New phenomenological studies in Japan 9783030118938, 3030118932

Citation preview

Contributions To Phenomenology 101

Nicolas de Warren Shigeru Taguchi Editors

New Phenomenological Studies in Japan

Contributions To Phenomenology In Cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology Volume 101 Series Editors Nicolas de Warren, Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA Ted Toadvine, Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA Editorial Board Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Elizabeth Behnke, Ferndale, WA, USA Rudolfh Bernet, Husserl Archive, KU Leuven, Belgium David Carr, Emory University, GA, USA Chan-Fai Cheung, Chinese University Hong Kong, China James Dodd, New School University, NY, USA Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University, FL, USA Alfredo Ferrarin, Università di Pisa, Italy Burt Hopkins, University of Lille, France José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Kwok-Ying Lau, Chinese University Hong Kong, China Nam-In Lee, Seoul National University, Korea Rosemary R.P. Lerner, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru Dieter Lohmar, University of Cologne, Germany William R. McKenna, Miami University, OH, USA Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, OH, USA J.N. Mohanty, Temple University, PA, USA Junichi Murata, University of Tokyo, Japan Thomas Nenon, The University of Memphis, TN, USA Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Germany Gail Soffer, Rome, Italy Anthony Steinbock, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL, USA Shigeru Taguchi, Hokkaido University, Japan Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA

Scope The purpose of the series is to serve as a vehicle for the pursuit of phenomenological research across a broad spectrum, including cross-over developments with other fields of inquiry such as the social sciences and cognitive science. Since its establishment in 1987, Contributions to Phenomenology has published more than 80 titles on diverse themes of phenomenological philosophy. In addition to welcoming monographs and collections of papers in established areas of scholarship, the series encourages original work in phenomenology. The breadth and depth of the Series reflects the rich and varied significance of phenomenological thinking for seminal questions of human inquiry as well as the increasingly international reach of phenomenological research. The series is published in cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5811

Nicolas de Warren • Shigeru Taguchi Editors

New Phenomenological Studies in Japan

Editors Nicolas de Warren Department of Philosophy Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania, PA, USA

Shigeru Taguchi Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences Hokkaido University Sapporo, Japan

ISSN 0923-9545     ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic) Contributions To Phenomenology ISBN 978-3-030-11892-1    ISBN 978-3-030-11893-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Introduction

Ever since the initial reception of Husserl’s thinking at the beginning of the twentieth century, the development of phenomenological research in Japan has steadily and fruitfully engaged multiple movements of phenomenological thought. Already in the early 1920s, Japanese philosophers began to study in Germany with Husserl and/or Heidegger. To name the more significant and influential figures, Tanabe, Kuki, Miki, and Watsuji not only enthusiastically embraced the spirit of phenomenology but equally confronted the actual forms of phenomenology developed by European philosophers. These philosophical confrontations led this generation of Japanese thinkers to formulate their own original views of philosophy. As an introduction to the collection of contemporary Japanese thinkers gathered together in this volume, our aim here is to sketch the historical reception of phenomenology in Japan. This admittedly cursory survey is meant to offer the reader a broader horizon for a better understanding of particular tendencies, approaches, and interests represented in New Phenomenological Studies in Japan.

 ishida and Tanabe: Two Dominant Figures in Modern N Japanese Philosophy Not even ten years after the publication of Husserl’s Logical Investigations (1900/01), Husserl’s nascent phenomenology was already referenced in Japan. Kitaro Nishida (1870–1945), widely considered to be the most important Japanese philosopher before the World War II, is arguably the first philosopher who introduced Husserl to Japanese scholars. Nishida was a highly original thinker in his own right, who was steeped in East Asian intellectual cultures and professionally trained in Western philosophy. With his broad knowledge and insightful understanding of the entire span of Western thought from its Greek origins, Nishida recognized the significance of Husserl’s philosophical endeavor. In his article on “The Claims of the Pure Logic School of Epistemology” (1911), Nishida referenced Husserl’s v

vi

Introduction

phenomenology. Yet Nishida considered that Husserl’s thinking shared marked affinities with Neo-Kantians such as Rickert and thus referred to this entire grouping of German thought as “the pure logic school,” which he understood as seeking to define objective truth independently of any empirical-psychological facts. More intense study of Husserl’s thought allowed Nishida to grasp its specifically phenomenological character. With this newfound appreciation, Nishida perceived a commonality with his own conception of “pure experience” while nonetheless remaining critical of Husserlian phenomenology. This affinity between phenomenology and Nishida’s thinking had easily been forgotten or overlooked, until the more recent research of Yoshihiro Nitta (1929–), who recognized Husserl’s importance for Nishida, claimed that Husserl’s phenomenology is important for an elucidation of Nishida’s thinking. Nitta’s scholarship proved essential for establishing this connection between Husserl and Nishida within the contemporary scene of Japanese phenomenology. The transformation in Nishida’s thinking that centered on his breakthrough conception of basho (place) placed once again Husserl’s phenomenology in a different, more critical light. Nishida became critical of Husserl’s conception of consciousness for merely representing what is thought of as consciousness. According to Nishida, however, consciousness is not what we are conscious of but the consciousness that itself is conscious or the “being conscious itself” that lies at the bottom of the consciousness in contrast to transcendent objects. Nishida’s conception of consciousness offers a suggestive partner in a broader phenomenological dialogue concerning the scope of consciousness and its temporalization. In contrast to Nishida, Hajime Tanabe (1985–1963), Nishida’s successor to the Chair of Philosophy at Kyoto University, assessed phenomenology to be a highly creative philosophy that formed one of the representative trends in European philosophy in the twentieth century.1 Whereas Nishida did not have the opportunity to study abroad, Tanabe went to Germany in 1922 to study in Berlin with Alois Riehl, an important Neo-Kantian philosopher at the time. During the 1920s, Neo-­ Kantianism was popular in Japan, with Tanabe as one of its most sympathetic advocates. Soon after arriving in Germany in 1922, Tanabe discovered the many ways in which phenomenology was intensely debated and discussed in Europe. Shortly after his arrival, Tanabe moved to Freiburg to study with Husserl. While attending Husserl’s seminars and lectures, Tanabe rapidly assimilated phenomenological thinking. More thrilling for him was the encounter with Heidegger, who at the time was Husserl’s assistant. Tanabe immediately recognized the outstanding significance of Heidegger’s new interpretation of phenomenology. Upon his return to Japan in 1924, Tanabe gave lectures and published articles on phenomenology. In his article “A New Turn in Phenomenology: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Life” (1924), Tanabe stressed how Heidegger’s reinterpretation of phenomenology could compensate for the weakness of Husserlian phenomenology and thereby open new philosophical possibilities. According to Tanabe, 1  Tanabe was not properly speaking Nishida’s student. Nishida was instead a private mentor for Tanabe.

Introduction

vii

Husserl’s method cannot satisfactorily fulfill its original demand for concreteness (Sachlichkeit). This demand could, however, be more adequately addressed with Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. In this article of 1924, Tanabe provided a detailed report of Heidegger’s 1923 Summer Semester Lectures in Marburg. Tanabe’s presentation of Heidegger’s thinking is surprisingly accurate given that Heidegger had at that time published little, and none of his lectures. According to Tanabe, Heidegger’s phenomenology as “self-understanding and self-interpretation of Dasein” proved more promising than Husserl’s. Nevertheless, Tanabe criticized Heidegger’s thinking for neglecting the spatiality of Dasein with its overemphasis on temporality. Furthermore, a central dimension of reality seemed to be ignored in Heidegger’s phenomenology: the body (even if Heidegger would eventually address the body in the Zollikon Seminars from 1959). For Tanabe, the body is a cardinal point of reference insofar as it mediates between subjective “inner” experience and objective transcendent existence. The body functions as a medium of the free actions of ego in its environment and constitutes the “front edge of the self-manifestation of transcendent being” (Tanabe 1931 [1963]: 345). Even as Tanabe stressed the function of the body, he did not proceed to develop a fully-­ fledged phenomenology of the body in the manner of Merleau-Ponty but developed instead a philosophy of dialectical intersection between apparently contradictory phenomena, such as immanence and transcendence, relativity and absoluteness, and time and eternity. Tanabe’s thinking would develop farther afield from phenomenology, and yet, as reflected in this volume (Taguchi), his concept of “mediation” might have an impact on the future development of phenomenology.

 ew Generation: The Assimilation of Husserlian N Phenomenology For both Nishida and Tanabe, phenomenology represented a novel development in European philosophy, which they could not, however, completely accept. Both thinkers, instead, leveraged phenomenology to develop their own respective philosophical approaches. A younger generation of Japanese thinkers adopted a different attitude. Phenomenology already stood before them as a highly attractive trend. In the 1920s and1930s, a sizeable contingent of Japanese scholars arrived in Germany to study with Husserl and Heidegger. This phenomenon was jestingly referred to as the “Freiburg Pilgrimages.”2 Three thinkers from this generation who eagerly assimilated Husserlian phenomenology are noteworthy. Satomi Takahashi (1886–1964) studied under Husserl. His memoirs offer lively images of Husserl and his relationship with young scholars from Japan. The master gave special attention to these students from Japan, which became more and more important to him. Before Takahashi came to Freiburg in 1926, Husserl had in fact 2  The original Japanese is “Freiburg moude,” which is a pun for “Freiburg-Mode” in German. Both words are pronounced in a similar manner.

viii

Introduction

received an invitation to visit Japan, which, however, he was unable to accept. Instead, Husserl wrote his celebrated articles for the Japanese journal Kaizo. Originally planned to include five articles, Husserl only managed to complete three. In turning to a Japanese audience in the years after the First World War, Husserl took this opportunity to outline the ethical and cultural mission of phenomenological philosophy. These articles represent a rare published presentation of Husserl’s ethical thinking in its historical self-understanding. Husserl expected that Japan would become a promised land of phenomenology through the efforts of his young missionaries. He often invited Japanese students to his house for special private lectures. He was apparently not willing to waste a minute even during coffee breaks. Takahashi was struck by the gravitas of his master, who literally “lived phenomenology no matter where he was” (Takahashi 1931, 107). It is reported that Husserl once declared to his Japanese students that they should not be satisfied with taking a walk through fields cultivated by other philosophers. Husserl advised instead that they should work hard on turning even just one furrow of philosophy by themselves rather than just looking around Western culture as if on a trip of intellectual sightseeing (Takahashi 1931, 112). On another occasion, as recounted by Takahashi, Husserl informed his students that he was not willing to make a new philosophical school. As he said, “the best I can give you is not my completed theory, but a ‘liberated thinking’” (Takahashi 1931, 113). Risaku Mutai (1890–1974) is another Japanese philosopher who studied with Husserl. According to his memoir, Husserl once said that if there was a place in the world outside of Germany where phenomenology would flourish, it must be Japan (Mutai 1940, 326–327). Mutai also notes an impressive episode. One day at the Freiburg train station, Mutai happened to encounter his master, who wore shorts and carried a backpack. Husserl’s wife and his assistant accompanied him. They and Mutai traveled together to Basel. In the train, Husserl was continuously talking about phenomenology. The compartment was changed into an improvised seminar room (Mutai 1940, 327–328). As with Takahashi, Mutai was equally struck by Husserl’s seriousness and inexhaustible perseverance and considered the openness of Husserl’s thinking as one of the principle reasons for its attraction among Japanese intellectuals. Tomoo Otaka (1899–1956) represents another Japanese philosopher who studied with Husserl in Freiburg, as well as with Hans Kelsen in Vienna. Versed in the philosophy of law, Otaka formed a strong personal and intellectual relationship with Alfred Schutz (1899–1959). In fact, two of their books were published in the same year 1932: Otaka’s Grundlegung der Lehre vom sozialen Verband and Schutz’s Der sinnhafte Aufgabe der sozialen Welt.3 Each work acknowledged the other. Schutz reviewed Otaka’s work in 1937 (Schutz 1937). The publication of Schutz’s book was financially supported by Otaka (who came from a wealthy family). Otaka’s work was strongly influenced by phenomenology, especially by the ideas of Husserl and Schutz. The phenomenological tradition entered through Otaka into legal

 Otaka dedicated his work to Husserl.

3

Introduction

ix

s­ tudies in Japan, as centered on the University of Tokyo, where Otaka played a significant role.

 eidegger’s Impact on Japanese Philosophy: Kuki, Miki, H Watsuji In addition to the growing influence of Husserlian phenomenology in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s through the teaching and writings of Takahashi, Mutai, and others, Japanese philosophers who had passed through their “Freiburg Pilgrimage” also began to take note of Heidegger’s thinking and introduce Heidegger to Japan. One of the most prominent among this group is Shuzo Kuki (1888–1941), whose most famous work is his treatise on Japanese aesthetics and the notion of Iki (chic) in his The Structure of Iki (1930; Kuki 1997), written under the influence of Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. Kuki attempted a hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis of Japanese aesthetic taste, which has since been recognized as an indispensable contribution to aesthetic theory and especially subtle work in Japanese aesthetics. Kuki resided in Germany and France for eight years (1921–1929). After studying with Rickert in Freiburg, Kuki moved to Paris in 1924 to learn French and to study philosophy with Jean-Paul Sartre, whom he hired as a private teacher.4 In 1927, Kuki returned to Germany to study with Husserl and Heidegger. In Unterwegs zur Sprache (1959), Heidegger looks back to Kuki’s visit to his home where they discussed the Japanese aesthetic concept of Iki. Before returning to Japan in 1929, Kuki met Bergson in 1928. Upon his return to Japan, Kuki introduced French philosophy, Heidegger’s thinking, and existentialism to Japanese readers through his teaching at Kyoto University and publications. In 1936, Kuki invited Karl Löwith, who was escaping from Nazi persecution to Japan, where he would, laregely with Kuki’s support, obtain a professorship at Tohoku University in Sendai until 1941— the year of Kuki’s death. As with other Japanese thinkers under the influence of Heidegger, Kuki was an outstanding interpreter of Heidegger’s philosophy, who argued, however, as did Tanabe, that spatiality is as fundamental for Dasein as temporality. Kuki considered that Heidegger’s underestimation of spatiality was connected to the lack of any significant role for Mitdasein in Heidegger’s thinking of Being and Time. As Kuki proposed, the encounter with others necessarily takes place through the mediation of space-giving “distance” (Kuki 1981, 37–38). In this light, the present and contingency are much more important than Heidegger believed since we can only encounter others in the present and this encounter is marked by contingency (Kuki 1981, 268–270). Kiyoshi Miki (1897–1945) studied with Heidegger in Marburg in 1923–1924. The imprint of Heidegger’s thiking on Miki’s writings is clearly evident, especially  See Light 1987 for details.

4

x

Introduction

on his first work, A Study of Humanity in Pascal (1926). Miki’s hermeneutical and existential approach to Pascal stressed the condition of human existence as suspended “in the middle” and marked by “anxiety” and “unrest.” Human existence floats unsteadily between two abysses: infinity and nothingness (Miki 1966, 18). Philosophy is nothing other than a self-disclosure and self-awakening of human existence from its slumbering self-obliviousness. After an engagement with Marxist philosophy, Miki developed his own idea of “historical primal logic of action” and, on this basis, investigated the significance of “technique” (and “technology”) for human existence and the world. The reality of the world is both subjective and objective. Every human action is technical. In this sense, technology is not simply the application of scientific knowledge to reality. Rather, the world becomes renewed in its form as a world through the creative action of technology (Miki 1967). Miki’s thought proved widely influential among intellectuals in Japan before the Second World War and, in this respect, exemplifies how phenomenology, with a particular emphasis on Heidegger, implicitly shaped Japanese intellectual culture. Tetsuro Watsuji (1889–1960) is yet another key figure in prewar Japan. Before arriving in Germany in 1927, Watsuji already enjoyed an established reputation in Japan for his books and articles, which included several bestsellers. During his stay in Germany, Watsuji did not, as with many of his compatriots, study with either Husserl or Heidegger but preferred instead to remain in his boarding room immersed in books. This relative seclusion from the German academic environment did not prevent the entrance of phenomenological ways into his thinking by means of his extensive reading. He was especially influenced by Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. During his sea voyages between Japan and Europe, Watsuji collected and reflected upon his impressions from the many ports of call (South China, India, Singapore, Arab countries, and Mediterranean countries). Inspired by these extensive travels and experiences of diverse climates and cultures, Watsuji developed an original style of philosophical thinking in combination with Heidegger’s existential analysis of Dasein. Central to his thinking is the claim of the inseparability of human existence from its climate and environment, as presented in his most well-­ known work Fudo (1935; Watsuji 1961). As with Tanabe and Kuki, Watsuji equally emphasized the spatiality of Dasein against the primacy of temporality in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. Watsuji is also known for his characteristic theory of ethics, which he developed in Ethics as Science of Human Being (1934) and his three-volume Ethics (1937/1942/1949; Watsuji 1996). Influenced by Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, Watsuji argues that the fundamental phenomenon for such an analysis should not be an individualized Dasein but the “in-between” or “betweenness” (Aida in Japanese)” of human beings. Watsuji points to the fact that Ningen, the most common Japanese word for human beings, is composed of two Chinese characters that mean “person” and “between,” respectively. The “human being” is nothing other than the “between person and person” (or “betweenness of multiple persons”). An individual person and the whole of community (or society) are each abstract if they are taken separately. The true concrete phenomenon of a human being consists in the “­ betweenness”

Introduction

xi

itself. Consequently, for Watsuji’s philosophy, the fundamental science is not ontology of Dasein but ethics as a science of humanity.

Postwar Flourishings Ever since the generation of Japanese thinkers during the 1920s and 1930s, the presence of phenomenological thinking in Japan has always benefited from crosscurrents of different intellectual and cultural influences, including the indigenous traditions of Buddhism. After the Second World War, interest in phenomenology waned, however, due to the growing presence of existentialism. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a renewed enthusiasm in phenomenology, not only among scholars and intellectuals but also among a wide range of students, who were especially interested in social reformation. The phenomenological writings of Yoshihiro Nitta (1929–) and Gen Kida (1928–2014), for example, became bestsellers. Since the 1970s and 1980s, interactions between Japanese philosophers and their Western counterparts in Europe and North America have been increasing. Japanese scholars have continued to critically assimilate and creatively engage recent trends in philosophy in the West, including the methods and terminologies of Anglo-Saxon philosophy. In 1980, Yoshihiro Nitta, Hirotaka Tatematsu (1931–2016), and other colleagues founded the Phenomenological Association of Japan (PAJ). It soon became one of the largest philosophical associations in Japan. In contrast to Europe and North America, where phenomenology is arguably less popular than in the heyday of its inception and reception in the decades immediately after the Second World War, phenomenology remains one of the dominant orientations of philosophy in contemporary Japan. In 2018, the PAJ has a membership of more than 440, which represents a considerable contingent of Japanese philosophers. The past decades have also seen a marked increase in international exchanges and conferences in Japan. Since 2007, there exists an official exchange between the PAJ and the Nordic Society for Phenomenology, as well as a similar exchange with the Korean Society for Phenomenology. In 1989, a group of phenomenologists in the United States and Japan began to organize a Japanese/American Phenomenology Conference, which has since been held five times in the United States and Japan. Given the rise of interest in phenomenology in China, recent years have seen the establishment of several groups of East Asian phenomenologists, including East Asian Network for Phenomenology, bringing together a younger generation of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scholars. These various initiatives and institutions testify to the broad and diverse communication and fertilization between the contemporary scene of phenomenology in Japan and other countries. It is against this background that the aim of this collection of essays is to offer to an English language public a representative cross-section of the current advances in phenomenological thinking in Japan. Although many of the authors included in this collection have established reputations in their respective fields of philosophy, this collection fills an important lacuna by bringing together in one volume an array of

xii

Introduction

specialists from different areas of phenomenological research. The authors brought together in this volume belong to a relatively young generation of researchers. Although this new generation cannot be subsumed under any single orientation, schooling, or interest, what characterizes this constellation of research is the intersection of various directions in phenomenological thought: Classical German phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger), the early phenomenological schools of the Munich and Göttingen Circles, and French phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, Marion). This philosophical landscape is further enhanced by influences stemming from psychiatry, nursing science, Judaic and Islamic philosophy, and Japanese philosophy. A prominent feature of this generation of phenomenological study in Japan is its critical interaction with analytic philosophy. This critical interaction with Anglo-Saxon approaches in philosophy is well represented in this volume with the contributions of Uemura, Yaegashi, Sato, Tomiyama, Akiba, and Ikeda. The resulting constellation amply testifies to the vibrancy and diversity of research interests, methods, and modes of argumentation among Japanese phenomenologists today. In addition to our gratitude to the contributors to this volume, we wish to express our gratitude to Richard Stone, whose expert editing of these papers proved timely and invaluable to its completion. Pennsylvania, PA, USA  Nicolas de Warren Sapporo, Japan  Shigeru Taguchi September 2018

References Kuki, Shuzo. 1981. Kuki Shuzo Zenshu [Collected Works], vol. 3, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Kuki, Shuzo. 1997. Reflections on Japanese Taste: The Structure of Iki. Sydney: Power Publications. Light, Stephen. 1987. Shuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: Influence and Counter-­Influence in the Early History of Existential Phenomonology (Journal of the History of Philosophy Monographs), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Miki, Kiyoshi. 1966. Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu [Collected Works], vol. 1. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Miki, Kiyoshi. 1967. Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu [Collected Works], vol. 8. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Mutai. 1940. Hyogen to Ronri [Expression and Logic]. Tokyo: Kobundo Shobo. Otaka, Tomoo. 1932. Grundlegung der Lehre vom sozialen Verband. Vienna: Springer. Schutz, Alfred. 1932. Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. Vienna: Springer. Schutz, Alfred. 1937. Tomoo Otakas Gründlegüng der Lehre vom sozialen Verband. In Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht, Band XVII, 64–84. (English translation [by Fred Kersten]: Schutz, Alfred. 1996. The Foundations of the Theory of Social Organization, In Collected Papers, vol. IV, 203–220. Dordrecht: Springer). Takahashi, Satomi. 1931. Husserl no Genshogaku [Husserl’s Phenomenology]. Tokyo: Daiichi Shobo. Tanabe, Hajime. 1963. Tanabe Hajime Zenshu [Collected Works], vol. 3. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. Watsuji, Tetsuro. 1961. Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study. Trans. Geoffrey Bownas. Westport: Greenwood Press. Watsuji, Tetsuro. 1996. Watsuji Tetsuro’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan. Trans. Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Contents

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach ����������    1 Takashi Yoshikawa How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time����������������   17 Norio Murata Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   29 Takeshi Akiba On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects ��������������������������   45 Yutaka Tomiyama Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I��������������������   57 Shigeru Taguchi A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value��������������������������   69 Toru Yaegashi Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason������������������������������������������   83 Shun Sato Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   95 Yasuhiko Murakami Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation��������������������������������������  105 Takashi Ikeda Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant ����������������������������������������������������������������������  121 Norio Murai

xiii

xiv

Contents

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  139 Genki Uemura Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  163 Shojiro Kotegawa Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive Phenomenology����������������������������������������  173 Shin Nagai

About the Editors

Nicolas de Warren (Ph.D., Boston University) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. Among his numerous publications in phenomenology, history of philosophy, literature, and continental thought, he is the author of Husserl and the Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology (2009) and A Momentary Breathlessness in the Sadness of Time: On Krzysztof Michalski’s Nietzsche (2018) and Coeditor of Philosophers at the Front: Phenomenology and the First World War (2018). Shigeru Taguchi (Ph.D., University of Wuppertal) is Professor at Hokkaido University. He is the author of Das Problem des “Ur-Ich” bei Edmund Husserl. Die Frage nach der selbstverständlichen “Nähe” des Selbst (Springer, 2006) and editor of Perception, Affectivity, and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology (with R. Walton and R. Rubio, Springer 2017). His recent publications include Reduction to Evidence as a Liberation of Thinking in Metodo, Vol.1, No.1, 2013. His research topics are phenomenology, philosophy of consciousness, and Japanese philosophy.

xv

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach Takashi Yoshikawa

Abstract  Akrasia, or weakness of will, has been a significant philosophical problem since the time of Ancient Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, this topic has not been treated systematically in the phenomenological tradition. This paper seeks to redress this situation through a critical assessment of contemporary approaches to the problem of akrasia in light of a proposed phenomenological analysis. As this paper argues, a phenomenological approach over-comes an intellectualism often found in discussions of akrasia while identifying its distinctive kind of rationality. This paper further argues that there are no perfectly self-regulating agents and that weak-willed agents are able to vindicate their moral sanity. Keywords  Action · Agency · Akrasia · Emotion · Practical rationality · Weakness of will

1  Introduction Akrasia (action contrary to one’s judgment), or weakness of will, has been one of the significant philosophical problems since the time of Ancient Greek philosophy. However, this topic has not been treated seriously or systematically in the phenomenological tradition. Aside from a few cursory mentions to the problem, Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Sartre did not ever truly wrestle with this problem. What is particularly interesting about this state of affairs is the fact that we can, indeed, find several conspicuous analyses within their texts of the very elements that constitute the phenomenon of akrasia. For example, will, action, passivity, choice, desire, temptation, motivation, and weakness of agency, etc. are central issues for phenomenological researchers; and these topics all have an intimate connection with akrasia. How, then, can we reconcile the absence of the T. Yoshikawa (*) Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Kochi, Kochi, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_1

1

2

T. Yoshikawa

phenomenology of akrasia with the rich phenomenological descriptions of will and weakness? In my opinion, it is extremely unfortunate that many phenomenologists have avoided dealing with the philosophical problem of akrasia. If they had tackled this issue more positively, they could have played a significant role in the contemporary philosophical debates on this issue, especially in the fields of action theory and moral philosophy. In this paper, I problematize the current mainstream approach to akrasia1 and indicate the possibility of its phenomenological analysis to contribute to this field in order to highlight its strengths even in comparison with other approaches.

2  Problem of Akrasia and Phenomenology Most phenomenologists did not engage with the problem of akrasia in a serious manner. This is not because they were unable to elucidate akratic phenomenon, but because akrasia did not present itself as a philosophical problem to them. In general, the philosophical problem of akrasia arises from skeptic outlooks which tend to assert that there is no akrasia. Socrates in Plato’s Protagoras and R.M.  Hare are prominent exponents of this kind of skepticism. According to their skeptical perspective, the apparent phenomenon of akrasia, is in fact, not an action which goes against a judgment, but rather an action born of ignorance: it should be interpreted as the failure to judge what is best for an agent. As akratic agents, we eat sweets even though we think that they are bad for our health. Seen from a skeptic perspective, this means that we either eat sweets because we do not know the risk of sugar (Plato, Protagoras), or because we only know the general opinion on the risk of sugar but cannot judge for ourselves that it is dangerous for us to continue to eat it (Hare 1952, p. 167ff.; Hare 1963, p.71ff.). In this sense, the skeptics’ explanations are usually intellectualistic in that they believe judgment should always motivate action.2 Therefore, they deny the existence of akrasia as a conflict between reason and emotion. It should come as no surprise, then, that the central theme in contemporary arguments of akrasia is the very possibility of its being, and that the title of Davidson’s famous and monumental article is titled “How is Weakness of the Will Possible?”

1  Hare and Davidson’s arguments have been the starting points in contemporary philosophical approaches to akrasia. Hare is a skeptic who denies the possibility of akrasia (Hare 1952; 1963). Although Davidson is not a sceptic, he interprets it as an action following judgments by finding out alternative judgments in akratic phenomena (Davidson 1970). They both take intellectualist positions and regard akratic actions as irrational. 2  Socrates, in Protagoras, states: “Do you consider that knowledge is something noble and able to govern man, and that whoever learns what is good and what is bad will never be swayed by anything to act otherwise than as knowledge bids, and that intelligence is a sufficient succor for mankind?” (Protagoras 352c).

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

3

Conversely, many phenomenologists consider akratic action to be natural or self-­evident, since our ordinary actions are usually guided or motivated by various elements that are unrelated to judgment. Phenomenology tends to pick up the action-motivating force in feelings, desires, habits and atmosphere, and frequently analyzes how they are related to action. This tendency is the reason why phenomenologists have not doubted the existence of akrasia and the philosophical problem of its possibility has not arisen in the phenomenological tradition. In this context, the weak agent is standard or common if we use the word ‘weak’ to refer to the possibility of an agent to be defeated by temptations and to act against judgments. For example, Heidegger’s theory of action emphasizes the phenomenon of weakness that seems to be related to akrasia. It is well known that in Being and Time he characterizes our standard mode of being as one that involves a kind of “falling” (Verfallen) into the world. In addition, Dasein usually loses itself in “the publicness of they (Öffentlichkeit des Man),” and “The Self … is proximally and for the most part inauthentic, the they-self’ (SZ, p. 175; p. 181 [=Heidegger 1962, p.  220; p.  225]). Our everyday activities are guided by ­self-understanding from the perspective of the world in which we live, and ­therefore a purely authentic self-­understanding does not result in actual behavior. Instead, Dasein itself is necessarily forced to formulate itself with an inauthentic understanding: But if Dasein … presents to itself the possibility of losing itself in the ‘they’ and falling into groundlessness, this tells us that Dasein prepares for itself a constant temptation toward falling. Being-in-the-world is in itself tempting (versucherisch) (SZ, p. 177 [=Heidegger 1962, p. 221]).

This observation from Heidegger might be a suitable starting point for a phenomenology of akrasia. Most of our actions are factually made concrete through a fascination with binding forces, and we cannot do anything without such passivity. We can only act purely on our own judgment if we postulate an abstract and ideal situation (for example, when we make a decision by ourselves without the epistemic influence of other people or a society). From here, we can make the claim that the lack of a phenomenology of akrasia does not indicate its impossibility. In fact, akrasia is perfectly suited to the phenomenological method because phenomenology has been engaged in discussing phenomena such as weakness, will, feeling, passivity, and habit. If we merge the nuanced accounts of these concepts in traditional phenomenology with the contemporary arguments concerning akrasia, we can see phenomenology’s potential to contribute to this field. It is for these reasons – and because phenomenology is so adept at noticing weakness in human beings – that I maintain that the phenomenological approach is the most appropriate one for an analysis of akrasia.3

3  I think of the passivity (Husserl), nothingness or without power (Heidegger), ambiguity (MerleauPonty), and vulnerability (Levinas).

4

T. Yoshikawa

3  Intentional Emotion Phenomenology provides important insights into the role of our emotions in motivating actions. Scheler, especially, finds intentionality  – namely the character of having ‘consciousness about’ – in a variety of emotions, and he attributes to them the ability to recognize values. Feeling (Fühlung) and preference (Vorziehung) are intentional emotions and can perceive values. But they are distinct from all judgments, including evaluative ones, as they are something more than mere theoretical consciousness. Intentional emotions enable us to meet values and thereby motivate the actions that will react or respond to them. In intentional emotions, we can find two functions: receiving values and guiding actions. According to Scheler, the standard way of living our life is to meet values emotionally, and to act by reacting or responding to them: “All primordial comportment toward the world … is … a primordial emotional comportment of value-apprehension (Wertnehmung)” (SGW/II, p. 206 [=Scheler 1973, p. 197]). I would like to make the aforementioned example of the akrasia of sweets intelligible from Scheler’s conception of intentional emotion. We judge that sweets are not good for our health but, at the same time, we receive their deliciousness or visual beauty through our intentional emotions. Both judgment and emotion contradict each other in their content, and this makes us wonder whether we should eat sweets or not. If we make the choice to do so, we act against our judgement. Scheler argues that if we pay attention to the intentional emotion of values we can successfully deal with the philosophical problem of akrasia. I present a quote from one of the rare texts that refers to akrasia in the phenomenological context: If a value is self-given, however, willing (or choosing in the [special] sense of preferring) becomes necessary in its being, according to laws of essential interconnections. And it is in this sense alone that Socrates’ dictum is restored—that all ‘good willing’ is founded in the ‘cognition of the good’, and that all evil willing rests on moral deception and ­aberration. But this sphere of moral cognition is completely independent of the sphere of judgments and propositions (including the sphere in which we comprehend relations of value in terms of ‘assessments’ or valuations (Werthaltungen). Both assessments and value-estimations fulfill themselves in the value given in feeling and are only in this sense evident. It is therefore quite obvious that the Socratic dictum cannot apply to mere conceptual and judgmental knowledge of a value or a moral value (SGW/II, pp.  87–88 [=Scheler 1973, p. 69]).

A vivid consciousness of values can motivate our actions without relying on judgments. It is easy for us to consider this type of akrasia and understand it as a phenomenon that we have become accustomed to in our daily life. Even if we judge that airplanes are safe and that accidents rarely happen, we choose to travel long distances by train in order to avoid suffering from acrophobia. Even if we judge that the dog in the neighborhood is bound with a chain and it cannot readily attack us, we avoid it and take a roundabout path because we are afraid of it. It is possible that judgments and emotions do not conflict and are instead in harmony with one another. When we take comfort by looking at the strong chain binding the dog and judge that there is no danger in walking in front of it, we can go anywhere in the house. Each

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

5

case indicates that actions follow intentional emotions. Emotive perceptions of values and evaluative judgments should be distinguished because the former are sufficient to motivate actions whilst the latter are not (insofar as they can’t motivate actions by themselves). Judgment can only drive actions effectively if a perceptive consciousness takes such a value seriously. Therefore, akratic action is that which is involved in both perceptively receiving the value and rejecting a judgment made concerning the situation. Scheler blames rationalism for considering only judgment to be the receiver of values or the guide for actions, and for ignoring the cognitive and motivational function of emotions.4

4  Habit and Motivation In line with Scheler’s view, Husserl also formulates the intentional emotion receiving values as “value-apprehension” (Wertnehmung) and believes that it motivates actions (Hua. IV, p. 9 [=Husserl 1989, p. 11]; Hua. III-1, §37. cf. Hua. IV, §56). It is remarkable that Husserl analyzed various motivations in detail. As stated in his Ideas II, ‘motivation is the lawfulness of the life of the spirit.’ On the basis of this elucidation, we can understand all things that are related to the human spirit from the viewpoint of motivation (Hua. IV, p. 220ff. [=Husserl 1989, p. 231ff.]). When we ask “why” and answer “because,” we talk about our motivations, and they hold good in the regions of both practical actions and theoretical cognitions (perceptions and judgments, etc.). Husserl distinguishes between two types of motivations. On the one hand, there are “motivations of reason,” “motivations of position-taking by position-taking,” and “motivations within the framework of evidence,” in which we can find the activity of an ego. In logical reasoning, the premise motivates the conclusion. In perceptive judgment, the perception of a red flower motivates the judgment that “this flower is red.” In evaluative judgment, the fascination with the flower’s beauty motivates the judgment that “this flower is beautiful.” On the other hand, there are “associative motivations,” “passive motivations” and “unnoticed and hidden motivations,” in which associations and habits work without the activity of the ego. I associate a name with a landscape when I talk about someone with whom I have looked at that landscape. In this case, the landscape and the person are connected through association.

 “All judgment “knowledge” of what is “good” is without fulfillment in a felt value. For this reason such knowledge of moral norms is not determining for willing. Even the feeling of what is good determines willing only if the value is given adequately and evidentially, i.e., only if it is self-given. What is wrong with Socrates’ formulation (not with his knowledge of the good, whose power over willing was so clearly demonstrated by his death) is the rationalism, which implies that the mere concept of what is “good” has the power to determine the will” (SGA/II, p. 87 [=Scheler 1973, p. 69]). 4

6

T. Yoshikawa

We shall consider how an agent is motivated to an akratic action on the basis of the distinction of two motivations. As Husserl points out, it is impossible that active consciousness always motivates our actions with evidence. Our action of eating sweets is motivated by a passive tendency (a physical drive coming from the lack of sugar) or habit (our daily tea time). Husserl’s theory of action gives a significant role to passivity. Husserl argues that a pure active agency grounded only in active motivations is an unrealizable ideal, which can only be sought or longed for (Hua. XXVII, p. 33f.). Our standard actions are usually a mixture of passives and actives, and we can search for both in any one action. It is interesting that in Husserl’s phenomenological analysis even rational consciousness can come to be habitual and formulate a routine action: Likewise, to let oneself be determined by a value-motive and to resist a drive establishes a tendency (a ‘drive’) to let oneself be determined once again by such a value-motive (and perhaps by value-motives in general) and to resist those drives. Here habit and free motivation intertwine (Hua. IV, p. 255 [=Husserl 1989, p. 267]).

This indicates that rational judgment comes to be habitual, that it continues to have a motivational power and can contradict other new judgments. From this perspective, we can interpret a famous exemplar of akrasia, namely that of ‘tooth brushing’, which is discussed by Davidson (Davidson 1970, p. 30). We believe that we should rest our body when we are exhausted by hard physical work, and that there would be no serious consequences if we were to give up brushing our teeth for only 1 day. But we brush our teeth out of daily habit. This action originally has rational grounds from the active judgment, “we should brush our teeth every night” – which, over time, becomes increasingly more routine, thereby losing its original meaning. Now, this can eventually arise as akrasia contrary to the new rational judgment, “we should rest our body.” In our everyday life, we come and go between activity and passivity. For Husserl, the elements motivating an action do not need to be active, yet a great deal of passive consciousness (habitual judgment or intuition, affection, and association) can guide action. As is well known, we can behave rightly while being guided by passive consciousness.5 The tennis player must make high-level judgments in considering complicated situations such as his or her position, posture and physical balance, or the opponent’s strategy and tendencies etc. However, his or her judgments are not active, but instead are classified, in Husserlian terminology, into the category of passivity. Passive consciousness can work on earlier active judgment and can motivate our actions successfully and rationally. Our standard behaviors are supported by customs or habits, and we cannot play tennis or just walk on a road or sit on a chair without them.

 Cf. Arpaly 2000, p. 506.

5

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

7

5  Continence and Rationality The phenomenological analysis of intentional emotion, as well as habit, conceives of akrasia as possible. In contemporary philosophical discussions, most of those who defend akrasia from skepticism consider it to be possible but ‘irrational’ (Stroud and Tappolet 2003, p. 5. Cf. Stroud 2014). According to them, akrasia is regarded as a practical irrationality because the akratic agent is incontinent and fails to regulate itself by use of the intellect. Davidson also thinks of akrasia as irrational, in that it contradicts the principle of continence that orders that ‘one should prefer (act on) the judgment based on all the considerations deemed relevant’ (Davidson 2004, p. 194). We can consider Davidson to be one example of an intellectualist author who presumes that akrasia is a deviation from rationality. But, in my opinion, this premise should be criticized. Indeed, as the above phenomenological analyses show, the intentional emotion is the cognition of values, and the passivity of habit often produces an action suitable for the situation at hand. Is the action against rational judgments in itself irrational? Is it not possible that we act better when we follow emotions and habits rather than judgments? I would like to take into account two persons (Huckleberry Finn and Eichmann) as exemplary example for our attempt to reconsider the irrationality of akrasia.

6  Huckleberry Finn and Love The character Huck in Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often referred to in contemporary moral philosophy and philosophy of action.6 He encounters Jim (one of Miss Watson’s slaves), who has run away from her. He judges that he should turn Jim over to Miss Watson. His judgment is rational and tells him the best course of action after considering all the reasons that are accessible for him. He writes a letter to inform her where Jim is. However, he finally tears it up and throws it away. He cannot betray his friend by sending the letter. Is his action irrational for opposing his rational judgment? His action seems ridiculous in that it contradicts the judgment he made after weighing up all the reasons he can think of given his historical and regional conditions. However, in a sense, we can regard it as correct and, somehow, more morally sane than the alternative.7 It is not important that his action can be justified through modern-day concepts of human rights. Instead, even in those days (the novel is set in the late nineteenth century), his action would have been morally good, or its rationality would have been recognized.

 Cf. Bennett 1974, McIntyre 1990, p. 380f.; Arpaly 2000; Tappolet 2003, p. 115f; Jones 2003, p. 186. 7  It is possible that the reason that we can justify actions is external to the agent (McIntyre 1990, p. 384ff.; Arpaly 2000, p. 505; Jones 2003, p. 193). Namely, the reason for this is the fact moral evaluation of actions depends on factual situations. 6

8

T. Yoshikawa

Husserl would find Huck’s action to be a form of love.8 This love is the emotion intending ‘values, to which I, as what I am, belong to inseparably’, ‘value of life’ and ‘individual, subjective value of love’ (Hua. XXVII, p. 28; Hua. XLII, p. 297ff.; Hua. Mat, IX, p. 146, fn.). If Huck’s friendship with Jim is his ‘value of life’, his friendship with Jim becomes integrated into his very life, and he cannot live his life without it (Cf. Audi 1990, p. 278). Husserl refers to a mother or father who loves her son to the point that she would help him without a moment of hesitation, even if it were the end of the world (Hua. XLII, pp. 309–310). She cannot abandon him due to her love for him. Husserl, in his Kaizo articles (1923–1924), brought about an ethics of vocation, which are based on love, and consider how a person should live and formulate his or her self (Hua. XXVII, pp. 20–43). When we live according to our vocation, we love its value, and without it we cannot be what we are. Being a mother, a father, a husband, an artist, a teacher, and a scholar, etc. can be a vocation, and we can feel the supreme satisfaction in our life of being so. We can devote our life to our vocation, and then our life would be teleologically oriented towards such vocational value. Our vocation gives us ethical norms in quite a different way from the principles of modern moral philosophy (utilitarianism and deontology). Our vocation makes us satisfied or happy and therefore seems to be closely related to the concept of happiness as it has been considered as the moral principle of utilitarianism. But the search for satisfaction in one’s vocation need not to take into account the lives of other people, nor does it need to secure the objectivity of their satisfaction: The voice of conscience, of the absolute ought can demand of me something that I in no way would know as the best through a comparison of values. What is foolishness for the understanding that compares values is sanctioned and can become an object of the greatest veneration.9 (Hua. XLII, 390)

The value of a vocation is not chosen by an ‘impartial observer’ (Smith 1759) or an ‘ideal observer’ (Hare 1981), but it matters and has significance to an agent. Deliberation in the ethics of vocation does not pursue the promotion of happiness in the world  from the impartial point of view, except that an agent has  his or her vocation to live an impartial life (like a sort of animal or human rights’ activist). Husserl discovers the limits of any ethics (such as his early ethics) that ignores ‘vocation and inner voice.’10 His critical self-reference is also associated with the well-known critique of utilitarianism by B. Williams. Utilitarian deliberation lays its theoretical foundations on the principle of impartiality which states that, “everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one” (Mill 1863, p. 257) and, “we have to treat everybody as one, including ourselves” (Hare 1981, p. 129). This deliberation often neglects the integrity of each individual because it cannot understand that their “project” gives a meaning to their life (Williams 1973, p. 99; p. 116f.). Husserl and Williams share the view that personal integrity should play a  Cf. Melle 2007.  I use the translation in Melle 2007. 10  Manuscript, B I 21, 57a. quoted in Melle 1988, p. xlviii. 8 9

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

9

role in ethical thinking. Moreover the vocation is an obligation that differs from the deontic one in Kantian moral philosophy. Although Husserl takes his concept of vocation as a categorical imperative, it is the personal imperative that orders every agent to guide his/her own life in contrast to the universal imperative in Kant. As he writes: “The Damon leading to the true vocation speaks through love.” (Hua. Mat, IX, p. 146, fn.) The norm of the vocational obligation is grounded not in theoretical reflection but in love. This point separates Husserl from deontic philosophers. In the dilemma as to whether a young man should stay by his mother or participate in the resistance for his country, two obligations contradict one another. According to Sartre, this should be resolved by his free decision without depending on any emotion (Sartre 1946). However, Husserl would insist that the young man already loves both his mother and his country. These two loves divide his identity and cause him the dilemma of having to choose ‘in which love should he live.’ If he chooses one, he sacrifices the other, and he inevitably feels as though he is losing something important: If I decide for one such obligation over against another one that is also demanded, then I sacrifice not only something absolutely loved and thereby something of value over against another, but I sacrifice therewith me myself: I sacrifice myself as who I am, I, who cannot separate myself from such a loved one, from such unconditioned obligation, from such a striven-for and loved value that originates from my innermost I (Hua. XLII, p. 199).

The young man’s decision would be tragic since he simultaneously loves two incompatible things. As MacIntyre points out, if the moral agent assumed by Sartre or Hare chooses something on the grounds of the moral principle, he or she cannot become a tragic hero who is torn up by two loves (MacIntyre 2007, p.  224. Cf.  MacIntyre 2008). My love guides my action before my choice, and I cannot willingly dominate it. But it is not a force coming from outside of me, it is my own desire or satisfaction and it comes from my personal inner center. For example, if the love for my son is my vocation, the desire for him to be happy and the desire for me to be so are consistent. As I desire his happiness for my satisfaction, my love for him is inseparable from my identity. According to H. G. Frankfurt, love does not mean heteronomy as the inclination towards outer tendencies, means instead a sort of autonomy, and constitutes a part of one’s heart (Frankfurt 1999, pp. 129–141).

7  Eichmann and Repentance Huck’s judgment that ‘the escaping slave should be turned back to the owner’ could be understood as a rational judgment (that considers all reasons accessible for him, given his socio-historical context). This seems to make it difficult for us to understand the rationality of his obedience to the judgment, namely the rational principle of continence. We shall take Adolf Eichmann (as depicted by Arendt) as an example to reconsider the practical rationality of a continent person. Eichmann was one of the central figures of the Holocaust insofar as he continued to plan to transfer the Jewish people to concentration camps and thereby participated in genocide.

10

T. Yoshikawa

We can see the possibility that he might’ve acted in accordance with judgments such as ‘the order from superiors should be respected,’ ‘the transfer is my task I can’t escape easily,’ and ‘my job is not responsible for their deaths.’ For Eichmann, the motivational judgment involved a rational norm, and he reasoned that he was acting as a moral or righteous person. He acted as if he had personified the principle of continence by obeying his judgments and regulating himself. As Arendt insists, he might have felt pity or sympathy for the people that were going to be killed and he might have wished that their massacre could have been avoided. He might have had to resist the temptation to help or save them (Arendt 1963–1965, p. 105f; p. 137; p. 150). His judgments would be rational if one were to consider all of the reasons he could feasibly reach in the surrounding totalitarian society (it is similar to Huck’s rational judgment in a society which accepts slavery). He tried to have the extraordinary ‘strength’ of the will for him to be ‘rational’ within the Third Reich. In other words, he tried to remain moral in his society.11 We must conclude that Eichmann was a continent and strong-willed person and must learn that the principle of continence cannot assess him as immoral. This principle is too formalistic to be the criterion of morality and to consider his homicide to be irrational. He rationalized his activities by disguising himself as a rational person. This disguise of rationality helped him to remove the hesitation in following orders to the letter. It would be the principle of continence that led Eichmann and his colleagues to camouflage the serious meaning of what they did and to promote the Holocaust without any hesitation. Now, the strange rationality of continence indicates that akrasia or weakness of will is not entirely irrational but it can vindicate an agent’s moral “sanity” (Frankfurt 1988, p.  189f.). Weak people unable to engage in the genocide would be morally superior to continent people such as Eichmann and his colleagues. I would like to focus on the distinction made by Aristotle between akrasia (incontinence) and akolasia (self-indulgence). Self-indulgent people, just as the incontinent, follow their desires and also eat sweets. But they choose to eat sweets positively or actively and do not succumb to such temptation unwillingly. They choose to do something wrong and do not regret after doing so, and this implies that akolasia is a vice. Because they rationalize their actions and do not doubt their justice, they can neither recognize their crime nor can they rectify their actions. On the contrary, when incontinent people act against their judgments, they have no choice about doing this and they often regret their actions. They can heal themselves by blaming what they did or what they were: The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for he stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent. … [T]he self-indulgent man is incurable and the incontinent man curable.12 (NE, 1150 b20–30)

11  Cf., Arendt 1963–1965, p. 135ff. But it would be possible that we consider Eichmann to be a weak person because he lived as ‘the they-self’ in Heidegger’s terminology by obeying social norms in the Third Reich. 12  I use the translation given by D. Ross.

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

11

The disguised rationality in the case of Eichmann is similar to the problem of self-­ indulgence, in that he acted on his choice and he did not repent.13 Eichmann was willing to obey orders to be a good workers. He could have regulated himself and regarded himself as rational. However, should we not consider that akratic people are better than him or that they might have the sanity we could never find in him? The repentance of incontinent people does not show their defects and moral faults, but instead should be taken as their moral decentness.14 Williams admits that the sentiment of regret plays a role in formulating the moral agency. He distinguishes the particular kind of regret as “agent-regret” from “regret” in the general sense (Williams 1981, p. 27). Regret, widely understood, is a retrospective consciousness by a spectator about the past state of affairs. It usually has the thought of “how much better if it had been otherwise” or “things would have been better.” On the contrary, agent-regret is what a person can feel only toward his or her own past actions. It has the first-personal conception of how “one might have acted otherwise.” It is interesting that the sentiment of agent-regret does not only reach voluntary actions, but also reaches ‘accidental’ or ‘non-voluntary’ acts as well. As the truck driver runs over a child, he feels agent-regret. Even if it was completely accidental and it was not his fault, he should feel agent-regret to a certain degree. This sentiment cannot be eliminated by the consideration that it was not his fault. A driver who abandons this sentiment instantaneously or never experiences it at all seems to suffer from a kind of insanity. Scheler also shows the moral significance of repentance (Reue). We can discern two points about the morality of repentance from his text. Firstly, it is a moral cognition by which we can gain our first complete insight into the badness of our conduct: “It is Repentance, then, which first brings home to us knowledge of a past capacity” (SGW/V, p. 41 [=Scheler 1960, p. 47]). For Scheler, as it was shown, the intentional emotion has a cognitive function and can receive a variety of values. Therefore, it is not surprising that he finds repentance to be the disclosing of one’s past guilt. Without any repentance, we have no consideration for our past actions, and we cannot understand “how much better if we had acted otherwise,” etc. Secondly, repentance is not the pure cognition of past things we cannot change anymore. Rather, it is morally practical consciousness and it can reconstitute the composition of meanings in our personal life: To that extent, then, Repentance even assumes the character of a true repentance of conversion and leads finally from good resolutions through an alternation of outlook to transformation of outlook—that is, to a positive ‘rebirth’—wherein, without detriment to its formal  ‘But to sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing’. Life, Vol. 49, No. 23, 5 December 1960, pp.158–161. Moreover, ‘Regret is something for little children’. During the cross-examination at his trial, Session 96, 13 July 1961, as quoted in Stangneth 2015. 14  Aristotle stated, ‘Now anyone would think worse of a man with no appetite or with weak appetite were he to do something disgraceful, than if he did it under the influence of powerful appetite, and worse of him if he struck a blow not in anger than if he did it in anger; for what would he have done if he had been strongly affected? This is why the self-indulgent man is worse than the incontinent’ (NE, 1150a20-30). 13

12

T. Yoshikawa and individual identity, the spiritual core of the Person, which is the ultimate root of our moral acts, appears to burn away all remnant of the objects of its former regard and to build itself anew (SGW/V, p. 42 [=Scheler 1960, p. 48]).

It is through repentance that we can overcome our past crimes, bringing us to a rebirth. A reborn person attains a new meaning of existence. For example, a person who engaged in the transfer-work during the Third Reich, and a person who regrets his actions and feels remorse for his crime, are completely different – at least on the level of moral meaning – although, in fact, both are one and the same person. The person who committed a sin needs to live as another person and should be reborn in this sense. If he or she continues to be what she was and she does not repent her conduct, we would blame her for ignoring her crime and think that she should be further punished. Williams and Scheler both argue in favor of the moral significance of repentance. Moreover, both criticize modern philosophy for misunderstanding moral agency. Modern moral philosophers think that the moral agent should be self-regulating and responsible only for voluntary actions, and they exclude the assessment of accidental conduct from moral consideration.15 However, we are finite beings and we cannot control all situations. According to Williams, “one’s history as an agent is a web in which anything that is the product of the will is surrounded and helped up and partly formed by things that are not” (Williams 1981, p. 29). Our finite agency presents a limited degree of control. We cannot deny that our best possible deliberation has the unfortunate potential to lead to the worst possible outcome. But it is more important that we realize our errors and cope with our faults than we remove the accidentals to regulate our environments and ourselves: “And so the rubric is rightly not ‘Forget Repentance and vow past action to future amendment’ but ‘Repent, and therefore do better!’ “(SGW/V, p. 50 [=Scheler 1960, p. 56]). Repentance can be a form of morality for the finite agent who cannot avoid moral unluckiness.

8  Conclusion Phenomenological philosophy notices intentional emotions and their cognitive and motivational functions. It is not judgment but rather emotion that originally receives values and drive actions effectively. Phenomenology makes akrasia intelligible by overcoming intellectualism, which admits the cognitive and act-guiding roles only in judgments. In the phenomenological tradition, there are rich analyses of passivity in emotions, associations, habits, and customs, which can guide our action rightly. The phenomenological approach cannot only understand akrasia as being possible, but it can also find a special kind of rationality in it. Generally speaking, akrasia is irrational in contradicting the principle of continence. However, the

15

 Cf. Williams 1981.

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

13

principle of continence does not always direct moral action and it is possible that an continent person may kill people while obeying his judgment. Conversely, weakness of will can denote a moral sanity. We cannot kill people, we cannot betray our friend, and we cannot abandon our child. The disability of “we can’t” means weakness in a certain sense.16 Husserl deals with it in the analysis of ‘practical impossibility’ of will (Hua. IV, p. 265 [=Husserl 1989, p. 277]).17 Moreover, according to Arendt, the people who did not act as Nazis in the Third Reich were regarded as impotent and were hidden from the public world (Arendt 1963–1965, p.  104; p. 127; Arendt 2003, p. 78). But it was only they who were morally right and had a decentness of moral agency.18 The phenomenology of akrasia tells us that there are no perfectly self-regulating or continent agents and that weak-willed agents can vindicate their moral sanity. Acknowledgment  I would like to thank Andrew Oberg (University of Kochi) for his informative comment. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number (26370027, 17K02178).

References Arendt, Hannah. 1963–1965. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Penguin classics. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. ———. 2003. In Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn. New York: Schocken Books. Aristotle (NE). The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford World’s Classics) Revised Edition, edited by Lesley Brown. translated by David Ross, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Arpaly, Nomy. 2000. On Acting Rationally Against One’s Better Judgment. Ethics 110: 488–513. Audi, Robert. 1990. Weakness of Will and Rational Action. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (3): 270–281. Bennett, Jonathan. 1974. The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn. Philosophy 49: 123–134. Davidson, Donald. 1970. How Is Weakness of the Will Possible? In Essays on Actions and Events, 21–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. ———. 1985. Incoherence and Irrationality. In Problems of Rationality, 189–198. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Frankfurt, Harry G. 1988. The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1999. Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hare, Richard Mervyn. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 1963. Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Williams characterises this issue as ‘practical necessity’ with ‘impossibility of the alternatives’ or ‘agent’s incapacity’ (Williams 1981, pp. 124–131. Cf. Williams 1985, p. 187ff.). Frankfurt takes the impossibility of ‘I can do no other’ as ‘volitional necessity’ (Frankfurt 1988, p. 86ff.). 17  ‘“Yet I could not do it”—I am lacking the original consciousness of being able to do this action or having the power for this action …; this action contradicts the kind of person I am, my way of letting myself be motivated’ (Hua. IV, p. 265 [=Husserl 1989, p. 277]). Cf. Hart 2009, p. 270f. 18  See Arendt’s remarkable mentions, “Morally the only reliable people when the chips are down are those who say “I can’t”’ or ‘These people are neither heroes nor saints, and if they become martyrs, which of course may happen, it happens against their will. In the world, moreover, where power counts, they are impotent” (Arendt 2003, p. 78f.). 16

14

T. Yoshikawa

———. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hart, James G. 2009. Who One Is; Book 2 Existenz and Transcendental Phenomenology, Phaenomenologica, 190. New York: Springer. Heidegger, Martin, (SZ). 1962. Sein und Zeit, 17.Aufl. Tübingen; Max Niemeyer (Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, London: SCM Press). Husserl, Edmund (Hua. III-1). 1977. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführungin die reine Phänomenologie 1. Halbband: Text der 1.-3. Auflage  – Nachdruck. edited by Karl Schuhmann. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. (Hua. IV). 1989. Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed. Marly Biemel. The Hague; Martinus Nijhoff, 1952 (Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer. Collected Works: Volume 3. The Hague: Kluwer Academic). ———. (Hua. XXVII). 1989. Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1922–1937, edited by T. Nenon H.R. Sepp. The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988, Husserliana Band XXVII. ———. (Hua. XXXVII). 2004. Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre. 1908–1914. edited by Ullrich Melle. The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988, Husserliana Band XXXVII. ———. (Hua. XLII). 2013. Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der Instinkte. Metaphysik. Säpter Ethik.Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1937), ed. Rochus Sowa, and Thomas Vongehr. New York: Springer, Husserliana Band XLII. ———. (Hua. Mat. IX). 2012. Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1916–1919, ed Hanne Jacobs. Dordrecht: Springer, Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Materialienband IX. Jones, Karen. 2003. Emotion, Weakness of Will, and Normative Concept of Agency. In Philosophy and the Emotion, ed. A. Hatzimoysis, 181–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. Paris: University of Notre Dame Press. ———. 2008. Conflict of Desire. In Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present, ed. T. Hoffmann, 276–292. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. McIntyre, Alison. 1990. Is Akratic Action Always Irrational? In Identity, Character, and Morality, ed. O. Flanagan and A. Rorty, 379–400. Cambridge: MIT Press. Melle, Ullrich. 1988. “Einleitung des Herausgebers,” in Hua. XXVIII, XIII–XLIX. Melle, Ulrich. 2007. Husserl’s Personalistic Ethics. Husserl Studies 23 (1): 1–15. Mill, John Stuart. 1863. Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, West Strand. Plato (Protagoras). Plato II: Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, translated by. W. R. M. Lamb. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1946. L’existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Edition Nagel. Scheler, Max (SGW/II). 1973. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, ed. Maria Scheler, Gesammelte Werke Band. II, Bern; Francke. 1980 (Formalism in ethics and non-formal ethics of values: a new attempt toward the foundation of an ethical personalism, translated by Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk, Evanston; Northwestern University Press). ——— (SGW/V). 1960. Vom Ewigen im Menschen, ed. Maria Scheler, Gesammelte Werke Band. V, Bern; Francke Verlag. 1954 (On the Eternalin Man, translated by Bernard Noble, London: SCM Press). Smith, Adam. 1759. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, 1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stangneth, Bettina. 2015. Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, trans. Ruth Martin. New York: Vintagebooks. Stroud, Sarah. 2014. Weakness of will. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie/weakness-will/. Stroud, Sarah, and Christine Tappolet. 2003. Introduction. In Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality, 1–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Akrasia and Practical Rationality: A Phenomenological Approach

15

Tappolet, Christine. 2003. Emotions and the Intelligibility of Akratic Action. In Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality, 97–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Bernard. 1973. A Critique of Utilitarianism. In Utilitarianism For & Against, ed. J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1981. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Takashi Yoshikawa (Ph.D., Keio University) is Associate Professor at the University of Kochi. He is author of Husserl no rinrigaku, ikikatano tankyu [Edmund Husserl’s Ethics: An Inquiry into the Way of Living] (Chisen shokan, 2011) and one of the authors of Word Map Gendai genshogaku [Word Map. Contemporary Phenomenology] (Sinyosha, 2017). His research topics are Husserl’s phenomenology, phenomenological ethics, and contemporary ethics.

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time Norio Murata

Abstract  This paper examines the problem of how experience is constituted as a temporal object through the lens of Husserl’s phenomenology of time-­consciousness. The aim of this paper is to stress three significant aspects of Husserl’s approach: his rethinking of the “apprehension-content” scheme, his clarification the position of inner time-consciousness within the system of transcendental phenomenology, and his answer to the question of whether the temporality of experience is constituted at the very moment of experience or subsequently by reflection. After a critical review of the development of Husserl’s analysis of these issues, this paper proposes an account that combines various elements from the development of Husserl’s thinking in connection with Husserl’s later thought. Keywords  Husserl · Brentano · Time-consciousness · Time · Skepticism

1  Introduction We often look back on our experience and ask ourselves “when did that happen?”1 We often return to an experience that is especially important to us. Our life is made up of the temporal sequence of such experiences. How is my experience constituted as a temporal object? This essay attempts to answer this question by means of an interpretation of the crucial function of apprehension in our experience of time. To this end, I will examine various meanings of “apprehension” in the development of Husserl’s thought. Thus far, many researchers who were interested in the phenomenology of time-­ consciousness have grasped the “apprehension-content” scheme as a mistaken  This essay is based on the draft for my presentation in the conference titled “Consciousness and the World” which was held in Tongji University of Shanghai on May 2–3, 2016. I appreciate Prof. Ka-wing Leung’s invitation and the detailed comments of Dr. Li-Qing Qian. 1

N. Murata (*) Department of Civilization, School of Letters, Tokai University, Kanagawa, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_2

17

18

N. Murata

t­heory that needed to be overturned.2 However, the publication of Husserl’s middle and later manuscripts regarding time-consciousness has made it obvious that he never ceased to use the word apprehension. Accordingly, we must once again clarify the role of the act of apprehending. As is well known, in Ideas I Husserl argued that immanent or phenomenological time was a precondition for the field of absolute consciousness; yet this the investigation of time-consciousness was nonetheless put aside (Hua, III-1, §83). In the Bernau Manuscripts Husserl states definitively that phenomenological time is nothing other than the objective time as constituted by the apprehending act (Hua, XXXIII, p.  120, 184f). Therefore, this problematic connects time-consciousness and the field of transcendental consciousness discussed in Ideas I. Indeed, how such objectification of time is achieved is a central problem in the Bernau Manuscripts: does an experience acquire its time-position at the moment I live through it or does it become objectified and located within a temporal sequence when subsequently reflected upon? In this essay I will try to arrive at a reconciling position between both answers by examining the variations in Husserl’s account of apprehension. The outline of this essay is as follows: To begin, I will explain Brentanian original association theory, which Husserl confronted when he considered the first version of apprehension theory. I call this first version plain apprehension theory. Second, I will focus on the function to give time-position, and examine the second theory, named now-inscription theory. Next, I will present the third theory, named subsequent reflection theory. Finally, I will propose a mixed theory which combines elements of the second and the third, and point out the scope and limitations of this new theory, and show its connection with Husserl’s later thought.

2  I ntroduction of Apprehension Theory: Criticism of Brentano’s Original Association In Early Manuscripts as well as the descriptions published in the Lecture of Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, Husserl’s consideration of time consciousness begins with a confrontation with his teacher Brentano. So let us take a look at Brentano’s original association theory. Let us suppose that we are listening to music. I hear a certain sound. Immediately it passes away and changes into a passed-away sound. How this sort of change in temporal character should be explained is the main task of the analysis of time-consciousness here. Brentano

 This movement was brought about initially by Merleau-Ponty. In the  Phénomenologie de la Perception (Merleau-Ponty 1945, pp.175–9) he criticized Husserl’s scheme as bad intellectualism which can touch directly the raw material independent of action. At the same time he responded positively to Husserl’s footnote in the Lecture of Phenomenology of Inner Time Consciousness that not all constitutions have this scheme (ibid., p.178).

2

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s…

19

explained this with original association. It refers to “general psychological law,” according to which: … a continuous series of presentations is fastened by nature to every given presentation such that each presentation belonging to this series reproduces the content of the one preceding it, but in such a way that it always affixes the moment of the past to the new presentation. (Hua, X, p. 11)

As far as I understand, this theory has three main features: (1) the change of temporal character is thought of as that of content, (2) this change of content is enabled by imagination (Phantasie), and (3) the part which temporally modifies an original sound is called the modifying part. 1. The notion that temporal change consists in a change of content comes from a basic presupposition of Brentanian psychology. He classifies mental phenomena into three classes, namely presentation, judgment, and emotion. Among these three classes, while judgments and emotions can differ in the way of intentional relations, presentations only differ in contents within the group (cf. Brentano 1969, 15f). Consequently, as far as time elapsing should be explained within presentation, the temporal difference between the present and the passed-away sound does not consist in the mode of the act or the way of intentional relation, but in its contents. To the original content, or the present sound, is added the part “passed-away,” and then the whole content of the “past-away sound” is made up.3 2. That imagination works on original association is to be contrasted with the characteristic of sensation. According to Brentano, sensation (Empfindung) must have a corresponding stimulus in the real world, and should be seen as a causal effect postulated by this concept (Brentano 1973, p. 46). But there is no stimulus in the real world causing this new, just-passed content. Consequently, this content should not be seen as sensory, but as an imaginary content (phantasma), created by the mind. 3. As concerns the argument that the part “passed-away” is the modifying one. Here, I would like to draw attention to the modifying part as a concept appearing in Descriptive Psychology (Brentano 1995). It is claimed in this text that the task of descriptive psychology, or psychognosy, is to enumerate the types of parts of human consciousness and to determine how they connect. Parts are classified into either actually separable or distinctional parts (which are only conceptually distinguishable), wherein the latter has a further subordinate group named distinctional parts in the modifying sense (Brentano 1995, p. 28).4 If the sound has passed away and the complex “passed-away sound” is made up, the “passed-­ away” is not only added, but also changes the mode of original content to which it is added. Only the sound exists in itself; the “passed-away” sound does not. 3  cf. Hua X, p. 171f. Brentano, however, soon abandoned this understanding and later held a view similar to Husserl. 4  Müller’s translation: a “distinctional part in the modified sense” is an expression which can lead to misunderstanding. What is modified is not this part itself but the part which is combined with it.

20

N. Murata

The “passed-away” deprives the “sound” of its existence, modifies it. For this reason, he calls this the modifying part. Can the Brentanian approach with such features actually clarify the phenomenon of time? This is the question that Husserl held at the beginning of his study of time-consciousness. But if the complex of both moments A and passed-away (vergangen) exists, then also A exists now. And at the same time A should be passed away, therefore should not be now. (Hua X, p. 172)

It is supposed generally that in the case of presentation P(X), the content X belongs to the present in consciousness. Then content “passed-away A” of presentation P (passed-away A) also belongs to the present in consciousness. But does the “A,” partial content of that, belong to the present in consciousness or not? This was Husserl’s question. Let us consider both possibilities further. If the “A” as content of consciousness belongs to the present, together with the whole “passed-away A,” then it calls into question what was modified and deprived of existence by the modifying part. In this case what ceased to exist should be the “A” as the object existent in the world. The “A” is as content in the consciousness but does not exist in the present world. Or, supposing that, since the “passed-away” is the modifying part, the partial “A” is deprived of existence and is not now in the consciousness, then we ask ourselves what kind of entity this “A” is, and where “A” belongs. The answer should be that the “A” belongs to the past world. The part “A” of the whole “passed-away A” is deprived of existence in the present consciousness by the modifying part, but remains existent in the past world, wherein it has unmodified existence. In this way, we are brought to the distinction between the present consciousness and the entity of the world or object (Gegenstand).5 It is by introducing this distinction that Husserl presents a clearer theory of time constitution. And the apprehension enables us to make this distinction. During the time elapsed, the sound is grasped at first as present, then as just past, and as passed-away. In this last case we can describe a sound as being grasped “in” the present of consciousness and at the same time “as” the past, wherein “in” means the starting point of intentional consciousness, and “as” refers to its goal. Similarly, temporal character can be thought of as a way of the act of grasping, namely of apprehension (Auffassung). This does not refer to the content of the intentional act, but to the character of the act, or the way of intentional relation. In such a way, Husserl was led to introduce the apprehension-­ content scheme. Later, some variations of this scheme will be explained, so I would like to call this first version plain apprehension theory. According to this theory, a difference in temporal character is explained by a difference in the way of apprehension, not in its contents.

5  Here, I am using the word “Gegenstand” in order to express the entity in the world. By contrast Brentano’s word “Objekt” does not mean the opposite of subject and real entity in the world, in the modern sense, but content that the mind posits and is neutral to its existence, in a Cartesian or scholastic sense (Brentano, 1973, pp. 180–1). Confusingly Husserl often adopts this word, especially in the phenomenology of time-consciousness.

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s…

21

3  C  onstitution of Phenomenological Time as Objective: Now-Inscription Theory Let us consider to what extent this theory is valid for an explanation of time constitution. In the case of the usual outer perception, we apprehend something; in other words, we grasp something as something. For example, I may glimpse an animal running away in a forest (cf. Hua XXXIII, pp. 173–4). I apprehend it as a deer, after which I correct myself and apprehend it as a dog. In this case “deer” and “dog” have nothing to do with each other aside from my having apprehended the same content in two different ways. By contrast, in the case of temporal apprehension of something as “now” and “passed away,” the latter means having been “now” in the past. Namely “now” is the origin of “passed-away” and this is the derivation of the “now.” Brentanian original association theory reflects this relationship. The whole “passed-­ away sound” contains the original sound, although modified, and the whole refers back to the original sound that was present in the past. From this we can treat “passed-away sound” as relevant content, despite it being nonexistent, and reduce it ontologically to the original modus. On the contrary, Husserl’s apprehension theory loses this advantage from this point of view, despite its clarity as a model. We should now step towards the next apprehension theory, the now-point-­ inscription theory. In order to give this discussion proper restriction, I would like to draw attention to a general classification of temporal characters. Generally speaking, temporal characters of an individual thing or event can be classified into two groups. One group subsumes those which are determined by their distance from the present on which experiencing subject is located, and they change along with the passage of time. For example, future, shortly, soon, now, present, just past, past are in this group. Another group consists of determinations which are not changed by the passage of time and keep their own identity, such as before X, simultaneous with Y, after Z, at that time, and so forth. Husserl distinguishes temporal characters in the similar way. He calls the former the way-to-be-given (Gegebenheitsweise), and the system of such determinations subjective time. In contrast to this, he calls those which belong to the latter group, objective time-position (objektive Zeitstelle) as punctual determination, objective duration as temporal extension, objective time-­ relation as the relation of a certain position to another and so forth, these make up objective time. It is the constitution of objective time, especially of objective time-position (since among objective determinations time-position is prior to the others), which the now-inscription theory accounts for. Objective time-position is given at every moment the sensory event is experienced. … in contrast to the flow of temporal retreat (the flow of consciousness modification) the object appearing in this retreat apperceptively keeps on accepting its identity, and it does so along with positing as ‘this’ experienced in the now-point. […] Each actual Now produces a new objective time-point, as it produces a new object, or rather, a new object-point which is maintained firmly as identically same individual object-point in the flow of modification. (Hua. XXIV, p. 266)

22

N. Murata

According to this theory, the actual now-point constantly inscribes the time-position “at that time,” namely the moment the sensory datum passes through it, as if it provides proof or a certificate of an actual experience at that time. Seen in this way, apprehension (or apperception) can be understood like inscription. 1. By means of this, objective time-position is set as an identical firm point in time. Despite not being sense, it is similar to sense in that it keeps its identity through passage of time. Therefore, it is natural to assign the role of giving objective time-positions to apprehension whose original role is to give sense. But, while sense-giving apprehension identifies an object as the general, the time-position given by temporal apprehension supports the individuality of a thing, namely the object posited in that time. For instance, if two sounds with the exact same qualities are heard at different moments, then they are seen differently as individuals. The time-position of the individual refers to the very time-point when the individual exists, and even if the time elapses and the concerned object no longer exists in the present world, it still refers to the time-position where the individual was located. 2. Another significant argument is that the inscription on a certain sensory datum is made only once. After the inscription, the object with its time-position passes away from the actual now and is increasingly modified to a further extent. But this temporal modification does not damage the identity of a unique objective time-position, and it concerns only the way-to-be-given in subjective time. In fact, we should not understand temporal modification as new and different apprehensions working repeatedly one after another. The temporal character determined by distance from the actual now and changing every moment should not be understood as the coming and going of many apprehensions, as if such a modification change were the same as the change from deer to dog. Rather, while modification continues, the object keeps its time-position at the moment when it was experienced, as well as referring back to the moment. In short, the passed away simply means to have been once present. Passed-away and having-been-present are the same from the point of view of appearance. In such a way, in my opinion the greatest difficulty of the problem about time is clarified, namely the equivalence of appearing-as-passed-away and appearing-as-having-been-perceived. (Hua. XXIV, p. 261)

Thus, the now-inscription theory is characterized at first by (1) the time-position being set through continuous inscription of now in the actual momentary present based on new sensory data, and secondly by (2) temporal modification of the experienced datum without new apprehension, thereby keeping its identity undamaged. Considering this, the second theory accounts for the constitution of objective time on the one hand, and on the other hand it enables the constituted object to refer back to its origin. For these reasons, this theory has an advantage over the first one. However, we ought to take note of two problems here. The first problem is the temporality peculiar to the memory of “passed-away A”. When I experience nothing especially new and fix my attention exclusively on a sound with identical time-­ position, it nevertheless gets farther and farther away and the time elapses. This

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s…

23

consciousness has its own objective time-position and objective duration. But if such an experience during the flowing away of a sound is apprehended as a time-­ position and has its own objective temporality, does it not contradict the second characteristic above? The second problem is that of skepticism. The time object, once constituted, refers back to its origin in memory. We can doubt however the reliability of memory. The now-inscription theory presupposes that the apprehension of an objective time-­ point is continuously happening automatically in the actual present. But in the case of a passing-away sound, the sound which I think I heard a short time ago, is there no doubt about the existence of this fact? Concerning this point, Husserl, in one of his early manuscripts on time-consciousness, reflected: If God were to bring us forth immediately just as we now are, then we would indeed possess all of our memories. […] But in that case memory would deceive us. There is no guarantee that something actually did take place just as we believe it did in memory. (Hua X, p. 158)

Indeed, normally I am almost as certain of the sound that I have just heard as I am of the sound which I am hearing now. But there is a chance that, although this sound might not have happened, God might have created me with a memory of this sound already present in my memory. Such a metaphysical possibility deprives even our most recent memory of its certainty. We have seen above that Husserl thought of passed-away and having-been-­ present as the same thing (Hua XXIV, p. 261). It is important that he restricted this equivalence by adding “from the point of view of appearance.” I would guess that this condition comes from Husserl’s consideration of the possibility that an original experience did not occur. Following from this, the now-inscription theory does not claim that the remembered object was actually experienced and was inscribed with the time-position, much less that such time-position-giving act continues in reality forever, but claims only that appearance of “passed-away” requires but does not confirm its existence. In short, the second theory concerns the appearance of the past rather than its reality.

4  Subsequent Reflection Theory Now let us move onto the third theory. This explains that, instead of continuously giving time-position to sensory data in the actual present, apprehension occurs and the time-position is set when the ego turns its active intentionality reflectively to a certain moment in the stream of experience. I call this subsequent reflection theory. This theory presupposes that the unity of data that is supplied as material to temporal apprehension is already constituted by the deepest layer of consciousness, and this is called the absolute stream of consciousness in the Early Manuscripts, but which has a new name originary process (Urprozess) in the Bernau Manuscripts.

24

N. Murata

Nevertheless, this difference consists merely in the form of description and has little impact on this essay. The most important roles of this layer are (1) to form unity of moments in consciousness, while at the same time (2) giving continuity to the flow of consciousness itself, and enabling minimal self-consciousness without a break. In Early Manuscripts these roles are played by double intentionality of retention, and in the Bernau Manuscripts by double fulfillment of protention. The function of cross-intentionality (Querintentionalität) of retention or specific fulfillment (besondere Erfüllung) of protention concerns the constitution of unity of data, while the function of lengthwise intentionality (Längsintentionalität) of retention or general fulfillment (allgemeine Erfüllung) of protention forms the continuity of my consciousness and enables minimal self-consciousness or pre-reflective self-awareness (Hua X, p. 80f, 379f/Hua XXXIII, pp. 29–30).6 The subsequent reflection theory needs some explanation. Firstly, this subsequence does not mean that the reflection must necessarily be conducted after the experience within the same temporal sequence. Rather reflection can be directed to what is actually experienced and can objectify the perceptive act concerned. The experience can be objectified in the actual present, but such an objectifying reflection is not always conducted; objectification does not work without active reflection. And the unity of content that the reflection uses as fundament and to which it gives time-position in order to make temporal object, is constituted by the originary process. Reflection means from the sense of the word that any experience is conducted in advance and reflection returns to it. I call this reflection “subsequent” because the reflection requires that the moment of experience is already constituted by the originary process. Therefore, either reflection can objectify the experience which I am currently living through and give the time position of the instance I now experience, or return to the experience that has left the present and is passing away and give time-position “at that time” ex post facto. In contrast to the second theory, which claims that apprehension always works automatically in the actual present, the third theory claims that apprehension can objectify anything, whether it is being experienced actually or has passed-away, relatively freely. As for the question of whether or not we are conscious of the experience at all before reflection, we must take the aforementioned concept of pre-reflective self-­ awareness7 into account. The constituted unity of data is neither thematically 6  In terms of “double intentionality of retention” and in terms of “double fulfillment of protention” cf. Kortooms (2002, pp. 158–168). 7  See Zahavi (1999, chaps. 5 and 7). I think nevertheless that, since the pre-reflective self-awareness without apprehension works everywhere on all acts of experience, it doesn’t enable to describe the total stream of consciousness easily. In my opinion the pre-reflective self-awareness has quite a little distinctness and it can give evidence only to rough and general statements. Act of consciousness should instead be described mainly based upon correlation of noesis-noema, by grasping what is gotten from the description about the noematic side as determinations constituted by the corresponding acts and by attributing these constitutions to functions of acts in the noetic side. The analysis of the absolute stream of consciousness should also follow this procedure by starting from the constituted time (noematic time) back to the constituting stream. Therein, I think, demonstrative consideration should be also needed and one can hardly clarify the structure of absolute stream only by description.

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s…

25

reflected nor actually objectified, but we are slightly aware of it. This slightness has a gradation and, if it does not attract our interest, it can fall to almost zero. Still, it would be too strong to claim that it would be unconscious in principle (Zahavi 1999, 14ff). Now let us consider what we can achieve with this theory. To begin, the first problem of the second theory that the consciousness of the passing-away moment has no time-position for itself can be solved. Experiences regarding passing-away objects can be seen as independent objects which have their own time-position, which they gain when they are constituted as time-objects by means of our reflection and apprehension of them. We can reflect on ourselves while following the passing-away sound, thereby objectifying the actual present experience. And as far as the problem of skepticism is concerned, the third theory has an advantage in that it does not presuppose the real existence of the past present experience as the origin of the “passed-away.” No matter when the concerned data to which time-position will be given was experienced, it is always in the actual present that the reflective apprehension is conducted and the time-object is constituted. In this way this theory starts from the actual present and then goes back to the past reflectively and reconstitutes it. Therefore, it does not naively presuppose the existence of the past experience, it reconstitutes the past. This time, seen as appearance, we can possess memories of past experiences even if we are created by God with the memory in the present instant. The appearance in the memory is just as it is even if it was given in a different way in the real past. In this way, this theory shows an appropriate step starting from the appearance of time, gaining a foothold in it, in order to constitute real time. At the same time however, another problem seems to arise. In the now-­inscription theory, objective time is constituted as linear coordinates of the order of before, simultaneous, and after. In the subsequent reflection theory it seems that only reflected datum accepts a time-position as a point, or at best, as an objective duration with a limited length. If objective time constituted here is merely fragmentary, can we say that it is constituted in the proper sense? And the time-position is usually given after the concerned data is apart from actual experience. To what extent can we claim this time-position is reliable? If I want to constitute the real sequence of my own experiences by reflecting on them, am I only giving an arbitrary position to them and making up a fictional life-history?

5  S  uggestion of a Fourth, Mixed Theory: Its Scope and Limitations Thus far we have examined three apprehension theories and it has become obvious that each theory has its own weakness. The first, the plain apprehension theory, which appeared as an alternative to Brentano’s original association theory, has the

26

N. Murata

problem of not corresponding to the fact that the past “present” is the origin of the “passed away” and that the latter is derived from the former. The second, the now-­ inscription theory, has two problems: that it cannot treat the experience following the passing-away sound as an independent time-object, and the dogmatic and untenable presupposition that apprehension in the present works actually and continuously. The third theory solves the two problems of the second theory, but loses the advantage of the second one. Finally I would like to suggest a fourth theory, comprised of by elements of both the second and the third theory, as it seems the most convincing one, and point out its scope and limitations. In the third theory one of the conditions of reflection is that the data as fundament for time objectification endures in the present of the consciousness (or emerge again over the interval), but the data is not grasped as “something enduring,” much less as “only subsequently coming up” (Hua, XXXIII, p.  209). Instead, it is grasped as originally experienced.8 This argument shows the condition that “at that time” must be the past “now” at the moment the object was experienced, which we have seen by the second theory. Let me note that the second and the third theory contradict each other in terms of when the temporal apprehension is conducted, but they do not if the second one is slightly weakened and inscription does not mean apprehension. If the second theory only means that the datum was experienced at that time, then both theories are compatible. We take away the apprehensive act giving the time position from inscription and assign it to the reflection. Nevertheless, although the time-position “at that time” is explicated by reflection, (a) it refers back to the past “now” at the moment the datum was experienced and (b) something which hints when it was experienced was implicitly inscribed, as identically enduring despite temporal modification, and afterward (c) reflection is conducted and the time position is given based upon this implication. With this weaker version of the second theory can be mixed the third one. “At that time” refers solely to the moment of the experience at hand, i.e., the inscription in a weaker sense occurring, and this is required for the meaning of the appearance of the time object, even if we accept a skeptical outlook or the possibility of the non-existence of the real experience. If it were confirmed that the ­experience was not conducted, then the appearance would be corrected,9 then “at that time” would be connected with another event, the false appearance would be decided as false or located in another position. But in this case as well, the false memory required to be what I experienced and to have the unique time-position in 8  In Bernau Manuscripts Husserl argues that the past experience far distant from the present arises within the actual present, namely about so to speak passive recollection, called “recollection coming to mind” (einfallende Erinnerung) (Hua, XXXIII, p. 361ff). This moment of experience has no time-position and is constituted as time object by being reflected and given the position “at that time”. 9  Here, the phenomenology of intersubjectivity or the phenomenology of verbal/nonverbal expression is a necessary tool to continue this investigation. In order to confirm my past experience, it is not sufficient to examine my consciousness from a first-personal point of view. Physical evidence or witness is also helpful for this task. How these can justify a belief in one’s memory, how and to what extent they support or contradict the appearance of my experience, ought to be investigated.

How Is Time Constituted in Consciousness? Theories of Apprehension in Husserl’s…

27

my experience. Just for this reason the experience can compete against other experience which insists on the same time position and it should be confirmed which is true. In this way the time object which is constituted by reflection refers back to the experience (inscription in a weaker sense) and requires that the experience occurred in reality. There is another point to emphasize. While the above description was given concerning the reflected side, it is also true of the reflecting side. In the actual present as the starting point of reflection, the inscription (in a weaker sense) occurs without doubt. This also can be confirmed by reflection. This lets me understand why the appearance of experience can refer back to the past present. I understand this on the basis that the experience is happening now, the “now” is inscribed just the moment I experience it. By means of the analogy with this actual inscription (in a weaker sense), the reflected time position appears as now of “at that time.” Because it is this inscription that makes us directly understand what the experience is. Accordingly the first condition is: 1. Inscription occurring in the actual present And then: 2. Giving the time-position “at that time” by reflection Then based on analogy with (1), the time-position in (2) means: 3. the past “now” when the inscription occurred. In this way our mixed theory explains that the constituted time is not arbitrarily summed up with moments but refers to my actual experience. Accordingly we can reject, at least, the criticism that the constituted time is merely an arbitrary product like a psychological fictional product. Its structure, a priori of transcendental consciousness, gives the condition of constituted temporal sequence of our experiences (Erlebnisse). Inscription (1) concerns time-constituting originary process, and (2) concerns experience as the constituted objectivity. Nevertheless, we are still far from constituting one linear time as an infinite continuity without a break. And the obstacle to this was skepticism. This has not been resolved and still remains a task to be solved. But to make visible what was an invisible problem is no bad thing and skepticism just does it. Rather it can clarify the restrictions of our starting point to constitute the time of experience. Let me add a few words to connect what this essay has shown with the later development of Husserl’s thought. I would like to draw attention to two points. 1. Husserl’s middle thought claims that, after the phenomenological reduction, we can find that the flow of experience has unity with infinite extension, namely it is presupposed as one continuous line in the transcendental level (Ideas I, §83). But in the later thought he tries to realize a so-called radicalized reduction by shutting out the temporal extension of transcendental consciousness, and confines the stream of consciousness as the first foothold of constitution to a very narrow range of the living present (Held 1966, p.  66f). Does not the point we have

28

N. Murata

reached here touch upon the problematic of this radicalized reduction? If our work here is correct, then the necessity of this new reduction can be understood also outgoing from skepticism. 2. Together with the above, in the later C-Manuscripts Husserl notes birth, sleep, and death, as phenomena that break or limit the continuity of first-personal experience. On the one hand, these phenomena are merely something that happens to the empirical human being, and hence are no threat to transcendental subjectivity. On the other hand, when transcendental subjectivity constitutes the temporal sequence of its own experience, these phenomena can be a serious problem, which means the possibility to break the activity of inscription as we argue above, namely to cut off the continuity of first-personal experience. In this case they will bring various theoretical consequences to the phenomenological reduction and problematic of constitution. In this way these phenomena can have a different significance in accordance with their theoretical dignity, and therefore should be investigated while being distinguished from one another at some level.

References Brentano, Franz. 1969. The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. Trans. Rodelick Chisholm and Elizabeth Schneewind. Abingdon: Routledge. ———. 1973. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Trans. Linda McAlister. Abingdon: Routledge. ———. 1995. Deskriptive Psychology. Trans. Benito Müller. Abingdon: Routledge. Kortooms, Toine. 2002. Phenomenology of Time. Edmund Husserl’s Analysis of Time-­ Consciousness, Phaenomenologica 161. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Held, Klaus. 1966. Lebendige Gegenwart. Die Frage der Seinsweise des transzendentalen Ich bei Edmund Husserl, Entwickelt am Leitfaden der Zeitproblematik. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke. Den Haag: Springer/Kluwer/Martinus Nijhoff Academic (I refer with “Hua.” and roman numerals to the volume number of Husserliana and with Arabic numbers to the page number): Band. III-1. 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischer Philosophie. Erstes Buch, Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schumann. Band. X. 1966. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins, ed. Rudolf Boehm. Band. XXIV. 1984. Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906/07, ed. Ullrich Melle. Band. XXXIII. 2001. Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein, ed. Rudolf Bernet and Dieter Lohmar. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1945. Phénoménologie de la Perception. Paris: Gallimard. Zahavi, Dan. 1999. Self-Awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological Investigation. Evanston: Northern University Press. Norio Murata (Ph.D., Hitotsubashi University) is Professor of at Tokai University, Kanagawa. His areas of research are Husserl’s phenomenology of time consciousness, theory of self-awareness, Brentano’s ontology, and descriptive psychology. His doctoral dissertation is Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time Consciousness (2005). Among his publications are Husserl and Theory of Knowledge (in Kiki ni Taijisuru Shiko, Azusa-Shobo, 2016) and Category as Real Concept: Brentano’s Ontology in the Manifold Sense of Being by Aristotle (Husserl Studies in Japan, 2014).

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution Takeshi Akiba

Abstract In Ideas II and other works, Edmund Husserl gives a constitutional analysis of material reality. His basic thought on this matter is that a material thing is constituted when it is shown to causally depend on its surrounding circumstances. In this essay, I will first try to show that this appeal to causal dependence involves an important problem, namely, the circularity or regress problem. I then consider how this problem can be solved from both theoretical and exegetical standpoints. As a key that could lead to a solution, I propose the hypothesis that Husserl’s notion of reality is holistic. By attributing this notion to Husserl, I argue that we can find a satisfactory answer to the aforementioned problem, as well as a perspicuous way of understanding some of his passages. Keywords  Husserl · Constitution · Material reality · Circularity · Infinite regress · Holism

1  Introduction In Ideas II and other works, Edmund Husserl offers a constitutional analysis of material reality. Here are some of the chief questions he aims to answer through his analysis: The physical or material thing is res extensa. … Now, what makes the concept of this res up? What is extended reality, and what is reality in general? Also, people talk about extended substance. What does this substantiality mean, we ask, and in the highest generality possible? (Hua IV, pp. 33–4, original emphasis)

To put it simply, Husserl is asking here what the reality of real things consists in. And he basically answers this question, as readers may well know, by invoking the

T. Akiba (*) Philosophy Department, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_3

29

30

T. Akiba

notion of causality (Hua IV, p. 41f; p. 45, p. 126; Hua V, p. 30).1 That is, Husserl holds that the reality of real things consists in their being governed by causal order, as opposed to objects in the spiritual world (geistige Welt)  that are governed by motivational order (Hua IV, p. 220f). Now, although this appeal to causality seems to have been regarded as relatively uncontroversial (at least in comparison to, say, Husserl’s view on phenomenological reduction, alter ego, mathematical objects, time-consciousness, etc.), there is, in fact, an important problem here.2 In a nutshell, the problem is that of circularity or infinite regress, and it arises at a quite basic level of analysis which commentators have generally passed over.3 So in this essay, I shall first try to make clear what the problem is, and then consider how it can be solved while thinking from both a theoretical and exegetical perspective. To state my findings out front, this consideration will give us a good occasion to rethink the issue of what sort of property the reality of real things is, and thus help articulate a radically holistic conception of reality Husserl had adopted. The essay is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, I provide a context for the following discussion and locate the problematic area in it. Section 3 presents a seemingly serious difficulty for Husserl’s account of reality in the form of circularity problem. In Sect. 4, I examine two possible responses to this problem that turn out to be inadequate, and through this examination make it clear that the genuine challenge for Husserl’s account is an infinite regress. Then in Sect. 5, I propose a solution to the problem of an infinite regress before replying in Sect. 6 to several questions that my proposal might arouse.

2  Setting the Stage Let us begin, then, by providing a somewhat broader context in which the following discussion is located. As has already been indicated above, the theme of this essay is Husserl’s constitutional analysis of material reality. But what exactly, one may ask, does it mean to give a “constitutional analysis”? Well, although this question is rather complicated, there are two things that seem relatively safe to assume. First, to constitute something in the Husserlian sense is (of course) not to construct or create it, but to let it appear, unfold, manifest itself as what it is.4 Thus a constitutional 1  The following passage from Ideas III is particularly worthy of attention: “a thing is not an entity in general, but the identical in the nexus of causal dependencies. It is something that can live only in the atmosphere of causal lawfulness” (Hua V, p. 30). 2  For example, despite the meticulous reconstruction given of Husserl’s view on material thing, Sokolowski 1974, ch.4 only briefly touches on the issue. Moreover, a recent, and otherwise excellent, study by Hardy 2013 on Husserl’s view on the physical sciences seems to find the aspects of Husserl’s thought that I will take up here to be relatively unproblematic (see especially p. 143). 3  The problem of circularity I will raise here does not involve the triad of subjectivity, world, intersubjectivity which Zahavi 2003, pp. 74–6 outlined. 4  Here, I will follow the characterization given by Zahavi 2003, pp. 72–3.

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

31

analysis is an attempt to explicate object’s distinctive nature, to reveal its own being in distinction to any other. Second, Husserl’s constitutional analysis tries to achieve this explication in terms of each object’s respective mode of original givenness. Here, the idea is that different types of objects (material things, alter egos, cultural objects, animals, numbers, states of affairs, universals, etc.) have their own distinctive ways in which they are originally given (as opposed to merely thought of, imagined, expected, etc.),5 and that their natures—what their being consists in—can be unveiled precisely by specifying these distinctive ways (Hua III/1, p. 349ff.; Hua I, p. 98). So in short, we can say that to give a constitutional analysis of some object amounts to explicating its nature by specifying the condition under which it is originally given. Now what about real things? What is their mode of original givenness? In considering this question, especially in Ideas II, Husserl first notes that the real or material thing has several “ontic meaning-layers” (Hua IV, p. 4, p. 27), where “layers” are to be understood as various kinds of intentional or noematic unities. Then he goes on to explicate how each layer is gradually constituted (Hua IV, p. 55), and throughout this constitution process, the same basic pattern recurs: in each stage, the condition under which some object is originally presented is specified by invoking certain manifolds of that which is constituted in the foregoing stage, and the former in turn serves as component of presenting manifold in the next stage (Hua III/1, p. 352). To be more concrete, Husserl appears to distinguish at least six stages in his analysis: The first stage is where various sense-data become present as sort of unities within the manifold of fundamental time-consciousness (Hua IV, p. 21f.; Hua III/1, p. 182, p. 191ff.). The second stage is the move from this sense-data to what Husserl calls “thing-schemes” or “phantoms” (Hua IV, p. 22f., p. 127). The third stage is the movement from thing-schemes to “material” or “real” things in rudimentary sense, where “objectivity” or in-itself-ness of things first emerges (Hua IV, p. 41ff.). The fourth stage takes into account the contributions of bodily sensation (kinesthesis), and thereby constitutes “real” things in the sense of those given in normal or optimal conditions (Hua IV, p.  55f.). At the fifth stage, the “physical” things in the proper sense, inquired by physical science, are constituted as those things stripped of every subject-relative feature (Hua IV, p. 75ff.). Finally, the sixth stage is the transition from solipsistic to intersubjective world, where the objective material world in the fullest sense is reached (Hua IV, p. 79ff.).6 Now, although there may be plenty of interesting points to be discussed about these various levels of constitution, in this essay I shall largely ignore them, and focus instead on one point. I will focus specifically on the third stage, which consists in the move from “thing-schemes” to “material things.” Since Husserl uses 5  The same idea is often expressed in terms of “rules” prescribed by each type of object (see, for example, Hua III/1, p. 350; Hua IV, p. 86). Also, for a useful discussion of this idea, see Sokolowski 1974, pp. 102–6. 6  More precisely, Husserl seems to think that the order of the fifth and sixth stages can be interchangeable (Hua IV, p. 82).

32

T. Akiba

“material” and “real” (or “substantial”) interchangeably in this context, we can refer to his view on this constitutional stage as his account of “reality constitution,” where “reality” is understood in a relatively primitive sense (as compared to “reality” in higher stages of constitution). Before looking at this account, it is perhaps better to clarify the two terms involved here. On the one hand, a “thing-scheme” can be characterized as a kind of proto-thing, or as “bodily (“spatial”) shape with qualitative contents extending over it” (Hua IV, p. 37; Hua III/1, p. 350). Thus, a thing-scheme is a spatial extension with a certain (to some extent specific) size and form, which is fulfilled with various sensible qualities such as color, smoothness, warmth, etc. So, for instance, when we look into a stereoscope and see a red pyramid-shaped three-dimensional extension, we have a visual thing-scheme of which it can be truly said that it is red, rough, and pyramid-shaped, etc. (Hua IV, p. 36). As regards “real things,” on the other hand, they are characterized as intentional unities presented through these thing-schemes (Hua IV, p. 41f., p. 127). For ease of discussion, let us understand “scheme manifold” to mean a set of time slices of thing-schemes that are spatiotemporally continuous, which may or may not involve its elements’ qualitative or positional changes. Thus, according to Husserl, a real thing is that which is originally given when a scheme manifold satisfies certain appropriate condition (to which we shall return shortly). As compared to thing-­ schemes, real things are said to have a super-flus of material properties such as weight, elasticity, magnetic force (in addition to sensible properties), that were completely lacking in thing-schemes (Hua IV, p. 36).7 Furthermore, the being of a real thing is not so intimately tied to its sensible appearances as was the case by thing-­ scheme: a real thing has the character of “existing in itself, whether it is perceived or not” (Hua III/1, p. 104). In other words, real things have a certain sort of “transcendence” or “objectivity”—though in the limited sense of objectivity for self-­ forgetting and solipsistic subject (Hua IV, p. 65ff., p. 77ff.; Hua, III/1, p. 352). Yet, it is obvious that not every scheme manifold constitutes a real thing. So what condition must be met in order for a given scheme manifold to qualify as reality constituting? This is the very question Husserl has to answer in his account of reality constitution, and the key condition he invokes to this end is, as is well known, the causal dependence to environment (Umgebung). Here, the “causal dependence” means functional or lawful regularity, which can be summarized by the rule “under the same situation, the same effect” (Hua IV, p. 46, p. 48). So, according to Husserl, even when a scheme manifold exhibits a perfectly harmonious sequence of intrinsic changes (or non-change), that is not enough for it to present a real thing, as long as it is isolated from its surroundings (Hua IV, p. 36, p. 40). A real thing is presented, Husserl says, when and only when a scheme manifold is seen to functionally depend on its surrounding situations, such that any change in the former is in accordance with, and regulated by, some change in the latter. Thus, if a certain manifold of visual schemes is present and their colors gradually change (in hue, shade, and 7  According to Husserl, whereas thing-schemes can fail to constitute a real thing, real things must contain thing-schemes as their basic components (Grundstück) (Hua IV, p. 37; Hua III/1, p. 350).

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

33

s­ aturation) according to changes of external light condition, then the scheme manifold acquires the status of the temporary “expression” of a real thing endowed with the “objective” properties (this time, color), which is what remains identical through changing appearances that are schemes (Hua IV, p. 41f.). In this way, then, Husserl holds that real things are present when scheme manifolds functionally depend on their environments. According to him, this feature of causal dependence is precisely the “ontological form” of reality in general (Hua IV, p. 42, p. 125f., p. 136).

3  A Problem of Circularity However, as I have suggested in the introduction, there is a seemingly serious difficulty for this account of reality constitution. This section presents that difficulty, which turns out to be a typical circularity problem. Before entering into my argument, though, two more preparatory remarks are in order. First, as we have seen, Husserl intends to specify the conditions for scheme manifolds to constitute real things. Concerning this, we shall say in what follows that a scheme manifold has “the reality-constituting character” when it qualifies as constituting a real thing. Secondly, and more importantly, we should clarify what kind of entities those things are that are called “environments” or “surrounding situations” here. On this point, Husserl’s view is unambiguous: he says in several places that surrounding situations are themselves schemes, just as what depends on them (Hua IV, p. 41f., p. 46). Thus, we can understand the functional dependence of a scheme manifold on its environment now as a relation between scheme manifolds,8 one of which plays the role of environment and the other of which plays the reality-­ constituting role. With these points in mind, it might appear tempting to, at least initially, formulate Husserl’s account of reality constitution as follows: (H1) A scheme manifold M has the reality-constituting character if and only if there is some scheme manifold M*, such that i) M is disjoint from M*, and ii) M functionally depends on M*. This seems to capture the idea that a scheme manifold is reality-constituting in virtue of functional dependence on some situation surrounding it. 8  Very roughly speaking, this relation can be expressed as: scheme manifold M functionally depends on scheme manifold M* iff there is some appropriate function from M* to M, that assigns for each element of M* (as causal factor) some element of M (as outcome). We should note two things about this relation. First, to be “appropriate,” the function here invoked should meet several conditions, particularly important among them would be the “natural lawfulness” condition (see §5 below). Second, the function in question should in fact be much more complex than this formulation may suggest. For, it must be sensitive to whatever intrinsic properties the dependent schemes (those in M) have, and also to what other factors (than M*) come to influence the outcome, so that the function would have to take the form of multiply conditional assignment.

34

T. Akiba

However, this account is clearly inadequate. To begin our demonstration as to why this is the case, let us suppose that (H1) is correct. If this is the case, then it follows that for a scheme manifold to have the reality-constituting character, its functional dependence on some other scheme manifold suffices. Yet obviously, this is not true, for there can be functional dependence between scheme manifolds without reality constitution. For instance, suppose that you are given a manifold of ball-shaped visual schemes, the colors of whose members shift gradually from red to blue in temporal order. Call this manifold B. Now at the same time, there is another manifold of lamp-shaped schemes, call it L, whose members emit various shades of light and serve as light condition for B in perfectly harmonious (functional) way: when the light of L’s members changes from red to blue, the colors of B’s members shift accordingly, and when the former remain the same, so do the latter, etc. In this case, the manifold B functionally depends on L, and there seems to be no problem so far. However, suppose further that all this happens while you are knowingly wearing a high-spec 3D-glasses (or some other virtual experience apparatus). This alters nothing about the status and nature of schemes as schemes: exactly the same schemes can be present whether you are wearing the 3D-glasses or not. But evidently, in this case, the fact that B functionally depends on L in no way guarantees that B has a reality-constituting character—or, more intuitively, that it presents a real ball endowed with its objective color—since there is none to be presented. (Subjectively, or noetically, speaking, any motivation to apprehend some real thing based on B and L need not arise.) Notice here that to make the case more complex does not help; for no matter how many more scheme manifolds (in addition to L) you introduce, another scenario to the same effect can be concocted. Therefore, a merely functional dependence of scheme manifolds does not suffice for reality constitution, which means that (H1) is false. Now, of course, this objection could be avoided if we require that the surrounding situations invoked here be themselves real. In the above case, if the manifold L (serving as source of illumination for B) were not a mere scheme manifold but a reality-constituting one, we could have safely assumed that B is so, too. For, it is but natural to think that what interacts with some portion of reality is itself real. Indeed, as if anticipating this move, at several places Husserl characterizes surrounding situations as “real” (Hua IV, p. 47, p. 124, p. 126). For instance, he says that “a thing alters, under fully determinate alternation of real situation, in likewise determinate ways” (Hua IV, p. 47, my emphasis). Or again, “with [real] states, we are referred back to the real circumstances in the form of dependence of real thing on other real thing” (Hua IV, p.  126, original emphasis). These passages strongly suggest that Husserl endorsed the following view: (H2) A scheme manifold M has the reality-constituting character if and only if there is some scheme manifold M*, such that i) M is disjoint from M*, and ii) M functionally depends on M*, and iii) M* has the reality-constituting character. It is evident, however, that adding condition iii) makes the account plainly circular. For, in answering the question of how a given scheme manifold can obtain the

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

35

reality-constituting character, (H2) appeals to that very character. But what value could an account that employs the very notion to be explicated have? It is hard to see, because in that case, one would be simply taking for granted the target notion, and this makes one’s account completely uninformative and non-explanatory. So, the difficulty Husserl faces in his account of reality constitution is this: if he does not stop at (H1), which is incorrect, he has to adopt (H2), which is circular.

4  From Circularity to Infinite Regress How can one respond to this problem? Since sticking to (H1) is unpromising and not Husserl’s position anyway (I assume), the only possibility left is to live with (H2).9 But how can Husserl do this? How can he—or anyone sympathetic to his account— uphold (H2) despite the circularity charge given above? In the rest of this essay, I shall search for the answer to this question. And in this section, I will start this search by examining two possible reasons for claiming that circularity is not necessarily bad. As it turns out, these reasons do not help us in the present context, but examining them will serve to sharpen the real challenge that (H2) should meet. Thus, on the basis of this sharpening, my favorite solution will be presented in the next section. Let us begin with a first possible reason. It is simply that an account may well be informative and explanatory even though it is circular.10 To simplify the matter, let us focus our attention on philosophical account of some notion, F, which takes this familiar form: for any x, x is F if and only if φ(x)—where the right-hand clause “φ(x)” means to specify the necessary and sufficient condition for something to be an F. Then, an account is called circular when the right-hand clause φ(x) employs the target notion F itself in some way. 9  Here, one might think that there is another way we could explore. That is, one could attempt to revise (H1) in different way than by referring to (H2). Although this is in a sense what I shall do myself (see §§5 and 6 below), we should not expect the process to be easy. For, in addition to the fact that simply abandoning (H2) will not do as Husserl reading, the required revision of (H1) is not that easy. As a first example, one might be tempted to bring in some substantive notion of causality (stronger than functional dependence), and say that only those scheme manifolds which stand in this substantive causal relation are reality-constituting. Indeed, Husserl sometimes seems to suggest this route when he characterizes causality as a relation holding between real entities (Hua IV, p.  126). It is clear, however, that this maneuver does not make the situation better, if not only because of the previously mentioned problem of circularity. As a second example, it might seem promising to replace “some scheme manifold” in the right-hand of (H1) for “sufficiently many scheme manifolds” or something like that. Yet this strategy does not work either, for if one understands “sufficiently many” in a reasonably moderate sense, a high quality virtual experience machine gives counterexample, and if one understands this phrase in such a strong sense as to exclude counterexample, one would fall into circularity or question-beggingness. 10  The following discussion owes greatly to Humberstone 1997 and Keefe 2002. Humberstone’s distinction between (merely) analytical and inferential circularity roughly corresponds to that between vicious and benign circularity in our next paragraph.

36

T. Akiba

Now, admittedly, there are cases in which circularity, in the sense we have described here, can decisively undermine a philosophical account. Take, for instance, an account of personhood which claims “x is a person iff x knows that x is a person” (Humberstone 1997, p. 252f.). Obviously, this account fails to be informative or explanatory because, far from providing the understanding of what it is for something to be a person, its right-hand clause simply presupposes and relies on it: in order to determine whether a given object a satisfies the right-hand, we have to first establish whether a is a person (since knowledge implies truth). Importantly, however, not all circular accounts are like this. For instance, take a so-called response-dependence account of yellowness (or secondary qualities in general), according to which an object x is yellow iff x is disposed to look yellow to normal perceivers under the right conditions (Smith 1993). Or, consider an acceptance-­ dependence account of money, which says (roughly) that x is money iff x is accepted as money by appropriate institution (cf. Keefe 2002, p. 276). What is important about these accounts is that, although their right-hand clauses surely employ the target notions, they can be kept independent of the left-hand clause: one can determine whether a given a satisfies the right-hand without knowing whether a satisfies the left-hand. Consequently, these accounts have at least chance to claim to be revealing the nature of F-ness, or elucidating what it is to be F (though, of course, whether they are correct is another matter). Hence, some circular accounts might be benign, since a mere employment of target notion in the right-hand does not prevent it from being informative and explanatory. Unfortunately, however, this consideration does not help in the context of our present discussion. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that some circular accounts (such as those listed above) are indeed benign. Even if we admit this, the problem remains that the type of circularity involved in Husserl’s account of reality constitution—understood here as (H2)—is not benign. According to this account, recall, a given scheme manifold has the reality-constituting character if and only if there is some other such manifold on which the first functionally depends, and which has precisely this character. This account presupposes, in the right-hand clause, precisely the understanding of what it is for something to have the target character, even though the possessor of it is different from the one mentioned in the left-hand. Therefore, (H2) is more like the account of personhood above than it is like the supposedly benign ones: it not only employs the target notion F, but relies on the very understanding of what it is to be F. Nevertheless, one might still argue that even this sort of reliance on understanding of target notion is not necessarily objectionable,11 and that this constitutes a second possible reason to meet circularity charge. To see how one can argue in this way, take, for instance, the standard inductive definition of natural number, according to which x is a natural number iff x is zero, or there is some natural number y such that x is the successor of y. Or, consider a trope theoretic account of resemblance between concrete particulars, according to which particulars x and y ­resemble

11

 My discussion in this paragraph owes a great deal to Keefe 2002, pp. 286–91.

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

37

each other iff some of x’s trope and some of y’s resemble each other.12 What is important about these cases is that, although they require some prior understanding of their target notions (i.e. of what it is to be F), this requirement is only local. And because of this locality, these accounts can claim to be informative and explanatory, for they are explaining on the basis of limited resources how the extension of the target notion as a whole is generated and structured, thereby illuminating at least part of its nature. As Lewis said rather sympathetically about the so-called non-­ reductive account of modality (which, incidentally, is not his own position), “it would be no small advance if we could explain modality in general by taking one very special case of it … as primitive” (Lewis 1986, p. 155). Though this point itself might be interesting, it is not applicable to our current case. The essential feature of the accounts invoked here is that there are some base-­ cases, where certain privileged items qualify as being F, without being conferred F-ness by something else. However, as we can see easily, in the case of Husserl’s reality constitution one cannot suppose the existence of such “base-cases,” which would have to be some privileged scheme manifolds that have the reality-­constituting character somehow in its own right, and that confer this character to any manifold functionally dependent on it—a mysterious postulation. So here, we have to resign any appeal to such base-cases and should do without them. Yet this being so, we are now in a position to see that the genuine challenge for (H2) is not so much circularity as it is infinite regress. For, even if we are generous enough to permit the second type of circularity mentioned above, it still appears that by adopting (H2), we become involved in an infinite vicious regress which makes it unintelligible as to how something can have the reality-constituting character—a very minimal fact to be accommodated. Let us see why.13 If we acknowledge (H2), then a scheme manifold can have the reality-constituting character only in virtue of some other scheme manifold (on which the first functionally depends) possessing the same character. Of course, the latter manifold can have this character only in virtue of still other manifold possessing it, and this process goes on and on, without end (since there is no “base-case”). Clearly at no stage of this regress is there any scheme manifold that has the reality-constituting character simpliciter, because what all of them have is at most this conditional property: being reality-constituting if the next manifold in the regress is reality-constituting. And since these “ifs” will not be cancelled no matter how many new manifolds we add, the reality-­constituting “would be infinitely deferred, never achieved” (Schaffer 2010, p. 37). Therefore, it appears that (H2) makes this very phenomenon unintelligible, rather than explaining how reality constitution is possible.

 Other examples may be cited: the logical atomist (or a truthmaker non-maximalist) account of truth, non-reductive account of causation, the account of sameness of type by sparse theory of property, etc. 13  The following regress argument is one instance of what Gillett 2003, pp. 712–3 calls “Structural Objection.” 12

38

T. Akiba

5  Reality as a Holistic Emergent Property So then, what should we do? If (H2) leads to an infinite vicious regress and thereby makes it incomprehensible that anything has the reality-constituting character at all, how can Husserl still hold this claim? Fortunately, there is a possible way out of this predicament, which consists in rejecting the claim that (H2) leads to an infinite vicious regress. In this section I shall present this possible solution and explain how it works, and then argue that it is plausibly the one adopted by Husserl himself. The first and most important thing to observe here is that the regress argument just presented had a tacit but substantial assumption, which concerns the general way in which a property is conferred to something. More precisely, the assumption is that the reality-constituting character meets what we may call “the transmission model” of property-conferral.14 This model can be defined as follows: a property P meets the transmission model just in case the normal (or only) way in which an entity possesses P is by receiving it from other entity that is suitably related to the first and that already possesses P.15 To put matters more intuitively, properties meeting this model are those that can be passed on among suitably related entities, just as a basketball can be passed from one player to another, or the ownership rights of a certain real estate property can be transferred from one owner to other via due legal procedures. Clearly, this conception of property-conferral is what generates the regress problem in many cases, as a cursory glance at some traditional examples shows.16 For instance, if one conceives of the property of moving as meeting the transmission model, i.e., as a property that is transmitted from one object to another via the relation of spatial contact, then the problem of how there could be the first moving object inevitably arises. Likewise, if one takes the property of being justified to be transmitted from beliefs to beliefs via some inference relation, the problem of how any belief can be justified becomes inescapable, as the old epistemological debate shows (cf. Klein 2003). And as is thus suggested, the same is true of the case at hand, namely the regress problem concerning the reality constitution: it is precisely because the reality-constituting character was assumed to meet the transmission model that it has become mysterious where this character comes from in the first place. As long as we stick to this model, the regress problem seems to be inevitable and perhaps unanswerable.

 The basic distinction between the transmission model and the emergent model (which we shall see shortly) is discussed by BonJour 1985, p.  89ff., Gillett 2003, p.  715, Klein 2003, p.  726f., Morganti 2015, p.  560, among others, although the names they assign to these models are not always the same — the transmission model is sometimes called “linear” one while the emergent model is called “non-linear,” “holistic.” 15  The phrase “normal” in the definient is needed to accommodate cases which have base-cases. 16  One may add Leibniz’s argument for the existence of atoms to the following two examples (cited by Morganti 2015, p. 558), which takes actuality (or reality) to be transmitted from parts to whole via mereological composition. 14

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

39

However, there is an alternative conception of property-conferral, which can be dubbed “the emergent model.”17 On this model, an entity comes to hold property P not by receiving it from another possessor of P, but by belonging to a certain sort of system that satisfies some suitable conditions, and it is only as a constituent of such a system that anything manages to have P. Thus, on the emergent model, property P emerges primarily at the level of whole: it is not that entities are first P and then get together to make up a system of P-entities; rather, it is by virtue of otherwise non-P-entities’ making up a certain whole that they come to have P. Moreover, since property P comes from the whole in this way, the possession of it by individual entities can be both automatic and egalitarian. That is, P is conferred to them as soon as they make up the relevant whole, without further ado (of transmission of P among them); and there need not be any difference in priority among P-entities with regard to the possession of P: they may get P all simultaneously or in block, as it were.18 To illustrate this point, we should take another look at the property of being justified, and consider how the possession of this property by beliefs is accounted for by the coherence theory of justification.19 According to this theory, what makes a belief justified is not the fact that it is inferable from other belief that already has its own justification (as has been supposed in traditional considerations on the regress problem). Rather, a belief is justified primarily because it belongs to a system of inferentially connected beliefs which is coherent (in the sense specified by the theory), and whose constituents acquire their justification all at once. More importantly for present purposes, when applied to the reality-constituting character, the emergent model generates the following account of reality constitution: a scheme manifold has the reality-constituting character in virtue of belonging to some system of scheme manifolds connected by the relation of functional dependence, which satisfies some further suitable conditions (to which we shall return below). So, on this account, the seemingly local property of reality actually derives from some global characteristics of the whole: it comes to parts in virtue of their whole’s being of some appropriate, “reality-bestowing” type. Now, if we accept this account based on the emergent model then, remarkably, (H2) no longer leads to infinite vicious regress. To be sure, (H2) claims that a given scheme manifold M has the reality-constituting character just in case M functionally depends on some other manifold M* which has the reality-constituting character. Yet, crucially, it is only when this claim is combined with the transmission model that it gives rise to the crucial question of what other scheme manifold confers the reality-constituting character to M*, thereby triggering off the regress. Thus, by

 This model, also called “non-linear” or “holistic,” is adopted by BonJour 1985 and Klein 2003 in epistemological context. 18  This does not exclude the possibility that a system of P-entities can be extended, as is evident in the case of a belief system. See also the second question in the next section. 19  The sort of coherence theory I have in mind here is that of BonJour 1985, although he later changed his position.

17

40

T. Akiba

rejecting the transmission model (in favor of emergent model), we can save (H2) from the regress charge. Therefore, we have found (at last) a way to uphold (H2) peacefully, and hence to respond successfully to the problem presented in §3. If we act on the assumption that Husserl acknowledges that (H2) is correct, then this gives us good reason to interpret him as taking the emergent model in his account of reality constitution. Indeed, this reading has one further merit: it makes an aspect of Husserl’s view naturally understandable. As we know, Husserl often says a real thing is what it is (i.e. real thing) only as a constituent of causally interconnected whole. For instance, the following passage is clear on this point: A thing is what it is only as constituent of surrounding thingness (Dinglichkeit), and this latter itself again, and finally each thing-complex is only thinkable, whether as actual or as merely possible, in relation to endlessly open world comprising it. In the experience, a thing has an open meaning, to which belongs an open infinity of validatable (auszuweisend) and systematic infinite style, and with it infinite style of possible causality, that must be determinable in the experience—if the empirical thing in fact is. (Hua XXXII, p. 206)

But how, one may ask, could Husserl claim that things need to belong to such a whole in order to be real? If we assume Husserl did take the emergent model, the answer can be straightforward: it is simply because he took reality itself to be one of emergent properties, capable of being had only by constituent of certain whole, that he could claim that having it requires belonging to that sort of whole.20 Let’s take stock. We have considered how Husserl could adopt (H2), despite the fact that  it seems to lead us to an infinite regress (if not viciously circular). The answer I provided in this section is that he could do this because he was taking the emergent model about reality. This reading nicely saves him from the regress charge and has further advantage. So I claim that this is the proper Husserlian solution.

6  Questions and Replies At this point, however, several questions may arise. Thus in this section, I shall try to respond to them, with a view to clarify the account given in the previous section further. A first question concerns the status of (H2) under the emergent model. As we have seen, the account of reality constitution on this model runs as follows: (H3) A scheme manifold M has the reality-constituting character if and only if there is some system of scheme manifolds S, such that i) M is a constituent of S, and ii) all constituents of S are connected by functional dependence, and iii) S satisfies further suitable conditions to be reality-bestowing. But if this is so, it may become unclear what status (H2) has under the emergent model. For, if the official account of reality constitution is given by (H3), then as what kind of claim can one adopt (H2)? Roughly put, our answer to this query is that  For another possible illumination, see the concluding remark below.

20

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

41

under the emergent model, (H2) can be regarded as an equivalent but derivative claim as compared to (H3). To see why, take an arbitrary scheme manifold, M0, and compare the necessary and sufficient conditions (H2) and (H3) give for the proposition “M0 has the reality-constituting character” respectively: (H2-R) There is some scheme manifolds M*, such that i) M* is disjoint from M0, and ii) M0 functionally depends on M*, and iii) M* has the reality-constituting character. (H3-R) There is some system of scheme manifolds S, such that i) M0 is a constituent of S, and ii) all constituents of S are connected by functional dependence, and iii) S satisfies further suitable conditions to be reality-bestowing. Then, it is easy to show that (H2-R) follows form (H3-R), and vice versa.21 Yet in spite of this, there is a difference in determinative priority between the two: the truth of (H2-R) is grounded in that of (H3-R), while the converse does not hold. For, on the emergent model, the manifold M*‘s having reality-constituting character derives from the system S’s being of appropriate type, and not the other way around (as we saw earlier). Thus, when compared to (H3), (H2) gives an extensionally equivalent but determinatively derivative way to state the necessary and sufficient condition for reality-constitution. Further, we should add that (H2) is a kind of abbreviation of (H3), in that the former only talks about individual manifolds while skipping any discussions of their system, which is invoked by the latter as the genuine determinative ground. (As we shall see, this feature of (H2) is particularly apt for epistemological context.) However, we find a second question here: if (H3) means to specify the determinative ground of reality constitution, what are the “suitable conditions” it invokes in clause iii), the satisfaction of which is supposed to make a system of scheme manifold “reality-bestowing” one? This question is important because as long as it is left unanswered, the explanatory burden concerning reality is not met by (H3), and perhaps the threat of circularity comes up again—though this time in the system-­ constituent relation. Hence, we need to specify somehow the relevant conditions independently of the notion of reality. Obviously, this is no easy task and requires more of us than we are capable of doing here.22 Still, there are several points worth mentioning, that may serve as indications for future work of reconstructing a full account of reality along Husserlian lines.

21  Suppose, on the one hand, that (H3-R) is true. Then there must be some scheme manifold—call it M*— on which M0 functionally depends, since S is a system of functionally dependent manifolds. Furthermore, this M* must have the reality-constituting character, since S is of realitybestowing type, and thus confers this character to all its constituents. Hence (H2-R) follows. Suppose, on the other hand, that (H2-R) is true. Then there must be some system of scheme manifold— S— which contains M0 as constituent, since M0 has the reality-constituting character, and under the emergent model, this is only possible when M0 belongs to some system of realitybestowing type. So (H3-R) follows. 22  Obviously, this problem is parallel to that the coherence theory of justification faces (cf. BonJour 1985, ch.5).

42

T. Akiba

First, in order for a system of scheme manifold to qualify as reality-bestowing, it must have certain kind of comprehensiveness. For example, remember the case of 3D-glasses discussed in §3, where a manifold of ball-shaped schemes (=B) functionally depends on a manifold of lamp-shaped schemes (=L). What is bad about this “B-L system,” we can surmise, is its isolation from a more encompassing system. That is, B-L system (or for that matter, any bigger system within the range of virtual experience) is isolated from all changes of tactual, auditory and gustatory schemes, and also from changes of visual schemes you have once you put off the 3D-glasses. And since all these latter schemes constitute an overwhelmingly more comprehensive system, B-L system may be degraded as mere “happening,” not to be seriously taken as part of reality. Second, it is plausible to assume that the relevant system must have certain natural lawfulness. Remember the (in)famous considerations on the “annihilation of the world” Husserl gave in Ideas I (Hua III/1, p. 103ff.). Roughly put, Husserl argues that if all there is about schemes is their random coming and going, with no intuitively apprehensible regularity in them, there will be no real thing and no real world constituted through them. This argument, as I take it, imposes a constraint on the sort of functional dependence which is apt for reality-bestowing system, for there may be some “functional dependence” even among random-looking sequences of schemes if we understand this notion loosely enough. So, the functional dependence in question should not be of gerrymandered type, so that the rule of “the same situation, the same effect” can be meaningfully applied. Third, in order to be reality-bestowing, a system of scheme manifold must have certain sort of super-consistency. That is, it should be such that when (in future experience) some new scheme manifolds are added to it to make a more comprehensive system, its old constituents can be retained without contradiction with the new ones, which would deprive the former of the status of reality in the new system. This aspect of reality-bestowing system is suggested, I take it, by Husserl’s frequent mention of “harmonious extendability” (Hua III/1, p. 346f.). And this condition is needed at any rate because real things should continue to be real if they have become real at all—this is perhaps part of how our concept of reality works. Though synoptic and tentative, these discussions should suffice as a suggestion for future development and refinement of the account of reality constitution in the framework of the emergent model. Still, a third query may arise, especially in relation to the last condition above: if we adopt (H3) as the constitutive account of reality, then are we not forced to admit that it is impossible for us to know that such-and-such are real things (i.e., such-and-­ such scheme manifolds have the reality-constituting character)? For, according to (H3), whether something is real or not depends on whether the system containing it satisfies some suitable conditions (including, probably, those discussed above). Thus, in order to establish such-and-such as real, we have to establish that there is such a system actually meeting these required conditions. This is, however, clearly impossible to establish, given the tremendous breath and open extendability of such a system. Hence, we can never be certain about reality of any things. In order to allay this concern, the first thing we can point out is that the impossibility in question here is merely epistemic (in the ordinary sense). That is, what is said to be impossible is only our knowing or establishing the truth of (H3-R)—the

Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution

43

right-hand of (H3)—and not the metaphysical possibility of (H3-R) itself. In this respect, our present concern is different from the one concerning infinite regress we have previously discussed, which was a threat for the very obtainability of constitutive condition of reality. And this being so, we can see that the alleged worrisome consequence of (H3) is in fact as things should be. For, it is a familiar (Husserlian) point that our beliefs about material world are always open to correction: for each belief we have about material reality, it remains always and in principle possible for it to be cancelled or replaced. Having said this, we should quickly add that (H3) does not make our epistemic endeavor meaningless or arbitrary. For, even if an infallible certainty is unavailable, this does not prevent us to proceed, on each occasion, on well-founded presumptions that have more or less “weight.”23 Suppose you are given a scheme manifold. If you want to check whether this manifold has the reality-constituting character, what you must do is (in addition to checking its internal coherence) see whether it stands in functional dependence to some other scheme manifold that has already been presumed to belong to a reality-bestowing system.24 To consider the matter from a different angle, we could suppose that you have preemptively taken the whole system as a kind of framework to be fulfilled (or as world-horizon), and along with it a body of beliefs that are more or less good candidates for fulfilling this framework; and the latter beliefs function, on each particular occasion, as a temporarily fixed background against which the reality-constitutingness of newcomer manifold is to be accessed. Although this fixedness is not final, these beliefs can be more or less well-­ founded, because of and in proportion to their integrity and coherence to other beliefs. So our epistemic endeavor loses no significance when we accept (H3).

7  Concluding Remarks In this essay, I have considered a problem for Husserl’s constitutional analysis of material reality. The problem considered here was that, in order to explain how a real thing can be constituted, Husserl seemed to illegitimately appeal to other real things already constituted. This seemingly regress-inviting view can be made right, I argue, by supposing that Husserl was taking a holistic or emergent conception of reality. As a final word, I would like to point out that the holistic picture attributed here to Husserl may illuminate our reading of his philosophy in other ways as well. Suppose we accept the notion that in some cases, what kind of property parts can have is determined by what kind of whole they belong to. Then it becomes naturally understandable, it seems, why the full-blooded objectivity cannot accrue to things except in the constitutional system of intersubjectivity, and hence why Husserl takes intersubjectivity as the ultimate ground of objective world, as he says at the end of Cartesian Meditations: “The intrinsically first being, that precedes and bears every worldly objectivity, is the transcendental intersubjectivity” (Hua I, p. 182).  For a fulfilling discussion of a related point, see BonJour 1985, p. 90ff.  As we saw earlier, this is roughly what (H2) instructs us to do.

23 24

44

T. Akiba

References Husserl’s Works [Hua I] Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, hrsg. von S. Strasser, Martinus Nijhoff, 1950. [Hua III/1] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch, hrsg. von K. Schuhmann, Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. [Hua IV] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch, hrsg. von M. Biemel, Martinus Nijhoff, 1952. [Hua V] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Drittes Buch, hrsg. von M. Biemel, Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. [Hua XXXII] Natur und Geist: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1927, hrsg. von M. Weiler, Kluwer, 2001.

Other Works BonJour, L. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gillett, K. 2003. Infinitism Redux? A Response to Klein. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66: 709–717. Hardy, L. 2013. Nature’ Suit: Husserl’s Phenomenological Philosophy of the Physical Sciences. Athens: Ohio University Press. Humberstone, L. 1997. Two Types of Circularity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57: 249–280. Keefe, R. 2002. When Does Circularity Matter? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 102: 253–270. Klein, P. 2003. When Infinite Regresses Are Not Vicious. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66: 718–729. Lewis, D. 1986. A Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell. Morganti, M. 2015. Dependence, Justification and Explanation: Must Reality Be Well-Founded? Erkenntnis 80: 555–572. Schaffer, J. 2010. Monism: The Priority of the Whole. Philosophical Review 119: 31–76. Smith, M. 1993. Color, Transparency, Mind-Independence. In Reality, Representation, and Projection, ed. J. Haldane and C. Wright, 269–278. New York: Oxford University Press. Sokolowski, R. 1974. Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Zahavi, D. 2003. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Takeshi Akiba (Ph.D., Keio University) is Associate Professor at Chiba University. He is author of Shinri kara Sonzai e [From Truth to Reality] (Shunjusha, 2014) and coauthor of Gendai Keijijougaku [Contemporary Metaphysics] (Shinyosha, 2014). His research topics are the analytic metaphysics, the early phenomenology, and the contemporary metaethics.

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects Yutaka Tomiyama

Abstract  We often expect Husserl’s concept of intentionality to be the key to opening our minds to the world. The phenomenological sphere of consciousness is not a closed encapsulated sphere, but open to the world. The phenomenological method, however, forbids appealing to naïve realism exclusively as it concentrates on immanently accessible conscious experiences. How can these two features be compatible with one another? This paper examines this question while seeking to justify Husserl’s claim that an intentional object is the real and actual object itself, and transcendent in the sense that it is beyond our grasp of meanings. Keywords  Husserl · Intentionality · Intentional objects · Meaning

1  Introduction Many writers have emphasized that Husserl’s concept of intentionality means that the mind is open to the public outer real world, rather than closed within private internal encapsulated sphere. For example, Sokolowski wrote One of phenomenology’s greatest contributions is to have broken out of the egocentric predicament, to have checkmated the Cartesian doctrine. Phenomenology shows that the Mind is a public thing, that it acts and manifests itself out in the open, not just inside its own confines. Everything is outside. (Sokolowski, 2000, p. 12)

Of course, Husserl’s phenomenology imposes upon itself a methodological restriction. Husserl forces us to concentrate on our lived experience itself, not to use any theoretical hypothesis about the external world in order to explain the experiences that have occurred in it. Indeed, Husserl once characterized his own phenomenology as “descriptive psychology” in his early period. How, then, can phenomenologists assert that our mental acts successfully reach their true objects in the real world? In fact, Husserl himself actually asserted that the intentional objects Y. Tomiyama (*) Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_4

45

46

Y. Tomiyama

of our mental acts are transcendent actual objects themselves. Husserl explicitly asserts that “the intentional object of the presentation is the same as its actual, occasionally outer object, and it is absurd to distinguish them” (Hua XIX/1, p.  439). Why should we believe Husserl’s claim? In order to discuss this problem, I will pick up three points we can find in Husserl’s theory of intentionality first: The problem of non-existent objects, a kind of internalism about grasping meaning and a uniformity of intentionality regardless of the existence of the intended object. Secondly, I introduce three possible theoretical options to explain these three features. I will specifically discuss David Bell’s interpretation of “intentional objects,” Jaakko Hintikka’s theory to using possible world semantics and my own proposal inspired by and parallel to Michael Dummett’s interpretation of Frege’s theory of meaning. Thirdly, I will appraise all of these options. I will argue that only one of them shows promise, both philosophically and as a model for faithful interpretation of the early Husserl’s theory of intentionality. Finally, I will justify Husserl’s claim that an intentional object is the real, actual object itself, transcendent in the sense that it goes beyond our grasp of meanings.

2  Intentionality in Mind It is often emphasized that Husserl’s “mind” is open to the world, not enclosed within the world-less subjective sphere, thanks to its essential property called “intentionality.” Intentionality is the property that mental acts are acts about some particular relevant objects. We cannot imagine without imagining something, love without having something to love or think without thinking about something. These mental acts are our attitudes toward some particular objects. They are “directed” toward their objects in this sense. This directedness is called “intentionality”. Thus, Husserl’s “mind” is related to objects other than itself, in virtue of having intentionality. It is open to the world in this sense. Husserl’s phenomenology, however, is well known for its methodological constraint, to concentrate on the sphere of our own lived experiences and not to presuppose the existence of the outer world or its metaphysical structure, in explaining the structure and formation of our experiences themselves. The concept of intentionality looks like magic, then. It is the property of mind itself one can find without any metaphysical presuppositions, which can guarantee that our cognitive activities successfully reach reality. In contrast with the theories of ideas in early modern philosophy, which struggled to acquire such insurance for our knowledge, Husserl’s concept of intentionality may seem to be an illusion, or a mere dogmatic declaration of desirable properties. How can it be justified, without straying from Husserl’s original methodological insight? This is the leading question of my present paper. In order to argue about this in its detail, I will introduce three features of the early Husserl’s theory of intentionality: The problem of non-existent objects, a kind of internalism about grasping meaning and a uniformity of intentionality regardless of the existence of the intended object. These are, I argue, not only textual constraints

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects

47

on historically correct interpretations of Husserl’s thought but also substantial constraints on philosophically satisfactory explanations of our experiences. Firstly, the relevant object of a mental act sometimes fails to exist. In other words, we can have an experience of a non-existent object. It might sound paradoxical because it asserts that there is an object that is not there, and in fact, Husserl himself considers this problem of non-existent objects to be puzzling and, thus, struggles to find a satisfactory explanation (Hua XXII, p. 303). The phenomena mentioned here, however, are not so strange and found in broad area of our experiences. We can imagine fictional creatures like Pegasus and unicorns, or fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes. We can think about probable causal effects of some theoretically supposed entities like phlogiston, ether, or the planet Vulcan. We can desire unrealized and fascinating situations. We can prove the non-existence of the roots for some mathematical equations. These are all familiar and ordinary experiences to us, and any sufficient account of intentionality requires us to put these experiences in their proper place. Secondly, although intended objects themselves are usually regarded as transcendent, out of our minds, the directedness itself toward them is something internal to our mind. To explain this, let us take an example. I saw my friend take out a nice lunch box. I guess that “his wife is kind and loves him”. Since I have never met his wife and she is not here, the intended object herself is something external to my guessing experience in a sense. Namely, if someone were to ask me who his wife is, I can correctly answer that “I don’t know.” Even if someone asks if he is even married, I can answer “I’m not sure.” Although the intended object towards which my guessing experience is directed is external in this sense, the directedness itself is internal to my experience in certain sense. Indeed, if someone asks me if I mean my friend has gotten married, I cannot say “I’m not sure, I don’t know what ‘wife’ means”. Otherwise, I could have made this guess or held this belief, even if I don’t understand the concepts forming its content as constituents. In this case, what guarantees that I have experiences which have certain determinate contents as their own contents? How could you distinguish my declarations about a certain topic which I have experience with from mere delirium then? I can, as mentioned above, say “Yes, I mean I guess he has got married and his wife is kind, but I’m not sure whether it is correct.” However, I cannot say “I’m not sure what I mean.” To make this situation clearer, let’s take another example. If I believe that “29987 times 408 is larger than 12000000”, the intended object which is relevant to my belief is the number produced by the multiplication “29987 times 408”. This object itself is external to my belief in the sense that I can rightly say that I don’t know what the product exactly amounts to, without giving up the notion that I understand the content of my belief. In contrast, I cannot say that I don’t know what the product of natural numbers generally means, without admitting that I don’t understand the content of my alleged belief. The early Husserl himself pointed out this as “evidence of assertion” in the second logical investigation (Hua XIX/1, p. 206). Thirdly, proper explanations of intentionality must be uniform, regardless of the existence of the intended object. An example from mathematics might be helpful in

48

Y. Tomiyama

order to make this point clear. There are natural numbers called “perfect numbers”, whose divisors (except itself) sum to itself. For example, 6’s divisors are 1, 2, 3, 6. Since 6’s divisors except 6 itself sum to 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, 6 is a perfect number. It is still unknown whether there is an odd perfect number. While I can think about the smallest odd perfect number and its probable properties, I don’t know whether or not it exists. Still, I do know what I am thinking about. It is nothing but the smallest odd perfect number, which is precisely defined in relevant mathematical terms. Then, the intentional character which determines my directedness toward the particular relevant object, although I don’t know even the existence of the intended objects, has been perfectly formed and possessed in my mind already. I have never adjusted my way to think about the object in accordance with the existence of the object, since it has not been known to me yet. For this reason, the formation of the intentional character must be explained uniformly, in a manner which is available whether the intended object exists or not. Husserl as follows: “For the consciousness, the given is essentially the same, whether the presented object exists, or is invented, or maybe absurd.” (Hua XIX/1, p. 387) Therefore, interpretations denying this should be false at least as interpretations on the early Husserl (Simons 1995, p. 116).

3  Types of Theories In order to develop a theory of intentionality by explaining these three features appropriately, we must avoid relying upon the usual naive causal theory. Because it must explain the intentionality toward non-existent objects, intentionality cannot be explained by causal stimuli from its objects. Nevertheless, it is not trivially impossible to try to explain intentionality by appealing to some kind of relation. David Bell’s interpretation (or, more precisely, a kind of rational reconstruction) of Husserl’s early theory of intentionality is an example of such a relational theory, although Bell’s description contains some ambiguity and might be a mixture of a relational theory and an adverbial theory. Generally speaking, theories of intentionality are roughly classified into two types: relational theories and adverbial theories. The former attempts to explain intentionality appealing to some kind of relations between a mental act and its intentional object, while the latter does not appeal to any relations between the act and its object in explaining the directedness toward the object. Bell’s interpretation of the early Husserl’s theory of intentionality assumes every mental act the corresponding “intentional object,” even if it lacks a corresponding actual object in the real world. This is not so unnatural, at least when considered in relation to its original motivation. We can have a kind of mental act toward non-existent objects such as Pegasus and Sherlock Holmes. In these cases, although we don’t have actual corresponding objects in the real world, we can conceive of their shapes and other properties, i.e., we can have mental images and the like. Thus, it stands to reason that we have a right to say that we have some kind of “intentional objects” in our mind, even if their corresponding actual objects fail to exist in the real world. If this

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects

49

is true, intentionality can be explained by the relation between a mental act and its “intentional object.” Bell’s interpretation is this type of relational theory, at least in the sense that it supposes an “intentional object” corresponding to every mental act (Bell 1990, p. 138). He argues that adverbial theories have a difficulty that relational theories do not, in that the former cannot explain how mental acts are related to reality. Bell’s interpretation can be regarded, then, as an attempt to answer the same question as this present paper: how can we give a justified explanation of how intentionality is related to reality. His argument takes following steps. Adverbial theorists have no difficulty in explaining intentionality toward non-existent objects, because they construe intentionality as a particular way to think. If we understand intentionality in this way, then thinking about Sherlock Holmes poses no difficulties to us, because it is to think in a certain way, namely in a Sherlock-Holmes-directed-sortof-way. This is a mere simple adverbial modification of one’s way of thinking, and does not presuppose any relation to Sherlock Holmes or something corresponding it. It simply modifies what it is like to think in a way called a Sherlock-Holmesdirected-­sort-of-way. There is no need to suppose theoretical entities such as mental images which are supposed to exist and explain the intentionality even if the relevant actual object fails to exist. Their difficulty is, he argues, to explain why and how intentionality acquires a relation to reality. If intentionality is merely a way to think something expressible with an adverbial, it occurs completely within the mind. It is difficult, then, to explain how and why the intentionality can acquire any relation to reality, in the outer world. The only possible options are, he thinks, the following two ways. First, one might think we can combine two kinds of explanations. We use an adverbial theory in cases wherein the intended actual object fails to exist, while we use a relational theory to explain intentionality as appealing to a relation toward the intended actual object whenever it is available. As Bell correctly points out, this option violates the uniformity of intentionality (Bell 1990, p. 133). Second, one might choose an essentially adverbial theory uniformly, whether the intended object exists or not, and further identify the adverbially understood (way toward) “intentional object” as the real object itself, if there is any real object at all. This option, however, is not intelligible because it would “identify” an immanent way of thinking totally understood adverbially, totally within the mind, with an actual, real object in the outer world. It is not an intelligible usage of the concept of “identity.” Hence Bell argues that the only possible option is to admit that every mental act has an “intentional object” understood adverbially and suppose some kind of external relations weaker than identity, between those “intentional objects” and actual, real object (if any) (Bell 1990: 134). In this manner, Bell admits that the early Husserl’s theory of intentionality construed in this way fails to explain the relation to the reality. This is not the only way to explain those three features of intentionality, however. There is another way, which doesn’t suppose any “intentional objects” other than actual, real objects. In this sense, the option is a kind of adverbial theory. It is Hintikka’s intensionality approach (Hintikka 1975, p. 192–207). Hintikka utilizes possible world semantics and regards the intentionality as a function from possible

50

Y. Tomiyama

worlds into objects. In order to explain this idea, let’s take an example in which the intended object fails to exist. In the real world, there is no President of Japan. Nevertheless, the expression “the President of Japan” is understandable. We can understand the concept it expresses. There is no need for either the peculiar “intentional object” which is something other than the actual, real President of Japan or some kind of particular relation to it in order to explain this conceptuality. It is enough that we can choose a suitable object for satisfying the imposed condition “the President of Japan” in each possible situation where there is the President of Japan. To make it clearer, consider another example “the Prime Minister of Japan.” When we understand this concept, it suffices to choose a suitable person as the Prime Minister of Japan at that time, in each possible situation. No peculiar object other than each particular possible Prime Minister is needed, and we thus do not require any peculiar relation to explain it. Then, the content of a concept can be sufficiently explained by a function which designates the suitable object to each possible situation, or possible worlds. Since there might be some situations which lack a suitable object, it might be a partial function. This is not an essential difficulty, as long as the function picks the suitable objects appropriately, whenever they are. So far, I introduced two theoretical options to explain intentionality. These two theories do not exhaust our options, however. We also find a third option, in other words we find a kind of adverbial theory inspired by Michael Dummett’s interpretation of Frege’s theory of meaning. I will argue that this is the only defensible option. Since I will explain this option in more detail in the next two sections while contrasting it with some difficulties other two options contain, I am going to merely glance at the third option here. The option could be regarded as a kind of refinement or revision of the second option, Hintikka’s approach. Hintikka utilized a kind of model theoretic framework, namely possible world semantics. In the third approach, it is also essential that we can search for suitable objects, even if we do not know what they actually are or whether they exist or not. Take “the nearest desk in the classroom next door will be available and suitable” as an example. The intended object “the nearest desk in the classroom next door” has not been presented before my eyes yet, and it is also possible that there is no desk in the classroom next door in fact. Nevertheless, I can rightly assert that I have understood the content of my own guess, forming appropriate directedness toward a particular intended object. Even if it lacks a suitable object, it cannot be reduced to utter nonsense. How and why can I justify this? It is simply because I know the way to search for the suitable object, and I can thus check the existence of said suitable intended object and what it actually is. Although I did not even know whether or not the intended object exists, I have grasped its intentional content as this searching procedure. Therefore my search for the suitable intended object is not arbitrary. This guarantees the directedness even notwithstanding the absence or non-existence of the intended object.

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects

51

4  Which Theory? It is time to evaluate these three theoretical options to explain intentionality and argue for the most defensible option. First, I will dismiss the first, Bell’s option. It is not defensible as either an acceptably correct interpretation of the early Husserl’s theory of intentionality or as a sufficiently plausible philosophical theory of intentionality as such. Second, I will argue that the third option is better than the second, as both an interpretation of Husserl and as a philosophical theory. In order to dismiss the first option, we ought to first look at this crucial textual evidence from Husserl’s Logical Investigations. It is a serious mistake if one makes distinction between “mere immanent” objects or “intentional objects on the one hand, and “transcendent” object in the other hand. (Hua XIX/1, pp. 438–439)

Bell knows this text and cites it in his own arguments, however. Hence, it is not sufficient to merely point out the existence of this textual evidence. Bell knows that his argument is apparently inconsistent with Husserl’s text (Bell 1990, p. 133). He argued, however, that Husserl’s theory must be understood as he described it, because the identity that is seemingly required by Husserl’s text is impossible, at least if we follow an adverbialist reading. I will argue that there is no difficulty concerning this required identity. Bell thinks that the adverbialist must construe the “intentional object” adverbially, hence identify the mode of mental act expressed by an adverbial with the intended real, actual object in outer world, in order to explain the reality of objects. Since it is not an intelligible usage of the concept “identity,” Bell rejected the identity thesis. His mistake is, however, the first step of this argument. Adverbialists, both Hintikka style and Dummett style, have no need to identify the “intentional object” and something mental. In Hintikka’s approach, the mode of a mental act expressed by an adverbial, which forms the directedness toward an “intentional object,” is a function from possible worlds to objects. In this theory, the “intentional object” is the value of a function calculated with the input world where the subject actually lives. Generally speaking, the value of a function and the function itself need not be identified. Thus, we don’t have to identify the “intentional object” with intentional directedness itself, even if the latter is construed adverbially. The function guarantees the directedness toward an object, even before the intended value is actually calculated, namely before the subject comes to know what the object actually is and it appears before her eyes in person. Value as a calculated result, on the other hand, is the “intentional object,” i.e., the intended object itself, and has no need to be identified with the function itself. In the Dummettian approach, the situation is essentially the same. The “intentional object” is the result which is to be gained if the searching procedure successfully terminates. There is no reason why this result must be the procedure itself. Besides, Bell’s interpretation has another defect as an interpretation of Husserl’s early work. Bell’s interpretation requires every mental act have a corresponding “intentional object,” but Husserl himself explicitly denies this claim. Hence, Bell’s theory has two defects, at least as an interpretation of the early Husserl. I will argue

52

Y. Tomiyama

in the next two sections that these defects cause problems for Bell’s work as a philosophical theory as well, regardless of their relation to Husserl’s work. Hintikka’s approach, in contrast, is immune from these two defects. It has no difficulty in identifying the “intentional object” (the value of a function) and the real, actual object in outer world by not (necessarily) identifying them with anything in the mind. There is no difficulty, either, in admitting cases where the “intentional object” fails to exist in reality. While the existence of a function guarantees the directedness toward an object, and hence the meaningfulness of the content of a mental act, it does not necessarily require the existence of the value in every possible world, or even in the actual world. This lack of an intentional object doesn’t endanger the meaningfulness of the relevant mental act, because the lack of some values at some inputs doesn’t discard the existence and the meaningfulness of the function itself. Hintikka’s theory, however, has other two problems. First, it inevitably entails a difficulty in explaining how we grasp meaning. It utilizes a model theoretic framework containing an infinite number of possible worlds, most of which we do not live in and have no experience of. Because of this, we may face some difficulties when trying to explain how we could come to learn and grasp meanings whose characterizations contain references to a number of inaccessible1 possible worlds. At least in the standard set theoretic framework, a function is usually identified with a set whose members are pairs of input and output, forming a complete list assigning every input a corresponding output. Generally speaking, those functions used in Hintikka’s framework contain infinitely many possible worlds as inputs. How and when could we learn such immensely huge infinite lists, containing inaccessible other possible worlds as their inputs? Unless a proponent of this theory can explain this point, Hintikka’s suggestion has at least insufficient and misleading aspects. Secondly, Hintikka’s intensionalities expressed by such functions are too grossly meshed together for us to explain our grasp of meaning or mental contents in general. As Putnam rightly pointed out, such functions cannot distinguish logically or mathematically equivalent meanings or contents. Consider the concept “the smallest positive even number” and “the smallest prime number,” for example. These two concepts should assign the value “2” at every possible world necessarily. The meanings, however, seems to be different. Hintikka’s framework, at least under model theoretic and set theoretic settings, cannot explain differences among these necessarily co-extensional concepts. In the next section, I will argue that the Dummettian approach avoids these two difficulties Hintikka’s has, without falling into the problems Bell’s contains.

1  This means “we cannot experience it within our actual concrete experiences,” and not in the sense that it is an inaccessible possible world with respect to an accessible relation in the framework of possible world semantics.

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects

53

5  Intentional Directedness Hintikka’s approach captures the intuition that the intentional directedness itself can be understood even in the absence of intended object, as long as the subject grasps the way to assign the suitable object in accordance with the possible situations. While this main intuition is plausible enough, the framework utilizing possible worlds semantics is unnecessary, or a kind of excess. In order to think about “the largest mammal on earth”, for example, we do not need to survey the totality of all possible worlds and search for the largest mammals in each of them. As long as we know what the word “mammal” means, the concept of the size of animals and what the superlative “the largest on earth” means, we can check an arbitrary candidate whether it is the intended object or not whenever it is given as a candidate, and we can search for such candidates by ourselves. If someone thinks a fish could be a candidate or does not understand the concept of the size of animals, trying to check the hardness of scales, for example, we take this as a reason to doubt her understanding of the meaning and the directedness toward the relevant intended object. Nevertheless, we can check these things in our behavior in our own world, without referring to other possible worlds. The concrete procedure of searching for the object and checking given candidates suffices for forming the directedness toward particular relevant intended object. Any kind of peculiar theoretical entities like Bell’s “intentional objects” and references to other possible worlds inaccessible from our concrete experiences are needless. Consider the problem that Hintikka’s intension cannot distinguish the concepts necessarily co-extensional among all possible worlds, like mathematical concepts. “The smallest positive even number” and “the smallest prime number” necessarily always stand for the same number “2” regardless of the input from any possible world. This makes the function the same. The concrete procedures, however, to search for the intended value do not merge into the same procedure because of this fact. To search for the smallest natural number satisfying a given property A, the canonical procedure prescribes a step-by-step search, namely check A(0), and if A(0), then return 0 as searched answer, else check A(1), and if A(1), then return 1, else check A(2), and so on. As long as A is a decidable property, the whole search forms an effective semi-decidable procedure.2 Since both “positive even number” and “prime number” are decidable properties, they prescribe perfectly determined effective semi-decidable procedures before they terminate and return the actual intended value itself. In each case, however, the checking processes of each A(x) are different according to each property to check. We need to check only divisibility by 2 for the one case, and this is not sufficient in order to search prime number for the other. Even if two procedures necessarily return the same value for their final result, the whole process of computation can be different amongst the two of them. This 2  A decidable procedure is a well-defined inscription which ensures the answer can be determined as yes or no within finite steps in all cases, and a semi-decidable procedure ensure the answer yes within finite steps in positive cases. See, for example, Enderton 2001, pp. 61–65.

54

Y. Tomiyama

fact explains the possibility of having different meanings among necessarily co-­ extensional concepts, which Hintikka’s approach fails to explain. Take another example to clarify this third approach. It is unknown whether there exists an “odd perfect number” or not. However, we have a concrete procedure to decide whether a given candidate is an odd perfect number or not. Search its divisors and sum them up, and then compare the sum to the original number itself. This can be written down in any programming language or in other similar forms. Although the existence of the value and the value itself have not been known, the computational procedure to search for odd perfect numbers or “the smallest odd perfect number” has already determined, described unambiguously. The meaningfulness of the concept, or the directedness toward the particular object “the smallest odd perfect number” is guaranteed by this procedure. There is no need to explain this, appealing to anything like Bell’s “intentional objects” as theoretically assumed entities, nor utilizing abstract model theoretic framework, such as possible worlds semantics. Even in the absence of the intended object (like ‘the smallest odd perfect number’), the existence of the previously determined searching procedure can sufficiently explain and guarantee the formation of intentionality. This procedure, like the above mentioned computer program, for example, is easily distinguished from value as the terminal result. There is no need to identify these obviously different things as being the same, as Bell mistakenly called us to do. The procedure itself is determined before and regardless of the presence of the intended object. Husserl’s claim that objects are irrelevant to phenomenology can be construed as an expression of this fact (Hua XIX/1, p. 427). This is not harmful to the reality of objects, since it expresses the fact that the directedness toward an object is guaranteed by a searching procedure before the presence of the object, without denying that the procedure will finally result in the actual, real object.

6  The Status of Intentional Objects I have shown in the previous section that intentionality can be explained without assuming a corresponding intentional object to every mental act, or a model theoretic framework like possible world semantics, which makes giving an explanation how we can grasp meaning difficult. This approach has no need to assume duplicated conceptions of objects in order to explain the formation of intentional directedness toward an object. Why, however, we can assume this “intentional object” to be the actual one? Are there any reasons why it must be in the real world? How could we justify Husserl’s claim that the “intentional object” and the actual transcendent object are identical, denying the duplication of objects: double objects theory. The problem here is this. We have already argued that the directedness or our grasping of meaning, which forms intentionality toward a particular object, need not be identical with the intentional object intended in it, and that the latter need not be supposed as existent in all cases. This, however, should not directly lead us to think that the intended object must be the actual bearer of the supposed properties, i.e., the actual object in the real world. A searching procedure can give us a result other than

On the Transcendence and Reality of Husserlian Objects

55

the procedure itself, but the reason why this result must be the actual object in the real world as the actual bearer of the supposed properties seems to be far from clear. How can we refute the possibility of a hidden real object behind the intentional object which is different from both the real object and the meaning towards it. This requires further justification. The key to resolving this problem is a close relation between an object and a truth, as Husserl emphasizes in Logical Investigations (Hua XIX/1, p. 130, p. 106). An “intentional object” is a subject which a truth is true of. Husserl uses this conception everywhere in Logical Investigations, to distinguish acts with different intentional objects (cf. for example, Hua XIX/1, p. 177, p. 416, pp. 432–433). A proposition’s intentional object, for example, must be a state of affairs based on this reason. Consider the assertion that “the lion is still in the cage,” as per the wishes of the desperate zoo-keeper. If it is true, the proposition “the lion is still in the cage” is a constituent of the truth, as a subject of which it is true. Since the zoo-keeper hopes for a state of affairs in which the lion has remained in the cage, rather than hoping simply for the lion, the intentional object corresponding the proposition must be the state of affairs rather than the lion itself. Take another example: “All men should die” and “The class of all men should be dead” (cf. Hua Mat. I: 99). The former is probably true, while the latter cannot be true because classes are abstract objects, which cannot die. Since the same thing is true of the former and not of the latter, the intentional object “all men” and “the class of all men” are different. This shows that Husserl’s conception of intentional object is logical. It is not psychological, as it would be if it were something like mental images, because we have no clear images which distinctly separate “all men” and “the class of all men.” Another example comes from mathematics. Consider the truth that “the smallest prime number is even.” The intentional object “the smallest prime number” is nothing but the number 2 itself, because there are infinitely many truths about this object, and no number other than 2 can satisfy all of these properties. Needless to say, nothing other than numbers can be even, nor can anything that is not a number have most of other properties which the smallest prime number has. For this reason, supposing a hidden true object behind this intentional object would be nonsensical. We are talking about the number 2, and any other supposed “object” has nothing to do. This conception of intentional objects is very similar to the concept of “semantic value,” as it was introduced by Michael Dummett in order to understand the concept of Frege’s Bedeutung. Semantic values are features of expressions, necessary and sufficient to decide the truth value of sentences containing the expressions (Dummett 1978, p. 120). In order to check the truth value of a sentence, we must search for the semantic value of its constituents. Dummett construed Frege’s Sinn as this searching procedure (Dummett 1991, p. 143). Our interpretation of Husserl’s work runs parallel to this. I can assert that “the largest prime number less than 100 is odd” before I even know that the number is 97. My assertion is about the number 97, directed toward the number as its intentional object. This directedness is guaranteed by my knowing a searching ­procedure, how to search for the intentional object (as needed as semantic value like Frege’s Bedeutung) in order to decide its truth value before the result is actually presented before my eyes. This searching procedure is the assertion’s meaning, like Frege’s

56

Y. Tomiyama

Sinn. To make this situation clearer, we can take another example. We previously discussed before a situation in one expects that “the nearest desk in the classroom next door will be available and suitable”. When I make this guess, I grasp the meaning and form a directedness toward an intentional object. In this case, I already know the way to go to the next classroom and search for the aforementioned desk in my mind before I actually do this. The object I intended is the desk found after this procedure. This procedure is performed and satisfied by suitable actions and perceptions. When the intended object is successfully found, supposing any “real” object other than it and (in any sense) behind it is nonsensical. Since I intend the desk with usual perceptual properties, perceptions are essential constituents of its truth or justification, i.e., fulfillment in Husserl’s terminology. My expectation for the desk to be available already has these perceptions as possible justifications based on the meaning of the proposition alone, and anything without this fulfillment is useless. Because I intend the desk which I can see and touch in order to use in the usual way, anything without these fulfillments has nothing to do with my initial statement. Since we learn and grasp the very concepts of truth and object within the sphere of our experiences, these concepts have close and essential relations to possible fulfillments. Supposing any true, real object other than intentional object, the former of which lacks those relations to possible fulfillment, is not necessary to create a theory of intentionality. Husserl offers us an insight into this fact, and thus rightly emphasizes the reality and transcendence of the intended object simultaneously, without straying from the sphere of our experiences.

References Bell, David. 1990. Husserl, The Arguments of the Philosophers. London: Routledge. Dummett, Michael, Frege’s Distinction Between Sense and Reference. In Dummett, 1978, 116–144. ———. 1978. Truth and Other Enigmas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1991. The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, William James Lectures: 1976. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Enderton, Herbert B. 2001. A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, 2nd edn. Oxford: Harcourt Academic Press. Hintikka, Jakko. 1975. The Intentions of Intentionality and Other New Models for Modalities. Dordrecht: Reidel. Simons, Peter. 1995. Meaning and Language. In ed. Barry Smith et al., 106–137. Smith, Barry, and David Woodruf Smith, eds. 1995. Cambridge Companion to Husserl. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sokolowski, Robert. 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yutaka Tomiyama (Ph.D., The University of Tokyo) is Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo. He is one of the authors of Word Map: Contemporary Phenomenology (Shinyou-sha, 2017, in Japanese). His research areas are theories of intentionality, mainly the early Husserl’s. He interprets Husserl’s theories in comparison with theories of meaning in analytic tradition, especially Dummettian anti-­realist one.

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I Shigeru Taguchi

Abstract  Husserl’s concept of “primal I” (Ur-Ich) is well known but difficult to understand. In this chapter, I present a clue to figuring out what is at stake in this concept. First, I refer to Husserl’s claim that the primal I cannot be pluralized. This claim can be understood in the sense that this ego is neither one of many egos nor a single all-encompassing entity. Second, in order to show that this character of “neither-­one-nor-many” is not anything extraordinary, I shall refer to the fact that in natural languages we encounter this same character. Finally, I will address the problem of our fundamental perspective from which we most usually see the world. By doing this, I will claim that the seemingly strange character of the “primal I” indicates an experience that is “too obvious” to face in our daily life. Keywords  Husserl · Primal I (Ur-Ich) · Ego · Plurality · Naturalness · Obviousness · Intersubjectivity · Language

1  Introduction It is well known that in his later years, Edmund Husserl discussed the notion of “primal I (Ur-Ich).”1 Unfortunately, this concept has rarely been explored in the literature regarding Husserl’s phenomenology.2 However, this fact does not indicate that this concept is insignificant. Husserl speaks of the “primal I” not only in his  An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the conference Consciousness and the World at Tongji University in Shanghai, held on June 3–4, 2016. I appreciate the valuable comments I received from participants at the conference, which helped me to elaborate the ideas in this paper. 2  There is only one monograph on “primal I.” See Taguchi 2006. Only a few authors have discussed it in detail in their books or articles. See Theunissen 1965, Zahavi 1996, 2015, Micali 2008, and Niel 2011. 1

S. Taguchi (*) Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_5

57

58

S. Taguchi

research manuscripts, but also in his last published work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. In the Crisis, the “primal I” forms a culmination of his extensive discussion concerning transcendental phenomenology. The “primal I” appears in the final paragraphs (§54 and §55) of part IIIA of the book. This fact indicates that the “primal I” is more than a temporary thought. Rather, it is a key concept that touches the core of the phenomenology which Husserl had in mind. What, then, is the “primal I”? Does it suggest that, apart from the ego in our daily experience, there is an ego that transcends every ordinary experience? Are we forced to recognize here that with this concept, Husserl goes beyond the phenomenologically given and into a speculative venture? In this paper, I claim that Husserl’s concept of the “primal I” is not a deviation from, but rather a necessary consequence of, the basic principle of phenomenology. What is the most central principle of phenomenology? As Husserl remarks in Ideas I, the “principle of all principles” for phenomenology is to assign maximum value to what is appearing, i.e., what is given as phenomenon.3 If we cannot immediately understand what Husserl refers to as “primal I,” it is not because the “primal I” does not appear to us in our experience, but rather because we do not sufficiently respect what is given as phenomenon. Is it not conceivable that, in the face of the “primal I,” we are distracted from what is really given because our attention is usually attracted to abstract constituents which obscure the actually given? In order to answer this question, I will refer to Husserl’s claim that the primal ego cannot be pluralized, and interpret his claim to mean that this ego is neither one of many egos nor a single all-encompassing entity. Second, in order to show that this character of “neither-one-nor-many” is not anything metaphysical, I shall give examples of several instantiations of this in natural languages. Finally I will address the problem of our fundamental perspective from which we most usually see the world. By doing this, I will claim that the seemingly strange character of the “primal I” indicates an experience that is “too obvious” to face in our daily life. What is at stake here is not something “beyond” natural experience, but the experience that is, in a sense, “more natural” than the common experience that we are usually conscious of  — because true naturalness is not easily noticeable due to its extreme obviousness.

2  The Problem of “Primal I” in the Crisis In §54 of the Crisis Husserl criticizes “the naïveté of our first approach” (Hua VI, p 185/182). He thinks that what was lacking in his previous discussion was a consideration of the ego in its profound meaning and its pluralization. He remarks as follows. The ego was mentioned as the subject matter of the highest level of reflection; but in the careful analytic-descriptive procedure, which naturally favors the more detailed interconnections, it did not receive its full due. For the depths of its functioning being make  See Hua III/1, §24.

3

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I

59

t­hemselves felt only belatedly. In connection with this, what was lacking was the phenomenon of the change of signification of ‘I’ – just as I am saying ‘I’ right now – into ‘other I’s,’ into ‘all of us,’ we who are many ‘I’s,’ and among whom I am but one ‘I.’ What was lacking, then, was the problem of the constitution of intersubjectivity – this ‘all of us’ – from my point of view, indeed ‘in’ me. (Hua VI, p. 186/182)

In this passage, Husserl first calls our attention to the “depths” of the ego’s functioning being. Then he points out that there is a peculiar phenomenon of “the change of signification of ‘I’ […] into ‘other I’s’.” This phenomenon can be construed as the phenomenon of the pluralization of ‘I.’ Through this constitution of the plural of ‘I,’ I become ‘one I’ amongst many others. Finally, the last sentence of the quote clearly shows that the intersubjectivity is constituted “in me.” Note that in this passage Husserl distinguishes between two different meanings of “I.” First, “I” refers to “I among others.” In this sense, I am only one subject which has been integrated into a plurality of egos. Second, “I” signifies the place where the very intersubjective plurality of egos is constituted. In this sense, “I” cannot be a mere member of an intersubjective plurality, because it would be contradictory if the whole of intersubjectivity is constituted in a member as its part. If we consider this contradiction simply to be a “fact” that we must accept, then we would be too lazy to even be called philosophers. According to Husserl, “philosophers cannot be content with such naïveté” (Hua VI: 184/180). When Husserl speaks of an “essential equivocation” in regard to the concept of “I,” he is apparently thinking of the two aforementioned meanings of “I.” The ‘I’ that I attain in the epoché, which would be the same as the ‘ego’ within a critical reinterpretation and correction of the Cartesian conception, is actually called ‘I’ only by equivocation – though it is an essential equivocation (Hua VI, p. 188/184; see also Hua XV, p. 586).

In this way, Husserl makes clear that the meaning of the word “I” is not as obvious as we usually think. It contains a fundamental ambiguity that cannot be dissolved simply by assuming that there are two different concepts of “I.” Rather, “I” must be a complex but unitary phenomenon whose essential components are the “I among others” and the “I” in which intersubjectivity is constituted. “I” can be considered to be the phenomenon of mediation between these two aspects. This view is also indicated in a passage which is again found in §54 of the Crisis, where Husserl criticizes his previous description. [I]t was wrong, methodically, to jump immediately into transcendental intersubjectivity and to leap over the primal ‘I,’ the ego of my epoché, which can never lose its uniqueness and personal indeclinability. It is only an apparent contradiction to this that the ego – through a particular constitutive accomplishment of its own – makes itself declinable, for itself, transcendentally; that, starting from itself and in itself, it constitutes transcendental intersubjectivity, to which it then adds itself as a merely privileged member, namely, as ‘I’ among the transcendental others. (Hua VI, p. 188–9/185)4 4  This passage clearly shows that the problem of “primal I” is addressed in relation to the problem of intersubjectivity. In principle, the concept of “primal I” is strongly connected to the fundamental constitution of intersubjectivity. This applies at least to the works Husserl officially published. Zahavi seems to miss this point when he criticizes my work (Taguchi 2006) for ignoring the con-

60

S. Taguchi

In this passage, it is shown that the phenomenon of “I” consists in a mediation between the “primal I” on the one hand and the “I among others” on the other. Usually we leap over the primal I because it is difficult for us to be reflectively aware of it. However, without this hardly recognizable dimension, there is no phenomenon of “I.” The primal I is always presupposed in a pre-reflective way when I am aware of myself as “I.” How can we understand this strange concept of “primal I”? In a sense, the primal I precedes intersubjectivity because the latter is constituted “in” the former. But what does this mean?

3  Primal I Is Neither One Nor Many Allow me to examine some interpretations of “primal I.”5 Imagine that there is an ego which precedes the constitution of intersubjectivity. If it is merely “an” ego that can be opposed to other egos, it can be called a solitary ego. This is because, despite the existence of other egos, it cannot have a relationship with them. Michael Theunissen adopts this interpretation.6 However, this is not tenable for the following reasons. First, given that I cannot have any relationship with others, these others are supposed to exist although they do not appear to me. However, we cannot be phenomenologically justified in assuming that there are entities that lack any appearance. It is unlikely that Husserl would assert the existence of such entities. Second, if we assume that there are other egos outside of a solitary ego that has no relation with them, this would mean, in any case, that we have assumed that there is a plurality of egos. Many egos are already there, but factually they have no relation to each other. However, Husserl clearly denies this understanding of the primal I. He says that in a radical epoché, “I am not a single individual who has somehow willfully cut himself off from the society of mankind, perhaps even for theoretical reasons, or who is cut off by accident, as in a shipwreck, but who nevertheless knows that he still belongs to that society” (Hua VI, p. 188/184). What should be suspended by the epoché is the very sense of intersubjective plurality itself. The question here is how the valid sense of intersubjective plurality is constituted. To examine this sense of intersubjectivity, we cannot keep it in its usual validity. It should be suspended and bracketed. If this epoché is radicalized, we cannot suppose that there are other egos outside of a solitary ego. We cannot even think that there is a “solitary” ego, because “solitude” already implies the non-existence of others, and

nection between “primal I” and “primal consciousness” (Zahavi 2015, p. 7). I do not deny that there is a connection between them, but the problem of primal consciousness should be distinguished from the problem of primal I, insofar as the former is analyzed without regard to intersubjectivity. 5  The following discussion of this section is based on Chapter V of Taguchi 2006. 6  Theunissen 1965, 151ff.

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I

61

thus implicates the sense of plural egos.7 After the radicalized epoché, the primal ego “allows no meaningful multiplication” (Hua XV, p. 590). Next, I shall examine another seemingly possible interpretation of “primal I.” If the “primal I” precedes the sense of intersubjectivity and has no other egos outside it, it might be understood as a single metaphysical ego that gives rise to all egos including “my” ego. According to this interpretation, all egos are derivatives of this “great” ego as the sole origin. However, Husserl seems to reject this kind of understanding. In the passage I quoted above, he rephrases “primal I” as “the ego of my epoché” (Hua VI, p. 188/185). This means that the primal I cannot be considered as a metaphysical ego that goes far beyond the existence of my ego, but rather it is “this” me who is closest to myself, who is thinking and performing the epoché. After Husserl speaks of “an essential equivocation” concerning the “I,” he remarks as follows: [W] hen I name it [i.e. I in its equivocation] in reflection, I can say nothing other than: it is I who practice the epoché, I who interrogate, as phenomenon, the world which is now valid for me according to its being and being-such, with all its human beings (Hua VI, p. 188/184).

This description does not suggest that the ego in the radical epoché would be a “great” ego beyond myself. Rather, this indicates that each one of us is the “primal I” when we practice the epoché by ourselves. Let me summarize the results of the previous discussion. On the one hand, the primal I cannot be interpreted as one of many egos that is dissociated from others for whatever reason. This is because it can only be disclosed by the radicalized epoché in which the sense of intersubjective plurality is no longer valid. After this epoché, we cannot simply assume that there are many egos. That is why we cannot think that the primal I is an ego that has factually lost contact with others. On the other hand, the primal I cannot be construed as a single metaphysical ego that goes beyond myself and others. It cannot be said that the primal I is a trans-individual One that gives rise to all individuals as its derivatives. Thus, we can conclude that the primal I is neither one of many egos nor the absolute One as the sole origin of the plural of subjectivity. We can neither say that there are many primal I’s nor that there is the numerically single primal I. We should say that the primal I is neither one nor many.8 Eugen Fink points out that in Husserl’s research manuscripts there is a peculiar thought that the “most original depth of life” is the primal ground which originates the bifurcation between fact and essence, actuality and possibility, instance and species, as well as the bifurcation of the one and the many.9 We can agree with Fink that Husserl meant to illuminate a dimension preceding the dichotomy of the one and the 7  In this sense, Husserl’s description of ego’s “unique sort of philosophical solitude” in the epoché seems misleading. Antonio Aguirre also remarks that in regard to the unique I such an expression as “solus ipse” loses its meaning (Aguirre 1982, pp. 44–45). 8  Schelling also says that “I” is neither one nor many in the empirical sense. See Schelling 1958, p. 107. However, Schelling emphasizes the absolute unity of the I that is distinguished from empirical unity. 9  Fink 1976, p. 223.

62

S. Taguchi

many. However, Fink’s description suggests that such a dimension lurks in an invisible “depth of life.” It is true that we are not reflectively aware of such a dimension in our everyday life, but the “depth of life” sounds as if the dimension in which the primal I is situated is distanced from our natural life as an ego. Let me ask now: Is it true that the primal I is something unusual that we cannot find in our everyday life? To grasp it, do we need something special like a speculative adventure or a mystical practice? In the next sections, I would like to address these questions.

4  Neither-One-Nor-Many in Everyday Language Let me first temporarily leave the problem of “primal I” to examine whether the idea of “neither-one-nor-many” in general can be found in our everyday life. If this is the case, then we are not obliged to conclude that the “primal I” is something “extramundane” because of its “strange” character of neither-one-nor-many. We tend to think that what we find objectively in the natural world of experience is either singular or plural. However, in natural language, there are many expressions that signify something that is neither singular nor plural. In the English language, we can find uncountable nouns such as “baggage,” “furniture,” or “food.” We cannot say whether the “baggage” itself is one or many. If we simply say “baggage,” what it signifies is neither one nor many. Starting from the idea of “baggage” that is neither one nor many, we can only express a singular or a plural form by adding further determinations. For example, we can say “a piece of baggage” or “two pieces of furniture.” “Baggage” or “furniture “itself is neither singular nor plural. In Asian languages, this phenomenon is much more common. For example, In Japanese language, nouns have basically no plural forms. If one says “Tori ga tondeiru (鳥が飛んでいる),” this can mean “a bird is flying” or “birds are flying.” To specify whether “tori (鳥 bird)” is singular or plural, other words must be added (ichiwano一羽の, takusanno たくさんの, etc.). As far as I know, this is also the case in Chinese and Korean language. Certainly there must be many other examples of this across the globe. These examples show that in order to find something that is “neither one nor many,” we do not need to go beyond the natural world. It is precisely our daily experience which is full of instances of “neither-one-nor-many.” We might even be able to assume that such a way of referring to something is more fundamental than thinking of it as singular or plural. Our very original encounter with worldly things might not be unilaterally determined by the dichotomy of singularity and plurality. However, I will not enter into this problem here. In any case, the “neither-one-nor-many” is not a sign of extramundane transcendence, but a common phenomenon that can be found everywhere in natural experience. Therefore, it is at least possible to think that the primal I which is “neither one nor many” is not something extramundane, but rather refers to something which is quite familiar to our natural experience. What Husserl described as “primal I” might

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I

63

be a considerably obvious character of the “I,” which we usually do not notice, just as we tend to ignore the fact that there are many instances in our natural languages that show the character of “neither-one-nor-many.” Let us examine, next, the word “I” in our natural language. In a manuscript, Husserl points to the fact that we do not say “an I” in our everyday language. An I – is not I. I do not have a second next to me of whom I can say: That is I. This is red – this is also red. That is a house – that is another house. That is I – an I, that is also an I. But we never say: an I.10

Different from such words as “house” or “tree,” the word “I” does not have a plural form. “I” allows no plural (Ms. B I 14/127a). It is not possible as well to expressly signify that “I” is singular, so that we cannot say “an I.” Thus we can say that “I” is also neither one nor many. The word “I” itself is not unique, not for someone’s exclusive use. “I” is always “I” no matter who uses this word. However, what “I” refers to is, according to Husserl, “absolutely individual” (Ms. B I 14/138a). The idea of “I” that we have in mind when we use this word is absolutely universal in one aspect, while at the same time it is absolutely individual in another aspect. However, in any case, when we say “I,” we neither imagine a single comprehensive entity called “I” nor think of “I” in a plural form. Every time we say “I,” we are involved in that peculiar idea of “I” which has the character of “neither-one-nor-­ many.” We should admit that this seemingly strange character of “I,” which is unique to Husserl’s “primal I,” is quite familiar to our natural life, or even too familiar for us to view it at a distance.

5  Exclusive and Primal Perspective In the previous section, I showed that the character of “neither-one-nor-many” is not necessarily a sign of extramundane transcendence. Especially the word “I,” which we frequently use in our everyday life, shows this character. Now we can go further to examine whether this character can be found in our basic natural experience of the world. Let me first ask the following question: Have you ever viewed the world from a perspective that is not yours? Is there anyone who can answer this question with a “yes”? We may also ask more simply: Have you ever left your own perspective in your life? Given that you have left your perspective, you must either say that you are not you anymore because you cannot see the world from your perspective, or you must say that the new perspective that you take after leaving the previous one is now exactly yours, and as such you still see everything only from your perspective. We might be unsettled by this consideration. The world we believed in might begin to seem shaky and uncertain. If this is the case, then we are contaminated by a dogma  Ms. B I 14/138a: My translation. Cited from Taguchi 2006, p. 159. I partly consulted the translation of this passage by James Hart (1992, p. 165).

10

64

S. Taguchi

that is found in a hidden presupposition of our view – the dogma that the world viewed from “my” perspective is merely relative and uncertain. Against this dogma, phenomenology opens our eyes to a view that the world viewed from “my” perspective is nothing other than the actual world as it is. That is why Husserl characterizes phenomenology as a “peculiar science” dealing with “the disparaged δόξα, which now suddenly claims the dignity of a foundation for science, ἐπιστήμη” (Hua VI, p. 158/155–6). What is called the “objective world” is nothing other than the world that is viewed from “my” perspective because I can never go beyond this perspective. We tend to say that the world viewed from my perspective is relative and restricted, and as such it is different from the worlds viewed from perspectives of others. When we think of this situation, my perspective and those of others are juxtaposed and opposed to each other. However, the very perspective from which I see the world in the most original way cannot be opposed to the perspectives of others. The most original place where even the opposition between my perspective and those of others is experienced and understood – that is my original perspective.11 Let us go back to the “obviousness” (Selbstverständlichkeit) of our natural life. When we live embedded in the world, we are not aware of the fact that the world is viewed from “my” perspective. It seems that the world is simply the world as it is. Note that phenomenology does not deny this simple view. If there is an objective world, it cannot be anything different from what it is when it is appearing to us. As soon as we begin to think that the appearance of the world is merely subjective and private, and that there is the true world behind it, we are caught in the common trap called “the riddle of epistemology.” As Husserl points out, as soon as we separate the representation of the world from the world as it is, we fall into the following riddle: How can we recognize the true world behind its appearance? (Hua XV, p. 553) In order to avoid this riddle, we have to start from the basic fact that the objective world can only constitute itself in its appearing to “me.” This means that the view from my perspective is not essentially different from the world as it is. The world itself appears exactly in the experience that I go through from my perspective. It is true that the phenomenon of the world is mediated by perspectival appearances, but what we are aware of through them is not each one-­ sided appearance, but the world as it is. Let us think about the perspectives of others. In my natural life, when I am not particularly aware of my own perspective, what I am conscious of is simply the world as it is. Similarly, I am not aware of other perspectives that are different from mine. The world is experienced as one and the same, whether it is viewed by me or by others. It is not important who experiences the world. However, sometimes my view comes into collision with the view of another. It is at this moment that the world viewed from my perspective is opposed to the one viewed from another perspective. Nevertheless, this opposition does not split the world into separate fragments. This opposition is always a conflict over “one and the same world,” so that it can be resolved and the opponents are led back to the ­identical world in such a way that either one of the two is wrong. Or it is also possible that 11

 See also a detailed discussion on the primitive perspective of our subjective life in Taguchi 2018.

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I

65

the two different views are compatible because they reflect two different aspects of the same world. In this case, the opposition is also dissolved. In any case, as far as the natural experience of the world is concerned, my world and another’s world cannot stand side by side as two incompatible worlds. Even if there are conflicts and oppositions, they are always subsumed into the same world, insofar as they at least occur in the same world. Note that this same world, which precedes all oppositions, is always experienced by me. It follows that in my basic natural experience I am not aware of my experience in opposition to another’s experience. In this way, we can distinguish between two different modes of self-awareness of my perspective. 1. My perspective as opposed to other perspectives, which can be called “my exclusive perspective.” 2. My perspective that is not opposed to other perspectives, which can be called “my primal perspective.” The reason why the latter is called the “primal perspective” is that in our world experience, it is rather rare that my perspective drastically conflicts with the perspective of others. It is true that our everyday life is full of disagreements and differences of opinions, but the overwhelmingly greater part of the world is still presupposed by both sides of oppositions as “objective reality.” This objective reality is also experienced by me, but I do not think that this reality is exclusively given to me. I would like to ascribe such a mode of experience to a “primal perspective.” It is not necessary to think that in this perspective, my view and other views merge into one. Merging is only meaningful in contrast to opposition. If there is an opposition, it is also meaningful to speak of merging. However, before all opposition, nothing can merge. If the “primal perspective” precedes the opposition of our views, it also precedes every merging. Originally, I see the world from such a perspective, in which others and myself are neither opposed nor merged into one. This view is obviously related to the “neither-one-nor-many” character of the primal I. The above discussion in the Sect. 4 shows that this seemingly odd character can be found in our natural world-experience. As we have discussed, in our very basic, primal mode of world-experience, the opposition between my view and other views does not necessarily play an essential role. This does not mean that there is something like God’s perspective at the starting point of our world-­experience, which goes beyond my own perspective. Rather, the “primal” perspective is “my” perspective from which I see the world in the most elemental and ordinary way, where this “my” does not signify my exclusive perspective. Even when there is a conflict between my view and other views, this opposition of views is also experienced from “my” primal perspective. In short, there is a perspective that is experienced by me, but is not confined to my exclusive perspective. We can neither understand such a “primal” perspective as one of many perspectives that are opposed to each other, nor as a God’s perspective which encompasses all perspectives. Rather, what is at stake here is an extremely simple and obvious view that does not attract attention because it is always present and forms a permanent background of all of my experience. With the term “primal I” Husserl arguably refers to such a dimension in our experience which has been described above as the “primal perspective.”

66

S. Taguchi

6  Transcendental Uncovering of Naturalness In light of the previous discussion, one might wonder how to understand the situation that the character of “primal I,” which is a kind of transcendental ego, is also found in our natural world-experience. Does this not mean that we have mixed up the transcendental with the natural? If one thinks that talking about natural experience cannot have a transcendental meaning, then one has made the mistake of believing that natural and transcendental experience belong to two different regions that exclude each other. Instead, in Husserl’s phenomenology, transcendental consideration means reflectively disclosing the true state of natural experience that does not manifest itself in the ongoing natural attitude. A phenomenologist does not go beyond natural life. Rather, she stays in the midst of it. Still, she does not simply live it through, but instead makes its essential features apparent from the inside. Transcendental reflection means breaking through the barriers of superficial, supposed naturalness to go back to the true naturalness of experience.12 It is exactly this true naturalness which does not stand out in everyday natural life. That is why it looks unfamiliar when it is disclosed by the epoché that suspends more superficial natural constituents. The “neither-one-nor-many” character of the primal I looks strange exactly in this sense. As has been discussed above, if we take a closer look, the character of “neither-one-nor-many” can also be found in everyday experience. However, we usually forget this fact because we are caught up in the cycle of the abstract way of seeing that is close at hand. The dichotomy between one and many belongs to this cycle. It is necessary to break this cycle in order to make ourselves aware of what is truly natural in our experiencing life. Such an uncovering of the true, therefore hardly noticeable naturalness, is an essentially phenomenological praxis. This is why Husserl emphasizes the following trait of phenomenology since his early work, the Logical Investigations. [The philosopher] must surely also know that it is precisely behind the obvious that the hardest problems lie hidden, that this is so much so, in fact, that philosophy may be paradoxically, but not unprofoundly, called the science of the trivial. In the present case at least what seems at first quite trivial, reveals itself, on closer examination, as the source of deep-­ lying, widely ramifying problems. (Hua XIX/1, p. 350/76)13  For Husserl, the transcendental question can be formulated as follows: “How is the naïve obviousness of the certainty of the world, the certainty in which we live—and, what is more, the certainty of the everyday world as well as that of the sophisticated theoretical constructions built upon this everyday world—to be made comprehensible?” (Hua VI, p. 99/96) Husserl also describes the subjective phenomena in the life-world as follows. “It is a realm of something subjective which is completely closed off within itself, existing in its own way, functioning in all experiencing, all thinking, all life, thus everywhere inseparably involved; yet it has never been held in view, never been grasped and understood” (Hua VI, p. 114/112). 13  This view was not abandoned after the transcendental turn of Husserl’s phenomenology. In Einleitung in die Philosophie of 1922/23, Husserl repeats almost the same statement (Hua XXXV, p. 8). As for the interpretation of phenomenological praxis as “science of the obvious,” see also Taguchi 2006, Chapter I. 12

Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I

67

7  Conclusion In the face of the concept of “primal I,” we tend to think that it indicates something extraordinary lurking behind our everyday consciousness. However, the reason why we are not usually aware of the phenomenon of “primal I “is not that it is something unusual and exceptional, but that it is too close to our own experiencing life. One of the achievements of phenomenology is to reveal that our consciousness is usually fixed to static transcendent objectivities, and due to this we are not aware of the incessantly changing and flowing experience that we live through very closely. The “primal I” is nothing other than a faithful development of this kind of basic phenomenological idea, namely, the idea of making visible what is invisible due to its extreme proximity. If the “primal I” with its neither-one-nor-many character appears bizarre, it is not because the “primal I” is exceptional, but because it is too obvious and familiar to be noticed as a distinct object of experience – just as seeing itself is not visible in sight.

References14 Aguirre, A. 1982. Die Phänomenologie Husserls im Licht ihrer gegenwärtigen Interpretation und Kritik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Fink, E. 1976. Nähe und Distanz. Phänomenologische Vorträge und Aufsätze. Freiburg/München: Karl Alber. Hart, J. 1992. The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics. Dordrecht: Springer. Husserl, E. 1954. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Husserliana, Bd. VI, Hrsg. v. W. Biemel, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. (= Hua VI) ———. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. D. Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1973. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935. Husserliana, Bd. XV, Hrsg. v. I. Kern, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff (= Hua XV). ———. 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. 1. Halbband, Husserliana, Bd. III/1, Neu hrsg. v. K. Schuhmann, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff (= Hua III/1). ———. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. I. Teil. Hrsg. v. U. Panzer, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff (= Hua XIX/1). ———. 2001. Logical Inverstigations, Volume II. Trans. J. N. Findlay, ed. D. Moran. London/ New York: Routledge.

 Which is abbreviated as Hua followed by the roman numeral corresponding to the volume. The volume numbers of Husserliana are shown in the reference list. (E.g. “Hua XXXV” refers to the volume 35 of Husserliana [Husserl 2002].) The English translations of the quotes from the Crisis are taken from D. Carr’s translation (Husserl 1970), whose pages are shown after a slash (e.g. Hua VI, 188/184). The translation of a passage from Logical Investigations is taken from J. N. Findlay’s translation (Husserl 2001), where pages are shown in the same way.

14

68

S. Taguchi

———. 2002. Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23. Hrsg. V.  B. Goossens, Dordrecht: Springer (= Hua XXXV). Micali, S. 2008. Überschüsse der Erfahrung. Grenzdimensionen des Ich nach Husserl. Dordrecht: Springer. Niel, L. 2011. Absoluter Fluss – Urprozess – Urzeitigung. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Schelling, F.W.J. 1958. Schellings Werke, ed. Bd. I, M. Schröter. München: C.H. Beck. Taguchi, S. 2006. Das Problem des,Ur-Ich’ bei Edmund Husserl. Die Frage nach der selbstverständlichen,Nähe’ des Selbst. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2018. Non-contextual Self: Husserl and Nishida on the Primal Mode of the Self. In The Realizations of the Self, ed. A. Altobrando, T. Niikawa, and R. Stone, 31–46. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Theunissen, M. 1965. Der Andere. Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart. Berlin: de Gruyter. Zahavi, D. 1996. Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität. Eine Antwort auf die sprachpragmatische Kritik. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2015. Vindicating Husserl’s Primal I. In Phenomenology in a New Key: Between Analysis and History, ed. J. Bloechl and N. de Warren, 1–14. Dordrecht: Springer. Shigeru Taguchi (Ph.D., University of Wuppertal) is Professor at Hokkaido University. He is the author of Das Problem des “Ur-Ich” bei Edmund Husserl. Die Frage nach der selbstverständlichen “Nähe” des Selbst (Springer, 2006) and editor of Perception, Affectivity, and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology (with R. Walton and R. Rubio, Springer 2017). His recent publications include Reduction to Evidence as a Liberation of Thinking in Metodo, Vol.1, No.1, 2013. His research topics are phenomenology, philosophy of consciousness, and Japanese philosophy.

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value Toru Yaegashi

Abstract  We seem to have some knowledge of the value the things around us have. And some of our knowledge of value seems to be acquired through affective experiences, i.e., by our emotions. In this paper, I will give an account of the relationship between emotions and knowledge of values, largely based on Edmund Husserl’s theory of perception of value (Wertnehmung). First, I will give a pro tanto justification of the idea that affective cognition of value exists. Then, I will briefly introduce two different accounts of affective cognition of value from early phenomenology: one account supported by Husserl, the other by Max Scheler (among others). By comparing these two accounts, I will argue that the Husserlian account is more promising of the two. It deals with emotions in analogy with sense perception. Thus, it can be regarded as one form of a perceptual account of emotion, which is quite popular in the contemporary philosophy of emotion. I will argue for the plausibility of the perceptual account of emotion in general, and then, at the end of the chapter, I will argue that my own, Husserl-inspired version of the perceptual account is a valid way of explaining our cognition of values. Keywords  Emotion · Value · Knowledge · Perception · Perceptual account of emotion · Edmund Husserl

1  Introduction The environment around us is always filled with things that have positive and negative values. Writing this passage, I am looking at a laptop computer on my desk, a cherry blossom blooming outside the window, and a car running in front of my house at breakneck speeds; I am hearing noises coming from the construction work going on in the neighborhood, and news about a murder case on the radio. All these things that I perceive have some values. By “value” I mean properties things have or

T. Yaegashi (*) Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Hiroshima, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_6

69

70

T. Yaegashi

do not have, whether positive (their goodness, beauty, ease of use, etc.) or negative (their badness, ugliness, discomfort, danger, etc.). We can have – at least, apparently – a knowledge of the value things have. Some of our knowledge of values seems to be acquired through our affective experiences, i.e., by having some emotions. For example, you may think it dangerous to walk in the forest at night, after your first experience of doing so caused you to shiver with fear. Or you may find Donald’s treatment of Mary unacceptable and get annoyed with him when you hear him make a sexist remark to her. In these cases, you are exercising a kind of cognition that includes an emotion as an essential component. It is neither a perceptual cognition of natural facts, nor a cognition by inference. It seems to be a sui generis affective cognition of value. In this paper, I will propose an account of the relationship between emotions and knowledge of value, largely based on Husserl’s theory of perception of value. First, I will give a pro tanto justification of the idea that affective cognition of value exists (1). Then, I will briefly introduce two different accounts of affective cognition of values from early phenomenology: one account supported by Husserl, the other by Scheler (among others) (2). By comparing these two accounts, I will argue that the Husserlian account is more promising of the two. It deals with emotions as being analogous with sense perception. Thus, Husserl’s account can be regarded as one form of a perceptual account of emotion, which is quite popular in the contemporary philosophy of emotion (3). I will argue for the plausibility of the perceptual account of emotion in general (4), and then, at the end of the paper, I will show that my own, Husserl-inspired version of the perceptual account is a valid way of explaining our cognition of values (5).

2  Emotions and Knowledge of Value Our affective experience, as a whole, contains various kinds of experiences. Among them, one class of experiences is called emotions, in other words the class which includes the classic examples of joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, etc. What these mental episodes have in common is that they are always about something. In other words, emotions are intentional experiences. We experience the joy of a friend’s visit, the sadness of a grandmother’s death, the fear of earthquakes, the anger at a colleague’s rude behavior, and the disgust at a rotten egg. Sometimes our emotions do not have a specific, well-articulated intentional object. However, we cannot have an emotion that entirely lacks an intentional object. If an episode in your affective life does not have an intentional object, it is not an emotion but a mood. Anxiety and depression are standard examples of moods. There are many kinds of intentional experiences. What, then, is the characteristic of emotions that distinguishes them from other kinds of intentional experiences? When I am glad that my friend has come to visit, I take this particular event as something delightful; when I am afraid of earthquakes, I regard a disaster that might happen in the future as dangerous. The intentionality of emotions can be

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

71

c­ haracterized, in the first place, as representing something which has a positive or negative value. In other words, those intentional experiences that ascribe certain values to their intentional objects are called emotions. The value ascribed to an object by an emotion may or may not actually be possessed by the object. Accordingly, those emotions may or may not be appropriate to the situation or toward the object. An appropriate fear is a fear of something that is actually fearful or dangerous; an appropriate disgust is disgust at something that is actually disgusting or hideous. Each type of emotion has its own condition of appropriateness, which can be described using an evaluative predicate, such as delightful, dangerous, painful, admirable, etc. In what follows, I will use the word “emotions” to refer to those intentional experiences that suffice for the conditions I have just sketched above: they must be evaluative representations of objects, and their conditions of appropriateness must contain some evaluative predicates. Therefore, the questions of whether all emotions are intentional, and if emotions can be inappropriate at all will be put outside of the consideration here, though they are not meaningless as such.1 How, then, is having an emotion about a certain object related to knowing its value? We talk about “knowing the value of things” in everyday conversation. Jane, who has seen Michelangelo’s Pietà, is to be said to know its beauty better, all other things being equal, than Tom, who has never seen it. Sean, who happened to see his boss in an incident of misconduct, is said to know the moral value of both him and his actions better than Beth, who did not see what happened, all other things being equal. These everyday cases show that we can have knowledge, not just opinions, about the value of things. What distinguishes those who do have knowledge of the value of a certain thing from those who do not? To answer this question, let us turn our attention to the relationship between emotions and evaluative judgment. An established critic would be said to know the value of a particular work of art better than a layperson. He would likely be able to give reasons for why he has deemed a work valuable: its masterful composition, the painter’s deep understanding of the motif, its innovativeness for its time, the influence it had on the following generations of painters, and so on. The layperson, in contrast, would probably not be able to give such clear and convincing reasons for his aesthetic judgment. A professional and evaluative judgment differs from a lay judgment to the extent that the former has justificatory reasons that are not merely subjective, or in other words, can convince other people. So we can argue that an evaluative judgment deserves to be called knowledge of value only if it is adequately justified. Indeed, an evaluative judgment may or may not be justified, just like other kinds of judgment. An evaluative judgment cannot be axiological knowledge if it is not justified. An evaluative judgment without justification is still an evaluative judgment, but it is epistemologically deficient. That is to say, it is something less than the real knowledge of value. 1  For the discussion of the intentionality of emotion, see Goldie 2000, chapter 2; Deonna and Teroni 2012, chapter 1.

72

T. Yaegashi

If there is a knowledge of value, what makes it what it is? What, in other words, is the foundation of axiological knowledge? What kind of experience constitutes it? The justification of an evaluative judgment may consist of various elements. It is an experience of “being touched” or “being struck” by value of things that have privileged roles among these elements.2 Even though an experienced critic has a good deal of knowledge about a certain painting from literature, his judgment that it is beautiful is not adequately justified if he has never seen it. Does not a layperson, if he has actually seen it, have better knowledge of the beauty of the painting in question, even though his background knowledge is not as rich as that of the critic? To give another example, suppose a friend tells you that Bistro A serves a delicious spaghetti carbonara, and you have never eaten it there. Convinced by him, you come to believe that Bistro A’s carbonara is delicious. After a few days, you eventually visit that restaurant and eat carbonara, and you do indeed find it delicious. Your judgment about the taste of Bistro A’s carbonara is the same in its propositional content as before. But something has changed; something seemingly unignorable in the justificatory basis for that evaluative judgment. These examples show that it makes an epistemological difference as to whether an evaluative judgment is accompanied by something we should call a direct awareness of the value of things. Such an awareness of value, if it exists, would not be reflected in the content of the evaluative judgment. However, if a direct awareness of value accompanies an evaluative judgment, it makes the latter closer to a real knowledge of value. I say it makes it closer to knowledge, because an evaluative judgment may not be adequately justified, even though it is accompanied by a direct awareness of value. Being moved by the beauty of a painting or the taste of spaghetti may be unreliable. You might have been under the influence of drugs, for example. Moreover, even if your awareness of value is reliable, your judgment may be distorted by other mental states. For example, you might hate a critic who admires a certain painting and want to disagree with him out of spite. However, if there is no such fault in the reliability of your awareness of value or any distorting factors in your motivational set, an evaluative judgment accompanied by a direct awareness of value is epistemologically privileged over an evaluative judgment without such an awareness.3 As the phrase “being struck by value” suggests, a direct awareness of the value that is at stake is not the same as a direct awareness of objects, such as the p­ erception 2  See Mulligan 2009 and 2010. I owe the notion of “being struck by value” to him. However Mulligan prefers Schelerian view to Husserlian one. My argument in the Sect. 4 of the present paper is an objection to him. 3  One might wonder that, if a direct awareness of value can be a justificatory basis for thick evaluative judgments like “The dog is dangerous” or “Donald’s behavior is rude,” it would not apply for thin evaluative judgments that something is good, bad, right, or wrong. I will show in Sect. 6 of the present paper that appropriate emotions can provide the justificatory basis for evaluative judgments in general, provided that their value has an aspect-relative and context-dependent character. I admit that justificatory basis for thin judgments is more complex than that of thick judgments. However, I do not think that there is an insurmountable gap. I would like to offer my thanks to Helmut Heit for making me aware of this matter.

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

73

of a physical object. A person may lack a direct awareness of the value of a particular painting, even though he is seeing it. He would not be aware of its value if he, for example, has never seen a work of fine art, and he does not see a painting as anything more than a colored surface of a canvas. Also, in the event that his brain was injured so that his affective function has become paralyzed, he might not be able to have a direct awareness of beauty. A direct awareness of value necessarily includes an affective movement within the mind. In this section, I have provided a pro tanto justification for the idea that we can have affective knowledge of value. I have done this in order to prepare for the following discussion. I think it became clear that “affective knowledge of value” refers to a justified evaluative judgment that is accompanied by a direct awareness of the value of its object. Note that I do not intend to argue for the strong claim that all values can be given in a direct awareness. In the following, I only assume that we can directly know some values through our affective experiences. In the next section, I will consider, by referring to the works of some early phenomenologists, how and by what kind of experience an affective cognition of value can be achieved.

3  Two Views in the Early Phenomenology In this section, I will reconstruct two conflicting views on the affective cognition of value in the early phenomenology. Husserl advocates the first view, and Edith Stein also adopts this view (Stein 1917). Looking outside of the early phenomenological schools (the Munich and Göttingen circles), Alexius Meinong and Aurel Kolnai can also be counted as members of this camp (Meinong 1917 and Kolnai 2004). The Husserlian view, as I call it, regards the cognition of concrete value as achieved by the emotions, such as fear, joy, sorrow, anger, etc. The second view is advocated by Max Scheler, Moritz Geiger, and Dietrich von Hildebrand, among others (Scheler 1916, Geiger 1911 and Hildebrand 1916). They claim that the cognition of value is achieved by what they call value-feeling (Wertfühlen), which is distinct from emotion. I call this the Schelerian view.4 These views are in conflict with each other, with respect to how the affective knowledge of value should be placed in the realm of conscious experiences. The question is whether the affective knowledge of value consists of emotion, or of value-feeling. Moreover, these two views can be regarded as two different accounts of the nature of the emotion. The Husserlian view considers emotion to contain an access to concrete value; in contrast, the Schelerian view has it that an emotion itself does not have any such access: it is, rather, a reaction to the value already given to us by value-feeling. I will reformulate both views, referring to the texts written by their representatives.

4  For a more detailed comparison of two camps, see Vendrell Ferran 2008, chapter 6. Vendrell Ferran herself supports the Schelerian view.

74

T. Yaegashi

3.1  The Husserlian View Husserl calls the conscious act which makes an individual object directly accessible to us as having some concrete value, the “Wertnehmung,” or value-perception. We have, so to speak, a direct acquaintance (Kenntnisnahme) of the value, or better, of the object characterized in its value. We called it a simple value-perception (schlichte Wertnehmung). (Husserl 2004, p. 292).

It is obvious that Husserl coined the term through the combination of Wert (value) and Wahrnehmung (perception). As the following quotation shows, he regards value-perception as analogous to ordinary perception, namely sense perception, but also as belonging to the affective realm of consciousness. The most original constitution of value is performed in feelings (Gemüt) as that pre-­ theoretical (in a broad sense) delighting devotion (genießende Hingabe) on the part of the feeling Ego-subject, for which I used the term “value-perception” already several decades ago in my lectures. (Husserl 1952, p. 9; modified from the English trans. by Rojcewicz and Schuwer).

What he calls “delighting devotion” is “that feeling in which the Ego lives with the consciousness of being in the presence of the object ‘itself’ in the manner of feelings” (ibid.). When you, for example, enjoy listening to music (Husserl 2004: 75), smoking a cigar (cf. Ms. A VI 12 II, 37a), or looking at a beautiful woman (cf. Ms. A VI 8 I, 45a), you are in a state of delighting devotion to the object’s value. Husserl distinguishes this kind of affective experience, which is nothing else but the value-­perception, from an “empty” kind of evaluative judgment that lacks an affective sensation. For Husserl, value-perception is what provides direct access to the value of an object. But at the same time, it is an act that is founded on other cognitive experiences. It is necessary to see the body of a woman, whether in person or in a photograph, to be aware of her beauty. In this case, the value-perception of beauty has a visual perception or an image consciousness (Bildbewusstsein) as its cognitive basis. The value-perception makes the value of an object accessible, only based on some cognitive, non-axiological, experiences of the same object. According to the Husserlian account, therefore, an affective cognition of value contains two aspects at the same time: a direct awareness of value, on the one hand, and an act founded on a non-axiological cognition, on the other hand. The value-perception, as characterized by Husserl, is, in my view, simply emotion. His examples, such as the delight we feel when hearing music, smoking a cigar, or looking at a woman, are emotions. Although he only mentions positive feelings, nothing prevents negative feelings, such as disgust, fear, and sadness, from being examples of value-perceptions. Thus, we can summarize the Husserlian view as follows: An affective cognition of value is realized by what we usually call emotion, and (b) it is analogous in its epistemological role to sense perception, and (c) it requires some non-axiological acts as its cognitive basis which provides us access to the non-evaluative properties of the object.

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

75

3.2  The Schelerian View For Scheler, in contrast to Husserl, things that we usually call emotions, such as joy, sadness, anger, are not directed to objects with values; they are thus not intentional in the proper sense. An emotion is a merely reactive attitude toward what is already given in consciousness. Scheler calls it “feeling-state (Gefühlszustand).” It lacks the function of originally giving an object value. Instead, this function is a distinct type of act which he calls “intentional feeling” or literally, “feeling of values (Fühlen von Werten).” It is a genuinely intentional experience that originally gives an object of value to consciousness. It first establishes a cognitive access to value, after which an emotion might occur. To use his example, “certain evils must be ‘comprehended’ beforehand in feeling if anger is to be aroused” (Scheler 1916, p. 272). Following Scheler’s idea, Hildebrand impressively illustrates the distinction and relationship between value-feeling and emotion: I see in the street how a child is being mistreated and a terrible indignation wells up in me. I am indignant about the vileness and brutality of this behavior. This indignation is clearly not a having (Haben) of the vileness and brutality, but a response (Antwort) to these qualities with which I am already acquainted, in other words, a position-taking (Stellungnahme) to the object which stands in front of me (Hildebrand 1916: 137).

Both Scheler and Hildebrand characterize the value-feeling as a direct awareness of concrete value, and they distinguish this from propositional knowledge of value. An evaluative judgment that a certain behavior is brutal first forms after the subject becomes aware of its brutality. The relationship between a value-feeling and an evaluative judgment stands in analogy with the relationship between a perception and a perceptual judgment. In this respect, the Schelerian view also admits the analogy of the affective cognition of value with the perception, as the Husserlian view does. The most important difference between the two views pertains to the status of emotions. Whereas Husserl and his followers believe that the function of affectively becoming aware of the value belongs to the emotion itself, Scheler and his followers believe that it belongs to the value-feeling which is distinct from the emotion. Another difference is that the Schelerian view regards the value-feeling as an originally giving act which is not founded on other cognitive experiences, while Husserl regards value-perception as requiring some cognitive basis. We can summarize the Schelerian view as follows: (a′) An affective cognition of value is realized through a value-feeling, which is distinct from an emotion, and (b) it is analogous to sense perception in its epistemological status, and (c′) it does not have any cognitive basis.

4  The Advantage of the Husserlian View Following the reconstructions given above, I will argue that the Husserlian account has an advantage over the Schelerian view. Namely, I will show that an affective cognition of value should be explained as being realized through emotion, rather

76

T. Yaegashi

than by something similar to value-feeling. In the first place, the existence of an act of value-feeling the Schelerian view postulates is doubtful, to say the least. We can hardly find something like a value-feeling in folk psychology. As for the characterization of value-feeling, we are not provided with more than the formal one: it is an act of consciousness distinct from an emotion, which gives us a non-propositional knowledge of an instance of an axiological property. In contrast, we have a much richer characterization of emotions. There are various types of emotions (anger, fear, sadness, joy, etc.); each of them is accompanied by a different kind of qualitative feeling and bodily change; they can affect our cognition and action, and can be affected by them as well, in different ways. We know all these things about emotions from our everyday experiences and from psychological studies. A value-feeling seems detached from such empirical resources. In short, we have little intuition about what a value-feeling actually is. Of course, the advocates of the Schelerian view do make efforts to intuitively convince us of the existence of value-feelings. Scheler argues that it is possible to, for instance, experience the same pain in different ways: one can suffer, endure, and even enjoy it. If these are possible ways of experiencing the same concrete value, one should distinguish the act of consciousness through which a pain becomes originally given in one’s consciousness, from the different modes of response to it (Scheler 1916, p. 270). However, this argument is too weak. Why should we think that the same value is experienced in different modes? We can rather think that the different values are given in consciousness in each case. Because it is natural to regard the way of valuing pain as being different in each case: when I enjoy pain in my body, its value is different for me, compared with the case in which I suffer or endure it. All things considered, does Hildebrand’s illustration cited above convince us? When you see a child mistreated and become indignant, your indignation itself is a reactive attitude. However, what the indignation is about is given in the consciousness beforehand, according to Hildebrand. The situation he describes is easily imaginable, but the way he explains it is not the only possible way to interpret the situation. It is also possible to say that you become aware of the brutality of the mistreatment at the very moment you get indignant, and that the two things (awareness of brutality, on the one hand, and indignation, on the other) are actually one and the same thing. Moreover, Hildebrand’s explanation would be convincing only if you assume that an emotion is a merely reactive experience. However, it begs the question to assume this. Finally, even if this assumption is true – though I do not think it is – the notion Hldebrand uses to explain the case, the value-feeling, has no place in our everyday intuitions, as argued above. One might say that a non-intuitive item may also be admitted if it is helpful for us to explain a certain phenomenon. This is correct. Yet it should be admitted only if it cannot be substituted by a comparatively less dubious means of explanation. As far as I can see, the explanatory role the Schelerian view expects from the value-­ feeling can be played by emotions as well, and this idea fits much better into our everyday intuition. Therefore, there is no need to use a dubious concept like value-­ feeling. This is the advantage of the Husserlian view. If the phenomenon of direct

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

77

awareness of value can be explained by emotions, which are relatively familiar to us, this explanation is better than one that employs the Schelerian notion of value-feeling. Another important distinction of Husserl’s position from Scheler’s is that the former does not presuppose, nor entail, any kind of naïve realism about value. As is well known, the transcendental position of Husserl claims that any kind of object is constituted in the corresponding kind of conscious experience. For example, physical things are constituted in our perceptual experience. Accordingly, value is supposed to be constituted in our affective experiences. Husserl’s transcendental idealism, which intends to find out how every kind of objectivitiy is constituted within consciousness, is entirely different from, say, expressivist anti-realism, which regards some kind of properties as a projection onto the world. Transcendental idealism is rather a systematic attempt to disclose the “sense” of what exists in the world, from within our experiences. [W]e have here a transcendental idealism that is nothing more than a consequentially executed self-explication in the form of a systematic egological science, an explication of my ego as subject of every possible cognition, and indeed with respect to every sense of what exists, wherewith the latter might be able to have a sense for me, the ego. It is sense-­ explication achieved by actual work, an explication carried out as regards every type of existent ever conceivable by me, the ego, and specifically as regards the transcendency actually given to me beforehand through experience: Nature, culture, the world as a whole. But that signifies: systematic uncovering of the constituting intentionality itself. (Husserl 1950, pp. 118–9; my italics).

Husserl’s analogy of emotion and sense perception should be understood against the background of his transcendental idealism. According to Husserl, the meaning of the fact that an object has, objectively, particular value will become intelligible through the analysis of the appropriateness condition of the corresponding emotion. This amounts to a constitutive analysis of value. If this project is feasible, the Husserlian account has another advantage over the Schelerian account. Unlike Scheler’s naïve realism about value, the Husserlian account does not leave the meaning of having value untouched. It will provide an elucidation of this meaning by analyzing the affective intentionality. I have shown that the Husserlian account of the affective cognition of value is more plausible than its rival account. The next step should be to show that it provides a satisfactory explanation. For this purpose, I will argue for the analogy of emotion and perception in the following sections. The Husserlian view can be regarded as a form of a perceptual account of emotion, since it puts emotion in analogy with sense perception. The perceptual account is quite popular in the ­contemporary discussion of the nature of the emotion,5 though there are some objections. To defend the Husserlian view, it is necessary to argue for the analogy itself, while at the same time answering the objections.

5  For an overview of perceptual theories of emotion and objections to it, see Deonna and Teroni 2012, chap. 6.

78

T. Yaegashi

5  To What Extent is Emotion Similar to Perception? The theory of emotion faces at least two requirements. First, since emotion is an experience we feel, the felt aspect of emotion should be considered. The theories that reduce emotion to an evaluative judgment (Nussbaum 2001; Solomon 1993) can be criticized for not being able to meet this requirement. Second, emotion reveals to us the world of things with value. A theory of emotion should explain this epistemological role. A classical Jamesian theory of emotion (James 1884; Lange & James 1922) is not sufficient for this requirement, since it regards emotion to be the perception of changes in our own body, dismissing its directedness toward the objects in the world. The contemporary perceptual theory of emotion intends to explain both the felt aspect and epistemological role of emotions at the same time within a single model. According to perceptual theorists, emotion is more like perception than judgment; feeling fear is, for instance,to perceive a danger, feeling sad is to perceive a loss, and so on (de Sousa 1987; Tappolet 2000; Döring 2007). In what respect, then, is emotion like sense perception? What do they have in common? First, when you feel an emotion, an object appears to you as having some properties, or some value. For example, when you fear a dog, it appears dangerous; when you are indignant at someone else’s behavior, their behavior appears unjust; when you are glad to receive a present from a friend, what you received appears nice; and so on. On these occasions, second, the values of dangerousness, unjustness, etc. are not what you yourself actively ascribe to the objects, but rather what you receive from them. In other words, the emotional appearance of an object’s value is not under your conscious control. Perception shares both of these characteristics. A perceptual object also appears as having certain properties (a certain color, shape, texture, etc.), and the subject receives its appearance, rather than actively configuring it. Third, although emotion and perception are passive in the sense that they lack a sense of control over the way an object appears, the subject does not simply receive what there is as it is. As a perceptual appearance depends on the condition of a subject’s sense organs, an axiological appearance within the emotion depends on the condition of the subject. As I mentioned in the sect. 2 of this paper, an affective awareness of value can be distorted by physiological, pathological, and motivational states of the subject. In this sense, both emotions and perceptions have subjective aspects. However, fourth, they are not subjective in the sense that they are only about the bodily or mental states of the subject. Rather, they are representational, or better, intentional experiences, in the sense that they are about the objects in the world. These four characteristics are things we can admit without serious dispute, at least following the general characterization of the emotions that I presented in the sect. 2. However, the perceptual account of emotion – thus, the Husserlian account, too – insists on a stronger similarity of emotion and perception. First of all, what the perceptual theorists regard as analogous to an individual emotion is not a veridical perception, but a perceptual experience that could be an illusion or hallucination. An emotion is not always appropriate; it may be inappropriate with respect to the object’s value. So, as for the fifth point of similarity, an

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

79

emotion has its condition of appropriateness, just like a perceptual experience has its veridicality condition. A veridical perception provides the knowledge of color, shape, texture, and motion of its object. In a similar way, an appropriate emotion provides knowledge of the value of its object, or so the perceptual account of emotion claims. Thus, finally, both perception and emotion can be a source of knowledge, if they are appropriate. Even if perception and emotion are similar on all these aspects, they are obviously different in other respects. An important difference is that emotion necessarily has a cognitive basis, while perception does not. I do not, however, think that this difference gives the perceptual account any difficulties. Remember that the Husserlian account admits the cognitive dependency of emotions as an essential feature of such. On my view, this is really essential, since it makes an emotion a representation of value. This character of the emotions corresponds to an essential feature of the evaluative properties: they are aspect-relative and context-dependent, unlike the perceptual properties. I will account for this feature of evaluative properties in the next section. Another, albeit related, difference is that we can ask someone why he feels the way he does, whereas we cannot ask why he perceives something the way he does (Mulligan 2010, p. 485). However, this is not harmful to the perceptual account I intend to defend, either. It is certain that you can ask why someone is sad, angry, happy, etc. You can ask for not only a causal explanation but also a justification. In contrast, it is strange to ask someone to give justification for seeing what he sees. It does not make sense. This difference, however, derives from the fact that an emotion always accompanies its cognitive basis, while perception does not. If you ask a little girl scared by a dog why she is scared, an answer would be “Because it barks!”, “Because it will bite me!” or something like that. These answers refer back to the cognitive basis of her fear of the dog. It is natural that the perception rejects this kind of justification, because it lacks a cognitive basis, unlike emotion.6 So far the analogy of emotion with perception seems plausible. However, there is another difference between both that seems to give the perceptual account of emotion a serious difficulty. In the next section, I will deal with this difference.

6  E  motion, Aspect, and Context: In Defense of the Perceptual Account of Emotion If you feel an emotion, an object appears to you as having some value. However, an axiological appearance of an object is not always the same for everyone. In a visual perception, an object appears in the same way, provided it is standing still and seen 6  Helm (2015) mentions a couple of differences between emotion and perception that I did not discuss here and argues that they are harmless for the perceptual theory for emotion.

80

T. Yaegashi

from the same location. The axiological appearance, instead, depends on some conditions of the subject that do not affect the perceptual appearance. One and the same thing or event may appear favorable to one and, at the same time, unfavorable to another. Not only may the idea of what constitutes a felt emotion differ from person to person, but that of an appropriate emotion may differ. Eating pork, for example, is disgusting for some people, but alright or even preferable, for others. Strictly speaking, the way things visually appear also depends on the subjective condition. How a desk looks depends on perceiver’s height, quality of eyesight, the effect of drugs, and so on. But this fact is not relevant to the difference between perception and emotion that we are discussing here. The axiological appearance of the object in an emotion may be affected by the cultural context in which the subject lives and feels, whereas the visual appearance may not be affected by it. The value of eating pork is affected by cultural, largely religious, contexts. This difference between axiological and perceptual appearances seems a good reason to reject the perceptual account of emotion. A putative reaction from the perceptual view is that at least some perceptual properties appear differently, depending on the cultural context. It is well known that the number of colors in rainbow depends on the culture, especially on the language the perceiver uses. Considering such an example, the cultural dependency of axiological appearances does not seem to hinder the analogy of emotion with perception. However, the case of a rainbow cannot be treated in the same way as the case of eating pork. No matter how many colors you distinguish in a rainbow, it is certain that you will see it as the arc having red (or “warm”) color on the one side and purple (or “cold”) color on the other. In contrast, an emotional reaction to eating pork may be totally opposite in a different cultural context. An inverted spectrum is nothing more than a logical possibility in our visual experience, but its equivalent really exists in our axiological experience. Still insisting on the analogy, one might argue as follows: “Suppose someone says it is white, and another says it is black, looking at the same thing from the same angle. It is impossible that both are true. Either report may be false. In the same way, if two persons have the opposite emotional reactions to the same thing, either may be inappropriate.” Indeed, there are cases in which one reaction is inappropriate, and another is appropriate. When you see a child mistreated on the street, for example, getting indignant would be an appropriate reaction, but feeling delight would be inappropriate. However, not all cases of emotional responses are like this. For example, the case of eating pork is not of this kind. If some people are disgusted at eating pork and others enjoy it, both parties might have an appropriate emotion when situated within the context of their own culture. It is hardly the case that one of their cultures is right, and the other is wrong. Following this line of thought, we should admit a crucial difference between the veridicality of perception and appropriateness of emotion, and also a difference between perceptual and axiological properties. Evaluative properties have a unique relativity that perceptual properties do not have. It is such a strong relativity that what constitutes an appropriate emotion may be totally opposite in different cultures. How can the perceptual account of emotion cope with this difference?

A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

81

I think our account here can cope with this difference in the following way. Firstly, the evaluative properties can be regarded as being relative to the aspects. The same thing, event or action type can be economically good, but morally bad, and so on. There are moral, religious, economic, aesthetic, prudential, and other aspects of evaluation, to which goodness and badness are both relative. Moreover, what value an object has is not only relative to the aspects of evaluation, but they are also dependent on the cultural context or situation in which it is placed. The religious value of eating pork depends, for example, on whether it is done by a Muslim or by a person of another religion. Thus, I claim that the value of an object is always aspect-relative and context-dependent. There are no evaluative properties of being good or bad per se. I admit that the evaluative properties are different from the perceptual properties in the above respect. Evaluative properties are aspect-relative and context-­dependent in a sense in which perceptual properties are not. To admit this difference is to loosen the analogy between perception and emotion. But this does not mean that the perceptual account of emotion itself must be abandoned. The evaluative properties are not subjective, that is to say, they are not the properties our experiences have. As exemplified by the objects in the world, they are objective properties. It does not prevent them from being objective that they are aspect-relative and context-­ dependent. The emotions provide us cognitive access to such properties. Insofar as this point may be preserved, the perceptual theory of emotion can still account for the epistemological role of the emotions. And, insofar as the similarities between emotion and sense perception I listed in Sect. 5 may be preserved, the perceptual account can also explain (at least a part of) the felt aspect of emotions.

7  Concluding Remarks In this paper, I have argued that the analogy of emotion with perception is, despite several differences between them, an important indicator of how we can account for the epistemological role of emotions. Even if one admits that an appropriate emotional reaction to an object depends on the cultural background, one does not need to abandon the perceptual account of emotion. One only needs to accept the fact that the value has aspect-relative and context-dependent characters. The view I have defended here includes many things Husserl did not explicitly say, but I believe that it is not only consistent with what he thought, but also fits well into his transcendental-­ idealist spirit.7

7  The previous version of this paper was presented at the Consciousness and the World: Conference on Phenomenology - East Asia held at Tongji University, Shanghai. Thanks for the helpful comments to the participants. Especially, I am grateful to Helmut Heit for a wonderful and detailed commentary on my presentation there. The author is supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

82

T. Yaegashi

References De Sousa, R. 1987. The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Deonna, J., and F. Teroni. 2012. The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge. Döring, S. 2007. Seeing What to Do: Affective Perception and Rational Motivation. Dialectica 61 (3): 363–394. Geiger, M. 1911. Das Bewusstsein von Gefühlen. In Münchener Philosophische Abhandlungen, ed. A. Pfänder, 125–162. Leipzig: Barth. Goldie, P. 2000. The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University. Helm, B. 2015. Emotions and Recalcitrance: Re-evaluating the Perceptual Model. Dialectica 69 (3): 417–433. Hildebrand, D. 1916. Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 3: 126–251. Husserl, E. 1950. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, Martinus Nijhoff. English Trans. D.  Cairns. Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960. ———. 1952. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, Martinus Nijhoff. English Trans. R.  Rojcewicz and A.  Schuwer. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy—Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2004. Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920 und 1924. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. James, W. 1884. What is emotion? Mind 9: 188–205. Kolnai, A. 2004. The Standard Modes of Aversion: Fear, Disgust, and Hatred. In On Disgust, ed. B. Smith and C. Korsmeyer, 93–109. Chicago: Open Court. Lange, C., and W. James. 1922. The emotions. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. Meinong, A. 1917 [1968]. Über emotionale Präsentation. In Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, Bd. III, Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. Mulligan, K. 2009. On Being Struck by Value: Exclamations, Motivations and Vocations. In Leben mit Gefühlen: Emotionen, Werte und ihre Kritik, ed. B. Merkel, 141–161. Paderborn: Mentis. ———. 2010. Emotions and Values. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. P. Goldie, 475–500. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, M. 2001. Upheavals of thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. Scheler, M. 1916 [1954]. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 2). Bern: Francke. Solomon, R. 1993. The passions: Emotions and the meaning of life. Indianapolis: Hackett. Stein E. 1917 [2008]. Zum Problem der Einfühlung (Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 5). Freiburg: Herder. Tappolet, C. 2000. Émotions et valeurs. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Vendrell Ferran, Í. 2008. Die Emotionen: Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie. Berlin: Akademie. Toru  Yaegashi (Ph.D., The University of Tokyo) is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima Institute of Technology. He is the author of Husserl ni okeru kachi to jissen [Value and Practice in Husserl] (Suisei-sha, 2017) and the coauthor of Gendai Gensho-gaku [Contemporary Phenomenology] (Shin-­yo-­sha, 2017). His research topics are classical phenomenology (Husserl, Pfänder, Reinach, Scheler, Otaka, etc.), ethics, and philosophy of emotion. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Husserl Archives, University of Cologne.

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason Shun Sato

Abstract  In this essay, I develop Husserl’s view of the relation between sense experience and empirical knowledge by outlining the idea of Husserlian expressivism. I begin the essay by taking a look at the relevant problem on empirical knowledge in the literature. The point is that the content of experience is of the propositional form if experience should have justificatory significance. Husserl emphasizes the epistemological significance of the perceptual presence of objects; nevertheless, he sees perceptual sense as nonpropositional. How can we understand Husserl’s thought? I argue that Husserl’s conception of expression in Ideas I can give us a clue. Interpreting this conception as saying that expression is not representational medium, but the logical form of the content of experience, I argue that we can ascribe the significance to experience as such, which is only made explicit by expression: propositional form is the expressive form of the implicit experiential content. This interpretation also makes a Husserlian conception of reason possible in which perceptual experience as such can have its rationality. Characterizing sense experience as a non-discursive form of reason, I attempt to describe this conception as an explication of holistically conducted inquiry of empirical knowledge. Keywords  Perceptual knowledge · Space of reasons · Categorial intuition · Expressivism

1  Introduction No one doubts that what makes knowledge empirical is its relation to sense experience; for it is almost the definition of empirical knowledge that it originates from sense perception. However, how and in what sense it originates from experience is not obvious. Thus there are various philosophical theories about this relation. As Husserl states:

S. Sato (*) Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences, Yamagata, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_7

83

84

S. Sato Position belongs to any appearing “in person” on the part of a physical thing; it is not just somehow one with the appearing [...]; it is one with it in a peculiar manner: it is “motivated” by and again, not just somehow, but “rationally motivated.” That is to say, position has its original legitimizing basis in originary givenness (Hua III/1, p. 316/328).

According to Husserl, the perceptually given does not go without a sort of belief, or Setzung (position): the latter is rationally motivated by the former, i.e. the bodily presence of the object of which the belief is. Husserl thus characterizes what he calls Evidenz (evidence) as follows: “[E]vidence of any kind [...] is thus a wholly distinguishing occurrence; in terms of its “core” it is the unity of a rational position with that which essentially motivates the position [...]” (ibid.). Granted that being knowledge implies being justified belief, and to motivate rationally can be understood as describing a kind of justification, we can say that evidence in Husserl’s sense is, in the best case, the original acquirement of knowledge.1 Empirical knowledge originates from sense experience in the sense that experience originally confers the right of being knowledge upon belief. Superficially, this idea is very plausible, especially insofar as it belongs to our ordinary practice to see the things around us and to know the situation or confirm our own belief when we find ourselves in doubt. What makes us certain is the presence of the objects themselves. Furthermore, in some cases, we may regard someone as irresponsible if he believes or makes claims about some things without seeing anything for himself. However, it is not easy to understand the matter from a philosophical perspective, as we shall see immediately below. In this essay, we will offer a way of looking at the matter by interpreting Husserl’s view on perceptual experience, expression, and reason.

2  Experience and the Space of Reasons The issue that we will address here is obviously connected with themes from contemporary discussions of the epistemology of perception. In fact, one of the best ways to start is to consider the Sellarsian notion of the space of reasons: The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says (Sellars 1997, p. 76).

What is required for something to be able to justify or give some reason for what we say? What can be endorsed as a reason? Davidson’s coherentism, which, according to Brandom (1997, p. 122f.), is based on the same insight as Sellars’, is clear on this point: “[N]othing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief” (Davidson 2001, p. 141). For instance, mere sensations or sense-data, which have sometimes been regarded as a candidate for the foundation of empirical knowl1  We added “in the best case,” because there are also bad cases, in which the object actually does not exist as it seems.

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason

85

edge in empiricist tradition, cannot constitute any reasons for any beliefs because “the relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical since sensations are not beliefs or other propositional attitudes” (ibid., p. 143). The relation is at best a causal one. However “a causal explanation of belief does not show how or why the belief is justified” (ibid.). Sellars called such an idea that the non-conceptually given could justify a belief “the Myth of the Given”: the idea that “the space of reasons, the space of justifications or warrants, extends more widely than the conceptual sphere” (McDowell 1996, p. 7). To avoid the Myth, we have to consider that anything which has any justificatory significance is placed in the space of reasons. Since only what is capable of being in logical relation to what one says can offer a reason, whatever justifies it must have conceptual or propositional content.2 In short, “the content of experience, if it is to have any epistemological significance, must be propositional in form” (Williams 2001, p. 97). A question now arises: do Husserl’s claims about “rational motivation” or “evidence” commit him to a form of the Myth of the Given? He says that perceptual givenness rationally motivates a sort of belief, or position; but how is this possible? One may consider that it is not fair to pose such a problem for Husserl because the givenness in question certainly is not like mere sensation, or sense-datum; rather, the givenness here means the mode of content that Husserl also calls Sinn (sense): But the posited characteristic has as its own a specific rational character, as a distinguishing mark accruing to it essentially, if and only if it is a position on the basis of a fulfilled originarily presentive sense and not merely on the basis of just any sense (Hua III/1, p. 315/327; emphasis added).

Husserl emphasizes that our perceptual experience is not a mere complex of sensations but rather a type of intentional experience and as such has its content or sense, which is argued as having rational import (Hua III/1, p. 196/207). However, we should pose a further question: is the sense in question the content of propositional form? Unfortunately, the answer should be, “no.” Can we then vindicate a claim that not only can propositional content have justificatory power, but that non-­ propositional content can have it as well? This seems to be a difficult way to proceed; any content of non-propositional form seems to be the same as mere sensation in that it could not be in any logical relation to statements or beliefs. However, granting that the content of sense perception, or perceptual sense, is not of propositional form, we must proceed in this way: but how? What we seek to render intelligible below is that perceptual sense is originally not propositional in its form, but it can be propositional without losing or adding anything to its presentational charac-

2  We will not address the questions about whether the content of experience is conceptual or nonconceptual, or whether experience has content at all. Regarding the latter, we simply assume here that experience has content, following Husserl. The former question is subtler. In our case, the answer totally depends on what the “conceptual” means. At least, according to Husserl’s own usage of “begrifflich (conceptual),” as we can see in this essay, he explicitly rejects the claim that the content of experience is conceptual. He seems to use the term “Begriff (concept)” to mean the content which (1) itself is a proposition, or (2) is a possible part of proposition.

86

S. Sato

ter. The process that makes this possible is what Husserl calls, in a somewhat peculiar sense, “expression” in Ideas I.

3  The Concept of Expression in Ideas I The key idea is found in what McIntyre and Smith (1982) call the expressibility thesis, which Husserl makes in Ideas I. Here we shall cite the whole paragraph that includes the thesis: For example: an object is present to perception with a determined Sinn (sense), posited monothetically in determined fullness. As is our normal custom after first seizing upon something perceptually, we effect an explicating of the given and a relational positing which unifies the parts or moments singled out — perhaps according to the schema, “This is white.” This process does not require the minimum of “expression,” nor of expression in the sense of verbal sound, nor of anything like a verbal signifying [...]. But if we have “thought” or asserted, “This is white,” then a new stratum is co-present, unified with the purely perceptually “meant as meant.” [...] Anything “meant as meant,” anything meant in noematic sense (and, more particularly, as the noematic core) [...] pertaining to any act, no matter which, is expressible by means of “Bedeuten (significations).” Quite universally we may say: Logical Bedeutung (signification) is an expression (Hua III/1, p.  286/295; “expressable” in translation is substituted for “expressible”]).

There are some points to note in this passage. First, Husserl obviously distinguishes the Sinn (sense) with which an object is given perceptually and the Bedeutung (signification or meaning) by which the sense is said to be expressed. According to Husserl, the latter is “co-present” when we assert or think that, for example, “This is white”; by implication, the signification cannot simply be identified with the perceptual sense. Here we follow the convention that Husserl stipulates in the same section (Hua III/1, p. 285/294): we use the term signification especially for any meaning that can belong to a verbal expression, and the term sense is used for intentional content in general. This amounts to stating that any signification is sense, but not vice versa; for not all intentional experiences can perform the role of the bedeutungsverleihender Akt (signifying act).3 Second, and far more importantly for the present discussion, Husserl here identifies expression as the content that is properly called logical, by stating “Logical 3  Husserl’s terminology is rather ambiguous. This comes from mainly three reasons. (1) He calls intentional content in general Sinn, (2) he does not see the necessity to distinguish Sinn from Bedeutung, i.e., they are synonyms for him (cf. Hua XIX/1, p. 58f./200f.), (3) he identifies the meaning of words and sentences, i.e. linguistic meaning, as the content of intentional experience that is called bedeutungsverleihender Akt (signifying act). However, it does not follow from these that all intentional content is of the same kind, of the same structure. As Husserl states in his later work, if we call every intentional experience that can be the signifying act (meaning-conferring act) Denken (thinking), the distinction would become clearer: to perceive something is not exactly to think of it (cf. Hua XVII, p.  27/23). Hence, we cannot completely agree with McIntyre and Smith’s (1982) interpretation of the expressibility thesis.

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason

87

signification is an expression.” This means that the quintessence of what should be called “expression” consists not in its being verbal, but in its signification that is logical. Here, the notion of expression is essentially related with what is logical, and thus the expressibility thesis is simply the claim that any content that is not yet logical can be formatted logically. Expression in this sense is thus “distinctive form which allows for adapting to every ‘sense’ [...] and raises it to the realm of ‘Logos,’ of the conceptual and, on that account, the ‘universal’,” (Hua III/1, p.  286/295). More simply, the essence of expression is Logos; expression is the expressive or logical shape of the sense that is the object in how we experience it.4 How we experience or perceive an object is not the problem of logic as such, but it can be made into the matter of logically organized science or knowledge in the form of expression (Hua III/1, p. 286/295). What, then, makes content distinctively logical? The answer to this question is arguably the same as that to the question: what makes content propositional? The answer is categorial form. In contraposition, without any categorial form, content cannot be propositional or logical. Categorial form is the form of the content that can be expressed verbally by using categorial words, or categorials.5 In sum, categorials confer the propositional or logical form on the sense and thus express it. Here, we will not investigate the details of this clearly relevant problem as it was treated in the sixth investigation of Logical Investigations, i.e. the problem of categorial intuition. Instead, we will review the attempt to revise the sixth investigation, its first chapter in particular, that was written in the same year of the publication of Ideas I. This is helpful for understanding what the expressibility thesis states and, thus, aid us in our present task. First, Husserl interestingly acknowledges here that the sense or meaning of a perceptual statement, i.e., the signification is contained already in the perceptual experience that the statement intends to voice: “[I]t is undisputed that, in the perceptual judgment there holds an internal relation between perception and Bedeuten (signifying) of the statement; far from it, the sense of the latter in a certain way ‘lies’ in the perception” (Hua XX/1, p. 70). It lies in the perception “if ‘unexplicated’,” and it can be “herausholen (brought out)” (Hua XX/1, p. 71). What is important, of course, is how to understand what it means to “bring out” the sense in experience. Let us summarize the main points that he states. Perception has its own content, or sense, that is how the object appears to us, or the object in how we experience it. When we see something and express it by making a statement, its signification certainly has to anpassen (fit) the sense of perception. The required fit-ness, however, cannot refer to an isomorphic, immediate correspondence, since the sense of experience and that of statement are not of the same form:  For the concept of noematic sense, see, e.g., Hua III/1, p. 303/314; Hua XX/1, p. 58f.  Besides copula, the examples Husserl provides include “the,” “a,” “some,” “many,” “few,” “two,” “not,” “which,” “and,” “or,” “if,” “then,” “all,” “none,” “something,” and “nothing” (cf. Hua XIX/2, p. 658/272, p. 667/278). For the sake of simplicity, we term both categorial words and their content (correlate) categorials. We can generally ignore the difference of the verbal and content (signification), given the thesis: logical content is an expression. 4 5

88

S. Sato [R]ather, it belongs to this fitness [...] that a sort of “thinking” is executed on the ground of perceiving; in other words, the perception takes on a certain “Denkfassung (intellectual form).” It cannot be expressed (verbally) qua a simple perception, it must undergo a sort of denkmäßige Gestaltung (intellectual formation) in advance. Founded act-characters are needed, which give the perception certain forms belonging to a certain system of forms (Hua XX/1, p. 72).

To use the vocabulary proper to the original context of the sixth investigation, specifically, regarding fulfillment of a statement, this amounts to saying that “in the unity of intuitively fulfilled expression, the perceived has its ‘categorial shape,’ a ‘gedankliche (intellectual)’ shape as (noematic) correlate of formative thinking” (ibid., p. 73). This point is really particularly suggestive for the expressibility thesis: to express the percept by making a statement inevitably implies a sort of “intellectual” process of explicating and conceptually grasping, the possibility of which belongs to the essence of all perceptions. In essence, any sense of perception can be expressible through the categorial formation. It is precisely this possibility which justifies the claim that the sense of a perceptual statement already “lies in” the perception itself: Insofar as it belongs to the essence of every perception that it takes on such categorial shape, i.e. it is explicable and “conceptually” graspable in the form prescribed by the perception itself, the new sense [i.e., the sense of the perceptual statement] is contained in the perception, and to that extent, as we say, somewhat incorrectly, the statement “is directed” at the perception and expresses it; it is, in reality, the categorial product to which the statement gives expression (ibid.)

Categorials (as words) are, as it were, the voice of the process of conscious activity that gives explicitly logical form to the perceptually given. Certainly, they do not represent any perceptually given; rather, they express the way of our intellectually taking it in. More simply, they are expressive devices of bringing out the sense of perception in the sense that they make it possible to say or think of it explicitly and logically.6

6  Of course, we should not ignore Husserl’s view that by making a statement, we are conscious of a totally new kind of object, i.e. categorial object. However, this is not confused with the thought that a statement represents a peculiar ready-made entity or object in the world. Rather, the categorial object is originally constituted by the complex process of objectification. In short, representation should not be confused with objectification. Given Husserl’s concept of object, i.e., that to be object is to be the subject of a statement (cf. e.g., Hua III/1, p. 15 [10], p. 47/41; Hua XX/1, p. 282), the objectification whose product is the categorial object is possible by virtue of the expressive operation that is called nominalization or substantiation. In general, we could tentatively say that in making a perceptual statement, we are conscious of the new object only implicitly and, by nominalization or substantiation, we become conscious of the object explicitly (qua the subject of a predicative judgment).

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason

89

4  Husserlian Expressivism Let us clarify the view that we endorse here by characterizing it as a sort of expressivism.7 Expressivism, or expressive theory of certain vocabulary, is based on the idea that the vocabulary in question is not (exclusively) used as the linguistic device of representation; the vocabulary does not refer to, or describe anything in the objective world. Specifically, the sentences in which the vocabulary is used do not state any facts of the world. Instead, according to classical expressivism, the vocabulary is used in another way that is generally characterized to be (merely) expressive of something on the subjective side. As a metaethical theory, expressivists take it to be expressive of emotions, moral sentiments, approving or disapproving attitudes, prescriptions, and so on.8 However, what is more interesting here is Brandom’s (1994, 2000) expressive conception of the logical vocabulary. In this theory, the basic logical vocabulary that is epitomized by the conditional is understood as the device that makes what is implicit in doing explicit by saying; it is used to say explicitly what is implicitly known to us when we are engaging in the distinctively normative discursive practice — the game of asking and giving of reasons. The knowledge in question is a sort of know-how, which is not reduced to know-that; rather, the latter is seen as the expressive form of the former: Logical vocabulary endows practitioners with the expressive power to make explicit as the contents of claims just those implicit features of linguistic practice that confer semantic contents on their utterances in the first place. Logic is the organ of semantic self-consciousness (Brandom 1994, p. xix).

Although there are many interesting features in this type of expressivism, one point to be noted here is that the contrast is not between the subjective side and the objective side, but between what is explicit and implicit. The authentic users of the vocabulary know implicitly what is expressed and it is made explicit by saying it using the vocabulary. What is expressed is not represented by the vocabulary but is instead made explicit. In other words, the know-how in question is translated into the form of know-that. In Husserl’s case, regarding the relevant themes here, he originally started from the insight that categorials do not represent anything real, i.e., anything that can be given by any possible sense perception. In this particular sense, they are something super-sensible, or ideal, and the ideal cannot be real and vice versa. This is the actual source of the problem of categorial intuition, i.e., the fulfillment of statements in its entirety. Although Husserl does not explicitly say so, when he makes 7  Kadowaki (2002) seems to head in the same direction as our view. Regarding my own position, I draw inspiration from Brandom’s works (1994, 2000, 2015). Although I cannot definitely establish if my discussion here may be one that Kadowaki envisaged, his suggestion is worthy of being explication. It is hoped that the present paper will be helpful in this regard. 8  See, e.g., Blackburn (1984, p. 167ff.) for the possible varieties of expressivism. Especially for the expressivism on ethical terms, see Blackburn (2006).

90

S. Sato

some remarks on the concept of expression in Ideas I, his real concern is arguably this problem.9 What we are suggesting is that this way of treating the problem, can be broadly characterized as expressivist. The point can be succinctly made as follows: categorials are not representational devices or media, but they are expressive of the sense that is implicitly in perception. They have the specific function of bringing out the sense unexplicatedly lying in experience, in the sense that they make it explicit in the form of propositional content. Propositional content is distinctively logical and, as we saw, Husserl calls such content expression in Ideas I. Thus, in this terminology, to express something is to make the content that is not yet propositionally articulated into the content that is propositionally articulated and, thus, logical. Indeed, we can find support for this interpretation in another thesis that Husserl makes in Ideas I, immediately after the expressibility thesis: Apart from the fact that it confers expression on all other intentionalities, the stratum of expression — and this makes up its own peculiarity — is not productive. Or, if one wishes: its productivity, its noematic production, is exhausted in the expressing and with the form of the conceptual which is introduced with (Hua III/1, p. 287/296).

This may sound somewhat perplexing; one may well wonder whether introducing the “form of conceptual” could be a rather productive achievement, especially since the sense of experience is yet to be logical. However, this is a quite intelligible thesis from our perspective. Expression is not productive at all, because it does not representationally add anything new to the content that is thus expressed. It merely says explicitly what is implicit in the experience. More precisely, expression, categorials in particular, is the media expressive of the conscious activity of explication and conceptual grasping that brings out or carves out the perceptual sense. Note that this is not to espouse a kind of subjectivism according to which to say that things are thus and so is to assert an existence of a certain attitude, belief in particular. The statement “This is white” does not state that I believe that this is white, but simply expresses what I now see. Moreover, to express what I see is not to take an attitude to the object that I see; to repeat, expression only makes what I see explicit. Accordingly, the belief character of expression is to keep track of the one of experience itself: The expressive stratum can have no other qualified posited or neutral position than the stratum subject to the expression, and in the coincidence we find not two positions which are to be separated but only one position (Hua III/1, p. 287/297).

The claim that experience per se is a position, a sort of belief, is characteristic of Husserl’s theory of perception. Our expressivist perspective can make it less difficult to see what it means: if the perceptual statements can be seen to be merely expressive of the perceptual sense, specifically, if they do not assert the existence of any subjective attitude, the positions certainly belonging to the statements should be seen to be originate from the experiences themselves. 9  He suggests something like this in a footnote by mention of “[a] second way” that starts “from the side of experience and sensuous givenness” (Hua III/1, p. 287/296).

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason

91

5  The Concept of Reason: Husserlian Holism From such an expressivist perspective, we can now see what kind of rationality belongs to perceptual experience. We have been arguing that perceptual statements are (mere) expressive forms of the sense of experience. This implies that what is so expressed is already in the experience itself, except logical form; but logical form itself is not of epistemic power relevant to perceptual confirmation, or fulfillment. Certainly it makes the power available in a logical, consciously explicit form; on balance, it is the authentic form of the move in the space of reasons. However, the justificatory power or epistemic “weight” characteristic of a perceptual statement or belief is not in its being logical, but in its being perceptual; in essence, exactly because it is the expressive form of perceptual experience. Therefore, the power or weight in question is to be found in experience itself. Thus, there is some sense to say that when we see something red, for instance, what makes us reject the claim that it is blue and endorse that it has a color, is the experience as such. In short, it seems to follow from our interpretation that what is of power to reject or endorse a claim is to be located in experience itself. This, obviously, is Husserl’s view. Consider this view more closely. Perceptual experience, as a type of intuition, is not discursive in a genuine sense, as McDowell (2009, p. 262) emphasizes and we endorse. Experience as intuition is not the normal form that is used as a premise or a conclusion of the discursive inference. However, as McDowell argues, this does not imply that experience has no content at all; it has content and it is exploitable for the discursive activity: “Intuitions immediately reveal things to be as they would be claimed to be in claims that would be no more than a discursive exploitation of some of the content of the intuitions” (p. 267). In a somewhat peculiar way, perceptual experiences might be said to belong to “the logical space of reasons”: the space “of justifying and being able to justify what one says.” However, it would be more precise to say that only the perceptual statements and the perceptual belief with propositional content can be available for the move of the logical space of reasons; for only they have form that can be posed as a premise or a conclusion of some inference, and thus are called discursive and, undoubtedly, genuinely logical. If experience has a sort of rational significance or power, its rationality is not a discursive one. There is a nondiscursive form of reason. Experience or intuition belongs to the territory of Vernunft (reason), but it is not discursive or, in this sense, logical. This may sound implausible, prima facie. For experiences to belong to the territory of reason, it should be capable of being controlled by other beliefs. However, perceptual experience seems to be belief-independent, as Evans (1982, p.  123f.) notes. Müller-Lyer’s illusion is here a case in point. One of the two lines appears to be longer than the other (or the latter appears to shorter than the former); yet the truth is that they are exactly equal in length. Even if we are acquainted with this kind of phenomenon, and therefore believe from the start that the length of the two is equal, they do not cease to appear to be as they were at first glance. The appearance or content of perceptual awareness is not affected by what we know and thus believe. However, from our perspective, it is quite reasonable that the experience continues to have a content immune to belief. If the content of the experience should be

92

S. Sato

modified, (part of) the content would be negated; however the negation cannot be part of content of experience per se; it is typically categorial. In this case, when we find that the two lines are actually equal in the length, what is negated is not (part of) the content of experience but rather its epistemic power. By deprivation of the power, the content is, in turn, marked as being misleading so that its content should no longer be taken at face value, even if the appearance remains the same. Deprived of the power, experience is demoted to mere illusion.10 This example also offers a clue to Husserl’s conception of reason.11 How can we notice and confirm the equality of length? Simply, by using a ruler. However, why do we believe that this can and should deny that the two are of different length at all? Why should we believe so? Of course, one may answer, it is because the ruler is a reliable device to measure the length of objects. That is true; to confirm the equality implies to embrace such a belief. However, the question arises again: why do and should we believe so? On balance, even such a simple confirmation requires so many (implicit or tacit) beliefs: to confirm the length, we should also believe that the ruler itself does not change its length easily, that there is no change to the lines written on the paper, that my eyes function properly, and so on. Seen atomistically and abstractly, any belief cannot offer a reason for deprivation of the power of any beliefs. There must be further beliefs connected each other, and there is no clear limit of required beliefs. More simply: the rationality of belief presupposes the whole system of beliefs within which it finds a niche. The consideration strongly suggests that what Husserl calls reason has to have a distinctly holistic feature. Alternatively, we should say that the system in which every belief is related to each other in ways of supporting, rejecting, suspending, and so on, is called reason. Everything in this system has rational significance only relational to the others that are located in the system. What we have been advocating for, that is, that experiences, in addition to beliefs, have rational significance amounts to saying that experiences also form part of this system, i.e., experiences and beliefs together constitute the system, or reason. This implication is striking, especially in the empirical sphere of knowledge. Husserl claims that in this field, there can be nothing absolutely certain: [N]o is equivalent in its singularization to the simpliciter: “The physical thing is actual;” it is only equivalent to the positing: “it is actual” — assum Compare this with Sellars’ treatment of the logic of looks (1997, Chapter III.). The relevant point is that the talk of “looks F” depends on the ability to see and say that something is F: one can say that it looks as if x is F only if one can see and say that x is F in the sense that the former can be characterized only indirectly as something that lacks the endorsement that is involved in the latter. Seeing the point from a different angle, this means that we can eschew endorsement when we have some reasons for doing so. This creates space for the claim that seeing is already involved in reason, since it is at our disposal whether to receive appearance at face value. See also McDowell (1996: 11f.) for a related discussion; he would reject the view that experience involves any kind of endorsement, though. 11  Although reason is one of the main themes in his thought, we can hardly find any clear statements that elucidate what he means by that term. In Cartesian Meditations, we finally find one brief account: “Reason is not accidental de facto ability, not a title for possible accidental matters of fact, but rather a title for all-embracing essentially necessary structural form belonging to all transcendental subjectivity” (Hua I, p. 92/57). What we have presented in this essay may be read as an explication of this (all to) succinct description. 10

Husserl on Experience, Expression, and Reason

93

ing that the further course of experience does not bring forth “stronger rational motives” which show the original positing as a positing to be “cancelled out” in the broader context. (Hua III/1, p. 319/331)

Entering into or springing up in the system, each new experience brings its own epistemic weight, and the reevaluation of the whole occurs. This is exactly why no experience, no belief, can escape its possible deprivation. Sellars beautifully posited the point: “[E]mpirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-constructing enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once” (Sellars 1997: 79).

6  Concluding Remarks If beliefs and experiences that belong to the system of reason can be of epistemic power or weight only within the whole system, why should perceptual experience be privileged? Why should intuitional experience in particular be emphasized? We close this essay by addressing these questions briefly. We started this essay by observing that what makes knowledge empirical is its relation to sense experience: knowledge originates from sense experience. An alternative way of accounting for this is to say that perception gives us the subject matter of our empirical knowledge, i.e., the objects themselves. To explicate or to pin it down, and thus formulate what and how it is, forms the beginning of the rational inquiry, which is actually the well-­ organized whole of beliefs and experiences. If there is inherent incompleteness, and perhaps even error in the beginning, the beginning must be given and the given must be the beginning. If there could be no given, no subject matter, then any inquiry would lose its intentionality, its of-ness, since there would be no object into which the inquiry could be made. The holistic structure of reason implies only that we cannot begin with nothing; it does not deny that there is the order or structure of rational inquiry. In Husserl’s case, it is this that is enshrined in what he calls “the principle of all principles”: [E]very originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of Erkenntnis (cognition), [...] everything originarily (so to speak, in its “personal” actuality) offered to us in “intuition” is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there. [...] Every statement which does no more than confer expression on such data by simple explication and by means of significations precisely conforming to them is [...] actually an absolute beginning called upon to serve as a foundation, a principium in the genuine sense of the word (Hua III/1, p. 51/44).

As we have seen, the epistemic power or weight of intuition (in the empirical field) could be deprived in further inquiry; thus, “absolute beginning” here is not to be read as “absolutely certain foundation of knowledge” in the traditional foundationalist sense. However, if there could be no intuition, then we would get no subject matter of any inquiry; in this sense, intuition, or more precisely, its expressive or logical form, is the absolute beginning. The object is given first and the object given is allowed to increasingly show itself in the process of the rational inquiry: the world manifests itself in reason.

94

S. Sato

References Blackburn, Simon. 1984. Spreading the Word. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2006. Antirealist Expressivism and Quasi Realism. In The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, chap. 5, ed. D. Copp, 146–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brandom, Robert B. 1994. Making It Explicit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 1997. Study guide. In Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind, 119–181. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2000. Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2015. From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Davidson, Donald. 2001. A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge (1983). In Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, 137–153. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, Gareth. 1982. The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press. Kadowaki, Shunsuke. 2002. Phenomenology of the Space of Reasons (Riyuu no Kukan no Genshougaku), Sobunsha. McDowell, John. 1996. Mind and World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. 2009. Avoiding the Myth of the Given. In Having the World in View, 256–272. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McIntyre, Ronald, and David Woodruff Smith. 1982. Husserl’s Identification of Meaning and Noema. In Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, ed. Hubert Dreyfus, 81–92. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Sellars, Wilfrid. 1997. Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Williams, Michael. 2001. Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cited Translations of Husserliana Husserl, Edmund. 1969. Formal and Transcendental Logic. Trans. Dorion Cairns. Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1973. Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology. Trans. Dorion Cairns. Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1983. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book. General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Trans. F.  Kersten. Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 2001. Logical Investigations (in two volumes). Trans. J.N. Findlay. Routledge. Shun Sato (Ph.D., Tohoku University) is a part-time lecturer at Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences. He is the author of Transcendental Philosophy and the Philosophy of World Experience in Husserl (in Japanese, Tohoku University Press, 2015) and the articles focusing on Husserl’s phenomenology of reason, his theory of perception, his idealism, and the systematic relations between these topics.

Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research Yasuhiko Murakami

Abstract  In the world of qualitative research, especially in nursing studies, phenomenology is a powerful method to analyze the meanings of individual and contingent experience. The concept of Phantasieleib (from Marc Richir) explains the function of the phenomenological method when applied to empirical data. When the Phantasieleib of the phenomenologist can enter into the movement of a certain narrative, a kind of phenomenological reduction begins. This phenomenological analysis reveals the composition of his/her practice within its inter-subjective and institutional contexts. All aspects of the grammatical character of the narrative can be a hint of comprehension of this composition. Keywords  Phenomenological qualitative research · Husserl · Richir · Phantasieleib · Narrative

1  Phenomenology of the Singular Many researchers in varying domains of empirical research have become interested in the phenomenology as a method of analysis.1 From 2003 to 2008, I conducted a research project in a pediatric hospital to study autistic children with pediatric doctors. In 2009, I was invited to a group of phenomenological nursing study and started myself a field research among nurses since 2010. In these recent years, I interviewed more than 40 nurses and conducted field research in a mental hospital, with two teams of visiting nurses, as well as with practioners who work in the section of child welfare in poor area. With the much appreciated help of Professor Yumi Nishimura (Tokyo Metropolitan University), we developed a method of empirical research based on observation and on interviews. Among the existing phenomenological methods in empirical studies (van Manen, Giorgi, etc.), the first original 1  French version of this text will be published in a volume edited by Pablo Posada at University of Coimbra Press. Japanese version of the text is published as the appendix of Murakami (2013).

Y. Murakami (*) Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Suita, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_8

95

96

Y. Murakami

point of our method is the manner in which we respect the individuality of each datum (each nurse, each interview, each research field, and so on.). It seems to us that the strongest point of our method consists in the ability to show the detailed and nuanced structure of each and every human’s experience. For example, I showed the structure of the particular communication developped by a caregiver who is specialized in the care of (often locked-in) ALS patients (Murakami 2018). In this sense, our method abandoned a part of the Husserlian idea of eidetic reduction, although the spirit of our project remains sincere to Husserl’s intuitions. Nevertheless our method is not merely “applied phenomenology,” but phenomenology itself. We do not merely apply Husserlian concepts – intentionality, intersubjectivity, passive synthesis, etc.  – to understand nursing practices. We are phenomenologists because we analyze the experience of nurses and patients from the inside, and describe the structure of their experiences (although sometimes we will write a paper without any philosophical concept). It is why we respect the expressions used by our interviewees and try not to replace their words with philosophical concepts that reduce particular experiences to a generalized understanding (of course, sometimes we quote a philosophical text if it enables us to gain a better understanding of the particular experience). “Describing phenomena from the inside of their flow” is the most important feature of our research (and of Husserl’s philosophy). In the following description of our method, we refer to Phantasieleib: a concept of Marc Richir (1943–2015).2 Phantasieleib is a concept based on the Husserlian Phantasie-ich, which means the ego functioning in the world of one’s own imagination (Phantasie). We will here try to describe how powerful the phenomenological method can work in empirical research. In qualitative research, phenomenology tries to grasp the meaning of a singular experience, which refuses quantitative understandings and disappears when we compare plural data to extract something resembling common sense. It is the implicit structure or configuration of each action that gives us a key. Each human experience has its own structure and is worthy of analysis. In our research, we independently analyze each interview as non-phenomenological text which elaborates a theory of action in each of them. People have criticized us because a singular case does not always have universal validity. Nevertheless, it is also true that human experience is always singular and has its own meaning. A sociological study, which describes the general character of multiple examples cannot show this singular moment of our life. Our method reverses the starting point. Each experience, each action and each event has a meaning. And in spite of their singularity – or rather, because of it – the very meaning of a singular moment is lost in a general concept. A singular case cannot have scientific validity, but the structure of the case – the configuration of its 2  The Phantasieleib - inspired by Husserl’s Phantasie-ich (Husserl 1980) - is simultaneously the center of the world of imagination and the starting point from which the flowing appearances of imagination occur, “The Phantasieleib is nothing but, as “center of orientation”, that the zero-point (Nullpunkt) taht is not a point or an element of space. It is the cell of spatialization from which there is orientation” (Richir 2000, p. 137).

Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research

97

elements and context – has a certain meaning because others will understand it, and because the structures of the several cases resonate with each other. On this level of the structure of experience and of its meaning, our phenomenology of field research achieves a certain universality  – or more precisely, a certain understanding. The very detail of each individual obtains scientific validity. It is a sort of micro-­ phenomenology of human facticity. Nevertheless, the phenomenology contributes not only to understanding the details of the experiences of individual persons. Its uniqueness as a method is found in one other aspect. This phenomenology discovers the configuration of details, which characterize one’s narrative. If a motif becomes salient, it presupposes a structure of experience behind it. The dynamism of motifs and their configuration are nothing but the “meaning” of the singular in our phenomenological research. In general, the interviewee is not aware of this configuration and it forms thus a sort of phenomenological unconscious. In other qualitative researches, this individuality is summed up into a general character when various sets of data are considered. These types of research try, in general, to understand a common character that reigns in almost all the available data. They consider that this generalization of the individual is the best way to achieve scientific universality. Contrary to these methods, our phenomenological qualitative research tries to describe a singular structure of the singular experience (of an individual) and to show the meaning and the value of this singularity. And the meaning found in this singularity depends on the configuration of phenomena that our analysis describes.

2  Method of Analysis – Noises, Signals, and Motifs In the transcription of an interview, we can point out three phenomenological dimensions of semantics; “motif,” “signal,” “noise.” The analysis starts with repeated readings of the transcription. The repetition enables a deeper reactivation of the data. We call the first layer of semantics the “motif.” The motifs become obvious in the first period of the analysis. The motifs are certain words and expressions that particularize the narrative. These motifs often depend on the cultural context of the interviewee, but at the same time also reflect some personal characteristics. At the outset, the importance given to these motifs are not so clear. Very often these motifs are popular words that are not necessarily relevant to the nurse’s practice. Furthermore, the interviewees use these words as imbued with their own personal meaning. When we grasp the configuration of the motifs, we discover the veiled and personal meanings attributed to the words which go beyond the dictionary’s definition. The configuration of the motifs determines the meaning of each motif and the narrative individualizes itself because of the singularity of the configuration. It is why each analysis of interview has its own singularity that does not necessarily correspond to the personality of the interviewee. Phenomenological qualitative research insists on the singularity of each analysis instead of the

98

Y. Murakami

g­ enerality claimed in other scientific domains based on the statistics. But, this singularity is not that of the personality but of the configuration as result of the analysis. Though, this singularity of the configuration reflects the experience of the interviewee. For example in the next quotation, a nurse who works in a unit of dialysis used the verb “to be visible [mieru]” in place of “see [miru]” (“mieru” is the middle voice of “miru”). [Because the unit of dialysis is an open space, I] work in a place where everything the other nurses do is visible [mieru]. The patients and everything my colleagues do can be seen [mieru]. Because I work in an environment where what everyone, veteran nurses and new-­ recruits alike, can be seen [mieru], I can pick up [steal, nusumu] good “care practices [Or care, spoken in English]”, as well catch [steal a glance, peep upon, nusumimiru] examples of care practices that are not so great.

In place of the verb “see” in its active voice, she uses the middle voice by expressing the actions of her colleagues to “be visible” or “can be seen” The events in the unit of dialysis are all visible and Ms. E is forced to see them. She is forced to observe the practice of her colleagues and her vision is influenced by the rules of medical institution because of this open space (it reminds us of Foucault’s Panopticon). The values and rules are always in sight. And although this nurse tries to escape from this political structure of the space she works in, which forces the disciplinary power (Foucault). We can observe the tension between the political power that dominates the unit and her wish to be human through the usage of the word “be visible [mieru].” Besides important motifs, there are frequent words which catch one’s attention although they do not have a clear meaning. Because these words do not have a clear and determinate meaning, it becomes difficult to understand what is being said. They do not explain any concrete practices, but they indicate the movement and the configuration of the motifs. It is these words that suggest the global structure of the narrative and of the practice. I propose we call them “signals.” Signals articulate the configuration of motifs. Ms. B [midwife]: Even a baby who is dying must experience his or her own birth, and even a baby who already died in the mother’s womb must experience  – in spite of this [yappari] – the birth. Even if [yappari], he/she is already dead, nevertheless [yappari] I cannot stay without addressing some words to the baby. Even if [yappari], he/she is dead, I address a word for example [yappari] thinking “Come on!” in my heart. [...] But, what was different at the moment of the birth, because he or she is, in fact, dead, so the baby does not cry. And what was totally different was the tactile impression and the smell... I cannot find any word to describe the moment of the birth. [...] Because [yappari] it was totally different.

This expert midwife repeated the word “yappari” when she talked about her most traumatized experience of an aborted baby’s care. “Yappari” can mean anything ranging from words such as “still,” “because,” “nevertheless,” “in spite of”, etc., and thus does not mean any concrete thing in this scene. But, it indicates the dynamism and the atmosphere of the situation. The repeated “yappari” means the great tension felt by the midwife. She tries to care the aborted baby as if he/she was alive with an enormous difficulty.

Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research

99

This effort to transform death into life determines the whole structure of her practice. It is something like a perceptual phantasy (perceptive Phantasie) (Husserliana XXIII, no. 12) but this perceptual phantasy requires a particular effort. “Yappari” means the conflict between the perception and the imaginative world. “Yappari” shows the dynamism of the practice that tries to realize the image of the “life” of the dead baby. Thanks to the perceptual phantasy, the dead body of the baby can be considered as the Leib (living body). Here is another example. A nurse specialized in cancer uses three different adverbs to describe the rhythm of her practice. Ms. C: Before all, hmm, hmm, with a physical decline, the patients who were energetic before gradually lose the capacity to do what they could do before. Hmm, for example, there was a patient who went to buy everyday a bottle of tea outside of his room. One day, he said, “Today, I feel this bottle is very heavy.” The weight of the bottle was his first experience of his [physical] decline. And some days later, he said, “I even dropped this.” Everyday, he made these kinds of reports. Before, he could buy a bottle without pain. And then, he started to feel how heavy the bottle was. He felt the weight of his legs as well, but it was rather that of bottle that was important for him. As time passed, he became unable to go to buy tea by himself.

Someone who starts to discuss these experiences will always want to speak [about death]. Yes, [I recognize this by] listening attentively [jikkuri jikkuri] to the patient. And as they experience this daily loss of mobility, they can feel death approaching rapidly [dondon dondon]. They’re afraid. There is a fear that gradually [dandan] they cannot go about their daily lives, yes, but at the same time they are also afraid of death. When they start to say, “I am gradually [dandan] losing my ability to do what I once could,” many of them speak also of their own death. “Dondon” refers to the precipitated rhythm with which the new events (radiotherapy, chemo treatment and the death) come. It points out the temporality of the external event. “Dandan” refers the temporality of the internal experience of the gradual loss of daily life. “Jikkuri” refers the temporality of the act of listening by the nurse that allows for the expression of “dondon” and “dandan” by the patient. Three different temporalities are combined into one experience of medical practice, and constitute the temporality of the palliative care. We can observe the articulation of this practice in the use of onomatopoeia as it is related to the temporality of experience and, especially, to the bodies within their habitus. In the interview, there are innumerable noises, which do not have meanings by themselves and do not have any relation to the contents of the narrative. Discord between the subject and the predication, a slip of the tongue, the silence, the repetition of certain words, the dialect, the flexion of the tonality, etc. A method of qualitative research such as GTA erases these noises. But in our approach, these noises become key for an analysis, because the noises indicate very often the encounter of heterogeneous and implicit contexts. Furthermore, noises indicate the configuration of these contexts. Because of this, the noises in an interview teach us the whole (and implicit) structure of the nurse’s practice – the “whole” structure that go beyond nurse’s intentions.

100

Y. Murakami

For example, in case of the first quotation, the mix-up in the grammatical subject between my utterance and hers, which we did not recognize in that moment, shows her standpoint in practice. The structure of practice is totally explained by narrative’s literal contents. In the next quotation from the narrative of a visiting nurse, just after the appearance of the grammatical subject “I, myself”, the interviewee implicitly replaces the subject with another one (“my colleague” becomes the new grammatical subject) and introduces another theme and the first subject comes back later. • Ms. F: I, myself..., several times, [one of my colleagues] visited this patient [with brain cancer]. But she [i.e., my colleague] cried a lot because [of the sympathy she had for him and] she could do nothing. And she could not keep the cool mind that she needed to care for this patient. That is why we discussed the matter and decided that we had to change his primary nurse. It is why I replaced her, I replaced her. But, perhaps, I, myself, do not do my work [as her]. I observed [this patient] with a distance...

Between the two occurrences of “I, myself”, the nurse describes the practice of one of her colleagues – this colleague resembles, in fact, the practices she operated on when she was younger, but she ignores this fact in the interview. This means that the inserted part describes the basis on which her actual practice has been formed. At first glance, this sudden change in grammatical subject sounds strange and appears to be a simple gap in her thinking, but in reality it explains the genetic structure of her practice. The distortion of the grammar corresponds to her actual ‘‘style’’ (Merleau-Ponty 1960) and the genetic structure of practice as nurse. A nurse cannot clearly describe the interwoven, heterogeneous contexts that have formed over experiences, and it is impossible to recognize their styles of practice that has been integrated into them. We can observe them only through the noises that pop up during the otherwise smooth narrative. Ambiguous or contradictory moments in a narrative are where the global configuration of an experience appears in spite of the intention of the narrator. This is why our attention to minor moments in the narrative is a necessary step for detecting the global structure of the practice that goes beyond the subjective and psychological impression of the nurse who explains it. Phenomenological research based on narratives is not a psychological explanation of the narrative, nor is it a description of the history of the narrator’s life. Phenomenological and qualitative research tries to describe the conscious structure of the practice analyzing the configuration of the various moments and contexts.3 In this context, the concept of “individuality” changes its meaning. This individuality is not necessarily that of the individual nurse who gives us an interview. It is the structure of the practice that individualizes itself in the narrative or in the whole research field, and can be somehow impersonal. In my actual research on the network of practitioners who work in a poor area of Osaka, their collaboration individualizes itself even if the style of each carer differs. This is our definition of facticity, insofar as this structure is always singular and unique.  We can refer to « institution » in the late thought of Merleau-Ponty (2003).

3

Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research

101

I would like to summarize our discussion. In our research, we analyzed interviews with several nurses. Through the striking motives, we came to understand important moments of their practice. An analysis of the insignificant signals showed the configuration of motives that further shows the global structure of their practice. Finally, these noises indicate the configuration of the complex, and even contradictory, contexts imposed upon the nurse. Independent of the personality of the nurse, individualization is achieved as a configuration of the practice face to the complex and difficult situation composed of heterogeneous contexts.

3  A  n Intersubjective and Delayed Phenomenological Reduction As a conclusion, I would like to clarify our method in relation to the phenomenological reduction. Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is based on a reflection on his own experiences. How can one demonstrate the validity of the knowledge of an object, which transcends the immanence of consciousness? To reply to this question, we have to reach the unquestionable evidence of the consciousness that an apperception of an external object presupposes. Thus, Husserl started to examine function of the consciousness that remains behind the external perception from an internal standpoint. We have tried to apply a method of reduction that goes beyond the theory of knowledge. When I perform the reduction of the empirical perception of a cup in front of me to the appearance, the individuality of “my” experience and the reality of the “existing” cup, are bracketed and the perception is transformed into the flowing of phenomena. Even in this reduction that brackets the effective reality of an empirical object and of the psychological ego, the fact that such and such a phenomenon occurs in consciousness remains indubitable and evident (even when this perception is revealed to be a hallucination). Even in the reduction, there remains the transcendental subjectivity as the sphere of appearance. It is true that solitary reflection plays a crucial role in Husserl’s argument, but it is not the reflection itself that guarantees the truth of transcendental subjectivity. In Husserlian phenomenology, it is the evidence of the appearance that guarantees its truth. Because the appearance obeys a universal law, the phenomenological reduction discovers a universal and true structure. And we consider that even our qualitative research maintains the idea of the evidence. When we apply the phenomenological method to qualitative research, the phenomenological reduction is no more a matter of solitary reflection. In place of solitary reflection, the reduction occurs in an intersubjective and delayed manner. Before clarifying the intersubjective character of this new reduction (it has nothing to do with Husserl’s intersubjective reduction), I would like to add some remarks on the empirical stage in our research before the reduction. The starting point of this research is the interview and the observation. The narrative of a nurse is that of his

102

Y. Murakami

or her experience in medical practice. This narrative is based on the empirical reality of their personal experience. In a narrative, the world of the practice is reconfigured on the empirical stage. When listening to nurses speak, I myself tend to sympathize with him or her. In so far as I am engaged in the reality of their narrative and of the described experience as the interviewer, my attitude is also empirical and natural. This participation in the empirical aspect of the nurse’s experience is important. Because of this participation, I can reactivate this experience and I can verify the validity of my analysis. At the same time, in listening to the story, I can try to find its global articulation and also grasp some important motives, and thus try to understand the particularity of this narrative in comparison to other interviews. In this sense, I also have a different attitude. The situation changes when I analyze the transcript of the recorded interview. The interviewer now becomes the analyst. At the same time, the empirical stage of the interview now becomes transcendental. When I re-live the nurse’s experience reading the transcription, the described events lose their reality and personal individuality. These events are now captured purely in their movement as phenomena. In the nachleben [re-living], of the analyst, the narrative shows a transcendental structure of (anonymous) phenomena that do not correspond necessarily to the empirical contents of the narrative. It becomes the transcendental constitution of the world. There are two salient characters to this event. First, phenomena occur in an intersubjective manner through the interview. Second, the transcendental stage appears only when we read the transcript – that is, the transcendental occurs in a delayed manner. Transcendental subjectivity is the sphere wherein the flux of phenomena occurs. In qualitative research based on interviews, transcendental subjectivity is nothing but the movement captured through data wherein a nurse’s narrative and a researcher’s eye have fused with one another. A narrative’s contents are simultaneously the nurse’s concrete experiences as well as the phenomena filtered by analyst’s view (who conducts the phenomenological reduction). Exactly speaking, analyzed experience belongs neither to the nurse nor to the analyst. It is, strangely enough, a combination of the nurse’s perspective and of the analyst’s perspective. Phenomena become intersubjective, or rather, anonymous. Originated in individual and empirical experiences, the data mapped in the transcendental configuration accomplishes a sort of universality or communicability. We may claim its universality just as the traditional phenomenology has for reflection. Analyzing the transcript, the personality of the person who speaks is bracketed, and several layers of phenomena are revealed. In place of the emotion of the nurse, we are interested, for example, in their gestures the configuration of their bodies, and the machines in the medical settings. In the midst of an interview, I sympathize with the emotions of the nurse, but I do not feel these emotions when I analyze the transcript, thus re-living his or her experience (I read it repeatedly and in place of emotional moments, I gradually grasp the details that determine its configuration). The personality of the nurse does not matter anymore. The methodological “re-­ live (nachleben)” is distinguished from sympathy. The data becomes impersonal

Phantasieleib and the Method of Phenomenological Qualitative Research

103

and anonymous, and is thus reduced to the configuration of the multiple layers of phenomena (motives, signals, noises). These moments are based on the narrative and that the nurses articulate when discussing their experiences. But they are very often outside of his or her consciousness, at least one part of their movements forms a phenomenological unconscious. In our analysis, the “I” of the phenomenologist locates himself or herself as a video camera in the flux of the described phenomena. The “video camera” is, of course, a metaphor. This camera grasps not only the perceptual appearances but also all the possible (intuitive and not-intuitive) “movements” suggested in the narrative. It is the incarnation of the Phantasieleib of phenomenologist into the movement of the transcribed narrative. The Phantasieleib becomes a tool of analysis. It reveals the articulation of phenomena unknown even to the nurse. The re-living (nachleben) of the analyst is an incarnation with a distance. The detachment suggested in the metaphor of the video camera leads to a certain emotional and methodical distance of the analyst against the data (It is one of the effects of the epoché of the reality and of the individuality of the person). A clear and detailed observation requires, rather, an emotional detachment against data. Even if the phenomenologist re-lives the “emotion” of the interviewee, this emotion becomes a part of phenomena and it is used to analyze its articulation and configuration of the whole phenomena’s movements. The more we deepen our analysis, the more we become detached from the emotional aspect (that corresponds to the position (Setzung) of the empirical reality in the phenomenology), and the data becomes neutral and impersonal. The phenomenological reliving is opposed to the empirical sympathy. The role of video camera (Phantasieleib of phenomenologist) or of the “phenomenological viewer” (Eugen Fink) consists of bracketing the empirical reality of the data and of articulating the movements of elements (motives, signals, noises) as such. We have to read the same data many times. Without this rereading process, we cannot recognize small motives, signals and noises. Very often, the important moments are hidden and unmarked. Discovering hidden moments requires time – there is a temporalization proper to phenomenological analysis in qualitative research: it takes several months to analyze one interview. The crystallization of motives has its own rhythm. What a nurse wanted to convey in his or her interview is not necessarily what is important in the analysis. We need repeatedly read over the interview to discover it. These repeated readings are nothing but the process of phenomenological reduction. The more we repeat, the more we can bracket these empirical aspects. The process of repeatedly reading through an interview is the temporality of the phenomenological reduction. Thus, the configuration of phenomena that characterizes each interview in its singularity. The repetition reveals the singularity of the configuration of each practice. The more we read, the more data becomes structured and individualized. The video camera of phenomenological analysis  – Phantasieleib of analyst  – functions anonymously and impersonally. The agent who conducts the phenomenological description is not the empirical ego of the analyst, but the anonymously

104

Y. Murakami

functioning video camera. When the personality of the nurse is bracketed (and the data become a bundle of phenomena), the personality of the analyst is also bracketed. It is why a phenomenological description is somehow anonymous in spite of the individuality of the data. Analyzed experience does not belong any more to one particular individual (be it the nurse or the phenomenologist). It is one of the reasons why phenomenological analyses of narratives can gain a sort of universality in spite of the singularity of the result. Contrary to Husserl’s presupposition, the described structure is not necessarily an eidos. Furthermore, we always analyze a particular and singular experience of a nurse irreducible to others’ experiences. With that said, because of the above mentioned methodological process, any analysis of an individual becomes impersonal. But, we have to underline the fact that, even if the psychological individuality of a nurse is bracketed, the singularity of the configuration of phenomena remains. The singularity of an analyzed experience and the anonymity of the structure of this experience are compatible. Through the discovery of microelements, the hidden and anonymous structure of a narrative is revealed. The noises occur when a gap among several contexts in one narrative encounters each other. If we analyze this gap, we have to read the movements of several and often contradictory social contexts which function behind the nurse’s consciousness. The noises reveal thus the configuration of the phenomenological unconscious. In one narrative, the transcendental structure of an individual and that of the social contexts play together. Thus, phenomenological qualitative research discovers simultaneously the micro and global structure of human experiences.

References Husserl, E. 1980 (Hua XXIII). Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen (1898~1925), Husserliana Band XXIII. Den Haag: M. Nijhoff. Merleau-Ponty, M. 1960. Signe. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 2003. Institution Passivité. Paris: Belin. Murakami, Y. 2013. Tekiben to Ohanami  – Phenomenology of Narratives on the Nursing (in Japanese). Tokyo: Igakushoin. Murakami, Y. 2018. Phenomenological Analysis of a Japanese Professional Caregiver Specialized in Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Neuroethics: 1–11: online. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12152-018-9379-2. Richir, M. 2000. Phénoménologie en esquisses. Grenoble: J. Millon. Yasuhiko Murakami (Ph.D., Université de Paris 7) is Professor at Osaka University. He is author of Lévinas phénoménologue (J. Millon, 2002), Affection of Contact and Transcendental Telepathy in Schizophrenia and Autism (Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences, 12(1):1–16 · March 2011), and L’endroit à partir duquel quelqu’un m’appelle Dialogue avec une infirmière spécialisée en soins palliatifs (in F. Bastiani, M. Saint-Jean, éd. Soin et fin de la vie – Pour une ethique de l’accompagnement (2014), Paris: Seli Arslan) and Le soin infirmier dans l’hôpital psychiatrique au Japon et la mise hors circuit de l’institution médicale (Revue Institutions. Vol. 55. 2015, pp. 57–71).

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation Takashi Ikeda

Abstract  Heidegger’s language was previously considered to be unique vocabulary or jargon. However, the publication of the collected works of Heidegger allows us to see in detail that he had acquired his ontological concepts largely by translating ancient Greek concepts into German. My paper aims to clarify the role of translation in Heidegger’s philosophy and to demonstrate the insights he has into the nature of translation. First, I illustrate that translation is required as an essential procedure for posing a question of meaning of Being in early Heidegger. The requirement for translation can, I argue, only be understood in the context of the general question concerning meaning Heidegger shared with his contemporaries. Second, I explore Heidegger’s method of translation called “literal” or “true-to-­word” translation in his lectures from the 1940s, and show that his strategy in translation belongs to the underestimated tradition of “word for word” translation in opposition to the dominant ideal of “sense for sense” translation. I further argue that Heidegger’s true-toword translation is aimed to cause an existential shift for readers by making the most self-evident in reader’s native language foreign and questionable, and to situate readers in possibilities of thinking on the Grundwörter of Being. Keywords  Heidegger · Hermeneutics · History of being · Interpretation · Language · Meaning · Translation

1  Introduction It used to be a typical reaction to Heidegger’s Being and Time as well as his later writings that one of his greatest enterprises was to create a new and unique original vocabulary, completely different from that of modern, epistemological, and

T. Ikeda (*) School of Arts and Letters, Meiji University, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_9

105

106

T. Ikeda

consciousness-based philosophies.1 Conversely, there have also been readers who admit that his vocabulary is radically new, but still critically and negatively evaluate this new vocabulary as “bombastic, indecipherable jargon.”2 However, since new volumes of the collected works of Heidegger, including early lectures preceding the publication of Being and Time, have become available, both reactions appear to be pointless; it has become common knowledge among scholars that Heidegger had acquired what was previously considered his unique vocabulary or jargon to a large extent by translating ancient Greek concepts into German.3 Now, we must take a more serious look at Heidegger’s endeavors in translation, e.g., his translations of the Greek notion of αλήθεια into Unverborgenheit (Un-Concealment) in German instead of simply adopting the standard translation such as Wahrheit (Truth). What role does this kind of translation play for his philosophical thinking and in what way is this thinking through translation acceptable?4 Heidegger appears once again as a unique philosopher who presents his thoughts by interpreting old concepts in unusual ways, rather than as a creator of completely new languages.5 My investigation aims to clarify the role of Heidegger’s labor of translation in his strategy of philosophical thinking and to demonstrate the important insights Heidegger has into the nature of translation by locating his discussion in the standard context of the philosophy of translation. Firstly, I will illustrate that translation is required as an essential procedure for posing a question of meaning of ontological concepts in early Heidegger. I will do this by examining Heidegger’s phenomenological and hermeneutic treatment of meaning and his way of performing translation in Being and Time, as well as lectures and articles preceding this work. The requirement for translation can, I argue, only be understood in the context of the general question concerning meaning Heidegger shared with his contemporaries and his rejection of both Platonic and psychologistic understandings of meaning. 1  See Hans-Georg Gadamer’s retrospective comments on the impact of early Heidegger’s lectures in his article “Heideggers’ theologische’ Jugendschrift,” Dilthey-Jahrbuch für Philosophie der Geisteswissenschaften Bd. 6 (1989), p. 229. Also see Richard Rorty’s evaluation of Heidegger’s later thought as “edifying” philosophy or hermeneutics in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 369. 2  This expression is used by George Steiner to describe the negative reaction of authors such as T.  W. Adorno and Günter Grass in his Martin Heidegger: With a New Introduction (originally published in 1978; Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991), p. 9. 3  See for example, Franco Volpi, “Being and Time: A ‘Translation’ of the Nicomachean Ethics? (trans. J. Protevi)” in Theodore Kisiel and J. Van Buren (ed.) Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in his Earliest Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994). 4  For an important and influential work regarding the significant role of translation in Heidegger’s philosophy, see Parvis Emad, “Thinking more deeply into the question of translation: Essential translation and the unholding of language”. John Sallis, Das Ende der Übersetzung, in Günter Figal und Hans-Helmuth Gander (ed.) Dimensionen der Hermeneutischen: Heidegger und Gadamer (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2005). 5  In this paper I limit the scope of my considerations into Heidegger’s labor of translating ancient Greek concepts into German. However, it is worth noting that the translations of Latin concepts into German also takes on a significant role in Heidegger’s philosophy, as evident e.g., in the concept of existence in Being and Time or temporality in the summer semester of Heidegger’s 1927 The Basic Problems of Phenomenology.

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

107

Second, I will explore Heidegger’s unique method of translation called “literal” or “true-to-word” translation in his lectures on Parmenides and Heraclitus from the 1940s, and show that his strategy in translation roughly belongs to the historically underestimated tradition of “word for word” translation in opposition to the dominant ideal of “sense for sense” translation. The latter, indeed, presupposes the Platonic ideality of meaning. I will further argue that Heidegger’s most original and important insight into the act of translation cannot be yet understood in terms of semiotic notions. Heidegger’s labor of translation is aimed to cause an existential shift for readers by making the most self-evident in reader’s native language foreign and questionable, and to situate readers in possibilities of thinking on the fundamental words (Grundwörter) of Being.

2  T  ranslation in Early Heidegger: The Context of Phenomenological Inquiry into Meaning Let me start with some general considerations on translation. The word “translation” is normally used to indicate the translation of certain texts, sentences or words in a foreign language into a mother language and vice versa. What happens in the activity or event of such intralingual translations?6 From an etymological point of view, it is often thought that translation is related to crossing over or transposition in some manner; i.e., to translate something (etwas Übersetzen) means in its most fundamental sense to transfer something from one place to another (es über einen Abstand hinübersetzen).7 What is, then, specifically transferred beyond boundaries in translation? The most popular answer is the meaning of words. According to this understanding, translation is an event in which the meaning of words is transferred into other words.8 Insofar as one follows such an understanding of translation and evaluates the quality of certain translations—i.e., whether this translation is good or bad—one tends to adopt such criterion: Whether the meaning of translated words coincide with or correspond to the meaning of the original words?9 6  In this paper I follow Parvis Emad’s view that in Heidegger the intralingual translation holds “the original and prominent status” over the interlingual translation and limit my discussion to the former type of translation. For Emad’s distinction of these two types of translation, see Frank Schalow, “A Conversation with Parvis Emad on the Question of Translation in Heidegger,” in Frank Schalow (ed.) Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), p. 177. 7  See John Sallis, On Translation, p. 23. Sallis provides a similar argument in terms of the makeup of the German word “Über-setzen” in his “Das Ende der Übersetung,” p. 12. As for the brief sketch of the historical development of the French concept of “Traduction,” see Richard Kearney’s introductory explanation in his “Introduction: Ricoeur’s philosophy of translation,” in Paul Ricoeur: On Translation with an intoroduction by Richard Kearney (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. xiii–xiv. 8  See John Sallis, “Das Ende der Übersetzung,“p. 12. 9  See John Sallis, “Das Ende der Übersetzung,“p. 13.

108

T. Ikeda

Insofar as such an understanding of translation is based on the concept of meaning, the question of the nature of translation leads to the more fundamental question of the philosophy of language: What is meaning? From the perspective of the philosophy of language, it is not self-evident at all to assume that there should be the same or identical meaning crossing over words in two languages which are different in shape or sound.10 The ideal or platonic identity of meaning—one that is supposed to be identical independently of each situation in which words and sentences are uttered and used—was, as is often admitted, one of the most controversial topics in contemporary philosophy since its emergence, in both the phenomenological and analytical traditions.11 As Steven Crowell systematically discusses, the path of early Heideggerian philosophy can be sketched in terms of his constant philosophical concern for meaning shared with his contemporaries.12 From his early pre-habilitation writings, Heidegger showed great interest in the problem of the ideality of meaning by referring to: e.g., Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological inquiry into the meaning of linguistic expressions; Gottlob Frege’s Platonism of meaning; and Hermann Lotze’s concept of validity.13 Heidegger rejected both Platonism and empirical psychologism and rather attempted at performing “subjective logic” that should analyze our making sense of something phenomenologically, i.e., as lived intentional experience.14 On the path to publishing Being and Time, Heidegger further acquired hermeneutic methods and developed a new way of approaching the meaning of philosophical concepts as embedded within a historic context called the “hermeneutic situation” into which inquirers are always and already thrown. The central theme of ontology in Being and Time is none other than the meaning of “Being.” Being is, according to Heidegger’s historical understanding, the very concept, the meaning of which has been least questioned, and the question about the meaning of Being has been long forgotten.15 Since Being, in its nature, is most concealed, it is for Heidegger the most significant topic in phenomenological research, the task of which should be to let something that conceals itself for everyday or scientific views show itself explicitly. Heidegger overtakes Husserl’s idea that we can experience not only the sensible but also the ideal entities by intuiting them. Furthermore, Heidegger attempts to clarify the meaning of Being, which is supposed to be the most universal and abstract, in terms of the phenomenology of the  This is impressively illustrated in Quine’s case of radical translation. See Willard Van Orman Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1960). 11  See Michael Dummet, Origins of Analytic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 12  Steven Galt Crowell, Husserl, Heidegger and the Space of Meaning: Paths toward Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: North Western University Press, 2001), p. 3. 13  Martin Heidegger, Neuere Forschung über Logik, in Frühe Schriften, GA1 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978). 14  Martin Heidegger, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Don Scotus, in Frühe Schriften, GA1 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), p. 404. 15  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer), pp. 2–4. 10

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

109

most fundamental intentionality known as “understanding of Being (Seinsverstehen).”16 Yet, in Heidegger’s own development of a “subjective logic,” the emphasis is given on the point that “understanding” can be captured neither as psychological inner experience nor as intuition of phenomenological consciousness. This is because every understanding is pre-conditioned by the hermeneutic situation. The hermeneutic situation is a pre-condition for the possibility of questioning the meaning of X. The purpose of Being and Time is to pose the question “what is Being?” in opposition to the general tendency towards the oblivion of Being and provide an answer to this question so that the meaning of Being will be grasped. Already at the first step of posing a question, three factors that constitute the hermeneutic situation must be presupposed: fore-having (Vorhabe), fore-sight (Vorsicht), and fore-conception (Vorgriff). In order to pose a question about what is Being, one has to already understand what Being is, even though this understanding is vague (fore-conception). In addition, one must have the range of entities available one can refer to in questioning the meaning of Being (fore-having), and finally one has to have some prospects for ways of addressing the question (fore-sight).17 According to Heidegger’s hermeneutics, the meaning of a certain concept cannot be considered independently of the situation in which the interpreter already understands the concept. The meaning of Being can be questioned only if it is posed by an interpreter who has an insight into how the concept in question is used and understood in his or her own historical situation. The inquiry into meaning is not pursued in the form of a question about something a-historical or ideal. Rather, the inquiry into meaning is renewed by Heidegger as inseparable from the question about the specific historicity of the one who questions. For Heidegger, I would argue, the activity of translation is the inevitable and essential element of his hermeneutics, and may be even regarded as the focal point that joins three descriptions of the analysis in Being and Time: ontology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Now let us recall the very beginning of Being and Time by citing Frank Schalow’s illustration: “Following the citation from Plato’s Sophist that echoes the perennial perplexity about the question of being, Heidegger asks: “Do we have an answer to the question of what we actually mean by the word ‘being’?”18 Schalow’s intention is not to inform readers of how Heidegger’s major work factually begins, but rather to indicate “the fundamental link between intralingual translation and Heidegger’s strategy for formulating the question of being.”19 It is  For the relationship between Husserl’s categorical intuition and Heidegger’s understanding of Being, see Jiro Watanabe, “Seinsverständnis, Aussage und Zeitlichkeit: Zum Problem bei Frege, Husserl, Russell und Heidegger,” in Hubertus Busche, George Heffernan und Dieter Lohmar (Hrsg.) Bewußtsein und Zeitlichkeit: Ein Problemschnitt durch die Philosophie der Neuzeit (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1990). 17  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer), pp. 150–151, 157, 232. 18  Frank Schalow, “Attunement and Translation,” in Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad, p. 293. 19  Ibid. 16

110

T. Ikeda

obvious that Heidegger first tries to prompt readers to inquire into the meaning of Being in their own hermeneutic situation. He does this by arousing and repeating the question of Being raised in ancient Greek thought at the beginning of Western philosophy. Here translation takes an essential role in Heidegger’s strategic writing. On the first page of Being and Time, Heidegger cites the original Greek text of Plato. Some key questions of this text are subsequently translated into German. Readers are then asked to overtake the same question in their own current situation.20 This process of turning back to the original question is required insofar as the central topic, Being, is conceived of as the phenomenon that has been forgotten in the course of history and is today mostly concealed. Otherwise, there would be no clues for two-hold tasks of Heidegger’s phenomenology: To make something unseen explicitly seen, and to bring the concealing tendency of history of Western ontology to its destruction. It can also be seen that translation takes the unifying role of ontology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics precisely through Heidegger’s way of defining these descriptions. As was already mentioned, Heidegger uniquely presents the concept of phenomenon as the most concealed and Being as the phenomenon in its most original sense. This is because Being is, in its nature, concealing itself; thus the task of phenomenology is defined as letting this phenomenon show itself and oppose its concealing tendency. This understanding of the link between phenomenology and ontology is acquired by means of translating the Greek word φαινόμενon into a phrase along the lines of “something showing itself.”21 Further, Heidegger introduces hermeneutics as the method of phenomenology in that he characterizes “the λόγος of phenomenology” as “έρμηνεύειν.”22 This characterization is based on his interpretation of λόγος as “talk” that can mean both discovering and concealing, or true and false. It is worth noting that Heidegger describes his interpretation of this Greek word as “literal translation” and refuses to take for granted that “λόγος is ‘translated,’ i.e., is always interpreted as reason, judgment, concept, definition, ground, or proportion.”23 Doubtlessly, the way of translating basic Greek words into German, works as a criterion for doing genuine or false philosophy. Most discussions of the role of translation in Heidegger’s thinking are focused on lectures and writings completed after the 1940s. Herein, as we will see in the next section, Heidegger explicitly takes translation as a topic of the task of thinking. However, as we saw above, Heidegger already expresses his stance on the activity of translation in Being and Time by taking “literal translation” in a positive way. From his early work, he also speaks of translation as a kind of interpretation. This may not be unexpected when we consider that what he calls literal translation is, in fact, rather unusual. In the lecture course of the summer semester of 1922, shortly before the so-called “Natorp-report” that is the first substantive draft of Being and Time, Heidegger engaged in translation and interpretation of Aristotle’s  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 1.  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 28–29, 35–36. 22  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 37. 23  Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 32. 20 21

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

111

Metaphysics, Physics and other works. At the beginning of this lecture, he states his belief in the task of translation, namely, that it is necessary to have learned Greek and German to understand the classic works, but it is not sufficient. Linguistic proficiency will contribute to understanding issues only if it “obtains its direction from [the] hermeneutic situation.” Insofar as one tries to be true to the issues discussed in the Greek works, “every translation is already certain interpretation.”24 Heidegger is consistent in this seemingly contradictory stance towards translation: he prefers to call his own translation literal, whilst maintaining that every translation is already an interpretation. Sofar, it has been shown that translation is one of the essential parts of Heidegger’s thinking, but the problem that now arises is what Heidegger has in mind when he speaks of translation as interpretation. What can it mean for “literal translation” to involve factors of interpretation on the side of interpreters?

3  T  ranslation in the Later Heidegger: What Is Literal Translation as Interpretation? In his lectures from the winter semester of 1942–1943 Parmenides and Heraclitus and the summer semester of 1943 The Beginning of Western Thinking: Heraclitus, Heidegger considers his own translation as a kind of “literal (wörtliche) translation” more explicitly and elaborately than in Being and Time. He takes the Greek word αλήθεια as an example, and names it “what one always ‘translates’ as truth” and presents his own translation, namely, Un-concealment, which he calls the “‘literal translation’” of this word.25 Needless to say literal translation, or, put another way, a “word for word” translation is not popular among translators and is often rejected in favor of “sense for sense” or readable translation. This negativity towards literal translation has a long tradition. As a typical historical example, Cicero’s comment on the task of translation in The Best Kind of Orator (De Optimo Genere Oratorum) may be used; herein Cicero admittedly takes precedence of thought over figures of thought i.e., words and says: “I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. For I did not think I ought to count them out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were.”26 The idea of “sense for sense” or “not by coins, but by weight” as a translation prevails and seems to be harmless. Nevertheless, there are problems inherent in such forms of translation. In his Truth and Method, Hans-Georg Gadamer suggests that such a translation inevitably includes the character of over-highlighting  Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological interpretation of selected papers of Aristotle’s ontology and logic, GA62 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2005), p. 6. 25  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, GA54 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1992), p. 16. 26  Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Best Kind of Orator, in (trans. H. M. Hubbell) De Inventione: De Optimo Genere Oratorum (Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard University Press), p. 365. 24

112

T. Ikeda

(Überhellung).27 Translators must not leave any word open, even though some parts are unclear to them; their translation must be less ambiguous and more articulate than the original text. For this task, translators have to emphasize some features of the text on the one hand while also attaching little importance to other features on the other hand. In every attempt at achieving the best “sense for sense” translation, there is a tendency to over-highlight. I took Gadamer’s notion of over-highlighting as an example among other explanations of difficulties of “sense for sense” translation,28 to draw attention to the fact that Heidegger used this notion in his Natorp-Report that greatly influenced the younger Gadamer. Shortly before starting with his interpretation of the 6th book of Nicomachean Ethics, Heidegger provides some introductory explanation on what it means to interpret Aristotle. Heidegger claims that “every interpretation must over-­ highlight its thematic object in accordance with its position and direction of looking (Blickstand und Blickrichtung).”29 He then describes “withdrawal of over-­ highlighting”30 as one condition for the possibility that the object (the text of Aristotle in this example) will be addressed appropriately. It is suggested that Heidegger was aware of the danger of over-highlighting in the “sense for sense” translation as he dares to shed positive light on “literal translation.” What, then, is literal or “word for word” translation, and why is it often regarded as more problematic? In the summer lecture of 1943, Heidegger distinguishes “mere literal translation” from what he considers to be a genuine type of literal translation called “true-to-words (wortgetreu) translation.”31 As the most typical example of a “mere” literal translation, we may think of “dictionary-based” translation, wherein one seeks for the equivalent word to the original word in dictionaries. The ideal of this sense of literal translation is seen today in a large number of automatic, machine translations on the Internet. It is as if Heidegger had anticipated the future development of technology, having already referred to the “translation machine (Übersetzungsmaschine)” as a manifestation of “modern logical interpretation of thinking and discourse”32 in the lecture course The Principle of Reason held in the winter semester of 1954–1955. In Heidegger’s view, such machines are able to translate business documents, but this is not the case with poetry. This limitation of the capability of a translation machine is, in its basic understanding not far from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s distinction between translator (Übersetzer) and inter27  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1990, originally published in 1960), pp. 389–390. 28  Antoine Berman analyzes many varieties of “distorting tendencies” involved in the act of translation such as clarification, expansion, and qualitative or quantitative impoverishment. See, his La Traduction et la lettre, ou L’auberge du lointain (Paris: Seuil, 1999). 29  Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation), in GA62 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2005), p. 372. 30  ibid. 31  Martin Heidegger, Heraklit, GA55 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979), p. 44. 32  Martin Heidegger, Der Satz vom Grund, GA10(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997), p. 145.

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

113

preter (Dolmetscher).33 According to him, the former is suitable to science, art, and literature, whilst the latter is suitable for the business world. The common feature of both translation machines and business interpreters share is that they are in charge of strictly neutral transmission of information that must be free from any subjective interpretation. Significantly, the ideal of neutral transmission not only has a long tradition from universal language, from the Enlightenment to bilingualism in the age of globalization. It also clearly reflects the idea of the ideality of meaning that Heidegger rejects (as we saw in the first section). The literal translation in the sense of dictionary-based transmission of information is problematic, not solely because it seems to lack some necessary labor on the side of translators, but also and more fundamentally because it depends on the Platonic ideal of unchangeable meaning and hence shares the ontological presupposition on the nature of meaning with those who support “sense for sense” translation. What is, then, the genuine kind of literal translation Heidegger calls “true-to-­ word translation” like? For engaging in this task, one has to adopt an alternative method that avoids the danger of over-highlighting as well as the thoughtless substitution of words one finds in dictionaries. Heidegger calls the unique method of the true-to-word translation replication (Nachbildung).34 The act of replication is never performed in “sense for sense” or dictionary-based translation. Replication in Heidegger’s sense is not meant psychologically, say, as a translator’s re-experience of a creative act originally performed by the author.35 Rather, replication in Heidegger’s sense is more “syntactic,” as it were. The replication or “‘literal’ replacement”36 refers to the procedure for translation, the typical example of which is to make a German word Un-verborgenheit out of two elements of the negative pre-fix un- and verborgen(heit) as faithfully as possible to the makeup of original Greek word of αλήθεια, consisting of the negative pre-fix α-, and the conjugation of λήθε. For this literal replacement it is necessary at the first stage to resolve the word in question into its components, i.e., that are not conceived to be the standard unit suitable for a dictionary index. The philosophically significant point indicated in the procedure of true-to-word translation is that thought and the figure of thought, or put differently, meaning and the letter of a word, are not separable in language, and that the meaning of words cannot be extracted from the flesh of words. This point is opposed to the naive belief in such extraction on the side of opponents of literal translation. For those who follow the traditional view of “sense for sense” translation, this line of thinking, wherein such a thing as equivalence of meaning is clearly abandoned, may appear odd. However, there is an alternative tradition, though not popular among profes Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, “Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens,” in Hans Joachism Störig (hrsg.) Das Problem des Übersetzens (Stuttgart: Henry Goverts, 1963), p. 65. 34  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, p. 16. 35  According to Gadamer, Schleiermacher’s notion of re-experience of original creative acts is one of the evidences that his hermeneutics has a psychological aspect. See, Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, p. 191. 36  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, p. 21. 33

114

T. Ikeda

sional translators, of thinkers who support the inseparability thesis of meaning and letter. Heidegger is not alone in this way of understanding language, as Paul Ricoeur names Hölderlin, Paul Celan, and Henri Meschonicc as model figures that fought a “campaign against the isolated meaning”37 in his On Translation. Although Ricoeur does not mention Heidegger in this context, it seems safe to say that Heidegger belongs to this alternative tradition, once one takes his well-known sympathy with Hölderlin and Celan into account. Ricoeur even thinks that those who deny the inseparability thesis of meaning are restrained by old prejudices. According to him, “the vast majority of translators rush to oppose this [i.e., giving up the comfortable shelter of the equivalence of meaning], without recognizing an achievement of contemporary semiotics, the unity of meaning and sound, of the signified and the signifier (…).”38 It is, however, questionable as to whether one could understand the enterprise of the above-mentioned figures from a semiotic point of view. For Saussurean signs are constituents of an abstract system that is completely separate from the historical world, including other languages, and hence it seems impossible to deal with the act of translation in this theoretical framework.39 In fact, Heidegger stated in his winter 1942–1943 lecture that translation certainly begins with the replication of the original word, but that this procedure is merely the beginning: “Solely by replacing the Greek αλήθεια into the German Un-verborgenheit, we have not translated the word yet.”40 Rather, such replication of the word is considered to be senseless without “effort to contemplate on the forgetfulness (λήθε) that should refer back to αλήθεια.”41 What is, then, contemplation in the act of translation, and how does it work? Heidegger captures this specific kind of contemplation with recourse to the literal meaning of translate (übersetzen), as follows: The word αλήθεια will have been completely translated, firstly when the translated word (Un-concealment) transfers us into the sphere and the way of experiences, in which the Greeks, in this case, Parmenides, the thinker at the beginning, says the word αλήθεια.42

As we have seen before, the typical answer to the question as to what will be transferred from one place to another in translation, is meaning. Heidegger’s answer is “us” i.e., Heidegger himself and students, put more generally, the translator and her readers. The translation will be completed if those involved are transferred by the  Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, p.38.  ibid. 39  See Émile Benveniste’s critical comments on Saussure’s attempt at general linguistics in his Problems in General Linguistics (London: Faber and Faber, 1973, translated by Elizabeth Palmer). Some readers of Heidegger also reject interpreting Heidegger’s praxis of translation in terms of specific linguistic theories. See the conversation between Parvis Emad and Frank Schalow “A Conversation with Parvis Emad on the Question of Translation.” 40  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, p. 16. 41  Ibid. 42  Ibid. “Dazu kommt es erst dann, wenn das übersetzte Wort »Unverborgenheit« uns übersetzt in den Erfarungsbereich und die Erfarungsart, aus dem das Griechentum und im jetztigen Fall der anfängliche Denker Parmenides das Wort αλήθεια sagt.” 37 38

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

115

original word into the sphere and way of experiences in which the original word is used. Characteristically, Heidegger thinks that translation requires some kind of existential modification or change on the side of translators and readers as historical beings, and hence his understanding of the act of translation is far from a picture of neutral transmission of information. How can translators and readers be transferred into the situation wherein the Greeks spoke those original words? In the tradition of hermeneutics, the “transportation” required for understanding the meaning of a text is sometimes considered as something that happens in an interpreter’s empathy for the original author, as is suggested in Wilhelm Dilthey’s descriptive psychology.43 Although the nature of empathy is still fiercely discussed, it is an accepted view that in theories of empathy, it is assumed that one can know only one’s own mental states in a direct manner and that one can know other minds only by reproducing their own mental states and projecting them into other minds.44 If we apply this model of empathic understanding to the case of translation we can then imagine a German translator, as Schleiermacher illustrated, who says to his readers: “I bring you the book that this foreign person would have written, if he had written in German.”45 For Schleiermacher, who thinks of psychological interpretation such as imaginative self-transportation into the perspective of other persons as merely one aspect of the interpretive method of historians, the work of translation by such a translator is not genuine. As Antoine Berman points out, this notion of self-transportation denies “the profound relation that connects the author to his own language.”46 Insofar as the central element of authorship is lost, translation based on self-transportation cannot be considered genuine. In the above citation, Heidegger provides another, non-psychological way of understanding the transportation of translator into the situation of the original authors. What transfers us into the original situation of experiences is not us, but the word. According to Heidegger, the appropriate relatedness to the word is, as a natural consequence of the view that we are not subjects of transportation, receptive rather than self-centered as contrasted with reproduction of what I would think if I were in author’s situation. Heidegger defines this receptive relationship towards the word as “hearing (Hören).”47 By attentively hearing the word, or more exactly, hear-

 See for example, William Dilthey, “Beiträge zum Studium der Individualität,” in Die geistige Welt: Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens, Gesammelte Schriften Bd. 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). 44  For the general view of contemporary discussion on empathy, Karsten Stueber, Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk Psychology, and the Human Science (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006). For criticism of projectionist view of other minds from phenomenological perspective, see Chapter 9 of Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction into Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Sciences (New York: Routledge, 2008). 45  Schleiermacher, “Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens” p. 65. 46  Antoine Berman, The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany (trans. S. Heyvaert; New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 147. 47  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, p. 22. 43

116

T. Ikeda

ing “what words are actually saying,”48 our transportation into the original situation occurs. This hearing is considered a kind of thinking rather than a physical act of auditory sense. As we have seen, Heidegger views mere replication of the original word as only the beginning of translation. After true-to-word replication of the word αλήθεια, we will face the fact that we cannot understand what the translated word of Un-concealment means, even though this translated word is no longer foreign. Through experiencing the incomprehensibility or the strangeness of the word in one’s mother language, there is a chance for translation to become thinking, while simple repetition of the standard translation or dictionary-based translation tends to stop working after the original foreign word has been replaced by the word in one’s mother language. Translation, as a matter of hearing thinking, is not reducible to mere etymological research of familiar words. The decisive point of this thinking is rather that not only the words in familiar language, but also the co-existence of we, the translators and readers; i.e., those who share the same mother language, become questionable and thus worth questioning. In other words, Heidegger’s translation is not simply intended to translate the old Greek word into contemporary, familiar German, but also or even in the first sense, to reverse translate the familiar German theoretical concepts such as truth or reason into the foreign, ancient Greek, in order to make the seemingly most self-evident doubtful. We have seen this distinctive strategy at play from the beginning of Being and Time. Heidegger does not intend to justify the use of philosophical concepts he and others have learned and grown familiar with by pointing out their etymological origins. Instead, reverse-translation deprives such concepts of their validity and evokes critical thinking or contemplation about what fundamental words actually say. According to a lecture in The Principle of Reason, what is happening in the labor of genuine translation is the “shift from the familiar tonality of a sentence to its unfamiliar tonality” and this “leap remains a free possibility of thinking.”49 We can now understand the reason Heidegger repeats the thesis that every translation is certain interpretation. In his summer lecture of 1943–1944, Heidegger states: “The translation provided here already includes interpretation of the text. And this interpretation needs explication (Erläuterung).”50 In this lecture, an interpretation of Parmenides’ fragments is performed through what Heidegger calls explication followed by preceding replication of the original words. For interpreting the text, it is necessary to explicate the referential-network of words in which the word in question acquires its most fundamental sense, i.e., the situation in which we are able to hear what this word actually says. Forgetfulness (λήθε) is, for example, the most essential word among words located in the referential-network within which what the word αλήθεια says can be genuinely heard. So, as we have already seen, for Heidegger, replication of the word is senseless without an “effort to contemplate on the forgetfulness (λήθε) that should refer back to αλήθεια.” The effort  ibid.  Martin Heidegger, Der Satz vom Grund, p. 139. 50  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, pp. 4, 12. 48 49

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

117

of explication Heidegger engages in is beyond what we normally imagine to be the task of translators. Heidegger tries to explicate the conflict among λήθε and αλήθεια not only by examining Parmenides’ text, but also by first investigating Homer’s usage of these words and then tracing a historical shift of meaning of these original words in their Latin and German translations. In short, Heidegger’s effort for translation is directed at nothing other than opening up a situation in which we are oriented historically in order to think on and within the History of Being (seinsgeschichtlich denken). Heidegger especially emphasized this link between the labor of translation and historical thinking in the middle of the 1940s, as he concentrated on having a “conversation” with pre-Socratic thinkers. However, in my view, this link was never broken: the young Heidegger began to be engaged in both translation and interpretation of Aristotle’s works in 1923, as Gadamer suggests in his personal recollection of attendance at early Heidegger’s lecture, stating that it was “as if Aristotle came up in front of us and actually started to talk to us.”51 For those who have faith in “sense for sense” translation and try to recreate the message of the whole text, Heidegger’s true-to-word translation may seem to underestimate the holistic character of language. This may seem to be the case because he concentrates on explicating particular words in a text. However, this impression is pointless if one misunderstands Heidegger’s treatment of a word in the sense of an automatic replacement of single words without any contextualization, as in the case of dictionary-based translation. Heidegger’s aim is rather to open up a historic situation, in the context of which we are firstly able to let original words say what they, in fact, say. Here, I would suggest paying attention to Ricoeur’s discussion on the relationship between text, sentence, and words in order to avoid possibly confusing Heidegger’s translation with dictionary-based translation. Ricoeur summarizes the general agreement between translators: “Translators know it perfectly well: it is text, not sentences, not words, that our texts try to translate. And texts in turn are part of cultural groups through which different visions of the world are expressed.”52 The first task of translators will then be to gain access to a cultural way of world-­ experience that is not familiar to them. This task may include such preparative steps as having respect for foreign culture and language, learning foreign languages, and giving up ethnocentric views of one’s own language, all of which Ricouer describes as instances of linguistic hospitality.53 We may roughly identify what Heidegger calls “the sphere and the way of experiences of the Greek” with Ricoeur’s cultural background in which different world-views are expressed, and we can safely to say that all steps involved in linguistic hospitality are included in Heidegger’s requirements for genuine translation, as we have seen thus far. In this respect, Heidegger also starts with the context in which the text in question is placed. More significantly, Ricouer further points out that the biggest difficulty in translation emerges at the level of words:  Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Heideggers’ theologische’ Jugendschrift” p. 228.  Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, p.31. 53  See the introduction to Paul Ricoeur, Le Juste 2 (Paris: Esprit, 2001); Also, Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, p.10. 51 52

118

T. Ikeda The work of the translator does not move from the word to the sentence, to the text, to the cultural group, but conversely: absorbing vast interpretations of the spirit of a culture, the translator comes down again from the text, to the sentence and to the word. The final act, if one can put it that way, the final decision is about making out a glossary at the level of words: the selection of the glossary is the final test where what should be impossible to translate is crystallized as it were in fine.54

In my view, this final stage of translation, in which “what should be impossible to translate is crystalized” is, in fact, the starting point of Heidegger’s labor of translation. Any choice of words among candidates, whether reason or judgment is adopted as the final translation for λόγος, will leave the realm of the unsaid of the original word. This situation will not be overcome by any redetermination based on the translator’s speculation on messages of text, which will again leave the new realm of the unsaid. Avoiding both automatic dictionary-based translation and subjective over-highlighting translation, Heidegger thereby starts with more “material” or “syntactical” translation; i.e., replication of the word that should let readers feel foreign with respect to the translated word, thus alerting them to the fact that translation or interpretation of the fundamental word has been not completed. Following replication of words, explication of the referential-network in which the original word can be initially heard will continue. Through this contemplation or thinking, readers should be able to orient themselves in the history of Being and transfer themselves into the sphere of original experiences. In this process, readers are taken to the first stage of translation as described by Ricouer, though their relationship with the fundamental word has again been changed. What Heidegger achieves in his contemplative translation is, in short, a transferring of readers into situations in which they will be able to translate the original fundamental words i.e., think in the middle of history of Being by themselves.

4  Concluding Remarks Heidegger’s hermeneutic analysis of linguistic meaning shows that a philosophical understanding of fundamental concepts should never be identified with the mere acquisition of new information. When one has succeeded in capturing what X is, one has not experienced a shift from being ignorant of X to being informed of X. Rather, one has already understood what X is or the meaning of X, even vaguely. Without this pre-conception, it would have been impossible to raise the question: “What is X?” Instead of acquiring factual information about the world, what Heidegger’s hermeneutic ontology is achieving in its process of asking and answering a question concerning the meaning of Being is to interpret the most well-known phenomenon explicitly by opening up a historic situation in which what has been already understood becomes able to hold meaning. Through this process, one who engages themselves in ontology, say Dasein, experiences existential change or 54

 Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, pp. 31–32.

Martin Heidegger and the Question of Translation

119

modification, from the everyday and natural mode of Being-in-the-World in which Being is taken as self-evident, into the philosophical mode of Being-in-the-World in which the Being of self and world reveals itself as uncanny and questionable. In order to make this decisive change for ontological thinking possible, to translate basic concepts of one’s own language into foreign language or vice versa is a fine method. For those concepts will be then revealed as words that are in fact not self-­ evident at all and need philosophical interpretation in a broader context. Translation featured as a necessary part of Heidegger’s philosophical thinking from his early lectures. Translation is so significant in Heidegger’s thinking that the possibility of genuine thinking even relies on how translation is performed; this is shown in the idea of “true-to-word” translation as a criticism of the translation machine conceived as a manifestation of “modern logical interpretation of thinking and discourse.” This modern image of thinking and discourse is crystalized in the contemporary notion of a language as a tool of communicating information.55 In this respect Heidegger’s philosophy of translation can be placed within the context of his harsh criticism of cybernetics, as a branch of science, which suggests the further scope of Heidegger’s question of translation. According to Heidegger, the age of the translation machine we experience today is at risk of lack of thinking. Translation is not an optional topic for the purpose of our understanding Heidegger and thinking with him. It should be, rather, regarded as the central element of both his and his readers’ corporative thinking.

References Benveniste, É. 1973. Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. E. Palmer. London: Faber and Faber. Berman, A. 1992. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Trans. S. Heyvaert. New York: State University of New York Press. ———. 1999. La Traduction et la lettre, ou L’auberge du lointain. Paris: Seuil. Cicero, M.T. 1949. The Best Kind of Orator. In De Inventione: De Optimo Genere Oratorum. Trans. H.M. Hubbell. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Crowell, S.G. 2001. Husserl, Heidegger and the Space of Meaning: Paths Toward Transcendental Phenomenology. Evanston: North Western University Press. Dilthey, W. 1968. Die geistige Welt: Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Dummet, M. 1993. Origins of Analytic Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gadamer, H.G. 1989. Heideggers ‘theologische’ Jugendschrift. Dilthey-Jahrbuch für Philosophie der Geisteswissenschaften 6: 228–234. ———. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr. Gallagher, S., and D. Zahavi. 2008. The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction into Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Sciences. New York: Routledge. Heidegger, M.S.Z. 1993. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Heidegger, M. GA1. 1978. Frühe Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. GA10. 1997. Der Satz vom Grund. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. GA54. 1992. Parmenides. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. 55

 Martin Heidegger, Der Satz vom Grund, pp. 182–183.

120

T. Ikeda

Heidegger, M. GA55. 1979. Heraklit. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,. Heidegger, M.  GA62. 2005. Phenomenological Interpretation of Selected Papers of Aristotle’s Ontology and Logic. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Kearney, R. 2006. Introduction: Ricoeur’s philosophy of translation. In Ricoeur, P. 2006. Quine, W.V.O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ricoeur, P. 2001. Le Juste 2. Paris: Esprit. ———. 2006. On Translation. Trans. R. Kearney. Introduction by R. Kearney. London/New York: Routledge. Rorty, R. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sallis, J. 2002. On Translation. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University press. ———. 2005. Das Ende der Übersetzung. In Dimensionen des Hermeneutischen: Heidegger und Gadamer, ed. G. Figal and H.H. Gander, 11–22. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Schalow, F. 2011a. Attunement and Translation. In Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad, ed. F. Schalow, 291–311. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2011b. A Conversation with Parvis Emad on the Question of Translation in Heidegger. In Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking: Essays in Honor of Parvis Emad, ed. F. Schalow, 175–189. Dordrecht: Springer. Schleiermacher, F. 1963. Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens. In Das Problem des Übersetzens, ed. H.J. Störig, 38–70. Stuttgart: Henry Goverts. Steiner, G. 1991. Martin Heidegger: With a New Introduction. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Stueber, K. 2006. Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk Psychology, and the Human Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Volpi, F. 1994. Being and Time: A ‘Translation’ of the Nicomachean Ethics? Trans. J. Protevi. In Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, ed. T. Kisiel and J. Van Buren, 195–211. New York: State University of New York Press. Watanabe, J.  (1990). Seinsverständnis, Aussage und Zeitlichkeit: Zum Problem bei Frege, Husserl, Russell und Heidegger. In Bewußtsein und Zeitlichkeit: Ein Problemschnitt durch die Philosophie der Neuzeit, ed. H. Busche, G. Heffernan and D. Lohmar, 293–306. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Takashi Ikeda (Ph.D., The University of Tokyo) is Associate Professor at Meiji University. He is author of Sonzai to Koi: Haidega Sonzai to Jikan no Kaisyaku to Tenkai [Being and Action: Heidegger’s Being and Time Reexamined] (Sobunsya, 2011). His research topics are Heidegger’s philosophy and phenomenological ethics. Among his articles are “Agency and Mortality: Heidegger’s Existential Analysis of Death and Its Practical Philosophical Background” (Bulletin of Life and Death Studies, 2011) and “Das Zuhause als übersehener Ort des Denkens: Eine feministische-­phänomenologische Perspektive” (Polylog, 2014).

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant Norio Murai

Abstract  The transcendental thinking of Heidegger has its roots in his study of the medieval theory of ‘transcendentals’ during his Habilitation. By displacing the Aristotelico-Scholastic concept of ‘transcendentals’ from the realm of metaphysical speculation and replacing it with the context of Kantian transcendental philosophy and Husserlian phenomenology, Heidegger formed a project called ‘the explication of the transcendental horizon of time for the question of being’ in Being and Time. This point of view led him to a positive confrontation with Kantian thought. In this paper, we will investigate the traces of this transcendental thinking in Heidegger’s work, mainly based on his interpretation of Kant, and then explore the self-­referential structure of transcendental imagination (Ein-bildungs-kraft), which makes the philosophical reflection in general possible through the medium of image (Bild). Keywords  Kant · Heidegger · Transcendental · Imagination · Image · Temporality · Self-affection

1  Introduction The notion of “transcendence” or the “transcendental” is one of the key concepts in Heidegger’s philosophical inquiries, starting from the very beginning of his early studies and lasting through the period in which he wrote his master-work, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit). This concept of “transcendence” also continues to play a role thereafter, although the term itself appears less frequently in his later philosophy. The importance of the term suggests he was influenced by the metaphysical thought of Scholasticism, which Heidegger first occupied himself with in his early career. We can likely also see his academic background in Neo-Kantianism. These two elements, and, in addition to the existential meditation on the activities of life influenced by the work being done by theorists interested in Lebensphilosophie, were the initial motives for the development of his own original philosophy and its N. Murai (*) Faculty of Letters, Chuo University, Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_10

121

122

N. Murai

integration with transcendental philosophy. In particular, his critical confrontation with the epistemological interpretation of the Neo-Kantians of his time led Heidegger to an innovative method of reviving ontology and metaphysical thinking. It is in this context that we will aim to explore Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant as concerns its transcendental character, beginning with showing the influence of medieval theories of “transcendentals.” Our discussion will then focus on examining the problem of the imagination, which is, according to Heidegger’s interpretation, the foundation of the ontological structure of time and the condition for philosophical reflections on time. In order to examine his usage of the term “transcendental,” we will also take its meaning in medieval philosophy into account and also look into the enigma concerning the function of the ‘transcendental imagination’ toward its ontological domain. From this point, we will see that transcendental thinking has the possibility to contribute to new aspects of contemporary ontology, as it were, of a “transcendental ontology.”1 This consideration will, furthermore, also give us a clue about how we can think about the later phases of Heidegger’s philosophy.

2  ‘ Transcendence’ and ‘Transcendental’ in Heidegger’s Early Thinking In early twentieth-century Europe, critiques of materialism and scientism began working against the trends of modernization and rationalization that had originated in the nineteenth century. With the aim of reconstructing the entirety of culture, a flow of restoration flourished and movements of recurrence spread rapidly in Europe. In this academic, artistic, and religious climate, which has been called ‘the progressive reaction’, young Heidegger took part through his academic career in the endeavour of reviving the philosophical and metaphysical tradition and of producing a new kind of philosophical thought. Such trends were similarly named with the prefix ‘neo’, or ‘neu’ in German: Neo-Kantianism, Neo-Romanticism, Neo-Thomist Scholasticism). Heidegger finished his thesis On Judgment Theory of Psychologism (1913) as his first academic treatise and then extended the same line of critical investigation to the Habilitation on Duns Scotus’ Theory of Categories and Meaning (1915). Outgoing from the objective epistemological theory of Neo-Kantianism and the pure logic and grammar of Husserl, Heidegger specifically analysed in this Habilitation the grammatica speculativa of metaphysical language theory in the

1  Using the terminology ‘Transcendental Ontology’, M.  Gabriel developed an interpretation of German Idealism from the viewpoint of ontology and realism. In Chapter 2 of his work, he compares the concept of being in the later work of Schelling and the later work of Heidegger, and demonstrates the close proximity of the two philosophers. M. Gabriel, Transcendental Ontology, Bloomsbury: London, etc. 2011, esp. pp. 69–81.

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

123

Scholasticism of the late Middle Ages. This was the first opportunity upon which he came across the problem of transcendentals.2 The discipline called ‘speculative grammar’ was then a suitable subject for developing Heidegger’s interest in scholastic ontology using the philosophical framework of Neo-Kantian transcendental theory. The young Heidegger, whose education original started from a theological background, gradually noticed ‘the question of being’ in the concerns cultivated by the Neo-Scholastics, hence considering a problem of Aristotelian ontology with the transcendentalism provided by the Neo-Kantianism, while furthermore absorbing the Lebensphilosophie inspired by Neo-Romanticism. This phenomenological and transcendental interpretation of Scholasticism, which included the creative possibility of ontology, helped lead to the formation of Heidegger’s own original thought concerning the internal linkage of phenomenology and transcendental philosophy, and the correlation of cognition (Wissen) and being (Sein).3 It was also then that the strong impetus for Heidegger to seek a connection between the philosophical affairs of being (Sein), understanding (Verstehen), language (Sprache), and the mutual relations between them. While analyzing speculative grammar as an ontological theory, Heidegger paid special attention to the argument of “transcendentals” (transcendentalia; Transzendentalien) that provides the ontological foundation  of speculative grammar. Heidegger did this in order to rethink the problem of Scholasticism in a contemporary environment, as well as to regain its possibilities for philosophy. Unlike general categories that prescribe empirical objects, transcendentals surpass the predicates of concrete attributes and predicate the being of beings in general. The doctrine of transcendentals began with the argument about the compatibility of ‘existence’ and ‘one’ discussed by Aristotle in Metaphysics IV, 2,4 but it was more concretely established by some thinkers, represented by Philippus Cancellarius (1165/85-1236)5 as a theoretical base for Scholasticism in the early thirteenth century. Thereafter, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) defined transcendentals as “thing, one, something, truth, good” (res, unum, aliquid, verum, bonum) in his work The Disputed Questions On Truth (Quaestiones disputatae de veritate), which is now considered as the classic formula of transcendentals. Transcendentals are fundamental to metaphysical views of knowledge and language, insofar as they are related 2  For a survey of the history of the concept of the ‘transcendental’ from medieval philosophy to Heidegger, I suggest one to consult the following article: Cf. J. J. Kockelmans, On the Meaning of the Transcendental Dimension of Philosophy, in: G. Müller, Th. M. Seebohm (Hgg.), Perspektiven transzendentaler Reflexion, Bouvier: Bonn 1989, pp.  27–49. Also, see the useful collection of articles: S.  Crowell, Jeff Malpas (eds.), Transcendental Heidegger, Stanford U.  Pr.: Stanford, California 2007. 3  Cf. A. K. Wucherer-Huldenfeld, Zu Heideggers Verständnis des Seins bei Johannes Duns Scotus und im Skotismus sowie im Thomasismus und bei Thomas von Aquin, in: H.  Vetter (Hg.), Heidegger und das Mittelalter, Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Bern/New York/Paris/Wien 1999. 4  Aristoteles, Metaphysica IV, 2, 1004b23sp., pp. 148sp. 5  J.  A. Aertsen, art. “Transzendental; Transzendentalphilsophie: II Die Anfänge bis Meister Eckhart”, in: J.  Ritter, K.  Gründer (Hgg.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 10, Schwabe & co.; Basel 1998, pp. 1360–1365.

124

N. Murai

to a description about being in general. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as well, the theory of transcendentals should be understood as a “chapter containing pure concepts of the understanding in the transcendental philosophy of the ancients.”6 Tellingly, Kant then quotes the Latin sentence quodlibet ens est unum, verum, bonum (whatever is being, is one, is true, is good) and claims it to be “the famous proposition of the scholastics.” Since the theory of transcendentals in late Scholasticism argued in favor of the possibility of predication of existence or being in general, the issue of the relation between thinking and being became a prominent problem for the whole of medieval philosophy. As Alexander of Hales (1185-1245) formulates: Unum, verum et bonum convertuntur cum ente.7 Each transcendental has a specific concrete meaning, but, so long as each transcendental is convertible in predicating being with other transcendentals, they simultaneously maintain conceptual universality. We can say that whatever is “good,” is also “true,” and must also “be.” When we talk about the transcendent being of God, this characteristic stands out more clearly: God is equally “one,” “truth,” “goodness,” and “being.” While this convertibility suggests that these terms have a priori universality insofar as they can similarly be used as predicates of being in general, the assertions using these concepts are never mere empty tautological statements. They have the principal property of a synthetic judgment a priori in their Kantian meaning. This reasoning is based on the assertion that transcendentals have absolute truth, although not in formal logical sense, and furthermore expand objective knowledge of reality. Heidegger also attempted to find the ‘circulation’ of spirit (in the Hegelian sense) in this convertibility or commutativity of the transcendental categories, and to grasp the reflective character of transcendental thinking.8 In this way, Heidegger transferred the concept of ‘transcendentals’ from the realm of metaphysical speculation to the context of transcendental philosophy and phenomenology. Heidegger believed this reinterpretation allowed for a ‘Making-Fluid [Flüssigmachung] of Scholaticism’, which could be taken to anticipate the ‘destruction [Destruktion]’ of metaphysics in his later thinking.9 As concerns his interpretation of transcendence, Heidegger also stated the following in his lecture, Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (1926):

6  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B113; Engl trans., p. 110. Quotations of this work are cited from the following English translation: I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Marcus Weigelt, Based on the translation by Max Müller, Penguin Books: London 2007. 7  Alexander Halensis, Summa theologica, P I, inq.1, tract.3, pp. 1–3. 8  M. Heidegger, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (1915), Gesamtausgabe (= GA) 1, Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt a. M. 1978, p. 217. 9  Ibid., pp. 196f.; 204; 399. Cf. J. Schaber, Heideggers frühes Bemühen um eine >Flüssigmachung der Scholastik< und seine Zuwendung zu Johannes Duns Scotus, in: N.  Fischer, F.-W. von Herrmann (Hgg.), Heidegger und die christliche Tradition, Felix Meiner Verlag: Hamburg 2007, pp.108–113.

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

125

The science of being as transcendens (transcendence) has propositions that describe being itself, not the truth of the entities that exist, but truth about being itself as transcendens. This truth (veritas) is transcendental. The philosophical truth is veritas transcendentalis, but not transcendental in the Kantian meaning.10

As we can tell by looking at the above quote, it is clear that Heidegger’s aim is to connect transcendental philosophy with the ontological concerns of the Scholastic metaphysical theory of transcendentals. Moreover, Heidegger intended to recast the concept of transcendens with the phenomenological and existential meaning of ‘lean out (Hinausliegen)’, or ‘exceed (Übersteigen),’ which should not be understood as the supersensory world in the metaphysical sense.11 This interpretation becomes the foundation of the view of Dasein in Being and Time (1927) so that ‘transcendence’ is regarded as transcendence to the world (Transzendenz zur Welt), or the disclosure of being-there (Erschlossenheit des Daseins) in the ontological sense. Being is transcendens pure and simple [Sein ist das transcendens schlechthin]… Every disclosure of being as transcendens is transcendental knowledge. Phenomenological truth (the disclosedness of being) is veritas transcendentalis.12

Here, Heidegger converts the concept of veritas transcendentalis that Kant used sparingly in Critique of Pure Reason into his own existential concept of the ‘transcendence (exceed) of being,’ assuming the ‘truth’ to be that of the transcendentals in Scholasticism. In this manner, the concept of the ‘transcendental’ defined as ‘the condition of possibility of experience’ in Critique of Pure Reason acquired a new existential-ontological meaning in his Fundamental Ontology.13 When Heidegger calls being transcendens schlechthin in Being and Time, transcendence has a more comprehensive meaning than in modern transcendental philosophy, which is limited to the Kantian philosophical framework. Hence, Heidegger’s argument seems closer to the medieval doctrine of transcendentals.14 Although Heidegger criticized and deconstructed the history of metaphysics in his later thought, we can see that his original motivation derived from a systematic analytic of medieval Scholaticism.

 M. Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie (1926), GA 22, Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt a. M. 1993, p. 10. 11  Ibid. 12  M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 7. Aufl. Max Niemeyer: Tübingen 1979, p. 38; Engl. trans., p. 62. The quotations from this work rely mainly on the following English translation: M. Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, Harper & Row: London 1962. 13  Chr. Steffen, Heidegger als Transzendentalphilosoph. Seine Fundamentalontologie im Vergleich zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Universitätverlag Winter; Heidelberg 2005, pp. 195–209. 14  Cf. L. B. Puntel, Analogie und Geschichtlichkeit I, Freiburg/Basel/Wien 1969, p. 463. 10

126

N. Murai

3  Heidegger’s Kant Interpretation By connecting the ontological concerns derived from his study of transcendentals in Aristotelico-Scholastic speculative grammar with the transcendentalism of Kantian philosophy, Heidegger formed a project called ‘the explication of the transcendental horizon of time for the question of being’ in Being and Time. “With the problem of transcendence, Kant does not replace metaphysics by a theory of knowledge but brings into question the intrinsic possibility of ontology.”15 For the purpose of unfolding transcendental philosophy as concerns its ontological potential based on the function of the reflective self-reference of existence (Being-in-the-World), it is necessary to deconstruct and reconstruct Kant’s structure of transcendental subjectivity in order to understand the transcendental construction of the objectivity of the objective world. Heidegger was, indeed, intensely engaged in interpreting Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason before and immediately after the publication of Being and Time. This fruits of this labor can be seen in his series of lectures: Logic. The Question of Truth (1925/26), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1927), and Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1927/28); as well as in one of his major written works, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929). Through his attempt at providing an interpretation of Kant, Heidegger investigated the possibility of viewing Kant’s transcendental logic as an ontological method of analysis of Dasein: “On the horizon of transcendental logic, Dasein must be a theme of ontological interpretation, and the theme of transcendental logic must be the ontology of transcendence of Dasein.”16 For the purpose of realizing an ontology of Dasein by means of the transcendental method, it was necessary to research the basic structure of human understanding more carefully and fundamentally than Kant had managed to do. Hence, Heidegger researched “the whole domain of the pure understanding” that Kant traversed,17 and went deeper to arrive at the structure of this ontology. Heidegger also intended to compare a topographical map of the first edition (A-version) of Critique of Pure Reason with that of the second edition (B-version), and discovered through this comparison an old, fundamental layer to pure reason. In other words, Heidegger found in Kant, a schematism (Schematismus) as “an art hidden in depths of the human soul”18 with imagination as its origin. Contrasting the A-version and the B-version of Critique of Pure Reason, Heidegger focused heavily on the A-version, and subsequently refused the revisions proposed by the B-version, in which the  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3, Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt a. M. 2010, p. 17. Engl. trans., p.  21. The quotations of this work rely mainly on the following English translation: M.  Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, translated by James P.  Churchill, Indiana U.  Pr.: Bloomington & London 1975 (5th edition). In some cases, I have changed the translation and format in order to adjust the translation to the context of my work. 16  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, GA 25, Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt a. M. 1977, p. 219. 17  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 235 f., B 294 f.; Engl. trans., p. 251. 18  Ibid., A 141, B 180; Engl. trans., p. 178p. 15

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

127

imagination (Einbildungskraft) was reduced to a function of transcendental apperception. Instead of this revision, which confers the most dominant position in Kant’s schematic upon transcendental apperception, Heidegger emphasized over all else the primordial function of the imagination, and referred to it as the ‘transcendental imagination’, separating himself from Kant’s original terminology. This problem revolves around Kant’s famous statement that: ‘there are two stems of human knowledge, namely sensibility and understanding, which perhaps spring from a common root unknown to us’.19 An essential motive of Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant can be found in his radical attempt to search for this ‘common root unknown to us’, and thus find the ontological ground that belongs to Dasein in the human being. The structure of pure reason is, therefore, considered not in the hierarchical order where apperception synthesises sensibility and understanding from the top down, as demonstrated in the B-version. According to Heidegger’s interpretation, in contrast to the B-version, the structural composition of sensibility, understanding, and imagination has to be taken, following the A-version, as the close inner unity in which apperception does not dominate other faculties as an ability of the subject, but is an ontological self-occurrence that, more precisely, as the self-affection (Selbstaffektion) of imagination, produces the subject as self-sameness. Of these three elements (sensibility, understanding, imagination), the pure synthesis of the imagination holds the central position … this central position has a structural significance. In it the pure synopsis and the pure synthesis meet and fit in with one another. This fitting in with one another Kant expresses by establishing the self-sameness [Selbigkeit] of the pure synthesis in the syn-thetic character [Syn-­ haften] or the intuition and the understanding.20 Transcendental thinking in a Heideggerian phenomenological sense designates a grasping of the direct ‘facticity (Faktizität)’ of appearance and the situation of affairs or ‘thinghood (Sachheit)’ in the world. This phenomenological method must not reduce the independence of phenomena into epistemological faculties or the constitution of subjectivity, but must also receive this independence in correlation with thinking. This colligation of the independence of beings with dependency on thinking has its root in ‘the veritative synthesis’ as an essential unity of pure knowledge.21 According to Kant’s formulation in the A-version, the unity of synthesis consists in ‘(1) the synopsis of the manifold a priori the through sense; (2) the synthesis of this manifold through imagination, (3) the unity of the synthesis through original apperception’.22 In order to interpret this passage, Heidegger takes the problem of ‘the primordial (veritative) synthesis’ of the pure synopsis and the pure reflective (predicative) synthesis to be the most fundamental issues of transcendental ontology, designating these topics as such in favor of the function apperception.23 What we should consider here is not the supremacy of subjectivity, but the event of  Ibid., A15, B 29; Engl. trans., p. 55.  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 64; Engl. trans., p. 67. 21  Ibid., p. 60; Engl. trans., p. 63. 22  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A94; Engl. trans., p. 677. 23  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 60f.; Engl. trans., p. 64. 19 20

128

N. Murai

affairs of all possible phenomena, prior to subjective synthesis. This phenomenological task is well-suited to the definition of transcendentalism in Kant’s Manuscript: “it is transcendental to prescribe things as things concerning their essence.”24 This definition corresponds, for Heidegger, to his maxim of phenomenology: “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.”25 Phenomenology, in the Heideggerian sense, must here be the analysis of the fundamental imagination as such, concerning the fundamental process of the appearance of phenomena, which approaches the radial relation of beings and subject, i.e. the structure of Dasein and its temporal essence.

4  The Role of the Transcendental Imagination Heidegger conceives of the decisive formulation of transcendental philosophy from the view of phenomenology and ontology more comprehensively than the epistemological interpretations of the Neo-Kantians. Kant’s well-known proposition goes as follows: “I call all knowledge transcendental which deals not so much with objects as with our manner of knowing objects, insofar as this manner is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts would be called transcendental philosophy.”26 Heidegger turns this definition into an existential modality, i.e. understanding (Verstehen), state of mind (Befindlichkeit), falling (Verfallen), that lets Dasein access the thingness of affairs in the world. This modification means also that Heidegger changes the transcendentals (Transzendentalien) into existentials (Existenzialien). The transcendentals that describe objective beings are now interpreted as the existentials that determine the various modes of human existence in their complex combinations. With this reinterpretation, the concept of transcendence becomes a double edge that simultaneously represents the independency of beings and the dependency of Dasein on the world as Being-in-the-world. This mutual relationship, or correlation called ‘transcendence’, assigns the transcendental independency and the givenhood (Gegebenheit) of given beings to the finite receptivity of Dasein. Heidegger’s analysis of these modalities must be able to reply to the question: “How can finite human Dasein in advance pass beyond (transcend) the being when not only has it not created this being but also is dependent on it in order to exist as Dasein.”27 The mode of transcendence mentioned here is an existential issue for the finite human Dasein. Provided that the understanding of transcendence relies on the medieval metaphysics in Heidegger’s early study, the problem of transcendence includes the independence and fulfilment of being (unum, veritas, bonum). This independence of being is called the Entgegenstehen (turning toward; to take up a 24  Kant’s handschriftlicher Nachlaß, AA 5, Metaphysik. Zweiter Theil, Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, 5738, Akademie-Ausgabe, Berlin/Leipzig 1928, GA18, p. 340. 25  M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 34; Engl. trans., p. 58. 26  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 11f., B 25; Engl. trans. p. 52. 27  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 42; Engl. trans., p. 47.

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

129

position opposite to) of Dasein, which discloses the openness of the encounter with being as object [Gegenstand]. “All finite beings must have this basic ability, which can be described as a turning toward…. (orientation toward….) which lets something become an ob-ject [Gegen-stand].”28 This ‘toward….’, i.e. the fundamental confrontation which makes the objectivity of objects in general possible, is reworded to ‘being opposed’ in Heidegger’s terminology. ‘Object’ means that which is opposed. It is not the linkage of a random, unbound, and irregular combination of representations, but the fundamental unity of meaning that gives previous rules a priori to all of empirical knowledge.29 Such rules a priori can be given by synthetic judgement a priori, and with the transcendence to an ‘opposed’ object make the objectivity of objects possible. The objectivity of objects ‘carries with it’ something which constrains (‘something of necessity’). Through this constraint all that is encountered is in advance forced into an accord (Einstimmigkeit) with reference to which also a manifestation of what is encountered as not in accord is first possible. The precursory and constant drawing together into unity (Zusammenzug auf Einheit) involves the [anticipative] pro-position of unity…. The act of objectification is, therefore, the ‘primordial concept (Urbegriff)’ and, insofar as conceptual representation is assigned to the understanding, is the fundamental activity of the understanding.30 In order to obtain objective and universal knowledge that is concerned with a priori objectivity, it is necessary for human activities of cognition to grasp the independency of objects, receiving simultaneously the opposition of ‘ob-ject’ that depends on unempirical regularities and precursory rules of experience in general.31 To receive such an opposition of objects and to disclose oneself for affairs in the world is the transcendence or disclosure [Erschlossenheit] of Dasein, which is the very condition of experiences in general, and of intentionality in the sense of phenomenology. This transcendence that relates Dasein to objective reality makes experience as such possible. The chapter “The Supreme Principle of all Synthetic Judgements” in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason describes, following Heidegger, the ontological constitution of Dasein correctly. This principle is formulated by Kant in the following proposition: “The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.”32 The phrase ‘at the same time’ suggests a central role of the imagination in the whole human being, since the faculty that occupies the middle position in pure reason is the imagination as the function that combines sensibility and understanding. Therefore, the intermediation of ‘at the same time’ means, for Heidegger, the medium of being and thinking through imagination, this intermediation being none other than what Heidegger means by the term ‘transcendental.’ Thus, the productive  Ibid., p. 71; Engl. trans., p. 74.  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1927/28), GA 25, p. 368f. 30  Id., Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 74; Engl. trans., p. 78. 31  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 368f. 32  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 158, B 197. 28 29

130

N. Murai

function of the ‘transcendental imagination’ appears here explicitly. It does not so much play the role of bridging two different abilities as it does the essential role of producing the middle and transcendental realm represented by the phrase ‘at the same time.’ If we consider this transcendental imagination as the medium or intermediate realm [Zwischenraum] of understanding of Being, as it would be on Heidegger’s interpretation, this term, ‘middle’, signifies not a midpoint between sensibility and understanding but two established functions in the Kantian sense. Instead, the ‘middle’ represents the ‘between [Zwischen]’ in itself prior to any settlement of epistemological functions. This ‘between in itself’ is, using Heidegger’s terminology, nothing but the ‘there’ (Da) of being-there (Dasein). Consonant with such his tendency of turning epistemological problems into ontological existentialism, Heidegger claims that the argument of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason must be interpreted not on the ‘objective deduction’ which requires an objective justification under the problem of the juristic right (quaestio juris) after the legal model of Kant, but on the ‘subjective deduction’, i.e. the existential one. quaestio juris should not be understood as a question of validation … rather, the quaestio juris is only a way of expressing the necessity of an analytic of transcendence, i.e. of a pure phenomenology of the subjectivity of the subject, and furthermore, of the subject as finite.33

In contrast to Kant’s argument, Heidegger’s interpretation stresses the quaestio facti rather than quaestio juris. The ‘fact’ of quaestio facti does not, however, refer to any brute fact or sense data as in positivism or empiricism, but ‘a fact in a sense of an ontological essential element’,34 i.e. the facticity (Faktizität) of Dasein, which suggests the fundamental and ontological function of transcendental imagination. While the validation of all objective knowledge depends on the faculty of apperception (Apperzeption) in the case of Kant, the fact of ontological relation to the world is rooted in intuition as our primary way to access the affairs of the world. That is why Heidegger emphasizes the significance of the doctrine of sensibility in Critique of Pure Reason. The disclosure of Dasein to the world is founded on existential facticity, which is connected closely with the sensibility and the fundamental function of the unifying of the totality of the whole world. Although Kant solved this problem of fundamental totalizing and unifying of the world with an epistemological justification and constitution of the objective world, posing transcendental apperception on the basis of the structure of pure reason, Heidegger attempted to grasp, against Kant’s solution, the principal function of synthesis in the mediation of imagination, prior to the dualism of sensibility and understanding. The fundamental synthesis, which is the condition of the possibility of experience in general, is placed, according to Heidegger, “before all apperception [vor der Apperzeption].” This assertion, which would seem astonishing when thought of from the standpoint put forward in the B-version of Critique of Pure Reason, is based on the following phrase and able to acquire confirmation in the “Transcendental Deduction of the 33 34

 M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 87; Engl. trans., p. 92.  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 330.

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

131

Pure Concepts of the Understanding” in the A-version: “Thus the principle of the unity of (pure) synthesis of imagination, prior to [before] apperception, is the ground of the possibility of all knowledge, especially of experience.”35 From this quotation, Heidegger reads the truly ontological intention and the radical temporal character included in the term ‘before,’ which been hidden to Kant in very own discussion. This observation leads Heidegger to the following conclusion: “Hence, pure imagination must be essentially related to time. Only in this way is pure imagination revealed as the mediator between transcendental apperception and time.”36 The relation of the pure imagination to time or temporality becomes the primordial problem of transcendental ontology.

5  The Transcendental Schematism and Temporality These three elements of pure intuition, pure imagination, and pure apperception, are thus not apprehend in their mere juxtaposition, but in the intrinsic possibility concerning the essential unity of pure ontological knowledge. According to this explanation that the imagination plays a role of intermediation between sensibility and understanding including apperception, the condition of possibility of experience is proved via the connection with the structure of Dasein, because Dasein itself is just the mediation and condition of the ‘understanding of being’ in general. This elucidation of the transcendental deduction of the A-version recognizes the access of Dasein to objectivity in general, which is called the ‘transcendental horizon,’ being a presumption of disclosure to the world in Being and Time. It could be said that the existential activities and multiple modalities of Dasein are united in the mediating function of the transcendental imagination. In order to achieve the realization of empirical knowledge, it is necessary to disclose the transcendental horizon as a field of encounter with independent objects toward the faculty of reception of subjectivity. This fundamental reception itself must be seen as ‘pre-receptive (vorrezeptiv),’37 for the reason that the pre-ontological correspondence of Dasein with the world of objectivity is prior to any actual and empirical activity of reception, the true meaning of the ‘finitude (Endlichkeit)’ of Dasein. This insight into the finitude of human knowledge was also suggested by Kant with the distinction of the intuitus derivativus as cognition limited to sensibility and the absolute omnipotence represented by the intuitus originarius as the creation of beings. Nevertheless, the foundation of Kant’s insight is entirely inadequate and irrelevant from an ontological viewpoint.

35  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft., A 118; M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, pp. 76–84; id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 406f., 411f. M. Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 374. 36  Id., Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 81; Engl. trans., p. 86. 37  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 374.

132

N. Murai

Hence, for Heidegger, Kant’s explanation of finitude and of the imagination was still bound to the restrictions of classical philosophy and traditional metaphysics. Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant attempted, needless to say, to not only cut off the imagination from the traditional context derived from Aristotle’s psychological argument about fantasy (phantasia), but also to abandon the plan of the ‘Architectonic of Pure Reason’ in the B-version of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in which transcendental apperception is placed at center of the theory. To attain this purpose, Heidegger regarded the investigation of the imagination as the foundation of the chapters ‘Analytic of Concepts’ and the ‘Analytic of Principles’, and tried to conceive of transcendental schematism from an ontological viewpoint, with the conviction that schematism is just a principal function of the imagination. Since Kant himself misunderstood the essential problem of imagination and its deep structure, the temporal character of imagination must be investigated further. Despite the fact that Kant’s sharp insight offered a glimpse into the deep layer of Ur-temporality as the foundation of finite human Dasein, it remains for him ‘obscure and almost inaccessible’. As Heidegger says, “Kant’s understanding of time as expressed in the doctrine of schematism remains isolated and completely misunderstood by the Idealism that followed.”38 That is the reason why Heidegger requires “a fundamental understanding of what he [Kant] had de facto carried out first in the schematism and then in the Doctrine of Principles.”39 What Kant carried out, without noticing, and what German Idealists after Kant could not accomplish completely, is the analysis of imagination considering temporality, after Heidegger’s term, to be a ‘phenomenological chronology [die phänomenologische Chronologie]’.40 In Critique of Pure Reason, the doctrines of imagination and schematism are introduced into the discussion of transcendental logic in order to bridge two totally different domains, i.e. the intuition of sensibility and the concepts of understanding through the pure synthesis of imagination. By means of this treatment, the pure concepts of understanding are not only mentioned as ‘notions [notiones],’ but also bound to time as pure intuition and able to constitute all possible reality by means of schemata. On account of this process, pure concepts begin to function as categories (quantity, quality, relation, modality), which makes experience in general possible through the schemata. The schemata, therefore, are nothing but a priori determinations of time according to rules; and these rules, as applied to all possible objects, refer in the order of the categories to the series of time, the content of time, the order of time and, lastly, the sum total of time.41

Although in this treatment the problem of temporality is mentioned with respect to the condition of experience, this argument relies on, according to Heidegger, the naïve and traditional presumption on account of which one takes sensibility and understanding to be two independent faculties. Speaking from Heidegger’s stand Ibid.  Id., Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, GA 21, p. 202f.; Engl. trans., p. 171. 40  Cf. ibid., p. 201; Engl. trans., p. 170. 41  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 145, B 185f.; Engl. trans., p. 181. 38 39

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

133

point, which aims to grasp the whole ontological structure of ‘being-in-the-­world,’ it is impossible to divide the existential and fundamental state of Dasein strictly into singular elements that need to bind each other after this distinction. This discussion we see adopted especially in the deduction of the B-version seems to originate from the distinction between empirical and psychological observations and transfer it inadequately to the transcendental dimension. We can thus see that the fundamental function of the transcendental apperception proposed by Kant was derived from this misunderstanding. Heidegger therefore attempts to oppose Kant by conceiving of the unity of existential transcendence and the transcendental horizon as forming the mediation of imagination, instead of making sensibility and understanding subordinate to apperception. Hence, for Heidegger, the ontological analysis of imagination and its temporal interpretation is the primordial task of transcendental logic.42 For this project, Heidegger emphasizes the elementary fact that the definite factor of image [Bild] is included in the imagination [Ein-bildungs-kraft], and tries to connect the role of the transcendental schemata with the creative function of image (aspect): “Pure imagination in forming the schema gives in advance the aspect (image) of the horizon of transcendence.”43 Pure imagination regulates human experience in general thus that it has an outstanding position as the transcendental imagination, which ought to be distinguished from the reproductive one, “which is subject only to empirical laws, namely, to the laws of association’ and ‘belongs in psychology.”44 The supreme function of the productive and transcendental imagination is rooted in the primordial and pure synthesis that is described in the ‘threefold synthesis’ of the deduction in the A-version. The threefold synthesis is enumerated in the following way: (1) the Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition; (2) the synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination; and (3) the Synthesis of Recognition in Concepts.45 What Heidegger achieved in his reading of this chapter was an investigation concerning the image in the most basic sense and its relation to time itself, more precisely, to temporality as ‘pure image [das reine Bild]’. At first, the synthesis of apprehension, is “concerned with the now (the present itself), but in such a way that this concern with … itself forms that with which it is concerned.”46 This is because of the activity that pure intuition procures, unlike empirical intuitions, which are activities of receiving present phenomena in general, the condition concerning the now as an aspect of time (present). Secondly, Heidegger seeks the ontological, transcendental condition of representation, which is regarded ordinarily as a function of imagination, in pure synthesis. Since the phenomena experienced before are not entirely lost, and since empirical reproduction is p­ ossible,  Cf. Ch. M. Sherover, Heidegger, Kant & Time, Indiana U. Pr.: Bloomington/London 1972.  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 91; Engl. trans., p. 96. 44  I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 152, p. 150. 45  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 177; Engl. trans., p.182. Cf. D. Carr, Heidegger on Kant on Transcendence, in: P. Crowell, J. Malpas (eds.), Transcendental Heidegger, pp. 28–42. 46  M. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 189; Engl. trans., p. 185 42 43

134

N. Murai

“the no-longer-now as such must, in advance and before all experience, be capable of being brought back to the present and united with the actual now.”47 By calling back the perceptions passed by, the synthesis of reproduction makes the regression to the past experience possible by disclosing the horizon of the past itself. Thirdly, the object with which our cognition is concerned must always be identified as such and hold its pure identity in itself. For at the basis of both syntheses [synthesis of apprehension, and of reproduction] and determining them there lies an act of unification (synthesis) of a being relative to its identity [Selbigkeit]. The synthesis intending this identity, i.e. that which pro-poses a being is as identical, Kant terms, and justly so, synthesis “in concepts.”48 Such a synthesis in concepts, called the ‘synthesis of recognition,’ appears as the third, but most primordial synthesis, because it provides the possibility for all identification of beings. “To the foundation belongs the ‘beforehand-having’ [Vorweghabe: prospecting], which has the united relation of being beforehand. While in identifying something one apprehends it, in reproducing something one expects the unity of the being that existed before.”49 This synthesis, named third in order, is the final factor but is nevertheless the first and most indispensable factor. It plays the important role of providing the total unity of the other two syntheses in advance. Hence, the synthesis of recognition primordially does not mean the determinate function of recognition and identification as the principal role of prospecting the total horizon of all possible beings. “As pure, its prospecting is the pure formation of that which makes all projection [Vorhaften] possible, i.e. the future.”50 According to this explication of the threefold synthesis, it can be concluded that these syntheses are essentially concerned with time in totality and represent it not as any entity, but as the ‘pure image.’ The synthesis of apprehension in intuition receives the appearance of being in the present, and the synthesis of reproduction grasps the beings experienced before as the phenomena in the past, on the ground of the synthesis of recognition that provides in advance the horizon of the identification in general, i.e. the ground of the experience of all possible beings in the future.

6  The Pure Self-Affection of Time Transcendental imagination formulates time itself, in which the temporal appearance of beings is made possible and along which the manifold significances of being itself are articulated and interpreted through mediation of the schemeta included in the imagination. By allowing the aspect [Anblick] of the temporal appearance of

 Ibid., p. 181; Engl. trans., p. 186  Ibid., p. 185, Engl. trans., p. 190. 49  Id., Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, GA 25, p. 364. 50  Id., Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 186: Engl. trans., p. 191 47 48

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

135

beings, the schemata provides the ecstatic horizon of ‘removals to…. [Entrückungen zu….]’ , based on the character of the ecstatic transcendence of Dasein. As removals to … and thus because of the ecstatic character of each of them, they each have a horizon which is prescribed by the mode of the removal [Entrückung], the carrying-away, the mode of the future, past, and present, and which belongs to the ecstasis itself … We call this whither [Wohin] of the ecstasis the horizon or, more precisely, the horizontal schema of the ecstasis.51

Because of the ecstatic removal to the temporal horizon, i.e. the transcendence to the world, the fundamental mode of Dasein must be called ‘transcendental’. It is here that we can understand why Heidegger transferred the same term, transcendental, to an ontological and existential context, and interpreted it comprehensively in relation with the temporal constitution of Dasein. “It is from the ontological concept of transcendence properly understood that an understanding can first of all be gained of what Kant was seeking, at bottom, when transcendence moved for him into the center of philosophical inquiry, so much so that he called his philosophy transcendental philosophy.”52 If one would acknowledge this fundamental meaning of transcendental philosophy, and accept the temporal character of the understanding of being, one will see the need for the inevitable task of describing the transcendental function of temporality without obstructing its original structure. It is instructive for this argument that Kant referred to the faculty of making images in three types, facultas foramdi, facultas imaginandi, facultas praevidendi,53 since the three facultas correspond respectively to the faculty of representing images: one of the present as ‘re-image [Ab-bild]’, one of reproducing images of the past as ‘post-image [Nach-bild]’, and, one of anticipating future images as ‘pre-image [Vor-bild]’.54 The pure image of time itself diverges in accordance with each aspect of temporality and forms the ecstatic horizon for the transcendence of Dasein. The image referred to here signifies neither a reproduction in the sense of a mere copy nor a fabrication by fantasy. It constitutes the pure sequence a priori of time itself in a transcendental determination. Hence, the image in the sense of transcendental thinking means, so to speak, a transparent medium, which reflects the fundamental constitution of ontological temporality. Because, on account of the faculty of making pure images, the transcendental imagination has the role of letting the affairs of beings appear as it shows itself, it can fulfil the principle of phenomenology for Heidegger. For this reason, the transcendental imagination executes the spontaneous constitution of temporality itself, and at the same time, reflects its own constitution in the midst of its execution. This structure of self-reference and self-reflection of transcendental imagination is derived, as I have already argued, from the pure synthesis which consists of the  Id., Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, GA 24, p. 428f.; Engl. trans., p. 302.  Ibid., p. 423; Engl. trans., p. 298 53  Id., Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, p. 174f.; Engl. trans., p. 180. 54  Ibid., p. 186; Eng. trans., p. 191. 51 52

136

N. Murai

threefold synthesis. Although the problem of pure synthesis was proposed for the purpose of combining the intuition and the concepts in Critique of Pure Reason, we should remember that Heidegger’s interpretation of intuitive sensibility and conceptual understanding is not independent of subjective abilities, but instead has a common root in the transcendental imagination in advance. The rudimentary structure of transcending and returning to the self in subjectivity relies on the self-circular constitution of synthesis by imagination. Dasein’s commitment to beings or objects is made possible only by the mutual correlation of the transcending construction of the horizon and the reflective self-recurrence. This process springs forth ‘from the self directing toward…. [Von-sich-aus-hin-zu-auf]’ in such a way that it surges along ‘back to…. [Worauf-zu]’ and restores orientation. This ecstatic and reverse movement of disclosing the field of encounter with beings is nothing but the pure self-affection [Selbstaffektion] of imagination, i.e. time itself. As pure self-affection, time is not an active affection concerned with the concrete self; as pure, it forms the essence of all auto-solicitation. Therefore, if the power of being solicited as a self belongs to the essence of the finite subject, time as pure self-affection forms the essential structure of subjectivity.55

When the self-affection of time is proved to be a fundamental structure of subjectivity, the pure reflective solicitation of ‘toward… .’ and ‘back to… .’, as time must be previous to each subject, and then precede the activity of conscious reflection. Imagination, which Kant took as a faculty of subjectivity, reveals its original state of transcendence. Now, the self-affection of time that forms the horizon of temporality in its transcendental function separates from the subjective context and finds its essential constitution of the ‘possibilities [Möglichkeiten]’ in itself as the ontological mode of Dasein. It relies on the mutual and circular relationship of the ‘project [Entwurf]’ and the ‘thrownness’ [Geworfenheit] that makes the dimension of the pure ontological space of transcendence, which signifies the ‘possibilities’ of the finite human being. Along this interpretation, Heidegger expounded, on the basis of the existential analysis in Being of Time, the structure of ontological mediation as temporal transcendence: “Consequently, the transcendental imagination as we have known it up to this point is transformed into more original “possibilities” so that even the name ‘imagination’ becomes inadequate.”56 Now, inquiry must advance to the deeper dimension of Dasein, changing its title of ‘imagination’ to the ontological and destructive mode of the ‘Event’ or En-Ownness [Ereingnisl. This problem would surpass the argument of the transcendental imagination as constituting Dasein, and lead to Heidegger’s later philosophy, which ventures into the investigation of Being as ‘Seyn.’

55 56

 Ibid., p. 189; Engl. trans., p. 194.  Ibid., p. 140; Engl. trans., p. 147. I would like to thank Editage (www.editage.jp) for English language editing.

Heidegger’s Transcendental Ontology and His Interpretation of Kant

137

7  Conclusion In his interpretation of Kant’s work, Heidegger made the problem of transcendental deduction and of transcendental schematism clear in a different way than Kant managed to. When transcendental imagination is explored in its essential constitution as time, or as the horizontal schema of the understanding of being, taking leave of a faculty of the subjective, the temporality embedded in Dasein reveals itself as the transcendental condition of the disclosing beings. The temporality of schematism, of which original activity represents itself in the pure image of ‘time’ itself, forms the pure transcendental horizons of the triply complex aspects of present, past, and future. Time based on the fundamental mediation of Dasein discloses open space [Spielraum] of encounter with beings, using Kant’s term, i.e. the objectivity of all possible objects. Temporality grasped as the image of the ontological occurrence of time has a fundamental function of self-reference and self-reflection, following time’s structure of self-affection or self-solicitation. The self-referential constitution of the appearance of beings, prior to the subjective action of conscious reflection, is the primordial theme of not only phenomenology, but also of Heidegger’s later thinking, which makes it a significant problem to meditate upon the ontological occurrence of time itself, i.e. the radical Event (Ereingis) of the Being (Seyn).

References Aertsen, J.A. 1998. Transzendental; Transzendentalphilsophie: II Die Anfänge bis Meister Eckhart. In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 10, ed. J. Ritter, and K. Gründer, 1360–1365. Schwabe & co.: Basel. Carr, D. (2007). Heidegger on Kant on Transcendence. In Transcendental Heidegger, ed. P. Crowell and J. Malpas, 28–42. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Crowell, S., and J. Malpas, eds. 2007. Transcendental Heidegger. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gabriel, M. 2011. Transcendental Ontology. Bloomsbury: London etc. Heidegger, M.. 1927. Sein und Zeit, 7. Aufl. Max Niemeyer: Tübingen 1979; English translation: Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, Harper & Row: London 1962. ———. 1977. Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Gesamtausgabe (= GA) 25. Frankfurt a. M: Vittorio Klostermann. ———. 1978. Frühe Schriften, GA 1. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. ———. 1993. Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie, GA 22. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann. ———. 2010. Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann; English translation: translated by James P. Churchill, Indiana University Press: Bloomington & London 1975 (5th edition). Kant, I. 1781. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, Akademie-Ausgabe, Bd. 4. Berlin/Leipzig 1911; English translation: I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Marcus Weigelt, Based on the translation by Max Müller, Penguin Books: London 2007.

138

N. Murai

———. 1928. Kant’s handschriftlicher Nachlaß, Metaphysik. Zweiter Theil, Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, Akademie-Ausgabe, Bd. 18. Berlin/Leipzig. Kockelmans, J.J. 1989. On the Meaning of the Transcendental Dimension of Philosophy. In Perspektiven transzendentaler Reflexion, ed. G.  Müller and Th.M.  Seebohm, 27–49. Bonn: Bouvier. Puntel, L.B. 1969. Analogie und Geschichtlichkeit I. Freiburg/Basel/Wien. Schaber, J.  2007. Heideggers frühes Bemühen um eine >Flüssigmachung der Scholastik< und seine Zuwendung zu Johannes Duns Scotus. In Heidegger und die christliche Tradition, ed. N. Fischer and F.-W. von Herrmann, 108–113. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. Sherover, Ch.M. 1972. Heidegger, Kant & Time. Bloomington/London: Indiana Univeristy Press. Steffen, Chr. 2005. Heidegger als Transzendentalphilosoph. Seine Fundamentalontologie im Vergleich zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Heidelberg: Universitätverlag Winter. Wucherer-Huldenfeld, K. 1999. Zu Heideggers Verständnis des Seins bei Johannes Duns Scotus und im Skotismus sowie im Thomasismus und bei Thomas von Aquin. In Heidegger und das Mittelalter, ed. H. Vetter. Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Bern/New York/Paris/Wien. Norio  Murai (Ph.D., Sophia University, Tokyo) is Professor at Chuo University, Tokyo. He is author of The Possibilities of Human Studies (Chisen shokan, 2016 [Japanese]), Nietzsche: Philology of Appearance (Chisen shokan, 2014 [Japanese]), Deconstruction and Tracing Back of Thinking: Heidegger and the History of Metaphysics (Chisen shokan, 2014 [Japanese]), and Nietzsche: Riddle of Zarathustra (Chuokoron shinsha, 2008 [Japanese]). His research topics are phenomenology and hermeneutics of Heidegger, the philosophies of Nietzsche, and the history of western philosophy by Blumenberg.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception Genki Uemura

Abstract  The aim of the present paper is to eliminate a seeming redundancy in Roman Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality and, through this, provide a modest and partial defense of his theory. I shall first argue that, contrary to an impression one might initially have, Ingarden’s notion of purely intentional objects of perception is not superfluous; purely intentional objects of perception play a role as representational contents. Second, I shall point out that Ingarden’s theory has some merits that prove it to be worthy of serious and closer consideration for us today. Keywords  Ingarden · Perceptual experience · Intentionality · Intentional objects · Representational contents

1  Introduction It is well known that the Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden extensively discusses intentional objects in the context of the ontology of fiction. He holds that fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes are purely intentional objects as opposed to real objects. Since objects of the former kind, unlike those of the latter, do not exist completely independently of us, this opposition between the two kinds of objects amounts to a categorial difference between them. Purely intentional objects make up an ontological category that is neither identical to nor reducible to real objects. Such an idea has inspired attempts to accommodate our ordinary idea that fictional characters do not exist in a certain sense but they nevertheless do exist as something created by authors.1 Less well-known is the fact that Ingarden’s theory of purely intentional objects has its origins, at least in part, in the problem of perceptual experience. We find one of the earliest formulations of this theory in his talk on the objectivity of perception  See Thomasson (1999).

1

G. Uemura (*) Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_11

139

140

G. Uemura

in May of 1923. According to him, if we stop ascribing unknowability to a thing in itself, it is possible to distinguish it from the “merely intentional act-correlate” (cf. RIGW 8: 26–27).2 The aim of the present chapter is to make sense of Ingarden’s distinction between purely intentional and real objects in the context of the problem of perceptual experience and to give a modest and partial defense for his theory. The present chapter is structured as follows. After showing that Ingarden’s straightforward argument in favor of his idea of purely intentional objects is not convincing, in Sect. 2 I will suggest that his idea is cogent only if it is dialectically superior to its rivals. In doing so, I will present some basic features of purely intentional objects in so far as they are relevant to discussions of perceptual experience. Section 3 will clarify the problem of the seeming superfluousness of purely intentional objects of perception: they seem to play no substantial role in veridical perceptual experience. I will also provide a solution to this problem by showing that they function as representational content. Section 4 will list some merits of Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality, the most important one being that it shares advantages with the so-called intentionalism while avoiding a certain problem that the latter faces. This is meant to constitute a modest and partial defense of Ingarden’s theory. In my concluding remarks, I will briefly explain why my defense is only modest and partial.

2  I ngarden’s (Problematic) Argument for Purely Intentional Objects As a respectful but disobedient student of Husserl, Ingarden advocates a system of ontology that stands in sharp contrast with his teacher’s phenomenological idealism. He attempts to carry out a project that is doomed to fail in the eyes of his teacher, namely the explication of the structure of the autonomously existing world.3 At the same time, Ingarden aims at overcoming phenomenological idealism rather than simply putting it aside without argument. His ontology includes accounts of our conscious life and the varieties of lived experience in it that are supposed to replace Husserl’s transcendental-idealist phenomenology. It is safe to say that Ingarden’s

2  I do not hold that the problem of perceptual experience is the only context out of which Ingarden’s discussions of purely intentional objects arose. By the summer of 1923, he completes his Habilitationsschrift in Polish, which is published in German in 1925 under the title “Essentiale Fragen” (cf. Mitscherling 1997, p.  18). In this work, Ingarden holds the numerical distinction between these two types of objects in the context of the theory of judgment and questioning (cf. EF, chapter 1). 3  Ingarden’s definition of autonomous existence is as follows: “An entity (in the sense of any something at all) exists autonomously (is existentially autonomous) if it has its external foundation within itself”. In Ingarden’s system, autonomous existence, which is contrasted with heteronomous existence, is further explicated in terms of three other pairs of existential independence/dependence. See Simons (2005) for a detailed exposition of this.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

141

ontology is properly characterized as a realist but still a phenomenological ontology.4 Among Ingarden’s accounts of our conscious life, one concerning purely intentional objects is arguably the most important. The adverb “purely” indicates that an object of that sort is intentional (i.e., a target of intentional experience) by its essence.5 This implies that any purely intentional object exists only dependently on an intentional experience (or a set of such experiences); it would not have existed apart from the correlated experience of it. Correspondingly, every intentional experience has its purely intentional object. As a result, Ingarden holds that the opposition between idealism and realism can be understood as an opposition over “whether the real world and objectualities [Gegenständlichkeiten] in it are purely intentional objects or something fundamentally different from them” (Streit II/1, p.  174; see also RIGW 8: 25).6 According to his diagnosis, Husserl’s phenomenological idealism amounts to the following claim: Any real object in the world does not exist autonomously, because it is by its essence an intentional object and such a purely intentional object in general do not exist autonomously.7 Being a phenomenological realist, Ingarden proposes a theory of intentionality that, against Husserl, admits a difference in kind between purely intentional objects on the one hand and real objects in the world on the other. According to Ingarden’s theory, none of real object in the world is identical to a purely intentional object, because an ontological category to which the latter belongs is regarded as different from that (or those) of real objects. Therefore, his criticism of his teacher would amount to the claim that Husserl’s phenomenological idealism, which identifies real objects with (some type of) purely intentional objects, rests on a category mistake. Ingarden attempts to justify the categorial distinction between the two types of objects by pointing to two features—double-sidedness and indeterminacy—that are peculiar to purely intentional objects but not to real objects (cf. Streit II/1, 210–224 4  Ingarden’s ontology could be characterized as phenomenological also by virtue of its strongly descriptive or non-reductive tendency. See Chrudzimski (2004). 5  In the present paper, I confine myself to the original intentionality of experience, ignoring the derivative intentionality possessed by linguistic signs etc., which plays an important role in Ingarden’s theory of literary works of art. For the distinction between original and derivative intentionality, see Galewicz (1994, pp. 9–10). 6  More precisely, Ingarden holds that idealism also consists in conceiving the world as a region of objects, as an intentional object. Since I do not focus on the issue concerning idealism and realism, I ignore the problem of the world for the sake of simplicity. For Ingarden’s ontological analysis of the world, see Chapter XV of Streit II/2. See also Rynkiewicz (2008, pp.  409–412) for a summery. 7  Such a formulation is of course not without textual evidence. In Ideen I, Husserl writes: “Reality, the reality of a thing taken individually as well as the reality of the entire world, essentially dispenses (in our rigorous sense) with self-sufficiency. It is not in itself something absolute, binding itself secondarily to something else; instead it is in the absolute sense nothing at all, it has no “absolute essence,” it has the essential character of something that is in principle only intentional, only relative to that of which it is conscious, that which presents itself and appears in accord with consciousness” (Hua III/1, p. 106 [=Husserl 2014, pp. 90–91], our italics).

142

G. Uemura

[tr., vol. II, pp. 206–219]; see also Streit II/1, pp. 66–70 [tr., vol. II, pp. 77–81] and LK, §20). Setting aside the definitions of those two notions for a while (they will be given below in the present section), let us first see how his argument against Husserl can be formulated: 1 . Every purely intentional object is double-sided and indeterminate. (Premise) 2. No real object is double-sided and indeterminate. (Premise) 3. x = y only if every property of x is a property of y and vice versa. (Leibniz’ Law) 4. Therefore, any purely intentional object is not numerically identical to a real object. (From (1), (2) and the contraposition of (3)) In this section, I will show that the above argument is not convincing. Ingarden certainly provides some reasons for (1) but when it comes to (2), he simply presupposes it without any substantial argument. The claim made in premise (2) is not at all intuitive or uncontentious. Moreover, even if this presupposition is correct, a problem would remain. Ingarden’s move from (2), in conjunction with (1) and (3), to (4) does not hold, because (3)—Leibniz’ Law—is not applicable in the present case. Such a critical examination will serve also as a preparatory work for the next sections.

2.1  D  ouble-Sidedness and Indeterminacy of Purely Intentional Objects To see how Ingarden argues for (1), it is necessary to clarify the ontological relation he introduces which plays a fundamental role in his overall ontological framework. Suppose that you are consciously looking for a chair to sit on. Then you have an experience (or lived-experience [Erlebniss]) of looking for something.8 As is suggested by the term something, this experience of yours is intentional and, according to Ingarden’s theory, it has a purely intentional object. Now, there must be a sense in which the purely intentional object of your experience is determined as a chair. It is only by virtue of such a determination that a chair rather than a table, for instance, is figuring in your experience. In this way, the purely intentional object, which (partially) grounds the phenomenal feature of your experience (as looking for a chair on which you could sit), is involved in the very structure of that experience as a lived-experience. To put it differently, describing how the purely intentional object is determined is part of describing what your experience is like. There is another sense, however, in which the purely intentional object in question is not determined as a chair. The mere presence of the purely intentional object in your experience does not imply that there is a chair. Therefore, there are two ways in which something is determined as a chair.

 In what follows, I use “experience” only as a synonym of “lived-experience.”

8

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

143

Ingarden explicates these two ways of determination by means of two different modes of property instantiation.9 As a phenomenological ontologist, he sticks to the idea that to be determined as being thus and so is to instantiate a property (or a set of properties). According to him, therefore, the mode in which the purely intentional object in question instantiates the property of being a chair is different from the mode in which a real physical object in your office, for instance, does. While the latter is a chair in an ordinary or standard sense, the former “is” a chair only in a modified or non-standard sense. In this way, Ingarden introduces the non-standard property instantiation as a peculiar, irreducible ontological relation.10 For ease of reference, let “to instantiate” and “to instantiate* [with an asterisk]” be abbreviations of “to instantiate in the standard way” and “to instantiate in the non-standard way” respectively. It is the non-standard property instantiation that makes it possible to understand what Ingarden has in mind when he ascribes the two features to purely intentional objects. (a) Double-sidedness. Purely intentional objects are said to be double-sided, because they can, and in fact do, instantiate a property in the standard way as well as in the non-standard way. The purely intentional object of looking for a chair, to continue with the above example, is a purely intentional object and is thus correlated with your experience of looking for something in the usual sense, in which a real object in the world is a chair. Just like real objects, our experiences, in which purely intentional objects are involved, are part of the realm of being. Therefore, Ingarden maintains, there is the (relational) property of being a purely intentional object (of a certain experience) that is instantiated by every purely intentional object in the standard way. Thus purely intentional objects are analyzed as consisting of two sides: one side that instantiates* properties; the other that instantiates properties. In Ingarden’s terminology, the former is called the “Content [Gehalt]” and the latter is the “(intentional) structure” (cf. LK, pp. 123–124; Streit II/1: 216 [tr. vol. II, p. 212]).11 (b) Indeterminacy. Purely intentional objects are said to be indeterminate, because the law of excluded middle is not applicable to their Content. Let us take the same example again. When looking for a chair to sit on, you have a purely intentional object in your experience. While the purely intentional object is a chair in the modified sense, you might not be able to determine whether it is made of oak, or whether it is 8 kg in the same sense. In this sense, the Content of the purely intentional object is (in the modified sense) indeterminate with regard to these material

 In what follows I consider relations to be properties (in a wider sense) for the sake of simplicity.  In Ingarden’s own terminology, the non-standard instantiation is called “Aktualisierung,” whereas the standard instantiation is called “Vereinzelung.” The terms the standard/non-standard exemplifications, as well as the nomal/modified senses of to be, is taken from from Chrudzimski (2015). 11  Because of the lack of any other suitable term than “content” in English, I translate “Inhalt” and “Gehalt” to “content” and the capitalized “Content” respectively. Note that “The Content of a purely intentional object is a content” would then not be trivial, just like the German sentence “Der Gehalt des rein intentionalen Gegenstandes ist ein Inhalt” is not. 9

10

144

G. Uemura

properties and perhaps many other properties.12 This is quite obvious, especially if you are looking for any chair to sit on whatsoever. In these cases, you typically do not care about the type of wood, mass and so on of what you are looking for; what matters for you is only whether it functions as a chair for you to sit on. Something essentially the same holds true also in a case in which you are looking for a particular chair, for instance the chair in your room. Suppose further that you do not know that your chair is made of, say, oak. Then, the following question would be indeterminate for you: “What kind of wood is the chair you are looking for made of?” This means that the purely intentional object of your experience has Content that is indeterminate with regard to this material property. In this way, it is not the case that for any F, an intentional object is either F or not F in the modified sense. Note that the indeterminacy of purely intentional objects is not due to a defect in your attentiveness. No matter how good you are at focusing on something, you could not find what the purely intentional object is made of (in the modified sense), unless you are looking for a chair made of a certain material. The Content of the purely intentional object instantiates* only properties that figure in your experience of looking for a chair. To describe that Content is to describe part of what your experience in question is like. An important consequence arising here is that the Content of purely intentional objects can instantiate* an incompatible pair or n-tuple of properties (cf. LK: 129). The property of being a regular polyhedron and the property of being a decahedron, for instance, are incompatible. They cannot be instantiated by one and the same object at the same time. It might happen, however, that someone who is not good at geometry is consciously looking for a regular decahedron dice. According to Ingarden’s theory, therefore, there must be a purely intentional object that instantiates* the incompatible pair of properties: being a decahedron and being a regular polyhedron. This could easily be generalized to n-tuple of incompatible properties.

2.2  Are Real Objects Not Double-Sided and Indeterminate? When it comes to the second premise of Ingarden’s argument—namely (2) No real object is double-sided and indeterminate—, it is questionable whether or not this premise is well grounded. Indeed, most philosophers with realist leanings would presumably agree that real objects in the world are neither double-sided nor indeterminate. Since both of those features are characterized only by reference to intentional experience, they would not be ascribed to real objects, which are mind-­ independent according to most (if not all) realists. However, in the present context, the opposition between realism and idealism is at stake, and so to appeal to such an opinion is simply question-begging. 12  Note that the term “material properties” here has only to do with something of which an artifact is made of. In what follows I use the term exclusively in this ordinary, non-technical sense.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

145

It is true that Ingarden himself might believe his claim to be free from question begging. According to him, (2) holds by virtue of the essence of real objects.13 An essence can be investigated without assuming that it has an actually existing instance. Therefore, he maintains, the truth of (2) can be secured without taking a position on the opposition between idealism and realism. This move is, however, far from convincing. Husserl’s phenomenological idealism is not confined to the way in which real objects actually exist. Rather, it concerns the mode of being that real objects have by virtue of their essence.14 In favor of Husserl, therefore, one could argue against (2), claiming that real objects are in truth double-sided and indeterminate.15

2.3  Is the Application of Leibniz’ Law Legitimate? There is another problem in Ingarden’s argument reformulated above. If realism is presupposed, Ingarden may be able to provide support for (2). Even in this case, however, the success of Ingarden’s argument as a whole is not guaranteed. For (3) in the reformulated argument—Leibniz’ Law—is not applicable in the present case. To see this, let us first consider the following example.16 Suppose that one day Eddie saw a man running out of a bank with a large bag in his arms. Eddie believes that man to be a bank robber. Let’s also suppose that, unbeknownst to Eddie, the man he sees exiting the bank is in fact Eddie’s best friend. Thus Eddie does not believe his best friend to be a bank robber. In this case, while the man Eddie saw has the property of being believed to be a bank robber by Eddie, the Eddie’s best friend does not. Now, Leibniz’s Law tells us that x  =  y only if every property of x is a property of y and vice versa. Despite such a circumstance, however, it is certainly inappropriate to say that (the contraposition of) Leibniz’ Law allows us to infer that the man Eddie saw is not identical with the best friend of Eddie. The former is numerically identical to the latter by supposition. The inapplicability of Leibniz Law in the present case is due to the fact that the property in question, if it is  Ingarden’s analysis of purely intentional object in, on which my discussion is based, is part of ontology as an investigation of essence. For this conception of ontology in Ingarden, see Rynkiewicz (2008, pp.  354–359). For more critical and revisionary discussions, see Haefliger (1994, pp. 89–100) and Chrudzimski (2004, pp. 132–140). 14  See the quotation from Ideen I in note 7 above. 15  Husserl himself would probably agree that real objects are double-sided and indeterminate, at least if real objects are not numerically distinct of noemata. In Ideen I, Husserl unambiguously claims that a noema consists of two strata: noematic sense and thetic character (cf. Hua III/1, pp. 210–211 [=Husserl 2014, pp. 180–181]). Those two strata seem to correspond to the Content and structure of purely intentional objects respectively. If this is true, noema would have indeterminacy in Ingarden’s sense, because some “predicates” that belong to the noematic meaning of a noema are considered to be undetermined (cf. Hua III/1, p. 300 [=Husserl 2014, p. 259]). 16  This example is a modified version of the one given by Kim (2010, pp. 37–38). The term “intentional properties” to appear below is also taken from him. 13

146

G. Uemura

instantiated by something, would imply the existence of a certain belief of Eddie. Let us call such a property an “intentional property,” because the instantiation of it implies the existence of an intentional state or experience, in this case belief. Then, the conclusion we should draw from the above example is that intentional properties are excluded from the properties quantified in Leibniz’ Law. Pointing to an intentional property does not help us to differentiate something from something else. Now, double-sidedness and indeterminacy are arguably sorts of intentional properties. For, if an object instantiates those properties, it is implied that there is an intentional experience with which that object is correlated. To put it differently, the object is double-sided in that it is the target of an intentional experience, and it is indeterminate in that only a limited numbers of properties figure in the experience. One might raise an objection here. As Ingarden claims, the being and qualification of a purely intentional object is solely determined by the corresponding intentional experience (cf. Streit II/1: 211, 217, 219–220). Thus, unlike ordinary objects such as a chair or the man Eddie saw, purely intentional objects instantiate only intentional properties. This strongly suggests that they are individuated by their intentional properties alone: In the case of purely intentional objects, x = y if and only if every intentional property of x is an intentional property of y and vice versa. Then, the objector continues, intentional properties must be included in the properties quantified in Leibniz’ Law when it is applied to purely intentional objects. My reply to this objection is that such an objection is question begging as well. I agree that some purely intentional objects are individuated by their intentional properties alone. Therefore, I also agree that we can differentiate two purely intentional objects by pointing to differences in their intentional properties. All those claims would be true, however, only if Ingarden is correct in holding that purely intentional objects make up a peculiar ontological category that is distinct from any real object. For someone like Crane (2001: 13–18; 2014, Chapter 6), for instance, who denies that intentional objects are entities at all, it would make no sense to follow Ingarden and talk about the individuation of intentional objects. We can now conclude that Ingarden’s argument for the categorial difference between purely intentional and real objects reformulated above is hardly convincing. As my discussion so far has revealed, it is quite difficult for him to give support to the second premise of his argument without presupposing realism, and it is precisely realism that he aims to argue for by means of that categorial difference. This reasoning is therefore circular. In addition, another key of the argument—Leibniz’ Law—is not applicable without begging the question. One way (and perhaps the only way) that remains for Ingarden and his proponents is to present his theory of intentionality as a promising hypothesis when it is compared with rival theories. In this case, one could safely assume that realism is provisionally true and that purely intentional objects make up a genuine ontological category. This is exactly what I attempt to do in the sections that follow. From now on, therefore, I take it for granted that those claims are true as part of the hypothesis.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

147

3  The Role of Purely Intentional Object of Perception The aim of this section is to present Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality as a hypothesis, to which a modest and partial defense is given in Sect. 4. The problem that I set up in Sect. 3.1 is this: When it comes to the intentionality of perceptual experience, purely intentional objects seem superfluous. In order to argue for the dialectical superiority of Ingarden’s theory, therefore, this seeming redundancy must be dissolved in the first place. In Sect. 3.2, I deal with Chrudzimski’s account, which almost gets rid of the redundancy in question. In Sect. 3.3, I attempt to pin down what is still missing in from Chrudzimski’s reading of Ingarden. In Sect. 3.4, I clarify what Ingarden, under the strong influence of Husserl, thinks of the nature of perceptual intentionality: it is an empty component in perceptual experience as a whole. In Sect. 3.5 with that clarification at hand, I provide an account that fills the gap in Chrudzimski’s. In Sect. 3.6 I give some remarks on the suggested account in order to avoid potential misunderstandings.

3.1  Setting up the Problem Ingarden unambiguously holds that perceptual experience is intentional (RIGW 8: 4; Streit II/1: 195).17 He also seems to hold that the purely intentional object of your experience of seeing a chair in front of you, for instance, is not identical with any of the real chairs in the world. However, isn’t this claim exactly what Husserl criticizes as a principle error in §43 of Ideen I, namely an error of believing that “perception […] does not get at the thing itself” (Hua III/1: 89 [=Husserl 2014: 76])? What is troublesome here is that Ingarden himself emphasizes that intentionality makes our perceptual experience directed to real objects in the world.18 In accordance with this, Ingarden sometimes talks about the distinction between purely intentional objects on the one hand and autonomously existing objects as “also intentional [auch intentional]” objects on the other hand. While the former are essentially targets of intentional experience, “[i]t is entirely accidental that the latter objectivities [Gegenständlichkeiten] (if they exist at all) become targets [Treffpunkte] of conscious acts and thus in a secondary manner become ‘also intentional’ objectivities” (LK, p. 122 [tr. p. 117], my italics; see also Streit I: 82–83 [tr. vol I, pp. 113–114]). The distinction between purely intentional and also intentional objects certainly enables Ingarden to hold that ones’ seeing a tree is intentionally directed to a real object that, if it exists, exists autonomously. In other words, if a perceptual experience is veridical, there exists a real object in the world, which is contingently a target of  In the present paper, I assume with Ingarden and Husserl that perceptual experience is intentional. 18   “Das, worauf sich die äußeren Wahrnehmungen […] beziehen, bildet ein System von Gegenständen, das die ‘materielle Welt’ gennant wird” (RIGW 8, p. 50). 17

148

G. Uemura

that experience. It would then be unclear, however, what role purely intentional objects play in perceptual experience. How do those objects contribute to the intentionality of perceptual experience that opens us to the world in perceiving something? If no substantial role is given to them, it would be the case that Ingarden’s theory has a superfluous or redundant component. This would be a considerable disadvantage for him, since non-redundancy or simplicity is one of the factors we consider when we are determining which is most promising among competing hypotheses. That is the problem on which I shall focus. An idea one might immediately come to here is that purely intentional objects are not redundant because they serve as ersatz targets of non-veridical perceptual experiences.19 Suppose that you are hallucinating a chair. Being intentional, your experience must have something as its target. Since, by definition, hallucinatory perceptual experience has no corresponding real object in the world, nothing in the world is identified with the target of your experience. Then, it might seem tempting to say that the purely intentional object, which is a chair in the modified sense, is the ersatz target of your experience. As a brief consideration would reveal, however, such an idea does not work. It fails to accommodate two interrelated points concerning the intentionality of perceptual experience. First, according to Ingarden, purely intentional objects are regarded as something necessitated by the presence of the corresponding intentional experiences of any sort. Therefore, every veridical perceptual experience involves a purely intentional object as well as a real one that is also intentional. What is the role of purely intentional objects in veridical perceptual experiences? How do they contribute to the fact that those experiences have real objects as targets? The idea at stake, which tells us nothing about veridical cases, does not answer these two questions. Second, there is a sense in which a perceptual experience has a real object as a target regardless of whether it is veridical. If it is veridical, that consists in its successfully hitting a target, as it were. Likewise, if it is not veridical, that is due to the fact that it misses a target. Even in the latter case, the target at stake must be something real. Otherwise, it would be unintelligible in what sense it misses the target. Hence, the talk about veridicality or non-veridicality of a perceptual experience makes sense only if the experience targets something real that, if the experience is successful, exists in the world.20 In this way, the two questions above concerning the role of purely intentional objects can be generalized to every perceptual experience. To those generalized questions, however, no sufficient answer would be provided by the idea that purely intentional objects of perception are ersatz targets for non-veridical cases. Keeping silent with respect to veridical  This idea, it seems, is suggested by Thomasson when she writes: “typically the object of a hallucinatory act is created by that act itself, whereas the object of a veridical perceptual act is just picked out by that intentional act, not created by it”. (1999, p. 90). 20  This is exactly the reason why Ingarden inserts the phrase “if it [=a real object] exists” in parentheses when he characterizes real objects as something also intentional in the Literarishe Kunstwerk. I owe this point to Galewicz (1994, p. 11). 19

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

149

cases, the idea conveys no information about the way in which purely intentional objects serve their role in perceptual experience in general. In this way, the idea that purely intentional objects of perception are ersatz targets for non-veridical cases would lead to the conclusion that those objects are superfluous. In favor of Ingarden’s theory of intentionality, therefore, we must provide a better account that gives a substantial role to purely intentional objects of perception and, in doing so, elucidates how those objects contribute to the fact that perceptual experiences have real objects as targets.

3.2  The Representational Role of Purely Intentional Objects In some of his works on Ingarden, Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (1999: 109; 2005a: 101– 104; 2015) has proposed a more general account of purely intentional objects, which gives them a substantial role.21 According to his account, purely intentional objects realize a function as representational contents. Before seeing how Chrudzimski fleshes out such an idea, let us clarify briefly how his account helps to solve the problems I have just presented. If purely intentional objects realize the function as representational content (or the representational function for short), we could follow the strategy of so-called intentionalism that assimilates perceptual experiences to beliefs (of a certain sort).22 The idea is that every perceptual experience is about real objects by representing the world, just as some beliefs are about real objects in the same way. A belief about real objects is representational in that it takes the world (or a part of it) to be thus and so. In believing, say, that a chair in front of you right now is black, you take the world to be such that it is the case that the chair in front of you right now is black. Likewise, according to the intentionalist strategy, your seeing a chair, for instance, takes the world to be such that the chair is in front of you at the moment you have that perceptual experience.23 What is important here is that, construed in this way, every perceptual experience would be regarded uniformly as having a real object as its target, whether or not it is veridical. This is made intelligible if we consider the fact that your belief is about a chair because its truth depends on whether the world of real objects exists in the same way as it represents; it can be falsified only by the way in which the world of real objects exists. In this sense, to generalize, a belief can be about a real object whether or not it is true.  For a comprehensible defense of his account from a systematic point of view, see also Chrudzmiski (2015). Note that in those works, Chrudzimski’s account is confined to purely intentional objects of nominal acts or experiences, which include not only presentation [Vorstellung] but also perception. 22  See Fish (2010, chaper 5) for a concise overview of intentionalism. Note that, as will be emphasized in Concluding Remarks, Ingarden’s position is not solely intentionalist. 23  This might not be the complete description of how your experience of seeing a chair represents the world, but it would probably suffice for the illustration of the idea at stake. 21

150

G. Uemura

Now, according to Chrudzimski’s account, the purely intentional object of an intentional experience functions as the representational content of the same experience, because the former determines what is often equated with the latter: the condition of satisfaction of that experience.24 As we have already introduced the distinction between the standard and non-standard modes of property instantiation, it is not difficult to see Chrudzimski’s point. Generally speaking, the condition of satisfaction of an intentional experience is a condition under which that experience is successful (i.e., true in the case of belief; veridical in the case of perception; realized or carried out in the case of volition, and so on). Then, we can provide a general definition of the condition of satisfaction as follows: (CS) An intentional experience is satisfied or successful if and only if there is a real object such that it instantiates every property that the corresponding purely intentional object instantiates*. In short, a purely intentional object functions as a representational content by instantiating* all the properties represented in the relevant experience. Chrudzimski’s account gains some textual evidence from a passage in the Streit um die Existenz der Welt, in which Ingarden characterizes cognizing acts [Erkenntnisakte] (i.e., acts that aims at gaining some knowledge) as acts that would be successful if and only if their intentional objects correspond to real objects in the world.25 Unfortunately, Ingarden does not tell us much about what the correspondence between two items amounts to. Nevertheless, we can judge that Chrudzimski is correct in elucidating the correspondence between two types of objects by means of the standard and non-standard modes of property instantiation. In 1925, Ingarden characterizes the correspondence between the two types of object in the case of acts of judgment: From this merely [=purely] intentional states of affairs, one must distinguish the objective state of affairs that exists independently of the cognizing subject and the judgment sentence.  See Searle (1983, pp. 10–11) for the locus classicus of this equation.  Chrudzimski (1999, p. 107, 2005a, p. 102) only refers to the page number of the work, but in all likelihood has he following sentence in mind: “Sie [=Erkenntnisakte] erfüllen ihren Zweck und erweisen ihre Seinsberechtung dann und nur dann, wenn es dem Bewusstseinssubjekt in ihrem Vollzug gelingt, diese Deckung […] zu erreichen [They fulfill their purpose and demontrate the legitimacy of their existence if and only if in excercising them the subject of consciousness succeeds in attaining this coincidence].” (Streit II/1, p. 206 [tr., vol. II, p. 202]). Elsewhere he quotes the following passage from the Literarische Kunstwerk: “Das intentional geschaffene Ding “ist”— im strengen, seinsautonomen Sinne—z.B. nicht “rot”. Damit es das sein könnte, müßte es eine echte Realisation der Wesenheit “Röte” in sich reell enthalten. Gerade dieses reelle Enthaltensein, dieses Immanentsein der Realisation einer idealen Wesenheit in einer Gegenständlichkeit und andererseits auch diese Realisation selbst vermag der reine Bewußtseinsakt nicht hervorzubringen. Es bleibt immer nur bei dem früher beschriebenen vortäuschenden Quasi-Enthaltensein und bei der Quasi-Realisation, die einerseits auf das intentionale sic iubeo des Bewußtseinssubjektes, andererseits auf die entsprechende ideale Wesenheit zurückweist” (LK, p.  388 quoted in Chrudzimski 2004, p. 131, n14). However, I do not find this textual evidence to be decisive. Here we may well understand Ingarden as merely taking about the difference, rather than the correspondence, between purely intentional and real objects. 24 25

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

151

The objective state of affairs becomes the object of judgement, if the remarkable relation of identification holds between it and the objectum formale [=purely intentional object] of a certain judgment; this relation must hold with regard to all the moments of [purely] intentional object—except its merely intentional structure of being. But it need not hold with regard to all the moments of the objective states of affairs. (EF, p. 5).26

Some interpretative work is needed here, as Ingarden’s theory of intentionality was still under development at the time this was written.27 First, for the sake of simplicity, let us conflate states of affairs [Sachverhalten], which Ingarden introduces when he talks about acts of judgment and other propositional acts, with (“nominal”) objects. The difference between them, which would be absolutely crucial if we are to focus on Ingarden’s theory of judgment,28 can be ignored in the present context. What matters us here is the case of perceptual experiences alone. Then, his idea would be that an act of judgment is true if and only if there is a real object such that all the moments of the purely (here, merely) intentional objects of the act is identifiable with some of the moments of that real object. It is not perfectly clear what Ingarden has in mind when he talks about moments. There are two possibilities, but they both lead to the same conclusion. First we can interpret “moments” in the Husserlian sense, in which it means particularized and non-repeatable properties (or tropes, to put it in the contemporary jargon).29 In this case, the identity between moments must be understood as the qualitative identity rather than the numerical identity. Otherwise, the numerical distinction between purely intentional and real objects could not be kept. Considering the plain fact that Ingarden is a decided realist concerning universals (in his terminology, “pure qualities [reine Qualitäten]”), we are absolutely sure that Ingarden would take the qualitative identity between two or more particularized properties to be grounded in the numerical identity of the relevant property as universal. Second, we can interpret “moments” as universal

 In German: “Von diesem bloß [=rein] intentionalen Sachverhalt muß man den objektiven Sachverhalt unterscheiden, der unabhängig von dem Erkenntnissubjekte und dem Urteilssatze existiert. Er wird zum Gegenstande des Urteils, wenn zwischen ihm und dem objectum formale eines bestimmten Urteils die merkwürdige Beziehung der Identifizierung besteht; sie muß hinsichtlich aller Momente des intentionalen Urteilsgegenstandes—außer seinem bloß intentionalen Seinsstruktur—bestehen, braucht aber nicht notwendig zu bestehen aller Momente des objektiven Sachverhalts.” 27  As is obvious in the above quote, the terminology in 1925 is slightly different from the one established in the Literarische Kunstwerk (LK); instead of “purely intentional objects,” for instance, Ingarden uses “merely [bloß] intentional objects.” In addition, Essentiale Fragen contains a passage in which he seems to deny that purely intentional objects fall under a peculiar ontological category, if, just as in his later works, he regards fictive objects as a sort of purely intentional objects: “Sie [=die fiktive Gegenstände] exitieren aber nicht. Es gibt bloß […] Vorstellungen bzw. Unanschauliche Meinungen von ihnen” (EF, p. 180). 28  Ingarden’s formulation of the correspondence between two types of states of affairs is drastically modified in the Streit um die Existenz der Welt (cf. Streit II/1, §53). There he denies the ontological autonomy of negative states of affairs, which would be admitted if he adopts the formulation of the correspondence in Essentiale Fragen. Further on Ingarden’s later theory of states of affairs, see Chrudzimski (2010, 2012). 29  See Simons (1994, esp. pp. 553–557) for the notion of tropes and their presence in Husserl. 26

152

G. Uemura

and repeatable properties. Then, the identity between moments could be understood straightforwardly as the numerical identity between the properties as universals.30

3.3  The Problem with Chrudzimski’s Account As far as its application to perceptual experiences is concerned, the core idea of Chrudzimski’s account is quite promising. The role of purely intentional objects of perception is captured well by the notion of representational content. At the same time, however, Chrudzimski’s account is not fully adequate if we consider a point concerning the experience of reading a fiction, which seems basic for Ingarden’s theory. Since this contains some philosophically important insights, supplementing the inadequacy would enhance Chrudzimski’s account not only exegetically but also systematically. Contrary to what is suggested by Chrudzimski,31 Ingarden holds that purely intentional objects do not always realize their representational function. In his analysis of the experience of reading a work of fiction, for instance, he explicates the intentionality of that experience only with purely intentional objects (cf. Ingarden 1931, Chapter 7). According to him, objects that we usually attend to when we read a work of fiction (in Ingarden’s term: “dargestellte Gegenständlichkeiten”), namely fictional characters, their “fate” and the fictional world to which they belong, are purely intentional objects. In this case, those objects are considered to be targets in the same sense in which real objects are targets of perceptual experience. Hence, purely intentional objects do not realize the representational function in the experience of reading fiction. It is also possible to present a similar case from a systematic point of view. Let us suppose that you are visually imagining a chair in front of you with your eyes closed. There is a purely intentional object that instantiates in the non-standard way properties that figure in your imaginative experience. Further suppose that a chair, which instantiates in the standard way all the properties the purely intentional object instantiates in the non-standard way, happens to actually exist in front you. If the purely intentional object realizes the representational function in this case, your imaginative experience would be veridical. But that seems nonsensical, because (pure) imagination should not be evaluated in terms of veridicality (or accuracy). In other words, our experience of imaging something does not have a condition of satisfaction. In an experience of this sort, there is no other target than a purely intentional object. 30  In the present paper except this paragraph, I have been and will be using the term “properties” only in the sense of universals 31  Chrudzimski is in fact aware of this problem. See Churdzimski 1999, p.  109, note 328. Regrettably, I do not deal with this issue, since, for linguistic reasons, I could not consult a paper of his he cited due to the fact that it was written in Polish.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

153

All those considerations suggest that purely intentional objects do not in and by themselves realize the representational function, both according to Ingarden’s writings and from a systematic point of view. An experience must have something additional in order that its purely intentional object functions as a representational content. Specifying the range of the problem, now we can pose a question anew: What counts as such an additional factor in perceptual experience?

3.4  The Nature of Perceptual Intentionality To pin down the additional factor indicated above in perceptual experience, it is necessary to deal with a strand of Ingarden’s theory that has received little attention in the previous discussions in this chapter. We must now explicate what he takes the nature of perceptual intentionality to be. Since Ingarden is strongly influenced by (the early) Husserl in this regard, I draw heavily on the teacher to fill the gaps in the student’s treatment of this matter. An insight that Ingarden inherits from his teacher is that perceptual experience is something more than merely having a sensation. As Husserl writes: “I do not see color sensations but colored things. I do not hear tone-sensations but the singer’s song etc.” (Hua XIX/1: 387 [=Husserl 2001, vol. II: 99]). In seeing a chair in front of you, you are presented not only with one side of the chair that is given in a sensory or intuitive way but also with the chair as a whole with many other sides. It is the chair as a whole, rather than the front side of it, that you are seeing. Thus, there must be a sense in which you are aware of those sides that are not intuitively seen. To accommodate this, Husserl analyzes perceptual experience in terms of two factors (cf. Hua XIX/1: 397; XIX/2: 610). On the one hand, Husserl holds that a perceptual experience contains sensational contents, by virtue of which it is an intuitive experience (cf. Hua XIX/2: 590). Thus he calls them “intuitive contents” (Hua XIX/2: 589). On the other hand, he holds that perceptual experience contains non-sensory, non-intuitive factors that make the experience transcend what is intuitively given in it. The interplay between those two factors in is further explicated as “apprehension” or “interpretation” [Auffassung] of the former by the latter (cf. Hua XIX/2: 621).32 Of those two factors, the non-intuitive one called “intention” is what Husserl regards as the vehicle of intentionality in perceptual experience (cf. Hua XIX/2: 572–573). Taken separately (in abstraction), the intention in a perceptual experience is necessarily empty.33 What is important here is that the empty intention is thought  It is not easy to determine what this apprehension amounts to, but the following discussion is neutral with regard to a main point of dispute among interpreters of Husserl: Whether or not the apprehension involves the actualization of our conceptual faculty. See Mooney (2010) for an overview of the debate. 33  In the Logische Untersuchungen, Husserl uses the term “signitive intention” to refer to the empty intention in perceptual experience (cf. Hua XIX/2, pp. 594–595). 32

154

G. Uemura

to belong to perceptual experience as such. Husserl refuses to understand the empty intention by means of any non-perceptual experience such as expectation, judgment and imagination.34 Now, as far as perceptual intentionality is concerned, Ingarden is, for the most part, faithful to Husserl. He agrees with his teacher’s claim that perceptual intentionality is necessarily non-intuitive or empty. For, according to him, intentionality in general is necessarily non-intuitive.35 He further agrees that perceptual experience consists in the apprehension of a sensational content by means of an empty intention (cf. RIGW 8: 15). Therefore, it is the non-intuitive awareness of an object as a whole in perceptual experience that Ingarden attempts to explicate by means of purely intentional objects of perception.

3.5  Ingarden’s Projective Account of Perceptual Intentionality Thanks to the discussion in the previous subsection, it is now easier to see how Ingarden explains the way in which a purely intentional object of perception functions as a representational content. In short, his idea is that the purely intentional object of a perceptual experience realizes the representational function because the properties it instantiates in the non-standard way is projected onto the world. Such an interpretation is available through the reconstruction of a discussion of Ingarden in § 47 of the Streit II/1. As Ingarden himself admits, “it is not easy to unveil this object [=a purely intentional object of perception] distinctively and to contrast it sharply with the radically transcendent object which is given as ‘real’” (Streit II/1, p. 201 [tr., vol. II, p 197], translation modified).36 To show that those two objects are distinguished, therefore, Ingarden presents the following example. For example, we let our fantasy reign free on the basis of a sensory perception: we contemplate a swarm of light clouds in the sky and begin to “inscribe” various figures “into” some of the cloud-patches. We then “see” a ship surrounded by a fleet of boats drawing close to the shore of a lagoon. We exploit the shapes of the just-seen actual clouds and cloud-patches  See Mulligan (1995, pp. 193–194) for details of Husserl’s argument. Mulligan thereby points out that “Husserl does not characterize positively the awareness in perception of the invisible side of the house” (1995, p. 194). To this remark, however, we can raise an objection. What is at stake here is, in a certain sense, something absent from perceptual experience; there is a sense in which the invisible side of, say, the house is missing in the perceptual experience. Given this, and given the fact that it is no use for Husserl to appeal to non-perceptual experiences that are known to us (such as judgment, expectation and imagination) in the present context, the emptiness of perceptual intentionality can and must be understood as the best available positive characterization of our awareness of the invisible side. 35  Ingarden claims that the Content of a purely intentional object is determined by the non-intuitive content of the corresponding experience (cf. Streit II/2, pp. 211, 217, 219–220). 36  In German: “Es ist aber nicht leicht, diesen Gegenstand zur distinkten Enthüllung zu bringen und ihn dem radical transzendenten, als “real” gegebenen Gegenstande der Wahrnehmung scharf gegenüberzustellen.” 34

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

155

in order to project other shapes on their basis, whereby some portion of the clouds get rounded-out, others get trimmed or dimmed, and yet some others ignored altogether, and then we read into these newly-formed figures a completely new objectual sense: it is no longer a cloud, but a “ship,” and no longer the lighter parts of the clouds, but rather “bulging sails”. (Streit II/1, pp. 201–202 [tr. vol. II, 198], translation modified, our emphases).37

As we can easily see, this passage needs some interpretive reconstruction. What must be clarified in the first place are the meanings of “figures [Gestalten]” and “to project [entwerfen].” Concerning the former, a hint for such clarification can be found in a passage slightly after the above quotation. There Ingarden claims that the objects we are “seeing,” namely the ship, boats and so on, are “‘in themselves’ nothing — and yet somehow endowed with properties.” (Streit II/1, p. 202 [tr., vol. II, p. 198]).38 Given this, it would be plausible to understand figures as properties. With this clarification, the latter also would be intelligible. The ship, boats and so on would then be somehow endowed with properties (being a ship, being directed to the shore and so on) thanks to the projection [Entwerfung] of those properties. They appear to be instantiated by real objects by virtue of the fact that they are projected onto the realm of real objects, namely real space. Now, as Ingarden points out (cf. Streit II/1: 202), the case in the above example can be regarded as an example of an illusory perceptual experience. Because our fantasy is sometimes too wild, we could visually misperceive the clouds as real objects in the sky as a ship, boats and so on. In other words, we mistakenly project some properties to those objects. (We will deal with what such a mistake consists in soon.) Note that we thereby could have the knowledge that we have an illusory experience right now. Even in that case, however, the experience of illusorily seeing the ship, the boats and so on would remain the same: They look to be real objects. To see this, just remember the case of the Müller-Lyer illusion. We know that the two lines are of the same length but one still looks longer than the other. In so far as such lookings remain the same, the phenomenal feature of the perceptual experiences would also remain the same. In the present case, just like in the Müller-Lyer case, we could make a series of true judgments about what we are (illusorily) seeing (cf. Streit II/1: 202). We could correctly judge, for instance, that one of the objects we are (illusorily) seeing as real is a ship, which has two white sails and is surrounded by boats; and that the ship that looks real, together with its properties that look to be instantiated by a real object, 37  In German: “Wir lassen, z.B. unsere Phantasie frei auf dem Untergrunde einer sinnlichen Wahrnehmung walten: wir betrachten eine Schar leichter Wolken am Himmel und beginnen, in einzelne Wölkchen verschiedene Gestalten “einzuzeichnen”. Wir “sehen” dann z.B. ein Schiff, von einer Schar Kähne umgeben, sich dem Ufer einer Meeresbucht nähern. Wir nützen die Gestalten der “wirklichen”, soeben gesehenen Wolken und Wölkchen, um auf ihrem Untergrund andere Gestalten zu entwerfen, wobei manches an den Wolken abgerundet wird, manches abgeschnitten oder verdunkelt, ein anderes aber überhaupt übersehen, und dann deuten wir in diese neugeformten Gestalten einen durchaus neuen gegenständlichen “Sinn” hinein: es ist keine Wolke mehr, sondern ein “Schiff”, und keine helleren Teile der Wolke, sondern “aufgebauschte Segel” und dgl. mehr.” 38  In German: “[S]ie [sind] eigentlich “an sich” ein Nichts und doch irgendwie mit Eigenschaften ausgestattet.”

156

G. Uemura

would disappear as we (manage to) stop our (spontaneous) imagination. It is obvious that those judgments are different in an important way. Judgments like the former concern properties that look or seem to be instantiated by real objects but in fact are only instantiated* by purely intentional objects. In contrast, judgments like the latter concern that which Ingarden calls the “structure” of purely intentional objects. In this way, according to Ingarden, we can distinguish a purely intentional object of perception from a real object when we have an illusory perceptual experience with the knowledge that it is illusory. Even though Ingarden himself is not entirely clear about this point, it is possible to extend his account of illusory perceptual experience to perceptual experience in general. Otherwise, the case he presented could not be a clue to the distinction between purely intentional and real objects in perception as such. Then, Ingarden’s idea could be formulated as follows: All the properties that a real object looks to instantiate in a perceptual experience are in fact instantiated* by the purely intentional object of that experience; they looks so because they are projected onto the realm of real object. What is crucial for us is that the projection at stake here meets the veridicality condition. The projection is veridical if and only if there is a real object that instantiates all the properties projected onto the realm of real objects. To repeat, those properties, which make up the veridicality condition, are in fact instantiated* by the purely intentional object. In this way, therefore, the projection enables that object to realize the representational function. Thus, the following formulation of Ingarden’s theory is obtained. A perceptual experience is intentional, because (i) it has a purely intentional object, and (ii) all the properties instantiated* by that object are projected on the realm of real objects.

3.6  Some Remarks on the Projection and Projected Properties To avoid potential misunderstandings, I shall make some remarks on Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality just formulated. The projection of properties, by virtue of which a perceptual experience is intentional, should not be understood as a sort of intentional action. Generally speaking, perceptual experiences have the mind-to-world direction of fit, while intentional action has the world-to-mind direction of fit (cf. Searle 1983: 7–8, 88). It is true that the projection in perceptual experience has the world-to-mind direction in a broad sense. It brings about something in the world, if we take the world to contain purely intentional objects and their properties projected onto it. What is at stake in perceptual experience, however, is to bring about an intentional object that fits to the way the world actually is. The projection is successful in this sense only if all the projected properties are

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

157

instantiated in the world in the same way as they are projected. Hence, the direction of fit that matters in perceptual experience is mind to world. Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality may well be called a “projective” theory, but it is different from what is commonly understood by the same title in philosophy of perception. The basic idea of the projective theory in the latter sense is that sensory qualities of perceptual experience (in the case of the visual perception, colors) are intrinsic qualities of that experience, which are projected to a region of (egocentric) space (cf. Baldwin 1992: 184–185). In contrast, Ingarden’s projective theory has three peculiar features to which the standard projective theory would not agree. First, in Ingarden’s theory, the projection explicates the nature of the intentionality, namely non-sensory awareness involved in perceptual experience. Projected properties, therefore, do not contribute to the sensory characteristics of perceptual experience. Second, the projected properties are not confined to sensory qualities such as colors. They include not only so-called secondary qualities but also primary qualities. In addition, they may include even “higher” properties such as sortal properties.39 The non-sensory awareness concerns varieties of properties that are instantiated by a real object as a whole. Third, Ingarden would not agree to the claim that projected properties are not actually instantiated by real objects in the world. Rather, according to him, in the case of veridical perceptual experience, the projected properties are not only instantiated* by the purely intentional experience of that experience but also instantiated by a real object (or a set of such objects) in the world.

4  A Modest and Partial Defense of Ingarden’s Theory I have shown that Ingarden’s notion of purely intentional objects of perception, which might seem superfluous at a first glance, in fact plays a substantial role in accounting for perceptual experience. Objects of that sort realize a function as representational contents. This does not imply, however, that Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality is dialectically superior to rivals. Non-redundancy is only a necessary condition, among many others, of the best (available) theory. To defend Ingarden’s theory, therefore, we have to present its merits. A merit of Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality is that it shares a strong advantage with intentionalism. Intentionalism provides a uniform account of how a perceptual experience is about a real object in the world independently of the veridicality of that experience. In order for, say, a chair to be perceptually experienced  In the present paper, I have been assuming that sortal properties (for instance, the property of being a chair) can be the content of perceptual experience. This is indeed a disputable assumption, but I make it only for the sake of a simpler exposition of Ingarden’s theory. The most important part of Ingarden’s theory, namely the projective account of perceptual intentionality would remain the same even if the range of the projected properties are limited to lower properties. See Siegel (2006) for further on the view that higher properties can be the content of perceptual experience.

39

158

G. Uemura

as something real, the property of being a chair need not be actually instantiated by a real object. What is needed is only that the property of being chair is represented as being instantiated (cf. Fish 2010: 78–79). The difference between Ingarden’s theory and intentionalism is that the former further explicates the representation in terms of the projection of properties: The property of being a chair is represented as being instantiated in the realm of real objects, because it is not only instantiated* by the relevant purely intentional object but also projected on that realm. Of course, an analogy with a better-known and better-established position has some limits. Ingarden’s theory has at least three features that are not found in intentionalism. First, Ingarden’s theory can dispense with representational contents as entities per se.40 Thus, his theory need not posit representational contents in addition to purely intentional objects of perception, because the latter, in conjunction with projection, do the job for the former. In this way, Ingarden’s theory succeeds in  locating representational contents in the structure of perceptual experience. In contrast, proponents of intentionalism are typically committed to the claim that the representational contents of perceptual experiences are propositions. What are, then, propositions? Three major candidates are available here: Russellian propositions as complexes of objects and properties (or properties alone); Fregean propositions as modes of presentation; and propositions as sets of possible worlds (cf. Fish 2010: 71–73). All those candidates seem to face a difficulty when it comes to the location of representational contents in the structure of perceptual experiences. What is the connection between a perceptual experience as a concrete entity and a proposition, which is an abstract entity according to any of those candidates?41 Second, Ingarden’s theory is able, at least in a special way, to cohere with the so-called phenomenal principle, which is denied by (standard versions of) intentionalism. The phenomenal principle is formulated as follows: “If there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality then there is something of which the subject is aware which does possess that quality” (Robinson 1994, p. 32 quoted in Fish 2010, p. 6). This seems to capture an important aspect of perceptual experience, because it is plausible that properties figuring in a perceptual experience are experienced as something actually instantiated. Now, Ingarden would be able to accommodate the phenomenal principle in terms of the non-standard property instantiation. According to his theory, for any perceptual experience there is a purely intentional object that instantiates* properties figuring in that experience.  In fact, Ingarden seems to admit representational content in addition to purely intentional objects under the title “non-intuitive contents.” As Chrudzmski (2005a, pp. 106–112; 2015) argues, nonintuitive contents are a superfluous component of Ingarden’s theory, which he should not have accepted. 41  This is a version of what Barry Smith (1989, p. 163) calls the “linkage problem”: What is the relation between propositions as linguistic meanings and propositional attitudes in which they are “grasped”? It is noteworthy that Michael Dummett’s reply to this problem is not applicable in the present context (cf. Dummett 1992, pp. 63–64). Since no language is involved in perceptual experience as such, one cannot appeal to language, as Dummett does, as our only access to meaning or content. 40

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

159

Third, unlike intentionalism, Ingarden’s theory does not explicate the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience by means of intentionality alone. According to him, intentionality contributes to only a part of that character, which consists in the empty intention involved in the experience; the rest of the phenomenal character is due to sensational contents of the experience. It is beyond my present aim, however, to present such an idea as a merit of Ingarden’s theory. For the moment, we should be content with a quick overview. Ingarden’s idea that a perceptual experience consists of two factors can be advantageous, because it enables us to provide a good account of the perceptual constancy. A colored thing may appear differently in a perceptual experience, depending on the condition of light. For instance, a white paper appears differently to you as the color of light switches from white to pink. Even in that case, however, the color of the thing would not seem different. You would have an experience of seeing one and the same white paper during the change in the light condition. To this phenomenon, Ingarden would give the following explanation: The object of the perceptual experience remains the same in so far as it has the same purely intentional object, while the way it appears changes in accordance with the difference in sensational content.42 The simplicity and straightforwardness of such an account could be characterized as a merit of Ingarden’s theory, if a more detailed account and its defense are given.

5  C  oncluding Remarks: The (Ontological) Cost for Purely Intentional Object of Perception I have argued that Ingarden’s theory of perceptual intentionality has three (or four) merits. In conclusion, I shall offer a short remark on the cost we have to pay to get those merits. This will suggest what needs to be done in order to defend Ingarden’s theory in a stronger and more comprehensive way. Needless to say, the introduction of new entities called purely intentional objects is not a cheap option from an ontological point of view. Ingarden considers purely intentional objects as products of our intentional experience. It is quite difficult, however, to further analyze the production or creation of purely intentional objects. Rather, perhaps I have to regard it as primitive. In addition, the cost of Ingarden’s theory must also include the introduction of the non-standard property instantiation as a primitive ontological relation. It is indispensable in order to explain the double-­ sidedness and indeterminacy of purely intentional objects. Now, is such a cost worth paying? Should we accept purely intentional objects of perception as they are conceived by Ingarden? Making an ontological decision is indeed not a simple task. Those who employ the principle of parsimony in ontology  Madary (2010) proposes a detailed account of how Husserl’s theory well accommodates the perceptual constancy (recall that Ingarden’s idea stems from Husserl). See also Millar (2011) Williford (2013) for attempts to defend the Husserlian view that perceptual experience has nonintentional, sensational components.

42

160

G. Uemura

would think that the introduction of two primitive notions is too high a cost, while others like Ingarden with a more descriptive tendency would not. What must be emphasized is that Ingarden’s notion purely intentional objects in general has a far wider range of application. It is applied not only to the theory of perceptual intentionality but also to the theory of judgment,43 the theory of question (cf. EF, chaper 1) and, most importantly, the theory of fictional characters (cf. LK). Therefore, even if the cost is too pricy to buy the three (or four) merits just pointed out, we may well expect further merits in expanding Ingarden’s theory of purely intentional objects beyond the case of perceptual experience. Carrying out the expansion of the theory, which would lead to a stronger and more comprehensible defense of Ingarden, is indeed one of the future tasks for proponents of Ingarden. That is the reason why the defense I have provided in the present paper is only modest and partial.

References Works by Ingarden EF=Ingarden, Roman. 1925. “Essentiale Fragen. Ein Beitreag zum Wesensproblem.” Reprented in his Über das Wesen, P. McCormick (ed.). Heidelberg: Karl Winder, 2007. LK=Ingarden, R. 1931/72. Das literarische Kunswerk. 4th edition, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. (English translation: Roman IngardenThe Literary Work of Art. G. G. Grabowicz (tr.), Evanston (Ill.): Northwestern University Press, 1973.) Streit=Ingarden, Roman. 1964/65. Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt. 2 volumes, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. (English translation: Roman Ingarden, Controversy Over the Existence of the World, 2 vols, A. Szylewicz (tr.), Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2013/2016.) RIGW=Ingarden, Roman. 1992ff. Gesammelte Werke. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Works by Husserl Hua=Husserl, Edmund. 1950ff. Husserliana. Edmund Husserl Gesammelte Werke, Den Haag et al.: Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer/Springer. Husserl, Edmund. 2001. Logical Investigations. New Edition. Trans. J.N. Findlay and Ed. Dermot Moran. New York: Routledge. ———. 2014. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. D.O.  Dahlstrom. Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett.

43

 See note 25 above.

Demystifying Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception

161

Other Works Baldwin, Thomas. 1992. The Projective Theory of Sensory Content. In The Contents of Experience. Essay on Perception, ed. Tim Crane, 177–195. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz. 1999. Die Erkenntnistheorie von Roman Ingarden. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2004. Roman Ingarden. Ontology from a Phenomenological Point of View. Reports on Philosophy 22: 121–142. ———. 2005a. Brentano, Husserl und Ingarden über die intentionale Gegenstände. In Chrudzmski 2005b, 83–114. ———. 2005b. Existence, Culture, and Persons. The Ontology of Roman Ingarden. Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos. ———. 2010. Composed Objects, Internal Relations, and Purely Intentional Negativity. Ingarden’s Theory of States of Affairs. Polish Journal of Philosophy IV(2): 63–80. ———. 2012. Negative States of Affairs. Reinach versus Ingarden. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy 16 (2): 106–127. ———. 2015. Intentional Objects and Mental Contents. Brentano Studien XIII: 81–119. Crane, Tim. 2001. Elements of Mind. An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2014. Aspects of Psychologism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Unversity Press. Dummett, Michael. 1992. Origins of Analytical Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fish, William. 2010. Philosophy of Perception. A Contemporary Introduction. New Yotk: Routledge. Galewicz, Wlodzimierz. 1994. Das Problem des Seinsstatus der gegenständlichen Sinne und Ingardens Ontologie der rein intentionalen Gegenstände. In Kunst und Ontology. Für Roman Ingarden zum 100. Geburtstag, ed. Wlodzimierz Galewicz, Elisabeth Ströker, and Wladyslaw Strozewski, 5–19. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Madary, Michael. 2010. Husserl on Perceptual Constancy. European Journal of Philosophy 20 (1): 145–165. Kim, J. 2010. Philosophy of Mind. 3rd ed. Boulder: Westview Press. Millar, Boyd. 2011. Sensory Phenomenology and Perceptual Content. The Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244): 558–576. Mittscherling, Jeff. 1997. Roman Ingarden’s Ontology and Aesthetics. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Mooney, Tim. 2010. Understanding and Simple Seeing in Husserl. Husserl Studies 26 (1): 19–48. Mulligan, Kevin. 1995. Perception. In The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, ed. Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith, 168–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, Howard. 1994. Perception. London: Routledge. Rynkiewicz, Kazimierz. 2008. Zwischen Realismus und Idealismus. Ingardens Überwindung des transzendentalen Idealismus Husserls. Frankfurta. M: Ontos. Searle, John R. 1983. Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Siegel, Susanna. 2006. What Properties are Represented in Perception? In Tamar Szabó Gendler, John Hawthorne, ed. Perceptual Experience, 481–503. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simons, Peter. 1994. Particulars in Particular Clothing. Three Trope Theories of Substance. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (3): 553–575. ———. 2005. Ingarden and the ontology of dependence. In Chrudzimski. 2005b, 39–53. Smith, Barry. 1989. On the Origins of Analytic Philosophy. Grazer Philosophische Studien 34: 153–173. Thomasson, Amie L. 1999. Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williford, Kenneth. 2013. Husserl’s Hyletic Data and Phenomenal Consciousness. Phenomenology and Cognitive Science 12 (3): 501–519.

162

G. Uemura

Genki  Uemura (Ph.D., Keio University) is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Okayama University. Among his publications are Husserl’s Conception of Cognition as an Action: An Inquiry into Its Prehistory (In Feeling and Value, Willing and Action, ed. by M Wehlre & M. Ubiali, Springer, 2015) and The Actuality of States and Other Social Groups. Tomoo Otaka’s Transcendental Project? (with Toru Yaegashi, in The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality, ed. by A. Salice & H. B. Schmid, Springer, 2016).

Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy Shojiro Kotegawa

Abstract  Emmanuel Levinas is known for his idea of ethics as first philosophy. In Totality and Infinity (1961), he expresses this concept with the phrase “truth presupposes justice”. Levinas’ ethical thought has been much discussed in previous literature. However, its implications for contemporary theories of truth have not been discussed at length. This paper aims to investigate how far Levinas’ reinterpretation of truth ranges from a phenomenological point of view. In the first section, by reading closely the first section of Totality and Infinity I disclose some peculiarities of Levinas’ concept of truth: (1) the “I” as a knowing subject is separated from the world. (2) truth is accomplished by discourse towards the other person. (3) to attain to the truth, the “I” needs to justify not only the fact that he or she describes but also himself or herself. By putting these three points in relation to Husserl’s analysis of communication and that of B. Williams in his Truth and Truthfulness, the second section shows that Levinas’ concept of truth, which may seem bizarre to some, can contribute to contemporary theories of truth insofar as it reinterprets the concept of truth from the perspective of a “personal” relation to the other person to whom the “I” speaks. Keywords  Truth · Sincerity · Face-to-face relation · Discourse towards the other person · E. Levinas · B. Williams

1  Introduction1 What does it mean to tell the truth? What sort of relation does it bear to sincerity? In this paper, I shall try to address myself to these questions by taking up certain arguments from Emmanuel Levinas, who elaborated on Husserl’s phenomenology in his own distinct way. 1  References to Levinas’ writings will be demarcated as abbreviation + page. Abbreviations will be designated as follows:

S. Kotegawa (*) Department of Philosophy, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_12

163

164

S. Kotegawa

I tackle these questions for two purposes. One is to understand Levinas’ theory of truth. In his main work, Totality and Infinity (1961), Levinas redefines the phenomenological concept of truth as “modality of the relation between the Same and the Other” (TI 59). By doing so, Levinas understands sincerity as the face-to-face relation to the other person,2 which, he argues, dictates whether the content of speech is true or not. Levinas then, rather than recanting his seemingly odd position, moves this argument to the forefront in his next major work, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974) (cf. AE 18; 65). Certain scholars have noted already this fact,3 which is insufficient for grasping what “sincerity” specifically means and how broad the scope of Levinas’ theory of truth is. Therefore, it is as of yet unclear as to how we can answer questions like “which response to the other person is ‘better’ than another response?” or “what kind of response can be said to be “more sincere” than another response?” To clarify these questions, in the first section I shall try to reconsider Levinas’ concept of truth by closely reading the first section of Totality and Infinity, where some unique aspects of Levinas’ theory of truth can be found. Our other purpose is to reevaluate Levinas’ theory of truth in the context of the analytical tradition. Indeed, Totality and Infinity does not aim at elaborating a new concept of truth. However, it does aim to be “a defense of subjectivity” (TI 11) and thereby to put into question traditional ways of thinking and philosophical concepts. Therefore, I believe Levinas’ thought might be able to contribute to contemporary analytic theories of truth, even though it is not easy to find a common ground between Levinas’ concept of truth and the concept as it has been elaborated in the analytic tradition (ex. correspondence theory or deflationism) and therefore some still argue that the former is worth calling “existential truth” insofar as it is described as “modification of subjectivity”—that is, modification from an egocentric subject to an agent responsible for the other person. It seems to me that this sort of interpretation overlooks the fact that Levinas takes the content of speech to be inseparable from our sincerity towards the other person. In the second section, I shall try to show how Levinas’ concept of truth, which has apparently been construed as bizarre, can contribute to contemporary theories of truth by putting it in relation to Husserl’s analysis of communication and Bernard Williams’ theory of truth, which associates “telling truth” with “sincerity”.4 Emmanuel Levinas TI: Totalité et infini, Martinus Nijhoff, 1961, Livre de poche (translated by Alphonso Lingis, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004). AE: Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974 (translated by Alphonso Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1981). 2  In Totality and Infinify, the term “sincerity” (sincérité) is used to refer to an attendance of the other person at his or her own presence or speech (cf. TI 220), while in Otherwise than Being, it refers to an exposedness of “I” to the other (cf. AE 85). In this paper, the term is used in the sense of an attitude of “I” who welcomes the presence of the other person, which I believe covers either usage. 3  Cf. Gaëlle Bernard, « La vérité suppose la justice »—L’exercice éthique de la philosophie selon Levinas, in: Studia Phaenomenologica, Zeta Books, 2007. 4  Cf. Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, chap. 5.

Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy

165

2  Levinas’ Concept of Truth In the first section of Totality and Infinity, Levinas seeks for a different notion of truth both from the correspondence between thought and world, as well as from the unconcealment of Being (as proposed by Heidegger). He then insists on the following three points: (1) the “I”, as a knowing subject, is separated from the world. (2) Truth is accomplished by discourse with the other person. (3) To attain the truth, the “I” needs to justify not only the fact that the “I” describes, but also itself. 1. Separation of the “I” from the world: distinction between Being and the truth In contrast with Heidegger’s “Being-in-the-world”, Levinas puts forward the “separation” of a subject from the world: The separation of the Same is produced in the form of an inner life, a psychism. […] The original role of the psychism does not, in fact, consist in only reflecting being; it is already a way of being (une manière d’être), resistance to the totality. (TI 46)

For Levinas, the “I”, which remains identical through various modifications—be they perceptions or affections—, does not merely “reflect” the world the way a mirror would, but focuses its attention on an aspect of the world from his or her first-­ person perspective which is not interchangeable and thus represents a world in its own way.5 Hence, the interiority of the “I” or a “psychism” is considered to be “separated” from the world in that it is independent of how the world is.6 Levinas takes this “separation” of “I” from the world to be indispensable to truth. The knowing subject is not a part of a whole, for it is limitrophe of nothing. Its aspiration to truth is not the hollowed-out outline of the being it lacks. Truth presupposes a being autonomous in separation; the quest for a truth is precisely a relation that does not rest on the privation of need. (TI 55)

Since the subject of cognition is separated from its cognitive object, a cognition can be false and can be thus questioned as either true or false; but if the “I” were to be so inseparable from the world that it had no alternative but to reflect what the world is, all cognition would be true and there would be no room for the truth. To use Levinas’ own expression, “without separation, there would not have been the truth; there would have been only being” (TI 54). This idea is reducible neither to the materialism, which reduces the truth to causality among things, nor to an idea 5  “Interiority is essentially bound to the first person of the I. The separation is radical only if each being has its own time, that is, its interiority, if each time is not absorbed into the universal time” (TI 50). 6  On the face of it, Levinas’ notion of interiority seems to collapse into a Cartesian dualism that separates the internal mind from the external world which Heidegger opposes Dasein as it is Being-in-the-world. In fact, though, it is actually Levinas, who, more than any other his contemporary thinkers who were much indebted to Heidegger’s criticism against the traditional concept of subject, did not try to rehabilitate Cartesian dualism but to redefine the interiority or psychism in terms of a “way of being”. Cf. Jocelyn Benoist, Le cogito lévinassien: Lévinas et Descartes, in: Jean-Luc Marion (dir.), Positivité et transcendance, Paris: PUF, 2000, p.  115; Raoul Moati, Evénements nocturnes: Essai sur Totalité et Infini, Paris: Hermann, 2012, pp. 151–152.

166

S. Kotegawa

according to which all perceptual experiences can take the role of justification.7 In fact, in cases where a cognitive truth is put into question, it is not the world as a whole but a part of it on which the “I” focuses and which the “I” recognizes from a certain viewpoint. Therefore, what is true cannot be reduced to how the world is (being). 2. Thematization by the other person and speech addressed by “I” to the other person For Levinas, when the “I” thematizes a part of the world, the “I” gets involved in a different order from that of being (‘Otherwise than Being’); namely it gains a relation with an interlocutor. In this respect, Levinas attempts to carry out an ambitious project to entirely reconsider the concept of truth in terms of the relation to the other person. This seems obvious from the fact that he argues that the truth relies upon “language” which points to a discourse addressed to the other person.8 Such a view comes from the insight that it is the other person that makes possible a thematization of the world. Speech first founds community by giving, by presenting the phenomenon as given; and it gives by thematizing. The given is the work of a sentence. In the sentence the apparition loses its phenomenality in being fixed as a theme […]. (TI 101)

Here, an important distinction between the “phenomenon” and the “given” becomes clear: the former appears to the “I” without any limitations and is exposed to various interpretations, whereas the latter is “given”, i.e., thematized and limited by the other person to orientate it towards the “I”. This distinction is that of how the “I” receives the world. Regarding the phenomenon which is received under the rubric of “it seems to me”, the “I” does not have to take any particular attitude in that the “I” is in a condition to suspend the judgment in saying that “it seems to me.” On the contrary, with regard to the given to which the “I” is made to pay his or her attention, the “I” is forced to take an attitude and its judgment must be either true or false (for instance, when your friend asks ‘do you have a pen?’ you are forced to pay attention to what you have; it is not sufficient to say that it seems to you that you have a pen, but that your belief that you have a pen is questioned as true or false). According to Levinas, it is the other person that thematizes and orientates the phenomenon towards the “I”, and thereby renders it the given about which a judgment of the “I” is made to be true or false. When the “I” addresses a manner of speech which implies his or her attitude towards the given, this speech can be questioned as true or false. We should then note that this interlocutory relation to the other person is distinguished from his or her representation. But in its expressive function language precisely maintains the other—to whom it is addressed, whom it calls upon or invokes. […] The other called upon is not something 7  Cf. Jean-Michel Salanskis, L’épistémologie de Totalité et Infini, in: Le concret et l’idéal. Levinas vivant III, Paris: Klincksieck, 2015, pp. 194–197. 8  “But we have also indicated that this relation of truth, which at the same time spans and does not span the distance—does not form a totality with the “other shore”—rests on language […]” (TI 59).

Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy

167

represented, is not a given, is not a particular, through one side already open to generalization. Language, far from presupposing universality and generality, first makes them possible. (TI 70)

The other person as an interlocutor, as far as he or she is the one to whom the “I” speaks (expressed by a dative), should be distinguished from the one about whom the “I” speaks (expressed by an accusative). Indeed, it is always possible to thematize and speak about the interlocutor herself. But in this case as well, the interlocutor as an addressee can be conceptually distinguished from the interlocutor as a matter of subject.9 Levinas does not focus on the impossibility of representing the other person. Instead, Levinas insists on the fact that the relation with the interlocutor as an addressee should not be confused with the representational relation to the interlocutor as a matter of subject. Incidentally, while speaking with the other person and representing the other person are two different ways to be related to the other person, the addressee and the content are two components which constitute one and the same speech-act. One can speak to the other person (addressee) only through the content of the speech-act. To speak to the other person about the given as thematized by the other person in an appropriate way is to respect him or her as a person without rendering him or her as one thing in the world.10 This act of respect, which is accomplished through the content of the speech-act, Levinas calls the truth: “Truth as a respect for being is the meaning of metaphysical truth” (TI 338; Cf. TI 59; 65). In this way, Levinas tries to avoid reducing truth to the relation between the proposition and the world, but to reconsider it from the relation between the “I”, the world given by the other person, and the other person as an addressee. 3. Double justification In this respect, we can understand why Levinas thinks the truth requires not only the justification of the fact in question but also that of the “I” itself. Truth is in effect not separable from intelligibility; to know is not simply to record, but always to comprehend. We also say that to know is to justify, making intervene, by analogy with the moral order, the notion of justice. The justification of a fact consists in lifting from it its character of being a fact, accomplished, past, and hence irrevocable, which as such obstructs our spontaneity. […] And yet the concern for intelligibility is fundamentally different from an attitude that engenders an action without regard for obstacles. It signifies on the contrary a certain respect for objects. For an obstacle to become a fact that requires a theoretical justification or a reason the spontaneity of the action that surmounts it had to be inhibited, that is, itself put into question. It is then that we move from an activity without regard for anything to a consideration of the fact. (TI 80-81) 9  “In discourse the divergence that inevitably opens between the Other person as my theme and the Other person as my interlocutor, emancipated from the theme that seemed a moment to hold him, forthwith contests the meaning I ascribe to my interlocutor” (TI 212–213). 10  “The “vision” of the face is inseparable from this offering language is. To see the face is to speak of the world” (TI 190).

168

S. Kotegawa

To tell the truth about the given which has been thematized by the other person is not merely to describe the fact, it is furthermore to imply the “I’s” comprehension of the fact. On the one hand, since this comprehension is concerned with why it is so and not otherwise and how it can be modified (improved or deteriorated),11 it is not bound to “irrevocability” of the fact. On the other hand, since it is not a simple interpretation which permits other possibilities, but a comprehension about what is in question in the relation to the other person, it requires the “I” to develop it according to the fact (“a certain respect for objects”). To develop one’s comprehension according to the fact is not merely to interpret the fact as the “I” wants to, but to put into question the presupposition of that comprehension of the “I” in the relation to the other person in which the fact is situated. That is: the “I” seeking for the truth is needed not only to justify his or her speech, but also to justify the “I” itself, who should comprehend that fact and annunciate it to the other person in an appropriate way.12

3  What Is the Scope of Levinas’ Theory of Truth Superficially speaking, the aforementioned discussions of Levinas dwell on trivial points (thematization of the world), and confine truth to limited cases (discourse towards the other person), and thus confuse justification in a theoretical sense (justification of the fact) with that in  its moral sense (justification of the subject of speech). However, Levinas’ attitude towards the truth as differing from a characterization of it as merely the relation between the “I” and the world and then applying it in an intersubjective dimension is well worth considering for those caught in the middle of ongoing debates about truth. When Levinas refers to the separation of the “I” (from the world), he does not mean to commit himself to a relativism which takes truth to be relative to a subject experiencing and speaking about it. For the fact that the “I” does not merely reflect the world but “claims” (prétendre) his or her own viewpoint enables every speaker to make false statements in addition to the truth.13 On the other hand, Levinas refuses to characterize the truth without taking into account the separation of the “I” and the relation to the other person (for instance, only in terms of the relation between the “I” and the world or in terms of the correspondence between proposition and state of affairs). By doing so, he tries to avoid an extreme generalization of the notion of truth and to disclose its specificity within our ordinary speech-acts. Indeed, especially in Otherwise than Being, the notion of truth is often used in a broad sense.  Cf. Jean-Michel Salanskis, ibid., pp. 202–203.  Levinas calls this justification of oneself in the discourse towards the other person an “apology” (cf. TI 29). 13  “The originality of separation has appeared to us to consist in the autonomy of the separated being. Whence in knowledge, or more exactly in the claim to it, the knower neither participates in nor unites with the known being. The relation of truth thus involves a dimension of interiority […]” (TI 59). 11 12

Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy

169

But, his attempt to reconsider the truth in terms of “telling the truth to others” in an intersubjective dimension (i.e., in our ordinary speech-act) is still at work.14 So apart from his various uses of the word truth, what is at stake is it seems, ordinary speech-­ acts rather than a generalization of the concept of truth. Then, why is it that we must refer to the separation of the “I” and the thematization of the world when it comes to “telling the truth to others”? It is generally said that it is in a case where a speaker A asserts to a hearer B that his or her own belief “X” is true, except for cases where a belief is not of A’s or A just utters his or her belief, that truth or authenticity is put into question in ordinary communication. Now, since one has innumerable beliefs, it is of great importance which of them the speaker chooses to assert. For to assert one’s own true belief is not necessarily to tell the truth. Suppose A says to B “Someone has been opening your mail.” Normally B does not take it that A himself has committed this offense (if it was A himself that did it, A would be expected to confess his sin to B). However if that “someone” was indeed A himself, we would still have to agree that what he said is true. For if telling a lie is defined as making an assertion, “the content of which the speaker believes to be false, which is made with the intention to deceive the hearer with regard to that content,”15 then speaker A does not tell a lie. The problem is that he does not express his other belief (‘that someone is me’) and, by confining himself to expressing his partial beliefs, deceives B.  In this case, can speaker A be said to have “told the truth”? Obviously, we cannot agree with this sentiment. This shows that asserting one’s own true belief is not enough to “tell the truth” and that as regards “telling the truth,” it should be asked to what extent the speaker knows about what is in question between the speaker and the hearer, and which of his various beliefs he chooses to tell and how he tells it to the hearer. It is not Levinas’ original idea that speech-acts towards others presupposes a relation to the other person as a “person.” Since his Logical investigation, Husserl had already put forward this idea and, along this line of reasoning, had developed his discussion of “collective spirit” included in his manuscripts on intersubjectivity, especially on “communication” (Mitteilung).16 The “personalistic” relation in a Husserlian sense is one in which the hearer comprehends the speaker as a person who intends to communicate something to him and the speaker comprehends the hearer as a person who has a capacity to comprehend what he says. As I have ­mentioned earlier, Levinas also thinks that the discourse presupposes the respect for the other person as a person. But his emphasis is not put on the intentions of the speaker and hearer but instead on the presence of the other person as the Other than  “The subjective and its Good cannot be understood out of ontology. On the contrary, starting with subjectivity in the form of saying, the signification of the said will be interpretable. It will be possible to show that there is question of the said and being only because saying or responsibility require justice. […] Thus alone will the terrain of disinterestedness that allows us to separate truth from ideology be given its truth” (AE 77). 15  Bernard Williams, ibid., p. 96. 16  Edmund Husserl, Husserliana vol. 14. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Texte aus dem Nachlass, Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928. Ed. Iso Kern. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973. 14

170

S. Kotegawa

“I” which challenges the premises that act as the condition for a comprehension or speech of the “I”. What does this difference of emphasis imply? In a Husserlian intention-based model, to assert “X” to a hearer is to communicate one’s own belief X (as true) to the hearer. It is aimed at not only manifesting one’s own belief X, but also intending to the hearer to have the same belief (or a similar belief). However it is often seen that the speaker tells something to the hearer which goes beyond the content of speech. First, the speaker intimates (kundgeben) his states of mind through his physiognomy (face) or gesture, his tone or intonation. In this way, Husserl has already distinguished what the physiognomy or gesture of a speaker “intimates” from what his speech “means” and thereby the “intimation” of mental experience of a speaker from the “communication” of the meaning of a speech-act.17 At the same time, he mentioned that in the case of ordinary conversations aimed at communication in which the hearer is interested in both the content of a speech-act and the mental experience of the speaker, this intimation and communication are interwoven. What is more puzzling is what the speech-act itself implicates. For instance, when A says to B “Audrey was either in Paris or Rome when she called me on the telephone,” B can understand that A is not certain which is true. This can be communicated to B by the mere fact that A has said to B “Audrey was either in Paris or Rome when she called me on the telephone,” irrespective of A’s intention. This kind of implication can be distinguished from entailment as a logical consequence. For in the latter’s case, falsity in a consequence involves that in a premise, which is not always the case with the former (when you say ‘Someone has been opening your mail,’ you imply that ‘it was not me who did it,’ and in this case the latter is false but the former is true). It should be noted that what is often at stake in our ordinary conversations is not entailment, but rather these kinds of implications. Thus where, how, and to whom one speaks is essential, regardless of his or her intention (for instance, we can easily imagine a case in which one says ‘You did not grasp the actual meaning of what I said’ or a case of sexual harassment where the perpetrator claims ‘I didn’t mean it’ or ‘I didn’t mean to harm anybody’). Indeed, Levinas does not deny that a speaker’s and hearer’s intentions are important in our ordinary conversation. However, he tries to show that we cannot underestimate the fact that the mere act of speech communicates to a hearer what is not contained in the content of the speech-act, that is, to communicate what the speaker is interested in to the hearer, to draw the latter’s attention to it and to invite him to respond to it, which is integral to our ordinary communication. As I have mentioned before, Levinas associates the justification of a fact with that of one’s attitude towards the fact and others, and we must avoid confusing these two things. At the risk of confusing them, he tries to spell out the following idea: if “telling the truth” is required for one to say something to the other person in terms of response to the thematization proposed by him or her, (a) what is at stake here would be how to describe the fact according to the relation to the other person and   Edmund Husserl, Husserliana XIX/1, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band. I.  Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phaenomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, Ursula Panzer (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984, pp. 44; 50.

17

Truth and Sincerity: The Concept of Truth in Levinas’ Philosophy

171

that (b) moreover, the way to comprehend the fact and the premise on which it relies should be put into question. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas cautiously distinguishes “the other person” (autrui) as a concrete person (especially, an interlocutor) and “the Other” (l’Autre) as his or her alterity that cannot be comprehended by the “I,” but rather puts into question any ordinary comprehension of the notion of the “I”.18 He defines the “face of the other person” as “the way in which, surpassing the idea of the Other in the “I,” the Other presents itself” (TI 43). In other words, in the face-­ to-­face relation “the other person” presents himself or herself as “the Other” that cannot be comprehended by “I” and so requires “I” to understand this other person in a way other than the “I” did.19 (c) Conversely, to respond to the other person, one must grasp in an appropriate way what is in question in relation to him or her. It is often argued that what Levinas calls “sincerity” consists in subordinating blindly to the demand of the other person or in preferring the other person to oneself without any reasonable judgment. But this interpretation is problematic. Sincerity in a Levinasian sense is neither to tell all that one knows without discrimination, nor is it to try to grant all that the other person wishes for. Sincerity is needed to put into question the framework of one’s comprehension, to comprehend correctly what is in question in relation to the other person, and to make a “just” response to the other person.20 Therefore, a “sincere” response to the other person can be what he or she does not want to hear. To invoke Williams’ example, if one tells a lie to A, who intends to kill B (the case which was raised by Constant to Kant), it is not sincere to tell A where B is. According to Williams, a person who wants to kill someone or a fraud does not “deserve” the truth in that they cannot be expected to tell the truth. If it is necessary for sincerity to discern to whom the truth should be told, sincerity would imply a concept of justice and injustice. I believe, Levinas’ discussion amounts to a similar conclusion. Seen from this perspective, Levinas’ ethics can take back the connection with our ethical action.

4  Conclusion I have argued that Levinas’ claims that we have considered here demonstrate a need to reconsider the notion of truth from the perspective of the “I” and its relation to the other person to whom it speaks. Some might associate this way of thinking with Wittgenstein’s discussion of “other mind” and Davidson’s treatment of

 Without this distinction, we cannot understand the following passage: “the pretention to know and to attain the Other (l’Autre) is accomplished in the relation to the other person (autrui), which flows into the relation of language […]” (TI 65). 19  Levinas writes with majuscule Autrui (the Other Person) to designate the other person who presents himself or herself as the Other (cf. TI 214) 20  Cf. Shojiro Kotegawa, « Le tiers me regarde dans les yeux d’autrui »: qui est. le « tiers » d’E. Levinas? in: Revue internationale Michel Henry, Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2015. 18

172

S. Kotegawa

communication.21 However there are some aspects in which Levinas can be separated from other philosophers. Levinas does not focus on an understanding of the other person, but on the other person calling the “I” into question. This implies that the question Levinas is faced with is not how we can understand the mental events of others, but rather how my comprehension is put into question by the other person. According to Levinas, if the truth can be accomplished only by a speech-act towards the other person, it always involves a moment of reinvestigation of our comprehension. As such, the matter of how we can do justice to this involvement remains to be solved.22

References Benoist, Jocelyn. 2000. Le cogito lévinassien: Lévinas et Descartes. In Positivité et transcendance, ed. Jean-Luc Marion. Paris: PUF. Bernard, Gaëlle. 2007. « La vérité suppose la justice »—L’exercice éthique de la philosophie selon Levinas. In Studia Phaenomenologica, special issue 2007. Zeta Books. Husserl, Edmund. 1973. Husserliana vol. 14. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Texte aus dem Nachlass, Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928, ed. Iso Kern. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1984. Husserliana XIX/1, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band. I.  Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phaenomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Kotegawa, Shojiro. 2015. « Le tiers me regarde dans les yeux d’autrui » : qui est le « tiers » d’E.  Levinas ? In Revue internationale Michel Henry. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain. Levinas, Emmanuel. 1961. Totalité et infini, Martinus Nijhoff, Livre de poche (translated by Alphonso Lingis, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004). ———. 1974. Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff (translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1981). Moati, Raoul. 2012. Evénements nocturnes: Essai sur Totalité et Infini. Paris: Hermann. Morgan, Micheal L. 2007. Discovering Levinas. New York: Cambridge University Press. Overgaard, Søren. 2007. Wittgenstein and Other Minds: Rethinking Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity with Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Husserl. New York: Routledge. Salanskis, Jean-Michel. 2015. Le concret et l’idéal. Levinas vivant III. Paris: Klincksieck. Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and Truthfulness. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shojiro Kotegawa (Ph.D., Keio University) is Associate Professor at Kokugakuin University. He is author of Yomigaeru Levinas [Rebirth of Levinas] (Suiseisha, 2015) and has published many articles including “Le tiers me regarde dans les yeux d’autrui: qui est le ‘tiers’ d’E. Levinas ?” (Revue internationale Michel Henry, 2015). His research topics are Levinas’ philosophy, the feminist phenomenology, and the phenomenology of family. 21  Søren Overgaard, Wittgenstein and other minds: rethinking subjectivity and intersubjectivity with Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Husserl, New  York: Routledge, 2007, chap. 7–8; Micheal L. Morgan, Discovering Levinas, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 163–167. 22  I am grateful to Aya Tanaka, who read the draft and corrected some errors, and Yong Chen who gave me many helpful comments at the “International Conference on Phenomenology “Consciousness and the World” (3–4 June 2016, Tongji University, China). I would like to dedicate this article to Professor László Tengelyi, who encouraged my research especially in the fifth Symposia Phaenomenologica Asiatica (August, 2011, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong).

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive Phenomenology Shin Nagai

Abstract  This paper aims to overcome the Eurocentrism of the conventional comparative philosophy by using phenomenology as a method. By doing so, it shows that phenomenology itself exceeds any negative duality and transforms itself into “positive phenomenology”. The paper further argues that comparative philosophy can be newly conceived as phenomenological metaphysics in which the oneness undergoes an immanent self-development. For this triple work, phenomenology needs to carry out a thorough reduction, dismantling the negative duality which underlies any consciousness and is the origin of representation. It thereby should enable us to simply affirm the present in our consciousness, an positivity that does not include any negativity. The proposal of such intrinsically positive phenomenology will provide us with a good opportunity to reconceptualize comparative philosophy as metaphysics. My reflection will not be based on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology, which centers on the notion of negativity; rather, it will be guided by Henry Corbin’s phenomenological interpretation of Sufism of Ibn Arabî. Keywords  Henry Corbin · Comparative philosophy · Metaphysics · Phenomenology · Creative imagination · Islamic mysticism

1  I ntroduction: Comparative Philosophy as Phenomenological Metaphysics  It would be an anachronistic truism to remark that after the collapse of the Hegelian system, we are in a world that has moved beyond any unique and universal history. Nonetheless, we exist in an historical world in an empirical sense, “universal” in a sense other than Hegel’s, as open to all other civilizations and cultures what so ever. But it is equally evident that in reality, this “universality” is nothing more than the

S. Nagai (*) Faculty of Letters, Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 N. de Warren, S. Taguchi (eds.), New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, Contributions To Phenomenology 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_13

173

174

S. Nagai

facade of wild disorder without any orientation, which cannot resist, in our day, another form of unity, even if different from Hegel’s, economic “globalization”. This entry onto the stage of history of a new unity of the world, this time more sinister than the preceeding unity, forces us to ask a fundamental philosophical question: what does it essentially mean to be One? It is in this sense that metaphysics, as a science of the One, and as an untimely science, places itself once again at the forefront of philosophy, but this time with a maximum degree of prudence, so as to avoid succumbing to any kind of ruse, be it Hegelian or economic globalization. Our conviction is that two methods are required to carry out such a metaphysics, which would be both novel and critical: comparative philosophy and phenomenology. In the first place, in order to move beyond the enclosure of the Hegelian idea of​​ the metaphysical One, which restricts its scope exclusively to Western history, we are obviously obliged to widen, in one way or another, the field of investigation of philosophical investigation to non-Western cultures, and in particular to the traditions of Oriental thought, and to do so by taking into consideration objective empirical facts. It is for this reason that comparative sciences such as comparative linguistics or comparative anthropology are set into motion. In the philosophical domain, Paul Masson-Oursel introduced the first comparative method in order to avoid Eurocentrist dogmatism.1 He did this, however, as we shall see below, without sufficient methodological reflection which would prevent falling back into the ruse of another form of Eurocentrism. In any event, it is undeniable that he opened a path towards a new comparative metaphysics, namely, the science of the One. This conception of the One appears, in contrast to the substantive Hegelian One which returns to itself through the intermediary of historical events. This other conception of the One takes into view empirical phenomena of not only Western but also non-­ Western cultures. Another method is required to achieve such a new comparative metaphysics, which would simultaneously avoid Eurocentrist naivete of the Hegelian One and the insufficiency of Masson-Oursel’s method. This method which places a unilateral stress on multiple facts is phenomenology. It is a method which promises the possibility to move past two opposed extremes, the One and the Many, in reducing each to subjective experience and thus relying exclusively on the “things themselves” that emerge in these experiences. The aim of our attempt in the following is therefore threefold: to conceive a metaphysics which would make possible a new understanding of the One in a non-­ dogmatic manner; this project requires that we envision a comparative philosophy, albeit in a revised form, so as not to fall into another form of Eurocentrist dogmatism; this critical revision is entrusted to phenomenology, which, with regard to its new object (Sache), namely, comparative metaphysics, would be transformed into a new form which we will explore under the name of “positive phenomenology”.

1  Paul Masson-Oursel: La philosophie comparée. Alcan, Paris 1923. (English: Comparative Philosophy, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London 1926).

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive…

175

2  Masson-Oursel’s Comparative Philosophy Masson-Oursel developed his comparative philosophy, in our understanding, for two main reasons: first, to go beyond the metaphysical dogmatism of the West, as represented by the Hegelian system; and second, to criticize naive comparisons that compare everything with anything without methodological reflection. First, in order to move beyond the dogmatism of Western metaphysics, Masson-­ Oursel finds, not only in Hegel but also among other philosophers, such as his contemporary Bergson, for example, wants to construct an objective and universal philosophy called “positive philosophy”. Masson-Oursel insists on the positivity of the historical documents which are accessible to comparative philosophy as its materials. One first needs a rigorous critique of texts in Eastern traditions. This is a conditio sine qua non, according to Masson-Oursel, if one seeks to escape the spell of the Hegelian One and the closing of the West. On the other hand, even if the positivity of historical documents is acquired, comparative philosophy can not be limited to comparisons, empirical and naive, of everything with everything: what one needs is a theory of serious knowledge, as established from a rigorous science from documents. In order to achieve this goal, Masson-Oursel proposes a structural comparison by means of the method of analogy. This method consists in comparing several cultural objects, either philosophical or religious, by disregarding their respective contents, as a purely formal relationship. For example: Socrates/Greek Sophist = Confucuis/Chinese Sophist This comparison itself could be positively appreciated as a rigorously scientific and universal method, since by extracting from the historical and empirical facts the formal meta-historical relations, common to the various traditions, it makes it possible to avoid biases arising from differences of their contents. Paradoxically, while the first method of criticizing historical documents consists in saving the empirical multiplicity of the grasp of the dogmatic One, the method of analogy rehabilitates a certain unity, not that of the Hegelian Geist, but rather that of the Cartesian spirit or Kantian subjectivity, understood as the subject of scientific knowledge. In this regard, with such a traditional dualism of the a priori unity of the mind and the multiplicity of the empirical history shows that the comparative philosophy of Masson-­ Oursel, while trying to broaden the field of Western philosophy to non-Western cultures, still remains in a typically Western framework of the of notion representative knowledge? This would mean that with Masson-Oursel’s program of the positive and universal philosophy, even if liberated from Western biases, would still be defined by a problem essentially Western: non-Western cultures, within this framework, absorb themselves into a form of Western representation, and thus lose their otherness. The definitive short-coming of such a positive method would, in our opinion, be as follows: experiences, themselves meta-historical, are contained in historical documents, such as Hindu metaphysics, Islamic mysticism, or Japanese Buddhism.

176

S. Nagai

They certainly serve, as objects of positive science, in the widening of knowledge, but are never lived in their presence, and, more importantly, will never have the force to transform the experience of those interpreters who look at these documents. Such a transformation is in reality the ultimate goal of Eastern metaphysics in general. The method which seems to us most pertinent for correcting this short-coming is, as we have indicated above, phenomenology as a direct approach to “things themselves”, without any intermediary medium or biases. It is precisely by referring to the phenomenological method that Henry Corbin, French islamologist and philosopher, and a major reference in our own research, tries to transmute the concept of “comparative philosophy” (understood as “positive philosophy” in the sense of the scientific positivity proposed by Masson-Oursel) into another concept of “positive philosophy” in a metaphysical sense. This concept is comparable to that proposed by Schelling in the last phase of his philosophy: in this positivity, immediate, that is to say, of its interior, of the metaphysical One. Phenomenology, which consists in rendering presenting its objects, would thus allow readers of historical documents concerning Eastern metaphysics to repeat, in Heidegger’s sense of Wiederholung, these traditions, and thus to live them in the depths of their consciousness.2

3  P  henomenological Method: From “Negative Phenomenology” to “Positive Phenomenology” The phenomenological method consists in making “present” through a direct experience of its objects. What does this mean precisely? What does “selbst” itself mean in the motto: “To the things themselves (Zu den Sachen selbst)”? We understand this statement in the following manner. The idea of phenomenology ​​ is to enter into and experience the things from within; in this sense, it is comparable to Bergsonian intuitionism. The thing itself signifies in this context interiority or radical immanence in the sense of the absence of all exteriority. The phenomenological reduction as an approach to the things constitutes the maximum elimination of intermediaries external to things themselves, which would prevent them from appearing as such, as well as the elimination of the biases that come from these intermediaries. Consequently, the ultimate reduction, if it is possible, would lead us to the pure One as a phenomenon which would appear as positive phenomenality without any external, that is, negative condition. The model of such an ultimate phenomenology would be, rather than the positive sciences, a metaphysics as the science of the One, or rather mysticism or theosophy as the direct experience of the One itself.3 This is precisely what is essentially excluded by an idea of phenomenology which refers 2  Henry Corbin: Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Buchet/Chastel, Paris, p. 21–p. 34. 3  Such as Michel Henry, Emmanuel Lévinas et Jean-Luc Marion who first opened this direction in phenomenology.

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive…

177

unilaterally to negativity as the principle of phenomenalization, in whatever form, whether it be intentionality or ontological difference. Intentionality as horizontal negativity: To be sure, it is an undeniable and decisive merit of Husserlian phenomenology to have discovered, at least in contemporary philosophy, the dimension of the “between” (Zwischen), which precedes and underlies modern substantive dualism between spirit and matter, a dimension which Husserl clumsily calls “transcendental subjectivity.” The problem arises when Husserl, after having exposed by the method of phenomenological reduction, this subjectively lived dimension between spirit and matter, takes intentionality (which represents a new form of modern dualism) as the principle of a new phenomenal field. More precisely, it is the negative character of intentionality which considerably restricts his unprecedented discovery. Such a negativity can be seen typically in the horizontal structure of intentionality, which dominates all Husserl’s analyzes, from the passive constitution of temporality to the universal horizon to the active constitution of the ideal object. In every experience, the subjective experience discovered by reduction, implying no negation in its positive immanence, aims structurally, but in a non-phenomenological way, to an external or transcendent, i.e. negative, object according to the principle of “a priori correlation”, a principle considered universal by Husserl. Husserl’s fundamental motivation is the foundation of scientific knowledge, but not metaphysics as knowledge of reality itself. From this point of view, Husserl is not off the mark, but his decision to limit the phenomenal field to horizontal experience must again be called into question, at least as far as our attempt to radicalize phenomenology into pure and positive phenomenality and thus realize new metaphysics. The ontological difference as vertical negativity: Husserl’s analyses of various phenomenons, which are developed gradually, clearly reveal positive phenomenon, which appear to move beyond the principle of intentionality as the basis for phenomenalization. And yet, it seems to us, Husserl never really abandoned the idea of ​​intentionality, even at the level of passivity. His model of phenomenology always remains the modern representative notion of knowledge which supposes duality, even if, in his thinking, reduced, into the duality of empty intention and its intuitive fulfillment. It was Heidegger who deepened the reduction of the world to Being. Thus, one might say, intentional or horizontal negativity, which forces the appearance of “things themselves” into exteriority and thus disguises them in unreal representations, to a deeper negativity that one could call “vertical”, capable of letting self-­ appear the “thing itself” namely the Being, which appears as the Nothingness. And through the intermediary of this Nothingness, which is none other than an appearance of Being itself, the latter can certainly self-appear, or better: reveal itself, that is to say, as much as “thing itself”. This is the fundamental idea of ​​Heidegger’s phenomenology in Being and Time or “What is metaphysics?”. The problem arises from the fact that negativity reappears here, even at a different level of intentionality, as a principle of phenomenality. Certainly, Nothingness as the “veil of Being” is not the relative negativity in the sense of the horizontal, or reversible, in Merleau-Ponty’s sense. It is the radical negation of the horizontal

178

S. Nagai

world in its totality. It is this total negativity which Heidegger attempts to phenomenalize, not as reversible within the horizontal world, as Merleau-Ponty, but as the absolute Nothingness in which all beings “slip”, that is, as the emotional mood of anguish. If so, is this Nothingness really the appearance of the “thing itself,” namely Being? That is to say, does it really correspond to the completion of the idea of phenomenology, or to the unveiling of pure phenomenality? Negativity, even when deepened from the horizontal to the vertical through the radicalized reduction, remains nonetheless a falsification of the “thing itself.” We can ask ourselves whether the negative ontological difference really constitutes an insurmountable event, or the tenacious bias of a certain dualism, which always presupposes a certain negativity behind any positivity? Is there not a positive phenomenon which would appear beyond the negative duality of beings and Being? This is the question we now want to ask.

4  Henry Corbin’s Positive Phenomenology The problematic character of both Husserl and Heidegger lies in the fact that the principle of appearance consists exclusively in negativity: the phenomenological “presence” and the “unveiling of the hidden” are for each essentially conditioned by negativity; for Husserl, with the intentional horizon and, for Heidegger, with the ontological difference. In this manner, the positive phenomena appearing without any mediation in terms of negativity would constitute only mere appearances. Because of this limitation in terms of such notions of negativity, the type and field of phenomena saved by the reduction are likewise restricted. Levinas’ phenomenology, for example, represents precisely an attempt to save the positive phenomenon in the face of the Other by broadening and radicalizeng reduction beyond the phenomenal field as limited by Husserl and Heidegger. In our view, Henry  Corbin’s phenomenology represents an attempt to move beyond this limit of negative phenomenology and to save an entire dimension of positive phenomenality, which marks an unprecedented dimension for “Western” phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger. This is done through a reference to Islamic mysticism as a direct experience of the God of Semitic monotheism, in a manner that is comparable with Levinas and his reference to his own Jewish tradition. What is here essential is that this is not simply a transition from the “West” in the geographical and historical sense to the “Orient” in the empirical sense, nor to the enlargement of the a field of historical documentary investigation for purposes of comparative philosophy, as Masson-Oursel proposed, but a definitive advancement of phenomenology towards the “thing itself.” Moreover, this “thing itself” is none other than the profound meaning of what Corbin calls the “spiritual Orient.” In this manner, this Corbinian deepening is not limited to regional ethical phenomenon, as with the “face of the Other” in Levinas, but attains a universal character.

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive…

179

If such a phenomenon no longer implies any negativity, it is because in this phenomenality, it is the unity of God of the monotheistic tradition. This phenomenality of the one God must be a pure “self-revelation” which does not require any negative mediation such as intentionality or ontological difference. These divide unity as a condition of possibility for the appearance of God; such self-revelation is possible within the radical immanence of divine positivity. In other words, this phenomenality has the peculiarity that “the One is immediately multiple” or “the one equal (or: immediate passing) to the multiple” (一 即 多 in Japanese), as expressing the modality of the phenomenon of emptiness in Huayan/Kegon Buddhism (華 厳), or “the One is nothing but a phenomenon”, as Marc Richir would say in a phenomenological register. Such a radicalized phenomenology is Corbin called by the “unveiling of the hidden.” He refers here at the same time to Heidegger and Islamic mysticism, and expressly sees this idea in Arabic: “kashf al-mahjub.”4 In Corbin’s view, and despite his great respect for Heidegger, phenomenology in its ultimate form is to be found in the “Eastern” tradition, namely, in monotheism rooted in the semantic field of the Semitic language, particularly Arabic and Persian. From this point of view, the fact that all his reading notes in his copy of Being and Time were written in Arabic is not a merely anecdotal, but highly significant. Given that, for philosophers such as Heidegger and Corbin, experience is fundamentally determined by language, his use of the Arabic language is significant. The deepening of the phenomenological reduction of Being to God is determined by the difference of the languages ​​in which Being and God appear. More precisely, in the “unveiling of the hidden,” a formula common to Heidegger and Corbin, “unveiling” and “hidden” change their meanings according to a difference of language. In Corbin, the “unveiling of the hidden” is rooted more deeply in the peculiarity of the Arabic and Persian languages, than in the German language of Heidegger. For Corbin, phenomenology must be at one with the spiritual hermeneutics of Islamic mysticism, as will be discussed later. The peculiarity of Arabic and Semitic languages in general is twofold. First, language in Semitic monotheism is not other, at least for the mystics, but a self-revelation or a theophany of God in its immanence, that is to say, through its symbols. Second, the world was created from nothing on the model of those divine symbols that serve the created world of archetypes. This means that nothingness, or negativity, never intervenes in the genesis of language as the immanent self-articulation of God, but appears only in the secondary creation of Earth and Sky.

 Ibid, Henry Corbin: Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Buchet/Chastel, Paris, p. 23.

4

180

S. Nagai

5  Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn-Arabî The principle model of the phenomenology for Corbin, whose fundamental aspects we have just outlined, is established by two Islamic mystics and theosophists of the Thirteenth and Twelfth centuries: the Sufi thinker Ibn-Arabî of Andalusian origin; and the Persian mystic Sohrawardî, founder of the Ishraq school, otherwise known as the “philosophy of Light” or “Oriental philosophy.” We shall limit ourselves here to the first, and more precisely to his doctrine of “creative imagination,” to which Corbin devoted one of his main works.5 The “first creation” as Theophany6: In his “visionary narratives,” Ibn-Arabî, like many other Gnositcs, narrates a story of the “first creation” in divine immanence prior to the creation of Earth and Sky from nothingness. His theosophy is an exploration of the immanence of God thus created before the creation of the world.7 According to his symbolic account, the first creation occurs as an “diminishing of divine sadness for his solitude”. God, in his immanent unity, reflects within himself an appearance, or a image, of himself. In this primordial reflection, God alone divides himself in his immanence into a God who sees and a God who is seen, as an image, while remaining an indivisible One. Yet, if God becomes the “other of God Himself” in such an original reflection, it can not be the “Other of God” in the strict sense of the term, inasmuch as the exteriority of God is not yet created. Differentiation within God, or the multiplication of God-one, does not occur by external principles such as space and time. This means that God created within himself the Other of Himself which remains at the same time Himself. This apparently paradoxical event can be explained in several ways in light of different Eastern traditions, for example, with the tantric logic of begetting in the divine matrix (visualized as a mandala). Ibn-Arabî uses the logic of the image: God-as-One is reflected in multiple mirrors and thus appears as multiple images, while remaining unique. In this sense, the first creation is none other than theophany.8 In Ibn-Arabî’s narrative, these mirrors reflecting the one God are precisely human beings, angelic humans or “Adam of light,” before their Fall into the world as created from nothingness. Their exclusive function is to reflect God as such, namely, in his pure immanence, by means of the faculty of the soul  (himma) or the “creative imagination,” a faculty which precedes worldly knowledge in the form of consciousness or reason. God created human beings in his immanence exclusively to see himself as his multiple images while remaining unique, as “one equal multiple”, according to a formulation analogous to that of the logic of the Buddhist emptiness. With the second creation, human beings are  Henry Corbin: L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî. 2ème édition, Aubier, Paris.  Corbin systematically investigated this concept in Avicenne et le récit visionnaire. Berg International, 1979. 7  See especially Corbin’s L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî. 8  See Henry Corbin: Le paradoxe du monothéisme. L’Herne, Paris, 1981, I.Le Dieu-un et les dieux multiples. 5

6

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive…

181

expelled from God’s immanence into an exteriority, namely, into the world as created from nothingness. In this manner, human beings become dominated by negative principles such as time, space, and history, which Corbin describes as “Western.” Despite this Fallen condition, human beings always possess the faculty of the soul and the creative imagination, which enables them to ascend back to the world of images of God in his immanence. Phenomenologically, this ascent through the active imagination to the world of the image within the One God is none other than the practice of radical reduction. The logic that dominates this world of reflected images in God’s immanence is expressed in various Gnostic traditions, including Buddhism, with the metaphor of light. In this image, a single divine Light appears, or becomes revealed, in two degrees. First, the single Light becomes diversified by reflecting itself in the infinite mirrors of human beings. Second, the mirrors reflect one another, and produce through these reciprocal interlacing, a world of extremely complicated images. This event is expressed in various traditions in a similar way, for example, with the theosophy of Ibn-Arabî, in Huayan/Kegon Buddhism (especially with the idea of rijimuge/jijimuge (理事無礙 · 事事無礙): Mutual penetration between principle and fact/mutual penetration between facts, in the Tantric mandala, or in Jewish mysticism with the Sephiroth.9 The intermediary imaginal world (mundus imaginalis): This kind of world of the image, as produced by the Light in reflecting in its immanence in the infinite mirrors, would constitute the ultimate phenomenological field, as a pure appearance which floats without any substantial material coming from the world created out of nothingness. It is the intermediate world between the divine One and the material multiple which Corbin tries to express with the terms “mundus imaginalis”, “intermediate world” and “imaginal”. The latter is term he forged as a translation of the Arabic word “alam al-mithal” (the world of similarities), and which was used mainly by Sohrawardî. It is an autonomous world of the archetypal image with independent status with regard to faculties of knowledge such as sensibility, understanding, and reason. Under the influence of the modern dualism of mind and matter, we must not confuse this world of the image with the unreal imaginary or Kantian schematism. Such a degradation of the imagination in its original metaphysical function originates, on the one hand, from the dual theology of Averroes, which does not admit the intermediate world between the Creator God and the created world, and, on the other hand, the modern, Western dualism of the mind and matter. By denying respectively the “first creation by the creative imagination” and the “intermediate world between spirit and matter,” these doctrines lose the reality of the world as well as retreat into an unreal world of worldly representations. The new reduction and a phenomenology/hermeneutics of the symbol: the new phenomenological reduction which Corbin elaborated on the basis of Islamic theosophies, especially in Ibn-Arabî and Sohrawardî, is none other than the return of the unreal world which passes from the whole dimension of “an intermediary image” to the real world produced by the creative imagination as self-revelation in  See Henry Corbin, op.cit., I.3. “Les diagrammes de l’Un unifique et des theosophies multiples.”

9

182

S. Nagai

the image of Reality itself. Here, the phenomenal field of the archetypal image discovered by the radicalized reduction to the soul at the bottom of consciousness replaces transcendental subjectivity. In concrete terms, this means that the world of horizontal meaning is transformed into the world of the vertical symbol: the phenomenological reduction in Corbin is the transmutation of the whole world into the symbol of God. As developed here, the phenomenology of the symbol is nothing other than a hermeneutics, and vice versa, since the symbol is an object which is not there to perceive or feel, but to interpret, or, in other words: to reveal. It is Heidegger who described his phenomenology as the “unveiling of the hidden” in order to mark the distance between the phenomenality of Being and the world of horizontal meaning. He does this by introducing into Being and Time a hermeneutics as an additional method for phenomenology. However, how does the phenomenology/hermeneutics of the symbol in Corbin differ from that of Being in Heidegger? In Heidegger, the “unveiling of the hidden” is only the ontological difference, that is, the appearance of beings in the withdrawal of Being as nothingness from the totality of beings. In the formula “unveiling of the hidden”, the meaning “of” signifies the radical negation of the totality of the world, whereas in the hermeneutic phenomenology of the symbol, the conjunction “of” in the same formula “unveiling of the hidden” signifies absolute identity, without any duplication by negation, between the hidden and the apparent. We can use for this a Buddhist expression we have already mentioned: “one equal multiple” (一 即 多). As we have seen above, in the imaginal world as infinite reciprocal reflection of the multiplied lights of the Light, the “hidden” does not withdraw from its “revelations” as their negation; the two are totally transparent to one another. In other words, it is precisely the hidden itself which self-appears as its own symbol. The “unveiling of the hidden” as an experience of God, or better still, its symbols, is practiced in the mystical tradition of Islam (in particular, the Shiite tradition), in the form of internal spiritual hermeneutics  (tâwil). It is a matter of interpreting the sacred text by relying on the particularity of the Semitic language, not as a horizontal sign, that is, at the level of the obvious sense, but as a symbol of God, or archetype of the world; in other words, as implying the infinite virtuality of hidden meanings. In this context, the “revealing” and the “hidden” become “zâhir” in Arabic, that is to say, the apparent meaning, exterior or exoteric, and “bâtin,” the hidden meaning, interior or esoteric. It is the same self-appearing of God-Self, in the form of the symbol (according to the “tâwil” interpretation), as the apparent meaning (zâhir), which immediately hides in this very transparent apparition in virtuality of the One (bâtin).

Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive…

183

6  Comparative Philosophy as Metaphysical Phenomenology After having brought to light the concept of the positive phenomenology of the imaginal world, let us now return to our point of departure: comparative philosophy. As a consequence of our considerations above, we may consider comparative philosophy as a practice of positive phenomenology. Indeed, Corbin and Toshihiko Izutsu, his Japanese colleague, employ the spiritual hermeneutics of “tâwil” as a means of reading the texts of Oriental mystics, including those from Islamic traditions. With such readings, structural, symbolic, and archtypical comparisons (and not merely historical) of Eastern and Near-Eastern traditions become possible. Whereas historical interpretation can only reveal “ zâhir,” or apparent meanings, in texts, symbolic readings are able to reveal in the same texts, in symbols of hidden God, the “bâtin,” namely, hidden, virtual, and infinite meanings. This means that in this idea of ​​comparative philosophy as a spiritual interpretation of the symbol, the method coincides with its object, namely the experience of God as the revelation of the hidden: to interpret mystical texts is nothing other than to reflect the God-One in its interiority, as, for example, with the notion of the first creation in Ibn-Arabî’s thinking. This coincidence of the method and object of philosophy, as the completion of knowledge, is precisely the ultimate aim of metaphysics in general, which Hegel thought he had achieved in his own way. Yet, unlike Hegel, who conceived metaphysics as the return of the Absolute to itself through the mediation of history, in the metaphysics of Islamic theosophy, the return of God to Himself takes place immediately, that is, only in the immanence of God Himself, in the intermediary imaginal world which precedes human history as its archetype. This a world was entirely mis-understood by Hegel, due to his blind allegiance to modern dualism. Consequently, in such an intermediate world, on the one hand, “absolute knowledge” is realized as the inner knowledge of the Absolute, which one might call “Gnosis” as opposed to the knowledge of modern science. On the other hand, this “absolute knowledge,” exactly for the same reason that it occurs in the immanence of God, or rather as God Himself, never ends. And it is only “zâhir” and “bâtin” of “ tâwil,” as spiritual interpretations of symbols proper to Islamic mysticism, which makes possible this infinite itinerary of God’s return to Himself, as “absolute knowledge” uncontaminated by worldly history.

7  Conclusion In this manner, the three-fold reduction which we promised at the beginning of this paper has been accomplished. The imaginal world, which we arrived at through the practice of a radicalised reduction on the model of the mystical experience of Ibn-­ Arabî, is, as a world purely phenomenal of archtypical image, the new field for “positive phenomenology.” It is in this world of pure phenomenality that metaphysics becomes once again possible as immediate return to God-One to Himself in

184

S. Nagai

radical immanence; and finally, this phenomenological metaphysics becomes realized as the “revelation of the hidden,” or comparative philosophy, as constituted in its form par excellence.

References Corbin, Henry. 1969. L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî. Paris: Aubier. ———. 1981. Le paradoxe du monothéisme. Paris: L’Herne. ———. 1991. Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Paris: Buchet/Chastel. Masson-Oursel, Paul. 1923. La philosophie comparée. Paris: Alcan. Shin  Nagai (Ph.D., Toyo University) is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Toyo University. His publications are in the field of French phenomenology, metaphysics, and mysticism, including The Turn of Phenomenology into the “Inapparent” (Tokyo, 2007) and Philosophie japonaise (2013). He studied phenomenology at Paris-Sorbonne University under the guidance of Jean-Luc Marion. He also devoted himself to the exploration of Judaic thought, especially its mystical Cabbalism, under the direction of Rabbi Marc-Alain Ouaknin.