Those
who regard the Crisis as a kind of deathbed conversion to existentialism
and a renunciation of his earlier efforts have simply not read the text. As
184
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
for the historical considerations, it might be said, this is easily explained.
Husserl begins by stating that the sciences are in crisis because philosophy
has failed in its task of clarifying their ultimate unity and significance.
Even thus is nothing new - it was the theme of 'Philosophy as a Rigorous
Science' in 1910. Having thus pointed to the crisis, it is to be expected that
Husserl should be interested in finding out how we got into it, going back,
as he does, to the origins of modern science in Galileo and tracing the
course of the flawed attempts at its philosophical interpretation from
Descartes to Kant. What is more normal, in fact, than that a philosopher
should rehearse the failures of his predecessors to solve philosophical
problems, before proceeding to solve them himself? Coming from Husserl,
such an elaborate treatment of the history of philosophy is perhaps
unusual, but he had done something like this before, in the 1923-24 lec-
tures on 'First Philosophy', whose 'systematic part' had been preceded by
a 'critical history of ideas'. 1 Although he had not tried this before in print,
external circumstances may have decided him in favor of it. The turbulent
events of the Nazi years, Husserl's feeling that he had been deserted by his
most brifUant students and the reading public - all suggested the need for
a new and more impressive mode of presentation for his phenomenology.
If this were truly the character of the historical framework of the Crisis,
and these Husserl's motives for adopting it, one might remark its novelty
but not be inclined to ascribe to it any significance for the program of
phenomenology. But such a reading would also be guilty of ignoring the
text, for Husserl's historical investigations exhibit features which distin-
guish it sharply from anything he has done before. These features make it
impossible to dismiss them as embellishments chosen for external effect or
timely relevance, and they prove, as we shall see, to be of decisive signific-
ance for phenomenology itself.
In the first place, Husserl justifies his historical reflections in terms of
urgent necessity. After expounding this notion of the crisis of science,.
Husserl says: 'What is clearly necessary (what else could be of help here?)
is that we reflect back, in a thorough historical and critical fashion, in order
to provide, before all decisions, for a radical self-understanding'.2 We gain
a notion of the 'task which is truly our own' as philosophers, he says later,
'only through a critical understanding of the total unity of history - our
history'. 3 The critical-historical reflections in which Husserl is engaged are
described as 'the philosopher's genuine self-reflection on what he is truly
seeking [auf das, worauf er eigentlich hinauswilt]'? Such remarks suggest
much more than a mere resume and critique of past attempts to solve
philosophical problems before proceeding to their true solution. Such a
resume might be helpful, but would not be a material part of philosophy
itself and could just as well be dispensed with. But here we find Husserl
insisting on the necessity of historical reflections in order to discern the
very business of philosophy itself. Being clear on the task of philosophy
185
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
cannot be dissociated from doing philosophy; it is an indispensable part of
its establishment. And, as we know, it is the establishment or foundation
of philosophy, its true beginning, that is Husserl's prime interest.
But why does this require precisely historical reflections? Husserl first
calls for them because his brief exposition of the contrast between the
present crisis and the optimism of the Renaissance has, as he says,
'reminded us that as philosophers we are heirs to the past in respect to the
goals which the word 'philosophy' indicates, in terms of concepts, prob-
lems and methods'. 5 Later, he says that historical reflections are needed to
reveal the 'task which is truly our own' because 'we not only have a spir-
itual heritage, but have become what we are thoroughly and exclusively in
a historical-spiritual manner'. 6 'A historical reflection of the sort under dis-
cussion', he writes, 'is thus actually the deepest kind of self-reflection
aimed at a self-understanding in terms of what we are truly seeking as the
historical beings [historisches Wesen] we are'. 7 These remarks suggest that
'being historical' is something like an essential trait of those who do philo-
sophy, and because of this they must begin philosophy in a historical way.
An indication of the importance he attached to his historical reflections
is Husserl's recurring preoccupations with the method, aims, and presup-
position of his procedure. Twice in the course of Part II of the Crisis
Husserl interrupts his historical expositions with remarks on the method
he is following.8 As if unsatisfied, he returns to the problem in a text
designed as a preface to Part III but not included in the published text.9
Other unpublished manuscripts of the period exhibit the same preoccupa-
tion. The common point of departure in these methodological considera-
tions is a negative one: what we are engaged in, although certainly
historical in character, is not history in the usual sense. This shows us an
important difference between the Crisis and the first part of the Erste
Philosophie. In the 1923 lectures, which are in many details similar to the
exposition of the Crisis, Husserl hardly seems conscious of methodological
problems. What he is engaged in is, after all, something easily classifiable
and famfliar: it is a 'history of ideas'.10
But most important of all, the distinction between the 'historical intro-
duction' and the 'systematic part', found in the Erste Philosophie, is
broken down in the Crisis. Historical expositions are, to be sure, found pri-
marily in Part II, while the two sections of Part III, on the life-world and
psychology respectively, are largely nonhistorical in character. But even
they are couched in historical references, and the historical and nonhistori-
cal are constantly mixed. In any case, if historical reflection really belongs
essentiaUy and not just accidentally to the estabUshment of philosophy, as
we have seen, then it is just as 'systematic' as the nonhistorical.
We have already spoken of the notion of alternative 'ways into'
phenomenology, a notion Husserl first developed, in fact, in the Erste
Philosophie. One possible interpretation of Husserl's novel approach in
186
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
the Crisis is that reflection on the history of philosophy is now seen by
Husserl as one of these ways. But this interpretation is not tenable.
Husserl is still explicitly conscious of the notion of alternative ways in the
Crisis, and the two sections of Part III are presented as two parallel ones:
the way from the pre-given life-world and the way from psychology. But
history is not mentioned in these terms. In fact, as we have seen, Husserl's
language indicates something much stronger than this. The historical route
is not a merely possible but a necessary one, and the idea seems to be that
whichever of several parallel alternatives is chosen, it must be accompan-
ied by historical reflections.
The idea that the way to philosophical truth passes through the history
of philosophy is not new in itself, but for Husserl it is not only new but
almost startling in contrast to his earUer views. 'Zu den Sachen selbst!' was
the motto of the early phenomenological school gathered about Husserl.
What it meant primarily was best expressed by Husserl in 'Philosophy as
Rigorous Science': 'The impulse of research must proceed not from philo-
sophies but from the issues and problems [von den Sachen und Proble-
men]'?1 To deal with the history of philosophy is to deal not with the
Sachen but only with what others have said about the Sachen. Husserl
objected not to the history of philosophy as a discipline, of course, but only
to the tendency to confuse if with philosophy itself, either in the manner of
Weltanschauungsphilosophie or as an attempt to conjure a doctrine of one's
own by ingeniously mixing and stirring the doctrines of others. In the Ideas,
to ward off from the start any such temptation, Husserl laid down what he
called the 'philosophical epoche': 'Expressly formulated [it] consists in this,
that we completely abstain from judgment respecting the doctrinal content
of all pre-existing philosophy, and conduct aU our expositions within the
framework of this abstention'.12 Husserl does not, of course, rule out refer-
ences to philosophy as 'historical fact' especially for purposes of criticizing
one or another of its representatives. And, indeed, criticisms of other philo-
sophers are found throughout his writings. But we find nothing Uke the
elaborate historical reflections of the Crisis and nothing like the insistence
on the necessity and problematic character of such reflections.
. If is the 'thoroughly and exclusively' historical character of those who
do philosophy which makes it necessary, says Husserl, that they reflect
critically on the history of philosophy in order to 'do' it properly. What
does this mean - in what sense are potential philosophers 'historical
beings' - and why should it result in this requirement? After all, philo-
sophers could be, in some sense, historical beings without, for that reason,
having to engage in historical reflections. What is Husserl's concept of the
historicity of the potential philosopher? In this concept lies the only expla-
nation for Husserl's new approach, the key to its correct interpretation,
and the clarification of its ultimate significance for the phenomenological
program.
187
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
The answer to this question is to be found, I think, in Husserl's earlier
philosophy, and goes back even to some of his earliest writings. It is in the
very pursuit of the project of transcendental philosophy that Husserl even-
tually arrives at the necessity for this seemingly untranscendental pro-
cedure. But if the answer is to be found in Husserl's earlier writings, it is
there only in concealment, for otherwise the necessity of historical reflec-
tions would have emerged much sooner. Or, to put it more precisely,
certain lines of inquiry, pursued independently throughout Husserl's
career, finally intersect in the Crisis, and their intersection explains
Husserl's novel approach. These lines of inquiry are pursued under the
headings of genetic phenomenology and the theory of intersubjectivity. Let
us examine these separately before dealing with their convergence and its
consequences for the problem of history.
Genetic phenomenology derives directly from the demands of transcen-
dental philosophy. The latter gets its name, Husserl says, from the
problem of transcendence. 13 The transcendence of the object - its objectiv-
ity or validity (Geltung) as such - does not ground itself but must be
grounded in the consciousness in which it manifests itself. In the Logical
Investigations, the givenness of the objective is sought in consciousness
conceived as sense-bestowing, intentional experience or act. In the Ideas,
this notion is broadened through the concept of attitude - pre-eminently
the natural attitude - which is not itself an act but which underlies and
expresses itself in all acts falling within it. Both of these concepts - act and
attitude - are static, in that they do not take into account the flowing char-
acter of consciousness. The natural attitude runs undifferentiated through
the life of consciousness, and the act or cogito, at least as originally con-
ceived, is a sUce in time, likewise undifferentiated temporally. Such char-
acterizations are obviously abstract from the standpoint of a description of
consciousness, but, more important, they are also abstract from the tran-
scendental point of view as weU. That is, the givenness of the objective
must be regarded as a temporal affair, for the object is given as a unity
through the temporal multipUcity of its appearances. Thus the concepts of
retention, protention, recoUection, and such, first developed in answer to
the question of our experience of time, must be brought into play in the
analysis of our experience of anything in time. The abstract, static treat-
ment of consciousness in the Ideas must be made concrete by taking into
account the dynamic or temporal dimension.
With this, the character of transcendental grounding changes some-
what. Each act passes into retention as it is replaced by a new act. As the
original act is pushed farther and farther back by successive retentional
modifications it approaches what Husserl calls, in Formal and Transcen-
dental Logic, an 'essentially necessary limit. That is to say: with this inten-
tional modification there goes hand in hand a gradual diminuation of
prominence: and precisely this has its limit, at which the formerly promi-
188
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
nent subsides into the universal substratum - the socaUed 'unconscious'
which, far from being a phenomenological nothing, is itself a limit mode of
consciousness'.14 In passing beyond the limit of conscious retention,
Husserl says, the past cogitatio becomes sedimented as an acquisition or
possession (Erwerb or Habe) which can be awakened in recollection. But
even if is not actually reawakened, it remains a part of what the calls 'the
substratum of sedimented prominences which, as a horizon, accompanies
every living present': 15
Thus, while, from the transcendental point of view, every object is given
as what it is in virtue of the character of the act in which it is given, this act
in turn is what it is partly by virtue of the temporal background or horizon
against which it stands out. 'Every evidence', as Husserl says in the Car-
tesian Meditations, 'sets up' or 'institutes' for me an abiding possession'?6
and it is with an ever growing stock of such abiding possessions that con-
sciousness enters each new living present. Each act not only intends its
object but unifies itself with its past and intends its object in light of that
past. Its sedimented evidences, although no longer actual, function as pre-
suppositions and norms for the future until cancelled or modified by
present evidence. Thus, consciousness, rather than a mere succession of
experiences linked by memory, or tied to an unchanging ego, is a cumula-
tive process of reciprocal interrelations and influences. Again, it must be
emphasized that this characterization is called forth not only by the desire
to describe consciousness but by the needs of transcendental philosophy.
In order to account for how objects are given or constituted, it is necessary
to make reference to the self-constitution of consciousness. The givenness
of the world requires the unity of consciousness, and this unity is not
simply a brute fact but the result of a process of self-unification which is
the very form of conscious life.
Of interest to our topic is the fact that Husserl uses the terms 'history'
and 'historicity' to describe this form. 'Every single process of conscious-
ness', he says in Formal and Transcendental Logic, 'has its own 'history',
that is, its temporal genesis'?7 And every such particular history finds its
place within the temporal unity of a particular conscious life as a whole,
which has its own 'history' in such a unity. As he says in the Cartesian
Meditations, 'the ego constitutes himself for himself in, so to speak, the
unity of a 'history' \ 18
This is a rather unusual, even metaphorical sense of 'history', as Husserl
indicates by his use of quotation marks or expressions like 'so to speak'.
What does it have to do with history in the usual sense? Since the term is
usually applied not to the Ufe of the individual but to that of groups or
societies, the link between the two concepts must be found in Husserl's
philosophy of intersubjectivity.
Contrary to the usual interpretation, Husserl's Fifth Cartesian Medita-
tion is not concerned with the problem of solipsism in any standard or
189
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
traditional sense at all. His question is not whether other minds, in fact,
exist or whether we as philosophers can prove, inductively or deductively,
that they do. Rather, Husserl poses the same question here that he does
with respect to any other object of our awareness, the question: how is it
given? For Husserl this means, as in all other cases, that we must seek
'insight into the explicit and impUcit intentionality wherein the alter ego
becomes evinced [sich bekundet] and verified in the realm of our transcen-
dental ego; we must discover in what intentionalities, syntheses, motiva-
tions, the sense 'other ego' becomes fashioned in me'.19 The special
difficulty here is presented by the fact that the objects is in this case a
subject, a cogitatum cogitans. This is what Husserl calls the paradox of
solipsism which he challenges himself to overcome.
As is well known, this matter has significance beyond the problem of
how other subjects are given. For only by understanding such givenness
can we account for the givenness of the objective world in the sense of the
world which exists not just for me, but for others as well. Only if there are
others for me can there be a world for others as well as for me. The
worldly object is transcendent because it is not reducible to the act or acts
in which it is given. This is because it is the reference point of other pos-
sible acts of consciousness. But up to the Fifth Meditation, aU actual and
possible acts of consciousness were considered acts of my consciousness.
The problem of objectivity concerns the object which transcends not
merely my actual experience, but all actual and possible experience of
mine, because it is given to other experiences not my own. The task is to
understand how I transcend this 'ownness sphere' of my actual and pos-
sible experiences and encounter a world which is not my private property
by encountering an experience which is not my own. Thus, the importance
of the problem of intersubjectivity from the transcendental point of view:
not merely the givenness of a particular sort of entity, the alter ego, is at
issue, but, through him, the sense of the world's transcendence as a whole.
We need not recount in detail Husserl's description of the experience in
which the alter ego is given. Certainly it contains many problems. But its
general sense is already prefigured in the very way the problem is set up.
Through what Husserl calls 'appresentation' and 'analogizing apprehen-
sion',20 I encounter another subject. But this means that what I encounter
is another flow of experience, actual and possible, with all its objects. What
could be called 'my world' is now confronted with 'his world'. But this is
only an abstract description, for there is only one world. What I actually
encounter is another perspective on the world, a perspective which is not
my own. Because of my awareness of this alien perspective, the world that
I experience is always more than what I directly experience of it or ever
could directly experience of it. Yet through my encounter with the other,
that alien perspective is at least indirectly given, given by analogy. This is
why, in even the simplest case of the wordless confrontation of two
190
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
persons, the experience of another is an act of communication and the
formation of a rudimentary community - Husserl caUs it Vergemeinschaf-
tung?1 Just as the object may be conceived as one by reference to the mul-
tiplicity of its appearances to me (through time), so the intersubjective
object is one by reference to the (simultaneous) multiplicity of its appear-
ances to me and to others.
What implications does this have for the phenomenological conception
of individual consciousness? How do I constitute the intersubjective object
and hence the objective world? Only by combining my own experiences
with those not my own, only by borrowing, as it were, what others
communicate to me in my encounters with them. The world I live in is
only partially given to me directly; it has the sense it does for me, which far
outruns what is directly given, because I live in a community of other sub-
jects whose experiences complement, but can never be, my own. It is com-
pounded of direct and indirect or quasi-evidences. Thus, again stressing
the transcendental point of view: the sense of the world for the individual
subject is at least partially traceable to the community in which he lives,
or, more precisely, to his appropriation of the experiences of others
through his communicative encounters with them.
If we combine the intersubjective and genetic analyses, what emerges is
the full-fledged notion of the historicity of subjectivity from the transcen-
dental point of view. The object as given is mediated through the temporal
and social horizons of the act itself. The 'substratum of sedimented promi-
nences which, as a horizon, accompanies every living present' 22 as we saw,
forms a background of presuppositions which determine the character of
that present. But this substratum may in turn be socially mediated. Husserl
says that 'every evidence sets up in me an abiding possession',23 but we
could also say that not every abiding possession may be traceable to direct
evidence. It may derive from the quasi-evidence of a communicative
encounter. Every subjective process is an expression not only of its own
past but also of the past of the community in which it functions, a past
which it appropriates through its communal life with others.
As I have constantly stressed, the concept of history is developed
according to the procedures of transcendental phenomenology and in
answer to the demands of that very procedure. But the phenomenological
description of the historicity of consciousness is not itself a historical
reflection. What happens in the Crisis is that the results of this investiga-
tion reflect back upon and caU into question the very procedure foUowed
in order to reach them.
Husserl justifies his historical reflections there, we remember, by stating
that we as philosophers are 'historical beings', that 'we . . . not only have a
spiritual heritage, but have become what we are thoroughly and exclus-
ively in a historical-spiritual manner'. 24 We are now in a position to under-
stand what Husserl means by this. We are historical beings first of all
191
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
because we are conscious beings; our conscious life consists in constituting
itself 'in the unity of a history', personal and social. Again, it must be
stressed that this is the character of consciousness considered transcenden-
tally. To say that we are historical beings is not merely to say that we are
in history, that we arrive on the scene and disappear at certain points in
objective historical time. Each of us is indeed aware of himself as such an
empirical ego, but this is not what Husserl means by the historicity of con-
sciousness.
But how does this notion of historicity apply to the philosopher in
particular? As conscious beings we are heirs to the past, whatever our
beliefs, attitudes, and goals; and if we are philosophers, we are, as Husserl
says, 'heirs to the past in respect to the goals which the word 'philosophy'
indicates, in terms of concepts, problems, and methods'. 25 What signifi-
cances could this have? Obviously, becoming a philosopher involves not
only accepting a certain notion or definition of an endeavor that exists and
has existed in society, but also studying the works of those who are com-
monly regarded as philosophers. But the procedure of the incipient philo-
sopher is generally not a matter of simply accepting and identifying
himself with the philosophers he reads. For most, taking up philosophy
does not mean simply learning the 'truths' that others have written. This
may be the attitude of the interested layman, but the potential philosopher
is more often marked by his very dissatisfaction with traditional doctrines.
It is the task of philosophy that Husserl has in mind, and the assumption of
this task may even involve the conscious, total rejection of the entire
philosophical tradition. But even such a philosopher, Husserl is saying, is
an 'heir of the past' in taking up the problems which his predecessors, in
his view, have failed to solve. Yet his awareness of his indebtedness to the
past rarely penetrates to this level; his acknowledged relation to the past
consists in his rejection, or even his eventual critical acceptance, of what
he finds there. It is clearly the notion of unacknowledged heritage which
interests Husserl at this point and which constitutes the pecuUar historicity
of the philosophically engaged consciousness.
Once Husserl begins to take seriously the idea of the unacknowledged
heritage of the philosopher, his relation to the past becomes a much more
complex affair than it was originally thought to be. When he enunciated
the principle of philosophical epoche in the Ideas, Husserl clearly had in
mind one's conscious, explicit, acceptance of this or that philosophical doc-
trine. This was to be put aside, bracketed. And this presents no special
problem, because what is explicitly acknowledged can just as easily be set
aside. The phenomenological epoche, by contrast, was a real effort,
because the natural attitude, which it bracketed, has the character of an
unacknowledged prejudice, a Selbstverstandlichkeit. In order to be brack-
eted it must be dredged up and recognized as a thesis to which we sub-
scribe. In fact the process of bracketing is identical with coming to
192
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
awareness of this underlying presupposition which otherwise remains
hidden, and the whole effort of phenomenology is to sustain this epoche,
to avoid the hidden, unrecognized commitment which is the natural atti-
tude, to struggle against the gravitational pull of consciousness to resume
its natural state.
If we now arrive at the generalized recognition that the philosopher is
burdened by historical prejudices which, like the natural ones, are unac-
knowledged and hidden, what do we do? Does it suffice that we be warned
against them? But - and here is the rub - what do we mean by theml In
the case of the natural attitude, as we have seen, overthrow must at the
same time be discovery. It is not enough simply to announce the principle
of emancipation from aU prejudices in order to make it so. Hence, the
peculiar relationship between the natural attitude and its suspension: it
must be reUved at the same time it is being overthrown-rediscovered. The
result is what Husserl occasionally describes as a splitting of the ego
between the natural self and his phenomenological observer26 and a
pattern of inquiry involving a zigzag between the two. In the case of histor-
ical prejudices, something similar seems indicated. Like natural prejudices,
these are distinguished by being taken for granted, selbstverstandlich.
What suggests itself here, by analogy to the phenomenological epoche, is a
reliving of our philosophical prejudices, a repetition of the philosophical
Selbstverstandlichkeiten under which we turn to philosophy in the first
place. Like the phenomenological epochs, such a repetition will not be a
mere repetition: what is relived is relived reflectively in order to be raised
from the level of something taken for granted to that of something explic-
itly recognized. Just as the phenomenological epoche is habitually prac-
ticed in the form of a method caUed the phenomenological reduction, so
the philosophical epoche must be systematized and universalized to
become a philosophical reduction, or what might better be called a histor-
ical reduction.
Although Husserl nowhere uses this term in the Crisis, this is, we main-
tain, precisely what he has in mind in that work and is the initial key to his
historical procedure. 'This manner of clarifying history', Husserl says of
that procedure:
by inquiring back into the primal estabUshment of the goals,... is
to make vital again, in its concealed historical meaning, the sedi-
mented conceptual system which, as taken for granted, serves as
the ground for [the philosopher's] private and non-historical work
. . . If he is to be one who thinks for himself [Selbstdenker], an
autonomous philosopher with the wiU to liberate himself from all
prejudices, he must have the insight that all the things he takes for
granted are prejudices, that all prejudices are obscurities arising
out of a sedimentation of tradition.27
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
. . . There is no doubt [he writes elsewhere] that we must engross
ourselves in historical considerations if we are to be able to under-
stand ourselves as philosophers and understand what philosophy
is to become through us. It is no longer sufficient to grasp . . . at
certain working problems we have run up against in a naive devel-
opment, to treat of them with our working partners, with those
who, in the same course of a living tradition, have run up against
the same problems.28
This is why even the 'theory of knowledge' has to become a 'peculiarly
historical task', as Husserl says in the 'Origin of Geometry', and why the
failure to see this is 'precisely what we object to in the past'.29 It is not
enough simply to proceed 'naively' to the Sachen and Probleme of philo-
sophy as we find them in our own present; or, as we have put it elsewhere,30
the history of those Sachen and Probleme, their very Selbstverstdndlichkeit
as part of the tradition, is now seen to count pre-eminently among the very
Sachen to which philosophy must turn.
And this is indeed remarkable: for it seems to demand of the philo-
sopher, as an essential part of his method, a serious and systematic
consideration of his particular time and place, a consideration previously
declared irrelevant to phenomenology but the eidetic reduction. Under
that reduction facts and particular events, even and indeed especially
those revealed in transcendental reflection, serve only as examples of the
patterns which are ultimately sought. Now facts and events become
important in their own right. To be sure, it may be essentially true that
consciousness, and thus philosophical consciousness, is historical, that is,
that it is laden with prejudices derived from its social-historical milieu. But
this means precisely that the character of such prejudices will vary depend-
ing on the milieu. This is why, when explaining the need for historical
reflections in order to obtain clarity on the task of philosophy, Husserl
says that we can obtain such clarity 'not through the critique of some
present or handed down system, of some scientific or prescientific 'Weltan-
schauung' (which might as weU be Chinese, in the end)' - that is, not
through the study of just any history - 'but only through a critical under-
standing of the total unity of history - our history'.31 It is no longer the
case that any example will serve as well as any other, as in the search for
essences. The historical reduction, unlike the phenomenological reduction,
is not and cannot be coupled with an eidetic reduction. In order to pen-
etrate to the previously unacknowledged historical prejudices which deter-
mine the Sachen and Probleme of philosophy, we must turn not to the
essence of history, or to the essence of consciousness, but to the particular
tradition of which we are a part.
And this is exactly what Husserl proceeds to do in the Crisis. After his
brief introduction he embarks upon what the calls the 'Clarification of the
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H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
Modern Opposition Between Physicalistic Objectivism and Transcenden-
tal Subjectivism'.32 His discussion of modern philosophy constitutes a
'historical reduction' because it is above all, as he says, an 'inquiry back
[Ruckfrage] into the primal establishment of the goals'33 of modern philo-
sophy, not simply a rehearsal of the 'doctrinal content' of certain theories.
It tries to show in detail how we are 'heirs of the past in respect to the
goals which the word 'philosophy' indicates, in terms of concepts, prob-
lems and methods'. It is an attempt to relive the tradition of which we are
a part in order to bring to recognition the prejudices that- are part of that
tradition.
Not surprisingly, Husserl traces the origin of modern philosophical
problems to the rise of modern science, whose decisive feature is its math-
ematical character. It is primarily to GaUleo that we owe the trans-
formation of the study of nature into a mathematical science, and as soon
as this science 'begins to move toward successful realization, the idea of
philosophy in general . . . is transformed'. 34 In order to understand the
origin of the modern idea of philosophy, we must turn first to what made it
possible: Galileo's 'mathematization of nature'.
Husserl's inquiry is directed toward uncovering goals, and the question
he asks about Galileo's mathematization is 'How do we reconstruct the
train of thought that motivated it?'35 Galileo's basic goal is that of over-
coming the subjectively relative character of our everyday manner of
describing the world around us and arriving at exact, intersubjectively
agreed upon characterizations of it. Such exactness is already to be found
in the mathematical disciplines, handed down from the Greeks, one of
which is geometry. Is it not the case that our natural surroundings contain,
somehow embedded in them, examples of the shapes geometry is able to
determine with such exactness? Galileo's proposal is that we deal with
nature only to the extent that we can describe it in geometrical terms. In
this way, our description can partake of the exactness enjoyed by that
science. Initially, this seems to leave out a great deal of what presents itself
to our experience, notably the socaUed secondary qualities which do not
lend themselves to exact measurement. Changes in these qualities can,
however, be correlated with changes in primary qualities, and, in his
boldest move of all, Galileo proposes to treat all such secondary qualities
exclusively in terms of their measurable correlates with the idea that all
will thereby be accounted for.36
Now Husserl is not as interested in the Galilean proposal itself as he is
in its philosophical interpretation. In the hands of philosophers, Galileo's
proposal is transformed into an ontological claim: to be is to be measurable
in ideal terms as a geometrical configuration. Thus it happens, as Husserl
says, 'that we take for true being what is actuaUy a method'?1 Math-
ematical science is a method which considers the world as if it were exclus-
ively a manifold of measurable shapes; the ontological interpretation
195
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
simply states that it is such a manifold. Now the scientific problem is differ-
ent from the philosophical problem: the first seeks intersubjectively exact
knowledge about the world, the second hopes to determine the true nature
of reality. But here the solution to the first problem is taken as the solution
to the second and a hidden shift of meaning has occurred. AU subsequent
problems connected with the world - its scope, its beginning and end,
man's place in it and, above all, his knowledge of it - henceforth operate
with this conception of reality as a presupposition. Rationalism treats the
scientific method as a kind of instrument, like the microscope, through
which we come to see reality; empiricism makes the point - correct, given
the rationaUst assumptions - that all we ever see are the causal effects of
reality upon our minds, and then asks the legitimate question of whether
what we see accurately informs us of what is. The development ends in
Hume's skepticism, which is only possible because the rationaUst concep-
tion of reaUty is taken for granted.
But the real opposition in modern philosophy, for Husserl, is not
between rationaUsm and empiricism but between objectivism - which
includes both of these - and transcendentaUsm. Hume demonstrated the
ultimate futiUty of the quest for an objective justification of our know-
ledge, but it was Kant who turned this apparent failure of philosophy to
positive advantage. He did this by returning to that radical reflection
which Descartes had considered merely provisional and estabUshing it as
the true method of rigorous philosophy. The objectivity of knowledge is
given not an objective but a subjective grounding through an examination
of the forms of thought in which it announces and establishes itself. The
idea of such a subjective or transcendental grounding was Kant's contribu-1
tion to the history of modern thought.
But Kant's philosophy too must be interrogated in terms of its under-
lying problems and motives, and it is here that the true significance of
Husserl's historical reduction begins to merge. Husserl had always been
critical of many aspects of Kant's philosophy, but in the Crisis his criticism
takes a new form. Kant envisaged the possibiUty and necessity of a tran-
scendental grounding of the objective world; but what is the nature of that
objective world which is susceptible of and requires such a grounding? The
fact is that this world, although no longer naively taken for granted as self-
grounding, is still conceived in exactly the same terms as it was by the
rationalists and empiricists. That is, it is the mathematized world of
the natural scientists that constitutes Kant's problem. For him, this is the
world. But we have seen, through our reflections on Galileo, that the
scientific conception must be regarded as an interpretation of the world, a
certain way of looking at it and dealing with it which serves certain pur-
poses. There remains the world of which this is an interpretation, the pre-
scientific lifeworld in which such interpretation begins and to which it must
return for the direct verification of all its hypotheses. This is a world whose
196
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
objects are not ideal geometrical shapes; instead, they faU into vague and
approximate types and exhibit not only primary and secondary qualities
but aesthetic and practical ones as weU. As long as knowledge is con-
sidered the causal effect of the objective world upon the mind, the pre-
scientific features of the life-world can be explained away as 'mere
appearance'. But if the approach to knowledge is that of transcendental
grounding, the role of the lifeworld must be taken into account. The theo-
retical constructions of the scientist take the lifeworld for granted as built
upon it. We cannot adequately understand those constructions without
understanding the intermediate and founding role of the lifeworld.
Yet this is what Kant failed to do, says.Husserl. Thus, while he suc-
ceeded in one sense in overthrowing the naive objectivism ofhis predeces-
sors, his philosophy contains a hidden presupposition inherited from them.
The transcendental problem of the world, for Kant, is predetermined by a
concept of the world borrowed from modern science. Hume, although he
had no explicit conception of the transcendental turn, had a much clearer
awareness, says Husserl, of 'the world enigma in the deepest and most ulti-
mate sense' for he questioned 'the naive obviousness of the certainty of the
world . . . and, what is more, the certainty of the everyday world as weU as
that of the sophisticated theoretical constructions built upon-this everyday
world'.38 But Kant failed to see any enigma here, and began his transcen-
dental critique in the wrong place.
We can see that Husserl's discussion of Galileo, in which the life-world
emerges, takes on its ultimate significance not in his critique of objec-
tivism, but in his critique of the transcendental turn in which objectivism is
overthrown. But whose transcendental philosophy is actuaUy being criti-
cized? The strange fact about the Kant-critique in the Crisis is that while
Husserl takes Kant to task for not recognizing the significance of the live-
world, this is the first time, in Husserl's own writings, that the lifeworld is
accorded this significance. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Husserl's
Kant-critique is really a Husserl-critique in disguise, that the inadequate
concept of transcendental philosophy that is criticized here is not Kant's
but that of the earUer Husserl. It is true that Husserl had not made the
mistake of identifying the world with the entities of natural science alone.
He had always criticized Kant for doing this, insisting that other forms of
objectivity, those treated in the humanistic, social, psychological, and even
life sciences, should be treated in their own terms and according to their
own 'categories'. But this suggests a sort of additive concept of the world,
as if it were composed of the various scientific domains side by side. Here
Husserl's lengthy discussion of natural scientific idealization and construc-
tion is carried out not for the purpose of contrasting natural science to
other sciences, but rather in order to contrast the scientific endeavor - any
scientific endeavor - with a prescientific consciousness and its world. What
is being criticized is precisely the conception of world articulated in the
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
early pages of the Ideas, that of 'the totality of objects which, on the basis
of actual experience, are knowable in correct theoretical thinking'.39 This
conception was then pursued in the second volume of the Ideas, where the
theory of constitution takes its clue from the various material regions,
which correspond to the main divisions of science: the natural, the psychic
and the spiritual or Geistige. The implication is that these ontologies,
taken together, constitute an ontology of the world. But in the Crisis,
Husserl suggests that the lifeworld as a whole requires its own ontology,40
which is not equivalent to the totality of those ontologies which corres-
pond to the various domains of science. The lifeworld is the realm of what
is pre-given to consciousness not only prior to natural science but also, as
he says, 'before anything that is established scientifically . . . in physiology,
psychology, or sociology'.41 Correlatively, the lifeworld calls forth its own
theory of constitution, a theory of prescientific world-life whose intention-
ality is not that of subsuming its objects under theories of any kind, whose
interest is not determined by the demands of logical consistency or com-
pleteness of theoretical scope. Husserl has come to the realization that
consciousness is not theoretical all or even most of the time, that there was
consciousness before there was science, and, above aU, that there was a
world before science came along to interpret it.
Now there can be no doubt that the concept of the life-world represents
a significant new development in Husserl's phenomenological theory. It is,
after all, nothing less than a new approach to the problem of the world,
not merely the opening of a new domain within already established phe-
nomenological guidelines. Those who seek to minimize the novelty of the
Crisis often point out that many of Husserl's descriptions of the life-world
coincide with those developed much earlier under the rubric of the
phenomenology of perception or, as it was later called, that of a transcen-
dental aesthetic,42 and that even the term 'lifeworld' seems to have been
used as early as 1917.43 All this is true, but none of these earlier investiga-
tions are carried to the point of requiring such a thorough reconstruction
of the world-concept. Even the borrowed term 'transcendental aesthetic'
suggests that, while Husserl wishes to enlarge on the Kantian conception
he still sees it as oriented toward a theory of judgment and ultimately
theoretical judgment. The investigations of Erfahrung und Urteil, for
example, and those of Formal and Transcendental Logic, exhibit this ori-
entation in their very titles. But in the Crisis, Husserl explicitly says that
the problem of the lifeworld must be separated from its connection with
the theory of science and seen as a philosophical problem in its own
right.44 He conceives of the possibility of an Erfahrung which is not ori-
ented toward Urteil at aU, at least not in the theoretical sense. Rather than
being essentiaUy an 'incipient science', in Merleau-Ponty's words,
experience is a much broader field with many possible orientations, only
one of which is science. The world, correlatively, is characterized as having
198
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY
many dimensions, and it is not just this or that science which abstracts
from its full concreteness, but science as a whole, or theoretical conscious-
ness generally.
Significant as this new development is, however, I do not think that, in
itself, it involves a threat to the phenomenological program as a whole.
Here I must side with those I was just attacking who minimize the novelty
of the theory of the lifeworld. Both consciousness and the world are con-
ceived more broadly, but the phenomenological analysis of their relation is
the same. This is clearly what Husserl has in mind. From the new ontology
of the lifeworld we must proceed through a phenomenological reduction
to the conscious intentionality in which this world is constituted. With is
base broadened, everything previously accomplished in phenomenology
can be integrated into this new theory of consciousness and the world
while maintaining the pattern of analysis.
The really serious questions for phenomenology are raised not by the
theory of the lifeworld itself but rather by Husserl's way of arriving at it,
namely, not through the phenomenological reduction alone but through
the historical reduction we spoke about. For what has emerged from our
discussion is that Husserl's historical reflections are not a mere attack on
his predecessors and a historical justification post hoc of theories he
already held, but rather a questioning of his own assumptions and a recog-
nition of their rootedness in their own past. Husserl is above all criticizing
himself for taking over the Sachen und Probleme of philosophy from his
predecessors. This helps explain Husserl's strange remark that it is not just
any history, but the totality of our history that must be subjected to inter-
rogation, as weU as the fact that the history he actually examines contains
only the philosophers he himself has studied intensively. Far from being a
philosophy of history, in the sense of a description of the sense emerging
from the vast panorama of Western thought - hardly a world about Hegel,
none at all about Nietzsche or Marx, no mention of Christianity - the
Crisis offers us a historical critique above all of Edmund Husserl and the
philosophical milieu from which phenomenology emerged. The Crisis is
essentially the construction of a history which reflects the philosopher's
own philosophical prejudices for purposes of overcoming those very preju-
dices. Husserl even speaks of his historical reflections as the 'construction
of the novel of history for purposes of self-reflection [Selbstbesinnung]'?5
The emergence of the concept of the lifeworld in the Crisis confirms the
necessity for historical reduction which is only prescribed in principle by
Husserl's investigations in genetic and intersubjective phenomenology. His
aim had always been to describe the world just as it presents itself to us,
and to describe the forms of consciousness in which this presentation is
actualized. But in the Crisis a discovery is made which changes radically
the character of phenomenological investigation. This discovery has been
particularly weU expressed by Aron Gurwitsch in a recent article: 'On
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
account of our historical situation as heirs to the modern scientific tradi-
tion, the world presents itself to us, including those of us who are not pro-
fessional scientists or are even ignorant of the details of scientific theories,
with reference to and in the light of its possible mathematical
idealization'.46 The implication is that any attempt to describe the world as
it presents itself, if it is historically naive, will result in the description of a
historical-cultural phenomenon which nevertheless takes itself to be a uni-
versal characterization. My view is that Husserl is impUcitly accusing
himself of having made just such a mistake. The historical-cultural world is
another of the discoveries of the Crisis, by the way, to which Husserl also,
rather confusingly as I have argued elsewhere,47 gives the name 'lifeworld'.
There can be many lifeworlds in this sense, as in the Cartesian
Meditations?8 whereas the lifeworld in the sense described earlier is uni-
versal and is both prescientific and precultural. It is the condition of the
possibility or the universal ground of any conceivable cultural or scientific
interpretation. It is this world which must be laid bare and subjected to
phenomenological-constitutional analysis if the phenomenology of science
or culture or anything else is to be placed in its proper perspective. Yet,
arriving at this world, laying it open to phenomenological description, is
more complicated than the mere description of the world as it presents
itself. It is rather a constant struggle against historical prejudices which
takes the form of careful attention to and analysis of those very prejudices.
In this sense the constant danger is that of falling back into the attitude of
historical naivete, which paraUels Husserl's earlier warnings against falUng
into the natural attitude, of reasumming its prejudices rather than keeping
a distance from them in order to analyze and understand them.
Insofar as Husserl insists on such analysis as an essential part of the
phenomenological enterprise, his last work does lend support to several
post-Husserlian developments. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the relevance of
historical and sociological evidence, precisely because it frees us from cul-
tural naivete, seems to me to be compatible with Husserl's new concep-
tion. The idea of philosophy as Ideologiekritik, or as a hermeneutic of the
tradition, becomes not only possible but necessary for phenomenology. At
the limit, even Heidegger's attempt to think the unthought in the whole
Western tradition is a legitimate task. But does it follow, once the possibil-
ity and necessity of such investigations is recognized, that this is all philo-
sophy can be? This seems to be suggested by the advocates of these
approaches, often expUcity in criticism of Husserl. After all, who is to say
that Husserl's attempt to describle the universal lifeworld is not itself
merely the articulation of the presuppositions of a historico-cultural
mflieu? By admitting the importance of history, does Husserl ultimately
fall prey to the very historicism he attacked in 1910?
It seems to me that there is no guarantee that Husserl's description has
attained the universality he hoped for; but the only way -to decide the
200
H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND T H E ' P R O B L E M OF H I S T O R Y
matter is to criticize his view just as he criticized the modern scientific
world view in the Crisis: namely, by rooting out its hidden prejudices,
showing its limitations, its one-sidedness, its abstractions. Such criticism
by its very nature makes impossible the relativist thesis, for prejudice is
recognized only by contrast to the unprejudiced, limitation only by an
insight that goes beyond the limits, one-sidedness by our awareness of the
other side, abstractness by a reference to the concrete. In short, criticism
of this or that view of the world and of consciousness as historically rela-
tive always has in view a nonrelative conception of the world of con-
sciousness, whether it succeeds in attaining that conception or not.
Insofar as such criticism is used to support the relativist thesis, as Husserl
showed in the Prolegomena to Pure Logic, relativism contradicts itself by
presupposing the very thing it sets out to deny. But the self-contradictory
character of relativism does not justify claiming absolute validity for any
particular philosopher's view; it merely suggests that there is a truth to be
known and that we cannot assert the impossibility of knowing it. Much of
the pathos of Husserl's last work comes down to just this question: we
cannot exclude the possibiUty of a knowledge which lies beyond the limits
of our cultural-historical situation, but are we willing to take on the task
of actualizing it?
It must not be forgotten that there is a positive as well as a negative side
to Husserl's historical reflections. He seeks to work his way through the
inadequate attempts at actualizing philosophy to a clear conception of its
task. So the historical critique serves the purpose, as Husserl says, of clari-
fying what 'the point of it'49 ultimately is, the telos of philosophy which is
implicitly presupposed by our critique. Husserl is often accused of a sort of
cultural chauvinism because he seems to speak of the task of philosophy as
if it were a purely European affair. Yet if we look closely at Husserl's
characterization of the origin of that task in Greece, we see that it begins
with the very recognition of the difference between a cultural world and
the world as such. Husserl obviously has the physis-nomos controversy in
mind. The paradoxical essence of the European spirit, for Husserl, lies in
its very attempt to transcend the limits of any cultural world, including
that of Europe in the empirical historical sense. What was born with the
European spirit was the ideal of a nonrelative truth, that is, a truth which
is neither European truth, Chinese truth, nor any other.50 Neither Husserl
nor any other philosopher, to my mind, can demonstrate that he has ful-
filled this ideal and attained such a truth. What Husserl does through his
critique of relativism is to show that the ideal is in a sense unavoidable,
since to deny it is to subscribe to it secretly. This much was accomplished
in the Prolegomena and 'Philosophy as a Rigorous Science', and transcen-
dental phenomenology was developed in the service of the ideal. But the
Crisis, I have tried to show, adds a new dimension to phenomenology. For
here Husserl recognizes that it is not enough simply to turn our backs on
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S H U S S E R L ' S CRISIS AND THE PROBLEM OF H I S T O R Y

history - our history - in order to move toward a non-relative truth. We 37 Ibid., p. 51.
must work our way through it in order to escape it. 38 Ibid., p. 96.
39 Ideen, etc., p. 11.
40 Cr., p. 173ff.
Notes 41 Ibid., p. 105.
42 Cf. Formal and Transcendental Logic, p. 291 f., Cartesian Meditations, p. 146.
1 E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie, Erster Teil, Vol. VII of Husserliana, ed. by R.
Boehm (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1956), p. 3. 43 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phdnomenologie und phdnomenologische
2 E. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenom- Philosophie, Zweites Buch, Vol. IV of Husserliana, ed. by M. Biemel (The
enology, trans, by David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1952), p. 375.
1970), p. 17 (hereafter abbreviated as 'Cr.'). 44 Cr.,p. 134f.
3 Cr.,p.71. 45 Die Krisis, etc., p. 556.
4 Ibid. 46 A. Gurwitsch, 'Problems of the Life-World', in Phenomenology and Social
5 Cr.,p.ll. Reality, ed. by M. Natanson (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1970), p. 48 (my
6 Cr.,p.ll. emphasis).
1 Cr., p. 72. 47 'Husserl's Problematic Concept of the Life-World', in American Philosophical
8 Cf. Cr., sections 9-1,15. Quarterly, October, 1970.
9 E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale 48 Cartesian Meditations, p. 133.
Phanomenologie, Vol. VI of Husserliana, ed. by W. Biemel (The Hague: M. 49 Cr., p. 73.
Nijhoff, 1954), p. 435 ff. (This section was not included in its entirety in the 50 Cf.Cr., p. 286.
English translation, but cf. Cr., p. ICQ. for an excerpt).
10 Erste Philosophie, Erster Teil, p. 3.
H E . Husserl, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft (Frankfurt: Vittorio Kloster-
mann, 1965), p. 71.
12 E. Husserl, ideen zu einer Phanomenologie und phanomenologische Philoso-
phie, Vol. Ill of Husserliana, ed. by W. Biemel (The Hague: M. Nijhoff. 1952),
p. 40f.
13 E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans, by Dorion Cairns (The Hague: M.
Nijhoff, 1960), p. 26.
14 E. Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans, by Dorion Cairns (The
Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1969), p. 319.
15 Ibid.
16 Cartesian Meditations, p. 60.
17 Formal and Transcendential Logic, p. 316.
18 Cartesian Meditations, p. 75.
19 Ibid, p. 90.
20 Ibid, pp. 109, 111.
21 Cf. ibid., p. 120.
22 Formal and Transcendental Logic, p. 319.
23 Cf. Cartesian Meditations, p. 60.
24 Cr., p. 71.
25 Ibid, p. 17.
26 Cartesian Meditations, p. 35.
27 Cr., p. 72.
28 Ibid., p. 3911
29 Ibid., p. 370.
30 Ibid., p. xxxii (Translator's Introduction).
31 Ibid., p. 71.
32 Ibid., p. 20.
33 Ibid, p. 11.
34 Ibid, p. 23.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.,p.34&.

202 203

80
" F A K T U M G E S C H I C H T E " U N D
D I E G R E N Z E N
P H A N O M E N O L O G I S C H E R
G E S C H I C H T S P H I L O S O P H I E
Karl-Heinz Lembeck
Source: Husserl Studies 4 (1987): 209-224.
Der Sinn einer Wissenschaft, so schreibt Husserl in einer Beilage zum
Vorlesungstext der Ersten Philosophie, "steht in wesentlicher Beziehung
zum Sinn der Gegenstandlichkeit, auf die Wissenschaft sich bezieht" (Hua
VIII, 321). Von der Idee dieser Gegenstandlichkeit her lasst sich ein
Masstab gewinnen, mit dessen Hilfe Moglichkeiten und Grenzen des
Sinnes einer ihr entsprechenden Wissenschaft ergrtindet werden konnen
(vgl. Hua V, 13). Trifft diese Einsicht prinzipiell zu, so muss sie auch auf
die nach Husserl tiefste und strengste aller Wissenschaften, die phanom-
enologische Philosophie, anwendbar sein.
Als 'Forschungsgegenstand' transzendentalphanomenologischer Wis-
senschaft gilt nun, ganz aUgemein gesprochen, "das absolute oder transzen-
dental reine Bewusstsein" (Hua III/l, 121), das "Residuum" der
transzendentalen Reduktion, das in dem Sinne "absolutes Sein" ist, als es
"prinzipiell nulla 're' indiget ad existendum", wie es in den Ideen I (ebd.
104) heisst. Die konstitutiven Leistungen dieser den Sinn alien Seins absolut
stiftenden transzendentalen Subjektivitat aus letzten Ursprtingen heraus
"verstehen" zu woUen, ist das wissenschaftliche Ziel der Phanomenologie
(vgl. z.B. Hua XIX/1,27; Hua XVII, 282; Hua VI, 193). Lasst sich von dieser
Gegenstandsbestimmung her ein kritischer Masstab ftir Recht und Grenzen
phanomenologischer Forschung selbst gewinnen? Im folgenden soil diese
Frage am Beispiel des Verhaltnisses von Phanomenologie und Geschichte
untersucht werden. Es geht hierbei um eine kritische Grenzziehung ftir die
mogUche Reichweite einer Phanomenologie der Geschichte anhand einer
Wesensbestimmung des transzendentalen Forschungsfeldes. Zu diesem
Zweck soU insbesondere jene spate Husserlsche FragesteUung nach einem
teleologischen Einheitssinn der europaischen Geistesgeschichte, wie sie vor
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GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
aUem, im Krisis-Werk ausdrticklich wird, in einem bestimmten Sinn als
aporetisch gekennzeichnet werden. Und zwar als aporetisch in der gut
sokratischen, sozusagen 'therapeutischen' Bedeutung: Sie ftihrt uns
phanomenologisch in Verlegenheit, in die Verlegenheit eines Wissens um
ein Nicht-Wissen.1 Ich mochte dies in einem 1. Teil anhand einer Darstel-
lung von Zusammenhang und Differenz der Begriffe 'Faktum Geschichte'
und 'Faktengeschichte' bei Husserl erlautern und daran orientiert in einem
2. Teil zeigen, inwiefern ich meine, dass die geschichtsphilosophisch
motivierte Frage nach einem 'Sinn der Gesamteinheit der Geschichte'
phanomenologisch keine befriedigende Antwort zulasst.
1. 'Faktum Geschichte' und Faktengeschichte
Zunachst werde ich Husserls bekannte Wendung von der Geschichte als
dem "grossen Faktum des absoluten Seins" (Hua VIII, 506) zum Leit-
faden nehmen und sie einer Interpretation unterziehen, in der sie -
moglicherweise entgegen dem natUrlichen Sprachgeftihl - bewusst als dop-
peldeutig verstanden werden soil. Dazu bieten sich m.E. zwei unter-
schiedliche Auslegungsmoglichkeiten des Genitivs in diesem Satze an. Die
erste und sprachlich gewiss naheliegendere Auffassung ist die des ein-
fachen Identitatsgenitivs: das "absolute Sein" ist das absolute "Faktum",
seine Seinsweise ist geschichtlich. In dieser Form ist das Husserlsche Wort,
soweit ich sehe, auch Gegenstand der bekannten Auslegungen Ludwig
Landgrebes. 2
Legt man den Genitiv in Husserls Satz nun aber possessiv aus, so ware
sein Sinn dieser: Die Geschichte ist ein Faktum fur das absolute Sein.
Und ein Mittleres beider Auslegungsweisen konnte schUessUch zu der
Auffassung fuhren, dass das absolute Sein eine geschichtliche Grosse
gerade dadurch ist, dass das Faktische in und an ihm das transzendentale
Korrelat des zugleich fiir es Faktischen ist. Beide Formen der Auslegung
wtirden sich dann auf derjenigen Ebene versohnen, die Husserl beschreibt,
wenn er versucht zu zeigen, dass das "transzendentale Ich dasselbe (ist),
das in der Weltlichkeit menschliches Ich ist" (Hua VI, 268), weil es
"notwendig als Mensch in der Welt konstituiert sein muss" (ebd. 190).
Mundanitat und Transzendentalitat erweisen sich dann als zwei (method-
isch) unterscheidbare Fundierungsschichten ein und derselben Realitat.
Doch bevor darauf einzugehen ist, muss zunachst geklart werden,
inwiefern der hier genannte Genitiv possessiv auslegbar ist. Argumente
ftir eine solche Deutung Uefert der Begriff des Faktums selbst. In der
Auslegung des absoluten Seins als Faktum tragt er eine wesentlich andere
Bedeutung als im Fall einer possessiven Interpretation des Genitivs. Denn
Faktum fiir das absolute Sein des Bewusstseinslebens ist alles objektive
konstituierte Sein der Erfahrungswelt. Dies ist das transzendente Faktis-
che, also das Empirische. Als das Individuell-Tatsachliche in der Welt der
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Erfahrung ist es, so wissen wir seit den Ideen I, stets ein im weitesten Sinne
Zufalliges, das faktisch immer auch anders wtirde sein, d.h. in anderen
Gegebenheitsweisen wtirde erscheinen konnen. Ein Absolutes dagegen ist
ein Notwendiges. Was soil es dann heissen, dass dieses Absolute als irre-
duzibel Notwendiges, das kein Zufalliges often lasst (Hua XV, 386),
dennoch als ein "Faktum" zu bezeichnen ist, als eine "absolute Tatsache"
(Hua XV, 403)? Ein empirisches Faktum kann es doch wohl nicht sein?
Hier ist offenbar eine Unterscheidung zwischen zwei Begriffen von
"Faktum" zu treffen.
Husserl hilft uns hier selbst weiter, wenn er beide Begriffe in einem
einzigen Satz direkt aufeinander bezieht und mit diesem Bezug zugleich
ihren Unterschied deutlich macht. Er schreibt: "Das faktische Bewusst-
seinsleben, das universale in seiner transzendentalen intersubjektiven
Immanenz, tragt als 'Phanomen' in sich das korrelative Faktum der in ihr
vorstellungsmassig konstituierten Welt." (Hua VII, 256f.) Hier ist von
"Faktum" als Korrelat des faktischen Bewusstseinslebens die Rede.
Diesem transzendenten Faktum einer transzendental konstituierten Welt
gegeniiber, dem Faktum der empirischen WirkUchkeit gegeniiber, muss
nun jedoch mit Husserl das "transzendentale Faktum" des "Bewusst-
seinslebens" als sein Korrelat, und d.h. als etwas entschieden anderes
betrachtet werden. 3 Wie entschieden, das zeigt eine sehr wichtige
Anmerkung zum historischen Teil der Ersten Philosophie. Da heisst es
namlich, dass das in nattirlicher Einstellung und in der Einstellung der
Tatsachenwissenschaften als Faktum konstituierte objektive Sein, in
Bezug auf die konstituierende transzendentale Subjektivitat betrachtet,
Gegenstand phanomenologischer Wesensanalysen werden kann und muss,
worin ihm dann eine "letzte" oder auch " 'metaphysische' Interpretation"
zuwachsen soil, was ftir Husserl an dieser Stelle aber "nichts anderes
heisst, als eine Interpretation, hinter der eine andere zu suchen keinen
wissenschaftlichen Sinn gibt. Aber dahinter", so schreibt Husserl sogleich
weiter, "eroffnet sich auf phanomenologischem Boden eine weiter nicht
mehr zu interpretierende Problematik: die der Irrationalitat des transzen J
dentalen Faktums, das sich in der Konstitution der faktischen Welt und
des faktischen Geisteslebens ausspricht: also Metaphysik in einem neuen
Sinne." (Hua VII, 188 Anm.)
Hier kommen drei wichtige Punkte zur Sprache, die einer Auslegung
bedtirfen: 1. Der angesprochene Unterschied zwischen dem konstituierten
objektiven Sein als transzendentem Faktum und dem transzendentalen
Faktum der Konstitution des faktischen Seins selbst; dartiber hinaus dann
2. die mit dieser Unterscheidung sich herausstellende Begrenzung des
Feldes eidetisch-phanomenologischer Zustandigkeit; und schliesslich 3. die
damit einhergehende Differenzierung im Metaphysik-Begriff.
1. Zwischen dem Faktum (resp. den empirischen Faktizitaten) einer im
konstitutiv fungierenden Bewusstsein vorsteUungsmassig gesetzten Welt
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GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
und dem transzendentalen Faktum dieser Konstitution selbst zieht Husserl
einen radikalen Trennungsstrich. 4 Ist jenes das im jeweiligen Wie der Kon-
stitution als transzendentes Faktum Gesetzte, so ist dieses das Faktum des
Dass und Wie der Konstitution tiberhaupt. Die Pointe dieser Unterschei-
dung wird besonders deutlich, wenn man versteht, warum Husserl nun das
transzendentale Faktum als eine "Irrationalitat" beschreibt.
Jede als reale Wirklichkeit gesetzte empirische Tatsache ist stets als
konstitutive Einheit einer Sinngebung zu betrachten (Hua III/l, 120). Sie
setzt daher sinngebendes Bewusstsein voraus. Sinnsetzendes Bewusstsein
ist idealiter Vernunftbewusstsein, d.h. es ist Setzungsbewusstsein, das in
originarer Gegebenheit, also Selbstgegebenheit des intendierten, als
seiend gesetzten Objekts seinen ausgezeichneten Rechtsgrund hat (vgl.
ebd. 316ff.). Dementsprechend heisst 'wahrhaftes Sein' soviel wie 'aus
verntinftiger Motivation heraus gesetztes Sein', wobei "verntinftig
motiviert' meint: durch originare Gegebenheit motiviert (vgl. ebd. 329,
332).
Das sinngebende Bewusstsein ist in diesem Sinne keine ReaUtat,
sondern absolut, insofern alle Realitat als gesetztes Sein auf es relativ ist
(vgl. ebd. 120f.). Dieses Absolute, von dem sich phanomenologisch zeigen
lasst, wie es ftir alles Sein transzendental grund-gebend ist, ist ftir sich
selbst in diesem Sinne "grundlose(s) Sein" (Hua XV, 386): Es ist, wie
Husserl sagt, transzendentales "Urfaktum" (ebd.) des Dass und Wie der
Konstitution transzendenter Faktizitat. Selbst ist es daher nicht transzen-
dental gesetztes Sein, weshalb sein Sein auch nicht 'verntinftig' (im genan-
nten, spezifisch Husserlschen Sinne), d.h. nicht in einem originar gebenden
Bewusstsein ausweisbar sein kann. Das absolute Sein kann von sich selbst
daher niemals unmittelbar ein Vernunftbewusstsein erlangen. Und auch
die letzte methodische Pointe Descartes', das Prinzip des cogito me cog-
itare, des sich-selbst-denkend-Denkens, bleibt transzendentalanalytisch
stumpf, weil sich hier noch immer jenes beruhmte "Endchen der Welt"
(Hua I, 63) in den BUck stellt, das die Methode in einen schlechten Zirkel
zwingt. Denn ist auch die Evidenz des ego cogito Motiv genug, das
Faktum des absoluten Seins reflexiv zu bestimmen, so ist damit nichts
gewonnen, da eine solche Setzung ihrerseits das setzende Bewusstsein
bereits wieder voraussetzt: Als gesetztes ware es relativ auf das setzende
Sein und darum nicht mehr absolut - ware es doch widersinnig zu sagen,
das Absolute sei gesetzt. Deshalb kann Husserl feststellen, dass das Sein
des Absoluten als das Faktum des Dass der Konstitution der faktischen
Welt phanomenologisch eine "IrrationaUtat" sei.
2. Mit dieser Unterscheidung zwischen dem (rational) konstituierten
Faktischen und dem (irrationalen) Faktum des Dass der Konstitution
werden nun auch der Reichweite eidetisch-phanomenologischer
Forschung selbst Grenzen gezogen. Das als Faktizitat gesetzte objektive
Sein (zumal als Gegenstand positiv wissenschaftlichen Interesses) lasst
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
sich phanomenologisch interpretieren, d.h. transzendentalanalytisch auf
das Recht seines Geltungssinnes hin auslegen. Hier liegt die reflexive
Aufgabe der transzendentalen Geltungsbegrtindung und der wesensana-
lytischen Rechtfertigung 'naiver' ontologischer Wissenschaftsstandards. Es
handelt sich dabei um die Auslegung des faktischen Wie konstitutiver
Bewusstseinsleistungen.
Das 'irrationale' transzendentale Faktum des absoluten Seins aber ist
unhinterfragbares "Urfaktum", weil es als das Dass des konstituierenden
lebendigen Bewusstseins nicht selbst Ergebnis einer transzendentalen
Leistung sein kann, weil es, transzendental verstanden, grundlos ist. Das
transzendentale Faktum steUt deshalb vor ein "auf phanomenologischem
Boden . . . weiter nicht mehr zu interpretierende(s)" Problem (Hua VII
188 Anm.)!
3. Interpretierbar ist es aUenfalls auf dem Boden einer Metaphysik, die
nun jedoch nicht mehr ernstlich mit dem Pradikat 'phanomenologisch'
versehen werden kann. Gewiss schreibt Husserl zu Recht, dass jede "Irra-
tionalitat . . . als eine Moglichkeit (sc. des "Bruches" rationaler Erfahrungs-
horizonte) selbst etwas" sei, "das unter rationaler Erwagung steht" (Hua
XIV, 561) - doch wie sollte es auch anders sein? Was denn anderes als das
rational fungierende Bewusstsein sollte das Irrationale als Irrationales
auch bestimmen konnen? Aber eben als Grenze und nicht mehr. Die Fak-
tizitat, auch die empirische, insofern sie uberhaupt ist, weil das Bewusst-
sein tiberhaupt ist, "ist das Feld nicht der Phanomenologie und Logik,
sondern der Metaphysik" (Hua VII, 394). Die Phanomenologie aber ist
nur insofern metaphysisch zu nennen, als sie die Welt (als subjektives
Konstitutionskorrelat) einer Interpretation auf ihre letzten transzenden-
talen Geltungsquellen hin unterziehen kann, einer Interpretation, hinter
der dann aus phanomenologischer Einsicht heraus "eine andere zu suchen
keinen wissenschaftlichen Sinn gibt" (ebd. 188 Anm.).
Das transzendentale Faktum des absoluten Seins, das Faktum des Dass-
Seins der Konstitution dagegen konnte nurmehr Gegenstand einer Meta-
physik im "neuen Sinn" werden (ebd.). Ihr "neuer" Sinn ware aber nur
insoweit bestimmbar, als sich sagen lasst, dass sie, wie Ludwig Landgrebe
mit Husserl betont hat,5 eine "Lehre vom Faktum", und zwar vom tran-
szendentalen Faktum, Uefern mtisste; aber es ist nun keineswegs mehr ver-
wunderlich, wenn Husserl nirgends eine Metaphysik entwickelt, die
diesem Begriff entspricht - denn ein solches Unterfangen mtisste, wie wir
nun gesehen haben, die Grenzen phanomenologischer Moglichkeiten
entschieden tiberschreiten. Damit ist nicht gesagt, dass die Phanomenolo-
gie Metaphysik tiberhaupt ausschliessen wollte: Innerhalb der faktischen
Sphare der transzendentalen Monade treten alle nur mogUchen auch
"ethisch-religiosen Probleme" auf, "aber gesteUt auf den Boden, auf den
aUes, was fur uns soil moglichen Sinn haben konnen, eben gestellt sein
muss" (Hua I, 182)! Doch dieser Boden transzendentaler Rationalitat
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GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
selbst - bleibt eben ein "Wunder" (Hua VII, 394), ihn hinterfragen zu
woUen Widersinn.
Was hat es nun aber mit der These auf sich, dass die Geschichte
dies grosse Faktum des absoluten Seins sei? Die Frage beantwortet
sich mit Husserl folgendermassen: Ist das Dass-Sein des Bewusstseins-Ich
notwendig ein "absolutes, undurchstreichbares Faktum", so ist demge-
genuber sein Wie-Sein "zufallig" (Hua XIV, 154f.). Dieses Wie-Sein des
intentionalen Bewusstseinslebens ist nun aber bei afl seiner inhaltlichen
ZufalUgkeit gleichwohl gesetzmassig strukturiert. Sein Wesen ist, wie wir
wissen, Horizontintentionalitat und als solche von genetisch-teleologis-
chem Charakter. Die intentionale Genesis ist die formalste Wesensbestim-
mung des Bewusstseinslebens als absolutem Sein. Das absolute Sein ist
Genetisch-Sein. Das Dass-Sein dieser Genesis ist das schlechthin grand-
iose und darum phanomenologisch unbegrtindbare Faktum des absoluten
Seins. Demnach konnte man sagen: Genesis ist das grosse Faktum des
absoluten Seins. - Aber Genesis, transzendentale Genesis zumal, ist nicht
eo ipso Geschichte.
Damit ist ein gewiss schwieriges und in jungerer Zeit haufiger disku-
tiertes 6 Problem angesprochen. Ich kann hier jedoch nicht zeigen, wie der
komplizierte Zusammenhang von transzendentaler Genesis und mun-
daner Geschichte sich, wie ich meine, im einzelnen fiber einen Ausweis
der Identitat des transzendentalen mit dem mundan-personlichen Ich her-
leiten lasst. Husserl sucht diesen Ausweis zu erbringen, indem er das per-
sonliche Ich als das konstitutive Ergebnis einer "Selbstobjektivation" des
transzendentalen Ich beschreibt. 7 Seine in der systematischen Ausffihrung
leider fragmentarisch bleibenden Versuche konnen - soviel mag sich
schon von dem bereits Gesagten her zeigen lassen - ein entscheidendes
Motiv fur ihre Angemessenheit den Bestimmungen zum transzendentalen
Faktum selbst entnehmen. Denn das absolute Sein als unhinterfragbares
Faktum der Konstitution kann von sich selbst kein Vernunftbewusstsein
erlangen, da es sich nicht als "Urfaktum" setzen und diese Setzung dann
als verntinftig sich ausweisen lassen kann (was widersinnig ware oder aber
einen infiniten Regress zur Folge hatte). Demnach kann das absolute Sein
nur dadurch von sich selbst ein vernunftmassig ausweisbares Bewusstsein
erlangen, indem es sich objektivierend setzt, dann aber nattirlich nicht als
das absolute Dass-Sein, sondern als eine horizontintentional, also genetisch-
zeitlich verumstandete Einheit: als Person. Es setzt sich objektivierend als
Inbegriff seines intentionalen Wie-Seins in und Verhaltens zur Welt seiner
intentionalen Objekte - also als ein intentionales Objekt in der intentional
konstituierten Welt der Erfahrung mit dem Geltungssinn: Mensch in der
Welt.
Im Rahmen dieser objektivierenden Selbstauffassung als menschliche
Person mtisste das .transzendentale Subjekt seine intentionale Genesis als
Entwicklungsgeschichte seines stets mehr oder minder verntinftig
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
motivierten Verhaltens zur Erfahrungsumwelt auffassen. Und die person-
liche Geschichte des personlichen Ich ware dann die Geschichte der Selb-
stmodifikation einer sich in diesem Entwicklungsgang stets kontinuierlich
naherbestimmenden wie auch wandelnden personalen Einheit, eines per-
sonalen Stils, eines "personalen Charakters", wie Husserl sagt (Hua 1,101;
vgl. Hua IX, 214f.; Hua IV, 112f.). Diese Geschichte ist grossteils in der
erinnernden Vergegenwartigung zuganglich. Und sofern nun die dieser
Person korreUerende Umwelt nicht nur einen sachlichen sondern vor
allem auch einen sozialen Sinn trSgt, erscheint sie eo ipso als das Korrelat
einer vergemeinschafteten Interpersonalitat, d.h. mundan als das stets
modifizierbare Ergebnis interpersonal-kommunikativer Bedeutuhgsverlei-
hung. Darin tibertragt sich der geschichtliche Charakter interpersonaler
Auffassungsweisen auf den Sinn des Auffassungsgegenstandes: Die
Erfahrungsumwelt wird zur historischen Welt.
Dieser Komplex kann freiUch in seiner ganzen Weite hier nicht thema-
tisch sein und sollte deshalb nur angedeutet und dann als vorlaufig akzept-
abel ftir unsere jetztige Absicht vorausgesetzt werden.8 Allerdings kommt
dieser Zusammenhang zwischen 'Geschichte' (in Anftihrungszeichen) und
Geschichte (im gewohnUchen Wortsinn) nun m.E. auch, auf eine ktirzeste
Formel gebracht, in der doppelten Auslegungsmoglichkeit des Genitivs in
Husserls Wort von der Geschichte als dem Faktum des absoluten Seins zum
Ausdruck.
Denn je nachdem, wie man diesen Genitiv liest, so hatten wir gesehen,
muss man auch den Begriff des Faktums im betreffenden Zusammenhang
entsprechend auslegen. Bedeutet der Genitiv, dass Geschichte ein Faktum
fur das absolute Sein sei, so heisst Faktum hier 'vorsteUungsmassig konstitu-
iertes Faktum'. 'Geschichte' ware dann Inbegriff ftir den sinngeschichtUchen
Zusammenhang der (empirischen) Faktizitaten einer konstituierten Welt
der Erfahrung und ihrer Menschen. In naturlicher und positiv-
wissenschaftUcher EinsteUung ware diese Geschichte als Faktizitat dann
etwa der Bereich eines als Tatsachengeschehen erforschbaren Seins. Ftir die
mundane Phanomenologie ware sie ein entscheidendes Moment im
anschaulich beschreibbaren und eidologisch analysierbaren Aufbau der
geistigen Welt (vgl. die Beschreibungen in Ideen II und bes. auch in den
Intersubjektivitdtsbdnden). Transzendental reduziert aber ware sie
schliessUch Leitfaden ftir eine radikale Interpretation auf die transzenden-
talen Urquellen ihrer Konstitution.
Diese konstitutiven Urquellen liegen nun jedoch in dem, was Husserl
"innere Historie" nennt als der sinngenetisch-teleologischen Struktur der
transzendental fungierenden Subjektivitat (Hua VI, 386, vgl. 381. Anm.).
Alle erfahrungsmassig konstituierten Fakten haben von daher ihre innere
Sinnstruktur, die keine statische ist, sondern eine genetische. Es ist, wie
Husserl sagt, das "gewaltige strukturelle Apriori" (Hua VI, 380) der tran-
szendentalen Subjektivitat, das Apriori der Sinngenesis, von dem her aUes
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GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
Seiende sein historisches Gewordensein und Werden empfangt. So sind
unsere beiden Auslegungsweisen im Problem der transzendentalen
Fundierungsschichten vermittelt, dessen Bearbeitung in Husserls Versuch
kulminiert, die Identitat von transzendentalem und mundanem Subjekt
auszuweisen, weil die Wesensbestimmung des transzendentalen Ich
undenkbar ist "ohne transzendentales Ich als faktisches" (Hua XV, 385),
und das heisst auch als manifestes, mundan lokalisiertes Ich.9
Dass dieses Apriori nun aber als Quellpunkt ftir die Konstitution einer
faktisch-geschichtUchen Welt fungiert - ist seinerseits ein Faktum. Es ist
das Faktum des Dass-Seins des genetisch verfassten und konstitutiv
fungierenden absoluten Seins (Bewusstseins). Hier tritt die andere Lesart
des Genitivs ins Recht: Das absolute Sein ist das unhinterfragbare Faktum
des Genetischresp. Geschichtlich-Seins. Wenn Husserl haufig statt von
Genesis gleich von 'Geschichte' spricht, so deshalb, weil transzendentale
Sinngenesis eben niemals nur kontinuierliches 'Geschehen' sondern auch
'Schichtung' und 'Geschichtetes', also 'Sinnsedimentierung' und Wieder-
Identifizierbarkeit meint. Und dass auch die sog. 'Faktengeschichte' im
gewohnUchen Wortsinn ftir Husserl im Grunde nichts anderes als Sinn-
geschichte bedeuten muss, erhellt schon daher, dass Geschichte niemals
'Geschehen an sich', sondern stets Auffassungs- und Auslegungsprodukt
eines genetisch organisierten und von daher geschichtlich orientierten
Subjekts ist, und dass alle geschichtliche Welt, transzendental betrachtet,
intentionales Korrelat eines sinngeschichtlich strukturierten geistigen
Lebens ist. Die Faktengeschichte als geschichtlicher Zusammenhang
intentional konstituierter Faktizitaten hat sonach ihren Ursprung im
Faktum der geschichtlich-genetischen Organisiertheit des absoluten
Bewusstseins. - Husserls Kritik an der blossen 'Tatsachengeschichte' ist
daher als ein Moment seiner generellen Kritik am naiven Objektivismus
zu betrachten: Ebensowenig wie es blosse, objektive Tatsachen 'an sich'
gibt, ebensowenig gibt es eine blosse 'Tatsachengeschichte'. Denn es gibt
ebensowenig eine bewusstseinsunabhangige Geschichte wie es eine
bewusstseinsunabhangige Welt gibt.
2. Grenzen der Sinnfrage
Ftir Husserls Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte hat nun diese Dop-
pelauslegung des Worts vom geschichtlichen Faktum eine Konsequenz, die
insbesondere hinsichtlich der Grundfrage nach einem teleologischen Ein-
heitssin der Geschichte bemerkenswert ist. Ich mochte diese Sinnfrage hin-
sichtlich des Geschichtsprozesses in zwei mogliche Fragevarianten
differenzieren: Sie fragt a) nach einem ursachlichen Grund oder b) nach
seinem Zweck, wobei ein ausgezeichneter Fall noch derjenige ware, bei
dem Grund und Zweck in Begriff der Finalursache zusammenfaUen. Dies
wtirde dann bedeuten, dass der ursachliche Grund des Geschichtsprozesses
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(sein 'Sinn') durch sein Woraufhin bestimmt ist. In Husserls teleologischer
Auslegung der Geschichte des europaischen Geistes erweist sich tatsach-
lich diese finalursachliche Deutung als ausschlaggebend.
Ftir Husserl Uegt der teleologische Anfang des Entwicklungsprozesses
des europaischen Geistes bei der griechischen "Urstiftung" des Sinnes
einer letztwissenschaftUchen Philosophie (Hua VI, 72). Zu jeder "Urs-
tiftung" gehort eine dem historischen Prozess aufgegebene "Endstiftung"
(ebd. 73). Die Urstiftung kommt erst von der vollzogenen Endstiftung her
zur Klarheit, d.h. in der historisch-kritischen Rtickbesinnung auf den tele-
ologischen Sinn dessen hin, "worauf 'es' letztiich in der verborgenen
Einheit intentionaler Innerlichkeit, welche aUein Einheit der Geschichte
ausmacht, . . . 'hinauswoUte'" (ebd. 74). Erst von der "Endstiftung" her
zeigt sich die "sinnhaft-finale Harmonie" (ebd.) des sinngeschichtlich-
geistesgeschichtlichen Prozesses. Die Frage nach dem Einheitssinn der
Geschichte ist bei Husserl sonach identisch mit der Frage nach dem
finalursachlichen Grund ihrer Teleologie, nach ihrem Woraufhin.
Der Begriff der Finalursache hat nun seinen eigentlichen Ort im
Rahmen der von der praktischen Philosophie gestellten Frage nach der
Bedeutung der Vernunft ftir das menschUche Handeln. Demnach liegt
etwa einem nach Mitteln und Wegen strukturierten Handlungsablauf die
Projektion eines Handlungszieles voraus, das daher im Nachhinein als die
Finalursache des vollzogenen Handlungsganges betrachtet werden kann.
Die rationale Begriindung der Handlung liegt in der teleologischen
Erklarung des effektiven Zusammenhangs von Ziel und Mitteln. Derart
vernunftstrategisch strukturierte Prozesse, wie solche aus praktisch-
schlussfolgerndem Denken resultierende Handlungsablaufe, konnen ihre
teleologische "Harmonie" aus projektierten "Endstiftungen" heraus
gewinnen. Erst die Erreichung des Handlungszieles (als Vollzug der Ends-
tiftung) vermag eine hinreichende Begrundung der Rationalitat und d.h.
des "Einheitssinnes" des Handlungsganges zu Uefern.
Husserl selbst beschreibt das faktische menschUche Leben in seiner per-
sonalen Lebensumwelt als durch solche teleologische FinaUtat bestimmt.
I:
So heisst es in einem Manuskript aus 1934/35: "In den menschlichen Per-
sonen und ihrem Weltleben, in ihren praktischen Aktivitaten waltet aber
auch die unmittelbar gegebene Teleologie - namUch es ist ein Zweckleben
mit Endzwecken und Mitteln. Nun einerseits die erkennende Praxis mit
dem Endzweck der Wahrheit, andererseits die handelnd-umgestaltende
. . . Das im Ich als Ich, im Wir als Wir liegende Streben auf Ziele hin kon-
stituiert geltende W e l t . . . " (Ms. K III 1/VIII, S. 7). Es handelt sich hier um
eine "unmittelbar gegebene Teleologie" von konstituierten Zwecken und
Mitteln innerhalb einer als geltend gesetzten Welt. Die Rede ist also vom
teleologischen Zusammenhang der transzendenten Faktizitaten einer kon-
stituierten Welt. Dieser Zusammenhang lasst sich jedoch reduzieren. So
heisst es weiter: "Der Mensch als erkennender, wertender, handelnder . . .
212
GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
bewusstseinsmassig auf Welt bezogen. Die Bezogenheit liegt in seinen
Zielungen, er ist durch und durch 'teleologisch' und die Welt ist sein tele-
ologisches Gebilde und teleologische Weltbetrachtung und Welterklarung
ist von vornherein vorgezeichnet durch reflektiven Riickgang auf die per-
sonale Subjektivitat . . . " (ebd.). Die Teleologie des faktisch-praktischen
Weltlebens (der Zweck-Mittel-Rationalitat) ist reduzierbar auf die
genetisch-teleologische Struktur intentionaler Weltbezuglichkeit, also letz-
tendlich auf das absolute Teleologischsein der transzendentalen Subjektiv-
itat, auf das absolute Faktum seiner "Geschichte im pragnanten Sinn", wie
Husserl sagt (Hua XV, 669). Diese Reduktion aber, so Husserl weiter,
muss schUesslich "zu einer absoluten Teleologie ftihren, eine in den men-
schUchen ZweckUchkeiten selbst waltende, eine ubermenschliche" (Ms. K
III 1/VIII, S. 8).
Damit jedoch befinden wir uns an dem eingangs erwahnten aporetis-
chen Punkt der Argumentation. Die relativ begrenzt fungierenden teleolo-
gischen Strukturen intentionaler Weltbeztiglichkeiten, wie sie sich im
praktischen Zweckleben bekunden, werden in der Reduktion auf das tran-
szendentale Faktum zu Abschattungsformen einer absoluten Teleologie
hypostasiert. Mogennun diese intentionalen Sinngebungsprozesse zur
Konstitution einer faktischen Welt von ihrer Zweckursachlichkeit her
verntinftig auslegbar sein, so kann jedoch von einer ebensolchen Interpre-
tation der absoluten Teleologie des transzendentalen Faktums wohl nicht
mehr gut die Rede sein. Denn der "Einheitssinn" seiner "Geschichte im
pragnanten Sinn" ist von keiner Endstiftung finalursachlich herleitbar, da
das transzendentale Faktum, wie beschrieben wurde, eine "IrrationaUtat"
ist, also sein Sein sich keiner verntinftig motivierten Setzung verdankt, die
dann teleologisch zu bewahren ware. Sofern es also nicht intentional
gesetztes Sein ist, ist es finalursachUch auch nicht zu begreifen. So ftihrt
uns die Frage nach dem "Sinn" seiner "GeschichtUchkeit" dahin, nun
nicht mehr nach einer Final-sondern nach einer mogUchen Wirkursache,
also nach einem effektiv-ursSchUchen Grund seines GeschichtUchseins zu
forschen. Dies aber, so eroffnet uns die hier erreichte Aporie, kann eben-
sowenig mit phanomenologischen Mitteln geschehen. Denn was wir
phanomenologisch von der absoluten GeschichtUchkeit des transzenden-
talen Faktums wissen konnen, ist ausschUesslich ihr Dass-Sein, keinesfalls
aber ihr Warum- oder Woher-Sein, da ihr Dass-Sein ftir die phanomenolo-
gische Betrachtung eben "grundlos" bleiben muss. Die phanomenologis-
che Interpretation kann daher tiber dies Wissen ums Nicht-Wissen nicht
hinausfuhren.
Husserls These, dass es darauf ankame zu untersuchen, "worauf 'es' let-
ztlich in der verborgenen Einheit intentionaler Innerlichkeit, welche allein
Einheit der Geschichte ausmacht, . . . 'hinauswoUte'", ftihrt demnach in
die 'Verlegenheit', nicht sagen zu konnen, wer oder was denn dies (zwis-
chen Anftihrungszeichen gesetzte) "es" sei, das da auf was auch immer
213
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
"hinauswill". Und wenn Husserl im Anschluss an seine Feststellung, dass
die Einheit der Geschichte "menschUcher Zwecklichkeiten" die einer
"ubermenschlichen" Teleologie sei, nun vom Gottesbegriff zu sprechen
beginnt (Ms. K III 1/VIII, S. 8; vgl. Ms. K III 2, S. 52-57), so zeigt das
unmissverstandlich die Richtung an, in die er sich mit diesen Fragen
bewegt. Bereits 1908/09 heisst es, zwar noch unentschieden, in der hypo-
thetischen Konsequenz jedoch schon vielsagend: "Aber dass nach den
ideal normativen Gesetzen sich eine einheitUche und sohin rationale
Bewusstseins-ordnung muss herstellen lassen, dass es eine Natur muss
geben konnen und eine Kultur und eine Entwicklung der Natur, die
Kultur ermoglicht, und eine Entwicklung der Kultur im Sinne idealer
Kultur, das ist nicht (a priori) 'notwendig'. Oder gibt es daftir eigenttim-
Uche QueUen der Notwendigkeit? Das hiesse Gott demonstrieren." (Ms. B
I 4, S. 2) So kame der Nachweis der bereits genannten "ubermen-
schlichen" Teleologie einer Demonstration Gottes gleich - sofern er
gelingt. Doch kann er gelingen?
Damit wird nun aber auch der philosophisch an sich legitime Ansatz
von Husserls wissenschafts- und kulturtherapeutisch argumentierender
Xraw-Schrift in fragwtirdige Konsequenzen getrieben. Das wird ganz
deutlich, wenn man in einem Manuskript zur Krisis-Problematik (von
1934/35) eine Bemerkung Uest, die man dann durchaus als Selbstkritik
Husserls auffassen kann, in der es vielsagend heisst: "Hat Geschichte
Wesensgesetze? Denken wir an unser Ausgangsproblem der MogUchkeit
einer Therapie der Gemeinschaften, der Nationen usw. Was ware eine
solche anderes als eine praktische Kunst, die faktische Geschichte durch
die Erkenntnis der Wesensformen derselben zu regieren! - Ist das nicht eine
Hybris?" (Ms. K III 1/IX, Bl. 228b)
Ftir die Moglichkeit einer Phanomenologie der Geschichte haben diese
Beobachtungen nun folgende Konsequenzen:
1 Der genetische Zusammenhang intentional konstituierter Faktizitaten
der Erfahrungswelt kann mogUcherweise teleologisch-geschichtlich
interpretiert werden. D.h. wir konnen phanomenologisch verstehen
lernen, wie das Bewusstseinsleben als grund-gebendes ftir alle konsti-
tuierte Faktizitat sich wesensmassig genetisch-teleologisch vollzieht;
wir konnen von daher vielleicht auch noch phanomenologisch verste-
hen lernen, warum die Welt der Erfahrung sich ftir die transzenden-
tale Subjektivitat vorstellungsmassig immer nur als geschichtliche Welt
gibt und wie diese Geschichte, im einzelnen zweckursachUch strukturi-
ert, stets eine Geschichte der handelnden Menschen ist. Und nur
dieses "Wie", mit dem die Geschichte sich faktisch gibt, und zwar vor-
wissenschaftlich wie wissenschaftlich, kann zum Thema einer phanom-
enologischen Kritik der historischen Erfahrung werden. In einer
solchen Kritik mtisste der Zusammenhang von transzendentaler
214
GRENZEN PHANOMENOLOGISCHER GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE
Genesis und mundan geschichtUchem Geschehen, wie er oben nur
kurz angedeutet worden ist, dann im einzelnen hergeleitet werden.
Hier liegen Moglichkeiten einer phanomenologischen Behandlung der
Geschichte (auch in wissenschaftstheoretischer Absicht), die m.E.
noch tiberhaupt nicht ausgeschopft sind.
2 Ftir die geschichtsphilosophische Sinnfrage aber ist entscheidend, dass
eine Sinndeutung der Faktengeschichte letzten Endes auf das Faktum
ihres Dass-Seins zuruckgewiesen wtirde, d.h. aber auf das Dass der
transzendentalen Konstitution selbst, die das Korrelat des Dass der
faktisch konstituierten geschichtUchen Welt ist. Aber ist nun dieses
transzendentale Faktum in seinem schlechthinnigen Dass-Sein
phanomenologisch unhinterfragbar, so ist damit ineins die Frage nach
dem ursprungUchen Grund des Dass-Seins der konstituierten Welt als
geschichtlicher ebenso abgewiesen. Diese Fragen nach einem letzten
Sinn des Faktums des absoluten Seins und der Geschichte, diese
Fragen nach einem effektiv-ursachUchen Grund des geschichtUchen
Dass-Seins der konstituierenden Subjektivitat fuhren auf eine auf
phanomenologischem Boden "weiter nicht mehr zu interpretierende
Problematik" (Hua VII, 188 Anm.). Solche Fragen sind vielmehr
"letztmetaphysische" Fragen (Hua VIII, 506), und darum ist ihre
Beantwortung durchaus nicht mehr Sache der Phanomenologie
sondern allenfalls Sache einer mit phanomenologischen Mitteln
freiUch nicht zu entwickelnden "neuen" Metaphysik - in der dann
mogUcherweise, so Husserl, auch ein ganz "neuer Sinn von 'absolut'
erwachst" (Hua VII, 382).
So wie der Sinn jeder anderen Wissenschaft, so wird auch der Sinn der
phanomenologischen Forschung durch das Wesen ihres thematischen
"Gebietes", das sie bearbeitet, bestimmt und begrenzt. Und diese Begren-
zung schliesst gewisse Fragestellungen grundsatzlich aus. Warum es also
Geschichte gibt, worin sie ihren letzten Grund hat und worauf "es" mit ihr
"hinauswill" - dies bleiben daher ftir eine nichtmetaphysische Phanom-
enologie ebenso sinnlose Fragen, wie etwa die Frage danach, warum es
tiberhaupt konstituierende Subjekte, also Menschen gibt.
Anmerkungen
1 Vgl. Menon 80 d - 86 c; Sophistes 250 d-e.
2 Vgl. Ludwig Landgrebe, Meditation Uber Husserls Wort 'Die Geschichte ist das
grosse Faktum des absoluten Seins' (1974), in: ders., Faktizitat und Individua-
tion. Studien zu den Grundfragen der Phanomenologie (Hamburg 1982), 38-57;
vgl. auch: Faktizitat und Individuation, ebd. 102-116.
3 Vgl. auch Hua VII, 390: Das faktische Bewusstsein ist nicht das empirische.
4 Dass die Terminologie hier allzu leicht Missverstandnisse herausfordert, ist nicht
eben hilfreich, ftir Husserl aber ganz typisch. Er zwingt zur genauen Lekture.
215
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S

Eines der prominentesten Beispiele: die terminologische Nahe von Geschichte

als Faktengeschichte und 'Geschichte' als Bewusstseinsgeschichte (Bewusst-
seinsgenesis); letzteres gelegentlich, aber auch nicht immer, durch
Anfuhrungszeichen gekennzeichnet. Doch stets dann, wenn derartige Aequiv-
okations-Probleme auftauchen, scheinen sie zugleich auf phanomenologisch
wichtige Zusammenhange, namlich transzendentale Fundierungszusammen- Part 13
hange hinzudeuten: Das Empirisch-Faktische konstituiert sich im Dass und Wie
des faktischen Bewusstseinslebens; die Faktengeschichte reduziert sich auf die
transzendentale Genesis des sinnstiftenden Bewusstseins.
5 Landgrebe, a.a.O. 39. R A T I O N A L I T Y A N D
6 Vgl. beispielhaft die kontroverse Argumentation bei Elisabeth Stroker, Zeit und
Geschichte in Husserls Phanomenologie. Zur Frage ihres Zusammenhangs, in: M E T A P H Y S I C S
E.W. Orth (Hrsg.), Zeit und Zeitlichkeit bei Husserl und Heidegger (Phanom-
enologische Forschungen 14) (Freiburg/Miinchen 1983), 111-137, sowie bei Kurt
Rainer Meist, Die Zeit der Geschichte. Probleme in Husserls transzendentaler
Begrundung einer Theorie der Geschichte, ebd. 58-110.
7 Diese erst spater (vgl. Hua VI, 189f.; Hua XV, 456f.; Hua IX, 294f.) ausfor-
mulierte Idee wird bereits 1913, in der Beilage X zu den Ideen II, im Begriff der
"realisierenden Selbstauffassung" antizipiert (Hua IV, 326f.). - Zwischen 1925
und 1928 bemerkt Husserl zu dieser Beilage in der Ausarbeitung der Ideen II
durch Ludwig Landgrebe: "Sehr wichtig!" (vgl. Hua IV, Textkrit. Anm., 417).
8 Das muss hier vorausgesetzt werden, weil nur bei einem Nachweis der Identitat
des personlich-mundanen mit dem transzendentalen Ich eine Diskussion des
Zusammenhangs des Faktums Geschichte mit der faktischen (mundanen)
Geschichte sinnvoll erscheinen kann. Sollte sich nur eine radikale Differenz
zwischen diesen beiden Ich-Bestimmungen zeigen lassen, wtirde es schwerfaUen,
von der transzendentalen Genesis zum mundanen Geschichtsbegriff zu gelan-
gen.
9 Ernst Wolfgang Orth nennt dies das "Manifestations-Apriori" des transzenden-
talen Subjekts: Husserls Begriff der cogitativen Typen und seine methodologische
Reichweite, in: Phanomenologie heute, hrsg. v. E. W. Orth (Phanomenologische
Forschungen Bd. 1) (Freiburg/Miinchen 1975), 138-167,157.

216
 81

H U S S E R L ' S C O N C E P T O F T H E
" A B S O L U T E "

Rudolf Boehm

Source: This article translated by R. O. Elveton, in R. O. Elveton (ed.), The Phenomenology

of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970, pp. 174-203.

The subject of dispute often remains unobserved in the dispute itself.

Husserl's most disputed thought doubtlessly was and is the thought of
"absolute consciousness," the basic thought of the Ideas which permitted
this philosophy to be characterized as idealism. The following considera-
tions serve as a clarification of this basic but seldom treated concept of the
absolute in Husserl's thought.

1. Absolute phenomena
The idea of phenomenology, which Husserl developed under this title in
the Five Lectures of 1907,1 is established or "motivated" by the need for a
metaphysics. Husserl's idea of metaphysics is the idea of a science of
beings in an absolute sense. "What is needed is a science of beings in an
absolute sense. This science, which we shall call metaphysics, grows out of
a 'critique' of the natural sciences which is based upon the insight into the
essence of knowledge and into the distinctive basic forms of knowledge-
objectivities (in the sense of the different fundamental correlations
between knowledge and its objectivity) won by the universal critique of
knowledge." 2 Husserl distinguishes the universal critique of knowledge (or
the theory of knowledge) from the critique of knowledge in the narrower
sense of a critique of the "natural" knowledge found in all "natural" sci-
ences. Phenomenology is to serve as the basis for a universal critique or
theory of knowledge. EstabUshed in this way, "the theory of knowledge
can become the critique of the natural knowledge found in aU natural sci-
ences. It will then enable us to interpret the results of the natural sciences
with respect to beings in a correct and definitive manner. For the epis-
temological perplexity into which natural (preepistemological) reflection
upon the possibilities of knowledge (upon a possible correctness of know-
ledge) has cast us is not only the cause of false views concerning the

219

1
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
essence of knowledge, but is also the source of basicaUy perverse (because
self-contradictory) interpretations of the being which comes to be known in
the natural sciences. . . . Only epistemological reflection can produce the
distinction between natural science and philosophy, and only through this
reflection is it clear that the natural sciences of being are not the ultimate
sciences of being. We require a science of beings in an absolute sense "3
We require a metaphysics, an ultimate science of being, a science of
beings in an absolute sense; for this purpose we require an epistemological
critique of the natural sciences; in order to provide a basis for this critique
of science we require a theory of knowledge or a universal critique of
knowledge, and for this purpose we require phenomenology.
Phenomenology stands in the service of a critique of knowledge whose
ultimate goals are of a metaphysical order. As the critique of knowledge,
however, phenomenology itself will first establish the need for a meta-
physics by showing that this need is established by a critique of the natural
knowledge found in the natural sciences. Precisely for this reason the
theory of knowledge must establish itself by ignoring its metaphysical
goals - and this means: as phenomenology. "If we ignore the metaphysical
goals of the critique of knowledge, if we hold ourselves purely to the task
of clarifying the essence of knowledge and of the objectivities which belong
to knowledge, then this is the phenomenology of knowledge and of the
objectivities which belong to knowledge. .. ."4 Only a critique of the
natural knowledge found in all natural sciences which has this kind of
"pure" phenomenology as its basis is capable of bringing to light in a con-
vincing manner the fact that the natural sciences of being are not the ulti-
mate sciences of being and that we thoroughly require metaphysics as a
science of beings in an absolute sense.
In the interest of estabUshing the metaphysical needs which lay at its
very foundation, the philosophical discipline of phenomenology requires
that phenomenology hold itself "purely to the task of clarifying the essence
of knowledge and the objectivities belonging to knowledge" entirely apart
from all metaphysical goals, and this means apart from all questions con-
cerning beings in an absolute sense.
"Phenomenology designates a science, a connection of scientific disci-
plines; at the same time, however, phenomenology primarily designates a
method and a manner of thinking. .. ."5 Phenomenology's manner of
thinking is defined by the method of an "epistemological" or "phenom-
enological" reduction. This signifies the "exclusion of the transcendent in
general as an existence which is not an evident givenness in the genuine
sense, the absolute givenness of pure intuiting (Schauen)."6 The "phenom-
enological sphere" is to be "the sphere of absolute clarity, the sphere of
immanence in the genuine sense,"7 a "sphere of absolute givenness."8 It is
the reduction to the sphere of absolute givenness that establishes a pure
phenomenology, for "only the pure phenomenon, that which has been
220
HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
reduced, is truly an absolute givenness."9 The sphere of absolute givenness
is "the field of absolute phenomena." 10 This "is a field of absolute know-
ledge which offers no opinions concerning the ego, the world, God, the
mathematical manifolds or any other scientific objectivity; a knowledge
which, therefore, is not dependent upon these objectivities, a knowledge
which is to be accepted just as it presents itself whether one is a skeptic
with regard to it or not." 11
If metaphysics is the science of beings in an absolute sense, the critique of
knowledge whose purpose is to awaken the need for this metaphysics is
established apart from aU metaphysical goals as a pure phenomenology by
means of a return to what is absolutely given. The exclusion of ah questions
relating to beings in an absolute sense and the return to the absolute phe-
nomena as the return to what is absolutely given amounts to one and the
same procedure - the phenomenological reduction. Accordingly, the
absolute of phenomenology is not the absolute of metaphysics. The absolute
of metaphysics is that which exists absolutely (das absolut Seiende).
Phenomenology's absolute is that which is absolutely given. Its basic prin-
ciple runs: "absolute givenness is something ultimate,"12 and this is so
because it divorces itself from the critique of the metaphysical goals of
knowledge. This is how the idea of phenomenology is defined in Husserl's
Five Lectures.
2. Absolute being
Several years after presenting the idea of phenomenology, "the theory of
knowledge and the metaphysics which, historically and by way of content,
is bound up with it,"13 and their reciprocal relationships, Husserl published
a General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology as the first volume of his
Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy.u
This work is incomplete. Not only was Husserl unable to make up his
mind with respect to the publication of very extensive and partially com-
pleted sketches (which were then edited from Husserl's posthumous works
in 1952 and pubUshed as the second and third books of the Ideas, contain-
ing the Phenomenological Investigations of Constitution and discussions of
Phenomenology and the Foundations of Science)?5 but the entire work is
also lacking its conclusion. A glance at Husserl's introduction to the first
volume indicates that what are now the "second" and "third" volumes
correspond simply to what in the original plan was envisaged as being two
parts of the second volume.16 "A third and concluding volume," according
to this plan, "wfll be dedicated to the idea of philosophy. Here we are to
awaken the insight that true philosophy, which has as its idea that of real-
izing absolute knowledge, is rooted in pure phenomenology, and this in
such an earnest manner that the systematically rigorous establishing and
completion of this first of all philosophies is the unavoidable precondition
221
 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
for every metaphysics and every other philosophy which would desire to
emerge as science."17
The third volume of the Ideas, which was to present the conclusion of
the entire work, was never written.18 Nevertheless, the "insight" of which
Husserl speaks and which this volume was to have awakened in the reader
must have been fixed clearly in his own mind and must have presented the
basis for his conception of the work. This insight contained one (if not the)
basic concept of his Ideas, a concept central not only to a pure phenom-
enology but also to a phenomenological philosophy. It is in terms of this
idea that "pure" phenomenology can and must be understood as a basic
element of phenomenological philosophy insofar as this pure phenom-
enology is itself the "first of aU philosophies" and proves itself to be "the
unavoidable precondition . . . for every metaphysics and every other philo-
sophy."
In fact, the "insight" in question already appears to have, been
expressed in the Five Lectures. The quotations above bear witness to this.
One of these quotations must be completed as follows: "phenomenology
designates a science . . . at the same time and above aU, however, phenom-
enology designates a method and a manner of thinking: the specifically
philosophical manner of thinking, the specificaUy philosophical method."19
Here "pure" phenomenology is meant in the sense of the Ideas. This is a
"pure" phenomenology in the sense of the Idea of Phenomenology insofar
as it holds itself "purely" to the task of returning to the field of absolute
phenomena as the sphere of absolute giveness by ignoring all metaphysical
goals and by ignoring all questions concerning beings in an absolute sense.
This "method" and "manner of thinking" can and must be termed the
"specifically philosophical manner of thinking, the specifically philosophi-
cal method" because "establishing and carrying out" a pure phenoniT
enology in this sense is also "the unavoidable precondition for every
metaphysics and every philosophy."
It appears as though it is simply the formulation of this "insight" that is
sharpened in the Ideas. It is expressed in this formula: the first of all philo-
sophies must be a pure phenomenology: pure phenomenology is the First
Philosophy?0
In truth, however, it is not simply a question here of a mere,formula. 21
The name "First Philosophy" is itself the oldest title for "metaphysics." A
phenomenological philosophy in Husserl's sense is a philosophy for which
the "First Philosophy" is not metaphysics but pure phenomenology. With
the estabUshing of a phenomenological philosophy, metaphysics not only
loses its title of being the "First Philosophy," but also loses its foundation-
laying function. It must then cease to be a metaphysics in the sense in
which it has been thought of ever since the time of Aristotle. Yet does not
Husserl's pure phenomenology itself become metaphysics precisely insofar
as it takes on the title of the "First Philosophy," thereby taking over the
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
foundation-laying function which had at one time been attributed to meta-
physics? It can be shown in Husserl's work that this does happen.
In the Five Lectures pure phenomenology is contrasted with meta-
physics insofar as pure phenomenology does not inquire into beings in an
absolute sense, but returns solely to what is absolutely given. In the first
volume of the Ideas the "absolutely given" (and it alone) is itself posited
and appealed to as absolute being and absolute reality.
In § 44 of the Ideas Husserl contrasts the mode of givenness of things
and of the transcendent in general with the mode of givenness of the
immanent or experience. He states that "transcendent being in general, no
matter of what sort, understood as being for an ego, can be brought to
givenness in a manner analogous to that mode in which a thing comes to
givenness, and thus only through appearances." 22 By contrast, "experience
does not present itself in this way. This implies that the perception of
experience is the pure intuiting of something which is given as being
absolute in this perception (or which can be given in this way) and is not
given as something which is identical throughout its modes of appearing,
i.e., through perspectival configurations."23 "We therefore conclude that
while it belongs to the essence of givenness through appearances not to
give any affair as absolute, but to give it only through partial presenta-
tions, it belongs to the very essence of immanent givenness just to give
something which is absolute and which cannot present itself perspectivally
and partially."24
This is the sole topic of the paragraph. It discusses the "merely phenom-
enal" givenness of the transcendent and the absolute givenness of the
immanent. The title of these paragraphs states, however: "The Merely
Phenomenal Being of the Transcendent and the Absolute Being of the
Immanent." 25 Insofar as absolute givenness is thus spoken of directly as
absolute being, the Ideas' "Fundamental Phenomenological Observa-
tions," the section in which the passages quoted assume a central role,
directly emerges as a metaphysics insofar as a "science of beings in an
absolute sense" can be called "metaphysics."
3. Absolute positing
The direct claim that what is absolutely given is absolute being (presented
in § 44 of the Ideas) permits us to conjecture that Husserl in general (in
accordance with basic principles as much as with self-evidence) makes
givenness as such the "absolute" measure of being; that he speaks of
absolute givenness as being constitutive of absolute being because in prin-
ciple (although implicitly) he identifies being with givenness. The self-
evidence which this equation might have had for Husserl appears
questionable in view of the care with which the differentiation of the
"objects" of metaphysics from those of a pure phenomenology is carried
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
out in the text from 1907. Taking into account the fact that the Five Lec-
tures was unknown to most readers of the Ideas, the "self-evidence" of this
step must be something Husserl imagined.
But this claim is not simply an "immediate" pronouncement. It is
"mediated" by the concept of absolute positing. This occurs in § 46 of the
Ideas. The "Fundamental Phenomenological Observations" 26 reach their
climax in these paragraphs. 27 They are entitled: "IndubitabiUty of Imma-
nent Perception and Dubitability of Transcendent Perception." 28 The first
lines state: "Every immanent perception necessarily guarantees the exist-
ence of its object. If the reflecting apprehension is directed toward my
experience I have apprehended an absolute self whose existence is in prin-
ciple undeniable, that is, the insight that it does not exist is in principle
impossible; it would be absurd to hold it possible that an experience given
in this way does not truly exist."29 Thus "I am simply compelled to state: I
exist, this life is, I live: cogito."30
"By contrast, it belongs . . . to the essence of the world of things that no
perception, no matter how perfect, gives us anything absolute in its
domain, and essentially connected with this is the fact that every encom-
passing experience leaves open the possibility that what is given does not
exist, despite the continuing consciousness of its bodily self-givenness. It is
an essential law that the existence of things is never a necessity required by
their being given but is in a certain manner always contingent."31
"It is clear then . . . that everything which is present for me in the world
of things, in the world of realities in general, is in principle only a presump-
tive reality, and that on the contrary / myself, for whom these things or
realities are there . . . or the actuality of my experience, is an absolute
reality given by means of an unconditioned and absolutely retractable
positing."32 "In this absolute sphere there is no place for conflict, illusion,
and being-otherwise. It is a sphere of absolute positings."33
The objects of immanent perception are given-absolutely. But imma-
nent perception guarantees that the being of that which comes to absolute
givenness in this perception is an absolutely indubitable being. Absolute
givenness thereby necessarily requires (and requires as a necessity) the
absolute positing of that which is absolutely given as existing. The sphere
of absolute givenness is a "sphere of absolute positings."
Here it could appear as if the formula: "absolute reality - given by
means of an unconditioned and absolutely unretractable positing" - in the
end exhaustively defines Husserl's concept of absolute being or absolute
reaUty. For actuaUy the expression "absolute being" does not designate a
being which exists in the absolute sense or the mode of being of something
which is absolute in the metaphysical sense, but simply designates a posi-
tional-modality. "Existing absolutely" would then signify nothing other
than "being absolutely indubitable." Absolute givenness would then not
be posited as absolute being, but (at least within the framework of a
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
"pure" phenomenology) by absolute being nothing more would be under-
stood than absolute givenness. Absolute being would also mean nothing
other than an absolute (namely, an absolutely indubitable) "being for an
ego."34 Attesting to this would be the fact that, for Husserl, the concept
which here contrasts with "absolute" is that of the simply "presumptive."
These passages, however, "include premisses" for more radical "con-
sequences which we shall want to draw out from the possibility of separat-
ing in principle the entire natural world from the domain of consciousness,
the sphere of the being of experiences."35 These are drawn out by Husserl
in § 49 which presents "Absolute Consciousness as the Residuum of the
World-Nullification."36 Regarding "the results . . . we have obtained at the
conclusion of the last chapter" (i.e., the results of § 46), Husserl now main-
tains "that the being of consciousness, of every stream of experience in
general, is to be sure necessarily modified by nullifying the world of things,
but its ownmost existence is not thereby touched."37
With this statement Husserl clearly infers relationships of being from
positional relationships. If "transcendent being in general . . . understood
as being for an ego, can only be given in a manner analogous to the given-
ness of a thing, and therefore only through appearances," 38 then what
holds specifically for "thinglike existence" also holds for all being which is
not the being of consciousness: "its necessity is never a necessity required
by its being given."39 For it is possible for consciousness to exist without
the necessity of positing the existence of any real being. Consciousness can
be posited absolutely without necessarily positing a real being along with
positing the being of consciousness. Therefore no real being, no being of a
kind such that it presents itself and exhibits itself through appearances in
accordance with the consciousness that we have of it, is necessary for the
being of consciousness (consciousness in the widest sense as the stream of
experience).
"Immanent being is therefore doubtlessly absolute being in this sense:
that in principle nulla 're' indiget ad existendum."40
The statement: "Therefore no real being is necessary for the being of
consciousness" is ambiguous. Indeed, the move asserting the absolute
being of consciousness rests upon this ambiguity. Real being, understood
as being for an ego, is never to be posited as necessary: it neither can nor
must come to be given to consciousness or come to be posited by con-
sciousness as necessary being. From this Husserl concludes: no real being
is itself necessary for the being of consciousness.
Yet Husserl's meaning is clear. Nothing can be posited absolutely, and
hence nothing can come to absolute givenness (which is required by
absolute positing), whose very being would not itself be absolute. What-
ever is given absolutely and, accordingly, whatever requires that it be
posited absolutely, thereby proves itself to be absolute being. Absolute
being is the necessary foundation for absolute givenness.
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The basis for this thought lies in the concept of "absolute being" which
Husserl here sets forth. This concept is expressed in the form: immanent
being is absolute being insofar as absolute being is the being of something
which "in principle nulla 're' indiget ad existendum." The Latin phrase
Husserl employs in this definition of absolute being originates in
Descartes' definition of substance: "By substance, we can understand
nothing else than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in
order to exist."41 Quite apart from the fact that Husserl is not speaking of
"substance," his formula would be translated in the following way:
absolute being is being which "in principle requires no other being for its
existence."
To the extent that an absolute being is now a being such that it can exist
without being "conditioned" in its being by some other being, then clearly
only an absolute being in this sense can be "posited unconditionaUy" on
the basis of its coming to "absolute givenness." In principle, the possibility
of absolute givenness has its foundation in absolute being: absolute being
establishes the possibility of absolute givenness.
4. Absolute consciousness
Of course, Husserl's modified Cartesian formula for "absolute being" can
be interpreted this way: by placing the word "re" in quotation marks
("nulla 're' indiget ad existendum") Husserl signifies that he does not
understand this word in Descartes' sense (Husserl does not name the
being defined as possessing absolute being a "thing"), but that he under-
stands it in his own and more restricted sense. With this interpretation,
however, his definition of absolute being not only presupposes his termino-
logical distinction between "consciousness" and "reaUty," but it also
implies the thesis that consciousness alone is absolute being. Or, it directly
places this distinction in question and for this reason is reduced to intro-
ducing another distinction between consciousness, caUed absolute being,
and real being. In any case, Husserl's stated definition of absolute being
can be understood as being modeled upon the presupposed proof of the
absoluteness of consciousness' being: that consciousness requires no other
being for its existence means that it requires no real being (in Husserl's
sense) for its existence. Formulated in this way, the definition impUes the
further assumption that aU being part from the being of consciousness of
real being, or the definition establishes a possibly more limited concept of
"absolute being."
In this connection, and with particular reference to the already men-
tioned possibiUty that Husserl's "nominal definition" of absolute being
already includes his thesis that only the being of consciousness is absolute,
we must not forget that, after the cited definition of "substance,"
Descartes immediately continues: "And in fact only one single substance
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
can be understood which clearly needs nothing else, namely, God. We per-
ceive that all other things can exist only by the help of the concourse of
God." 42 Descartes' definition of substance essentially includes the thesis
that God alone is substance.
One is inclined to accept the implication that, in the end, Husserl's defi-
nition of absolute being similarly implies the assertion of the absolute
being of consciousness and of consciousness alone. Furthermore, since his
concept of absolute being is the same as Descartes' idea of substance, it is
impUed that Husserl conceives of consciousness as being the sole sub-
stance. Since he posits absolute consciousness as the sole substance, this
absolute consciousness is analogous to God for Husserl.
Nevertheless, Descartes proceeds further: "That is why the word sub-
stance does not pertain univoce to God and to other things, as they say in
the schools, that is, no common signification for this appellation which wfll
apply equally to God and to them can be distinctly understood." 43 We
must note a corresponding ambiguity in Husserl's concept of absolute
being, an ambiguity which is attested to by the following: God, in Husserl's
view, is "an 'absolute' in an entirely different sense than the absolute of con-
sciousness."4*
If the being of God can be thought of a possibility, the definition of
absolute being we are now discussing directly sets forth a limited concept
of absolute being; if by "res" (in quotation marks) we mean solely real
being in the narrow sense of the Ideas, "immanent being" would be
"absolute being only in the sense that it in principle nulla 're' indiget ad
existendum." Consciousness would be absolute being only insofar as it
does not require being sustained (concursus) by real being in order to exist
- although it might indeed require being sustained by another being "and
have its source in what is ultimately and truly absolute." 45
Perhaps the ambiguity of the definition of absolute being concentrated
in the word "res" as set off by quotation marks was intended by Husserl.
The statement that "immanent being is thus doubtlessly absolute being
in the sense that it in principle nulla 're' indiget ad existendum" does not at
aU prejudice the possibility that in addition to consciousness reality is also
absolute being. Neither the definition of absolute being nor the thesis that
consciousness is absolute being allows the conclusion that real being is not
absolute being. To be sure, the following occurs immediately after the
statement quoted above.
"On the other hand the world of transcendent 'res' is referable without
qualification to consciousness, and not simply to a logically conceived con-
sciousness, but to an actual consciousness."46 Here Husserl asserts the non-
absolute, purely relative being of reality. But this assertion is not a
consequence of the preceding statement from which it is separated by the
opening phrase "on the other hand."
The importance of the relationships encountered in this connection
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rests upon two considerations: first, the relativization of reality - indeed,
making it relative to absolute consciousness - radically strengthens the
absoluteness of absolute consciousness; and, second, the concept of the
absolute being of consciousness does not in itself require this relativity of
the being of "reaUty." "In themselves," according to Husserl's concept,
immanent consciousness and transcendent real being could exist next to
each other as two modes of absolute being and could even possibly be sub-
ordinate to God as the "ultimately and truly absolute," just as in Descartes
res cogitans and res extensa exist as two substances subordinate to the
"infinite" substance of God.
That reality, the being of things, real being, transcendent being in
general, is truly not absolute but relative, and indeed relative to conscious-
ness, is maintained by Husserl in certain well-known and very pointed for-
mulations which, quite understandably, caused a sensation among both
foUowers and opponents of "phenomenology" much more than did the
statements concerning "absolute consciousness." The most important pas-
sages are found in the second part of § 49, in the beginning of § 50, and in
the first of the concluding summarizing paragraphs (§ 55) of the third
chapter of the "Fundamental Phenomenological Observations."
Throughout it is understood that the titles "reality" and "conscious-
ness" do not serve to distinguish two kinds of absolute being: "Between
consciousness and reality there yawns a veritable abyss of meaning. Here a
being which manifests itself perspectivally and which is never to be given
absolutely, a purely contingent and relative being; there a necessary and
absolute being which in principle cannot be given perspectivally through
appearances." 47 -
"The entire spatio-temporal world within which man includes himself and
the human ego as subordinate individual reaUties, is, according to its very
meaning, simply intentional being, a being which therefore has the merely
secondary, relative meaning of a being for a consciousness. It is a being which
consciousness posits in its own experiences, which in principle is only the
identical element which is intuitable and determinable by motivated mani-
folds of experience, and which, above and beyond this, is nothing at aU."48
"Thus the common meaning of talk about being is inverted. The being
which for us is first is in itself second, i.e., it is what it is only in 'relation' to
the being which is first. Not as if a blind order of laws had made things in
such a way that the ordo et connexio rerum must direct itself in accordance
with the ordo et connexio idearum. Reality, the reality of individual things
as weU as the reality of the entire world, essentially lacks (in our strong
sense) independence. Reality is not in itself something absolute whose
bond with some other being is only secondary; it is, in the sense of being
absolute, nothing at all; it has no 'absolute essence,' but the essentially of
something which in principle is only intentional, only consciously known,
presented, appearing."49
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
And finally: "To identify the totality of realities . . . with the totality of
being, thereby making the former absolute, is nonsensical. An absolute
reality is as valid as a round square."50
The basis for the statement that the being of reality is not absolute but
simply relative is not contained in the fact that consciousness has already
proven itself to be "the" absolute being, but in the meaning of real being or
in the essence of reality itself: "Reality . . . essentially lacks (in our strong
sense) independence." "To identify the totality of realities . . . with the
totality of being" is not only false but is also nonsensical to the extent that
such an identification implies making real being absolute. The thought of
an absolute being of things and realities runs counter to the meaning of the
being of things and reaUties. The concept of an "absolute reality" is not a
concept at all.
Insofar as the absoluteness of absolute being, that is, absolute con-
sciousness, does not remain untouched by the relationship in which reality
stands to absolute consciousness, we must investigate Husserl's interpreta-
tion of the meaning of real being over and against which the idea of an
absolute reality is nonsensical.
5. Givenness and being
The discussion required to establish the thesis that something real "is in an
absolute sense nothing at aU" is found in § 43 of the Ideas; hence in those
paragraphs immediately preceding the ones we have discussed up to this
point. This part is entitled: "Clarification of a Basic Mistake."51 The essen-
tial content of these paragraphs is found in the first fifteen lines, which
follow.
"It is therefore a basic mistake to think that perception (and, in their
own special way, every other kind of intuition of the thing) does not
encounter the thing itself; that the thing is not given to us in itself and in
terms of its in-itselfness. To every being there belongs in principle the pos-
sibility of intuiting it as it really is, and particularly of perceiving it in an
adequate perception which gives us the corporeal thing itself without any
mediation through 'appearances.' God, the subject of absolutely perfect
knowledge and therefore also of every possible adequate perception, natu-
rally possesses what is denied to us finite beings: the perception of things
in themselves.
"But this view is nonsensical. It implies that there is no essential dif-
ference between transcendent and immanent; that in the postulated divine
intuition a spatial thing is a real constituent (and therefore an experience)
belonging with other experiences to the divine stream of consciousness
and stream of experience." 52
If these lines actually seem to contain the entire explanation of
Husserl's view that real being is "a being which is posited by consciousness
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in its experience, and which in principle is only the identical element which
can be intuited and determined by motivated manifolds of experience and
is nothing at all above and beyond this," this information is at first disap-
pointing. These lines appear to lead us back to the "purely phenomenolog-
ical" questions of givenness, and, more specifically, back to the question
concerning the possibility of reality's being given absolutely in terms of
adequate perceivability. And yet is not the question concerning the
absolute being of the real contained precisely in the question whether an
absolute being would be conceivable even where absolute givenness is
absent? In maintaining the absolute being of consciousness, Husserl, on
the contrary, seems simply to presuppose that the absolute being of what
is given absolutely is subordinate to absolute givenness.
The text of § 43 does not, however, only speak of the factual absence of
reality's absolute givenness in "our" experience, but also speaks of the
impossibility in principle of an absolute givenness of beings whose mode of
being is that of reality. However, and we have already estabUshed that this
is Husserl's conviction, absolute being establishes in principle the possibil-
ity of absolute givenness. If it can be now shown that the possibility of
absolute givenness is in principle excluded for real being as such, real
being is not to be thought of as absolute, and the thought of an absolute
being of things and realities is, as Husserl maintains, contrary to the very
meaning of the being of things.
By relying upon the results of his preceding analyses, Husserl can
produce the required proof in a few brief words. Yet the task of conduct-
ing this proof is connected with that of "clarifying a basic mistake." What
mistake?
Husserl is at the point of establishing the assertion that by its very
essence real being cannot be absolute being by proving that in principle the
mode of being which belongs to reality excludes the possibility of a real
thing's ever being given absolutely: he thereby conceives "the possibility in
principle of absolute givenness" as the measure of absolute being. The
basic mistake, however, to which he simultaneously turns his attention, is,
paradoxically enough, the mistaken opinion that "every being has in prin-
ciple the possibility" of being given absolutely, and this clearly means that
the possibility of absolute givenness belongs to every being as a principle
because it belongs to being as such. Accordingly, absolute givenness as a
"possibility in principle" belongs to "beings in an absolute sense" and yet
not at all as a "possibiUty in principle" to beings as such.
Husserl's thesis that real being is "a being which consciousness posits in
its own experiences and which in principle is only the identical element
which can be intuited and determined by motivated manifolds of
experience and is nothing at aU above and beyond this"53 is based upon the
conviction that "the perception of things . . . makes present and appre-
hends something itself in its corporeal presence." 54 Hence, for Husserl, it is
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
"a basic mistake to think that perception (and, in their own special way,
every other kind of intuition of the thing) does not encounter the thing
itself; that the thing is not given to us in itself and in terms of its in-
itselfness."55 What is the source of this mistake? On the one hand, it
clearly lies in establishing the fact (which Husserl does not dispute but
rather stresses) that things and realities in general "are not given to us" in
absolute givenness; on the other hand, however, it also has its source in a
more fundamental mistake in principle which is concealed within the
above-mentioned "fact": "To every being there belongs in principle the
possibility of intuiting it as it really is and particularly of perceiving it in an
adequate perception which gives us the corporeal thing itself without any
mediation through 'appearances'."56 From this mistake in principle and
from the above-mentioned "fact" the following conclusion results: it is
simply "an accidental feature of 'our human constitution'" which, in turn,
does not at all concern the being-in-itself of things, "that 'our' perception
can only encounter things themselves through their perspectival configura-
tions."57 The impossibility of our having things given to us absolutely, the
impossibility of our adequately perceiving them, lies in the imperfect con-
stitution of our knowledge-capacity as "finite" beings. "God, the subject of
absolutely perfect knowledge and therefore also of every possible adeq-
uate perception, naturally possesses what is denied to us finite beings, the
perception of things in themselves."58 According to this interpretation, the
absence of the real's absolute givenness as this is experienced by us would
not reside in the lack of absolute being on the part of things and realities,
but merely in the deficient constitution of ourselves as beings who
experience things in a "finite" manner.
Husserl clearly reproaches Kant with having made the mistake charac-
terized here even though he does not mention him by name.59 The criti-
cism of Kant impUed by the Ideas' § 43 in turn implies a basic
interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason which Husserl himself had
not carried out, but which agrees with the "exposition of the Critique of
Pure Reason as laying the foundation for metaphysics" initiated by Hei-
degger in his book (pubUshed in 1929), Kant and the Problem of Meta-
physics?0 This connection appears to us to be important for the history of
philosophy.
The view that "to every being there belongs in principle the possibility"
of its absolute givenness, and that this possibiUty therefore belongs to
beings as such, is clarified by Husserl as a "mistake in principle" on the
basis of the presuppositions won in providing the demonstration that this
postulate conflicts with the very meaning of the being of beings whose
mode of existence is that of reality. The requirement of the possibility in
principle of an absolute givenness of the real is the requirement of the pos-
sibiUty in principle of its adequate perceivability. Only immanent percep-
tion, however, can be an adequate perception, for only in "the case of an
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
immanently directed, or, more succinctly, an immanent perception (the so-
called 'inner' perception) do perception and perceived essentially constitute
an unmediated unity, the unity of an individual concrete cogitatio. Here
perception contains its object within itself in such a way that it can be sep-
arated from it only by abstraction and only as a moment which by its very
essence cannot be independent."61 The requirement of the possibility in
principle of an absolute givenness of the real is thus equivalent to assum-
ing the possibility of converting beings existing in the mode of reality to
beings existing in the mode of experiences. This runs counter to the
meaning of the being of beings whose mode of existence is that of reality.
The assumption of an actual possibility in principle of absolute givenness
for beings as such is in truth ultimately equivalent (paradoxically enough)
to a principal misconstrual, if not an actual denial, of the independent
,1 mode of existence of the real as a being which is in principle "transcend-
ent" and incapable of being dissolved into "immanence."
6. The transcendent and the transcendental absolute
In accordance with the essential meaning of its being, real being in prin-
ciple excludes the possibility of its absolute givenness. Consequently, real
being is essentially not absolute being. "Reality is not in itself something
t." absolute whose bond with some other being is only secondary, but is in the
sense of being absolute nothing at all. It has no 'absolute essence'; it has
the essentiality of something which in principle is only intentional, only
consciously known, presented, appearing." 62 Not only is consciousness
absolute being, but also consciousness alone is absolute being. By contrast,
real being is "a being which merely has the secondary, relative meaning of
being for a consciousness."63 "ReaUty, the reality of the individual thing as
well as that of the entire world, essentially lacks (in our strong sense)
independence." 64 Real being "in principle" is "being which is relative to
consciousness."65
The paradox which we have already touched upon several times is this:
Husserl denies the absolute being of the real on the basis of affirming the
independent mode of existence of the real as the "being-in-itself" of the
transcendent which in principle excludes the possibiUty of its absolute
givenness. The "independent" essence of the real, rooted in the being-in-
itself of things, excludes in principle the "independence" of reaUty. In
Husserl's words: "To the thing as such, to every genuine reality . . . belongs
in essence and 'in principle' the inability to be perceived immanently and
the inability in general to be found within the system of experience. Thus
the thing itself, simply as such, is transcendent. Disclosed therein is the dif-
ference in principle between modes of being, the most crucial difference
there is: that between consciousness and reality."66 In a footnote to the
phrase 'in principle,' Husserl further emphasizes: "Here, as in this work
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
generally, the phrase "in principle" is used in a rigorous sense with refer-
ence to the highest, and therefore the most radical, essential universaUties
or essential necessities."67 Accordingly, one of the highest and most radical
essential necessities must correspond to the difference in principle
between the modes of being of consciousness and reaUty. And yet, when
this difference is maintained as an essential necessity, it appears to dissolve
itself through its own consequences.
As we have seen, from these consequences the fact emerges that the
"essential difference" between the modes of being of consciousness and
reality, of the immanent and the transcendent, is none other than the dif-
ference between absolute being and a being which is simply relative to
absolute being. That is, real being "is what it is only in 'relation' to"68 the
absolute being of consciousness. This "relation" is not a fortuitous occur-
rence, but is itself an essential necessity for the being of the real. In § 49
Husserl himself states: "Thus we see that consciousness (inner experience)
and real being are not coordinate modes of being Uving peacefully next to
each other and occasionally 'relating' to each other or being 'connected'
with each other." 69 As a result, it becomes a question as to what meaning
the assertion of a difference in principle between consciousness and reality
could have. If real being has "the essentiaUty of something which" is "in
principle only intentional, only consciously known, presented, appear-
ing,"70 clearly it is merely a mode of being which is subordinate to the
absolute being of consciousness. Real being itself is only in a relative
sense. In this context, real being would in general not be an independent
mode of being, but, in accordance with the purely limited sense of its
being, would be ultimately reduced to a relative moment within the one
single totality of absolute consciousness, or consciousness and reality
would ultimately form one single whole which would be the whole of
absolute being itself, and that actually means the whole of absolute con-
sciousness. And yet: "To be connected in the true sense, to form a whole,
can apply only to what is essentially related, each part having its own
essence and on the same lines as the other." 71 Husserl continues with this
sentence after he has established that "consciousness (inner experience)
and real being are not coordinate modes of being. . . . " Husserl himself
seems to be on the verge of canceling the assertion concerning the "dif-
ference in principle between the modes of being of consciousness and
reaUty," for he raises the question: "Can the unity of a whole be unified
other than through the essence proper to its parts, and which must accord-
ingly have some community of essence instead of essential
heterogeneity?" 72
Yet, surprisingly enough, we must affirm the fact that Husserl denies
just this formation of a "whole" of absolute being out of consciousness and
reality, and that he furthermore denies any "community of essence"
between consciousness and reality. "Only what is essentially related can
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form a whole in the true sense, each part having its own essence and on
the same lines as the other. Both immanent or absolute being and
transcendent being are indeed termed 'being' (seiend) or 'object,' and each
has its objective determination of content. It is evident, however, that what
on either side goes by the name of object and objective determination are
similar only in terms of empty logical categories. Between consciousness
and reaUty yawns a veritable abyss of meaning. Here a perspectival, never
absolutely given, merely contingent and relative being; there a necessary
and absolute being "73
What does Husserl's insistence upon the "heterogeneity in principle"
between the essence of the real and the essence of immanent experiences
signify? What is the meaning of this steadfast holding to the "difference in
principle" between these two modes of being? Finally, what is the signific-
ance of this mention of a "veritable abyss" between the meaning of
absolute being and the meaning of that being which is simply relative to
the former when it appears to be the case that real being, as purely rela-
tive, can only establish and draw its ownmost and complete meaning of
being from the absolute being which is consciousness?
Certainly there is a difference between absolute and relative being.
Descartes agrees with the scholastic doctrine concerning the equivocal
nature of the concept of substance in discussions of God's "infinite" sub-
stance and "finite" substances. Accordingly, Husserl's theory of the "abyss
of meaning" could be taken as an indication of the concept of being's
ambiguity in its application to absolute being or consciousness on the one
hand, and to purely relative or real being on the other.
Yet Descartes will say that ultimately God alone-is truly substance (or
"absolute being" in Husserl's sense). That is, Descartes' theory of the
"abyss of meaning" between God and finite things in the concept of sub-
stance corresponds to the HusserUan distinction between the "absolute of
consciousness" and an "ultimate and true absolute" which would be "an
'absolute' in a totally different sense."74 If Husserl's theory of an abysslike
difference between the meaning of consciousness' being and the being of
reality is to be brought into strict analogy with Descartes' emphasis upon
the equivocal nature of the concept of substance, and, if, accordingly, it is
also to be understood in terms of Husserl's own further distinction
between absolute consciousness and God, then this would mean that for
Husserl an "abyss of meaning" would not only hold between the being of
consciousness which, apart from God, is alone truly absolute, and the
being of reality which is ultimately not truly absolute, but that it would
also hold between that which is alone true being (which would be absolute
being), and that which, as the simply relative, is not truly being. That is,
viewed as an analogy to the Scholastic-Cartesian doctrine, Husserl's thesis
signifies that being as such would be absolute being (and therefore con-
sciousness), and that in truth, therefore, there would be nothing outside of
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HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
this absolute being. Such a thought, however, would contain the very
opposite of what Husserl clearly means, for this would constitute the
thought of an absolutely unequivocal concept of being - the thought of an
absolute being which, to be sure, would be subject to a relative "phenom-
enal" influence, but one which would be incapable of compromising not
simply the one and only absolute, but also the absolutely unique meaning
of being which is construed as the being of the absolute.
Thus Husserl's most extreme formulation: a thing, real being in general,
"is in the absolute sense nothing at all, it has no 'absolute essence',"
cannot mean that reality has "absolutely" no true being at all. It can only
mean that reality is not to be understood in an absolute sense, but in terms
of the meaning of being which uniquely belongs to it. To think of measur-
ing the being of things and of the real, no matter in what fashion, in terms
of absolute being is senseless and absurd.
Formerly, it could have been thought that a "dissolution" (Aufhebung)
of reality into the absolute would show itself as capable of being carried
out in the form of the phenomenological reduction, a reduction where the
"transcendent" essence of reality would remain directly preserved insofar
as it would be equally "suspended" within the absolute and - thus perish-
ing within the absolute - would preserve the abysslike differentiation of
the meaning of its being from being in the absolute sense. Thus the dif-
ference in principle between the modes of being of consciousness and
reality, and the equally essential relativity of aU reaUty to the absolute
being of consciousness as its absolute ground, would be made intelligible
in one stroke, for the absolute " . . . is the ground into which (reaUty) has
been swallowed up."75 At the same time, reality would be understood as
having "the absolute for its abyss (Abgrund), and as also having the
absolute for its ground (Grund)."76 In this case, absolute being itself - as
the necessary ground which is the foundation for (zugrunde liegt) all
givenness of transcendent being as a givenness which is always only rela-
tive - would be the necessary ground for the reality of that "abyss of
meaning" into which reality would perish through the reduction to what is
absolutely given.
Such an Hegelian interpretation of the basic relation between the "tran-
scendental absolute" and transcendent reality as Husserl views it appears
to be justified insofar as Husserl himself, directly after the enactment of
the phenomenological reduction in § 50 of the Ideas, explicitly states that
"We have lost literally nothing, but have won the whole of absolute being
which, properly understood, contains aU worldly transcendences within
itself, 'constituting' them within itself."77 The word "literally" in the
phrase, "lost literally nothing," can in this connection mean only that we
have lost nothing "in the absolute sense." Only in the absolute sense is real
being not lost through the reduction to consciousness, since, "in the
absolute sense," it is itself "nothing at aU." The view that even in some
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
"postulated divine intuition a spatial thing is a real constituent of
experience, and is therefore itself an experience belonging with other
experiences to the divine stream of consciousness and experiences" is
expressly labeled by Husserl as nonsensical. "This view, however, is non-
sensical" insofar as " . . . it implies . . . that there would be no essential dif-
ference between transcendence and immanence." 78 This essential
difference, however, estabUshes "the separability in principle of the entire
natural world from the domain of consciousness, or the realm of the being
belonging to experience,"79 for "the being of consciousness ... is not
touched in its ownmost existence ...by nullifying the world of things."80
Accordingly, we can first truly win absolute being by conceiving of a pos-
sible "nullification of the world of things." It is only here that the
absolutely given first truly comes to absolute givenness, and in the final
analysis absolute being is preeminently what it is according to its essential
possibility of absolute givenness.
With Husserl, real being, so to speak, is only "imperfectly dissolved
(aufgehoben)" into the absolute, for "no real being ... is necessary for the
being of consciousness itself."61 The being of things - of the real in general
- is indifferent to the being of consciousness in an absolute sense, just as,
conversely, the meaning of absolute being, in possessing the possibility in
principle of absolute givenness, is totally foreign to the being of reality:
"Between consciousness and reality there yawns a veritable abyss of
meaning." Yet: "On the other hand, the world of transcendent 'res' is refer-
able without qualification to consciousness. .. ."82 By modifying Heideg-
ger's statement "that Being indeed comes-to-presence without beings, but
a being never is without Being,"83 Husserl's thought can be reduced to this
formula: "absolute being (consciousness) indeed comes-to-presence
(namely, is essentially able to be) without things, but a thing never is
without absolute being (the being of consciousness)." This (in the strict
sense of the word) foundational-problematic relation between the absolute
being of consciousness and the being of reaUty as the being of things is
what occasions Husserl to state: "Thus we see that consciousness (inner
experience) and real being are not coordinate ways of being, Uving peace-
fully next to each other. .. ."84 The opposition between the "absolute"
relatedness of reality to absolute consciousness and the "absolute" indif-
ference of the absolute with regard to the meaning of the being of reality -
or the entanglement of indissoluble relation (of reality to the absolute)
and abysslike difference in meaning - create a fundamental conflict within
the basic relation of the one mode of being to the other. Corresponding to
this situation are Husserl's "contradictory" assertions, which both deny the
"independence" of reality in principle and steadfastly affirm its "hetero-
geneity" in principle over and against the absolute.
The basic relation which holds between consciousness and reality can
now be characterized in two words: as one which is both fundamental and
236
HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
transcendental. The basic relation between absolute being or consciousness
and real being (which is simply relative to consciousness) is a fundamental
one insofar as a foundation is a necessary basis or an indispensable and
essential "condition for the possibility" of the Being of a being; not,
however, that it is thereby a "sufficient reason" or an "efficient cause" of
the Being of this being. Here Husserl's observations concerning the basic
relation between "Consciousness and Natural ReaUty"85 are indeed "Fun-
damental Observations" 86 in this sense of "foundation." In a fundamental
relation where something is posited in relation to, and is to be necessarily
referred to, a ground, and the requisite ground is indifferent to that which
requires it as a ground and does not itself require what it serves to ground
for its own emergence, is rooted the possibiUty of a relation of conflict.
The "fundamental observation" is characteristic of a transcendental
philosophy. The transcendental itself is nothing more than something fun-
damental which everything that is requires simply in order to be, or in
order to be capable of being, without the transcendental ground of all
being and all givenness thereby constituting more than an "absolutely"
necessary "condition for the possibility of —," that is, without this con-
dition as such also becoming the sufficient or efficient cause for all being
and givenness. A transcendental ground as such is simply a foundation,
even though it is a transcendental foundation.
7. The transcendental absolute and the "ultimate"
transcendent absolute
Consciousness at first appears as an absolute being in a substantial sense,
in which terms, and by way of exhibiting the possibility in principle of its
absolute givenness, it "requires in principle no other being for its exist-
ence." This is how we translated the Cartesian formula employed by
Husserl in the sentence "Immanent being is therefore doubtlessly absolute
being in this sense: that in principle nulla 're' indiget ad existendum." Con-
sidered more closely, this formula leaves open the possibiUty that imma-
nent being or consciousness would require "no other being for its
existence" merely in a limited sense, a sense which could be conditioned
by the use of the word "res" in place of the word "being."
This absolute and "substantial" being of consciousness was conceived of
as being independent of some "second" being. It is in fact this "second"
being which is spoken of in the sentence which directly follows: "On the
other hand, the world of transcendent 'res' is referable without qualifica-
tion to consciousness, and not simply to a logically conceived conscious-
ness, but to an actual consciousness."87
The relativity of all real being to the "substantial" absolute being which
consciousness already is "in itself" must, we had stated, also serve to
confirm more deeply the absoluteness of absolute consciousness. The
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
notion employed here is that consciousness is not only absolute being in a
"substantial" sense, but is also a transcendental absolute. The meaning of
this concept has already been given by our last considerations. Conscious-
ness is the transcendental absolute insofar as no being, no real being, can
exist or can be given without the foundation of this "in itself" substantial
absolute being.
In an extreme formulation, this signifies that nothing could be if there
were no absolute consciousness. This does not mean, however, that every-
thing which is exists by means of absolute consciousness. Formulated still
more extremely (a formulation so extreme that its understanding is totally
dependent upon understanding all that has been said above), we could say:
there is nothing without absolute consciousness, although there is also
nothing with absolute consciousness alone. Namely, consciousness is a tran-
scendental absolute insofar as it is the "absolutely" necessary foundation
for all other (real) being. But by no means does - or can - all other being
exist if there is simply absolute consciousness. I speak of "ability to exist"
in this respect with reference to the heterogeneity in principle of real being
in opposition to the simply fundamental and essential condition of tran-
scendentally absolute consciousness. Transcendental consciousness is not
an absolute being such that it is able to create all other (real) being from
the being that is its own.
Corresponding with this is the fact that Husserl's concept of absolute
consciousness as the transcendental "absolute" clearly deepens the
absolute sense of the "in itself"-purely substantial absolute being of con-
sciousness, but at the same time also decisively limits it: "The transcenden-
tal 'absolute' which we have exposed through the reductions is in truth not
ultimate; it is something which constitutes itself in a certain profound and
entirely unique sense and which has its original source in what is ulti-
mately and truly absolute." 88 In terms of what is "ultimately absolute,"
absolute consciousness, as the simply transcendental absolute, is itself only
an "absolute" in quotation marks. Thus characterized, the fundamental
delimiting of the absolute sense of the being of transcendental conscious-
ness serves as motivation for Husserl's theological ideas concerning the '
"ultimate and true absolute" here referred to. The idea of God as the idea
of the "ultimate and true absolute" is motivated by the idea of a "sufficient
cause" for the being of everything which, in general, factually exists.
From this point on, however, the paths taken by Husserl (or those
which he could have taken) in the Ideas are lost in obscurity.
How are "both" absolutes, the transcendental absolute and the ultimate
and true absolute, absolute consciousness and God, related? The idea of
an ultimate and true absolute (correctly termed "God") above and beyond
transcendental consciousness seems to me to be estabUshed to the extent
that real being appears to be only inadequately grounded in the transcen-
dental absolute (consciousness) to which it is relative. Yet Husserl repeat-
238
1
HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
edly indicates and explicitly states that the "transcendental 'absolute'"
also "constitutes itself in a certain profound and entirely unique sense and
. . . has its original source in what is ultimately and truly absolute." Is it
therefore "ultimately" not a "true absolute" in the substantial sense
granted it at the beginning? If it is not absolute in this sense, how then is it
possible for it to be absolutely given? In this case, how is a phenomenolog-
ical reduction to the "absolute" givenness of this transcendental conscious-
ness possible? By explicitly "disconnecting" the being of God as a
"transcendent" absolute being? In fact: how does Husserl motivate the
disconnection and reduction enacted here? "We naturally extend the phe-
nomenological reduction to include this 'absolute' and this 'transcendent.'
It should remain disconnected from the new field of investigation which
we are to institute insofar as this is to be a field of pure consciousness
itself."89 We italicize: "It should ...": must and can it be disconnected?
Why should it be disconnected? " . . . All this does not concern us further.
Our immediate aim concerns not theology but phenomenology. .. ."90 Is
this truly a phenomenological reduction, or is it finally only a "convenient"
abstraction?
Husserl now informs us that the return to "the theological principle,
which could perhaps be rationally assumed," could also be established on
the side of consciousness by means of a "facticity": "the facticity in the
given order of the course of consciousness in its differentiation into indi-
vidual forms and the teleology immanent within them (could) provide the
occasion for raising the question concerning the ground of this same
order" 91 - an order which moreover is clearly conditioned by the facticity
of real being. Accordingly, one could perhaps think that transcendental
consciousness is essentially an absolute being which, in a certain manner,
existed factually - as if it were entangled in reality - a manner of existing
which could only be an "outflow" from an "original source in what is ulti-
mately and truly absolute," but which yet could be said to retain posses-
sion of the possibility in principle of its absolute givenness. Here again,
however, intrudes the "abysslike" ("abgriindige") thought that in principle
the nullification of the world would be the condition for actualizing this
possibility and therewith a condition for displaying the absolute essence of
consciousness. Hence we return to our first question concerning the rela-
tionship of absolute consciousness to the absolute being of God.
On the other hand, God, the "ultimate and true absolute," is the
"'Absolute' and 'Transcendent'" 92 in opposition to the absolute being
which, as consciousness, is "immanent being" as such. Hence "after aban-
doning the natural world we come up against yet another transcendence
which is not . . . immediately given in connection with the reduced con-
sciousness, but which comes to be known in a highly mediated form. .. ."93
Nevertheless, if it is to be a being which is truly absolute, the being of God
clearly cannot exclude in principle the possibility of its absolute givenness:
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
"thus the theological principle which could be rationally assumed . . .
cannot for essential reasons be accepted as a transcendence in the sense of
the world. ... The ordering principle of the absolute must be found in the
absolute itself and in pure and absolute reflection. In other words, since a
mundane God is evidently impossible, and since on the other hand the
immanence of God in absolute consciousness cannot be grasped as the
immanence of being as experience ..., there must be in the absolute
stream of consciousness and its infinities other ways of manifesting the
transcendent than the constituting of thinglike realities as unities of har-
monious appearances. .. ."94 These suggestions of Husserl's are clearly
estabUshed in their contexts, but are still purely postulative. Yet the
formulation of these postulates bypasses the (in the strict sense) truly fun-
damental question: does absolute consciousness, even though it is not the
"ultimate and true absolute," remain "to the end" and without qualifica-
tion that transcendental absolute without which there would also be no
God, and, consequently, without which God would not be able to be at
aU? Does God, in order to be God, require a transcendental consciousness
different from him?
Once the question is raised, Husserl could in fact appear to think so
insofar as he himself views the thought of God as grounded more in the
teleology immanently given in the facticity of the being of realities than in
this facticity itself, "for example, the factual evolution of the series of
organisms up to man himself, and within the evolution of humanity the
growth of culture with its care for the spirit, etc."95 To be sure, "the trans-
ition to pure consciousness by means of the method of the transcendental
reduction already necessarily leads to the question concerning the ground
for the facticity of the corresponding constituting consciousness which now
emerges." Yet Husserl immediately proceeds: "It is not the factum in
general, but the factum as the source of infinitely extending possible and
actual values that compels us to seek for the 'ground'" and which fur-
nishes "rational grounds for the existence of a 'divine' being beyond the
world."96
For Husserl (as well as for Leibniz97 and Schelling98), the question
which Heidegger had formulated and had termed the "basic question of
metaphysics":99 "Why are there beings rather than nothing?" 100 immedi-
ately takes on the meaning of the further question: "To what end is every-
thing that is?" This is the question Husserl has in mind when, going
beyond the absolute position of transcendental philosophy, he thinks of
God. A discussion of how these two questions stand related to each other,
to what extent the one implies the other, and to what extent the one
cannot find an answer without the other has provided the occasion for our
observations here.
240
HUSSERL'S C O N C E P T OF T H E " A B S O L U T E "
Notes
1 Husserliana, II, ed. H. L. Van Breda. [English translation by Alston and
Nakhnikian, The Idea of Phenomenology (The Hauge: Martinus Nijhoff,
1964).-ED.]
2 Ibid., p. 23.
3 Ibid, pp. 22f.
4 Ibid., p. 23.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 9.
7 Ibid, p. 10.
8 Ibid., p. 14.
9 Ibid, p. 1.
10 Ibid, p. 8.
11 Ibid., p. 9.
12 Ibid., p. 61.
13 Ibid., p. 22.
14 This work first appeared in 1913. A "new (4th) edition expanded and prepared
on the basis of the author's handwritten supplements" appeared in 1950 as
Husserliana, III. I shall limit myself in the following pages to the attempt to
develop Husserl's concept of the "absolute" in the Ideas. Where I do not note
otherwise I will quote from the text of 1913: yet for the sake of simplicity I
shall refer to the page numbers of the Husserliana edition exclusively.
15 Husserliana, IV and V.
16 Cf. the editor's Introduction to Husserliana, IV.
17 Husserliana, III, 8.
18 Cf. Husserl's lectures on the First Philosophy (1923-24) in Husserliana, VII
and VIII. Also the editor's Introduction to VII.
19 Husserliana, II, 23.
20 As regards the passage quoted above from p. 8 of the first volume of the Ideas,
Husserl later added this explicit marginal note (this, certainly, was written
after 1923): "phenomenology as First Philosophy." Cf. Husserliana, III, 463.
21 For the earlier history of this formula see my Introduction to Husserliana, VII,
xvi-xx.
22 Husserliana, III, 101 (Gibson, p. 138). Prior to 1923, Husserl modified this sen-
tence as follows: "In general we can see that for the ego, transcendent being,
or real being in general, no matter of what sort, can only be given in percep-
tion through appearances," ibid., p. 472.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., p. 102 (Gibson, pp. 139-140). After 1923 Husserl added the following
phrase to the end of this sentence: "... and which thus proves to be absolutely
uncancellable," ibid., p. 472.
25 Ibid, p. 100 (Gibson, p. 137). My italics. Between 1913 and 1923 Husserl
desired to reformulate the title of these paragraphs as follows: "Merely Phe-
nomenal Givenness of the Transcendent as (? or rather 'and'?) Absolute
Givenness of the Immanent." During the same period he added this marginal
note: "The entire § 44 is useless!" Cf. p. 472. This fact is important for the con-
siderations which follow. A particular problem, which we here must ignore, is
raised by Husserl's speaking of the "merely phenomenal."
26 The title of the Ideas' second section.
27 Husserliana, III, 109 (Gibson, p. 146).
28 Ibid., p. 106 (Gibson, p. 143).
29 Ibid.
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid, p. 108 (Gibson, p. 144).
32 Ibid. Husserl added the phrase "in the world of realities in general" after 1923.
Cf. p. 473.
33 Ibid.
34 As already cited; ibid., p. 101. Cf. note 22.
35 Ibid, pp. 109f. (Gibson, p. 146).
36 Ibid., p. 114 (Gibson, p. 150).
37 Ibid, p. 115 (Gibson, p. 151).
38 As cited above; cf. note 22.
39 As cited above; ibid., p. 108 (Gibson, p. 144).
40 Ibid., p. 115 (Gibson, p. 152).
41 Principia Philosophiae, pt. I, 51; eds. Adam and Tannery, VIII, 24. [English
translation by Haldane and Ross, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, I
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 239. - ED.] There is no Latin
edition of the Principia among the books in Husserl's library (now preserved
at the Husserl-Archives at Louvain). In Husserl's copy of Rene Descartes'
philosophische Werke, trans. J. H. v. Kirchmann, pt. Ill, Die Prinzipien der
Philosophie (Berlin, 1870), the passages here in question and other passages
connected with them are underlined or marked out in pencil by Husserl.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid, pp. 239-240.
44 Husserliana, III, 140 (Gibson, p. 174). Cf. the concluding section of this essay.
45 Ibid., p. 198 (Gibson, p. 236). Cf. Descartes, Principia Philosophiae, § 52:
"Created substances, however, whether corporeal or thinking, may be con-
ceived under this common concept; for they are things which need only the
concurrence of God in order to exist."
46 Husserliana, III, 115f. (Gibson, p. 152).
47 Ibid, p. Ill (Gibson, p. 153). Between 1913 and 1923 Husserl wrote "relative
to consciousness" in place of "relative." Cf. p. 474.
48 Ibid., Between 1913 and 1923 Husserl added, by way of clarification, to the
end of the sentence: "or, more precisely, for which the thought of something-
beyond is nonsense." In a new formulation of the entire sentence (written
after 1923) the end of the sentence simply states: "... above and beyond,
however, is nonsensical." Cf. p. 474.
49 Ibid, p. 118 (Gibson, p. 154).
50 Ibid, p. 134 (Gibson, p. 168).
51 Ibid, p. 98 (Gibson, p. 135).
52 Ibid. (Gibson, pp. 135 f.).
53 As quoted several times above; ibid., p. 117 (Gibson, p. 153).
IS 54 Ibid, p. 99 (Gibson, p. 137).
55 As quoted above; ibid., p. 98 (Gibson, p. 135).
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid, p. 97 (Gibson, p. 134).
58 As quoted above; ibid, p. 98 (Gibson, pp. 135f.).
59 Proof of this is not required here. I will discuss the context of Husserl's rela-
tionship to Kant in a study of Husserl's Relations to Classical Idealism which
will appear shortly. [Cf. Boehm's "Husserl et I'idealisme classique" in Revue
Philosophique de Louvain 57 (August, 1958), 351-396. - ED.]
60 In particular § 4 and § 5 of this work. [Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics,
trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962) - ED.]
Heidegger explicitly acknowledges "that the concepts 'appearance' and 'thing
242
H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE " A B S O L U T E "
in itself which are fundamental to the Critique can be made intelligible and
the object of further investigation only if they are based explicitly on the prob-
lematic of the finitude of man." (Churchill, p. 39. - ED.) Of course Heidegger
does not see a "mistake in principle" in Kant's "characterization of the fini-
tude of human knowledge" which reveals "what is essential to the dimension
within which the laying of the foundation for metaphysics takes place." (Ibid.)
Nevertheless "The Laying of the Foundation for Metaphysics in a Repetition"
(the title of the fourth section of Heidegger's Kant book) leads to a radical
transformation and revaluation of the idea of finitude itself: especially § 41
where the following sentence is found: "There is and must be such as Being
only where finitude has become existent." (Churchill, p. 236. - ED.) Husserl
had thoroughly come to terms with Heidegger's Kant book; his marginal nota-
tions in his own copy of the book preserved in the Husserl-Archives at
Louvain reminds one in many respects of the discussions in § 43 of the Ideas.
61 Husserliana, III, 85 f. (Gibson, p. 124).
62 As quoted above; ibid., p. 118 (Gibson, p. 154).
63 As quoted above; ibid., p. Ill (Gibson, p. 153).
64 As quoted above; ibid., p. 118 (Gibson, p. 154).
65 Cf. note 48.
66 Ibid., p. 96 (Gibson, pp. 133f.).
67 Ibid.
68 As quoted above; ibid., p. 118 (Gibson, p. 154).
69 Ibid., p. 116 (Gibson, p. 152).
70 As quoted above; ibid., p. 118 (Gibson, p. 154).
71 Ibid, p. 116 (Gibson, p. 152).
72 Ibid, p. 88 (Gibson, p. 126).
73 Ibid, pp. 116f. (Gibson, pp. 152f.).
74 Ibid., pp. 140 and 198 (Gibson, pp. 174 and 236)
75 Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik: Zweiter Teil, ed. Lasson (Hamburg: Felix
Meiner, 1934), p. 158: the chapter entitled "The Absolute" - "A. The
Exposition of the Absolute" [English translation by Johnston and Struthers,
Science of Logic, vol. II (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1929), p. 162. -
ED.]. Here it should be noted that the absolute, which can only be
"approached" at this stage of the Logic, "... is only the Absolute of an external
reflection ... and is not, therefore, the Absolute-Absolute, but only the
Absolute given in a determinate form," or, "it is the Absolute as attribute,"
ibid., p. 160 [Johnston and Struthers, p. 164].
76 Ibid., p. 159 [Johnston and Struthers, p. 163]. [Boehm here alludes to three
complementary terms present in this section of Hegel's Logic: untergehen,
zuruckgehen, and zugrunde-gehen. The essential movement of the dialectic
referred to is that of leading a term of the dialectic back (zuruckgehen) to its
ground (zugrunde-gehen), a movement whereby this element can be said to
"perish" or be "swallowed up" into its ground in order to shed this term of its
abstractness. Boehm here suggests that the phenomenological reduction might
be said to parallel this Hegelian process of Aufhebung wherein one element of
the dialectic, which appears as only a partial and "relative" truth, is "nullified"
in terms of its abstractness by the dialectic advance toward the completion of
its true meaning within some higher synthesis. The phenomenological reduc-
tion suspends or "nullifies" transcendent reality, and leads it back into its true
ground, or absolute consciousness, a movement which is at the same time the
disclosure and "preservation" of the true meaning of reality's being by reveal-
ing its relativity to absolute consciousness. Reality then possesses the
243
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H U S S E R L ' S CONCEPT OF THE " A B S O L U T E "
"absolute for its abyss (Abgrund)" precisely insofar as the disclosure of the
former's relativity is at the same time its "perishing" as being in an absolute to ask will be, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' For nothing is
sense, for it is disclosed as fundamentally lacking its own ground, and there- simpler and easier than something. Further, assuming that things must exist, it
fore as ab-grundig. - ED.] must be possible to give a reason why they should exist as they do and not
77 Husserliana, III, 119 (Gibson, pp. 154f.). otherwise." - ED.] The meaning which this question has for Leibniz must be
78 As quoted above; ibid., p. 98 (Gibson, p. 135). drawn from the answer hefinallygives to it.
79 As quoted above; ibid., p. 110 (Gibson, p. 146). 98 Philosophie der Offenbarung, Erste Vorlesung, Collected Works, II—III, 7. The
80 As quoted above; ibid., p. 115 (Gibson, p. 151). meaning which this question has for Schelling is immediately evident from the
81 Ibid. context. [The relevant passage in this text is as follows: "One generation
passes away and another generation comes in order to once again pass away in
82 As quoted above; ibid, pp. 115f. (Gibson, p. 152). its turn. We wait in vain for something new to occur wherein this unrest will
83 Heidegger's Nachwort to Was ist Metaphysik?, fourth edition (1923), p. 25. In finally find its goal; everything that happens takes place only in order for
the fifth edition (1949) this sentence is replaced by another: "Being never something else to happen and which itself becomes past in opposition to
comes-to-presence without beings, ... a being never is without Being"; p. 41
["What is Metaphysics" in Existence and Being (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., something else. Essentially, therefore, everything happens to no purpose, and
1949),p. 354.-ED.] all of man's actions, endeavors and labors are themselves sheer vanity: every-
84 As quoted above; Husserliana, 111, 116 (Gibson, p. 152). thing is vanity, for vanity is simply that which lacks a true aim. Quite removed
from the view that man and his acts make the world comprehensible, man
85 The title of the central second chapter of the second part of the Ideas. himself is the incomprehensible, and I am unavoidably driven to the view that
86 Cf. above, note 26. all being is wretchedness, a view which announces itself both in our times and
87 As quoted above; Husserliana, III, 115 (Gibson, p. 152). in the past in grievous words. It is precisely man who compels me to raise this
88 Ibid, p. 198 (Gibson, p. 236). It should be noted that § 81, from which this question which is so full of doubt: Why are there beings? Why not nothing?"
passage is taken, nowhere explicitly speaks of God. Husserl's theme is indi- Ibid. - ED.]
cated by the title of this section: "Phenomenological Time and Time- 99 Martin Heidegger, "What Is Metaphysics," trans. R. F. C. Hull and Alan
Consciousness." Because it is within this context that Husserl speaks of the Crick, in Existence and Being (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1949), p. 349. -
"ultimate and true absolute" which lies beyond the simple "transcendental ED.
absolute," further clarification of this theme can be had only with the investi-
gation of Husserl's still unpublished notes of 1930-35 on the problem of time 100 Ibid. Cf. also Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph
preserved at the Husserl-Archives at Louvain. This is a task which still Mannheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 1 ff. - ED.
remains to be completed, even after the indispensable preparatory work
accomplished by G. Brand's Welt, Ich und Zeit (1955). [A portion of this work
can be found in an English translation in Joseph J. Kockelman's Phenom-
enology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its Interpretation (New
York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 197-217. - ED.] Equally indispensable would be
Husserl's lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness from
1905-1910 and edited by Martin Heidegger, where Husserl already refers to
"the absolute time-constituting flow of consciousness."
89 Husserliana, III, 140 (in § 58: "The Disconnection of the Transcendence of
God") (Gibson, p. 175).
90 Ibid., p. 122 (Gibson, p. 157).
91 Ibid, p. 121 (Gibson, p. 157).
92 As quoted above; ibid., p. 140 (Gibson, p. 174).
93 Ibid, pp. 138f. (Gibson, p. 173). Instead of the phrase "highly mediated,"
between 1913 and 1923 Husserl wrote: "in an entirely different way"; cf. p.
477.
94 Ibid., pp. 121 f. (Gibson, p. 157). In the sentence: "The ordering principle of
the absolute must be found in the absolute itself..." the phrase "the absolute
itself" clearly means absolute consciousness; by contrast, "God" means "the
ordering principle of the absolute."
95 Ibid., p. 139 (Gibson, p. 174).
96 Ibid.; also the note to § 51, pp. 121 f. (Gibson, pp. 158f.).
97 Principes de la Nature et de la Grdcefondiss en Raison, § 7; ed. Robinet, p. 45.
[Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. Loemker (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1956), II, 1038. "... The first question which we have a right

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82
E N T E L E C H Y I N
T R A N S C E N D E N T A L
P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
A sketch of the foundations of Husserlian
metaphysics
James G. Hart
Source: American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66(2) (1992): 189-212.
And we here, in relation to the factually given reality, which we
have been thinking about as recognizably theoretical, come to an
ultimate ontological problem, which humanity from earliest times
had to face, namely the problem of the real meaning of the idea of
God or the problem of creation, the problem of the realizing
power of absolute ideals. Can an idea, indeed an idea of God, as
the highest normative idea of possible reality of the world in
general regulate factual existence of reality (factual being, being-
such, self-development) not only normatively but in terms of actu-
alization? Can such a regulation have any meaning whatsoever
and what kind can it have?
(Hua XXVIII, 180-81)
One of the key notions of Husserl's philosophical theology is that of the
divine entelechy.1 Entelechy itself might also be said to be one of the oper-
ative concepts of his philosophy, even if the word itself is infrequently
used.
The philosophical problem of organisms (morphogenesis) is indicated
in Aristotle's neologism entelecheia. Hechein (having), telos (end,
purpose), and en (within/in) taken together may initially be rendered as
either the actuality of having the goal immanently and completely (e.g.,
Metaphysics 1071a36) or the actuality which brings to its term something
whose telos is still being realized (cf., De Anima 412 a27ff.). The latter
sense is foremost for our topic.
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
The great theme of Aristotle's philosophy of nature, as both Plotinus
and Hegel saw, is not the divine but entelechies or eide or logoi conceived
as kinds of autonomous creative but deficient thoughts, i.e., mere forms,
and not self-thinking thoughts existing with substantial reality in and for
themselves. In the natural order, form is not free as capable of thinking
itself but is burdened with exteriority and immersed in and shaping mind-
less hyle and rendering it intelligible by giving it a specific form. It is, as
Hedwig Conrad-Martius noted, as if a great artist were able to make from
out of his creative idea and all that it implied, an autonomous, individual,
effective, substantial foundation of his work so that this autonomous idea
now was able to paint the picture, compose the symphony, construct the
building. In such a remarkable case, the artist could not now complain that
what he envisaged in his mind could only imperfectly be realized in his
work.2
Husserl surely was familiar with the AristoteUan theme of entelechy as
well as with its appropriation by Leibniz and Goethe. It is possible that he
first encountered the notion of the divine as entelechy in his beginning
philosophy lectures from Friederich Paulsen. 3 But perhaps it was the work
of Hans Driesch, with whom he was personally acquainted and whose
writings commanded the attention of much of Europe, that encouraged
him to conceive the divine as entelechy. 4
I wish to begin with a discussion of entelechy as a theme of interest for
regional phenomenological ontology. This helps us to gain conceptual
clarity for later discussions. Then I will begin to integrate it into Husserl's
transcendental phenomenology and then, finally, sketch the parallels
between the regional ontological sense of entelechy and the transcenden-
tal-phenomenological theory of the divine entelechy.
I
Development as morphogenesis is a manifest feature of the change or
motion of some physical bodies in space and time. Development is the sus-
tained motion of a being from its incipiency to its maturity. This motion is
the maturing. However, if we think of how even the mature organism or
being restores, repairs and regenerates itself we may think of the motion
as continuous throughout its life.5
It seems clear that the motion comes from the organism itself. It is not a
motion stemming from outside the organism, as the formation of a snow-
drift may be said to derive from the winds outside the snowdrift blowing
the snow. Thus when we say development is a kind of motion from within
or by the organism itself, and not from outside, we must ask, what is it that
moves? When we see things moving or taking shape in the fertilized egg or
the sprouting seed, do we want to say that these move or assemble them-
selves and the result is the organism? Is the organism a result of the sum of
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the finite number of motions of these things? Is it like a bicycle that would
get assembled by reason of the parts aU moving themselves into the right
position at the right time? In which case "It moves or develops" would not
refer to the bicycle itself moving or moving itself but to the many parts: "It
develops" means "they move."
Or rather, does not "It develops" refer to the whole organism? Is it not
rather the case that it is the whole which moves itself through the manifest
motions of the parts which we see? Indeed, the primary motion is the
development of the parts of the whole which is not yet itself whole but
always wholly, that is effectively, there or present from the start, even
though not yet actually present as a whole?
This description becomes more appropriate as we become disposed to
regard the motion as belonging to parts of a whole and serving the whole.
Thus one may say the motion is teleological in the sense that its purpose is
completion, perfection or, at least, the well-being of the organism. Of
course, this perfection is that of an individual, and with Plotinus we may
speak of "the form of Socrates"; but it is always also the more general
form of a species to which the individual belongs. For that reason the
motion is typical or species-bound.
Thus, early on, the motion is evidently that of the parts of a whole the
full sense of which is not yet evident; indeed the initial parts themselves
are not evidently the parts of what turns out to be the later completed
whole. The parts are moving by way of doing things, going somewhere,
arranging themselves - but most elementally, by coming into being, i.e., by
themselves developing. If we study the parts apart from the whole and the
telos we can be inclined to ascribe to them quasi-mental properties
because they appear to act as if they were heading somewhere or know
what they are doing.
There is a recurrent temptation to speak of the parts as if they were
self-moving mini-minds. This tendency is evident in the older theory of
preformism as weU as in modern genetic theory. (Recall that Paracelsus
posited a magical mini-master worker in the interior of the organism, an
Archaeus, who knows what he does, has a plan which he is bent on realiz-
ing, and notes when something is not going right.)
If we, while being ignorant of the whole, i.e., the purpose or goal,
encounter the motions in their seminal stages, we may not even see in the
later stages any meaningful patterns until there is almost no distance
between the concluding stages and the conclusion. When we are aware of
the purpose we may look to see in the seminal stages its outline or indica-
tions of its basic "grammar." The temptation has been strong to look hard
and see the end in the beginning. Indeed, most empirical biological genetic
research is based on, and has its raison d'etre in, the assumption that a
detailed knowledge of beginning parts discloses the whole. Thus the claims
that this part or "gene" is "for" this finished quality, e.g., hair color, intelli-
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
gence, psychological trait, etc.6 Preformism is the venerable name for this
view that the whole developed organism is contained in a miniature way in
its beginnings. Here, morphogenesis is "development" (Ent-wicklung) as
the unfolding of what is already there. Epigenesis holds that there is not
this character of identity or symmetry of parts between the beginning
phases and the end, but rather there is novelty, complexity and enrichment
in the accretion of form. What is antecedently "there" is dynamis, poten-
tiality for form; determinate features of the whole completed organism are
not yet present.
Doubtless one can always look harder and better at the beginning
materials, still, epigenesis seems closer to the empirical evidence of the
unfolding 6rganism as well to as one's experience of oneself growing
and/or learning something. In learning or growing one may say that there
is potentiality in the sense of a determinable field of possibiUties; but thisls
not the same as saying that the developed or articulated meanings-are
there in advance, only hidden or unnoticed. And this is not to say that
there is, in advance, total indeterminacy or indeterminateness. The inde-
terminate situation will permit anything; not so here. For example, one
cannot grow up to be just anything; nor can one's learning something, as in
trying to understand some new concept, turn into just anything whatso-
ever. One experiences a field of possibilities with vectors for development
in not yet determinate but not indeterminate directions. It is not a matter
of "any direction possible," some are excluded and some fields loom more
prominently than others. In any case, these are not yet actual. Further they
are all different and some even are incompatible. Yet they are not just
anything, not indeterminate or merely logical or empty possibilities.
The case is somewhat different in observing from without an organism
in medias res, that is, in ignorance of the beginning and end. Here, any-
thing seems to be able to happen and what does happen might well appear
to be chaotic and disjointed. Yet, if we know only the beginnings (e.g., the
acorn, or the caterpillar's first stages) we begin to get a sense of ranges of
possibflities even though we can be quite surprised. If we know the end,
we will be less surprised. Indeed, we can come to see the novel forms (new
cells, organs, etc.) as continuous phases of a unified synthetic whole, each
phase of which recapitulates the earUer and prepares for the next.
Ancient and modern forms of gene theory, with their analogies of the
"Archaeus," "language" of DNA or RNA, the "genetic programing" of
protein molecules, "selfish genes" and genes as "throw away survival
machines," genes as "interpreters of information" which "choose,"
"mold," "aspire," "create," "form," etc., face the enormous difficulty of
accounting for how these metaphors are to be understood. How can the
nucleus of chemical molecules comprising the embryos or seeds of organ-
isms, the acknowledged properties of which exclude anything, like having
plans, intentions, consciousness, directing powers, have these teleological
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or teleonomic (adaptive) properties? It would seem that we grant the
analogies when used in artificial intelligence, computers, etc., because
these have to do with created extensions of actual intentions which create
the programs; no such comparable actual inteUigence is acknowledged in
biological research or evident in our experience of development. Further-
more, describing chemical changes as such, with or without teleological
metaphors, does not account for how they happen the way they do, that is,
how they function toward morphogenesis. As a recent defender of Driesch
has described modern gene theory, "it is as if the delivery of the right
building material and machinery to plots of ground resulted in the spon-
taenous growth of houses of just the right form."7
i principle, what is the principle itself? Is the field itself the principle? The
In this regard, the analogy between morphogenesis and field theory has
been noted, for example, by Spemann, Gurwitsch, Andre, Conrad-
Martius, Weiss, and Waddington. 8 We best think of the organism as a
whole which is more than the sum of its parts, just as we may envisage
a "Gestalt" in perception as more than the parts that comprise it. In facing
a field of brightly colored mosaic pieces, it is clear that the emergence of a
definite form from out of the array of pieces, for example, that of a trian-
gle, is more than merely the result or sum of the parts comprising it. The
formation of the embryonic form is as little grasped from out of the elem-
ental achievements of the molecules as the Gestalt is derivable from the
I parts next to one another in the preUminary amorphous field. As
the Gestalt-field is distributed throughout the parts as form-giving, so the
organic whole is distributed throughout in the development of the parts
determining these in relationship to the development of the whole.
For all the deficiencies in Hans Driesch's theory and experimentation,
he would seem to have raised a fundamental chaUenge to aU theories
which will account for the adult organism in terms of some part of the
embryonic structure or tissue. As Driesch's experiments showed, the
destruction of parts of the sea-urchin embryo do not give rise to, for
example, a quarter or half of a sea-urchin, as would have to be the case if
the embryo were Uke a mosaic of more or less independent parts. Rather,
it adjusts to the deprivation and goes on to form a smaller but complete
organism.9 The work with sea-urchins and other animals, flatworms for
example, wherein there is an "equipotentiality" of the embryonic parts to
form the whole organism, caused Driesch rightfully to challenge all under-
standings of the organism as a machine. That all the separate volumes of
the embryonic organism of, say, the flatworm, can perform morphogenesis
completely means that each volume "must possess the machine in its total-
ity A very strange sort of machine indeed, which is the same in aU its
parts." 10
It would seem that most researchers would agree with the regional
ontologist (or one seeking to grasp the nature of organisms through per-
ception and without total dependency on observation through advanced
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
technology, and without the mathematical and mechanistic bias of modern
research), that "somehow or other we must bring into the story the phys-
ical forces which are necessary to push the material about into the appro-
priate places and mold it into the correct shapes."11 But what is the origin
of these "physical forces" which, analogous to field forces, determine the
coming into being of the parts in an ordered sequence in respect to the
formation of the whole? In short, in what sense is the explanatory prin-
ciple itself a physical force? If we grant that the organizing principle is not
itself adequately accounted for by the constituent physical parts, and we
further grant that there is something like a "field force" created by the
field itself would seem to be in need of an explanatory principle in so far as
it, as an "extensive manifold," can be divided. That is, when the field as an
extensive, divisible, whole-making manifold, like that of a sea-urchin, is
divided, on the basis of what can it itself again become whole?
How far does the entelechy reach in the formation of the Uving organ-
ism? Does it stand over the inorganic and presuppose the chemical-
physical processes, as if these could run on their own and the entelechy
would be like a chemist conducting an experiment? Conrad-Martius faults
Driesch for holding such a view and failing to see that life is not something
which stands over the inorganic but rather aU the material, inorganic and
organic, is thoroughly and fundamentally living material; the entelechy is
not a mere arranger of inorganic processes as if these were outside the
sphere of influence of the entelechy.12 Hyle is never "in itself apart from
some form or some entelechy.
In the development of the manifold parts of the organism, it seems
evident, primarily by reason of the recurrence and stability of the types,
that the organizing principle of the organism is itself not developing;
rather, it functions typically from the start and remains constantly in tune
with the telos of the being. It is not the principle which has to develop or
which is capable of developing. The organism develops itself as, for
example, a Uon, from the fertilized egg until it is the complete animal.13
And it is equally clear that in the disturbance and slicing of the sea-urchin
embyro, the organizing principle of its development is not disturbed or
sliced. Indeed, the organization and the organizing forces themselves are
not part of what is organized and therefore not in space. And although it
constitutes a temporal sequence for the organism, it is not evident that the
organizing principle itself is temporal.
If we call entelechy that causal factor which accounts for the bringing
about of the whole organism, it is appropriate to note that it is also what
accounts for a specific meaning-whole. Although the modern post-Darwinian
ethos urges that we see the organization of the finished forms (species) as
phases or even "habits" in further stages of development, nevertheless the
whole which is brought about is always a typical, specificaUy identical whole.
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At least in the very specific matter of founding a philosophy of nature
on entelechies, one modern Aristotelian, Conrad-Martius, sees the ent-
elechy as the typical general "meaning" of the developing living being.
Driesch, on the other hand, held that entelechy was the organic person or
individual being itself which builds up the body, repairs it after distur-
bances, etc. Thus, in answer to the question, "what is the lion which has its
properties of being a predator, living in the desert, etc.?", Driesch answers,
I category of the entelechy brings together the categories of the ideal and
"entelechy."14 Conrad-Martius rightly finds this absurd. Entelechy does
not live in the desert, have a shaggy mane, etc. Nor does the universal
term "lion" have such properties. Only the individual existing lion has or
acquires these properties. Only the individual concrete animal has the uni-
versal property of "lion"; but it is the "entelechy" which brings about and
maintains the specific nature of this individual organic being.
For Driesch, entelechy is clearly not something material but rather a
persisting non-spatial, unchanging, trans-physical substance. Therefore it is
not an "idea." He calls it a "psychoid" so as to indicate that it is neither
something material nor something which functions psychologically in a
conscious manner. Because it is the plan-determining, directing, purpose-
ful insertion of the individual partial elements in a whole at the right place
and time, etc., it is soul-like or quasi-psychological and quasi-instinctual. *
For Conrad-Martius, this theory confuses the essential distinctions
between the ideal, psychological and merely organic. Further, the ent-
elechy is not something that needs an ideal plan according to which it must
take its bearings; rather, it itself is the ideal plan, the logos, the typical uni-
versal "meaning" of the developing being, which effectively inhabits the
embryo and according to which everything must proceed. As such, it is
neither an idea nor a quasi-mental entity.15 Driesch's unconscious quasi-
soul, of course, avoids the Platonic position of explaining development'by
way of an idea and a theory of methexis. For Conrad-Martius, this is a cat-
egory confusion: entelechy is a tertium quid, an energized species-logos,
and in no way something mental or an idea. Indeed, it is captured by the
fiction of a creator's idea, autonomously realizing itself apart from the
creator's agency, embodying the creator's ideas completely, as if a sym-
phony could compose itself. It is best understood by the fiction of the sub-
stantialization of a creative idea.
For Driesch, the consideration that the halving of the sea-urchin
embryo could not be a halving of the entelechy led him to posit the pan-
theist (or panentheist) position that ultimately there is a super-entelechy
encompassing all other entelechies, a unique total entelechy which itself
again cannot fall into many individuals but rather will express itself in dif-
ferent ways according to the material circumstances. Husserl holds a
similar view. As he once put it, the teleological world would require an
Aristotelian God "as the entelchy of its inner development through a man-
ifold of relative entelechies all ordained in the eros toward the 'idea of the
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
Good'" (A V 21/128a). For Conrad-Martius, the position of Driesch res-
onates with Platonism, because in this formulation of Driesch, the ent-
elechy manifests itself by sharing trans-individually in the formation of
organic individuals. But ideas are nothing natural; they do not exist on the
same plane, so to speak, with natural things. And as such they neither
function teleologically nor do they bring about effects in nature. Only the
the efficient-causal. (How Husserl wrestles with this charge will be our
concern later.)
We see that Driesch can use entelechy as a theological category because
he is prepared to commit, according to Conrad-Martius, a categorial con-
fusion, that is, to assign it, on occasion, quasi-mental properties or, as the
case may be, quasi-ideal properties. For Conrad-Martius, who is drawn to
the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, the divine is the author of the
entelechies and therefore is the mediate author of all the necessities of
nature.
Although Husserl analyzes in detail nature as material being, there is
but one non-theological passage I know of where he uses entelechy in the
proper organic developmental context in anything like a noematic,
regional-ontological description. (See the letter to Driesch, mentioned in
n. 5.) In Hua XXVII, 118-119, within the context of discussing the inborn
telos of the individual human as weU as that of cultures and eventually of
humanity as a personaUty of a higher order, he speaks of the goal-idea
(Zweckidee) as the conscious apprehension of the telos. Here he claims
that the human who has ethical consciousness bears
in himself his goal-idea as principle of development in the form of
a self-formation through autonomous reason, an entelechy in a
completely different, indeed in the most proper sense, in contrast
to that of a blind organic entelechy, as a natural end-type toward
which the organic being grows in accord with its type.
(Hua XXVII, 118)
This "most proper sense" of entelechy, then is to be contrasted with that
less proper form manifest in the realm of "blind" organic nature, of which,
of course, human beings are a part. This latter he earlier characterized as
a system of developmental forms which embraces a system of
developmental ideas (species), with a relatively constant typicality
of development repeating itself in countless individuals in which
the species-ideas realize themselves "normally" more or less per-
fectly. And this entire system of ideas and realizing development
(ontogenesis) is itself grasped as in development. There occur new
species with new ontogeneses, and the phylogenesis also shows a
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
direction upwards, i.e., toward the development of a higher and
highest formation. This "striving after goals," to ideas and to the
conception of new ideas, this more or less "perfect" realization of
ideas and the development of ideas ruling ideas of a higher order
does not mean any goal-directed striving of conscious beings; it
does not imply purposefulness. The ideas are not intentional for-
mations of a consciously achieved ideation.
(Hua XXVII, 99)
Husserl goes on to say that this contrasts with the animal in whom we find
consciousness and bodiliness. The animal has its organism; it is not simply
organism. By having its body it is organism in a new sense. And the
human, who can transcend the pressure of importunity of particulars and
particular cases, and who is able to integrate these in the horizon of simi-
lars and wider generalities, indeed, within the entire universe of possi-
bilities, transcends the inauthentic agency of animals who are under the
sway of drives, instincts, etc. When the human strives after goal-ideas
which embrace all other goal-ideas, that is, when he strives after the defin-
ing infinite ideas, then is he most free, and then is the term entelechy most
properly applied (see Hua XXVII, 98-100 and 118). The authentic use of
the term "entelechy" for Husserl would thus be in regard to the conscious
pursuit of the summum bonum, a theme to which we will return.
II
Husserl uses Aristotelian themes to illuminate a basic feature of percep-
tion. He notes how the not-yet thematized or expUcated fields or horizons
of perception are given neither as empty possibilities nor as something
determinate or indeterminate. Sometimes the horizons are pre-delineated
potentialities. In each case they are potential, not-expUct, and deter-
minable. (See Hua I, esp. §§19 and 46.) But the determinability is different
from being indeterminate. In the latter, any possible determination is pos-
sible; what is given as indeterminate is simply given as an empty possibil-
ity. (Contrast seeing a written page across the room and the written page a
few feet away; contrast your sense of what is in the stranger's house in
another country and what you do not see nor have looked at but which is
at the periphery of your vision; contrast stating a sentence which you have
just read or articulated well with one which you now want to say and have
never said before.)16
In discussions of perception (in Hua I and elsewhere), Husserl on occa-
sion makes reference to the sheer sensible presence or impression before
it is taken in a certain way or before it is articulated with syntax and syn-
categorematicals. This is a sheer pre-given stimulus to cognitive activity
which enjoys a simple certainty. In Experience and Judgement, §7, he used
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
explicitly Aristotelian terms to describe this founding feature of
experience:
. . . before every movement of cognition the object of cognition is
already present as dynamis which is to turn into an entelecheia.
Later, at §18, he explicates the movement of cognition to what is passively
pre-given as "attention." Attention is a "tending-toward in realization."
The realization which is brought into being with the turning-
toward, the starting point of the realization of the act, is the begin-
ning of a continuing realizing directedness of the ego toward the
object. The beginning indicates the direction of a further syntheti-
cally unified process of realization (although it can perhaps be
carried out in more than one way). The original tendency of the
process, along with what has accrued to it from what has been
realized hitherto, is fulfilled phase by phase, and it is at the same
time extended as a tendency and exhibits new stages of fulfill-
ment. This continues, up to an "end" or breakoff point, which may
have the form of "and so forth." The beginning, therefore, has an
intentional horizon; it points beyond itself in an empty mode,
which is filled only in subsequent realizations. It refers implictly to
a continuous synthetic process (one or another of the directions to
be followed remaining indeterminate in the multidimensionaUty
of possible processes), through which extends a continuous
uniform tendency. In its course, it has continuously modified
modes of fulfillment, each with the character of mediate fulfill-
ment, which always refer, due to the nature of horizon, to new ful-
fillments.17
This text of genetic phenomenology may be taken as a properly phenom-
enological example of entelechy because it is a description of ongoing
morphogenesis wherein there is a synthetic continuous movement from
potency to act, from dynamis to entelecheia. The teleology (tendency, "up
to an 'end'," etc.) is described as being within the object that is being
attended to (noema) insofar as it is acknowledged to have tendencies and
phases or stages of fulfillment; but clearly the weight of the teleological
description is in the informing or framing tendency of the act (noesis). In
each case there is an unfolding of the phenomenological object toward its
true self, its telos, which is inseparable from the actuation of the act of
attention.
But in this firm orientation on the object, in the continuity of the
experience of the object, there is an intention which goes beyond
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND M E T A P H Y S I C S
the given and its momentary mode of givenness and tends toward
a progressive plus ultra. It is not only a progressive having-
consciousness-of but a striving toward a new consciousness in the
form of an interest in the enrichment of the "self" of the object
which is forthcoming eo ipso with the prolongation of the appre-
hension. Thus the tendency of the turning-toward continues as a
tendency toward complete fulfillment.18
!'•••
v Clearly, because here we are dealing with the constitution of a percep-
tual object and working within the noematic-noetic correlation, there is
not a description of properly organic development, that is, there is not a
clear, autonomous, progressive tendency toward stages of fulfillment by
the object/being (organism) itself. Its dynamism rather is informed by the
overarching and pervasive activity of intentionality's bringing it to its ideal
self-givenness.19
These later analyses rework the earlier theme of fact/essence, thing/idea.
Throughout Husserl's Ufe he enunciated the doctrine that contingent factual
things are manifest in terms of the essential meaning-frames which prescribe
a priori the path of articulation. The particular concrete things are given
within ideal frameworks, the elucidation of which is the expUcation of the
not-given senses of the things. In this sense the thing in its fuU phenomeno-
logical richness does not coincide absolutely with itself but tends toward its
i:
ideal exemplar. In the transcendental-constitutional context, factual things
Ii
i.
if
tend progressively toward their ideal eidos and the eidos is always the idea
of a factual thing. From the pre-phenomenological, epistemological, descrip-
tive point of view, what is primary is the factual thing and the idea or
essence as telos is elicited from this datum. Yet, the more reflective and con-
stitutional phenomenological point of view reverses this order. Here, it is
seen that the idea of the thing and/or the morphological essence function as
telos are at the origin of the process of constitution; they are archai, prin-
ciples of the process. They regulate from the start the sense of the original
datum (which also in arche as hyle) and outline its progressive articulation.
Indeed, the idea or essential meaning frame is the motor of the process of
realization of the full sense of the thing.
The idea, for example, as the regulative idea of the thing or in the form
of an essence, "prescribes the rule that determines how an object subordi-
nate to it is to be brought in respect of its meaning and mode of presenta-
tion to full determinacy, to adequate primordial givenness" (Hua III/l,
330/341). As de Muralt puts this: "The idea is pre-scribed in the realizing
development and it pre-scribes this development normatively." 20 And if
we think, as Husserl does, of the essence or idea as providing the essential
possibiUties, then "the old ontological doctrine," namely, that "the know-
ledge of 'possibilities' must precede that of actualities," properly under-
stood, "is a great truth" (Hua III, 194).
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L PHENOMENOLOGY
How are we to properly understand this? In what sense is the idea pos-
sibility or potentiaUty? We propose, following the tips of de Muralt, that
we think of it after the fashion of entelechy. Entelechy is not actual as
beings are actual; and, as the telos of what is actual, it is potential vis-a-vis
the thing. Thus, the scientific ideal is a possibility in relationship to the
actual state of science. Yet actual science is the realization of the idea; it is
in potentiality to the actual idea which prescribes and informs it from the
start. From this point of view the idea of science is act, and its (actual)
form of realization is potency.21
Ill
This leads us to our concluding project. It remains to integrate the other
key HusserUan term for the divine, Idee, with entelechy. To do this we
must see the causaUy effective power of the Idea for Husserl.
Although "Idea" for Husserl often enough has to do with something
which is sheerly ideal and as such cut off from a causal relationship to
material objects, it also has other senses and contexts. A most prominent
one is the "regulative idea." Husserl appropriates Kant's concept of the
regulative idea throughout his work when he is explicating the perceptual
object as what is presumptively meant through the endless manifold of
appearances: the perceptual object functions as a regulative idea for- the
manifold of appearings. And, similarly, both the field or external horizon
of objects of perception as well as the field of fields or ultimate horizon of
world are regarded as infinite ideas. The divine itself is considered an'anal-
ogous transcendence to that of the world (Hua III, §58), indeed it is the
"ideal pole-idea" (E III 4/60-61).
But it would seem that the ideal pole-idea as horizon (or at least as
inseparable from horizon)22 would be a constitution of the wakeful mind
and hi no way constituting. As Kant on occasion maintained, the idea is a
mere ideal, merely our heuristic or pragmatic postulate (KRV, B 698 ff.).
In which case, the idea would be a realm of possibility created by inten-
tionality. The idea as infinite regulative ideal thus belongs to the realm of
the not actually existing and the merely potential. The divine idea, in* this
case, would be a construct and, as a basis for progress in theory and action,
an heuristic, fictional or poetic postulate. The divine would be the possibil-
ity of the world's meliorization only as the emptily-intended constituted
beckoning penumbra of possibility. In this view, the divine as the consti-
tuting actuality which lures the all of monads is, in fact, a constituted realm
of possibiUty.
I do not think that this interpretation, which is basically the conclusion
of Andre de Muralt,23 is Husserl's position. Let me sketch some reasons.
The first is that as essences are not postulates but given, so for Husserl the
idea, pole, and horizon of the world are not postulates. The divine, too-,
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
then as the ultimate pole of poles or ideal pole-idea is not postulated.
Husserl can hold that these are not postulated because he holds that, in
contrast to Kant, the world is an object of experience (Hua IX, 95/71).
And, earlier in Ideas, he held that the idea is not something merely posited
but is an absolutely indubitable datum - in an extended sense of the word
datum or "givenness" (Gegebenheit) (Hua III/I, 186/197). Thus the
wakeful sense of the world as having a divine pole is not a postulate but
something experienced, a kind of "datum." For Husserl this explicit sense
of the world emerges especially through ethical reflection.24
Secondly, as for C. S. Peirce, "The true ideal," vague as it must
necessarily be, "is the Living Power." Whatever generates devotion and,
as beauty and goodness, has the power to attract us irresistably, cannot be
non-actual and merely the outcome of inquiry and evolution.25 Similarly
for Husserl, the divine as the ideal pole-idea is
the unum, verum and bonum toward which each being is bound,
and toward which all transcendental subjective Ufe, as vital being
living toward constituting truth, tends.
(E III 4/60-61)
Thirdly, the divine as absolute ideal pole-idea is the absolute logos
which is named
an essence (Wesen) that is not an eidos, but rather as essence in
absolute truth, as essence in no relativity of situations, as essence
without horizontality. This idea is to be thought of as essence,
which, bearing aU true being in itself in absolute necessity is
unique and is actual reality (Wirklichkeit); actual reality in the
sense of being the universal actual reality founding everything and
making everything possible.
(E III 4/62; see Hua XXVIII, 180 ff. for an equaUy rich but earlier
version of the themes of this text)
An adequate commentary on this rich text is here out of the question. We
may make four observations. The first is that Husserl is denying that the
divine is an eidos. Consider that eide can, through an appropriate ideation
or abstraction, exist merely in the manner of eide, that is, as ingredients of
the kosmos noetos, or purely meaning topoi. Essence, on the other hand, is
always essence of something. The divine is, it would seem, in some sense
the formal cause (Wesen) as well as the telos (final cause) of the universe.
Second, as essence, the divine would not be an exact essence (Uke a
circle or the perfect steam engine). Obviously, this is not because the
divine is immersed in the flux; but rather because the exact essence is a
perfect, closed whole and the divine is essentially an infinity. This is sug-
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
gested by E III 4/61 where the divine ideal pole-idea is said to be Uber-
Sein, that is, super- or trans-being, super-real, etc., which means not
merely that it is something that cannot be adequately made present but
rather that it is exemplarily being and real in senses not commensurate
with the mundane senses. .
Third, a morphological essence,26 that is, the types, styles, and forms
evident in the flux of experience can be consecutive invariants of this flux
by thematizing the features of constancy and distinctiveness which are
indeterminately present in the flux. The divine idea, in this respect, is com-
parable to "world": it is the invariant horizon or frame of the entire flux
and all the features of the flux. Yet, it is not in the flux.
FinaUy, we have seen that from the standpoint of the articulation of
beings, the essential or ideal meaning-frame appears as the realm of possibil-
ity and the not yet actual sense-telos of the actual perceived thing. But from
the phenomenological constitutional perspective, the ideal meaning frame is
arche along with hyle. Archai themselves, however, may exist in horizontality!
Essences thus stand in relationship to others which define them, they also are
within wider essential regions, within the region of regions, world. AU of
these regions are contexts which determine the meaning of whatever is
encompassed by horizontality. StiU, not everything is so encompassed.
Husserl noted in the Crisis that the world does not exist as an object or
a being for which there is always possible a plurality, but rather it exists
uniquely in such a way that the plural is senseless (Hua VI, §37). This is a
true a fortiori for the divine idea.27 Everything which exists within horizon-
tality is one among many. Thus, a morphological essence, say that of a
person, necessarily exists among other morphological essences (for
example, promise, contract, speech-act, oath, duty, claim, etc.) and there-
fore is not unique in itself and receives a meaning-determination from a
wider context of meanings. Every perceptual real thing which exists within
the horizontality of the world exists with other things and therefore is not
a unique being. Furthermore, it exists within a not-actual possible meaning
space so that its actuality is always in a process of realization of its ideal
meaning-being. The idea of the thing is what determines the unfolding
profiles of the thing to be its aspects. The eidetic horizontal meaning-
frame is what determines the unfolding of the possible essential features of
the thing; and the horizonal meaning-frame of the world is what deter-
mines the encompassing significance of the essences and things. Things,
Husserl notes, are given to us in principle as objects in the world-horizon.
Something is present as something only from out of the world which is
always present to us as horizon (Hua VI, §37).
The divine idea is the essence which both encompasses and determines
all other essential-formal meanings (ideas, eide, morphological and exact
essences) as weU as particular beings by providing their meaning-rcpos and
formal sense. This is a sense in which it is "founding." Further, the divine
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 L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
idea exists in no horizontality and therefore is absolutely unique. As the
eidetic or ideal meaning-frames are the prior condition for the possibiUty
for the progressive meaning-determination of the particular thing, so
world and, a fortiori, the divine are meaning-giving for worldly beings, for
essences and for more encompassing essential regions of being. The divine
idea therefore may be seen to be "the ultimate total meaning-giving prin-
ciple for truth and being, yes, even for the being of the absolute subject
and the totality of subjects" (E III 4/60-61).28
A fourth response to an interpretation such as de Muralt's is that the
divine idea is not, in its ultimate consideration for transcendental phenom-
enology, something constituted by transcendental subjectivity but rather
constitutive of the very foundations of this subjectivity.29 This final ulti-
mate sense in which the divine idea constitutes transcendental subjectivity
is perhaps the most appropriate and most basic sense of entelechy and the
ultimate sense in which the divine idea is "founding of everything and
making everything possible." The ultimate metaphysical consideration for
transcendental phenomenology is the ground of the facticity of transcen-
dental subjectivity as not a being or essence and as the source of possible
and real values (Hua III/l, §58).30 The facticity here is that of the primal
presencing as the foundation of inner-time consciousness. The phenom-
enological task, Husserl claims, is to immerse oneself in the hyletic factic-
ity and in the essence of the irrational and rational ingredients found there
(F124/40b-41a). The upshot of this analysis in summary is:
Each of our hyletic data is already a "developmental product,"
and therefore it has a hidden intentionality which refers back to a
synthesis. Everything refers back to a prot hyle which is a com-
pletely undifferentiated material (Stoff) and to primal-constitutive
processes with intentional motivations which belong therein. But
all development is permeated by guiding "ideas".
(F124/41b)
Husserl's ultimate analyses of the foundations of subjectivity in inner-time
consciousness did not lead him to the position of Bergson (of Creative
Evolution) for whom an original sense of temporality becomes the sole
source of form and creative power. Rather, at the ultimate foundation, he
sees this "hyletic" dimension of "temporaUty" in continuity with its devel-
opment and telos and sees it as always already under the sway of "proto-
rationality" and hidden intentionalities (F I 24/41b). The question, "How
can the Idea effectively function in the material realm?" is answered not
by a theory of participation (methexis) but by showing how what conceptu-
aUy is not the idea, hyletic facticity, is nevertheless pervaded already by an
informing of the Idea. This dimension of primal sensibility and originary
synthesis is not that from which alone form arises, forma ex materia (as in
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
Bergson or Mach); nor an imposition of form upon unadulterated hyle,
forma super materia, (as in Kant), but it is materia praeformata (ab ent-
elecheia divina) sed non ab actu intellectus. Indeed, prior to the constitu-
tion of the world, the primal-stuff "flows" in such an "instinctual" way that
the constitution of the entire world is predelineated, and the enabling
foundations of the world, that is, the world's primer and essential
grammar, are evident in advance (Hua XV, 385). What Husserl has in
mind here especially is less a performism than the claim that aU possible
syntheses presuppose the original synthesis of association of original time-
consciousness. (Cf., e.g., Hua XI, 125.)
These considerations, that is, the analysis of the primal hyle and its
interwoven hidden intentionalities and the continuity of these with the
telos of aU development, lead Husserl to claim
God is the entelechy and outside of him there is "nothing"; he is
the all-forming. And the irrational material (Stoff) is not some-
thing made but precisely that: stuff. And the world has its being
from out of God and is otherwise "nothing" and God is only as
the guiding and besouling principle of perfection.
(F124/241b)
In effect, one aspect of what one does in the analyses of the proto-
rationality of inner-time consciousness and original passive synthesis is to
show how "from below God creates the world in a perpetual creating."31
IV
It is clear that for Husserl the absolute divine idea, indeed, the idea of the
Good, is not merely an ideaUty which as such is ineffective as a formative
causaUty in nature. Nor is it an empirical natural reaUty or a reaUty in the
sense of the spirits or minds of our experience. It, as the source or spring of
aU being, is a reaUty in a new sense, a super- or trans-reality (see E III 4, and
Hua XXVIII, 181). Husserl is clearly drawn to Aristotle's concept of ent-
elechy and even to his nouspoetikos (Hua XXVIII, 182), as weU as Leibniz's
"myth of a central monad out of which aU monads fulgurate" (Hua XXVIII,
182). Indeed, Husserl seems to move toward a synthesis of aU three concepts.
There are numerous questions which this position raises. What is
evident is that coeval with an entelechial principle is a hyletic one. These
together form the founding principles of what Husserl hesitantly refers to
as "absolute substance." 32 The divine is featured, of course, not as the
hyletic principle but rather as the entelechial principle. It goes in advance
and does not have its foundation in the hyletic dimension. Yet it never
exists independently of it but rather, along with it, is a constitutive
"moment," a coeval principle, of "absolute substance."
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L I F E - W O R L D , E T H I C S , H I S T O R Y , AND METAPHYSICS
The transcendental phenomenological consideration which would
establish that the entelechial principle is also an egological one must be
here neglected. Suffice it here to say that the ultimate principle of the
primal presencing is never merely accounted for as hyle. It is also always
"egological," but in a way prior to any I-center of acts (C 10/24).33 If this
be so, and given his thesis of the immortaUty and unbeginning character of
the primal streaming (cf. Hua XI, 377-381),34 Husserl must also entertain
the thesis that there is some kind of a coincidence of the divine intellectus
agens/entelechy with the wakeful human monad; this is a dark, unthema-
tized aspect of his theology.35
Furthermore, because for Husserl entelechy foremostly arises as a prin-
ciple in the constitution of transcendental subjectivity, Conrad-Martius's
claim that it is neither something ideal nor mental but a tertium ponendum
holds less force. That is, whereas, for Conrad-Martius, entelechy is the
"objectively meaningful or purposeful" or a "pure objectivity of meaning-
realization" - and therefore neither a mere idea nor a subjectivity - for
Husserl, because entelechy is the foundation of transcendental subject-
ivity, which itself is the foundation of being, it is a supreme principle which
can be no less than mind and in no way a created or constituted realm as is
the entelechy ultimately for Conrad-Martius. 36 To what degree and
whether it has always been fully "mind" and "subjectively meaningful" -
and not merely "objectively meaningful" - could perhaps receive the
beginnings of an answer by a consideration of Husserl's transcendental
idealism for which mind is the diaphanousness of being and its inseparable
correlate. Such a lengthy discussion, however, is not possible here.37
The material or hyletic principle is reminiscent of Leibniz's theory of
the "confusedness" of pre-articulated perceptions in as much as it has to
do with the realm of the continuous indeterminate unbegun and undying
"flow" prior to acts. The dormant and dull forms of consciousness serve as
a basic analogate for the undying and unbegun Urhyle as a realm of poten-
tiaUty to be actuated or informed by egological and teleological principles
(see, e.g., Hua IX, 486-487). In such a Leibnizian reconstruction, rudimen-
tary forms of wakefulness or ego emerge out of a prior dormant state
wherein there is not yet self-awareness and delineation of experiences. In
this prior state, the I as a central pole around which experiences gather is
not yet "there" because there is not yet any (act of) "experience" but only
an undifferentiated, unbegun, and unending "flow." That is, there is only
dynamis (see, e.g., Hua XIV, 49, 53). In this view, the delineation or defi-
niteness of the world is dependent on the actuation and holding sway
(Walten) of a divine entelechy or idea of an absolute rational all of "I's"
which quickens both by awakening into an egological form as weU as by
beckoning to the ideal all of "I's" (see, e.g., Hua XI, 436).
If the divine entelechy is understood, not in Aristotle's first sense (pure
actuaUty), but in his second sense and therefore, Aristotle, as first ent-
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
elechy or soul of the universe, the world, or "all of monads," must be
understood as a necessary aspect of the divine's Ufe. Does the divine life
itself develop in its enabUng the universe to develop? So it would seem,
but the evidence for Husserl's acceptance of this view is not overwhelm-
ing. In speaking, perhaps metaphorically, of the "divine life," Husserl
envisaged it as one "which would continuously posit true goals and would
progress from true goals to true goals" (F124/86-87). This is a fuller sense
we may give to our earlier remark that the divine life is essentially infinite
(a "bad infinity" for some philosophers!). There are yet other suggestive
texts to which we may here call attention.
In a text where he speaks of the divine as not the all of monads but as
the "entelechy functioning with it, as the idea of the infinite telos of devel-
opment," Husserl refers to the share of each monad in the "self-realization
process of the Godhead." Thus the divine is not only the entelechy of the
world, but, in the actuation of the monadic potency of the world, the
divine's own life is actuated, and, seemingly, the world's monadic potency
would thus be the divine's own potentiality. He writes of the participation
in the divine's self-actuation as a communication of monads through the
sedimentation of each of their actions and lives in the embyronic monadic
nucleus (Keimzellenmonade) for each newly born monad (Hua XV,
609-610).38 Another text asks, but does not explicitly answer
whether and to what extent the absolute being can be regarded
and recognized as an existing God or as the self-development of
the idea of God in factual existence whether there can be an
absolute point, an absolute goal in the sense of a being at rest, or
of an always abiding flow amidst formations which remain always
the same; or whether it belongs to the essence of the existing
Godhood, that it be the development of levels in such a manner
that an ultimate level of value is inconceivable? In such a case the
highest value which is thinkable is such only in the progression of
an endless development of levels?
Would we not then come to the Aristotelian metaphysics, there-
fore to the poioun, as an animating goal-idea, which at the same
time, would have to be grasped as a Platonic Idea? But still it
would not be this metaphysics in so far as it would not posit, prop-
erly speaking, an ideal goal (in the sense of the schema of the
completed tree as the limiting goal of development).
(Hua XXVIII, 226)
Although Husserl may have been encouraged, if not influenced by,
Driesch's writings to conceive of the divine as entelechy, he probably was
not impressed with Driesch's repetition of the traditional procedure of
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projecting human or mundane categories onto the divine. In one text (K
III 1 VIII4-9), he criticizes attempts of Aristotle (and recent followers, as
Brentano) in whose conception of the world as an organism there is an
appeal to a mundane teleology in order to derive a divine mind. Such
attempts do not take their evidence from where teleology is directly given
but rather tend to remain oblivious of an account of the world such as his
own that takes its bearings from the immanent teleology of subjectivity.
The point Husserl wants to make is not that the appropriate procedure
is to take the teleology of subjectivity and to transpose it on the world and
thus to derive God. The philosophical theologies in the AristoteUan and
objective, regional ontological mode make sense of the divine by recon-
structing it from the manifest realm of human personaUty which becomes
the way to understand the teleology in nature. 39 God, thereby is accounted
for in terms of human subjectivity. But, Husserl states, the actual task is to
account for subjectivity as originating in God. Thus, Husserl sees the task
of philosophy to account for the divine as the source and beginning of
humanity by way of showing how subjectivity originates in the divine
rather than being a metaphorical version of humanity and humanity's rela-
tionship to the world.
It is nevertheless, the concept of entelechy - originaUy a regional ontolog-
ical category but which, with some modifications, for Husserl, functions
equally well in the transcendental constitutional dimensions - which serves
as the prevaUng concept in Husserl's accounting for the divine as the source
and beginning of humanity and indeed of the entire "aU of monads."
Notes
1 Among the texts which are especially suggestive are Hua XXVIII, 174-82,
225-30; Hua XV, 380-381, 610; B I 4, 52 ff.; F I 24, 41b; and B IV 6, 105. I
would like to thank Professor Samuel IJsseling of the Husserl-Archives in
Louvain for permission to quote from Husserl's Nachlass.
2 Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Selbstaufbau der Natur: Entelechien und Energien
(Munich: Kosel Verlag, 1961), 81. Conrad-Martius was one of Husserl's early
and brilliant students at Gottingen. My presentation of the eidetics of entelechy
is indebted to her. For Hegel, Sdmmtliche Werke (Glockner, ed.) XIV, 296. As
is well known, Plotinus's philosophy wrestles with fundamental metaphysical
and theological themes in Plato and Aristotle. In particular, his wedding of
forms to the realm of nous (e.g., in Enneads V, 9) focuses these issues. In V, 9,
6 he wrestles with the problem of preformism, how all the parts are undistin-
guished in the whole of the seed. In III, 8,1 ff., he discusses how the formative
entelechial principles, the logoi, operate both immanent within and transcend-
ent to organisms by a unique kind of silent but effective "contemplation."
3 Friederich Paulsen's Introduction to Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt, 1895)
sketches a Schopenhauer-inspired "universal voluntarism" (113 ff. and 228 ff.)
in which all the motions of the cosmos may be understood as Will whose ends
meet in the life of God and his "self realization or entelechy will be the ground
and end of all things" (229). Young Husserl was fond of Schopenhauer; later,
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
as I have tried to show in some detail in The Person and the Common Life:
Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992), Husserl
aspired to develop a "universal voluntarism," i.e., an extended sense of will, to
cover both the understanding of the foundations of consciousness as well as
properly voluntary agency. Texts such as in Hua XV, 378 ff. show how he was
prepared to extend the concept of will to all cosmic Ufe. In Hua XXVII, 94
Husserl ties the concept of entelechy to an effective Ideal which is not merely
ideal but a universal will - central themes of both Schopenhauer and the later
Schelling.
4 See especially Hans Driesch, The Science and Philosophy of the Organism
(London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908), Vol. I and II. The second volume,
pp. 365-73, contains Driesch's theological speculations. He holds that there is
an encompassing but limited teleology throughout the universe, the foundation
of which is a "primary entelechy" in (not of) the universe which did not create
all reality but ordered certain parts of it. Driesch acknowledges a kind of
"dualism of hyle and nous" and conceives the primary entelechy as a demiurge
whose intelligibility transcends all science by being its eternal goal. The
Husserl-Chronik, ed. Karl Schuhmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977),
pp. 139, 140, 186, and 212, contains some indications of the contact between
Husserl and Driesch; Schuhmann's forthcoming edition of Husserl's correspon-
dence reveals the admiration Husserl had for Driesch's writings. In a letter to
Driesch (July 18, 1918) Husserl confesses that Driesch's ontology of develop-
ment is of special value because he (Husserl) has not worked out any concepts
or insights of his own on these matters and Driesch is the only one from whom
he can learn something about the ontology of development. For an Aristotelian
presentation of entelechy and response to Driesch, see Francois Nuyens,
L'Evolution de la Psychologie d'Aristote (Louvain: L'Institut Superieur de
Philosophie, 1948), especially pp. 73-78.
5 Cf. Cicero's determination of Aristotle's entelechy as "a kind of continuous
and enduring motion (quasi quondam continuatam motionem et perennem)" in
Tusculan Disputations 1,10.
6 Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits
of Nature (New York: Vintage, 1988), see all of ch. v but especially 83 ff.
7 Sheldrake, 91.
8 For a clear statement of more recent literature and theory, see Sheldrake, op.
cit.
9 For Driesch, see, e.g., Vol. I of The Philosophy and Science of the Organism.
For discussion, see Sheldrake and Conrad-Martius; also CH. Waddington, The
Nature of Life (London: Unwin, 1963).
10 Driesch, Science and Philosophy of the Organism, Vol. II, 140.
11 Waddington, 65.
12 See Selbstaufbau, passim and her Bios und Psyche (Hamburg: Classen and
Goverts,1949),llff.
13 Conrad-Martius, 57.
14 Conrad-Martius, 55 ff.
15 Conrad-Martius, especially 63-88.
16 See the rich writings of Andrew Ushenko for these topics, especially his Power
and Events (New York: Greenwood, 1969; reprint of the 1946 Princeton
edition). Also, Eugene Gendlin, especially Focusing (New York: Bantam.
1988).
17 Experience and Judgment (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973),
80-81.
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18 Experience and Judgment, 82.
19 Parenthetically, it may here be remarked that Husserl's philosophy of nature
centers in a hylomorphism and in the problem of determining in what sense the
primal hyle may be said to be able to be conceived with or without spiritual for-
mations. For the person in the natural attitude the world never is present as a
pure physis without spiritual formations or besoming. But in what sense is the
besouling resident in nature? Whereas for pre-scientific humans the world was
suffused with souls, the rise of natural science has involved a de-spiritualization
of the world. Modern thinking is attuned to the notion that the animation of
nature is a result of human constitution. But organic being discloses itself as a
realm in which subjectivity holds sway in an objective, i.e., non-conscious, non-
intentional, manner, i.e., as entelechy. For Husserl, cf. below, §§IV-V, there is
a primal stuff or hyle which is the core-substrate of all spiritual formations,
untimately of the divine entelechy of all entelechies. A V 21, 26b-32b is a rich
discussion of these matters.
20 Andre" de Muralt, The Idea of Phenomenology: Husserlian Exemplarism, trans.
Garry L. Breckon (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 38. I am
indebted to de Muralt's discussion in these pages.
21 de Muralt, 51. Cf. the following text of Husserl: "Actual science is therefore
science in the strict sense only in so far as it corresponds to the pure idea of
science and corresponds more closely to the idea of the pure science of that
general form which is prescribed through the regional category to which the
factual existent being is ordained" (Hua XXVIII, 178).
22 May we say that the infinitely determinable fringe or horizon is the same as
"the idea?" There are many facets to this issue which we cannot discuss here.
Whereas horizon and the idea may both be said to be apperceived and the
same referent of the appreception, the presencing of the idea as idea requires
the intervening acts which disclose the idea as that which withdraws from view
and holds sway as the infinitely determinable horizon of all acts and all bringing
into view. That is, in order to appreciate the idea as the ideaUty which presents
us with infinite tasks, one must engage in finite tasks which aim at the achieve-
ment of the ideal. World/horizon, however, as the apperceived "external
horizon" may be present (co-present and co-meant) even in passive synthetic
achievements as gazing, perusing, etc. Which is to say that it may be present
without the acts which attempt to make present the possibilities hinted at by
world/horizon.
23 See de Muralt, especially 40, and 122-23.
24 Cf. Person and the Common Life.
25 See the discussion of Donna M. Orange, Peirce's Conception of God, Peirce
Studies, N. 2 (Lubbock, Texas: Institute for Studies in Pragmatism, 1984), 70 ff.
26 For the distinction between exact and morphological essences, see Hua III, §74
and Hua VI, §41a. See the fine discussion of Robert Sokolowski, "Exact
Science and the World in Which We Live," in Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft in
der Philosophie Edmund Husserls, ed. Elizabeth Stroker (Frankfurt am Main:
Klostermann, 1979), 92ff.
27 On other occasions he noted that the primal "I" is uniquely unique, i.e., not in
the sense that it has a unique spatial-temporal point of reference, nor as a
unique individual which profiles the form of its similarity or commmonness.
The unique primal I is not individual or similar. See B 114/XI, 24; cf. Hua XV,
373-74; Hua VI, 188/184-5; A V 5/8. This obviously has symmetry with the
divine idea which, as divine, is also referred to as, in some sense, "I": "Genesis:
the way of the evolution of humanity to God. The necessary motivation in
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E N T E L E C H Y IN T R A N S C E N D E N T A L P H E N O M E N O L O G Y
which God constitutes himself as creator of the world in the conscious life of
humans. God constituted as the universal principle of an ego which permeates
all absolute subjects, at first in a passive manner" (A V 21/19).
28 In this short space there are numerous issues which I can only allude to. My
own sense of the matter is that Bruno Bauch's wrestlings with Kant's denial of
the regulative idea as being in any way constitutive (for Kant only faule Ver-
nunft, KRV B 717, would want to make of the regulative idea of God also a
constitutive idea) serve as a rich Gesprdchspartner to Husserl's ultimate theo-
logical meditations. See both his Immanuel Kant (Berlin and Leipzig: de
Gruyter, 1921), 462-63 and his Die Idee (Leipzig: Reinicke, 1925), 92ff. I know
of no direct influence and doubt that there was any. But perhaps Heinrich
Rickert, a teacher of Bauch, and quite thoroughly studied by Husserl, is a con-
nection. Rickert's life-long theme of the logic and theory as inseparable from
values, in spite of Husserl's legitimate and sustained criticism of Rickert, finally
succeeded in impressing Husserl insofar as he subsumed all ideas and theory
under the idea as a teleological consideration. I touch briefly on some of these
matters in "Divine Truth in Husserl and Kant: Some Issues in Phenomenologi-
cal Theology," which appears in The Phenomenology of Truth Proper to Reli-
gion, ed. Daniel Guerriere (Albany: SUNY, 1990). See also my "Axiology as
the Form of Purity of Heart: A reading of Husserliana XXVIII," Philosophy
Today 34:3 (1990), 214.
29 For this reason we can say the divine is di-polar, i.e., it is constitutive of the
subjectivity of the aU of monads as well as being the teleological ideal pole-
idea. See Hua III/l, §§ 52 and 58 as well as my "A Precis of an Husserlian
Philosophical Theology," in Essays in Phenomenological Theology, ed. Steven
Laycock and James Hart (Albany: SUNY, 1986), 134-42.
30 For a study of these "metaphysical" matters, a terminus technicus in Husserl,
see "A Pr6cis of an Husserlian Philosophical Theology," 98-109 and 118-34.
31 See Husserl-Chronik, 295.
32 See "A Precis..."
33 See "A Pr6cis ..., 129-45.
34 I have wrestled with this in "Phenomenological Time: Its Religious Signific-
ance," forthcoming in Time and Religion, ed. J. N. Mohanty and A. N. Baslev
(Leiden: Brill, 1992).
35 Note the willingness of Husserl, in the context of accounting for authentic reli-
gious experiences, to speak of an "original experienced relation to God in
which the subject of this intuition knows himself to be addressed not by an
external God who stands over against him and [in which the subject] knows
himself determined to be the bearer of a communicated revelation. Rather, he
knows God as intuited in himself as originally one with him. Therefore he
knows himself as an embodiment of the divine light itself and so as a mediator
of the message of the divine being (Wesens) from out of a content of the divine
nature (Wesens) implanted in him" (Hua XXVII, 65).
36 Conrad-Martius' view that the essence-entelechies are created finds a notewor-
thy restatement in Robert Sokolowski's theory of creatio ex nihilo as a creation
even of the necessities we experience in the world. See The God of Faith and
Reason (South Bend: Notre Dame, 1982), especially ch. ii and v; this elaborates
ch. xv of his masterful Presence and Absence (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1978). But in Conrad-Martius the necessities of nature, i.e., the "essence-
entelechies," are dwelt on at length and are argued to account for the total
being and essence of the cosmos and, like Thomist angels, are claimed to have
no intrinsic potency to non-being. See as a supplement to Der Selbstaufbau der
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Natur, her other works especially Die Zeit but also: Der Raum, Schriften III,
and Die Geistseele des Menschen - all published by Kosel in Munich. For a syn-
thesis and overview, see my Hedwig Conrad-Martius' Ontological Phenom-
enology (Unpublished Dissertation, University of Chicago Divinity School,
1972). Of course for Husserl, these necessities are part of the divine entelechy
itself, what he once called intellectus ipse (A V 21), and they would seem, like
Plato's demiurge, to have to face the monadic hyletic dimension with persua- ]
sion not omnipotence. This accounts for the inevitable surds and irrationalities
of the world.
37 Cf. my "Being's Mindfulness: The Noema of Transcendental Idealism," in
Phenomenology of the Noema, ed. John J. Drummond and Lester Embree
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992). See also my "Phenomenological Time: Its ReU-
gious Significance."
38 My interest in this speculation has been recently reactivated by Rupert Shel-
drake's Presence of the Past and his notion of "morphic resonance."
39 William Stern, in his Die MenschUche Personlichkeit (Leipzig: Johann Ambrio-
sius Barth Verlag: 1917/1923) used the concept of entelechy for "the tendency
and ability of the person to realize himself (i.e., the system of self-posited
goals).'-' But there does not seem to be any question of influence here.

268