Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics : Husserl’s Critique of Heidegger. Volume 1 [v. 123] 9783031395857, 9783031395864

Table of contents :
Introduction: (Introducing the Idea of Hegemony to the History
of Phenomenology) ix
Part I The Transcendental Subject or, of First Philosophy
1 Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects 3
2 Concreteness of the Subject: Dasein 23
3 Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad 51
4 Exemplary Entities: Formal Indication and Eidetic Variation 79
5 The Nomos of the Transcendental 121
CODA—Remarks on the Person in CM 162
6 Primum Concretum and Transcendental Idealism 167
Appendix: Of a Hegemonic Discourse about the History of Early Phenomenology: Outline of a Paradigm Revision 229
Conclusion to Volume 1 263
Index 267

Citation preview

Contributions to Phenomenology 123

Daniele De Santis

Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics Husserl’s Critique of Heidegger. Volume 1

Contributions to Phenomenology In Cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology Volume 123

Series Editors Nicolas de Warren, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA Ted Toadvine, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA Editorial Board Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Elizabeth Behnke, Ferndale, WA, USA Rudolf Bernet, Husserl Archive, KU Leuven, Belgium David Carr, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Chan-Fai Cheung, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong James Dodd, New School University, New York, USA Alfredo Ferrarin, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy Burt Hopkins, University of Lille, Lille, France José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada Kwok-Ying Lau, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong Nam-In Lee, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of) Dieter Lohmar, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany William R. McKenna, Miami University, Ohio, USA Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, Ohio, USA J. N. Mohanty, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA Dermot Moran, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Junichi Murata, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Thomas Nenon, The University of Memphis, Memphis, USA Gail Soffer, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy Anthony Steinbock, University Stony Brook, New York, USA Shigeru Taguchi, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 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 100 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. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance. The series is published in cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology.

Daniele De Santis

Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics Husserl’s Critique of Heidegger. Volume 1

Daniele De Santis ÚFAR Charles University Praha, Czech Republic

ISSN 0923-9545     ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic) Contributions to Phenomenology ISBN 978-3-031-39585-7    ISBN 978-3-031-39586-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed 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, expressed 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 Paper in this product is recyclable.

E se tu vuoi che ’l ver non ti sia ascoso, tutta al contrario l’istoria converti But if for truth you are particular, Like this, quite in reverse, the story goes Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXXV, 27 A Miranda, che ha reso migliore questo Prospero

Preface

This book presents the ideal continuation of the arguments that first appeared in my Husserl and the A Priori: Phenomenology and Rationality (Springer 2021). Ideal— not real—continuation because the two works are independent from one another, and the reader does not need any familiarity with the former book’s arguments in order to be able to understand this one’s, and vice versa. Notwithstanding their independence, the connection between the two books should be emphasized because they represent the first two parts of a trilogy or triptych about the different forms of rationality in Husserl. And just as the a priori book’s conclusions announced the present work, so does the present book end up paving the way for the third part of my Husserlian project. The book is published as two relatively (non-)independent volumes. The volumes can be read and understood separately, but only a thorough knowledge of both will provide actual insight into my systematic interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy as a whole. While this first volume deals with transcendental idealism as its main theme, a second volume will follow shortly that will focus on the question of being from the angle of the difference between ontology and metaphysics in the philosophy of Husserl.1 Praha, Czech Republic

Daniele De Santis

1  The research behind this book was supported by the Cooperatio programme provided by Charles University (research field: philosophy), and implemented by the Faculty of Arts.

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1. Some thirty years ago, the relation between Husserl and Heidegger, as it had been understood by scholars up to that point, was summarized in the following words: “Heidegger’s ‘devastating’ phenomenologically ontological critique of traditional epistemology and ontology, advanced under the rubric of ‘fundamental ontology’ in Being and Time, has almost been universally received […] as sounding the death knell for Husserl’s original formulation of phenomenology” (Hopkins, 1993, 1). Whether this is still the common opinion, especially among Heidegger scholars, we do not know, and it is quite difficult to tell. Despite the appearance, over the last twenty years or so, of a number of important on about Husserl and Heidegger (Øverenget, 1998; Alweiss, 2003; Overgaard, 2004; Chiurazzi, 2006; Serban, 2016; Yanez & Zirión Quijano, 2018), it would not be too unfair to affirm that the Husserl-­ Heidegger controversy no longer occupies the center of the phenomenological “stage.” There are several reasons for such decentralization. In the first place, the growing attention which, over the last thirty-five years, has been paid to the so-called phenomenological “circles” (by which scholars tend to mean almost exclusively Göttingen and Munich but not also Freiburg), then to the many different figures active there (from Reinach to Schapp, from Hering to Pfänder, from Daubert to Beck and Geiger, from Stein to Ingarden, from the Conrads to Heinrich and Scheler, and so forth). This recalibration of attention goes hand in hand with a certain “analytic urbanization” (if we can call it this way) of the phenomenological provinces (of both their terminology and problems), therefore with the tendency to turn the focus away from an already established “transcendental” (and perhaps even “idealistic”) conception of phenomenology (with which one could identify Heidegger and Husserl’s activity

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in Freiburg) toward an alleged phenomenological “realism.”1 A role could also have been played by the recent publication of the Black Notebooks, which have certainly contributed to either radically re-directing scholars’ attention to Heidegger’s political-­philosophical involvement or to slowly excluding him altogether from the discussion (and in some cases the latter follows from the former). Last but not least, and as it is in the nature of things, it might be the case that the interest in the Husserl-­ Heidegger divide has slowly yet systematically exhausted itself after having dominated most of twentieth-century scholarship on the history of phenomenology (and beyond). In order to clarify the character of the present research, which seems to take a path that radically differs from the ones just sketched out, let us consider a famous approach to (the history of) early phenomenology that we deem outdated and fully inadequate. We are referring to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of the history of the early phenomenological tradition in his famous essay The Phenomenological Movement. Although Gadamer is far from ignoring the richness and complexity of the early phenomenological movement, his manner of drawing the relations between Husserl and Heidegger, therefore the transition from the first to the second, is symptomatic of a prejudice that can no longer be accepted. What Gadamer has in mind is an actual dialectical movement that leads from Husserl to Heidegger via the mediation of Scheler: with the name of “Heidegger” standing for a sort of synthesis of the two. Whereas in fact Husserl aimed at an “all-encompassing synthesis” of the most recent acquisitions of the sciences, Scheler was interested in “philosophical anthropology.” But the “mere completion of phenomenology by means of a philosophical science” could not meet the demands (nicht befriedigen) of consciousness. A more radical philosophical engagement was in fact necessary (radikaleren Einsatz): Heidegger (Gadamer, 1987, 109–110). Even the words used by Gadamer to describe these three figures testify to his view. While the leading question of Husserl’s philosophy was “How do I become an authentic philosopher?”, and he concerned himself only with questions of essence, Scheler had a “strong temperament” (gewaltiges Temperament) and addressed the “life-problems of modern humanity” (Gadamer, 1987, 108–109). Finally, Heidegger embodies their synthesis: “as a student of Edmund Husserl, he inherited the great phenomenological technique of his master”; and yet, just like Scheler, he possessed “a revolutionary temperament” (hatte… ein revolutionäres Temperament von hohen Graden) (see Gadamer, 1987, 112). Understood in this way, both Husserl’s and Scheler’s conceptions of phenomenology turn out to be a series of intermediate steps toward their overall unification, and radical overcoming in and by Heidegger himself (see the very similar account by Reiner, 1931, 4).

 By not including Freiburg as well, figures such as O. Becker (the many aspects of his thought, not to be reduced to the philosophy of mathematics or the logic of modalities) and F.  Kaufmann, T. Celms, and A. Metzger, but also the early phenomenological interests of K. Löwith (we are for example referring to his still unpublished dissertation on Nietzsche written in Munich under M. Geiger) have still to receive the systematic attention they properly deserve. 1

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As if there were some sort of internal drive propulsion. Husserl can develop and take his own thought only up to a certain point—the point where, necessarily facing his own limits, he has to turn into something else, thereby “overcoming” himself once and for all (in the sense of the Hegelian Aufhebung). Husserl turns into Scheler (and his phenomenology as a rigorous science into a form of philosophical anthropology), but Husserl + Scheler also have to turn into Heidegger (philosophical anthropology turns into the fundamental ontology of Being and Time). The Husserlian idea of pure consciousness turns into Scheler’s anthropological subjectivity, which in turn leads to Dasein as a determination of the subject that is far more fundamental than the previous two. A quite similar way of reasoning can be found in an otherwise extremely refined interpreter and knower of (the history of) phenomenology like Jan Patočka. For example, in his Prague lectures on Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy of 1969–1970, Patočka follows and reconstructs the development of Husserl’s philosophy up to the point where it cannot help coming to a standstill. It is what Patočka himself identifies as Husserl’s own Cartesianism: “the essence of Cartesianism” (podstata kartezianismu) consists in the schema “cogito—cogitatum and its relation to the ego” (see Patočka, 1991, p. 100). Husserl’s phenomenology is Cartesianism “at its most important stage,” the one in which the sum itself is regarded as a cogitatum (Transcendentální fenomenologie ustavičně usiluje o to, aby ze sum udělala cogitatum) (Patočka, 1991, p. 99). What follows is that, faced with the inability and impossibility to interrogate and clarify the sense of such sum, Husserl necessarily makes way for Heidegger: “human existence, the basis of Descartes’ cogito, is, in its nature, mere sum, pure sum, with respect to which one cannot assume a priori any ontological structure able to distinguish such being (bytí) from that to which it belongs, the essence” (Patočka, 1991, p. 102).

2. In contrast with such approaches, the present research is (partially) based upon the (preliminary) conviction that Heidegger is to be regarded (also) as a mere phenomenologist among others, thus participating (at least up to a certain point which needs not be identified here) in the history of early phenomenology.2 As far as we can tell, this is a perspective that neither Heidegger scholars nor those who have been recently working on the many different figures of the phenomenological circles have yet taken into serious consideration. The history of the many possible relations between Heidegger and the early phenomenologists is one that has yet to be written.  Whose boundaries are not easy to draw. For the sake of simplicity, one could mean the history of phenomenology from the Logical Investigations to either Husserl’s death in 1938 or WWII. As can be easily seen, this delimitation is merely empirical (a “pseudo-concept” in the sense of Benedetto Croce, because it is based on factual, pragmatic criteria) and could be replaced by any other delimitation based on different criteria and alternative parameters. 2

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What we mean is not simply the need for more substantial comparative studies able to put side by side Heidegger and... X (be it Ingarden or Stein or Fink, just to mention a few figures about which there already exist commendable works).3 What we mean is the necessity to finally start tracing and identifying the early phenomenological sources of Heidegger’s phenomenology, first and foremost of the fundamental ontology of Being and Time. Which essays by which early members of the phenomenological circles (be it Göttingen or Munich) had Heidegger read? Which works did he use, whether positively or as a polemical target, in order to shape his own view on phenomenology? More concretely asked: does anybody know whether, for example, Heidegger ever read Conrad’s essay of 1910 on philosophy of language (Sprachphilosophische Untersuchungen. Teil I)? Is there any relation between the fact that “the term Dasein (der Titel Dasein)” is introduced in §4 of Being and Time as a “designation” (zur Bezeichnung) of an entity “without” essence (Heidegger, 1967, 12; 2010, 10) and Conrad’s distinction between Kennzeichnung and Bezeichnung? For if by the former Conrad means “a word or a sign” used to refer to an object upon the basis of its “internal essence” and its “essential characteristics” (da offenhart es dem Blick etwas vom inneren Wesen des vorher bloß schlicht angegebenen Gegenstandes, es läßt ihn eindringen in den Gegenstand, zeigt irgendeinen Wesenszug auf) (Conrad, 1910, 457), the opposite is the case with the Bezeichnungen. In this case, a word or sign is employed that stays “at the surface” (auf seine Oberfläche) of the object: one understands that something is being intended, yet without any sense or essence being grasped. And is not that of “Dasein” a term used by Heidegger in a bezeichnende Funktion (which is what he also calls “formal indication”) in precisely Conrad’s sense of the expression? With the difference that, while for Conrad one and the same entity can be referred to by either a Bezeichnung or a Kennzeichnung, the entity which we ourselves are can be only referred to by a Bezeichnung because it does not have any inneres Wesen that could justify the use of a Kennzeichnung-term. This is what we mean by the necessity of regarding Heidegger and the “fundamental ontology” of Being and Time as a part of early phenomenology. This is what the reconstruction of what has been called le chantier de Sein und Zeit should also include (Greisch, 2014, v), but which unfortunately it almost never includes. It is a very difficult task, primarily because of Heidegger’s tendency to hide his own sources (whether positive or negative ones). Although the proper ambition of this book is not to map out and bring to full light the hidden sources of Being and Time, it will nevertheless contribute to such project in at least two manners and as regards two very important problems. This is why, we believe and hope, both those who work on the early phenomenological tradition (without including Heidegger) and Heidegger scholars (who quite often have neither interest nor expertise in early

3  There are some exceptions: see Schuhmann, 2004, 185–200 (Daubert und Heidegger); Ledić, 2009, Chapters 3 and 4.

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phenomenology4) could benefit from the present research (or at least from some parts of it). In the first place, a quite specific thesis is advanced in Chap. 2 of the present volume and which will be elaborated upon in Chap. 2 of the second volume (we will soon explain the overall structure of the book). Here we show that the some of the arguments and the terminology mobilized by Heidegger in §9 of Being and Time (where he famously affirms that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence”) should be understood in direct connection with the works of both Jean Hering and Roman Ingarden. Not only in the sense that Heidegger is there dismissing some of the formal-­ontological distinctions and concepts first laid out by Hering in his 1921 booklet Remarks on Essence, Essentiality and the Idea and by Ingarden in his Essential Questions of 1925 (in particular the way in which they both seem to determine the essence of individual persons). But, more deeply and interestingly, in the sense that the manner in which the essence-existence relation is understood by Heidegger when it comes to accounting for the nature of Dasein is to be deemed a re-shaping of the concept of Wesen first forged by Hering and then further developed by Ingarden. We argue that he knew Hering’s and Ingarden’s work; just as he had read Pfänder’s handbook of Logic. We do not intend to undermine the novelty of Heidegger’s position in §9. The problem is rather to explore the extent to which Heidegger is part of the phenomenological tradition, with which he is in a dialogue—even if exclusively in order to depart from it once and for all. But in some cases, such departure goes hand in hand with a theoretical debt. The novelty of Heidegger’s enterprise can be better appreciated (no matter whether in order to praise or criticize it) only if such a background is also acknowledged and explored. It is true that Heidegger (just like any other phenomenologist) cannot be reduced to it, but he cannot be detached from it either (unless one wants to make of him a mere bi-dimensional figure without any historic-philosophical depth or also amputate the history of early phenomenology of one of its representatives).5 But Heidegger will also be regarded as a member of early phenomenology toward the end of the Appendix to the present volume, where all our energy is invested in trying to re-think a certain hegemonic discourse concerning the early phases of the phenomenological movement. But before we go over the appendix, let us clarify both the structure and the overall goals of our book.

 There are of course significant exceptions, such as D. Pradelle in France, who has also edited the French edition of Reinach’s writings. But we are really speaking of isolated cases. 5  One could for example recall the important works by Franco Volpi (e.g., Volpi, 1984), in which the Aristotelian roots of Being and Time are deeply analyzed and investigated (also via the mediation of Brentano). But it is always surprising to note that, in comparison to works like Volpi’s, there is almost nothing on the relations between Being and Time and early phenomenology. This kind of research presupposes that one brackets Heidegger’s retrospective self-interpretation of the role that Being and Time played within his Denkweg (and such “bracketing” will be here presupposed). For a recent, and refined assessment of Heidegger’s self-interpretation, see Carbone, 2021, 27–70. 4

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3. Put simply, the overall goal of the present work (of both volumes) is to analyze and understand the Husserl-Heidegger discussion from the standpoint of Husserl himself, without this implying that the author’s ambition is to side with Husserl against Heidegger. On this matter, our position is clearly presented by what we affirm at the very end of the first chapter of the present volume: “Heidegger is not Brutus, nor is Husserl our Anthony.” And the question for us is not to decide or establish who is right and who is wrong. What we want to understand is the sense of Husserl’s “criticism of Heidegger,” if we can put it this way. Or, even better: the sense of what could be called Husserl’s reaction and response to Heidegger on the basis of a famous letter that the latter sent to the former in 1927. What is at stake is not only the sense of Husserl’s reading of the fundamental ontology of Being and Time, but first and foremost of the conception that he has of his own phenomenology as a transcendental enterprise. In this respect, the phrase “Husserl’s reaction or response to Heidegger” entails in the following a double meaning: it embraces both (a) Husserl’s criticism of the “analytics of Dasein”; and (b) and the way in which he understands his own phenomenology in response to Heidegger’s questions from the 1927 letter. In other words: given a series of systematic questions that Heidegger raises in his 1927 letter to Husserl in relation to the project of Being and Time, the problem we set out to tackle is how Husserl reacts to them—both in the sense of how he clarifies the implications of his reading of Being and Time (whose core he famously describes as a mere “philosophical anthropology”) and of how he re-shapes his own phenomenology so as to be able to address Heidegger’s questions. This presupposes two things. One, that after the publication of Being and Time and the letter of 1927 from Heidegger, Husserl re-shapes some of the fundamental tenets of his own transcendental phenomenology; two, that a specific text could be identified in which of all this actually takes place. Now, contrary to what the readers may expect, we believe (and try to demonstrate over the course of Chap. 1 of this volume) that if there is any text in which Husserl’s response to Heidegger (in the second sense of the two meanings above) can be found, this is not The Crisis of European Sciences, but rather the Cartesian Meditations. Of course, we do not mean to deny that the arguments and the archeology developed in The Crisis also bear upon Heidegger. To the extent that for Husserl Heidegger is guilty of the mistake already and originally made by Descartes (see Chap. 1), the great archeology of the Crisis, in which the crisis of philosophy is traced back to the manner in which it had developed from Descartes onwards, also includes Heidegger (yet only as one of the many “symptoms” of the crisis). It is in the Cartesian Meditations that Husserl works out a conception of the transcendental subject, thus of phenomenology that he regards as alternative to Being and Time’s. We do not know when the “thesis” was first established that the Crisis would represent Husserl’s own response to Heidegger. For example, nowhere is the name of Heidegger to be found in one of the first discussions of the Crisis (Stein, 2014,

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189–191). A referene to it can be found in the 1969 Was gibt Neues in Husserls Krisis?, where Roman Ingarden mentions in passing Heidegger, Becker, and the problem of “history” (see Ingarden, 1988, 433, footnote). But it is only Gadamer, in the already quoted The Phenomenological Movement of 1963, who goes as far as to point out, “The success of Being and Time prompted Husserl to a new reflection, and then the […] Crisis appeared” (Gadamer, 1987, 128). The argument is that a Konvergenz can be ascertained “between Husserl’s doctrine of the life-world” and “the essential analysis of Being and Time,” i.e., that of “the worldliness of the world” (Gadamer, 1987, 127). However, the thesis seems to first emerge as early as 1945 in M. Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception: Mais tout Sein und Zeit est sorti d’une indication de Husserl et n’est en somme qu’une explicitation du ‘natürlichen Weltbegriff’ ou du ‘Lebenswelt’ que Husserl, à la fin de sa vie, donnait pour thème premier à la phénoménologie; “yet, the whole of Sein und Zeit springs from an indication given by Husserl and amounts to no more than an explicit account of the ‘natürlicher Weltbegriff ’ or the ‘Lebenswelt’ which Husserl, towards the end of his life, identified as the central theme of phenomenology” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945, 7–8; 1958, viii). The argument is more refined than it seems, for Merleau-Pointy knows that the natürlicher Weltbegriff is not the Lebenswelt (the former is explicitly used by Heidegger in §11 of Being and Time). Merleau-Ponty’s reasoning goes from Husserl to Heidegger and then back to Husserl: Husserl’s hints at the idea of the natural world will be made “explicit” by Heidegger, to whom (the late) Husserl would respond by finally thematizing the dimension of the life-world (and which, for Merleau-Pointy, would become phenomenology’s thème premier).

4. This is precisely the line of thought that we will not pursue in this work. By the time of the Crisis, in fact, Husserl has already brought to conclusion his personal “confrontation” with the author of Being and Time. And here by confrontation we mean the period of time that runs from the already mentioned Heideggerian letter of 1927 to Husserl’s Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture of 1931 (the same year in which the French edition of the Cartesian Meditations is released).6 If the present investigation could also be regarded as a commentary on the Cartesian Meditations, systematically it takes as a point of departure the way in which Husserl re-thinks the nature of the transcendental subject, therefore what phenomenology is about. At stake is the individuality and concreteness of the subject. For the re-elaboration of the nature of the subject results in a re-shaping of the nature of phenomenology, hence in a peculiar conception of the overall system of philosophy and of the distinction between first philosophy, the many ontologies (and second philosophies), and finally what Husserl calls last philosophy or

 For an even different and quite interesting angle of approach, see Janes & Luft, 2020.

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metaphysics. It is clear then to what extent the Husserl-Heidegger confrontation becomes for us the causa occasionalis in order to propose an overall interpretation of Husserl’s system of philosophy from the standpoint of his position from the 20s onward. This also explains the structure of the work: with the three parts that correspond to the distinction just evoked between first, second, and last philosophy. In fact, and as the readers will soon realize, Husserl’s criticism to the effect that the analytics of Dasein is nothing but a form of “philosophical anthropology” (i.e., the eidetic and a priori science of the “human being” understood as a region of being) entails a far deeper claim. Or, to put it better: claims (in the plural). By saying that the analytics of Dasein is a form of philosophical anthropology, Husserl accuses Heidegger of committing two different yet related mistakes. Not only is Heidegger attributing to the transcendental subject aspects of the human subjectivity, thus confusing phenomenology as a first philosophy with philosophical anthropology; he is also causing confusion between phenomenology as a first philosophy and metaphysics in the Husserlian sense of the term. Moreover, on the basis of the first confusion a further thesis can be advanced, i.e., that by not recognizing the peculiar nature of the transcendental subject, what Heidegger undermines is the possibility of the ontologies other than the fundamental one. In short, the analytics of Dasein jeopardizes the multiplicity of being. In this respect, the Cartesian Meditations are the fundamental text in that here Husserl “responds” to Heidegger in the second sense distinguished above (§3): it is here, in fact, that Husserl sketches an overall idea of the system of philosophy (from its phenomenological foundations to metaphysics understood as its culmination) that he considers both alternative to Heidegger’s and able to tackle the questions and concerns first raised by in his letter of 1927. The present work is divided into two volumes and three parts which perfectly correspond to the distinction between first philosophy (the main topic of the present volume), the many ontologies, and, finally, metaphysics (the topics of the second volume). The reason why the first part (the entire first volume) is far longer than the other two should not be too difficult to fathom. For according to Husserl, everything hinges on how we understand or misunderstand the nature of the transcendental subject, namely its concreteness and individuality. Two theses are advanced in the present volume. First, the thesis that the idea of the transcendental subject that Husserl presents in the Meditations is irreducible to that of Ideas I. Which means that the two relevant conceptions of phenomenology do not coincide. Two, that it is in §41 that one can find the theory that Husserl regards as alternative to Heidegger’s position in Being and Time: we are referring to his transcendental idealism. In sum, in the Meditations Husserl does not propose to the readers his “idealism” in spite of Heidegger, but precisely because of him. After the analysis of how Husserl re-shapes the nature of the transcendental subject, hence of how his idealism should be properly understood, we can move on to the first part of the second volume, at the center of which is the problem of being and, in particular, the concept of region (of being). In fact, if Husserl accuses Heidegger of doing “philosophical anthropology” (with the accent being on the latter); and if Heidegger refuses to consider the analytics of Dasein as a philosophical

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anthropology in the sense of the eidetic science of the region human being, then a clarification of what is meant by “region” (of being) by both Heidegger (Chaps. 1 and 2 of the second volume) and Husserl (Chap. 3 of the second volume) is necessary. In these three chapters the thesis is also proposed to the effect that Heidegger’s arguments from §9 of Being and Time should be read against the backdrop of Hering’s and Ingarden’s ontology (with special attention to the idea of individual essence or Wesen as So-Sein, as well as to the distinction between essence as Wesen and essence as Essenz). As the readers will realize at this point, the approach to Heidegger here proposed is in line with the research into the problems of essence in early phenomenology that the author has been carrying out from the time of his dissertation onward (De Santis, 2014). Finally, the last part of the second volume will be dedicated to metaphysics in the Husserlian sense of the expression. If during the first two parts Husserl and Heidegger alternate, in such a way that the analysis of the one follows or solicits that of the other, here Heidegger is left behind and Husserl becomes the sole actor. We first try to reconstruct the overall development of the concept of metaphysics in Husserl’s thought (this happens in Chap. 4 of the second volume), then we focus on what Husserl himself calls “metaphysics in a new sense,” and which concerns, to put it bluntly, the irrational nature of our own human existence in the world. It is here that the (last) thesis is also advanced to the effect that by confusing first philosophy and last philosophy, Heidegger ends up “transcendentalizing” the irrational nature of our human existence. The three parts bring to expression the three different aspects of Husserl’s criticism of Heidegger, therefore the way in which he thinks the system of philosophy should be properly developed on the basis of the correct understanding of the nature of the transcendental subject (and its distinction from its “human” self-apperception in the world). And this is also the reason behind the title of the work. Transcendental Idealism (first volume) and metaphysics (second volume) stand for the two poles between which our analysis of Husserl stretches, with the former referring to phenomenology as first philosophy, and the latter to the dimension of metaphysics in a new sense. Finally, the last chapter of the second volume elaborates upon Husserl’s own Cartesianism by clarifying the sense of his neo-Cartesian reform of philosophy. Here a brand new concept is brought in, that of Lebensform or “form-of-life” with which the present work already hints at its possible future developments. Whether Husserl is right in criticizing Heidegger the way he does; and whether we are correct in drawing the conclusions which we actually draw—we leave it to the reader to decide. Given the specific goal of the present work (the understanding of the Husserl-­ Heidegger divide), the important thing to keep in mind is that only texts and contexts will be tackled which, we believe, have some bearing upon it. As far as Heidegger  is concerned, our attention will  be directed almost exclusively  to the texts which Husserl himself knew—with a few exceptions. For example, when in Chap. 1 of the second volume we set out to reconstruct Heidegger’s understanding of the term “region,” then Being and Time no longer suffices and the focus needs to be extended to his lectures and courses. The same holds true of Chap. 4 of the

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present volume, whose first part is dedicated to Heidegger’s method of formal indication. By contrast, the analysis of the monad and concrete ego which we offer in Chap. 3 of the present volume has the only goal of clarifying Husserl’s position in the Cartesian Meditations (with no ambition whatsoever to shed light upon the development of such a notion in his philosophy as a whole). To give a further example, in Chap. 5 of the second volume, we will propose an analysis of Husserl’s account of the irrational nature of our existence with the exclusive aspiration of shedding better light on his position vis-à-vis Heidegger (with no aspiration whatsoever to develop a purported Husserlian “philosophy of existence”).

5. This being clarified, a few words can be now said on the structure itself of the book. Each part includes a series of chapters (progressively numbered from 1 to 6); every single chapter includes a series of “paragraphs” numerically ordered (1, 2, 3, 4, …, n). Cross-references are then provided as follows: see Volume 1, Chap. 5, §4, or Volume 2, Chap. 4, §8. In some cases (see Chaps 5 of this volume, or Chaps. 2 and 3 of the second volume), the chapter is followed by a more or less short Coda, the function of which changes depending on the chapter in question. In one case (see the Coda.1 to Chap. 2 of the second volume), its actual function is to briefly discuss a particular reading of Heidegger in connection with our own hermeneutical hypotheses. In another case (see the Coda to Chap. 5 of the present volume), the function of the coda is to anticipate an analysis that will be more systematically developed later on (and which requires a preliminary mention to avoid possible misunderstandings). Finally, in the case of both the Coda.2 and 3 to Chap. 3 of the second volume, the goal is to show how the discussions offered throughout the chapter could be further developed. However, the reader could easily skip the codas, without his or her understanding of our arguments being minimally affected. The case with the Appendix published towards the end of this first volume is different. Although it could be easily regarded as a sort of pause that we take from the course of our reflections, its importance is crucial because it concerns the way in which, over the course of Chaps. 5 and 6 of the present volume, we attempt to interpret Husserl’s transcendental idealism and the position this doctrine has within his philosophy. Given our theoretical and historical reconstruction of the development of Husserl’s idealism, the need arises to address a well-known historiographical paradigm concerning the early phenomenological movement. We are referring to the “idealism-realism” controversy, hence to a specific interpretation of the divide between Husserl and some of his early students from Göttingen and Munich. Without repeating here the arguments that we offer there, let us simply confine ourselves to clarifying the overall sense of the appendix. According to an established historiographical paradigm, the origins of the phenomenological tradition in

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Göttingen were dramatically marked by a divide: the one between (some of) Husserl’s students who remained true to the (realist) spirit of the first edition of the Logical Investigations and Husserl himself who, from a certain moment on, started moving in a different direction, progressively embracing a form of transcendentalism and idealism. The questions when Husserl started betraying his original view, and when the rift between him and his students or collaborators first emerged, are themselves part of the discussion (just as is part of the discussion the question how Husserl’s pre-transcendental phase is to be understood). Now, our goal in the appendix is to propose a radical revision of this historiographical paradigm by making the case for two inter-related theses. First, that the first “divide” separating Husserl from (some of) his students did not really bear upon the idealism-realism discussion; rather, it bore upon the conception of phenomenology as either a method (with no exclusive field of application) or a science (with a quite specific and limited field of investigation). Two, that the very idealism-­ realism controversy should be regarded as one of the consequences of the former. It is important to keep in mind that our ambition is not to replace a certain “mono-­ thematic” and all-inclusive paradigm with an equally mono-thematic, all-inclusive paradigm. Rather, our only ambition is to make the case for a more refined historiographical perspective able to make sense of the many ways in which the histories and developments of early phenomenology can be eventually narrated. At this point, the crucial importance of holding also Heidegger as one of the members of early phenomenology becomes apparent once again. The concept of phenomenology (as a method) outlined at the outset of Being and Time (§7) should be seen as part of the “science vs. method” divide as we try to reconstruct it in the appendix. If given the distinction between Göttingen and Munich on the one hand, and Freiburg on the other, Heidegger is usually regarded as belonging to the latter and alien to the former’s debates, the case is different as one accepts our paradigm revision. In fact, Heidegger’s “methodological” idea of phenomenology can be linked back to Reinach (among others) and to the debates on the nature of phenomenology in the Göttingen and Munich circles. But unlike Reinach, Daubert et al., and more in line with Husserl, Heidegger holds a transcendental idea of philosophy. What follows is that the two (the idealism-realism controversy and the science vs. method divide) neither coincide nor exclude one another: they are interwoven in a way that is by no means linear.

6. For what concerns the thus far only available historiographical “paradigm” (= the idealism-realism controversy), we shall label it: “hegemonic discourse.” Here the term hegemony should be taken in the sense of “the general theory of hegemony” developed by Antonio Gramsci in some of his writings, from which we

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are directly borrowing it (De Giovanni et al., 1977, 40–41).7 Let us hasten to remark that we do not want to outline a sort of Gramscian interpretation of the historiographical paradigm above, let alone a Marxist one. Rather, the idea is to single out the notion of hegemony from Gramsci in order to forge a tool (here, still in a preliminary manner) that could be used in the field of the history of philosophy, here the “history of early phenomenology.” The goals of such history (assuming that it could still make sense to speak of “history” in the singular) would be that of: (i) assuming the distinction between dominant and hegemonic discourses; (ii) mapping out the various hegemonies; (iii) identifying the hegemonic nature of a particular discourse within a given field of discourses (Foucault, 1969, 41); and finally, (iv) that of clarifying the material conditions under which a discourse imposes itself as hegemonic. Generally speaking, a discourse can be “dominant” (dominante) or “leading” (dirigente), but it can be “hegemonic” only to the extent that it is leading (Gramsci, 2014, 41; 1975, 136). A discourse can be deemed “dominant” when it presents itself as the only de facto available discourse. A discourse is leading, hence hegemonic when it manages to impose itself in such a way that “de jure” no possibility outside of it is conceivable. Framed otherwise: hegemonic is any particular discourse that raises itself up to the level of universality, thereby occupying the whole domain of possibilities of the field in question. Someone has correctly spoken of “hegemonic universality” (Laclau & Mouffe, 2014, x). Moreover, since the “domain of possibilities” does not and cannot exist prior to the hegemonic discourse, one could call hegemonic that discourse that opens up a field of possibilities which does not and cannot exist outside of the hegemony itself. The field is at once opened up and de jure already delimited, closed up. In this respect, the historiographical paradigm concerning the history of early phenomenology must be regarded as dominant because it has managed to impose itself as leading: since no possibility seems to be de jure admissible outside of it (this being its leading aspect), it is de facto also dominant. Although the reasons behind a discourse imposing itself as leading, and hence as hegemonic, are always contingent, therefore to be analyzed precisely in their contingency (Laclau & Mouffe, 2014, xii), some systematic features of the hegemony in general can be pinpointed. In the first place, the hegemonic discourse tends to present itself as the hierarchical unification of opposites, which are hence organized according to different levels of subordination (Gramsci, 1948, 104). In the second place, and most importantly, the hegemonic discourse displays a cohesive force able to bestow unity on its field in the form of a program to be (further) carried out (Gramsci, 1948, 119–120; 2014, 56; 1975, 153). Last but not least, in order to preserve themselves, certain hegemonic discourses mobilize what Gramsci refers to as “double phenomenology” (doppia fenomenologia) (Gramsci, 2014, 433–434; 1975a, 153–154). In the Marxist

 What we write in the following was conceived and written before we read the essays published in Badino & Omodeo, 2021. See also the analyses proposed by Maltese, 2017 and Pandolfi, 2017. 7

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language that Gramsci himself speaks, this double phenomenology is that of the dialectics between material structure and superstructure: the superstructure, that is, the hegemonic discourse itself “determines the formation of a certain material structure” which, in turn, keeps nourishing the superstructure. Gramsci speaks of “ideology” to characterize any hegemonic discourse based on the mechanism of this “double phenomenology.” Let us list these aspects as follows: (HEG.1): Hierarchical Unification of Opposites (HEG.2): Cohesive Force and Programmatic Nature8 (HEG.3): Double Phenomenology (Material Structure --> Superstructure --> Material Structure) Upon closer inspection, our “historiographical paradigm” perfectly epitomizes these three aspects. First, it presents itself not only as based on the opposition between “idealism” and “realism”; it has been developed on the basis of the claim that only one, among these two opposite positions, must be regarded as more faithful to a certain origin, that is, the conception of what phenomenology was “originally” meant to be (= the oppositions organize themselves “hierarchically”) (HEG.1). Second, it presents itself as a program to be further and systematically carried out, for example, by mapping out all the different aspects of Reinach’s realism. The paradigm acts as a “cohesive” context of reference within which the different phenomenologists have their own position (Boccaccini, 2016) and the history of early phenomenology (= the field in question) would thus receive its unity (HEG.2). Most importantly, the paradigm displays Gramsci’s double phenomenology (HEG.3). A concrete example could suffice to illustrate this point. In Schuhmann and Smith (1987, 253), a passage is quoted from §9 of Reinach’s Die apriorischen Grundlagen on the basis of which the latter’s realism could be demonstrated against Husserl’s own idealism. Here, Reinach writes that the essential laws governing social acts are to be studied independently from their “realization.” Yet, he remarks, if they exist as “realized,” then they will be “intimately interwoven with the rest of the natural world” (Reinach, 1989, 268). According to Schuhmann, Reinach would be here denying the Husserlian idea of pure consciousness, thereby displaying an actual Haltung realistischer Phänomenologie. This is of course an interpretation on the part of Schuhmann. Indeed, Husserl himself would recognize that the region of pure consciousness should be investigated “independently” of its realizations; but also that as soon as pure consciousness is “realized,” it is “interwoven with the rest

 The cohesive force functions in two ways. What the hegemonic discourse unifies is not only its internal elements, e.g., the opposition between idealism and realism (see what we explain in the following) but also all the other possible discourses—which are hence organized in function of the hegemony’s internal oppositions. An example is represented by the interesting analyses by Baltzer-­ Jaray (2016), in which the (purely formal-ontological) problem of the structure (and the possibility) of individual essences (in both Adolf Reinach and Jean Hering) ultimately organizes itself around the realism-idealism opposition. 8

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of the natural world” (= distinction between “pure consciousness” and “psychological consciousness”). In Gramsci’s jargon, the name of Schuhmann acts here within the “double phenomenology”-sort of mechanism. His discourse epitomizes the case in which the superstructure determines a new material structure which nourishes, in turn, the superstructure itself, thus the hegemonic nature of the discourse in question. In fact, Dubois (1995, 152–1539) takes Schuhmann’s own position on Reinach’s text above as a material to directly support his realist reading of Reinach. Not only Reinach, but Reinach and Schuhmann together. What in this case was still an interpretation of the material (Reinach’s own words), becomes for Dubois a new material (= original material + superstructure) supporting the very same discourse, which can thereby confirm its hegemony.10 In the Appendix, we do not actually aim to dismiss the historiographical paradigm per se taken, but rather to denounce its hegemonic nature in order to make the case for introducing a different, more fine-grained discourse. We need to denounce the “double phenomenology” wherever it operates and functions systematically; we need to interrupt the hegemony’s own cohesive or unitary force, thereby limiting its programmatic nature; we need to reject the underlying assumption of the more original on the basis of which alone can any hierarchical organization of the opposites be justified.11

7. The present work has been conceived during the last three years in connection with my teaching activity in the philosophy department at Charles University, Prague. I am grateful to all the students who had the patience to attend my classes on Husserl and Heidegger (and phenomenology in general). Some of the chapters include a systematic re-elaboration of the arguments presented over the last five years, to say the least, in the following articles: –– Volume 1, Chapter 4: “‘Self-Variation.’ A Problem of Method of Husserl’s Phenomenology,” Husserl Studies, 2020, 36, pp. 255–269. 9  After he quotes the very same passage from Die apriorischen Grundlagen, Dubois comments: “Schuhmann rightly finds in this passage one significant reason why Reinach bypasses Husserl’s notion of pure consciousness. He sees in it ‘the stance of realist phenomenologist, which separates him from the Husserl of the Ideas, just as it binds him to the rest of the Munich and Göttingen phenomenologists’.” The passage is Dubois’ English translation of Schuhmann’s words. 10  Let us hasten to remark that what is at stake here is not the possibility of a realist interpretation of Reinach; what is at stake is rather the strategy underlying and supporting it. 11  Which is what we strive to do, for instance, in Chap. 6 of the present volume, §§7–8, where we will show the extent to which Jean Hering’s interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology in Ideas I should be understood in a way that cannot be traced back to the idealism-realism divide or opposition.

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–– Volume 1, Chapter 5: “‘Metaphysische Ergebnisse.’ Phenomenology and Metaphysics in Edmund Husserl’s Cartesianische Meditationen (§60). Attempt at Commentary,” Husserl Studies, 2018, 34 pp. 63–83. –– Volume 2, Chapter 4: “The Development of Husserl’s Concept of Metaphysics,” in H. Jacobs (Ed.), The Husserlian Mind (Routledge: London, 2021), pp. 481–493. –– Volume 2, Chapter 6: “The Practical Reformer: On Husserl’s Socrates,” Husserl Studies, 2019, 35, pp. 131–148; “The Theoretical Reformer: On Husserl’s Plato (Husserl and the Figures of the History of Philosophy),” The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 2020, 3, pp. 231–246. I want to express my gratitude to the editors of the journals/volumes for letting me partially re-use this material. Prague, January 2021–September 2022

References Alweiss, L. (2003). The world unclaimed. A challenge to Heidegger’s critique of Husserl. Ohio University Press. Badino, M., & Omodeo, P. D. (Eds.). (2021). Cultural Hegemony in a scientific world. Gramscian concepts for the history of science. Brill. Baltzer-Jaray, K. (2016). Reinach and Hering on Essence (pp. 123–143). Discipline filosofiche. Boccaccini, F. (2016). De Reinach à Levinas: Hering et le réalisme phénoménologique. Revue de théologie et de philosophie, 148, 433–448. Carbone, G. (2021). Etica e ontologia. Heidegger e Levinas. ETS. Chiurazzi, G. (2006). Modalität und Existenz. Von der Kritik der reinen Vernunft zur Kritik der hermeneutischen Vernunft: Kant, Husserl, Heidegger. Königshausen und Neumann. Conrad, T. (1910). Sprachphilosophische Untersuchungen. Teil I.  Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 19, 395–473. De Giovanni, Biagio, Garretana, Valentino, Paggi, Leonardo. 1977. Egemonia, Stato, Partito in Gramsci. De Santis, D. (Ed.). (2014).  Di Idee ed essenze. Un dibattito su fenomenologia e ontologia (1921–1930). Con saggi di J. Hering, R. Ingarden, H. Spiegelberb. Mimesis. Dubois, J. M. (1995). Judgment and Sachverhalt. An introduction to Adolf Reinach’s phenomenological realism. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Foucault, M. (1969). L’archéologie du savoir. PUF. Gadamer, H.-G. (1987). Neuere Philosophie I. Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger. J. C. B. Mohr. Gramsci, A. (1948). Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce. Giulio Einaudi. Gramsci, A. (1975). Prison notebooks. Volume 1. Columbia University Press. Gramsci, A. (1975a). Prison notebooks. Volume 2. Columbia University Press. Gramsci, A. (2014). Quaderni del carcere. Giulio Einaudi. Greisch, J. (2014). Ontologie et temporalité. Esquisse d’une interprétation intégrale de Sein und Zeit. Paris. Heidegger, M. (1967). Sein und Zeit (GA 2). Max Niemeyer. Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time. State University of New York Press. Hopkins, B.  C. (1993).  Intentionality in Husserl and Heidegger. The problem of the original method and phenomenology. Springer. Ingarden, R. (1988). Schriften zur Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls (GW 5). Max Niemeyer.

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Janes, J., & Luft, S. (2020). Die angebliche Frage nach dem “Sein des Seienden.” An unknown Husserlian response to Heidegger’s “question of being”. In M.  Burch & I.  McMullin (Eds.), Transcending reason: Heidegger on rationality (pp. 237–258). Rowman & Littlefield. Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2014). Hegemony and socialist strategy. Towards a radical democratic politics. Verso. Ledić, J. D. (2009). Heideggers “Sach-Verhalt” und Sachverhalte an sich. Studien zur Grundlegung einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Heideggers Seinsbegriff. Ontos Verlag. Maltese, P. (2017). Gramsci e Foucault, Foucault e Gramsci. In Materialismo storico. Rivista di filosofia, storia e scienze umane, 1 (Vol. II, pp. 164–202). Università di Urbino. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phénoménologie de la perception. Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1958). Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge. Øverenget, E. (1998). Seeing the self. Heidegger on subjectivity. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Overgaard, S. (2004). Husserl and Heidegger on being in the world. Springer. Pandolfi, A. (2017). Foucault: biopotere, biopolitica e egemonia. In Materialismo storico. Rivista di filosofia, storia e scienze umane, 1 (Vol. II, pp. 204–219). Università di Urbino. Patočka. (1991, January). Úvod do fenomenologické filosofie. OIKOYMENH. Reinach, A. (1989). Sämtliche Werke. Philosophia. Reiner, H. (1931). Phänomenologie und menschliche Existenz. Max Niemeyer. Schuhmann, K. (2004). Selected papers on phenomenology. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Schuhmann, K., & Smith, B. (1987). Adolf Reinach: An intellectual biography. In K. Mulligan (Ed.), Speech and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the foundations of Realist phenomenology (pp. 3–27). Springer. Serban, C. (2016). Phénoménologie de la possibilité. Husserl et Heidegger. PUF. Stein, E. (2014).  Freiheit und Gnade und weitere Texte zu Phänomenologie und Ontologie (1917–1937) (ESGA9). Herder. Volpi, F. (1984). Heidegger e Aristotele. Daphne. Yanez, Á. X., & Zirión Quijano, A. (2018).  ¡A las cosas mismas! Dos ideas sobre la fenomenología. Universidad y sociedad.

Contents

Introduction: (Introducing the Idea of Hegemony to the History of Phenomenology)���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   ix Part I The Transcendental Subject or, of First Philosophy 1

Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects��������������������������������������������     3

2

Concreteness of the Subject: Dasein����������������������������������������������������    23

3

Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad��������������������������������������������    51

4

Exemplary Entities: Formal Indication and Eidetic Variation����������    79

5

The Nomos of the Transcendental��������������������������������������������������������   121 CODA—Remarks on the Person in CM��������������������������������������������������   162

6

Primum Concretum and Transcendental Idealism������������������������������   167

Appendix: Of a Hegemonic Discourse about the History of Early Phenomenology: Outline of a Paradigm Revision��������������������������������������   229 Conclusion to Volume 1 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   263 Index����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   267

xxv

Abbreviations

Husserl Hua volume, page:

Edmund Husserl, Husserliana. Edmund Husserls Gesammelte Werke Hua-Mat volume, page: Edmund Husserl, Husserliana Materialien Hua-Dok volume, page: Edmund Husserl, Husserliana Dokumente

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Part I

The Transcendental Subject or, of First Philosophy

Chapter 1

Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects

1. If one were to take as the beginning and ending of the dispute between Husserl and Heidegger the letter that the latter wrote to the former on October 22, 1927 and the famous lecture on the topic Phenomenology and Anthropology given by Husserl in 1931,1 it would be easy to recognize what they were reproaching one another for, no matter whether the reproach is veiled as a series of polite questions (as is the case with Heidegger) or is presented in the form of a straightforward attack (as is the case with Husserl). Heidegger’s words seem to adhere to a specific, and extremely circumscribed topic, i.e., the relation between two types of subjectivities; yet, the implications of his remarks are such that the very foundation of Husserl’s version of phenomenology is shaken and called into question. On the contrary, and in line with a style that Husserl developed and refined over the final decades of his life, his lecture opens up with a quite pompous tone, directly attacking the general roots that nourish, among other things, the project first laid out in Being and Time. Then, it slowly moves on and wraps itself around the very issue of the relation between those two types of subjectivities upon which Heidegger himself had critically touched a few years earlier. If, based on these preliminary observations, the conclusion were drawn that in the end Husserl and Heidegger were affirming exactly the same things (the discrepancies being in the words, yet not in interiore homine), this conclusion would be correct only superficially, because it would overlook the tiny differences that de facto make the respective reproaches and criticisms widely diverge.

 We will confine our attention to the explicit exchange between the two. This does not mean that we will ignore or not consider texts or lectures composed before and after this period (for a different perspective, see Heffernan, 2016). 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_1

3

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1  Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects

Let us let Heidegger speak out first. “And only in the last few days have I begun to see the extent to which your emphasis on pure psychology offers the basis for clarifying, or unfolding for the first time with complete determination, the question of transcendental subjectivity and its relations to the pure psychic.” The crucial points of Heidegger’s “formalistic” objections are in the few pages accompanying the letter: “This also gives me an occasion to characterize the fundamental tendency of Being and Time within the transcendental problem” (Hua-Dok III/4, 145; Husserl, 1997, 136). If we are to get an actual hold of Heidegger’s “essential points,” the question arises as to the sense of his statement according to which, for Husserl, the question of transcendental subjectivity would be clarified “with complete determination” by laying “emphasis on pure psychology.” It is not at all our goal to go over the development of the ways in which, over years and years of meditation and detailed analyses, Husserl came to understand the relation between phenomenology, empirical and pure psychology (see Majolino, 2008; Jacobs, 2015; Farges & Pradelle, 2019, the entire Part IV on the theme: Fondation de la psychologie). In order for Heidegger’s remark and its implications to become intelligible, a long passage from the beginning of the second draft of the Encyclopedia Britannica article will suffice. Here is the text as originally drafted by Heidegger2: [a] fundamental reflection on the object and method of a pure psychology can let us see precisely that such a psychology is fundamentally unable to secure the foundation for philosophy as a science. For psychology itself, as a positive science, is the investigation of a determined domain of entities and thus, for its part, requires a foundation. Therefore, the return to consciousness, which every philosophy seeks with varying [degrees of] certitude and clarity, reaches back beyond the domain of the purely psychic into the field of pure subjectivity. As the being of everything that can be experienced by the subject in various ways, namely, the transcendent in the broadest sense, is constituted in this pure subjectivity, pure subjectivity is called transcendental subjectivity. Pure psychology as a positive science of consciousness points back to the transcendental science of pure subjectivity. This latter is the realization of the idea of phenomenology as scientific philosophy. Conversely, only the transcendental science of consciousness provides full insight into the essence of pure psychology, its basic functions and conditions of possibility (Hua IX, 257, 598; Husserl, 1997, 109).

Heidegger acknowledges the difference between psychology and phenomenology, both in terms of their method, object and scientific, i.e., philosophical status. Differences that Husserl never fails to emphasize and underline (as he already did in the first draft; see Hua IX, 240). Nor does Heidegger ignore that, according to a Husserlian refrain, it is only through phenomenology that psychology, namely, pure psychology, can actually be made possible; for only transcendental phenomenology is able to elucidate the specific mode of being of the pure psychic, thereby identifying and delimiting psychology’s field of investigation. Nevertheless, Heidegger also

 Let us point out that it is not our intention to go over all the different drafts so as to see what Husserl and Heidegger respectively wrote and suggested; in our opinion, the most accurate analysis can still be found in Crowell, 2001, 167–181. 2

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notices that “Pure psychology as a positive science of consciousness points back to the transcendental science of pure subjectivity.” For as Husserl had already and extensively argued in his 1925 lectures, and as he had repeated in the first draft (Hua IX, 250; Husserl, 1997, 98), not only do psychology and pure phenomenology “coincide” proposition for proposition (Satz für Satz); the very transcendental subject is “brought to light” (freilegen) by purifying the psychological subject (as one could also re-phrase the opposition between das phänomenologisch Reine and das Seelische). The pure psychic, Heidegger would go on to explain, is not only what a parte ante has already determined the content of what will be the purified transcendental subject; it is also what, a parte post, will have to be clarified in its mode of being by this very same transcendental subject and its constitutive operations. Heidegger would be describing something like a ὕστερον πρότερον fallacy; the one in which the natural order of sense is reversed: for what is expected to do the clarification (the transcendental subject) has already been determined as to its content by what is in need of such clarification (the psychological subject).3 Yet, there is more to it than just this. As Appendix I to the letter to Husserl affirms in passing, the concept of pure psychic originated from “Descartes’ gnoseological considerations” (Hua III/4, 147; Husserl, 1997, 138). In short, the pure psychic, as we take it a parte ante, is not per se a primordial and original concept, but rather the philosophical and, so to speak, ontological precipitate of Descartes’ gnoseological preoccupations. As a consequence, as long as we affirm that psychology and phenomenology coincide “proposition for proposition,” we are projecting on the transcendental subject content, characteristics and a mode of functioning that originally pertain to the mens sive animus sive intellectus which Descartes obtained by separating it from the res extensa.4 The (Husserlian) attempt, apparent in the first draft of the Encyclopedia Britannica article, at a complete determination of transcendental subjectivity, namely, of its content by means of pure psychology is but an illusion. This is the issue concerning “the place of the transcendental,” which Heidegger keeps distinct from that of “the presentation of the transcendental problem.” One thing is the locus of the transcendental (genitivus obiectivus), but its problem is quite another. The latter we could label, for lack of a better expression, the nomos of the transcendental (genitivus subiectivus) (in a sense to be later expanded upon). Here is the full text of Appendix I. We are in agreement on the fact that the entity in the sense of what you call the “world” cannot be clarified in its transcendental constitution by returning to an entity of the same mode of being.

 See von Herrmann, 2000, 20 and ff. on why the “psyche” cannot represent for Heidegger the “original sphere.” 4  En Ser y tiempo Heidegger ya parece interpretar la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl como vinculada a un fenómeno histórico-cultural, que es la primacía del conocimiento y el ego cogito desde Descartes y la modernidad (Rizo-Patrón de Lerner, 2012, 294). As we will soon see, the same can be said of Husserl’s interpretation of Heidegger’s own project in Being and Time. 3

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1  Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects But that does not mean that what constitutes the place of the transcendental is not an entity at all; rather, precisely there arises the problem: what is the mode of being of the entity in which the “world” is constituted. That is Being and Time’s central problem, namely, a fundamental ontology of Dasein. It has to be shown that the mode of being of human Dasein is totally different from that of all other entities and that, as the mode of being that it is, it harbors right within itself the possibility of transcendental constitution. Transcendental constitution is a central possibility of the existence of the factual self. This factual self, the concrete human being, is as such, as an entity, never a “worldly real matter of fact” because the human is never merely present-at-hand, but rather exists. And what is “incredible” is the fact that the structure of Dasein’s existence (die Existenzverfassung des Daseins) makes possible the transcendental constitution of everything positive. Somatology’s and pure psychology’s “one-sided” treatments are possible only on the basis of the concrete wholeness of the human being, and this wholeness as such is what primarily determines the human being’s mode of being. The “pure psychic” has arisen without the slightest regard for the ontology of the whole human being, that is to say, without any aim of [developing] a psychology; rather, from the beginning, since the time of Descartes, it has come out of gnoseological concerns. […] The question about the mode of being of what does the constitution is not to be avoided. Accordingly, the problem of being bears upon the constituting as well as the constituted (Hua-Dok III/4, 146–147; Husserl, 1997, 138).

Heidegger’s argument concerning “the locus of the transcendental” opens up with an agreement: the transcendental constitution of the world cannot be accomplished by an “entity,” the mode of being of which is the same as that of the constituted, i.e., the world itself. The assumption is that it still needs to be an “entity” though. Against the backdrop of this preliminary agreement, Heidegger goes on to point out that the place of the transcendental (constitution) is the “concrete wholeness of the human being,” for it is the “structure of Dasein’s existence” that makes it possible.5 What interests us here is less the argument itself that Heidegger sets forward to identify the locus (Dasein’s existence is no presence-at-hand), than the actual locus he identifies: the concrete human being as Dasein and the structure of its existence. Yet, Heidegger does not specify which aspect or, to put it better, which existential (if any) is in charge of making the transcendental (constitution) possible. It will be our aim to point out the existential in which, as we believe, Heidegger’s re-­ elaboration of the transcendental (constitution) comes to full light. But the “concrete wholeness of the human being” is the locus of the transcendental in yet another sense more directly concerning the draft. As far as we understand Heidegger’s line of thought from the second half of the citation, the following could be added. Even if we were to embrace Husserl’s strategy above (one could get to the transcendental subject by purifying the psychological subject), we would still have to recognize that, since the concept of psyche is the result of the “one-sided” mode of working of psychology, which can then obtain it “on the basis of the concrete wholeness of the human being,” the latter should always be our starting-point. In short, were we to accept Husserl’s argument, we would still have to first take into consideration “the concrete wholeness of the human being”; then, we would have to clarify how, based upon this, the psyche can be obtained; finally, the transcendental subject in the  For an analysis of the sense of Heidegger’s transcendentalism, see Dahlstrom, 2005, 33–44.

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Husserlian sense could be brought to light by purifying the latter.6 In a letter from the end of 1929 to Julius Stenzel, Heidegger goes as far as to harshly describe the Husserlian concept of phenomenology as a “grotesque version of the apriorization (Apriorisierung) of psychology pursued at the end of the nineteenth century” (Heidegger, 2000, 18). The problem of “the locus of the transcendental” amounts to outlining an actual topography of the transcendental (genitivus obiectivus), whose goal is to determine both where the transcendental is, namely, in which kind of entity it is harbored, and what the its mode of being is. As a consequence, the topography is meant to map out all the different modes of being (this is what Heidegger intends to suggest by the very last lines of Appendix I). Now, before we move on to the problem of the transcendental, a basic remark must be made. From what we have been explaining thus far, the (wrong and misleading) impression might have arisen according to which Husserl, unlike Heidegger, is not aware of the pure psyche being a theoretical precipitate (as we called it earlier), rather than an original, concrete determination of the subject. The following long passage from the first draft for the Encyclopedia Britannica entry will suffice, we believe, to dispel the dense fog of this illusion. What is the general theme of psychology? Answer: psychical being and psychical life that appear concretely (konkret) in the world as human and, more generally, as animal. Accordingly, psychology is a branch of the more concrete (konkreteren) sciences of anthropology or zoology. Animal realities are of two levels, the first level being the basic one of physical realities. For like all realities, animal realities are spatio-temporal, and they admit of a systematically abstractive focus of experience upon that factor in them that is purely “res extensa.” […] But animals do not exist simply as nature; they exist as “subjects” of a “mental life,” a life of experiencing, feeling, thinking, striving, etc. If, with systematic purity and a differently focused abstractive attitude, we put into practice the completely new kind of psychic experience […], this orientation gives us the psychic in its pure and proper essence (Hua IX, 240; Husserl, 1997, 87).

And it is clear from what Husserl will argue a few pages later that he holds Descartes and Locke to be the fathers of such an abstractive treatment of the animal or human life. Yet it is no less true that he will take the science of such abstract layer (psychology) and phenomenology (as the science of the transcendental subject) to coincide “proposition for proposition.”

2. Now, in order to start slowly introducing one of the central arguments of this work, we might want to take into account the way in which Husserl will come back to this very same topic in a few years, namely, in §35 of the Cartesian Meditations (Excursus on Eidetic Internal Psychology).  An almost identical line of thought had already been followed by Heidegger in a letter to Jaspers from July 1922, in which the talk is not yet of Dasein of course, but rather von Leben-Sein, MenschSein (Heidegger & Jaspers, 1992, 26–30, in particular, 26–27). 6

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1  Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects We go outside the closed sphere of our meditations, which restricts us to transcendental phenomenology, if we cannot repress the mark that, with only slight modifications (which, to be sure, abolish its transcendental sense), the entire content of the fundamental methodological observations that has just been made remains ours when, on the basis of the natural world view, we strive for a psychology as a positive science and, in that context, strive primarily for the psychology that is first in itself and necessary to any psychology: purely intentional psychology based upon internal experience. To the concrete transcendental ego there corresponds then the human ego, concretely as the psyche taken purely in itself and for itself (Dem konkreten transzendentalen ego entspricht dann das Menschen-Ich, konkret als rein in sich und für sich gefaßte Seele), with the psychic polarization: I as pole of my habitualities, the properties of my character. Instead of eidetic transcendental phenomenology we have then an eidetic pure psychology, relating to the eidos psyche (Hua I, 107; Husserl, 1993, 72–73).

The thesis that phenomenology and psychology would “coincide” Satz für Satz does not hold true anymore. For Husserl has already explained in detail that the transcendental subject investigated by phenomenology is the “concrete subject,” also called: monad. And here it is also explicitly asserted that the (concrete) transcendental subjectivity no longer corresponds (through “purification”) to the psychological subjectivity, but rather to “the concrete human being” (and vice versa), hence to the psyche only as long as this is regarded concretely, i.e., as a mere abstract layer of the former.7 One thing in effect is the concrete determination of the psyche (in which the latter is regarded as a mere abstract layer of the concrete subject), but its abstract consideration (in which, on the contrary, the psyche is erroneously deemed the concrete, original determination of the subject) is quite another. To resort to a terminological distinction first made within the context of Giovanni Gentile’s actual idealism: the former is the concrete conception of the abstract; the latter the abstract conception of the abstract (Gentile, 1922; see also Scaravelli, 1999, 29–69).8 In short, based upon the tripartite structure of the transcendental subject first laid out in §31 of the Cartesian Meditations (to which we will come back later), according to which a distinction must be made between: (i) the ego as an identical pole, as the (ii) subject of habilitualities, and (iii) in its full concretion as a monad, the science of the psyche would now at best coincide Satz für Satz only with i and ii, yet not with iii. Put differently, it is the concrete human being that now corresponds to the transcendental subject understood as a monad. By purifying the psychological subject we would obtain, at best, an (abstract) ego-subject endowed with habitualities, yet never a monad.

 Without this implying that the talk of “monad” could be used only in relation to the anthropological subject. For a more recent discussion of Husserl’s monadological characterization of animal subjects, see Carella, 2021, 254 and ff. 8  For a systematic use of the Italian neo-Idealistic terminology in relation to Husserl, see Melandri, 1960, in which a quite peculiar interpretation of Husserl’s empiricism is developed that builds upon some of the central concepts of the philosophies of Giovanni Gentile (= the abstract-concrete distinction) and Benedetto Croce (= the logic of the distincts). 7

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3. Whether this is the effect of the Heideggerian remarks in Appendix I, or Husserl’s own manner of assimilating and re-formulating, from within his own philosophical coordinates, suggestions that come from without (i.e., not only from Heidegger), we shall not decide. With respect to the draft of 1927, Husserl’s determination of the “Ort” of the transcendental has changed: both in terms of its locus (the concrete human being) and of the topos investigated by phenomenology (the monad). Now, if based on these last quick remarks the reader were to draw the conclusion that in our opinion the Cartesian Meditations would represent the actual book in which to look for Husserl’s “response to Heidegger” (if there is any such thing, we will reply that this is one of the main theses we will propose and defend in the following pages and chapters. Now that we know where, according to Heidegger, the locus of the transcendental should be; and now that we more or less know where, according to Husserl, the locus of the transcendental was in 1927 and will be in 1931, we can approach the question of the nomos of the transcendental. Heidegger introduces it in the so-called Appendix II to his letter to Husserl. The first thing in the presentation of the transcendental problem is to clarify what the “unintelligibility” (Unverständlichkeit) of the entity means. In what respect are entities unintelligible? That is, what higher claim of intelligibility is possible and necessary. By a return to what is such intelligibility achieved? What is the absolute ego as distinct from the pure psychic? What is the mode of being of this absolute ego, in what sense is it the same as the factual I; in what sense is it not the same? What is the character of the positing in which the absolute ego is posited? To what extent is there positivity (positedness) here? Universality of the transcendental problem (Hua-Dok III/4, 147; Husserl, 1997, 139).

The text might look like a repetition of Appendix I. Yet, upon closer examination it turns out that the first two sentences lay out a discussion-framework that is nowhere to be found in the previous section of the letter: it is the actual problem of the transcendental, to which all the other issues are to be ultimately traced back. Heidegger presents it as a series of three questions that are nothing but three variations upon the same problem: what does it mean that the entity is in general “unintelligible” (unverständlich) and that it needs to be bestowed upon a higher (höhere) form of “intelligibility” (Verständlichkeit)? Hence, the question, already raised in the first Appendix, concerning the mode of being of the absolute ego as the source-point of such higher form of intelligibility. It should now be easier to see in what sense, and to what extent, the “locus of the transcendental” and the “nomos of the transcendental” are closely tied together and cannot be separated. For if the problem of the transcendental is that of the Un-Verständlichkeit of the entity, hence, that of finding a higher form of intelligibility, we cannot fail to elucidate the “mode of being” of the transcendental subject (or

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as Heidegger would say: of that particular entity) that alone can grant such intelligibility. The text by Husserl that Heidegger has in mind in Appendix II comes from the second draft: Universality belongs to the essential sense of the transcendental problem. To the extent that the theoretical interest turns to the life of consciousness, in which whatever is real is for us “present,” there spread over the entire world the clouds of unintelligibility (Unverständlichkeit) […]. Every sense it has for us, whether unconditionally universal or applicable case by case to individuals, is, we have seen, a determined sense that occurs in the immanence of our own perceiving, representing, thinking, evaluating (and so on) life and that takes shape in subjective genesis; every validity of being is carried out within ourselves […]. This applies to the world in each of the determinations, including the taken-for-­ granted determination that what belongs to the world is “in and for itself” just the way it is, regardless of whether or not I or anyone else happen to take cognizance of it. If we vary the factual world into any world that can be thought, we also undeniably vary the world’s relativity to conscious subjectivity. Hence, the notion of a world existing in itself is unintelligible (unverständlich) due to its essential relativity to consciousness (Hua IX, 271; Husserl, 1997, 124–125).

This is what Heidegger’s questions are referring to: the world’s “relativity” to consciousness or, as Husserl also frames it: to a “conscious subjectivity,” without which the world would turn out to be fully covered in the thick clouds of unintelligibility. Now, if we were right in preliminarily pointing to §§31, 35 of the Fourth Cartesian Meditation when it came to singling out how Husserl will re-determine the locus-­ problem after Heidegger’s letter, it may be that his resply (if there is any such thing) to the Appendix II could also be found in that very same book. Indeed, as we firmly believe and will try to show, it is precisely at the end of the Fourth Cartesian Meditation (§41) that Husserl’s systematic assessment of the problem of the transcendental can be found: it is the one and only public, systematic presentation of the famous or infamous transcendental idealism that tackles precisely Heidegger’s doubts (whether intentionally or not, we shall not decide here). And if in Heidegger the two “problems” (locus and nomos of the transcendental) are intertwined, the same will happen with Husserl: for the specific assessment of the problem of the transcendental in §41 (transcendental idealism) explicitly relies on, and follows from his re-elaboration of the locus (which, as we have already started seeing, will not be the same as in 1927). Exit Heidegger.

4. Enter Husserl. This being anticipated, it is now time to let Husserl speak for himself. However, before we quickly go over the arguments of Phenomenology and Anthropology, there is something peculiar about its “structure” that, we believe, has not been sufficiently emphasized by scholars. In fact, if one puts aside the introduction (Hua XXVII, from 164 through 166; Husserl, 1997, 485–488) and the conclusion (Hua XXVII, from 179 through 181; Husserl, 1997, 499–500), in which

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Husserl dismisses the attempt at “grounding philosophy on the essence of human beings,” the lecture is nothing other than an abridged version of the Cartesian Meditations (which had just been published in French; see the letter from Kelsen in Hua-Dok III/6, 211, and Stein, 2015, 223). It is even possible to divide the text of the lecture into five parts, each of which would almost perfectly correspond to the content of one of the five Meditations. Meditation I = Hua XXVII, 169 line 4–171 line 28; Husserl, 1997, 489–492 (general introduction to the Greek origin of philosophy as a science; idea of transcendental philosophy; appeal to Descartes’ Meditationes and accomplishment of the phenomenological epochè) Meditation II = Hua XXVII, 171 line 29–174 line 4; Husserl, 1997, 492–494 (clarification of the sense of the reduction, and of what is left after its performance; unfolding of the new “vast field of research” and the problem of its possible misunderstanding) Meditation III = Hua XXVII, 174 line 5–175; Husserl, 1997, 494–495 (analysis of the subjective operations in which the world constitutes itself as a transcendental phenomenon) Meditation IV = Hua XXVII, 175 line 6–178 line 23; Husserl, 1997, 495–498 (the problem of the unintelligibility of the world and its foundation in the “concrete transcendental subjectivity”; idea of the hermeneutics of subjectivity as the “explication” of its life) Meditation V = Hua XXVII, 178 line 24–179; Husserl, 1997, 498–499 (the problem of empathy and the distinction between the proper and the alien; constitution of the one objective world based on transcendental inter-subjectivity and solution to all possible “ontological problems”) Now, if this is the case, should we not simply re-affirm our thesis to the effect that the Cartesian Meditations are the very text in which to look for Husserl’s confrontation with Heidegger? Of course, we are aware of how paradoxical, if not even contradictory, such a thesis might sound to most ears! Especially to those who have been taught that were we to look for Husserl’s response to his former pupil, this could be found only in Husserl’s last, “non-Cartesian” picture of phenomenology, the one grandiosely unfolded in The Crisis of European Sciences on the basis of the famous phenomenology of the “life-world.”9 Indeed, if Heidegger was always criticizing Husserl’s version of phenomenology for its Cartesian legacy and ballast (or prejudices, as one could frame it in light of Heidegger’s letter of 1927), why would Husserl reaffirm the Cartesian inspiration of his phenomenology (against Heidegger) rather than try to walk a new, and  It goes without saying that our comparative examination will move in a direction radically different from the one suggested by M. Merleau-Ponty (2008, 7–8): “Mais tout Sein und Zeit est sorti d’une indication de Husserl et n’est en somme qu’une explicitation du ‘natürlichen Weltbegriff’ ou du ‘Lebenswelt’ que Husserl, à la fin de sa vie, donnait pour thème premier à la phénoménologie.” 9

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different (anti-Cartesian) path? Or, in order for the burden of proof to be exclusively on us, why would we hold the Cartesian Meditations to be the book in which Husserl’s response to Heidegger (if there is any such thing) could be found? Because, as Husserl explains expressis verbis in Phenomenology and Anthropology, the difference between his transcendental phenomenology and those philosophies that seek to find the true basis of philosophy “in the essence of the human being’s concrete worldly Dasein” ultimately bears on, and revolves around the legacy of Descartes’ philosophical revolution. What is at stake for Husserl is not the alternative between (his) Cartesian version of phenomenology (and of philosophical foundation) and a (Heideggerian) non-Cartesian version of phenomenology (and of philosophical foundation); rather, the opposition is between a certain variety of Cartesianism (and of the Cartesian idea of phenomenology) and another variety of Cartesianism (and of the Cartesian idea of phenomenology). Descartes vs. Descartes; (Husserlian) Cartesianism vs. (Heideggerian) Cartesianism: this is what the difference between Husserl and Heidegger is really about (from Husserl’s own vantage point).10 What Husserl strives to do in Phenomenology and Anthropology is show that both conceptions of phenomenology ultimately stem from Descartes’ thought, i.e., from his inability to distinguish and separate the (correct) “transcendental” determination of the ego cogito from its (erroneous or at best very misleading) anthropological interpretation as a mens sive animus sive intellectus.11 Two determinations of the ego cogito; hence, two different Cartesian conceptions of phenomenology, the Husserlian one that holds fast to the correct determination and the Heideggerian one that falls back into the anthropological or even psychological mistake (originally made by Descartes himself). Let us now quote the opening passages of the 1931 lecture. As is well known, over the last decade some of the younger generation of German philosophers have been gravitating with ever increasing speed toward philosophical anthropology. Currently, Wilhelm Dilthey’s philosophy of life, a new form of anthropology, exercises a great deal of influence. But even the so-called “phenomenological movement” has got caught up in this new trend, which alleges that the true basis of philosophy is in the human being alone, and more specifically in a doctrine of the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein. Some view this as a necessary reform of the original constitutive phenomenology, one that for the very first time would supposedly permit phenomenology to attain the level of authentic philosophy. All of this constitutes a complete reversal of phenomenology’s fundamental position. The original phenomenology, which has matured into transcendental phenomenology, denies to any science of human being, no matter the form, a share in laying the foundations for philosophy, and opposes all such attempts as anthropologism or psychologism. Nowadays, however, the exact opposite is supposed to hold. Phenomenological philosophy is supposedly now to be constructed entirely anew from out of human Dasein (Hua XXVII, 164; Husserl, 1997, 485–486).  For a discussion of Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s Cartesianism that moves in a direction different from ours, see Alweiss, 2003, 23 and ff. 11  See the famous text for the Prague conference in Hua XXVII, 184–221, in particular pages 202–203, and 219 on Descartes. 10

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Husserl talks in broad, almost vague terms, and yet his accusations are clear and, despite avoiding naming specific thinkers, directed against identifiable targets—of course Heidegger, but not only him. The allusion to Dilthey’s Lebensphilosophie also entails a reference to a recently released book by Georg Misch in which the “transition” (Bewegung) from Husserl to Heidegger is described (Misch, 1967, 223) that results in a “metaphysics of Dasein” as a new “transcendental philosophy.” The mention of those who propose to found philosophy “in the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein” as a “necessary reform of the original constitutive phenomenology” may for sure entail a reference to Oskar Becker. Not only to Mathematical Existence, in which Being and Time’s influence is affirmed right at the outset (Becker, 1927, 3–4), but also, more directly, to the essay written for the Husserl-Festschrift of 1929 (Becker, 1929).12 A long footnote by Becker on the relation between Husserl’s phenomenology and Being and Time will confirm our hypothesis: Man kann die Intentionen der Husserlschen Phänomenologie, zum mindesten seit den „Ideen“von 1913, nicht ärger verkenne als dadurch, daß man ihr die vorgeblich „psychologostische“und „anthropologistische“Hermeneutik der Faktizität als fremd oder gar feindlich gegenüberstellt. Die Tendenz der hermeneutischen Phänomenologie geht (obzwar nicht ausschließlich) auf die weitere Konkretisierung der transzendental-­ idealistischen Grundhaltung der „Ideen“, indem manche dort noch unbestimmt gelassenen Horizonte näher festgelegt werden, vor allem dadurch, daß die Endlichkeit nicht bloß des „psychologischen“Subjekts, sondern auch jeder in fundamentalontologische Hinsicht relevante Subjektivität statuiert wird, mit allen ihren weittragenden Konsequenzen (Tod, Geschichtlichkeit, „Schuldigsein“usw.). [...] Diesen „Anthropologismus“mit dem alten, schon im I. Bande der „Logischen Untersuchungen“von Husserl endgültig überwundenen „psychologischen Anthropologismus“zu verwechseln, heißt die gesamt Entwicklung der Phänomenologie seit 1913 radikal mißverstehen! (Becker, 1929, 39, footnote).13

 “He [Husserl] is convinced he has only one student, that is: Fink. He did not consider Kaufmann or Becker to be at all his followers” (Stein, 2015, 229; April 29, 1932). The list should also include Scheler; see Husserl’s letter to Ingarden from April 19, 1931, where he writes that in order to prepare for the lecture he had to “carefully” (genau) read meine Antipoden Scheler u. Heidegger (Husserl, 1968, 67). See also Husserl’s letter of 1931 to Edith Stein (Stein, 2000, 183–184). 13  See also Gadamer, 1987, 161 and ff. on Becker on Heidegger. One of the first former Göttingen students of Husserl to be turned away from his idea of phenomenology by Being and Time was Hans Lipps. His Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis were completed right after the publication of Heidegger’s book. As Lipps explains in the preface to the second part (Aussage und Urteil): “After the conclusion of the first part of these Untersuchungen appeared Heidegger’s book Being and Time. The existential analytic provided me not only with the terminology but also with the means to reason more accurately than I could ever have done based on my initial approach (Einsatz)” (Lipps, 1976, Part II, 6). As Lipps further elaborates in the introduction to the second part of this text, “transcendental philosophy starts out with reflection” and “analyzes” the emergence of the object “from within the original synthesis.” However, this “concept of the transcendent object is secondary” (see Lipps, Part II, 7) and “the so-called intentionality of consciousness” is itself to be derived from the way objects are determined in a pro-ject (as we might translate: nur unter einem Entwurf), because the object itself is “pro-jected” (Das Objekt ist entworfen) (Lipps, Part II, 11) (the reference is here directly to §29 of Being and Time on Das Da-sein als Befindlichkeit and the “facticity of Dasein”). A second important case that should be taken into consideration is Reiner, 1931, who regards Heidegger’s concept of menschliche Existenz as the overall framework for understanding also the philosophy of Husserl. 12

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The year before Husserl’s Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture, Fritz Kaufmann published in a German-Jewish literary magazine based in Berlin (Der Morgen) an article called: The Human Being in the Philosophy and Poetry of our Days (Kaufmann, 1930). At the center of this fresco lies the opposition between the conceptions of the human being offered by “the philosophies of the past generations,” the “old-style idealistic philosophies,” and the “most influential representative of the younger generation”: Heidegger (Kaufmann, 1930, 163, 165). The former was “a philosophy of the old cultural and human ideal,” and its ambition was to lay out the foundation for “the unity of cultural consciousness” (Kaufmann, 1930, 163). It was a philosophy of the “absolute consciousness” and knew nothing of “death” and the “finitude of life” (Kaufmann, 1930, 165). The new philosophy is a meditation on the “human Dasein” as a “worldly Dasein” (Kaufmann, 1930, 161): its question is that “the being of the human being” and its position in the world (nach seiner Befindlichkeit in der Welt) (Kaufmann, 1930, 162). For the first time after the tragedy of the war, Kaufmann points out, we have a philosophy dealing “with the problem” of our own “finitude and nothingness.” Husserl’s philosophy, whose name is not even mentioned in the article, but whose presence is alluded to when Kaufmann speaks of the “past generation” and its “humanistic ideal” of the “self-realization” of humanity (see Kaufmann, 1930, 164), is nothing but a relic, the old ruins of an age swept away once and for all by the current of history.14 Like the Josefstadt at the end of Leo Perutz’s last novel: und es stand, und wir sahen es, bis es ein Windstoff forttrieb und verschwinden ließ.15

5. Despite Husserl not making any distinction between anthropologism and psychologism, the core of the attack launched at the outset of the lecture is clear; it bears upon the thesis that the basis of philosophy (Husserl employs a general term: Fundament) is to be sought in the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein, thereby pointing out the three concepts that seem to matter the most to him: “essence,” “concretely,” and “worldly.” Husserl is aware that this doctrine claims philosophy to be grounded on anthropology not as a factual science, but as the (eidetic) science of the essence of human beings (whatever this would be or whatever other name we might have for it).

 Let us recall Husserl’s sad and painful words to Roman Ingarden: “So auch Heidegger, diese geniale Kraftnatur, die die ganze Jugend mit sich fortreißt, die nun schon meint (was er selbst keineswegs meint), dass meine methodische Art veraltet u. meine Ergebnisse zur verfallenden Weltlichkeit gehörig seien” (Husserl, 1968, 42). 15  L. Perutz, Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke (1953), “Epilog.” That Husserl was aware of the caricature-like image that Heidegger and some of his students and disciples were presenting to the public is clear from what he writes e.g. in some of his letters to D. Mahnke (see Hua-Dok III/3, 493 and ff.). See also Blecha, 2003, 24 and ff. 14

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The reason why the problem is not the concreteness of the subjectivity meant to represent the true basis of philosophy but its anthropological characterization, we shall verify by reading further into the text. Yet, already at this point an important observation should be made. For one could be already tempted to easily decipher the situation in the following manner. On the one hand, there would be those who, from Husserl’s angle, affirm that the basis of philosophy should rest on “the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein.” And, on the other hand, there would be Husserl, a quite old Don Quixote hallucinating a non-anthropological concept of the transcendental subjectivity and thereby tilting at the windmills of the philosophies that he believes to be giants hostile to him. It is true that Husserl rejects the anthropological interpretation of the transcendental subjectivity; yet, it is no less true that by 1931 he has already established that the concrete transcendental ego corresponds to the concrete human ego. For Husserl the issue at stake is far more nuanced than it might appear: for it is the question of the position(s) and function(s) of the anthropological subject, and of the sciences that concern themselves with it, within the system of philosophy. The transcendental subjectivity, on which the basis of philosophy rests, is not the anthropological one; yet, the concrete human being is for him “the locus of the transcendental” (in line with Heidegger’s 1927 letter). As opposed to what Heidegger thinks, Husserl would probably contend that the locus of the transcendental is not to be identified with the nature of the transcendental itself. It is therefore pretty surprising, and equally symptomatic, that in 1932 a refined knower of Husserl’s phenomenology like Edith Stein could still state that while for Husserl “the philosophizing ego” is “the pure ego,” for Heidegger it is by contrast “the concrete human person” (AA.VV, 1932, 48; Stein, 2014, 164).16 After this introductory and quite strong attack, Husserl goes on to explain what such a purported “reform” of phenomenology actually signifies. With this conflict there have returned, in modernized form, all the oppositions that have kept modern philosophy as a whole in motion. From the beginning of modern times, the subjective tendency that is peculiar to the age had its effect in two opposite directions, the one anthropological (or psychological) and the other transcendental. According to one side it goes without saying that the subjective grounding (Begründung) of philosophy, which is continuously felt to be a necessity, has to be carried out by psychology. On the other hand, however, there is the demand for a science of transcendental subjectivity, a completely new science on the basis of which all sciences, including psychology, can be for the first time grounded philosophically. Should we just accept it as inevitable that this conflict must be repeated throughout all future ages, changing only its historical garb? The answer is no. Surely the method that philosophy requires on principle for its own grounding must be prefigured in the very essence of philosophy, in the basic sense of its task. If it is essentially a subjective method, then the particular meaning of the subjective also needs to be determined a priori. In this way it must be possible to arrive at a fundamental decision between anthropologism and

16  It should be noticed that in her discussion of the French edition of the Cartesian Meditations, Stein (2014, 159–161) pays no attention to the determination of the concrete subjectivity as a monad; she focuses only on the Cartesian ambition of founding philosophy as a science in the spirit of the Medieval idea of a philosophia perennis.

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1  Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects transcendentalism on a level that stands above all forms that philosophy and anthropology and psychology have taken down through history (Hua XXVII, 164–165; Husserl, 1997, 486).

Whereas the advent of phenomenology, understood by Husserl (as he will show once again, and in a magnificent way in Krisis) as the culmination of the trajectory of modern philosophy, should have represented the actual resolution all the contradictions and conflicts underlying its development (we tackled this topic in De Santis, 2018), the present “reform” of phenomenology is nothing other than the repetition of all “the oppositions that have kept modern philosophy as a whole in motion.” As if, Husserl would probably go on to explain, the long labor through which modern philosophy came to purge itself of its own internal contradictions, had been completely useless. And yet, even if such a return has its roots in the Cartesian philosophy, the original situation in which Descartes had found himself and the one in which the reform of phenomenology is now attempted are very different. After the description of the phenomenological reduction, that is to say, of what is suspended by its performance and of what, on the contrary, is disclosed thanks to it, Husserl comments as follows. Against all expectations, what in fact opens up here, and only through the phenomenological reduction, is a vast field of research. It is first of all a field of immediate, apodictic experience, the constant source and solid ground of all transcendental judgments whether immediate or mediate. This is a field of which Descartes and his successors were oblivious and remained so. To be sure, it was an extraordinarily difficult task to clarify the pure sense of the transcendental transformation and thereby to highlight the fundamental distinction between, on the one hand, the transcendental-ego with its transcendental sphere and, on the other, the human-ego with its psychical sphere and worldly sphere. Even after the distinction had been noted and the task of a transcendental science had achieved its pure sense, as was the case with Fichte and his successors, it was still extraordinarily difficult to see and exploit the ground of transcendental experience in its infinite breadth. […] The reduction is the means of access to this new realm, so when one gets the sense of the reduction wrong then everything else also goes wrong. The temptation to misunderstandings here is simply overwhelming. For instance, it seems all too obvious to say to oneself: “I, this human being, am the one who is practicing the method of a transcendental change of attitude whereby one withdraws back into the pure ego; so can this ego be anything other than a mere abstract of this concrete human being, its purely spiritual being, abstracted from the body?” (Hua XXVII, 172–173; Husserl, 1997, 492–493).

The excerpt is interesting for two reasons. First of all, because Husserl seems to be arguing that if Descartes and his successors could be somehow justified for not being able to actually grasp and fix the sense of the new (transcendental) field, the same cannot be said of those who nowadays propose to reform phenomenology. For after the advent of phenomenology and its efforts at mapping out the field first discovered by Descartes, one cannot pretend to ignore the difference between human-­ ego and transcendental-ego. Secondly, as the last section of the text shows, because Husserl makes the point to the effect that the source of all the misunderstandings lies in the lack of distinction between “the locus of the transcendental” (“I, this human being, am the one…”) and the actual determination of the transcendental. Albeit quickly, in fact, in this lecture Husserl makes a distinction between the locus of the transcendental (= the human-ego); the concrete character of the transcendental itself (= “the concretely full being” studied by phenomenology (Hua XXVII,

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175; Husserl, 1997, 495)); and the “human person” or, as he says: “my Dasein as a human being” as the transcendental-ego’s self-apperception in the world (Hua XXVII, 174; Husserl, 1997, 494). The first is that in which, to speak like Heidegger, the transcendental harbors; the second is the topos of phenomenology: the concrete transcendental subjectivity; the third is what results from the transcendental constitution (in a sense to be better elucidated in Part III of the present work). Clearly then, there can be two different types of mistake, corresponding to the tripartition just described. One can fail to make the distinction not only between the first and the second: this being the mistake to which Husserl himself draws the attention in the above text (= the confusion between transcendental philosophy and philosophical anthropology)17; also the difference between the second and the third can be ignored or missed. The fact that Husserl speaks of “Dasein” to designate the transcendental ego’s self-apperception in the world seems to suggest that in his opinion Heidegger is (also) guilty of this second mistake. Which means, as we will slowly argue for over the course of the present work, that Heidegger is guilty of confusing “first philosophy” (and its subject-matter) and “metaphysics” (in a specific Husserlian sense of the term that will represent the actual focus of Volume 2, Chap. 4). In this respect, Albert Camus could prove to Husserl that he is more coherent than Heidegger. Camus does not aspire to lay a new transcendental foundation for ontology, but to reverse the order of meaningfulness between la nostalgie humaine and our foundational dilemmas: Juger que la vie vaut ou ne vaut pas la peine d’être vécue, c’est répondre à la question fondamentale de la philosophie. Le reste, si le monde a trois dimensions, si l’esprit a neuf ou douze catégories, vient ensuite (Camus, 1942, 17).

6. In line with Heidegger’s distinction between the question of the Ort of the transcendental and its problem, Husserl goes on to briefly tackle the issue of the un-­ intelligibility of the entities (“the nomos of the transcendental”). Husserl plays with two expressions: with both Unverständlichkeit (which emerges in the section of the lecture corresponding to the content of the Fourth Meditation) and Selbst-­ Verständlichkeit (which is on the contrary evoked right at the beginning, in the section corresponding to the line of thought of Meditation I). Let us see the latter first. If I decide to follow Descartes’ example, I discover to my astonishment something that is self-evident (Selbstverständlichkeit) and yet has been noticed or expressed before, namely, that a universal belief in being flows through and sustains my entire life. […] The being of “the” world is what we constantly take for granted in its never-ending self-evidence (beständige Selbstverständlichkeit); it is

 On this, see the beautiful pages by Chiodi, 2007, 182 and ff. More generally, the works by Pietro Chiodi (the first Italian translator of Being and Time) on the Husserl-Heidegger relation are still, though written in the 50 s, extremely topical and insightful.  17

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1  Confusion and Obscurity of the Subjects the never expressed presupposition. Its source, to be sure, is universal experience, with its constant certitude about being (Hua XXVII, 169; Husserl, 1997, 490).

Two things should be immediately emphasized. First of all, the fact that Husserl talks of the world: Husserl is not referring to a possible world (hence, to a plurality thereof), but rather of this world, the one and only real world in which we, human beings, exist. It might sound like a quite irrelevant point to make, but we will see how crucial this will turn out to be when it comes to addressing and explaining the core claims of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Secondly, the concept of “self-­ evidence” should be understood in a specific sense; the Selbst-Verständlichkeit should be taken at face value: up to this very moment, the “intelligibility” (Verständlichkeit) of the being of the world has been taken for something that stems from the world “itself” (Selbst) or, to put it better, that goes without saying, thus functioning as a presupposition. In short, we have never really concerned ourselves with the question of what it means that the being of this world is intelligible. It is in order to address this question that the lonely meditator embarks on a long and laborious journey. Later on, in the section that corresponds to Meditation IV, the meditator proposes the following, crucial reflection: Recognition of transcendental relativity of all being, and accordingly the entire world in its being (der ganzen seienden Welt), may be unavoidable, but when it is formally set forth in this way, it is completely unintelligible (unverständlich). And it will remain so if from the start we allow ourselves to use the kind of argumentation that has always been the cure of the so-called “theory of knowledge.” But have we not already concretely (konkret) disclosed transcendental subjectivity as a field of experience and a field of cognition related to that as their ground? In doing this, have we not, in fact, actually opened up the way to solve the new transcendental enigma of the world? This transcendental enigma is quite different from all the other puzzles about the world in the usual sense; it consists precisely in the unintelligibility (Unverständlichkeit) with which transcendental relativity strikes us from the very start as well as when we discover the transcendental attitude and the transcendental ego. The starting point is not at all an end point. In any case, it is clear now what we have to do to transform it into something intelligible (Verständlichkeit), and thus to arrive at a really concrete (konkreten) and radically grounded knowledge of the world. We must embark on a systematic study of concrete transcendental subjectivity (konkreten transzendentalen Subjektivität), and specifically we must pose the question of how transcendental subjectivity in itself brings about the sense and validity of the objective world (Hua XXVII, 175–176; Husserl, 1997, 496).

The passage relies upon a series of fine-grained distinctions that is quite easy to overlook, thereby obtaining a quite naive picture of Husserl’s conceptuality and intentions. Let us proceed step by step. It is clear that what Husserl calls “transcendental relativity” is not at all the solution but rather the problem to be addressed. In short, it is far from Husserl to propose the thesis that the initial Selbst-Verständlichkeit of the world (of any world) would become verständlich as soon as it is assumed as the correlate of the transcendental subjectivity (transcendental relativity). Quite the contrary. For as soon as the world (any world) is assumed as transcendentally

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relative to the subject, its taken-for-granted being becomes “unintelligible” and is now in need of a higher form of Verständlichkeit (this is very apparent in Husserl’s draft of a letter to Lévy-Bruhl of 1935 in Husserl, 1994b, 16418). This can be attained if and only if we “arrive at a really concrete (konkreten) and radically grounded knowledge of the world”: only the investigation of the “concrete transcendental subjectivity” is able to overcome the Unverständlichkeit of the world. Accordingly, the concrete transcendental subject (which Husserl also calls “the concretely full being”) is not equivalent to the thesis of “transcendental relativity” (for the former is wider than the latter and includes it within itself). This becomes even more apparent if we consider that in these pages Husserl distinguishes between “transcendental” and “absolute attitude” (absolute Einstellung) (see Hua XXVII, 174–175; Husserl, 1997, 495). The former is the one in which the world’s own “transcendental relativity” is ascertained; the latter is the one in which “the concretely full being” is eventually taken into account. The Selbst-Verständlichkeit of the world (of any world) becomes unverständlich as it is discovered to be transcendentally relative to the subject; hence, it acquires a new and higher Verständlichkeit as the concrete form of knowledge of it is obtained. The way in which Husserl frames the question of the nomos of the transcendental requires a distinction between two phases: a first phase in which the “correlation” between consciousness and the cogitatum is mapped out and investigated (Hua XXVII, 177; Husserl, 1997, 496); a second phase in which the concretely full being is finally determined. As we will see in the course of the next few chapters, this distinction perfectly corresponds to the trajectory of the Cartesian Meditations: while the first phase can be found in Meditations II and III; the second phase is unfolded in Meditation IV. It is also clear to what extent such new perspective does not perfectly overlap with the one offered in 1927 and on which Heidegger was mainly commenting. There, the notion of unintelligibility was employed in relation to the concept of a world understood “in-itself”; and the “essential relativity to consciousness” was taken to be its solution (see the excerpt quoted above from the second draft of the Encyclopedia Britannica article). Here, the relativity is no longer presented as the solution, but rather as the actual source of the very unintelligibility of the world.

7. We should finally have a full-fledged perspective on the Husserl-Heidegger discussion, notably, what they reproach one another for as well as the way in which Husserl, in 1931, publically and ideally responds to all the questions raised by Heidegger in his letter of 1927. As for Heidegger’s questions, they revolved around  Here Husserl quite explicitly contends that phenomenology discovers the Selbst-Verständlichkeit of the world to be something unverständlich, an enigma and a problem in need of a higher form of intelligibility: the sequence being Selbst-Verständlichkeit—Unverständlichkeit—Verständlichkeit. 18

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two major correlated problems, which we labeled the locus of the transcendental and the nomos of the transcendental respectively. And while the latter concerns the un-intelligibility of the being of the world, hence the sense of its relativity, the former embraces two distinct yet interconnected issues. As Heidegger presents his questions to Husserl, it becomes clear that the locus-issue points to both the problem of establishing the entity in which (as Heidegger puts it) the transcendental harbors and that of the very mode of being of what does the constitution (= the transcendental subject itself). Within such context, his main critical objection bears on the former. The psychological misconception or misunderstanding of the entity (in which the transcendental harbors) implies the misconception of the transcendental subject itself; hence, Husserl’s thesis that phenomenology and psychology coincide Satz für Satz. Four years later Husserl indirectly responds to Heidegger (among others) and publically launches his attack. As a matter of fact, not only does the locus-problem turn out to have undergone a systematic re-elaboration (first presented in the Cartesian Meditations); the question of the nomos is described in a much more fine-­ grained way. Husserl acknowledges that the locus is that of the “concrete human being” as well as that the world’s relativity to consciousness is not per se the solution to the issue of the un-intelligibility of the being of the world. Based on this, the distinction between the concrete human being, the concrete transcendental subjectivity, and my Dasein as a human being allows him to reject all the attempts at reforming phenomenology by placing the essence of human beings at its very foundation. For they all overlook the distinction between the first and the second species of subject. Moreover, we also mentioned that Heidegger, for Husserl, also overlook or, better: conflates the second and the third types of subjectivity.19 As a result of this state of affairs, Husserl’s distinction between three subjects should be always kept in mind, were we to appreciate the scope of his critique of Heidegger (Fig.1.1). Heidegger is not Brutus, nor is Husserl our Anthony. The point is not to decide whose speech tells the truth, and who is the “traitor” and who the “honorable man” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, III).20 We do not know whether they misunderstood each other’s philosophical claims and ideas; or, if this turned out to be the (a) “I , this human being, am the one...” (b.1) Consciousness-world correlation (b) Transcendental subjectivity (b.2) The concretely full being (c) My Dasein as a human being

Fig. 1.1  Husserl’s three subjects

 For a discussion of Husserl on Heidegger’s Dasein that would differ from ours, see Overgaard, 2004, 142 and ff. 20  As is apparent, expressions such as Heidegger überwindet Husserl (Schmitz, 1996, 173 and ff.) do not at all belong to our vocabulary. For a more refined interpretation of the Husserl-Heidegger relation, see Chiodi, 2007, 151–171. 19

References

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case, whether they did so intentionally or not (we have no interest in their psychology here).21 It is not possible to decide whether Heidegger’s 1927 letter actually prompted Husserl to change position and better present his views (we will have to come back to this). All we can affirm is that Heidegger sticks his finger in a series of quite thorny issues, and these issues are precisely those that Husserl will tackle in his lecture of 1931. An important result follows from our reconstruction thus far, i.e., that if there is any place where to look for Husserl’s “response” to the conception of phenomenology first publically presented by Heidegger in Being and Time, it can only be the Cartesian Meditations.22

References AA.VV. (1932). La phénoménologie. Journées d’études de la Société Thomiste. Les Éditions du Cerf. Alweiss, L. (2003). The world unclaimed. A challenge to Heidegger’s critique of Husserl. Ohio University Press. Becker, O. (1927). Mathematische Existenz. Untersuchung zur Logik und Ontologie mathematischer Phänomene. Max Niemeyer. Becker, O. (1929). Die Hinfälligkeit des Schönen und die Abenteuerlichkeit des Künstlers. In Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. Ergänzungsband: Husserl-­ Festschrift (pp. 27–52). Max Niemeyer. Blecha, I. (2003). Edmund Husserl a česká filosofie. Nakladatelství Olomouc. Camus, A. (1942). Le mythe de Sisyphe. Gallimard. Carella, V. (2021). Animalità del soggetto, soggettività animale. Il contributo della fenomenologia di Edmund Husserl a un’etica per l’ambiente. Orthotes. Chiodi, P. (2007). Esistenzialismo e filosofia contemporanea. Edizioni della Normale. Crowell, S. G. (2001). Husserl, Heidegger and the space of meaning. Paths toward transcendental phenomenology. Northwestern University Press. Dahlstrom, D. (2005). Heidegger’s Transcendentalism. Research in Phenomenology, 35, 29–54. De Santis, D. (2018). Le conclusioni della filosofia del conoscere. Appunti sul programma “razionalista” di Husserl e Bontadini. Bolletino Filosofico, 33, 185–207. Farges, J., & Pradelle, D. (Eds.). (2019). Husserl. Phénoménologies et fondements des sciences. Hermann. Gadamer, H.-G. (1987). Neuere Philosophie I. Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger. J. C. B. Mohr. Gentile, G. (1922). Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere. Laterza. Heffernan, G. (2016). A tale of two schisms: Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s move into transcendental idealism. The European Legacy, 21, 556–575. Heidegger, M. (2000). Briefe an Julius Stenzel (1928–1932). Heidegger Studies, 16, 11–33.  For a list of all the most popular and commonplace assumptions about the Husserl-Heidegger relation, see Herskowitz, 2020, in particular 499 and ff. 22  See also the following still unpublished letter to Koyré (October 21, 1929): “I’m here [in Tremezzo] with my wife for three weeks… But really, I continue to work… Ms. Pfeiffer informed me unfortunately that she would not finish the translation until the new year. Accordingly I will include parts of the German edition for the sake of my French friends. For the German readers I intend, à la Descartes, to add Objectiones and Responsiones, not sure how, but in any case I will have to tackle Dilthey—Misch and Heidegger’s Method, likewise Scheler’s misunderstandings” (quoted in Janes & Luft, 2020, 255). 21

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Heidegger, M., & Jaspers, K. (1992). Briefwechsel 1920–1963. Serie Piper. Herskowitz, D. M. (2020). The Husserl-Heidegger relationship in the Jewish imagination. Jewish Quarterly Review, 110, 491–522. Husserl, E. (1962). Phänomenologische Psychologie (Hua IX). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1968). Briefe an Roman Ingarden. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937) (Hua XXVII). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994a). Briefwechsel. Die Freiburger Schüler (Hua-Dok III/4). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994b). Briefwechsel. Philosophenbriefe (Hua-Dok III/6). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994c). Briefwechsel. Die Göttinger Schule (Hua-Dok III/3). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1997). Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Springer. Jacobs, H. (2015). From psychology to pure phenomenology. In A. Staiti (Ed.), Commentary on Husserl’s ideas I (pp. 97–120). De Gruyter. Janes, J., & Luft, S. (2020). Die angebliche Frage nach dem “Sein des Seienden.” An Unknown Husserlian Response to Heidegger’s “Question of Being”. In M. Burch & I. McMullin (Eds.), Transcending reason: Heidegger on rationality (pp. 237–258). Rowman & Littlefield. Kaufmann, F. (1930). Der Mensch in Philosophie und Dichtung unserer Tage. Der Morgen, 6, 157–170. Lipps, H. (1976). Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis. Werke I. Vittorio Klostermann. Majolino, C. (2008). Des signes et des phénomènes. Husserl, l’intrigue des deux psychologies et le sujet transcendantal. In C. Majolino & F. de Gandt (Eds.), Lectures de la Krisis de Husserl (pp. 163–195). Vrin. Melandri, E. (1960). Logica e esperienza in Husserl. Il mulino. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2008). Phénoménologie de la perception. Gallimard. Misch, G. (1967). Lebensphilosophie und Phänomenologie. Eine Auseinandersetzung der Diltheyschen Richtung mit Heidegger und Husserl. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Overgaard, S. (2004). Husserl and Heidegger on being in the world. Springer. Reiner, H. (1931). Phänomenologie und menschliche Existenz. Max Niemeyer. Rizo-Patrón de Lerner, R. (2012). Husserl en diálogo. Lecturas y debates. Fondo editorial, Pontificia universidad católica del Perú. Scaravelli, L. (1999). La logica gentiliana dell’astratto. Rubbettino editore. Schmitz, H. (1996). Husserl und Heidegger. Bouvier. Stein, E. (2000). Selbstbildnis in Briefen I (1916–1933). Herder. Stein, E. (2014). „Freiheit und Gnade“ und weiter Beitrage zu Phänomenologie und Ontologie (ESGA 9). Herder. Stein, E. (2015). Briefe an Roman Ingarden (ESGA 4). Herder. von Herrmann, F. W. (2000). Hermeneutik und Reflexion. Der Begriff der Phänomenologie beig Heidegger und Husserl. Vittorio Klostermann.

Chapter 2

Concreteness of the Subject: Dasein

1. Having established as the two reference points of our ellipse the 1927 letter from Heidegger and the lecture of 1931 by Husserl, our study will try from now on to move concentrically, so to speak, revolving sometimes around the first reference point, sometimes around the second. This being pointed out, there is one aspect in particular concerning Husserl’s attack that needs to be addressed anew, for it has always been deemed his most questionable thesis, i.e., the claim that Heidegger’s “analytics of Dasein” is a philosophical anthropology or an anthropology sic et simpliciter.1 If Heidegger had invested all his energy, right at the beginning of Being and Time, in showing why the analytics of Dasein is not an anthropology, how could Husserl fall prey to such misunderstanding, thereby accusing Heidegger of espousing a position that he had already, and quite accurately (as one might add), rejected? Karl Löwith had just demonstrated with his habilitation (Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen) of 1928 that one could explicitly employ the toolbox of Being and Time to develop a “philosophical anthropology.” Whether Husserl had any familiarity with this work, we do not know. Nevertheless, it is important to remark that Löwith explicitly presents the claim of laying out “the anthropological ‘basis’ of philosophy” as “truly plausible” (Löwith, 2016, 86–87). Yet, it is no less true that, in Heidegger’s opinion, Löwith’s (and Becker’s) “application” of the analytics of Dasein “pushes my work towards directions that never belonged to it” (in denen sie sich nie bewegte). As Heidegger objected to Löwith, in fact, “the  For example, at the end of the second part of Vom Wesen des Grundes (which Husserl knew, since it was published in the Festschrift for his birthday), a long footnote rejects vehemently the “misinterpretation” of the analytics of Dasein in terms eines anthropozentrischen Standpunktes (see Heidegger, 1929, p. 100). It is important to note that here Heidegger is interested in dismissing the mis-interpretation of the “central” position which Daseins’ transcendence would occupy (im Zentrum), rather than the one concerning its essence (das Wesen des Daseins). 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_2

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anthropological interpretation” is possible only “upon the basis of a clarified ontological problematic” (Heidegger & Löwith, 2017, 150–151). How Heidegger construes of the relation between the analytics of Dasein and anthropology can be fleshed out after reading the very first paragraphs of Being and Time. The beginning of §10 seems to echo the words that, as just seen, Heidegger will employ against Löwith: “In distinguishing the existential analytic from anthropology, psychology and biology, we shall confine ourselves to what is in principle the fundamental ontological question. Therefore, our distinctions will be of necessity inadequate for a ‘theory of science’ simply because the scientific structure of the above-mentioned disciplines […] has today become completely questionable, and needs new impulses which must arise from the ontological problematic” (Heidegger, 1967, 45; 2010a, 45). As far as this text is concerned, and regardless of the reasons why Heidegger claims that “the scientific structure” of anthropology, psychology and biology has become questionable, one thing is clear: the analytics of Dasein is expected to give to those sciences a new Anstoß, to push them in a new direction. As he remarks that the distinction between those disciplines is of necessity inadequate from the standpoint of a “theory of science,” it might be the case that what he intends to suggest is that the analytics of Dasein will lay out the foundation for a new, more ontologically adequate distinction between those sciences’ fields of research. In sum, the analytics of Dasein will lay out a new ontological basis for better differentiating the concepts of human being, psyche and life, thereby allowing for a better ontologically grounded distinction between anthropology, psychology, and biology.

2. The overall argument unfolded in §10 (How the Analytic of Dasein is to be Distinguished from Anthropology, Psychology, and Biology) can be divided into two parts. Heidegger first quickly clarifies, “historically,” what the analytics of Dasein would intend to achieve; then, he addresses the positions of Dilthey and Bergson, Husserl and Scheler. Let us start off with the former because it will confirm one of the theses advanced in the previous chapter. Historically, the intention of the existential analytics can be clarified by considering Descartes, to whom one attributes the discovery of the cogito sum as the point of departure for all modern philosophical questioning. He investigates the cogitare of the ego, within certain limits. But the sum he leaves completely undiscussed, even though it is just as primordial as the cogito. Our analytics raises the ontological question of the being of the sum. Only when the sum is defined does the manner of the cogitationes become comprehensible (Heidegger, 1967, 45–46; 2010a, 45).

Although Heidegger hastens to add that this “historical exemplification” may be misleading (for the reader might be under the impression that Dasein will turn out

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to be a variation upon the concept of ego or substance), the quotation confirms that, from Husserl’s standpoint, also for Heidegger what was at stake is ultimately the legacy of Descartes, the correct determination of the ego cogito, notably, the sum as “the point of departure” for all possible philosophical questioning (see Chiodi, 2007, 235 and ff., for an insightful analysis of these problems). In this respect, what is the problem with Husserl’s own account, as Heidegger himself presents it here? Despite all their differences in questioning, development and orientation of the world-­ views, the interpretations of personality found in Husserl and Scheler agree in what is negative. They no longer ask the question about “the being of the person.” […] The person is not a thing, not a substance, not an object. Here Scheler emphasizes the same thing which Husserl is getting at when he requires for the unity of the person a constitution essentially different from that of things of nature. What Scheler says of the person, he applies to acts as well. “An act is never also an object, for it is the nature of the being of acts only to be experienced in the process itself and given in reflection.” […] In any case, the person is given as the agent of intentional acts which are connected by the unity of sense. Thus psychical being has nothing to do with the being of a person. […] But the critical question cannot stop at this. The question is about the being of the whole human being, whom one is accustomed to understand as the unity of body-psyche-spirit. Body, psyche, spirit might designate areas of phenomena which are thematically separable for the sake of determinate investigations; within certain limits their ontological indeterminacy might not be so important. But in the question of the being of Dasein, this cannot be summarily calculated in terms of the kinds of being of body, psyche and spirit which have yet first to be defined. And even for an ontological attempt which is to proceed in this way, some idea of the being of the whole would have to be presupposed (Heidegger, 1967, 48; 2010a, 47).

Besides the hasty association of Husserl’s position with Scheler’s view, it is interesting to emphasize how straightforwardly Heidegger attacks the concept of person, thereby immediately ruling out the hypothesis of directly equating person and Dasein, the fundamental analytics and any personalism whatsoever.2 As far as Heidegger is concerned, and regardless of the attempts recently made in this direction (Luft, 2005), the person cannot prima facie represent any response to the analytics of Dasein (if there must be such a thing). Interestingly, and as already mentioned in the previous chapter, based on the distinction between the locus of the transcendental (“I, this human being…”), the concretely full being, and the human person or “my Dasein as a human being,” Husserl clearly identifies person and Dasein but only as the result of the ego’s own self-apperception and self-­ mundanization in the world. In short, Husserl identifies person and Dasein, thereby going explicitly against Heidegger’s own warning, yet only after the fundamental questioning. Moreover, and as a further confirmation, let us also mention in passing that when, in the Cartesian Meditations, the question of accounting for the concrete subjectivity  comes up, Husserl will refrain from calling the monad person (see Husserl, 1973, 102–103; 1993, 68); the turn of phrase “personal ego” is used to

 This is the reason why, unlike Øverenget, 1998, 107, we refrain from referring to Dasein as “a person” (of course, it must be noted that Øverenget’s strategy is primarily directed towards dismissing all those readings of Dasein that take it to be an “institution”) (Øverenget, 1998, 106). 2

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designate the ego as a (still abstract) “substrate of habitualities” and that of “personal character” to refer to its content instead (§32).3 From Heidegger’s vantage point, that of person is not a usable notion, not only because of the issues with Scheler’s and Husserl’s accounts, but, more generally, because of “the orientation thoroughly colored by the anthropology of Christianity and the ancient world, whose inadequate ontological foundation” has always and silently determined every form of personalism (see Heidegger, 1967, 48; 2010a, 47). Since there is no reason for us to expand upon such orientation (Heidegger, 1967, 48–49; 2010a, 47–48),4 the question can be raised, how is one to make sense of Husserl’s claim that the analytics of Dasein is a form of anthropology? It is in effect very difficult to resist the temptation to consider such a Husserlian thesis a crass misunderstanding, part of what has been labeled la dénégation permanente, par Husserl, de la critique heideggérienne de l’ego transcendentalement compris (Souche-Dagues, 1993, 123). Before a more substantial answer to such question is outlined, a terminological remark that bears upon Heidegger’s language and conceptuality, as it was familiar to Husserl at the time of his Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture, imposes itself.

3. If in Being and Time the phrase human Dasein appears only a few times (Heidegger, 1967, 198, 382, 401; 2010a, 191, 364, 381), thereby however suggesting the possible identification of the two (Dasein and der Mensch), in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics a quite different turn of phrase is introduced and systematically resorted to: das Dasein im Menschen, “the Dasein in the human being” (Heidegger, 1965, 233–238; 2010b, §41, 226–231). Unlike the expression menschliches Dasein, das Dasein im Menschen seems to suggest that what is meant by the locution Dasein should not be identified with the entity called: “human being.” It is found in it, just as it could be found, in theory, in some other entity. In this respect, Husserl would go fully astray. However, as Heidegger points out in §41, Dasein expresses itself primarily through the “understanding of being” (das Da) and its “original finitude”: “It is on the basis of the understanding of being that the human being is its Da, and with its being there takes place the revelatory irruption into the entity. […] More original than the human being is the finitude of Dasein in it” (see Heidegger, 1965,

 Surprisingly enough (also for Husserl himself), in one of the few footnotes that Being and Time dedicates to Husserl, Heidegger writes that, “The fundamental orientation of the problematic [the investigation of the ‘personality’] is already evident in the treatise: ‘Philosophy as a Rigorous Science,’ Logos 1 (1910), p. 319” (Heidegger, 1967, 47; 2010a, 46). What Heidegger has in mind is not clear, because the page he refers to does not even mention the concept of person, but merely rejects the naturalistic approach to the psyche (Husserl, 1987, 37–38). 4  For a more detailed discussion of this section, see Rodríguez, 2015, 51–70: La exposición de la tarea de un análisis preparatorio del Dasein (§§8–11) (the commentary is by Rodríguez himself). 3

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237; 2010b, 229). From this, Heidegger can draw the following, straightforward conclusion: “If the human being is only the human being upon the basis of the Dasein in it, then the question as to what is more primordial than the human being cannot be as a matter of principle an anthropological one. All anthropology, even the philosophical anthropology, has already posited the human being as a human being” (Heidegger, 1965, 237–238; 2010b, 229–230). Accordingly, and as long as we understand his line of thought, what Heidegger means to convey by the phrase das Dasein im Menschen is not that Dasein could be determined based upon any entity other than what we label “human being” or, to put it better: that there could be entities other than what we call “human being” that could be characterized (just like the latter) by das Dasein in ihnen, “the Dasein in them.”5 To put it differently: if the two concepts of Dasein and der Mensch do not coincide, it is not because, extensionally, there could possibly be entities other than human beings falling under the former. Rather, they do not coincide because “Dasein” designates what no anthropology will be ever able to grasp: la réalité-humaine dans l’homme in the words of H.  Corbin (Heidegger, 1938, 13). When the anthropologist sets out to investigate the human world, she or he has already always posited such more original determination, the already occurred “irruption into the entity” of Dasein’s Da (for the sense of Dasein’s transcendence, see Moran, 2015, 32 and ff.). If this is the case, a question immediately arises that needs to be addressed, albeit briefly: how is, on the contrary, the idea of a philosophical anthropology to be more closely characterized according to Heidegger? The question is addressed in §37 (The Idea of a Philosophical Anthropology), and is mostly (yet not exclusively) based upon a confrontation with Scheler. For the sake of our discussion here, the following text will suffice to show to what extent Heidegger’s rejection of philosophical anthropology seems to also already undermine Husserl’s future public critique. How, then, does an anthropology become philosophical? […] Certainly, an anthropology may be said to be philosophical if its method is philosophical, i.e., if it is pursued as the essential investigation of the human being. In this case,  If we feel the need to make this point, it is because on the basis of the above quotation from §41 one could claim that “Dasein ≠ der Mensch” and that “Dasein = finite, being-understanding entity.” If this were the case, Dasein would designate the mode of existence of any finite entity, the being of which is characterized by the understanding of being. Yet, the point for Heidegger is rather to argue that der Mensch is the only finite entity, the mode of being of which is characterized by the understanding of being. The point is crucial, because it is the one around which Edith Steins’ critique of Heidegger revolves. In a footnote to her Finite and Eternal Being (Stein, 1962, 21), Stein claims that the understanding of being does not characterize “finitude” per se taken (nicht zur Endlichkeit als solcher) because there also are finite entities that have no understanding of being whatsoever; rather, it belongs to those finite entities, the mode of being of which is of “personal and spiritual” nature (personal-geistiges Sein). “Human beings,” Stein goes on to point out contra Heidegger, are only one type of spiritual beings among others. One should first clarify what a personal and spiritual being in general is and how the understanding of being is connected to its ontological constitution; hence, one could also address the specific way in which human beings understand being. Otherwise, one might mistake the human understanding of the sense of being for the one and only determination of the sense of being in general. 5

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2  Concreteness of the Subject: Dasein anthropology strives to distinguish the entity that we call human being from plants, animals and every other type of entity, and by such delimitation it attempts to bring to light the specific essential constitution of this determined region of the entity. Philosophical anthropology becomes then a regional ontology of the human being, coordinated with other ontologies with which it shares the whole domain of the entity. Understood in this way, philosophical anthropology cannot be considered without any further explication the center of philosophy; above all, this last pretension cannot be based upon the internal problematic of this anthropology (Heidegger, 1965, 217–218; 2010b, 210–211).

The excerpt, and more generally the entire paragraph are the abridged version of a very long series of arguments that Heidegger will present to his students during the SS 1929 (see Heidegger, 1997a, 10–48). Now, expressions such as Wesensbetrachtung, Wesensverfassung, and Region des Seienden leave no room for doubt about the impossibility of regarding even just as plausible Husserl’s future reproach. If by “philosophical anthropology” we designate the eidetic science of human beings, the latter understood as a specific region of entities, then Husserl’s talk of philosophical anthropology to embrace Heidegger’s analytics of Dasein would be misleading, if not even erroneous. And, as we know from the previous chapter, Husserl will speak of “a doctrine of the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein.” Would it not then be the case  that the vexata quaestio concerns prima facie, not the human determination of Dasein, but rather the attempt at determining it eidetically? As a matter of fact, we are under the strong impression that when Heidegger dismisses the idea of a philosophical anthropology and when, on the contrary, Husserl accuses Heidegger of embracing a philosophical anthropology, they are referring to two different questions. On the one hand, there is Husserl pointing the finger of blame at the human determination of Dasein; on the other, there is Heidegger rejecting the ambition to determine das Dasein im Menschen eidetically as a region of entities. As one of Husserl’s Randbemerkungen on §4 of Being and Time reads: “Dasein, Human Being” (Husserl, 1994, 12; 1997, 281). But it would be a mistake to believe that they are simply misunderstanding each other’s points (especially if we look at the dispute through Husserl’s eyes). For this would presuppose that by 1931 Husserl’s own conception of the subject as a “region” is (still) the same as the one Heidegger may have had in mind when he composed, for instance, §37 of the Kantbuch. Let us take a step forward. After the publication of Being and Time (Heidegger & Jaspers, 1992, 77), Heidegger lectured on the basic concepts of his philosophical project in SS 1927. At the outset of what is now §12c (Basic Articulation of Being and Ontological Difference) of the lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, the following, long passage can be found: If Dasein displays an ontological constitution completely different from that of the present-­ at-­hand, and if to exist, in our terminological usage, means something other than existere and existentia (εἶναι), then it also becomes a question whether anything like Sachheit, essentia, οὐσία can belong to the ontological constitution of Dasein. Sachheit, realitas or quidditas is that which answers the question: quid est res, What is the materially determined object (Sache)? Even a rough consideration shows that the being that we ourselves are, the Dasein, cannot at all be interrogated as such by the question: what is this? We gain access to this being only if we ask: who is this? Dasein is not constituted by any whatness (Washeit)

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Fig. 2.1  Existentia/existieren distinction but, if we may coin such expression, whoness (Werheit). The answer does not give a materially determined object (Sache), but an I, You, We. But on the other hand we still ask: what is this who and this Whoness of Dasein, What is the Who in distinction from the aforementioned what in the narrower sense of the materially determined object (Sachheit) as a presence-­at-hand? No doubt we do ask such a question. But this only shows that this what, with which we also ask about the nature of the who, obviously cannot coincide with the what in the sense of whatness. In other words, the basic concept of essentia, whatness, first becomes really problematic in the face of the being we call the Dasein. […] It is not only the question of the relationship between whatness and presence-at-hand but at the same time the question of the relationship between whoness and existence, existence understood in our sense as the mode of being of the entity that we ourselves are (Heidegger, 1997b, 169–170; 1988a, 119–120).

If we combine this long passage with the former excerpt from §37 of the Kantbuch, our thesis is confirmed that what Heidegger is rejecting under the heading “philosophical anthropology” is the eidetic-regional account of Dasein. The “fundamental articulation of being” between What and Who results in the equally fundamental distinction between existentia and Existieren (Fig. 2.1). Nevertheless, a fundamental difficulty in Heidegger’s arguments should not be overlooked; for he recognizes that even in the case of Dasein’s Who-ness, the question is asked, “What is the Who…?” In short, even in the case of that entity that does not display any “essence” in the sense of the οὐσία, essentia and quidditas, the eidetically-sounding question concerning its Who is being asked.6

4. If this is the case, then it should be firmly asserted that Heidegger is not rejecting the possibility of determining Dasein eidetically (for this is what he is de facto doing by asking the question of the What of the Who). Since he himself remarks that the issue here “is… at the same time the question of the relationship between whoness and existence,” the conclusion should be firmly drawn that what he is dismissing is that eidetic investigation of Dasein that would claim to determine the essence of the who as if it were a what, thereby taking its existence as a mere empirical realization. It is the view according to which l’existence s’ajoute à l’essence (Gilson, 2000, 130). To  For the essence-existence distinction in these lectures, with a special focus on Heidegger’s discussion of medieval philosophy, see Bernasconi, 1994, 128–133. 6

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go the other way around: Heidegger is rejecting the idea that the What of Dasein (the What of the Who) could be ascertained and eidetically determined by considering its existence as something to be abstracted from (as if the Existieren were merely a mode of the existentia).7 Only an eidetic investigation able to do justice to the radical discrepancy between Existieren and existentia could succeed in fixing “the What of the Who.” As it will soon be evident, what is at stake here (as well as in the Cartesian Meditations) is the question of the subject’s individuation (as part of the problem of its concreteness). Yet, before we address this point, let us take a look at how these problems were first presented in Being and Time. We are still trying to shed light on how one is supposed to make sense of Husserl’s critique of the analytics of Dasein as a philosophical anthropology. It should be clear by now that, while from the Husserlian vantage point, the issue consists in the determination of the transcendental subject as a human Dasein (= confusion between three forms of subjectivities), for Heidegger the reproach is untenable. It is untenable to the extent that, by referring to the “essence” of Dasein, it would be assuming that the analytics of Dasein treats the Who as a What, and that for Heidegger himself Dasein would be something like a Sache falling under a “region.” But this is precisely the confusion that Heidegger wanted to avoid in §9 of Being and Time (The Theme of the Analytics of Dasein). The problem had already been touched upon in §4 (on The Ontic Priority of the Question of Being), and is now more systematically addressed. In what follows, a few passages are quoted from both paragraphs. We shall call the very being to which Dasein can relate in one way or another, and somehow always relate, existence (Existenz). And since the essential definition (Wesensbestimmung) of this entity cannot be accomplished by ascribing to it a material what (eines sachhaltigen Was), and since its essence (Wesen) lies rather in the fact that it has always to be its being as its own, the term Dasein, as a pure expression of being, has been chosen to designate this entity (Heidegger, 1967, §4, 12; 2010a, 11). The “essence” (Wesen) of this entity lies in its to be. The what-ness (Was-sein) (essentia) of this entity must be understood starting from its being (aus seinem Sein) (existentia) insofar as one can speak of it at all. Here the ontological task is precisely to show that when we choose the word existence for the being of this entity, this term does not and cannot have the ontological meaning of the traditional expression of existentia. According to the tradition, existentia ontologically means presence-at-hand, a kind of being which is essentially (wesensmäßig) inappropriate to characterize the entity that has the character of Dasein. We  In the book of 1929 on Kant, Heidegger will put all of this as follows: “That such a problematic exists can be verified by referring to a situation which has always existed in philosophy but which has been accepted all too easily as self-evident. It is first relative to its being-what (Was-sein) (τί ἐστιν) that we define and examine the entity which is manifest to us in every mode of comportment we exhibit toward it. In the language of philosophy, this being-what is termed essentia (Wesen). It renders the entity possible in that which it is. This is why what constitutes the Sachheit of a thing (realitas) is designated as its possibilitas (intrinsic possibility). The appearance (εἶδος) of an entity informs us as to what it is. Consequently, the being-what of an entity is termed ἰδέα. In connection with every entity there arises the question, unless it has already been answered, as to whether it, the entity having this determinate being-what, is or is not. Therefore, we also determine an entity relative to the fact ‘that it is’ (ὅτι ἔστιν) which in the usual terminology of philosophy is expressed as existentia (actuality)” (Heidegger, 1965, 230–231; 2010b, 223). 7

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cannot avoid confusion by always using the interpretative expression presence-at-hand for the term existentia, and by attributing existence as a determination of being only to Dasein. The “essence” (Wesen) of Dasein lies in its existence. The characteristics to be found in this entity are hence not present “attributes” (Eigenschaften) of an entity present-at-hand having such and such an “outward appearance,” but rather possible ways for it to be, and only this. All being-thus (So-sein) of this entity is primarily being. Thus, the term “Dasein,” which we use to designate this entity, does not express its what (Was)—as is the case of a table, house, tree—but rather its being (Heidegger, 1967, §9, 42; 2010a, 41–42). Existentials and categories are the two fundamental possibilities of the characteristics of being. The entity, which corresponds to them, requires different ways of primary interrogation. Entities are a who (existence) or else a what (presence-at-hand in the broadest sense) (Heidegger, 1967, §9, 45; 2010a, 44).

With respect to the passage from the 1927 lectures, here it is evident that Heidegger means to question not only the traditional conception of existentia but also that of essence. Yet, it is also quite apparent that Heidegger needs to keep speaking of Wesen, though sometimes in quotation marks (“”). How could it be otherwise, if the analytics of Dasein is expected to expose “the a priori which must be visible if the question: ‘What is human being?’ is to be discussed philosophically”? (see Heidegger, 1967, 45; 2010a, 44). Dasein has a Wesen, a So-sein and even a relevant Wesensbestimmung8; and yet, such essence and essential definition or determination do not consist in a Was and Was-Sein, i.e., a series of attributes (Eigenschaften). Its Wesen is such that any attempt at assigning to it a series of attributes is “essentially (wesensmäßig) inappropriate.”9

5. Essence, being-thus, what, attributes (Wesen, So-sein, Was, Eigenschaften): these are the central concepts of the phenomenological ontology systematically developed not only in the writing of Husserl, but also of Jean Hering and Roman Ingarden  See the end of §27, where the authentic being a self is called essential existential (Heidegger, 1967, 130; 2010a, 126). 9  In this respect, Gadamer’s account of the difference between Husserl and Heidegger is to be partially, if not “fully” revised (Gadamer, 1990, 259 and ff.). If it might still make sense to contrast Heidegger’s factual life with Husserl’s pure ego from Ideas I, we should no longer contend that while Husserl holds on to the idea of the ego having an eidos, Heidegger takes Dasein’s “facticity” to be irreducible to any eidetic investigation. As we have just seen, the eidetic determination of Dasein is an issue that Heidegger himself struggles with, precisely to avoid conceiving of the analytics as an empirical enterprise. By the same token, and as we will better see in Chap. 4 of the present volume, Husserl, too, comes to admit that the task of eidetically determining the ego as a concrete monad is a problematic one. Of course, all these questions are easily overlooked if we keep regarding The Crisis of European Sciences, and not the Cartesian Meditations, as the actual “reply” to Heidegger’s hermeneutics of Dasein. On the Crisis and the life-world, see Gadamer, 1987, 128, 147–159 (Die Wissenschaft von der Lebenswelt); and also von Herrmann, 2004, 44–65 (Lebenswelt und In-der-Welt-Sein). 8

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(to name but a few). By speaking of Wesen and So-sein, while at the same time denying that these consist of “attributes,” Heidegger is both turning that tradition upside-down and confirming that he is still part of it. As he would quite likely put it, since Dasein is not an entity having a determinable “what;” its “essence,” which it nevertheless has, cannot consist of a system of “attributes.” To think otherwise would amount to ascribing to it something “essentially” (wesensmäßig) inappropriate, something inappropriate to its Wesen. Although it is not our intention to present a full cartography of the phenomenological ontology as Heidegger must have had it in mind when he wrote these pages (see Volume 2, Chap. 2), a few remarks on the concepts of essence, being-thus and attribute in Husserl, Hering and Ingarden could be very useful. Let us take Husserl’s Ideas I as our point of departure. “Essence” (Wesen) initially designated what is to be found in the being that is proper to an individual as its What (Was). Each such “What,” however, can be “put into an idea.” Experiential or individual intuition can be transformed into intuition of essence (ideation), a possibility that is itself to be understood, not as empirical, but rather as an essential one. What is discerned is then the corresponding pure essence or eidos, whether it be the highest category or a particularization of the latter, down to the full concretion (zur vollen Konkretion) (Husserl, 1976, 13; 2014, 11).

It is crucial to stress the parallel between, on the one hand, essence and pure essence or eidos and, on the other, individual intuition and intuition of essence. If what is given to the famous intuition of essence is called pure essence, what Husserl labels essence sic et simpliciter (= Wesen) is the What of an individual given to an individual intuition. The fact that Husserl speaks of Individuum (see §15 of Ideas I) means that Wesen designates a “set” of essential properties belonging to a “highest category” and as they are realized in an individual hic et nunc. In a series of early lectures, with which it is unlikely that Heidegger had any familiarity, Husserl calls such individualized essential properties Eigenschaften (Husserl, 2003, 108). Moreover, Husserl refers to the transition from the “individual intuition” to the “intuition of essence” as an act of ideation (in Idee setzen). Now, even if it would be quite reasonable to take the outset of §9 of Being and Time to be nothing but a direct critique of the Husserlian pages just recalled, a quick look at the ontology developed by Jean Hering in his Remarks on Essence, Essentiality and the Idea of 1921 will convince us that the remarks made by Heidegger in §9 have a far broader reach than it might at first appear. Hering’s booklet, originally written as the Appendix to his dissertation Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori. Eine philosophische Studie (De Santis, 2020), consists of three chapters, dedicated to the concepts of individual essence (Wesen), essentiality or eidos and the idea (Idee) respectively. As the reader goes through the booklet, he or she will immediately realize that if the concept of essence, in particular its structure, seems to be merely assumed as a matter of fact at the beginning of the essay, it will retrospectively receive full clarification by the discussion of the idea in the last chapter. This is the reason for its tripartite structure. While the first chapter presents the main properties of the individual essence, the second one addresses the

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non-­individual eide or essentialities, and analyzes the many different species of relations holding between them (e.g., compatibility, incompatibility, non-­ independence, etc.). Finally, the last chapter introduces the concept of “idea,” the “content” of which is such and such a system of essentialities or eide and thanks to which objects are categorized and grouped together into regions and sub-regions (see Hering, 1921, 531; 2021, 90–90). The task of the ontologies is that of studying neither individual essences nor the essentialities per se. Rather, study “ideas,” the content of which is made up by a relevant relation between eide. Now, if the question were, What does Hering mean by essence?, the answer would sound: the “system” and “set” (Bestand) of “characteristics” (Merkmale) or “features” (Züge) that belong to an object in its individuality hic et nunc (Hering, 1921, 496–497). In both versions of his essay, Hering employs ποῖον εἶναι and So-Sein as synonyms for the essence: “An object’s being-so (ποῖον εἶναι), the complete ensemble of which coincides with its essence” (Hering, 1921, 496; 2021, 55). We insist on speaking of individual essence, because Hering presents what he calls the fundamental principle of the essence as follows: “Every object […] has one and only one essence, which, as its essence, makes up the fullness of the specific character constituting it”; “Every essence, in accordance with its sense, is essence of something, and indeed essence of this something, and of no other” (see Hering, 1921, 497; 2021, 57). Two fully identical objects, Hering would go on to add, “have two identical essences, yet not the one and the same essence” (even though they are both red roses). This being preliminarily pointed out (for a more detailed discussion, see De Santis, 2014, 2015, 2016), for the sake of our topics it is the notion of idea that matters the most. If for Husserl the act of ideation gives the pure essence or eidos, for Hering the result of such operation is on the contrary a more or less general idea, yet having as its own content a certain system of eide. As he writes, “‘This lamp’ as idea or, as we may also put it, this lamp (posited) as idea is not to be thought of as a single lamp. It is ἀγέννητος, ἀνώλεθρος, ἀκίνητος, and does not belong to reality. But it has something within itself that makes comprehensible why it has been designated as the prototype of its individualizations” (Hering, 1921, 528; 2021, 86–87; trans. mod.). The goal of the eidetic scientist à la Hering is to investigate the content of the ideas, i.e., the many relations in which eide stand to one another: the idea is individualized in an individual object, or a multiplicity thereof; the corresponding eide are by contrast realized in them via the idea itself and its content. At this point the concept of essence as Essenz is brought in as something distinct from essence in the sense of Wesen and in opposition to Existenz (Hering, 1921, 529). While one could be tempted to believe that the idea is nothing but the thing itself, yet freed from its existence (losgelöst von seiner wie immer gearteten Existenz), the state of affairs is far more nuanced than this. Even if it is true that by Essenz Hering means the content of the idea as it corresponds to the Wesen of the object in which it is “individualized” (e.g., Ingarden speaks of a Widerspiegelung of the individual object’s qualities in the idea’s content (Ingarden, 1925, 175)), the idea embraces “the entire qualification of its exemplars” (Hering, 1921, 529)—including the mode in which the exemplars exist. As Hering himself points out, “The thing, as

34 Fig. 2.2 Hering’s ontology

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Eidos1 Eidos2 Eidos3 Eidos

IDEA

ESSENZ

4

Eidosn Realization

Individualization

Individual object (So-Sein or WESEN)

an idea, already displays an hic-et-nunc-moment” (Hering, 1921, 530; , 2021, 88; Ingarden, 1925, 182). Taking this statement as a point of departure, Ingarden will go as far as to recognize that the idea’s content includes, as a moment, “the modus existentiae of the object under consideration” (Ingarden, 1925, 177). Even if neither Hering nor Ingarden ever elaborate upon this point, the claim is unmistakable: the eidetic content of an idea, namely, the essence as Essenz is not indifferent vis-à-vis the mode of existence (Existenz and modus existentiae) of its exemplars (and their essence as Wesen).10 In sharp opposition to such line of thought, Heidegger will state in §9 that Dasein is not to be “constructed in terms of a concrete possible idea of existence (Idee von Existenz)” (Heidegger, 1967, 42; 2010a, 43) (with the term Idee to be assumed in the technical sense it displays in the works of Hering and Ingarden). A diagram could be sketched to better illustrate Hering’s fundamental distinctions (Fig. 2.2).

 This is what allows Ingarden to conceive of an ontology that deals with questions of existence, that is to say, with “existential-ontological problems” (see Ingarden, 1929, 163–170). See Ingarden’s letter to Stein from June 1929 in which he tries to explain to his friend the distinction between Seinsmodus as something concrete and existential moment (existentiales Moment) as something “abstract” and in need of “completion” (ergänzungsbedürftig) (see Stein, 2000, 96–98). That Ingarden and Hering were in touch and discussed these topics is shown by the recently discovered letters from Ingarden to Hering preserved at the Hering Archive, Fondation du Chapitre de Saint-Thomas, in Strasbourg (I am grateful to E. Mehl for sharing these documents with me). See Ingarden, 1926, from which it is clear that Hering regarded Ingarden’s Essentiale Fragen as a development (als einen Fortschritt) of his Bemerkungen. For an assessment of the distinction between “variable” and “constant” content of the idea according to Ingarden’s essay on the Essentiale Fragen, see De Santis, 2014, 85–96. Let us hasten to remark that we are aware of the possible objection according to which also Scheler (and its Formalismus) could be included in the list. However, our decision to limit our discussion to Hering and Ingarden (and Husserl) is based upon the conceptual triplet: Wesen—So-Sein—Essenz that, we would say, does not appear as such in Scheler’s ontology. 10

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6. We saw Heidegger speaking of Wesen or So-Sein in §9 of Being and Time. If we keep in mind that Hering, in the last chapter of his booklet, appeals to the expression Eigenschaft to designate the characteristics of the individual essence hic et nunc, yet regarded as the individualization of the content of the idea (Hering, 1921, 527; 2021, 86), then there can be little doubt about Hering, more than Husserl, being the real reference-point for Heidegger. Or, were we to advance a broader thesis, we would affirm that §9 of Being and Time directly tackles the version of the phenomenological ontology that was first laid out by Husserl in Ideas I, then further developed and systematized by both Hering and Ingarden.11 If Husserl never employs the term Eigenschaft in the first chapter of his 1913 text, Hering resorts to it a few times in 1921; finally, Ingarden will make systematic use of it to designate those “constitutive properties” (Ingarden, 1925, 138) that only determine an object as the object that it in general is. The totality of the properties (Gesamtheit der Eigenschaften) or ποῖον εἶναι, together with the τι εἶναι or constitutive nature (konstitutive Natur), determines the “essence” (Wesen) of the object as what corresponds to the ideal content of a relevant “idea” (see Ingarden, 1925, 193; for a systematic discussion of these concepts, see De Santis, 2014, 89 and ff.; 2015, 176 and ff.; see also Volume 2 of this work, Chap. 2). If we now come back to §9 of Being and Time, we can appreciate the complexity of the topic addressed by Heidegger. If our reconstruction thus far is on the right track, what we have obtained is more than the mere identification of the (implicit) target(s) of Heidegger’s critique.12 We can now understand in what sense, and to what extent, Heidegger’s attempt at determining the essence (Wesen) of Dasein was itself part of a tradition. In line with Hering, Heidegger admits that Dasein has an essence as Wesen and So-Sein; yet, he denies that this Wesen could consist of a series of properties understood as the Essenz realized hic et nunc in an existence. In this regard, the most crucial passage is the one in which Heidegger points out that, “All being-thus (So-Sein) of this entity is primarily being” (see Heidegger, 1967, 42; 2010a, 41–42): the essence (Wesen) of Dasein does not consist in having properties, but in being (-Sein) in such and such a manner (So-). If Hering and Ingarden would contend that the idea already contains the object’s modus existentiae (as one of the variable elements of the ideas’ “content” (Ingarden, 1925, 177)), or, to go the other way around: that the modus existentiae is itself relevant to the Essenz, Heidegger radicalizes such a line of thought, thus concluding: “The what-ness (essentia) of this entity must be  Further evidence supporting the thesis that Heidegger had direct familiarity with the work of these two philosophers will be produced in Volume 2, Chap. 2. 12  What we are proposing is an assessment of Heidegger’s position against the background of the phenomenological tradition. This does rule out the possibility of looking at Heidegger from the standpoint of different, older and more venerable traditions (see Uscatescu Barrón, 1992, 44–48, and his discussion of Medieval ontology (Der Hintergrund der Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen essentia und existentia)) 11

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understood starting from its being (existentia).” The mode of existence of Dasein is not a “moment” of its essentia (= the Essenz in Hering’s jargon); Dasein’s modus existentiae is what its essence actually consists of13 (see also Volume 2, Chap. 2, in which a more systematic confrontation of Heidegger’s position with that of Hering and, most importantly, Ingarden will be developed). It is not a coincidence that Stein acknowledges Dasein’s peculiarity of not having a distinguishable essence (…darf es kein vom Dasein unterschiedenes Wesen geben) (see Stein, 1962, 134) during an assessment of the concept of Wesen that reconnects to Hering’s booklet. Now, if this is the specific philosophical framework that Heidegger had in mind when, in Being and Time and Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, he rejected the hypothesis of understanding his analytics of Dasein as a “philosophical anthropology,” then it is evident why he could not accept at all Husserl’s 1931 reproach. From Heidegger’s own perspective, the allegation of wanting to lay out the foundations of philosophy through “a doctrine of the essence of human being’s concretely worldly Dasein,” this allegation, we were saying, would rely on a fundamentally wrong conception of Dasein, i.e., the one according to which Dasein has an essence in the same sense of a mere Sache. What in the expression “philosophical anthropology” bothers Heidegger the most is not the term anthropology, but rather the adjective philosophical, namely, the idea that the analytics of Dasein could be mistaken for the eidetic science of the region “human being.” By contrast, what in the very same expression bothers Husserl the most is not the attempt at founding philosophy on an eidetic science and a certain region of being, but rather the term anthropology, namely, the anthropological determination of the subject upon which that foundational attempt should allegedly build. Heidegger does not aim at founding philosophy on a region of being; Husserl on the contrary has the ambition of founding philosophy upon a certain region of being. For Heidegger, Dasein should not be understood as a region of being; Husserl on the contrary claims that the concrete transcendental subject is a region of being: the question being whether Husserl and Heidegger mean the same thing when they both speak of region. But Husserl is entitled to speak of “a doctrine of the essence of human being” because of Heidegger’s terminology. In this respect, it seems to us that three phases in Heidegger’s way of dealing with the problems of the essence-­ existence relation can be singled out.

 We do not ignore the radical discrepancy between Hering-Ingarden and Heidegger; the point is rather to avoid making banal statements such as: “for perhaps the first time in the western tradition, existence can be said to precede essence” (Streeter, 1997, 415). We do not know about the Western tradition as a whole, since a decent familiarity with the phenomenological movement suffices to show to what extent Heidegger’s originality emerges from within a certain ontological tradition. For a more serious and systematic discussion, see Chiurazzi, 2006, 177 and ff. The limits of Chiurazzi’s analyses, however, are that (a) he restricts the confrontation with Husserl to Ideas I; (b) that he seems to make no substantial distinction between Ideas and the Meditations (Chiurazzi, 2006, 180). 13

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(a) The first phase is that of §9 of Being and Time. As already seen, here Heidegger invests all his energy in making the case for Dasein having an essence, yet not in the sense of the traditional view on the essence-existence dichotomy. Linguistically, he relies on the distinction between, on the one hand, Was, Wassein, essentia, Eigenschaften and, on the other hand, Wesen and So-sein. The thesis is not that Dasein has no essence whatsoever (for the very distinction between Dasein and Sache is a wesensmäßige one), but rather that its Wesen is to be determined based upon, or starting from, its existence (aus seinem Sein) as possible ways to be.14 In this sense, it is difficult to blame Sartre for reframing Heidegger’s thought with the motto: l’existence précède l’essence (Sartre, 1996, 31). (b) The second phase is the one that can be found in the lectures of SS 1927 discussed above. Here Heidegger no longer uses the Heringhian-sounding expressions Wesen and So-Sein; nor does he state that Dasein still has an essence, albeit not in the traditional sense of the expression. All he does is admit that, even if we recognize the unbridgeable gap between Who and What, we are already and always asking the question as to the What of the Who. Just like Iago, Dasein always has to retract: I am not what I am (Othello, Act 1, I, 66). Last but not least, he no longer concedes that the “essence” of Dasein is determined aus seinem Sein; rather, he limits himself to noticing that the “relationship between whoness and existence” needs to be radically re-thought. (c) In the book on Kant of 1929 the term Wesen appears only a few times, and the question about the Da of Da-sein systematically replaces the one about the essence of its existence: neither essence nor existence, but exclusively Dasein’s “irruption into the entity.” Of course, even in this case the question could be asked about the What of the Da and its meaning, thereby raising once more all the difficulties already explicitly denounced by Heidegger in 1927.

7. In Being and Time, the thesis that Dasein has a “Wesen” yet no Essenz entails as a specific consequence the introduction of the concept of existential, thus the opposition between “existentials” and “categorials,” and it itself is the consequence of a peculiar state of affairs. Here is what the opening lines of §9 point out: “The entity whose analysis our task is, is always we ourselves. The being of this entity is always mine. In the being of this entity it is related to its being. As the entity of this being, it is entrusted to its own being. It is the being about which this entity is always  In the Letter on Humanism he retrospectively writes, “That is why the sentence quoted from Being and Time (p. 42) is careful to enclose the word ‘essence’ in quotation marks. This signifies that ‘essence’ is now being defined neither from esse essentiae nor from esse existentiae but rather from the ek-static character of Dasein” (Heidegger, 1976, 327). On the “existential” determination of possibility, see Serban, 2014. 452–456. 14

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concerned. From this characteristic of Dasein two things follow” (Heidegger, 1967, 41–42; 2010a, 41). The two things that follow are: (i) that the essence of Dasein is its existence; and (ii) Dasein’s Jemeinigkeit, its “always-being-my-own-being” (for an introductory discussion of these notions, see the classical work by Rosales, 1970, 11–20). Both ontological characteristics of Dasein are presented as following (Aus… ergibt sich) from the fact that this entity “is always we ourselves” and that “the being of this entity is always mine.” This might explain Heidegger’s terminological decision to employ the German Wesen (even if always in quotation marks) to designate Dasein’s essence. In fact, as we should remember from §5 above, both Husserl and Hering (the latter more explicitly and systematically than the former) speak of Wesen to refer to the individual essence, i.e., to the essence of this something as different from the essence of that something. In §9, and all the differences notwithstanding, “Wesen” is expected to suggest that the “essence” of this Dasein is not the same as the “essence” of that Dasein. Now, if in the case of Husserl, Hering and Ingarden “the fundamental principle of the essence” does not rule out (quite the opposite) that the essence so understood could be turned into an idea by means of the act of ideation and therefore grasped and studied as an Essenz15 (= as the content of a more or less general idea), this is precisely what is absolutely ruled out when it comes to Dasein’s “Wesen.” It is the problem to which one could simply refer as that of Dasein’s “most radical individuation” (Heidegger, 1967, 38; 2010a, 36). Three concepts, and their interconnection, must always be borne in mind if we want to really appreciate Dasein’s nature: individuation, concretion (Konkretion and all its variations and cognate expressions), facticity16 (Faktizität in opposition to Tatsächlichkeit).17

 “Wenn in dem Gehalte einer besonderen Idee qualitative Konstanten auftreten, welche die Gesamtheit der Qualifikation des entsprechenden individuellen Gegenstandes erschöpfen, wenn zugleich andererseits in der Qualifikation des Gegenstandes sein Wesen enthalten ist, dann ist es klar, dass in den Gehalt der Idee das ideale Korrelat des Wesens von dem entsprechenden Gegenstande eingeht. Aus diesem Grunde ist es möglich, das Wesen eines individuellen Gegenstandes in dem Gehalte der entsprechenden Idee zu untersuchen” (Ingarden, 1925, 183–184). 16  In the following, and for the sake of linguistic simplicity, the English factual rather factical will be used for the adjectival form of the German Faktizität. 17  See also Čapek, 2007, 109 and ff.; Villevieille, 2013, 90 and ff. A most insightful assessment of the terminology and conceptuality of concreteness in Heidegger in reference to the Logical Investigations can be found in Øverenget, 1998, 7–33 and 105–138. Among the many readings of the Heidegger-Husserl relationship developed over the last quarter of a century, the one by Øverenget is by far the one to which we feel the greatest affinity. The major difference between his book and ours is that Øverenget focuses on the Husserl of the Logical Investigation, hence on  Heidegger’s indebtedness to it. Moreover, while Øverenget is mostly interested in shedding light on Heidegger’s position from the early lectures all the way to Being and Time, our main, yet not exclusive focus here is Husserl. 15

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It is not our intention to follow and possibly reconstruct the development of these concepts in the work of Heidegger from the very beginning of his intellectual adventure.18 For the sake of our discussion, we will confine ourselves to Being and Time. (A) The matter of fact of the fact of Dasein, as the mode in which every Dasein always is, we call facticity (Die Tatsächlichkeit des Faktums Dasein [...] nennen wir seine Faktizität) (Heidegger, 1967, §12, 56; 2010a, 56). (B) Facticity is not the matter of fact of the factum brutum of something present-at-hand, but rather is an ontological characteristic of Dasein taken on in existence […]. The fact of facticity is never to be found by mere looking (Faktizität ist nicht die Tatsächlichkeit des factum brutum eines Vorhandenen, sondern ein in die Existenz aufgenommene [...]. Seinscharakter des Daseins. Das Daß der Faktizität wird in einem Anschauen nie vorfindlich) (Heidegger, 1967, §29, 146; 2010a, 132). (C) [Dasein] is never more than it factually (faktisch) is because its possibility of being belongs essentially to its facticity (Faktizität) (Heidegger, 1967, § 31, 145; 2010a, 141). (D) Dasein exists factually (faktisch). We are asking about the ontological unity of existentiality and facticity, namely, about the latter essentially belonging to the former. […] The being of Dasein, which ontologically supports the structural whole as such, becomes accessible by completely looking through this whole at a primordially unified phenomenon which already lies in the whole in such a way that it is the ontological basis for every structural moment in its structural possibility (Heidegger, 1967, §39, 181; 2010a, 176). (E) Existing is always factual. Existentiality is essentially determined by facticity (Existieren ist immer faktisches. Existenzialität ist wesenhaft durch Faktizität bestimmt) (Heidegger, 1967, §41, 192; 2010a, 186).

On possible strategy for understanding what Heidegger means to convey by “facticity” as Faktizität is per viam negationis, asking preliminarily what Tatsächlichkeit stands for. In line with the emphasis thus far on questions of essence, one cannot avoid thinking of the opening chapter of Ideas I, where the relation between essence, notably, pure essence and matters of fact is first systematically discussed. In §2 on the topic: Matter of Fact. Inseparability of Matter of Fact and Essence, Husserl remarks: “Individual being of every kind is […] ‘contingent.’ It is in a certain way; yet, it could, in keeping with its essence, be also otherwise. […] But the sense of this contingency, which is called here ‘matter of fact’ (Tatsächlichkeit), is constrained by virtue of being correlated with a necessity, [which] has the character of the necessity of an essence, and is therefore related to the universality of an essence” (Husserl, 1976, 12; 2014, 10–11). The goal of this passage, and more in general of the whole paragraph, is to elucidate the concept of Tatsächlichkeit (which Husserl does not intend to exclude from the scope of his reflections, quite the opposite). Husserl is arguing that the apparent contingency of a matter of fact does not rule out that it is the expression (Husserl would say: the result of the application) of a  See for example Kisiel, 1995, 136 and ff. on the neo-Kantian origin of the notion of facticity, as well as 274 and ff. for the hermeneutics of facticity in Heidegger’s early lectures; see also Heidegger & Löwith, 2017, 140–144 and 149–151 for a discussion on the matter. 18

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universality of essence, and that it should be understood as a necessity of essence. The contingency does not qualify the matter of fact, but its mere occurrence hic et nunc: “All that belongs to the essence of an individual could also as well belong to another individual, and the supreme essential universalities of this kind […] circumscribe ‘regions’ or ‘categories’ of individuals” (Husserl, 1976, 13; 2014, 11). As we firmly believe, it is against the backdrop of this quotation that Heidegger’s talk of categorials (in opposition to existentials) should be addressed. As Husserl writes, a category, here meaning the same as region, is a supreme universality that determines the essence of an individual. Or, to go the other way around, for an individual to display a necessity of essence means to instantiate a category (= a region) and its essential universality. If the universality of essence19 (UE) is spelled out as follows: –– The material thing (das Ding) is an object having a time-determination, a sensuous quality-determination, a materiality-determination A proposition expressing an essential necessity (NE) would on the contrary look like this: –– If x is a material thing, it will necessarily have a time-determination, a sensuous quality-determination, a materiality-determination With the x standing for an individual (Individuum, in Husserl’s jargon) that instantiates a relevant category (we will come back to this more systematically later on, in Chap. 3, §§5–6). Now, the fact that there is this individual instantiating a category is per se contingent; yet, the fact itself, the Tatsächlichkeit, has “the character of the necessity of an essence.” Let us give an example. It is fully contingent that there is here an individual (material) object with such and such a system of properties (a certain color, extension, shape, and so on); yet, the fact (Tatsache) that this (material) object has such a system of properties is “essentially necessary” because of it instantiating a relevant category. But the analytics of Dasein is no philosophical anthropology, no investigation of the region or category “human being” (of the human being as a category or region). If we understand Heidegger correctly, the concept of Faktizität20 designates a situation opposite to the one just presented (B). Whatever “essence” (Wesen) Dasein has in the sense we tried to flesh out,21 it cannot be expressed in the same manner as

 We will come back to this concept in the second volume of the present work. Here we have to ask the reader to accept this formulation as it is; later, we will explain its nature in more detail. 20  For an analysis of factual life that goes far beyond the problems of the present work, see Farrell Krell, 1994; for what concerns the “practical” motifs of the analytics of Dasein, see for example Volpi, 2001. 21  Clearly then, and at least as long as our interpretation is concerned, if there is any opposition between Husserl and Heidegger, it should not be framed in terms of philosophy of essence (the former) vs. existence (the latter) (Chiodi, 1965, 23 and ff.), but rather as different ways of understanding the essence of the concrete subject. 19

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UE and NE. E points out that Dasein always exists factually; but there is no way to understand this thesis if we do not understand D, notably, what Heidegger refers to as “the ontological unity of existentiality and facticity.” What is Dasein’s “structural whole”? It is here that the concept of concretion needs to be brought in. If by “full concretion” (Husserl, 1976, 13; 2014, 11), Husserl means the ultimate particularization of an (independent) essence, the ultimate species (in a more traditional jargon) or eidetic singularity (in Husserl’s own terminology), for Heidegger, at least as long as the expression is taken as used in §9, “full concretion” designates what for the sake of a better term could be labeled the ultimate determination of all the existentials. At the risk of giving the impression that we are mistaking the existentials for categorials (and we know they are not categories), this is the way, we think, in which the following passage should be properly interpreted: “The two modes of being of authenticity and inauthenticity […] are based on the fact that Dasein is in general determined by always being-mine. But the inauthenticity of Dasein does not signify a ‘lesser’ being or ‘lower’ degree of being. Rather, inauthenticity can determine Dasein even in its full concretion, when it is busy, excited, interested, and capable of pleasure” (Heidegger, 1967, 43–44; 2010a, 42). Unlike the categories, the existentials designate and characterize an existence that is always mine. In the former case, the factual “existence” of the concretion does not add anything besides the individualization hic et nunc. But since the existentials always characterize my existence, in their case the factual existence means their realization (sit venia verbo!) not in but as an individual possibility to be.22 If in the case of the categories the relation between the concretion and the individual itself is of external nature (the former does not and cannot determine the latter, and vice versa), when it comes to the “existentials” the situation is the exact opposite. The phrase “the ontological unity of existentiality and facticity” expresses the internal nature (= the ontological unity), as it were, of the relation between the concretion (= the existentials) and the individual itself (= facticity). According to A, we label facticity the manner in which Dasein is, because every factually existing Dasein exists as an individual and possible way to be; two factual Daseins are two possible ways to be. This is why in B Heidegger points out that facticity is “an ontological characteristic of Dasein taken on in existence”: every factual Dasein is its own existence, which is different from that of any other factual Dasein. What follows is C, i.e., that since Dasein cannot be more than its own possibility to be, “[Dasein] is never more than it factually is.” This Dasein’s

 Already in 1925 Heidegger writes that, “The designation ‘Dasein’ for the distinctive entity so named does not signify a what. This entity is not distinguished by its what, like a chair in contrast with a house. Rather, this designation in its own way expresses the way to be” (Heidegger, 1979, 205; 1985, 153). On the modal concept of “possibility” in Husserl and Heidegger, see Serban, 2016a, b, 112 and ff. on possibility and existence. 22

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facticity cannot be, nor become, that Dasein’s facticity because the former’s possibility or way to be cannot become the latter’s possibility or way to be. In this respect, the relation between concrete (essence) and individualization is turned by Heidegger  upside down. If in Ideas, the  “individualization” is what makes the (concrete) essence of this individual object differ from the (concrete) essence of that individual object, in Heidegger it is the essence of Dasein as a possibility to be that makes every factual Dasein absolutely individual. As for D and E, namely, the “ontological unity” of existentiality and factuality, they both comply with A and B. However, the point is also to understand what Heidegger means by “structural whole.” As far as we understand the passage, the “whole” is the totality of all the existentials together (whether in an authentic or inauthentic mode23). In sum, Dasein’s “full concretion” designates the connection between all the existentials (which in fact cannot obtain separately or independently of one another) to their ultimate, individual (= my Dasein, your Dasein etc.) determination and always authentically or inauthentically assumed.24 If in the case of a categorial concretion the multiplicity of individual existences does not prevent us from saying that they all have the same (ideal) content, this does not hold true of Dasein. Using Ingarden’s own terminology, Dasein’s modus existentiae individualizes (= Dasein’s “most radical individuation”) the concretion in such a manner that one cannot affirm of two factual Daseins that they have the same (“ideal”) content. For no matter how paradoxical this may sound, Dasein’s Existieren is such that the same concretion individualized in “two” Daseins de facto results in two individual concretions! Each and every existential concretion is always and already its own “individualization.” There cannot be a fully determined existence (= existential concretion) that is not always already mine: “Dasein is an entity which I myself am, its being is in each case mine” (Heidegger, 1967, 114; 2010a, 112). There cannot be a nobody’s existence (see Heidegger, 1996, 5). The categories and the entire categorial toolbox worked out by the phenomenological ontology (whether by Husserl, or also by Hering and Ingarden) becomes useless and in need of replacement once the very concept of existence

 On the problem concerning the relation between authentic and inauthentic existence, Stambaugh, 1977 is still an interesting. Based on how we will understand the relation between ontology and phenomenology already at the end of this chapter (see §9), we cannot agree with the idea according to which the priority of the inauthentic existence is phenomenological, while ontologically authenticity comes first. If this were the case, Heidegger would have presented the former as a “phenomenal” givenness and the latter as “phenomenological.” 24  In his lectures of 1921–1922 on the phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle, Heidegger had remarked that to grasp an object in its “concretion” means to grasp it “in the fullness of its what-determinations and how-determinations (in der Fülle seiner Was-Wie-Bestimmtheiten)” These correspond to the “very ultimate sense” of its structures (den (letzen) Struktursinn des vollen Gegenstandes) (Heidegger, 1994b, 28; 2001, 23). 23

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as Existieren has been determined as a “possibility to be” that is always and exclusively mine (what Heidegger will later more properly call “project” as Entwurf).

8. If our interpretation so far is correct, a few additional remarks can be made before we move on to the next chapter. The reason for us to lay so much emphasis upon the concept of “concretion” (first employed by Husserl to characterize the ultimate determination of an essence prior to its individualizations; then by Heidegger to refer to the peculiar “essence-­ existence” relation in Dasein’s Existieren) is that this is where some of the early (phenomenological) readers of Being and Time perceived, if not a sort of rupture, for sure a turning point. We saw Oskar Becker making an effort at both reconciling Husserl’s idea of phenomenology with Heidegger’s views and admitting that what Heidegger accomplishes vis-à-vis the former is “a further concretization of the transcendental-­idealistic fundamental position of Ideas” (Becker, 1929, 39, footnote). Heidegger’s goal consists in establishing the “finitude” of the “fundamental-­ ontological” subjectivity. Similarly, a phenomenologist like Edith Stein—who never moved in a direction in line with Heidegger—wrote the following words to Ingarden in 1926: Heidegger has not published anything since his habilitation. A very important book on being and time, which contains his principal standpoint, is just now in print. […] Husserl praises him and his work very highly in spite of the fact that with the first of the printed pages the differences between them have become quite clear. As well as I can tell from the remarks of students attending his lectures, especially Kaufmann, the book is essentially a treatment of the philosophical management of reality and of the concrete life (des konkreten Lebens), that is, all that Husserl bracketed. And it seems this is the point towards which the entire philosophical movement of the last years has concentrically tended: Scheler, Mrs. Conrad, Natorp’s later works, Nikolai Hartmann, and the like (Stein, 2015, 238).

Of course, the question should be raised whether what Stein means by concrete life is the same as what Becker calls by the same name and, most importantly, whether Heidegger would agree. It is upon this basis that in the Chap. 3 we will see in what sense, and to what extent, the account of the transcendental subject as a concrete monad should be regarded as both a “reply” to Heidegger and an attempt at developing a conception of the transcendental subject that Husserl very likely sees as alternative to the “anthropological” one of Being and Time. In this regard, also an analysis of the concept of “region” as Husserl understands it will be necessary; for as we have already seen in the present chapter, if there is any reason for Heidegger not to accept Husserl’s criticism of 1931, it is that “Dasein” is not and should not be taken as

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designating a region of being.25 The analytics of Being and Time is not an eidetic analysis of the essence of “human beings,” because this would imply that Dasein has an essence in the same sense as that of any other Sache: Dasein would have an essence that could be singled out and investigated by performing abstraction from its existence. We have seen how difficult Heidegger’s position is, even just terminologically and linguistically. Since Heidegger wants to avoid giving the impression that the analytics of Dasein proceed by “ontic generalization” (Heidegger, 1967, 199; 2010a, 192), the necessity of speaking of “Wesen” imposes itself. Yet, this individual “Wesen” that every factual and individual Dasein has cannot be turned into an idea (to speak like Husserl) nor does it correspond to any Essenz (to use Hering’s term) as a system or set of properties making up a certain category or region. In what sense, however, Heidegger can keep speaking of Dasein in general, thereby developing an analytics that is not empirically based, we shall verify later on in Chap. 4.

9. This being anticipated, one more aspect concerning the very beginning of Being and Time needs to be mentioned and briefly discussed (we will have to come back to it later on, during the second half of this volume). We mean the characterization of phenomenology that Heidegger outlines in §7C. Let us hasten to warn the reader that the following discussion has just one major ambition, namely, that of confirming our interpretation so far of Dasein in light of the phenomenological notion of essence. After the discussion of the terms φαινόμενον and λόγος in sections A and B, section C of §7 opens up with the famous “formal sense” of phenomenology: “to let what shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself” (Heidegger,  It would be important to understand when, exactly, Heidegger stopped considering “Dasein” as a “region of being.” For example, in the lectures of 1923 on Ontology. Hermeneutics of Facticity (Heidegger,  1988b, 25–26), “Dasein” is still considered a Seinsregion to be investigated with respect to its “character of being” and “phenomenal structures.” In the lectures of 1923–24 on Introduction to Phenomenological Research, the regional determination of the Husserlian notion of consciousness are explicitly made the object of critical discussion (Heidegger, 1994a, 54, 254 and ff., 264); yet, it is not clear to what extent it is the concept itself of region to be here into question or only that of consciousness as Husserl himself thinks of it. As far as we can tell, it is during the lectures of 1925 on The History of the Concept of Time. Prolegomena that Heidegger directly raises the question whether the “possible field” of phenomenology, i.e., “intentionality” can be determined as a “region” (Heidegger, 1979, 129, 146; 1985, 95, 106). Interestingly, here Heidegger claims that the determination of consciousness as a “region” is what characterizes modern philosophy since Descartes (Heidegger 1979, 147; 1985, 107) and it is “undertaken for the purposes of theoretical reason” (Heidegger 1979, 153; 1985, 111). Later on in these lectures he explicitly recognizes that the determination of a region is possible only thanks to Dasein itself as a “being in the world” (Heidegger 1979, 311; 1985, 266). We will come back to this topic in Volume 2, Chap. 1. 25

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1967, 34; 2010a, 32). Heidegger hastens to explain that, formally regarded, the label “phenomenology” is not to be put on an equal footing with expressions such as “theology”: whereas the latter designates the Sachhaltigkeit of the domain that is investigated by the science in question, in the case of phenomenology the term tells us something only about the “how” of the demonstration, yet nothing as to its specific what. This does not mean that phenomenology is indifferent to what is investigated, quite the opposite. The point being rather that the “how” of the investigation is to be determined starting from the “what”: “The character of the description itself, the sense of the λόγος, can be established only from the ‘Sachheit’ of what is ‘described’” (Heidegger, 1967, 34–35; 2010a, 33). Heidegger plays here with Sachheit and Sachhaltigkeit: “phenomenology” does not designate any Sachhaltigkeit; yet, as a descriptive mode of investigation, it is itself determined by the Sachheit of the phenomenon encountered.26 If this is the case, the problem is to “de-formalize” the notion of phenomenology to see what is it that can be called phenomenon in “a distinctive sense,” i.e., in the sense of phenomenology. But what remains concealed in an exceptional sense, or what falls back and is covered up again, or shows itself only in a “disguised” way, is not this or that entity but rather […] the being of entities. […] Hence, phenomenology has taken into its “grasp” thematically as its proper object that which, in terms of its ownmost Sachgehalt, demands that it become a phenomenon in a distinctive sense. Phenomenology is the way of access to, and the demonstrative manner of determination of, that which is to become the theme of ontology. Ontology is possible only as phenomenology (Heidegger, 1967, 35; 2010a, 33). As far as its material determination is concerned (Sachhaltig genommen), phenomenology is the science of the being of entities, ontology (Heidegger, 1967, 37; 2010a, 35).

It would be a mistake to think that for Heidegger phenomenology, as ontology, is the science of being in general (as if there could be such thing) (for a different and more problematizing view, see Maschietti, 2005, 30 and ff.). For as “being” is always the being of the entities, the subject-matter of phenomenology is the being of such and such a type of entity. As a consequence, the Sachgehalt of phenomenology determines the latter’s mode of working in two different ways. In the first place, the “how” of the phenomenological description is in general determined by the fact that it deals with the being (of the entities) (the phenomenon of phenomenology) in contrast with all those λόγοι (theo-logy, socio-logy, bio-logy, etc.) that concern themselves with the entities yet not with their “being.” In the second place, the how of phenomenology as ontology is specifically determined by the being of the entities under analysis. It would be in fact a mistake to think that the ontological investigation of the being of nature (ontology of nature) could proceed in the same way as, say, the ontological investigation of cultural formations (as part of the ontology of spirit).

 For a discussion of how to understand the term Sache and the phrase Zu den Sachen selbst in relation to Husserl and Heidegger, see the discussion in Yanez & Zirión Quijano, 2018, in particular Chapter 6 by Zirión himself (147–206). 26

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But if the how of the phenomenological demonstration is determined based on the what (Was), and not the other way around, how can there possibly be an ontological investigation of the entity called Dasein? Will not Heidegger point out to his students that, “If Dasein displays an ontological constitution completely different from that of the present-at-hand, […] then it also becomes a question whether anything like Sachheit, essentia, οὐσία can belong to the ontological constitution of Dasein” (see Heidegger, 1997b, 160–170; 1988a, 119–120)? Is not Heidegger going to explain that, “the essential definition of this entity [Dasein] cannot be accomplished by ascribing to it a material what (sachhaltiges Was)” (Heidegger, 1967, §4, 12; 2010a, 11)? But if Dasein has no Sachheit, how can there be such a thing as a phenomenology of Dasein? Sachhaltig genommen, the analytics of Dasein seems to be empty and void because there is no Sachheit able to determine its how. Here is how the peculiar nature of the analytics of Dasein is presented towards the end of §7C. In our elucidation of the task of ontology the necessity arose for a fundamental ontology which would have as its theme that entity which is ontologically and ontically distinctive, namely, Dasein. This must be done in such a way that our ontology confronts the cardinal problem, the question of the sense of being in general. From the investigation itself we shall see that the methodological sense of phenomenological description is explication (Auslegung). The λόγος of the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of ἑρμηνεύειν, through which the proper sense of being and the basic structures of the very being of Dasein are made known to the understanding of being that belongs to Dasein itself. Phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutics (Hermeneutik) in the original sense of the word, which designates the work of explication (Auslegung) (Heidegger, 1967, 37; 2010a, 35).

Phenomenology becomes “hermeneutics”27 when the entity whose mode of being is to be analyzed cannot be ascribed a sachhaltiges Was; hermeneutics is the ontology of an entity without “what” and whose “Wesen” cannot be understood as the individualization of a category or region of being. It is the paradoxical situation in which the method itself of ontology is not determined by a corresponding sachhaltiges Was, but rather by its absence. Explication (Auslegung) is the method, the how of an ontology without what.28 Therefore, two different phenomenologies would have to be distinguished, even though Heidegger does not make any such distinction explicitly. On the one hand, there would be those phenomenologies that can be considered ontologies in the strict sense of the term, because in their cases the how is determined by the Sachgehalt of a relevant phenomenon. Better put: those phenomenologies, the phenomena of which have a Sachgehalt. On the other hand, there would be  See the introduction by Gaos, 2013, 24. On the double sense of the term Auslegung in Being and Time, in particular, both as a method and an existential, see Greisch, 2014, 196 and ff. 28  For a discussion of this problem in Heidegger that moves in a direction different from ours, see Baur, 2010, 106 and ff. It is a pity that the author never explicitly raises the question as to what Husserl properly means by “region.” Moreover, and as far as we can tell, the analysis of the difference between Husserl and Heidegger based on the idea of die Dynamik des Existierens might be for sure suggestive, yet probably plausible only if the Husserl we have in mind is basically the one of Ideas I (as is usually the case with most of Heidegger’s statements on the matter). 27

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that phenomenology which alone can be labeled “hermeneutical” because its phenomena have no Sachgehalt, and its how is determined by an absence. At the risk of going against Heidegger’s explicit statements on the matter (he speaks of “fundamental ontology” to designate the “analytics of Dasein”), we would contend that here the term “ontology” should have, strictu sensu, no application whatsoever.29 As is apparent, there could be no greater discrepancy between Husserl and Heidegger on this point: “But that is absurd” is in fact what Husserl writes down on his copy of Being and Time next to Heidegger’s statement, “we cannot determine this entity’s essence [Dasein] by assigning a ‘what’ that indicates its content” (Husserl, 1997, 283). As Husserl remarks in passing towards the very end of his lecture of 1931 on phenomenology and anthropology, that of “hermeneutics” (Hermeneutik) is a label to be applied to the “correct analysis of conscious life, where the latter is taken as that which continuously intends entities (identities) and constitutes them within its own self in manifolds of consciousness that pertain to those entities in essential ways.” If in fact the “explication” of the anonymous life of consciousness (with all its intentional implications) is referred to by Husserl as Explikation, the Heideggerian-sounding expression Auslegung is on the contrary restricted to the concrete being and its forms (konkret intentionale Auslegung) (see Husserl, 1989, 177–178; 1997, 497). The time is now ripe to turn to the Cartesian Meditations. Exit Heidegger.

References Baur, P. 2010. Vom Was zum Wie. Heideggers Kritik an Husserl als Neukonstitution eines dynamischen Phänomenologiebegriffs. In: F.  Rese (Hrg.), Heidegger und Husserl im Vergleich (pp. 95–113). Klostermann. Becker, O. (1929). Die Hinfälligkeit des Schönen und die Abenteuerlichkeit des Künstlers. In Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. Ergänzungsband: Husserl-­ Festschrift (pp. 27–52). Max Niemeyer. Bernasconi, R. (1994). Repetition and tradition: Heidegger’s Destructuring of the distinction between essence and existence in basic problem of phenomenology. In T.  Kiesel & J. van Buren (Eds.), Reading Heidegger from the start. Essays in his earliest thought (pp. 123–136). State University of New York Press. Čapek, J. (2007). Jednání a situace. OIKOYMENH. Chiodi, P. (1965). L’esistenzialismo di Martin Heidegger. Taylor. Chiodi, P. (2007). Esistenzialismo e filosofia contemporanea. Edizioni della Normale. Chiurazzi, G. (2006). Modalität und Existenz. Von der Kritik der reinen Vernunft zur Kritik der hermeneutischen Vernunft: Kant, Husserl, Heidegger. Königshausen und Neumann. Courtine, J.-F. (2007). La cause de la phénoménologie. PUF. De Santis, D. (Ed.). (2014). Di Idee ed essenze. Un dibattito su fenomenologia e ontologia (1921–1930), con saggi di Jean Hering, Roman Ingarden e Herbert Spiegelberg. Mimesis. De Santis, D. (2015). Wesen, Eidos, idea. Remarks on the “Platonism” of Jean Hering and Roman Ingarden. Studia Phaenomenologica, XV, 155–180.  For a different perspective, see the beautiful pages by Courtine (2007, 219–267 on Phénoménologie et/out ontologie herméneutique). 29

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De Santis, D. (2016). Jean Hering on Eidos, Gegenstand and Methexis. Phenomenological adventures and misadventures of “participation”. Discipline filosofiche, XXV, 145–170. De Santis, D. (2020). “An ocean of difficult problems.” Husserl and Jean Hering’s dissertation on the a priori in R. H. Lotze. Husserl Studies, 37, 19–38. Farrell Krell, D. (1994). The “Factical life” of Dasein: From the early Freiburg courses to Being and Time. In T. Kiesel & J. van Buren (Eds.), Reading Heidegger from the start. Essays in his earliest thought (pp. 361–379). State University of New York Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1987). Neuere Philosophie I. Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger. J. C. B. Mohr. Gadamer, H.-G. (1990). Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. J. C. B. Mohr. Gaos, J. (2013). Introducción al El Ser y et el Tiempo de Martin Heidegger. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Gilson, É. (2000). L’être et l’essence. Vrin. Greisch, J. (2014). Ontologie et temporalité. Esquisse d’une interprétation intégrale de Sein und Zeit. Paris. Heidegger, M. (1929). Vom Wesen des Grundes. Edmund Husserl zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet. Ergänzungsband zum Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. Festschrift (pp. 71–110). Heidegger, M. (1938). Qu’est-ce que la métaphysique? Gallimard. Heidegger, M. (1965). Kant and the problem of metaphysics. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (1967). Sein und Zeit (GA 2). Max Niemeyer. Heidegger, M. (1976). Wegmarken (GA 9). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1979). Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (GA 20). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1985). History of the concept of time. Prolegomena. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (1988a). The basic problems of phenomenology. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (1988b). Ontologie. (Hermeneutik der Faktizität) (GA 63). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1994a). Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung (GA 17). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1994b). Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung (GA 61). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1996). Einleitung in die Philosophie (GA 27). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1997a). Der deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) und die philosophische Problemlage der Gegenwart (GA 28). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1997b). Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (GA 24). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (2001). Phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (2010a). Being and Time. State University of New York Press. Heidegger, M. (2010b). Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (GA 3). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M., & Jaspers, K. (1992). Briefwechsel 1920–1963. Serie Piper. Heidegger, M., & Löwith, K. (2017). Briefwechsel 1919–1973. Karl Alber Verlag. Hering, J. (1921). Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, 4, 495–543. Hering, J. (2021). Remarks concerning essence, ideal quality, and idea (A.  Szylewicz, Trans.). Phenomenological Investigations, 1, 51–108. Husserl, E. (1973). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Band (Hua III/1). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1987). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921) (Hua XXV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937) (Hua XXVII). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994). Randbemerkungen zu Heideggers Sein und Zeit und Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Husserl Studies, 11, 3–63. Husserl, E. (1997). Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Springer.

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Husserl, E. (2003). Alte und neue Logik. Vorlesung 1908/09 (Hua-Mat VI). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014). Ideas I. Hackett Publisher. Ingarden, R. (1925). Essentiale Fragen. Ein Beitrag zum Wesensproblem. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, 7, 125–304. Ingarden, R. (1926). Brief an Jean Hering (April 4), Hering Archive, Fondation du Chapitre de Saint-Thomas, Strasbourg (unpublished). Ingarden, R. (1929). Bemerkungen zum Problem “Idealismus-Realismus”. In Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. Ergänzungsband: Husserl-Festschrift (pp. 159–190). Max Niemeyer. Kisiel, T. (1995). The genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. University of California Press. Löwith, K. (2016). Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen. Karl Alber Verlag. Luft, S. (2005). Husserl’s concept of the “transcendental person:” another look at the Husserl-­ Heidegger relationship. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 13, 141–177. Maschietti, S. (2005). L’interpretazione heideggeriana di Kant. Sulla disarmonia di verità e differenza. Il Mulino. Moran, D. (2015). Dasein as transcendence in Heidegger and the critique of Husserl. In T. Georgakis & P. J. Ennis (Eds.), Heidegger in the twenty-first century (pp. 23–45). Springer. Øverenget, E. (1998). Seeing the self. Heidegger on subjectivity. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Rodríguez, R. (Ed.). (2015). Ser y tiempo de Martin Heidegger. Un comentario fenomenológico. Tecnos. Rosales, A. (1970). Transzendenz und Differenz. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der ontologischen Differenz beim frühen Heidegger. M. Nijhoff. Sartre, J.-P. (1996). L’existentialisme est un humanisme. Folio. Serban, C. (2016a). De l’existential de la possibilité aux possibilités de la vie. Revue philosophique de Louvain, 112, 449–471. Serban, C. (2016b). Phénoménologie de la possibilité. Husserl et Heidegger. PUF. Souche-Dagues, D. (1993). La lecture husserlienne de Sein und Zeit. In E. Husserl (Ed.), Notes sur Heidegger (pp. 119–152). Minuit. Stambaugh, J. (1977). An inquiry into authenticity and inauthenticity in Being and Time. Research in Phenomenology, 7, 153–161. Stein, E. (1962). Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstieges zum Sinn des Seins. Herder. Stein, E. (2000). Selbstbildnis in Briefen. Erster Teil 1916–1933 (ESGA 2). Herder. Stein, E. (2015). Briefe an Roman Ingarden (ESGA 4). Herder. Streeter, R. (1997). Heidegger’s formal indication: A question of method in Being and Time. Man and World, 30, 413–430. Uscatescu Barrón, J. (1992). Die Grundartikulation des Seins. Eine Untersuchung auf dem Boden der Fundamentalontologie Martin Heideggers. Königshausen & Neumann. Villevieille, L. (2013). Heidegger, de l’indication formelle à l’existence. Bulletin d’analyse phénoménologique, IX, 1–96. Volpi, F. (2001). Der Status der existenzialen Analytik (§§9–13). In T.  Rentsch (Hrg.), Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (pp. 29–50). Akademie Verlag. Von Herrmann, F.-W. (2004). Subjekt und Dasein. Grundbegriffe von „Sein und Zeit.“. V. Klostermann. Yanez, Á. X., & Zirión Quijano, A. (2018). ¡A las cosas mismas! Dos ideas sobre la fenomenologia. Universidad y sociedad.

Chapter 3

Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad

1. Enter Husserl. It is no exaggeration to say that the Fourth Cartesian Meditation is a real turning point both with respect to the specific trains of thought unfolded in the Cartesian Meditations and with respect to the development of Husserl’s philosophy as a whole. However, the novelty of the Meditation can be easily overlooked, and de facto is often overlooked, if no careful attention is paid to the small but decisive differences with respect to the conception of phenomenology outlined in Ideas I, and, more generally, to the different goals that the two books pursue respectively. Husserl himself is of course partially responsible for such confusion. For example, in the famous Nachwort of 1930 (§5), Husserl retrospectively sketches an interpretation of Ideas I, in particular of the Second Chapter of the Second Division (Consciousness and Natural Reality, §§33–46), that is de facto based upon the notion of phenomenology presented in the Meditations (whose publication Husserl announces in a footnote) (Hua V, 150). It will be one of our main ambitions here to highlight the basic differences between the two texts, with a focus upon how they conceive of the object of the phenomenological investigation: the transcendental subject. To this end, let us first briefly recap the trajectory of the first three Meditations, in particular of the Second and the Third Meditation. After the performance of the transcendental reduction accomplished in the First Meditation and the discussion of “what is living and what is dead” of Descartes’ own Meditationes (we shall come back to this Meditation), in the Second Meditation the “field of transcendental experience” is first laid open (freigelegt) and its fundamental structures submitted to very detailed investigations. In §14 the stream of cogitationes is presented according to its tripartite structure (ego-cogito-cogitatum); in §§17 and 18 the concept of synthesis is introduced (first as the “original form of consciousness,” then in terms of the synthesis of identification, which Husserl deems the “fundamental form of synthesis”) (see De Santis, 2018). After the assessment of the potential forms of consciousness © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_3

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in §§19–20, §§21–22 present the theory of “transcendental constitution” as a universal correlation-research between the system of conscious acts and the many categories of objects. The Third Meditation discusses the “more pregnant concept of constitution” (§23), which includes a distinction between “reason” and “unreason”; the notion of syntheses of higher level, all the different modalizations of consciousness as well as the idea of reality and actuality in the strict sense of the term (Wirklichkeit). In contrast with §§ 21–22, where the constitution bears on the general correlation between types of conscious experiences and types of objects, §29 presents the theory of the constitution of the region objective world understood as the great task of “the ego’s transcendental self-explication” (Selbst-Auslegung) (see Hua I, 97; Husserl, 1993, 62).1 With this in mind, we can finally read the Fourth Cartesian Meditation. The Meditation can be divided into three parts. While §§30–33 describe the structure of the concrete subject or monad; §§34–39 accomplish what for lack of a better expression could be called the transition to the eidetic dimension and the assessment of the genetic laws that rule over its life and development. Finally, in §§40–41 the doctrine of transcendental idealism is proposed as the unavoidable consequence of the systematic analyses previously unfolded. For the sake of our discussions so far, the assessment of both the eidetic method and the doctrine of idealism will be postponed: what interests us here is only the structure of the subject.2

2. At the beginning of the Meditation (hereafter: CM IV), Husserl introduces the general principle to be followed in order for the different layers of the monad to be identified. After the remark that, “the transcendental ego […] is what it is only in relation to intentional objectualities,” Husserl explains, It is hence an essential property of the ego constantly to have systems of intentionality, among them, harmonious ones, partly as going on within it actually, partly as fixed potentialities which, thanks to predelineating horizons, are available for uncovering. Each object that the ego ever intends and thinks of, values and handles, likewise each that it ever fantasizes or can fantasize, indicates its correlative system and exists only as itself the correlate of this system (Hua I, 99–100; Husserl, 1993, 65).

As a consequence, the account of the concrete “ego” or monad will basically consist in pinpointing the specific system of objects (the term should be understood loosely) and intentionalities corresponding to it. As is known, since in §§31, 32, 33 the subject will be presented based on the division between three levels of abstraction or, to put it better, “concretion,” each layer will correspond to a specific, general system  For an introduction to the Meditations, see Desanti, 1994; Ricoeur, 2004; Smith, 2003, Lavigne, 2016, and the essays published in De Santis, 2023 2  For the development of Husserl’s conception of the “ego” from the Logical Investigations onward, see e.g. Kern, 1964, 286 and ff., Ferrarin, 1994, 648 and ff. 1

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of intentionalities and relevant objects. As we firmly believe, while the first layer, the one briefly mentioned in §31, corresponds to the position of Ideas I, §33 introduces the concrete subject, the concept of which is irreducible to the framework of the book of 1913. And if, as already announced, the doctrine of transcendental idealism from §41 is a direct consequence of the new conception of the (concrete) subjectivity, the thesis that the former could already be found at work in Ideas I will have to be explicitly called into question once and for all. As the reader may have already guessed, the goal of the following analysis is not that of offering a full-­ fledged assessment of the notion of monad in the thought of Husserl (according to the many different meanings that the “monad” displays in his writings)3; all we will do here is take into account the monad to the extent that it is of paramount importance to our comprehension of the Heidegger-Husserl dispute, so to speak. Let us start with §31 and the ego as an “identical pole.” The ego grasps itself not only as a flowing life but also as an I, who lives this and that experience, this and that cogito, as the same I. Since we were occupied up to now with the intentional relation of consciousness to object, cogito to cogitatum, only that synthesis stood out for us which “polarizes” the manifold of actual and possible consciousness towards identical objects, accordingly in relation to objects as poles, synthetic unities. Now we encountered a second polarization, a second kind of synthesis, which embraces all the particular multiplicities of cogitationes collectively and in its own way, namely, as belonging to the identical ego, who, as the active and affected subject of consciousness, lives in all process of consciousness and is related, through them, to all object-poles (Hua I, 100; Husserl, 1993, 66).

Now let us compare this citation with the following excerpts from §80 of Ideas (The Relation of Experiences (Erlebnisse) to the Pure Ego): Every “cogito,” every act is characterized in a pre-eminent sense as an act of the ego, each one “proceeds from the ego,” it “lives” in the ego “in a currently actual way” (Hua III/1, 178; Husserl, 2014a, 153). Thus, a certain extraordinarily important two-sidedness essentially obtains in the sphere of experience, of which we can also say that it is necessary to distinguish a subjectively oriented side and an objectively oriented side in experiences (Hua III/1, 180; Husserl, 2014a, 154).

It is only with §32 and with the concept of the ego as a substrate of habitualities that we step over the field of investigations first brought to the fore and explored in 1913. But it is to be noted that this centering ego is not an empty pole of identity, any more than any object as such. Rather, according to a law of transcendental genesis, with every act emanating from it and having a new objectual sense, it acquires a new abiding property. For example: if, in an act of judgment, I decide for the first time in favor of a being and a being-­ such, the fleeting act passes; but from now on I am abidingly the ego who is thus and so decided, “I am of this conviction.” […] The ego who is convinced is […] determined by this abiding habitus or state.

 Among the many texts on the topic, see Altobrando, 2010, 2015, 2020; Mertens, 2000; Pradelle, 2006; Vergani, 2004; and the recent monograph by Kern, 2021, Chapter 5 and 6. 3

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3  Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad The persisting, the temporal enduring, of such determining properties of the ego, of the peculiar change that the ego undergoes in respect of them, manifestly is not a continuous filling of immanent time with subjective processes, just as the abiding ego itself, as the pole of abiding ego-properties, is not a process or a continuity of processes, even though, with such habitual determining properties, it is indeed related back to the stream of subjective processes. Since, by its own active generating, the ego constitutes itself as identical substrate of ego-properties, it constitutes itself also as a “fixed and abiding” personal ego […]. Though convictions are, in general, only relatively abiding and have their modes of alteration […], the ego shows, in such alterations, an abiding style with a unity of identity throughout all of them: a “personal character” (Hua I, 100–101; Husserl, 1993, 66–67).

As far as our line of thought is concerned, these passages are crucial for two reasons. First of all, because Husserl explicitly speaks only of personal ego and personal character and avoids using the term “person.” This confirms our hypothesis to the effect that “monad” and “person” must not be identified with each other. The monad, as a concrete form of the subject, has a personal character; yet, the term “person” should be applied only to the self-apperception of the ego (as Husserl affirms in the lecture of 1931).4 Secondly, it is important to bear in mind that the preliminary concept of a transcendental genesis to which Husserl is resorting here should not be identified with the “genesis” to which §§37–38 are dedicated. One thing is the genesis that rules over the formation of the ego’s abiding character (for a systematic introduction to this topic, see Moran, 2011, 59–70), but the genesis belonging to the concrete monad and characterizing the development of its life as a whole (which includes the former within itself, and yet is not to be identified with it) is quite another. Here are the lines with which §33 opens up the overall discussion of the monad. From the ego as identical pole, and as substrate of habitualities, we distinguish the ego taken in its full concretion (in voller Konkretion), in that we take, in addition, that without which the ego cannot after all be concrete (konkret). (The ego, taken in full concretion, we propose to call by the Leibnizian name: monad.) The ego can be concrete only in the flowing multi-formity (Vielgestaltigkeit) of its intentional life, along with the objects intended, and in some cases even constituted in their ontological determination (ev. als seiend), in that life. Manifestly, in the case of an object so constituted, its abiding being and being-such are a correlate of the habituality constituted in the ego-pole itself by virtue of its position-taking (Hua I, 102; Husserl, 1993, 67–68).

Let us immediately underline Husserl’s talk of the monad in terms of a “full concretion.” For volle Konkretion is not only one of the concepts of the analytics of Being and Time (Dasein’s existence is always and already determined “in its full concretion”); Husserl himself first systematically used the term at the beginning of Ideas I to designate the ultimate particularization of a highest category (Hua III/1, 13; Husserl, 2014a, 11), during the more general assessment of the distinction between abstract and concrete essences. In this respect, the question will be for us whether Husserl is here merely applying the ontological toolbox of Ideas I to the concrete subject, or whether such an “application” de facto entails a radical re-elaboration of  The static and genetic constitution of the human being as a person is first introduced in §58 of the Fifth Meditation. 4

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the notion of concretion. It is interesting to also remark that, at this introductory level, the monad must be kept sharply distinct from the ego as a substrate of habitualities because while in the latter case all we were considering was the subjective system of convictions, in the former the correlates of these convictions and habitualities are also included. In §32 Husserl was quite clear in pointing out that the habitualities in questions are the result of the ego making decisions (Husserl himself speaks of Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen). The monad is both a decision-making and a position-taking subjectivity. The monad is always, already decided in such and such a way. Ich bin hinfort der so Entschlossene, Husserl writes, thus suspending the opposition between the ego as the active source of decisions and as what is or has been decided so and so (“determined by this abiding habitus”). But there is more to it. The concretion also includes the system of the objectual correlates of these decisions and habitualities: all the objects intended by the subject, and “constituted in their ontological determination” (this being the way in which we have translated the expression: als seiend). The monad has as a correlate of its decisions whatever there is (als seiend); the world of the monad is everything that there is as a “correlate” of all its decisions and positions. Of course, Husserl knows that such a world is not the “objective world” yet. Anyone familiar with CM V is aware that there cannot be any talk of objective world without inter-subjectivity. This is why in CM IV Husserl calls it Um-Welt or “surrounding world.”5 As ego, I have a surrounding world, which is continually there for me (für-mich-seiende Umwelt); and, in it, objects are for me, already with the abiding distinction between those with which I am acquainted and those only anticipated as objects with which I may become acquainted. The former, the ones that are for me in the first sense are such by original acquisition, that is: by my original taking cognizance of what I had never beheld previously, and my explication of it in particular intuitions. Thereby, in my synthetic activity, the object becomes constituted originally, perceptively, in the explicit sense-form as something identical having its manifold properties, i.e., as something identical with itself and that determines itself by various properties. This, my activity of positing being and explicating being (Seinssetzung und Seinsauslegung), sets up a habituality of my ego, by virtue of which the object, as having its manifold determinations, is mine abidingly. Such abiding acquisitions make up my surrounding world, so far as I am acquainted with it at the time, with its horizons of objects with which I am acquainted, that is: objects yet to be acquired but yet to be already anticipated with this formal object-structure (Hua I, 102; Husserl, 1993, 68).

In the words of Ricoeur: Le moi complet, la « concrétion de l’ego » comme dit Husserl, c’est: moi comme pôle identique, plus: mes habitus, plus: mon monde (Ricoeur, 2004, 221–222). Yet, there is more to the monad than just this sort of addition suggested by Ricoeur (identical pole + habitus + my world). The “activity” of the monad is part of its self-constitution, here to be understood as a process in which

 In the suggestive words of Enzo Melandri, the Umwelt is not the one objective world, but la sua controfigura concava, a spazialità invertita e soggettiva, il mondo così come si presenta “per me” cadendo sotto la mia diretta esperienza. Nessuno di noi, invero, “vive” spazialmente il suo ambiente con la coscienza di essere, com’è oggettivamente vero, sulla superficie di una sfera o sferoide rotolante nel vuoto (Melandri, 1960, 201). It must be said that Melandri is here coupling together features of the Umwelt with those of what Husserl calls elsewhere Lebenswelt. 5

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the sharp opposition between activity and passivity no longer applies. The ego is the correlate of a world, and vice versa (“surrounding world”), and the term concretion embraces both. It designates the fact that every position and explication of being by the monad is at the same time a self-determination of the monad itself. The monad always, already lives in a world of anticipated horizons; every explication of such horizons equals a self-determination of the monad, just as every self-determination of the monad equals a position or explication of being. Since the monadically concrete ego includes also the whole of actual and potential conscious life, it is clear that the problem of explicating this monadic ego phenomenologically (the problem of its constitution for itself) must include all constitutive problems without exception. Consequently, the phenomenology of this self-constitution coincides with phenomenology as a whole (Hua I, 102–103; Husserl, 1993, 68).

The term employed by Husserl is Auslegung, and even though it is not our intention to boldly assert that it was first technically introduced here in dialogue with Heidegger, it is important to note that it played no role whatsoever in Ideas I, nor does it appear in the 1925 lectures on Phenomenological Psychology. According to how Husserl uses it, the explication of the monad or monadic ego is that in which the phenomenology of the monad’s self-constitution properly consists. As is apparent, the term “concretion,” hence the designation of the subject as a concrete one, does not have here any ontological meaning in the strict sense of the expression. It simply signifies the impossibility of separating the ego from its (surrounding) world or, otherwise framed: the necessity of regarding the content of the ego, i.e., its personal character (= sedimentations + habitualities) and the world as correlates. Since the monad does not designate a Canettian Kopf ohne Welt, but rather die Welt im Kopf, let us label this meaning of the ego’s “concreteness,” worldly concreteness: –– An ego regarded monadically or concretely is an ego surrounded by a world understood as the ontological (als seiend) correlate of its positions and explications (and vice versa)6

3. Since the assessment of the methodological issues raised by Husserl in §34 will be provided in Chap. 4, we can now jump over to §§36–37, where the monad’s universal, a priori structures are described. Satisfying the ideal problem of an actually systematic discovery of the essential elements belonging to a concrete ego as such, or initiating an actually systematic sequence of problems and investigations, involves extraordinary difficulties. […] The universal a priori

 It is important to underline that, at least textually speaking and contrary to what Stein affirms (2005, 243–244), in CM IV Husserl never uses the expression absolutes Sein to describe the concrete ego. 6

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p­ ertaining to a transcendental ego as such is an eidetic form which contains an infinity of forms, an infinity of a priori types of actualities and potentialities of life, along with the objects to be constituted in it as actually being. In a unitarily possible ego not all singly possible types are com-possible, and they are not com-possible in just any order, at no matter what position in the ego’s own temporality (Hua I, 107–108; Husserl, 1993, 73–74).

Since Husserl is explicitly describing the universal a priori of the concrete ego in general, the com-possibility, and the laws regulating it, cannot be restricted to the occurrence of Erlebnisse within consciousness; nor can it be identified with the genesis of the ego’s own abiding character; rather, it bears on the wordily concreteness of the ego (= personal character + surrounding world). This is the reason why Husserl speaks of forms of life (Formen… des Lebens) as “types” (Typen) that are or are not com-possible with one another within the ego as a possible “unity” of such forms. The example offered to clarify the reasoning is not particularly fine-grained, but it can suffice for the time being: “If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity […] belongs to an essential type, which is possible not in every possible ego, but only in an ego that is rational in a particular sense,” i.e., in the sense of the “essential type”: animal rationale (Hua I, 108; Husserl, 1993, 74). On the contrary, the “Eidetic apprehension of my […] childhood life and its possibilities yields a type, such that in its further development, but not in its own connection, the type ‘scientific theorizing’ can occur” (Hua I, 108; Husserl, 1993, 74). To designate the concrete subject as a possible unity of “forms of life” according to the principle of com-possibility, Husserl resorts to the terms history and unity of a history (in der Einheit einer Geschichte),7 and the laws regulating such history are those of “succession” and “co-existence” (Hua I, 109; Husserl, 1993, 75). The unity of these forms of life is the history of the monad; or, to put it better, to say of a monad that it has a history or is historical in its most intimate fibers means the same as to pinpoint the unity of its forms of life. In 1921 Husserl could already write, “each ego has its history, and it is only as the subject of a history: its own history (es ist nur als Subjekt einer, seiner Geschichte)” (Hua VIII, 506). As a possible unity, the concrete subject or monad is the unity of a history, the system of forms of life based upon the ideal principle of com-possibility (according to succession and co-existence). Its unity is called possible not because it is never realized, but rather because the history itself of the monad is, at any given moment, a system of com-possibilities between forms of life that can or de facto co-exist together (possible co-existence); that cannot co-exist but only follow on one another (possible succession and impossible co-existence); that exclude one another over time in the sense that the occurrence of certain forms of life will exclude once and for all certain other forms of life, or even just in the sense that certain forms of life exclude for some time certain other forms of life. Since the notion of history refers to the concrete subject or monad and since by monad or concrete subject Husserl means the inseparability of “personal character” and “surrounding world,” then “history” necessarily embraces also the latter. History

 Altobrando, 2015, 66, speaks of “complex dynamic unity.”

7

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is the history of the worldly concreteness. The (“surrounding”) world is the totality of what there is as a correlate of the ego’s decisions, positions and explications; since the monad is only in the unity of a history as a system of Formen des Lebens, the possible succession and co-existence of these forms means at the same time a possible succession and co-existence of forms of the world (as one could say). Let us name this second meaning of the ego’s “concreteness,” historical concreteness. –– An ego regarded concretely or monadically is an ego understood as the unity of possible and com-possible forms of life, that is to say: as history Husserl recognizes this explicitly in the following excerpt: The ego constitutes itself for itself in […] the unity of a history. We said that the constitution of the ego contains the constitutions of all the objectualities that are for it, be they immanent or transcendent, ideal or real. It should now be added that the constitutive systems, […] are themselves possible only within the frame of a genesis in conformity with these laws. At the same time they are bound, in their constituting, by the universal genetic form that makes the concrete ego (the monad) possible as a unity, as having a specific ontologically material content (in ihrem besonderen Seinsgehalt) of its being that are com-­ possible. That a nature, a culture world, world of human beings with their social forms, and so forth, are for me signifies that possibilities of corresponding experiences are for me, as experiences I can at any time bring into play and continue in a certain synthetic style, whether or not I am at present actually experiencing objects belonging to the realm in question (Hua I, 108–109; Husserl, 1993, 75–76).

Husserl labels “motivation” and “association” the laws that determine the “specific ontologically material content” of the forms of life; and genesis is the overall label designating its development.8 A distinction is thereby obtained between the genesis of the ego’s abiding character (§32); the “genesis” just mentioned that governs the material content of the monad’s forms of life; finally, “history” as a name for the unity of this latter.9 Surprisingly, the quite traditional expression Husserl retrieves to designate such a system is “innate a priori” (eingeborenes Apriori) (see Hua I, 114; Husserl, 1993, 81): the adjective innate referring to that without which there cannot be any concrete subject. It is the overall system of “types” or forms of life, and their com-­ possibility (according to the two laws of co-existence and succession), with their specific ontological content (according to the two laws of association and

 Hua I, 113–115; Husserl, 1993, 79–81; on this topic, see the still fundamental work by Holenstein, 1972. 9  We cannot agree with the following statement by Elizabeth Ströker: “Nur findet sich davon [the problem of history] in den Cartesianischen Meditationen nichts. Daß Husserl in ihnen das Instrumentarium der genetischen Phänomenologie nur unvollständig genutzt hat, ist offenkundig” (Ströker, 1983, 120). Of course, as long as one keeps thinking of history in terms of “historical world” or, as people would have once said, “objective spirit,” then the pages of CM IV can only be disappointing. Yet, as we believe, the meditations on the ego’s history which CM IV proposes are extremely interesting, especially because of the concepts of “forms of life” and “com-possibility.” 8

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motivation). A concrete ego or monad without (its) history is a priori impossible.10 In contrast with the phrase innate a priori, Husserl resorts to the expression “contingent a priori” (kontingentes Apriori) (Hua XVII, 33) precisely to characterize the specific ontologically material content of the forms of life: while the adjective contingent expresses the fundamental fact that none of these contents is necessary; the expression a priori designates the fact that whatever content is present, it will display an essential structure (on these issues, see De Santis, 2021, 291–306).

4. We can now introduce the third, most important and strict meaning of the ego’s “concreteness”; we can finally address its ontological concreteness. It is important to understand that here we are no longer within the domain of phenomenology as was first understood by Husserl in 1913, but rather within what, at least from the lectures of 1922–1923 on, Husserl technically labels “a priori egology” (Hua XXXV, 255). The region is no longer the one that used to go by the name of “pure consciousness”: it is rather the region “concrete ego,” also called, the “concrete region: ego” (see Hua XXXV, 261). In what does the difference consist? The difference is crucial, and not merely terminological. In the case of the region (pure) consciousness, the universals of the lowest level, i.e., the eidetic singularities or concreta are lived-experiences or Erlebnisse. In other words, if the question were, what is the “individual” object that corresponds to the region pure consciousness as its individualization? The answer would be, such and such an individual Erlebnis. The introduction of the region “concrete ego” entails as a consequence that its corresponding universals of the lowest level or concreta are egos. Hence, the question, what is the individual object that instantiates the region? would be answered by exhibiting an individual ego. Two examples can be mentioned to elucidate, and at the same time confirm, this distinction, both of them bearing on the idea of phenomenology as a science of the region “consciousness.” The first example comes from Edith Stein’s essay on Psychic and Mental Causality. At the beginning of §2 (Genera of Lived-Experiences and the Unity of the Flow), Stein points out: In our last description we were already constantly having to talk about something that is neither an empty phase in the flow nor the entire flow itself: about unities in the flow (Einheiten im Strome) that start up new in one phase, propagate, remain alive while they are running, reach an end at last, yet preserve themselves after that conclusion. L ­ ived-­experiences

 The phrase “innate a priori” can also be found in §6 of Formal and Transcendental Logic; and  in a manuscript of 1931 (B I 14 VI) the turn of phrase ursprüngliche Erwerbung is employed. A very interesting, comparative examination with the late Kant could be developed. Oberhausen, 1997 (see in particular Chapters II and III) offers a very detailed analysis of the expression ursprüngliche Erwerbung or acquisio originaria, with which Kant tries to think the actual genesis of the a priori structures of the subject (space, time and the categories). 10

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3  Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad (Erlebnisse), as we term them in common parlance […] are nothing other than these unities that emerge in the steady flow within a specified duration (Stein, 2010a, 13).

The phenomenology of (pure) consciousness is nothing other than an investigation and classification of the different genera and sub-genera of Erlebnisse, all the way down to the “ultimate species” (the individualizations of which Stein calls “unities”).11 Husserl originally made the same point in §75 of Ideas, the title of which is: Phenomenology as a Descriptive Essential Doctrine of Pure Lived-Experiences. As far as phenomenology is concerned, its aim is to be a descriptive doctrine of the essence of the transcendentally pure lived-experiences in the phenomenological attitude. […]. Let us look closer, however, at the extent to which actually scientific descriptions can be established on the phenomenological field with its countless, eidetic concreta, and what those scientific descriptions are in a position to accomplish. Consciousness in general has the peculiarity of fluctuating in a way that elapses according to various dimensions, so that there can be no talk of conceptually securing any eidetic concreta or inherent aspects immediately constituting them. Let us take, for example, a lived-experience of the genus “phantasy of a thing,” just as it is given to us, regardless of whether it is in a phenomenologically immanent perception or some other (always reduced) intuition. What is then phenomenologically singular (the eidetic singularity) of this phantasy of this thing, in the entire fullness of its concreteness, precisely as it flows by in the flow of lived-experience, precisely in the determinateness and indeterminateness with which this phantasy brings its thing to appearance, one time from this side, another time from another side, precisely in the distinctiveness or fuzziness, in the wavering clarity, intermittent obscurity, and so forth that are directly proper to it. Phenomenology lets only the individuation fall to the side while it elevates into eidetic consciousness the entire essential content in the fullness of its concreteness and takes it as an ideally identical essence that, like any essence, could be instantiated, not only hic et nunc but in countless exemplars. One sees without further ado that there can be no thought of conceptually securing and terminologically securing this or any such flowing concretum and that the same holds for each of its immediate flowing parts and abstract inherent aspects (Hua III/1, 156–157; Husserl, 2014a, 134–135).

Phenomenology is the eidetic science of consciousness, namely, of all the different genera and sub-genera and species of “lived-experiences.” If we want to fully appreciate the difference between this idea of phenomenology and the a priori egology of 1922 (to which we need to pay more attention12), what is important to keep in mind is what Husserl acknowledges at the very end of the excerpt. Husserl is far from denying that there is a distinction between the ultimate differences (concreta) of the lived- experiences (Erlebnisse) and their individualization or individuation (“Phenomenology lets only the individuation fall to the side”); nevertheless, he hastens to confess that it is impossible to “fix” and “conceptually” determine the differences between the concreta themselves. This is a problem with which Husserl had been struggling explicitly at least since 1909, when he already  admitted that the

 In §33 of Ideas, for example, “pure lived-experiences (Erlebnisse)” and “pure consciousness” are used as synonyms. 12  For an analysis of Husserl’s phenomenology from the standpoint of the late “egology,” see the penetrating pages by Melandri, 1960, 186 and ff. 11

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ultimate differences, the universals of the lowest level cannot be “scientifically determinable” and belong to the realm of the ἄπειρον (Hua-Mat VII, 88). With respect to the lectures of 1909, in Ideas I Husserl seems to be more careful in recognizing that such impossibility is of an epistemological nature; that it is πρὸς ἡμᾶς (in the sense of any possible eidetic investigation of it) and not by nature. Of course, such impossibility derives from the flowing nature of consciousness, but Husserl does not deny the existence of differences at the level of the concreta or singularities (as he also calls them), nor does he ignore the difference between singularities and individuals (as a result of their individualization). Husserl would add that there are cases, e.g. in the field of “colors,” in which the impossibility of a morphological, eidetic investigation of the ultimate differences can be replaced by a geometry of colors, in such a way that each “singular” color, each eidetic singularity, is assigned a fixed position mathematically determinable (see Hua XLI, Text 4). As Husserl rejects the very idea of a geometry of consciousness, no mathematical determination of the singulars is here admissible. The a priori egology, the subject-matter of which is ultimately the region concrete ego, has to face a situation far more complex than the one just described. In 1921 Husserl recognizes the following: the ego’s peculiarity is that it does not have an ultimate universal concept (dass es einen niedersten Allgemeinbegriff… nicht hat) […]. The ego cannot be repeated as a series of possible co-existent and absolutely identical egos. Even if some of its individual moments are repeatable, and are hence distributed among individually different egos, the sum-total of the corresponding essential moments proper to an ego cannot be repeated. This is due to the fact that the ego has a unique nature, according to which there is coincidence in it between absolute concretum and individuum (dass für es absolutes Konkretum und Individuum zusammenfallen), and the lowest universality individualizes itself (die niederste Allgemeinheit sich selbst individuiert) (Hua XXXV, 262).

In 1931 Husserl comes back to this point and more succinctly writes that the peculiarity of the ego is that “each one of its eidetic singularities brings about (ergibt) an individual transcendental ego (as a possibility)” (Hua XV, 383). The issue is no longer the impossibility of “fixing” and determining morphologically the ultimate differences among the concreta, as was the case in 1913; the question is now to acknowledge that there cannot be a “singular ego” (= as an eidetic singularity) that is not always already an “individual ego” (coincidence between absolute concretum and individuum).13 A concrete ego, an ego fully and concretely determined that is

 “Das Ich hat seine Eigenart nicht im Sinn der Einmaligkeit der Vereinzelung eines konkreten spezifischen Wesens; als ob dann, wie es sonst sein müsste, viele Ich dieses spezifischen Wesens möglich sein können und als ob dieses sich nur vereinzeln würde in eins mit den Wesen, die sonst in einem Strome Vereinzelung erfahren” (Hua XIV, 22–23); “Monaden haben andererseits in ihrem Ich-bin ein Prinzip, das nicht Spezifizierbares einschliesst, nicht einen ‚Inhalt’, der mit dem Allgemeinen, das jedes Ich mit jedem gemein hat, sich als individuelle Differenz verbindet; jeder solche Inhalt ist dann ein Wiederholbares, eine spezifische Differenz, schliesslich letzte, niederste Differenz, aber immer noch Allgemeines” (Hua XIV, 25–26). 13

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Fig. 3.1  The ego’s concreteness

Worldly Concreteness = Personal Character + World Monad

Historical Concreteness = Unity of Forms of Life Ontological Concreteness = Intrinsic Individualization

not already an individual ego, this is an a priori impossibility: such being the meaning of the ego’s ontological concreteness.14 –– An ego regarded concretely or monadically is a singular-individuality, namely, an ego for which there is coincidence between the universal of the lowest level and its individuality If in 1913 the term “full concretion” was employed by Husserl to refer to the ultimate difference of an independent essence prior to its individuation or individualization, the application of the expression “full concretion” to the monad or concrete ego designates the very indifference, or identity between singularity (qualitative determination) and individuality as an actual existence (quantitative or numerical determination).15 When it comes to my concrete ego, it is not the case that my factuality (Tatsächlichkeit) is something contingent (ein Zufälliges), something that would be simply added to a previously fully determined essence (Hua XLII, 122). A  diagram can help us present the three senses of the ego’s concreteness (Fig. 3.1). It would be a mistake to lay the most emphasis on the third sense alone of the ego’s concreteness. The ego’s or monad’s absolute concretion consists in all of them at once. The monad is the unity of the ego as an identical pole and as a personal character with its surrounding world (worldly concreteness16); such a unity is however exclusively to the extent that it is its own history as a unity of com-possible forms of life (historical concreteness). Finally, the monad is such that the unity between worldly concreteness and historical concreteness is marked by intrinsic individualization: by definition there can be no series (Kette) of possible co-existent  That such use of the term “concrete” should not be conflated with that of the Logical Investigations, and that one should be careful when using the formal-ontological distinctions worked out therein, Husserl himself points out quickly in a 1921 manuscript (Hua XIV, 37). 15  The question whether the concept of concretum, hence absolute concretum should or could be understood based upon the “mereological” ontology of the Logical Investigations is to be answered in the negative. However, since this issue cannot be discussed in the present part, we will have to ask the reader to wait until we reach Volume II, Chap. 3. For a different approach, see Stapleton, 1983, 62–66. 16  For no apparent reason, Desanti (1994, 84) completely overlooks this aspect of the monad, thus writing that, “Pour designer l’unité de ces deux déterminations [‘multiform conscious life’  + ‘the ego as a substrate of habitualities’], il reprend le vieux mot leibnizien de ‘monade’.” 14

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egos having the same ideally concrete, qualitative content (see also Hua XIV, 32). In a manner strongly reminiscent of the most traditional (Thomistic) “angelology,” each individual monad is its own (ultimate) species (see Stein, 2015, 94)!

5. As was already the case with Dasein, here too, the question of determining the (monad’s) concrete character resulted in the problem of its individuality. Even though in different modes, in both cases what is undermined is the formal-­ontological apparatus (or at least some aspects of it) first worked out by Husserl in Ideas I. Now, that CM IV, hence the interconnection between the three meanings of the ego’s “concreteness,” could be regarded as Husserl’s “reply” (if there must be such a thing) to Heidegger, this is a thesis that we are willing to endorse based on the analysis of the 1931 lecture on Phenomenology and Anthropology. By contrast, that Husserl came to recognize the ego’s peculiar nature only after or in virtue of his altercation with Heidegger, this is a hypothesis that should be rejected as is clear from Husserl’s lectures of 1922–1923 (where the concept of concrete ego and its own peculiarities are already at the very center of his meditations). At this point, what we are dealing with different understandings of what it means for the concrete subject to be individual or to have individuality. With this problem, we believe, the Auseinandersetzung between Husserl and Heidegger reveals its full depth. If our reconstruction of the monad’s concreteness and individuation is on the right track, it should be regarded as expressing the last phase of the development of Husserl’s position on the matter. Indeed, four main phases could be ideally distinguished in Husserl’s writings: 1. The position, with which we are already partially familiar, presented by Husserl in the first chapter of the first book of Ideas 2. One of the Bernau manuscripts on the problem of individuation and, in particular, on how to understand the notion of τόδε τι 3. The very last part of what is still known as Ideas II, where Husserl tackles the differences in the mode of individualization between the region nature and the region spirit 4. The position presented in CM IV17 Husserl’s position in Ideas is, at least for what concerns its formal definition, quite straightforward and difficult to misunderstand. The argument presented in §14 hinges upon two main “substrate-categories”: that of ultimate material essence and the this-here or τόδε τι (see Hua III/1, 33; Husserl, 2014a, 29), which Husserl calls “pure syntactically formless, individuality (individuelle Einzelheit).” As Husserl succinctly frames the question, “We must now establish the essential connection

17

 For a discussion of Husserl on this matter, see Widomski, 1986, 20 and ff.

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obtaining between them, consisting in the fact that each ‘this-here’ has its own material essential component, which, in turn, has the character of a formless essence-substrate in the sense just expounded” (Hua III/1, 34; Husserl, 2014a, 29). The connection between them is explained by distinguishing between what Husserl calls abstract or non-independent essences and independent essences or concreta: “A concretum is quite obviously an eidetic singularity, since species and genera (expressions that in the usual way exclude the lowest differences) are in principle dependent. The eidetic singularities break down accordingly into abstract and concrete” (see Hua III/1, 35; Husserl, 2014a, 30). Since any abstract essence can obtain only as the non-independent “part” of a concretum, the term individuation can be applied to the latter alone. Τόδε τι is the expression that Husserl retrieves and employs precisely to designate the individualization of a concretum, and, via the latter, of its abstract essences. Husserl’s view in Ideas I is marked by two ambiguities. In the first place, it is not very easy to tell whether the τόδε τι means the individualization hic et nunc of a concretum or the very concretum as it is individualized hic et nunc. The fact that Husserl numbers it among the substrate-categories can make us lean towards the latter; yet, his talking of it as “syntactically formless” tends to suggest the former instead. While in the first case the τόδε τι would designate the conjunction of individuation and ultimate material essence; in the second option this would not be the case: the τόδε τι would mean the individualization or individuation-form itself18 (for Husserl’s non-Aristotelian conception of the τόδε τι, see Majolino, 2015). Secondly, given the purely formal character of Husserl’s arguments in Ideas I, what remains completely undetermined is whether the concreta of the two main regions distinguished in the text (nature and consciousness) are individualized in exactly the same ways. In short, Husserl does not address the two different ways in which a concretum of the region “consciousness” and a concretum of the region “nature” exist and properly individualize themselves in an individuum via the τόδε τι. This is for sure one of the many reasons, if not the main reason, why Heidegger always reproached the text for not asking the very question of the mode of being of consciousness and, more specifically, of the ego cogito. Based upon what Husserl does not say, the reader is tempted to conclude that the individualization, or individuation, of an Erlebnis, hence its individual existence, does not differ from that of an individual thing and its existence. And since the region “consciousness” is the one accomplishing the transcendental constitution of all the regions, primarily of the region “world,” the lack of clarity about its mode of existing (individually) could jeopardize the overall attempt at establishing phenomenology as a new πρώτη φιλοσοφία in which all the other (second) philosophies have their ultimate roots.

 For example, Patočka, 2009, 185 seems to (erroneously, we would add) opt for the former option, since he writes that the Dies-da or toto-zde is syntézou eidos a faktu jako takového, a synthesis of the eidos with the fact as such. This is why he can speak of the relation between “essence,” “this-­ here,” and “factual givenness” (vztah podstata—toto-zde—faktická danost) as if the Dies-da were the result of the synthesis or unity of the other two (Patočka, 2009, 187). 18

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In this respect, what we have called the second phase in the development of Husserl’s position on the individuation problem represents, at least from a purely formal angle, a crucial turning point. The novelty consists in the fact that Husserl directly tackles the τόδε τι, which is explicitly called a “form” (die allgemeine “Form” des τόδε τι) (see Hua XXXIII, 300). Form must here be taken in the technical sense of Husserl’s formal ontology; in other words, the τόδε τι or its forma individuationis is itself a formal concept, and the way in which the concreta individualize themselves changes and varies depending upon the specific region under consideration (Hua XXXIII, 304). Husserl admits that this was the problem with the account of Ideas (Hua XXXIII, 303): “it would be a mistake to want to fashion (gestalten) [the τόδε τι of a concretum] independently of the peculiarity of the concreta that are meant to be individualized or, which is the same, of the peculiarity of the objectual regions” (Hua XXXIII, 304). This is why Husserl refers to the “particularization” of the τόδε τι as a form in terms of individual individuation (individuelle Vereinzelung) (Hua XXXIII, 300). In sum, the specifically material particularization of the “form” τόδε τι by means of such and such a region of being results in a specific individuation of the corresponding concreta: and since the region consciousness is ontologically irreducible to the region nature and vice versa, the τόδε τι as the form of individuation of a Ding cannot be equated with the τόδε τι as a form of individuation of an Erlebnis, and vice versa.19

6. Since “consciousness” is still too vague, for it might mean either the psyche or the person, hence either one of the two corresponding regions, a further assessment of the problem can be found in Ideas II. In the following we will be quoting from §64 on Relativity of Nature, Absoluteness of Spirit. Here is how Husserl introduces the problem of “individuality”: It must not be forgotten that here individuality in the spiritual sense is something quite different from individuality in nature. A thing has its individual essence as that which is here

 As a consequence, Husserl’s stance on the principle of individuation seems to be explicitly anti-­ Scotistic, at least to the extent that for Scotus the principle of individuation does not change depending on the species of the entity under consideration (see Sondag’s introduction in Scot, 2005, 11). This is the reason why we cannot agree with the otherwise commendable reading of this manuscript by Alfieri, 2016, 105–110. Alfieri takes the expression die allgemeine “Form” des τόδε τι to mean form in the Scotistic sense: “Erst im Bereich des esse essentiae findet Husserl die letzte Bestimmung des Individuationsprinzips” (108). The consequence of his reasoning is in direct contradiction with Husserl’s principle of regional ontology: for if for Husserl each region has its own principle of individuation because of its ontological peculiarity and irreducibility, Alfieri claims that for Husserl “die Individuation ein intrinsischer Faktor des Einzelwesens ist” (109), as if there could be just one form of individuation common to all regional concreta or individual essences. For a confrontation between Stein and Conrad-Martius on the problem of individuation, see Alfieri, 2010. 19

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3  Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad and now. But this What is itself a “universal.” This means that each thing is an exemplar of a universality; this is already the case as regards the thing of the level of mere “sense” experience thought as concordant. Any thing can be thought of as repeatable at will (Hua IV, 298; Husserl, 1989, 312).

This is the first aspect of the essence of an individuum or an individual concrete object falling under the region nature; interestingly enough, it fits perfectly with the overall account of the concreta of Ideas I. In short, what in 1913 Husserl still recognized as a general characteristic of “all” eidetic singularities or concreta, i.e., the possibility for them to be repeated and individualized in countless heres and nows independently of the region, this peculiarity, we were saying, is now attributed to just one region and one type of concreta (= Dinge). The concerns that we raised about Ideas and its ontological apparatus are confirmed. But to this description Husserl hastens to add a new element: If, as we may do, we think of nature changed in all sorts of ways, then a nature is always also thinkable in which there would be many of the same things of any content whatsoever as long as it is representable. It is thinkable that there are many things completely the same as to properties and causal states, in coexistence as well as in succession. The one is here, the other there; the one is now, the other then. It is also thinkable that one thing returns periodically to the same identical state. What distinguishes two things that are alike is the real-causal nexus, which presupposes the here and the now. And with that we are led back necessarily to an individual subjectivity, whether a solitary or an inter-subjective one, with respect to which alone determinateness is constituted in the positing of location and time. No thing has its individuality in itself (Hua IV, 298; Husserl, 1989, 313).

These two aspects of the individualization or individuation of a “thing” go hand in hand: precisely because the essence of a thing can be repeated in countless heres and nows (its existence is added to its essence or, to put it better, its essence is indifferent to its own  individualization), such individual determination can only be established and brought about from without. The “individualization” of a thing is both indifferent and external to its essence. The situation with consciousness and, in particular with the region “spirit,” is different. On the other hand, the spirit lives through, takes a position, is motivated. Each spirit has its way of motivation, and, unlike a thing, it has its motivation in itself. It does not have individuality only by being in a determinate place in the world. The pure ego of any given cogitatio already has absolute individuation, and the cogitatio itself is something absolutely individual in itself. The ego, however, is not an empty pole but is the bearer of its habituality, and that implies that it has an individual history (Hua IV, 299–300; Husserl, 1989, 313).

Even though the passage may immediately remind us of Husserl’s position on the monad in CM IV, we should refrain from making such hasty identification. Husserl’s point here is that, within the region “spirit,” the ego as a bearer of habitualities has its own individual history thanks to the absolute individuation of any given cogitatio (which, in turn, is determined by the law of motivation). Or, to go the other way around: as a concretum of the region “spirit,” every single cogitatio is determined by motivation; hence, the ego, taken as a bearer of habitualities, has its own individual history. The latter is determined by the motivation that  determine the

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cogitationes and their intertwinement. Unlike what happens with the concreta of the region nature, the essence is not indifferent to the individuation, nor does the latter supervene from without. As is evident, Husserl’s position in these pages is at the same a confirmation of, and a break with, the framework of Ideas. A “break” in the sense that in light of the considerations advanced in the Bernau manuscript above,20 he now recognizes the necessity of taking into consideration the differences between the “regions” and the relevant concreta. It is a “confirmation,” however, because the concreta under analysis are still individual things (= Dinge in the case of the region “nature”) or lived-experiences (= Erlebnisse in the case of the region “spirit”). The following excerpt confirms this to be the case: The lived-experiences in the flux of consciousness have an essence that is absolutely their own: they bear their individuation in themselves. Can more than one lived-experience be absolutely the same in one flux of consciousness? Are they distinguishable merely by the fact that the one belongs to this and the other to that consciousness (monad)? A lived-­ experience now and “the same” lived-experience later, “simply repeated,” can these be the same in their total essential content? In the now, consciousness has a content of originary lived-experiences and a horizon of past ones which is represented in the now in the form of a lived horizon of “primary memory,” of retention, and the originary and the horizonal are continuously transformed into one another. Does this medium of lived-experience make no difference for a lived-experience that is originarily making its entrance, e.g., that of a new sensation-datum? [our italics] (Hua IV, 300; Husserl, 1989, 314).

It is should be even clearer why such argument should not be identified with the one we proposed earlier based on CM IV; in this passage, the term monad means the same as unity and totality of consciousness. Within the history of a totality of consciousness, each single cogitatio has its own absolute individuation because of the law of motivation (for a discussion of this topic, see Bernet, 2004, 119–142). What needs to be kept distinct from this is the “absolute individuation” of a personal ego: Absolute individuation enters into the personal ego. The surrounding world of the ego acquires its individuation essentially by way of its relation to the ego that has experience of it and that exchanges its experience with other individuals. For each ego, any thing has the here and the now as a correlate of intuition. An ego, or an inter-subjectivity for itself, constitutes the surrounding world, and if it allows itself to be determined by its “over and against” in the surrounding world, or itself determines this latter actively and perhaps formatively, then this latter has the secondary individuation of the “over and against” (des Gegenüber), whereas the originary individuation, the absolute one, resides in the ego itself. The same spirit cannot be twice, nor can it return to the same total state, nor does it manifest  The same argument is in fact proposed: “The problem can also be stated as follows: is there a distinction somehow to be made between full, concrete essence and individual existence? Or, conversely: is not this distinction to be made a priori and everywhere by necessity and must it not be said that, in principle, complete sameness of individuals in the sphere of lived-experience is indeed possible, that every lived-experience is ‘idealiter’ an essential content that has this this-ness, which is not a quality? But is not even this haecceitas a universal, inasmuch as every lived-experience in itself has its haecceitas? One cannot at all ask, however, what distinguishes one this from another this purely as this-es, nor, further, what they both have in ‘common.’ That would already be confusing the quality and the this. So would speaking of the ‘essence of this-ness.’ This-ness is a form” (Hua IV, 300; Husserl, 1989, 313–314). 20

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3  Concreteness of the Subject: The Monad its individuation merely by standing in different nexuses with the same content (Hua IV, 301; Husserl, 1989, 315).

Husserl is here mainly interested in making the case for the originarity and priority of the spiritual ego, hence of its individuation, over the individuation of natural things (including the ego’s own surrounding world). Yet, it is evident that the absolute individuation of the spiritual subject does not differ from that consciousness: the spirit’s own individuation expresses itself in the impossibility to return “to the same total state.” If we now come back to the distinction between the four phases of the development of Husserl’s position on the problem of individualization, they can be so summarized. 1. In Ideas I, the general distinction between abstract and concrete essences is made, and the notion of τόδε τι, with which Husserl refers to the forma individuationis, is proposed without any assessment of the different modes of existence of the corresponding concreta. Erlebnisse and Dinge seem to exist individually, i.e., to individualize themselves in exactly the same manner.21 2. A famous manuscript on individuation from the Bernau group marks a clear improvement with respect to 1; here Husserl recognizes that, as the τόδε τι is itself a “form,” its specific materialization should also be taken into account. In the words of Stein, “individuality,” too, is a “category” (see Stein, 2010b, 98) or a “form” (Stein, 2005, 29).22 In short, the τόδε τι of the region nature for example cannot be the same or cannot “individualize” in the same way as the τόδε τι of the region consciousness. A lived-experience does not, and cannot, exist in the same manner in which an individual material thing exists. 3. Based upon 2, the second book of Ideas elaborates on the different individuations proper to the region nature and spirit respectively. Although Husserl does not seem to recognize the difference between the concreteness of consciousness and that of the monad, the mode of existence of an individual lived-experience is sharply separated from the mode of existence of an individual thing. If in the latter case “essence” and “existence” fall apart, in the case of the spirit, one can speak of absolute and internal individuation. Nevertheless, it is a real pity that in

 This is the reason why we cannot agree with the otherwise interesting analyses by De Monticelli (2020) of Ideas I; for even if it is true that the concept of “concretum” represents a radical break with, or re-elaboration of, the traditional conception of substance, this does not suffice to speak of individuality of the human subject in the sense endorsed by De Monticelli herself. What would be required is also a re-elaboration of the τόδε τι as a form, which is nowhere to be found in Ideas. The aim is noble, yet it should be pursued on the basis of texts such as CM IV. 22  Stein, 2015, 61–62, speaks of die Leerform des Individuums and distinguishes between two kinds of relations between the Species and the individual itself: one in which the individuals are all identical exemplars (gleiche Exemplare) of the one and the same species; another in which every individual is unique and represents an ultimate species (as is the case with Aquinas’ angels or Husserl’s monads). See also Stein, 1962, 258–259 and ff. for the analysis of “individuality” as a Leerform. 21

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addition to the assessment of the “nature-spirit” distinction, Husserl does not also address the “psyche-person”. 4. Finally, the concept of “concrete ego” or monad introduced in CM IV marks a point of no return, as it were. Husserl is now aware that the absolute individuation of the concrete ego does not simply derive from the absoluteness of the many cogitationes that obtain within the stream of consciousness thanks to the law of motivation; the individuation of both the cogitationes themselves and the ego as a whole derives from the latter being a unity of “forms of life.” If in the case of a concrete ego singularity and individuality coincide; if the ego is characterized by intrinsic individuation, the reason is that the concrete ego (and not only consciousness with its habitualities) is the “unity of a history” of com-­ possible forms of life.23

7. Edith Stein’s position is seemingly identical to that of Husserl. In her masterpiece Finite and Eternal Being, she systematizes and radicalizes metaphysically  a perspective which she had embraced since very early on. It is no coincidence that her view has been labeled Scotistic (Alfieri, 2015, 2016). Stein ascribes the “being-­ individual” to the “form” and, by making explicit reference to the Doctor Subtilis, she also remarks, “If I understand him correctly, this is what also Duns Scotus does: he takes as the principium individuationis something ontologically positive (positiv Seiendes), which distinguishes the individual essential form from the universal” (Stein, 1962, 446). Let us consider now the following text: It has already become clear that the individual being of human beings, just like that of every spiritual person, differs from the individual being of all non-personal things. This implies that life (on the level of the personal I) emanates from the I and that the personal I hold command over it in two senses: so as to become conscious of it as of a life that is set apart from everything else; and so as to mold this life freely. […] And the innermost center of the psyche, its most authentic and most spiritual part, is not colorless and shapeless, but rather has a particular form of its own. The psyche feels it when it is “in its own self,” when it is “self-collected.” This innermost center of the psyche [we are translating Seele with psyche] cannot be grasped in such a manner that it could be given a universal name, nor can it be compared with anything else. It cannot be divided into properties, character traits and the like, because it is located in greater depth than any of these. The innermost center of the psyche is the how (ποῖον) of the essence itself and as such impresses its stamp on every trait of character and every attitude and action of human beings […]. Through these “expressions,” the innermost essence of the psyche also becomes manifest externally (Stein, 1962, 458–459).

Das Innerste der Seele that Stein, by a Heringhian turn of phrase, calls the ποῖον of the εἶναι, or the how and mode of the essence, is what from the very beginning of  For a quite critical reading of Husserl’s egology, see the overall research by Broekman, 1963, Chapter VI (181–198). 23

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her career she referred to as “core of the essence” or “core of the person” (Wesenskern and Kern der Person). Regardless of the fact that in Finite and Eternal Being the core is identified with an essential form, while in the early works (and in compliance with her axiological approach) it was regarded as a “layer” of the person corresponding a parte subiecti to a system of most fundamental values (Stein, 2016, 126, and 132), in both cases what we face is an “ontologically positive” determination of the individual essence of a person that characterizes it as something unique, unrepeatable. Absolutely individual. In line with the Husserlian principle of “regional ontology,” Stein has always recognized the absolute discrepancy between the ontological constitution of material things, hence their individuation, and the ontological structure of spiritual beings or persons, thus their individuation. Unlike the former, whose individuation is materially determined, the latter alone have an essential core that “cannot be grasped in such a manner that it could be given a universal name”: the “core” represents what is ultimately intended by proper names (Leo Perutz, Georg Vittorin, Stanislaus Demba, Socrates…24). What is interesting for us is that from the very beginning (On the Problem of Empathy), the core is recognized to be something unalterable, immune from all becoming and alteration, and as what in turn determines the variation-possibilities of the development of the essence it pertains to. The core “prescribes” the development and the unfolding of one’s personality (Stein, 2016, 129) without being subject to such development or empirical unfolding (Stein, 2010a, 166–167).25 If we now compare Stein’s own view with Husserl’s perspective, the main difference between the two should immediately leap into view. While for Husserl the absolute individuality of the monad follows from—or is identical with—its existing as a history of com-possible forms of life (= the conjunction of worldly concreteness, historical concreteness, ontological concreteness), for Stein an individual person can “develop” and “unfold” itself thanks to its own individuality (= core of the essence). In both cases, the principle of individuation is formal: the formal essence or core of the essence in the case of Stein; the unity of all the forms of life in the case of Husserl. Nevertheless, while in Husserl the monad’s individuality directly follows from its historical nature (and seems to coincide with it), in Stein the principle of the person’s individuality is irreducible to all becoming. Three main paradigms or models of the subject’s individuation can be identified, corresponding to Stein, Husserl and Heidegger respectively. All of them take as their point of departure the necessity of rethinking thoroughly the subjectivity; yet, if Heidegger re-elaborates the essence (of Dasein) by primarily re-thinking the existence, Stein and Husserl re-think the existence starting from the essence. Whereas Heidegger and Husserl conceive of the subject’s individuality as coinciding with its  On this aspect of the core, see the analyses by Betschart, 2010, who refers to Kripke. On the qualitative individuality of the person, see Stein, 2010b, 203, 209–231. See also Stein, 2005, 29 and ff. for “the double form of individuality,” and the distinction between cases in which the haecceitas is grounded on the quidditas itself and those in which it comes from without the quidditas. 25  “Sie ist das Wesen der Person, das sich nicht entwickelt, sondern nur im Laufe der Charakterentwicklung entfaltet” (Stein, 2010b, 134). 24

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historicity and historical possibilities,26 for Stein the individuality of the person is something qualitatively (= metaphysically) prior to all becoming. In short, Stein’s persons are metaphysically speaking internally determined entities.27 By contrast, Heidegger’s Dasein exists ecstatically as an ontological transcendence, outside without inside.28 The Husserlian monads have neither inside nor outside, for their worldly concreteness does not tolerate such metaphorically spatial characterizations and oppositions. It is not easy to tell whether Heidegger had any familiarity with any of the essays in which Stein publically presents her perspective.29 Yet, we know that in Being and Time he makes an explicit reference to the second volume of Ideas.

8. The reference is confined to a footnote to §10, and the text of Ideas II is referred to immediately after the mention of Philosophy as a Rigorous Science: E. Husserl’s investigations on “personality” have not yet been published. […] The investigation is extensively furthered in the second part of the Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, the first part of which (cf. this Jahrbuch, vol. 1, 1913) presents the problematic of “pure consciousness” as the basis for investigating the constitution of every possible reality. The second part gives the developmental constitutional analyses and treats in three sections: 1 The constitution of material nature; 2. The Constitution of animal nature; 3. The constitution of the spiritual world (the personalistic attitude in contrast with the naturalistic one). […] After this first attempt, Husserl pursued the problems in a more penetrating way and communicated essential sections of this in his Freiburg lectures (Heidegger, 1967. 47; 2010, 46).

It is impossible to tell to which lectures and to which further “attempts” Heidegger is referring. His dissatisfaction with the account of the second volume of Ideas derives the following reasons:  It should be more evident why in the previous chapter we dared to cast some skepticism on the opposition between Husserl and Heidegger in terms of Was and Wie, static and dynamic conception of the subject (Baur, 2010). The reason is not only that the very concept of Was or, better: Wesen plays a quite complex role in Heidegger’s own attempt at determining Dasein; most importantly, and in order to avoid endorsing any kind of lectio facilior, let us remind ourselves that Husserl, too, thinks of the subject dynamically or, better: historically (= forms of life). 27  “Es hat die Eigentümlichkeit […], ein Leben von innen nach außen zu sein” (Stein, 2010b, 122). 28  Millán-Puelles (2014, 15) speaks of la pérdida de todo contenido sustancial en la intimidad de la persona humana. 29  A systematic confrontation between Stein and Heidegger should start with the question whether Potency and Act should be seen as an attempt to develop an “ontology” of the different forms of life which is meant by the author to be, also, a reply to Heidegger’s criticism of the phenomenological concept of person. Stein seems to be taking into serious consideration Heidegger’s complain about the lack, in Husserl, of any investigation of the “mode of being” of the subject; this is why the difference between the many “categories” of life (plants, animals, psyche, and persons) is taken to express different Seinsmodi. Each Kategorie corresponds to a certain Seinsmodus, hence to a peculiar articulation of matter and form (see for example Stein, 2005, 217). 26

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(i) It is a merely “negative” account, and the (positive) question as to the mode of being of the person is never asked (ii) All Husserl does is admit that “the unity of a person” is different from “that of the things of nature” (Heidegger, 1967, 47–48; 2010, 47) (iii) And that “psychical being has nothing to do with the being of a person,” yet without any positive account of such difference (iv) The person is understood as “a bodily-psychic-like-spiritual unity,” in which body, psyche, and spirit “might designate areas of phenomena which are thematically separable for the sake of determinate investigations” (v) In so proceeding, the analysis of the person has to “presuppose” “some idea of the being of the whole” (Heidegger, 1967, 48; 2010, 47) It is quite difficult not to agree with some of these critical points; just as it is equally difficult to accept them all without any fuss. Indeed, and regardless of the fact that i seems to stretch so far as to concern or include all accounts that de facto do not address the question of existence in the same sense as the analytics of Dasein, we ourselves have already recognized iii for instance. As for ii, on the contrary, Husserl does more than that as he also provides an account of the different modes of individually existing; yet, we also saw to what extent the account of the person seems to put on an equal footing the individuality of the spiritual ego and that of consciousness as a whole. When it comes to iv and v, it is difficult to resist the temptation of agreeing with Heidegger, because the investigations of Ideas II are unfolded by Husserl in such a way that the reader is left with the strong impression that either “nature,” “psyche” or “animal nature,” and “spirit” are treated as merely three different superimposable layers,30 or that  the idea of the “whole” is presupposed from the beginning (see also the remarks in Heidegger, 1997, 11 and ff. on the relation between Leib, Seele and Geist). This becomes extremely clear if we consider, for example, the account that Edith Stein provides of the difference and relevant articulation between psyche, lived-­ body, and spirit in On the Problem of Empathy. There is first of all the “pure I” and the stream of consciousness it belongs to; then the distinction between the material domains is addressed in this order: Die Seele, Ich und Leib, die geistige Person. At the beginning of Chapter IV, Stein acknowledges that, “So far we have considered the individual ‘I’ as a part of nature, the lived-body as a physical body among others, the soul as founded upon it, effects suffered and done and aligned in the causal order […]. In the constitution of the psycho-physical individual something gleamed through in a number of places that goes beyond these frames.” This is why, she goes on to point out, “we want to determine how far the spirit has already crept into our constitution of the psycho-physical individual” (Stein, 2016, 108). These texts perfectly epitomize iv and v: the constitution of the person is addressed in such a

 As Stein puts it elsewhere, the person is a “‘compound’ reality, the unity of lived-body and psyche” (Stein, 2010b, 102). See for example Overgaard, 2003, 160–163 (The Critique of Husserl’s ‘Layer Ontology’). 30

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manner that its division into material body, lived-body, and psyche must presuppose the whole itself from the very beginning. Heidegger’s critical remarks on the second volume of Ideas echo his skepticism about of Ideas I and the idea of pure consciousness.31 If in the lectures on Hermeneutics of Facticity Heidegger expresses his skepticism about the superficial determination of consciousness in terms of consciousness-of… objects (Heidegger, 1988, 2 and ff.), in Introduction to the Phenomenological Research systematic concerns are expressed about Husserl accepting the cogito-character of consciousness without ever questioning it (Heidegger, 1994, 266–267). In the History of the Concept of Time the same points are made once again, and both Husserl and Scheler are equally reproached for “passing over in silence” the “mode of being of the act-­ performance and the mode of being of the act-performer” (Heidegger, 1979, 177; 172 and ff.). In Being and Time (§44), it is explicitly affirmed that the concepts of pure ego and consciousness in general “pass over the ontological character of facticity of Dasein and its constitution of being” (Heidegger, 1967, 229; 2010, 220). If in a letter of February 1923, Heidegger wrote quite harshly to Karl Löwith that, “In the last hours of the seminar I publically burnt and destroyed Ideas (verbrannt und destruiert)” ( Heidegger & Löwith, 2017, 84); at the end of 1926, he will confess to Jaspers that if his book (Being and Time) has been written “against anyone,” then it is Husserl (dann gegen Husserl) (Heidegger & Jaspers, 1992, 71). It is quite difficult to deny in the first volume of Ideas Husserl never raises the question of the mode of being of the pure ego or consciousness, i.e., of the transcendental subject (no matter how one might interpret the phrase mode of being). Nevertheless, it is also quite difficult to deny that the goal and task of Ideas are such that the alleged question of the mode of being of consciousness does not even belong to its problems. In this respect, to affirm that the first book of Ideas does not address the question of the mode of being of pure consciousness is less a criticism than a plain description of what, in it, Husserl does not do and is not interested in doing.32  For a discussion of Heidegger’s critique of Husserl in the early lectures, see Dahlstrom, 1994, in particular, pages 236–239 on the concept of intentionality; and Masullo, 1981. See also Von Herrmann, 2004, 15–23, for a quick overview of the Heidegger-Husserl relation in connection to Being and Time. For the Heideggerian refrain about the un-questioned mode of being of the transcendental consciousness, see also Bernet, 1994, 52–59. See Tapper, 1986 for a discussion of the opposition between “being” (Heidegger) and “consciousness” (Husserl). 32  For a discussion of Heidegger on Husserl’s pure consciousness, see Øverenget, 1998, 91–104; for a recent discussion of Heidegger’s critisicm of Husserl’s idealism, see Dahlstrom, 2021, 268–273. Of course, one could consider §42, where the difference between the Seins-weise of lived-experiences and the Seins-weise of reality is directly mentioned by Husserl. However, here the expression Seinsweise mostly serves to point to and emphasize the difference between the modes of givenness of the two ontological regions (Unterschied der Gegebenheitsart) (Hua III/1, 88; Husserl, 2014a, 74). In short, and despite the “ontological” terminology (Seins-weise), the phrase is used more to designate the difference between two species of “perceptions” (transcendent vs. immanent), than a distinction bearing upon the ontological constitution of the “regions” themselves. Here, too, one could be tempted to either accuse Husserl of not even raising the question of the mode of being of consciousness or recognize that the question of the mode of being of con31

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Of course, it could also be added that, had Husserl been interested in tackling the question of the mode of being of the transcendental subject, he would have not been able to do it successfully with the toolbox at his disposal. The two claims are different though: if the former means to be an actual criticism of what Husserl does in Ideas; the latter proposes a mere counter-factual argument. The state of affairs is radically different, we believe, if we switch to the Cartesian Meditations, at the center of which is the determination of the Seinsweise in Form eines gewissen universalen Lebens überhaupt, in Form der stetigen Selbstkonstitution (Hua I, 133; Husserl, 1993, 102). The text of CM corresponds to neither one of the two volumes of Ideas: the concrete subject is neither the pure consciousness nor the spiritual subject or person discussed there.33 The difference is important, for at stake here is the Husserlian re-elaboration of the transcendental subject as the topos investigated by phenomenology. The monad is not the spiritual subject or person. The fact that the spiritual subject could turn out to be a more concrete form of subject than the psychological subject should not lead us to think that the distinction between psyche and spirit could correspond to the two layers distinguished in §§32–33 of CM IV (the ego as a substrate vs. the ego as a monad). Quite the opposite. To speak à la Heidegger, the monad is the very entity that does the constitution, and the process of its self-constitution coincides with its becoming in the form of a history. The importance of this remark and, more generally, of the thesis that the monad of CM IV should not be identified with the person or spiritual subject of Ideas II is, we believe, corroborated by the following observation. As we stressed above (bullet point iv), one of the main criticisms made by Heidegger against the (still unpublished Husserlian) phenomenological account of the person is that it gives the misleading impression that the person is composed of three “separable” layers: body + psyche + spirit. Not only does the determination of the monad in §33 differ from the three-layered structure of the person; the “lived-body” or Leib is there never mentioned. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, just as Heidegger observes that Dasein cannot be determined based on some “external appearance” or that Dasein is without sex (Geschlecht) (see Heidegger, 1978, 172; see also Ciocan, 2008; Escudero, 2015), so does Husserl not even hint at the body when it comes to describing the structure of the monad. The point is not to deny that the monad has a body (for it does have a lived-body), otherwise it would not even be possible to speak of Um-Welt or “habits”; the point is rather to recognize that the fact of the lived-body does not prima facie determine the nature of the concrete subject. What matters is

sciousness (as Heidegger understands it) does not even belong to the book’s project. The same discourse holds true of the expression Seinsart as Husserl uses it in §45 (Hua III/1, 95; Husserl, 2014a, 81). 33  Of course, it is true that l’esprit est une monade (Levinas, 2006, 64). Yet, without any further clarification, one would really run the risk of identifying Geist and Monade. To make it acceptable, one should add the clause to the effect that if l’esprit est une monade, the reverse does not hold true.

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not the question whether the monad has a body (to be answered in the affirmative), but that the body, too, is part of the history that every individual monad or concrete ego is.34

9. In light of the isomorphism between the 1931 conference on Phenomenology and Anthropology and the Cartesian Meditations that was openly emphasized in Chap. 1, it is not too much of a stretch to claim that the concrete subject or monad described in CM IV represents Husserl’s own attempt at working out a conception of the (concrete) transcendental subject meant to both tackle the questions raised by Heidegger in his letter of 1927 and avoid any anthropological (mis-)understanding of it. The monad of CM IV is Husserl’s way of addressing the issue of the subject’s Seins-Weise. Dasein’s Seins-Weise is such that its existence is always in such and such a mode, starting with the distinction between authenticity and in-authenticity (authentic and in-authentic modes of existence and existing as an individual project). The monad is (Seins) in such a way and mode (-Weise) that it is always as an absolutely individual history, the unity of com-possible forms of life, which is also the unity of com-­ possible forms of its world. To use what Husserl writes in a 1930 manuscript, “the ‘form’ of the world […] is an individual form” (see Hua XV, 146). And since this monad is not (yet) the human subject, nothing else can be said of it; it has no conscience yet that does make cowards of us all (Hamlet, Act 3, I).35 All the similarities between the two thinkers  notwithstanding, a major discrepancy between Husserl and Heidegger remains and cannot be overcome: Husserl keeps conceiving of the transcendental subject as a region—the concrete region: ego.

 For an analysis of the relation between transcendental subjectivity and the body in Husserl that differs from the view propounded here, see Overgaard, 2004, 148 and ff. 35  This is the occasion for us to refer to Husserl’s manuscript of 1930 on the concept of “transcendental person” (Hua XXXIV, 198–201). The text was composed in Chiavari after the Paris lectures and before the publication of the French translation of the Meditations as well as of the lecture on Phenomenology and Anthropology. It is then crucial for us to verify whether the notion of transcendental person contradicts what we have been establishing so far on the distinction between the transcendental subject (= the monad) and the person. As we firmly believe, the manuscript confirms all our hypotheses, for the text outlines a distinction between three subjectivities that perfectly match with the three forms of the subject recognized by Husserl in the lecture of 1931 (see Chap. 1, §7). Indeed, Husserl differentiates the “ego” as a “human person” in the natural sense and before the accomplishment of the reduction; the “concrete transcendental subjectivity” (konkrete transzendentale Subjektivität) or “the concretion of the transcendental subjectivity;” finally, he speaks of the “ego” of the human being after the transcendental enterprise. As far as we understand Husserl’s line of thought, the “transcendental person” is the result of the “transcendental interpretation” of the person. Or, better: it is the first subjectivity, the person “in the natural sense,” yet comprehended from the standpoint of the eidetic-transcendental investigation of the concrete subject (Hua XXXIV, 199). The questions of “birth” and “death” also belong here. 34

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References Alfieri, F. (2010). Il principio di individuazione nelle analisi fenomenologiche di Edith Stein e Hedwig Conrad-Martius. Il recupero della filosofia medievale. In A. Ales Bello, F. Alfieri, & M. Shahid (Eds.), Edith Stein—Hedwig Conrad-Martius. Fenomenologia metafisica, scienze. Laterza. Alfieri, F. (2015). The presence of Duns Scotus in the thought of Edith Stein. The question of individuality. Springer. Alfieri, F. (2016). Auf dem Weg zu einer Lösung der Frage nach dem principium individuationis in den Untersuchungen von Edith Stein und Edmund Husserl. Das Problem der materia signata quantitate. In A. Speer & S. Regh (Hrsg.), “Alles Wesentliche lässt sich nicht schreiben.” Leben und Denken Edith Steins im Spiegel ihres Gesamtwerkes (pp. 81–110). Herder. Altobrando, A. (2010). Husserl e il problema della monade. Trauben. Altobrando, A. (2015). The limits of the absolute consciousness. Some remarks on the Husserlian concept of monad. フッサール研究, 12, 66–86. Altobrando, A. (2020). Monad. In D. De Santis, B. Hopkins, & C. Majolino (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy (pp. 292–303). Routledge. Baur, P. (2010). Vom Was zum Wie. Heideggers Kritik an Husserl als Neukonstitution eines dynamischen Phänomenologiebegriffs. In F.  Rese (Hrg.), Heidegger und Husserl im Vergleich (pp. 95–113). V. Klostermann. Bernet, R. (1994). La vie du sujet. Recherches sur l’interprétation de Husserl dans la phénoménologie. PUF. Bernet, R. (2004). Conscience et existence. Perspectives phénoménologiques. PUF. Betschart, C. (2010). “Kern der Person.” (Meta-)Phänomenologische Begründungen der menschlichen Person nach Edith Steins Frühwerk. In H.-B.  Gerl-Falkowitz, R.  Kaufamnn, & H.-R. Sepp (Hrsg.), Europa und seine Anderen. Emmanuel Levinas, Edith Stein, Jósef Tischner (pp. 61–72). Thelem. Broekman, J. M. (1963). Phänomenologie und Egologie. Faktisches und transzendentales Ego bei Husserl. M. Nijhoff. Ciocan, C. (2008). The question of the living body in Heidegger’s analytics of Dasein. Research in Phenomenology, 38, 72–89. Dahlstrom, D. (1994). Heidegger’s critique of Husserl. In T. Kiesel & J. van Buren (Eds.), Reading Heidegger from the start. Essays in his earliest thought (pp.  231–244). State University of New York Press. Dahlstrom, D. O. (2021). Senses of being and implications of idealism: Heidegger’s appropriation of Husserl’s decisive discoveries. In R. Parker (Ed.), The idealism-realism controversy among Edmund Husserl’s early followers and critics (pp. 261–282). Springer. De Monticelli, R. (2020). Individuality, concreteness, and the gift of bonds. Phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 1, 4–24. De Santis, D. (2018). Husserl on the existence of only one real world. Synthesis and identity (II). Humana.Mente, 34, 105–154. (online journal). De Santis, D. (2021). Husserl and the a priori. Phenomenology and rationality. Springer. De Santis, D. (2023) (Ed.). Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations: Commentary, Interpretations, Discussions. Karl Alber Desanti, J. T. (1994). Introduction à la phénoménologie. Gallimard. Escudero, J.  A. (2015). Heidegger and the hermeneutics of the body. International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, 3(1), 16–25. Ferrarin, A. (1994). Husserl on the ego and its Eidos (Cartesian meditations, IV). Journal of the History of Philosophy, 32, 645–659. Heidegger, M. (1967). Sein und Zeit (GA 2). Max Niemeyer. Heidegger, M. (1978). Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (GA 26). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1979). Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (GA 20). Vittorio Klostermann.

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Heidegger, M. (1988). Ontologie. Hermeneutik der Faktizität (GA 63). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1994). Einführung in die Phänomenologische Forschung (GA 17). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1997). Der Deutsche Idealismus (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) und die philosophische Problemlage der Gegenwart (GA. 28). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time. State University of New York Press. Heidegger, M., & Jaspers, K. (1992). Briefwechsel 1920–1963. Serie Piper. Heidegger, M., & Löwith, K. (2017). Briefwechsel 1919–1973. Karl Alber Verlag. Holenstein, E. (1972). Phänomenologie der Assoziation. Zur Struktur und Funktion eines Grundprinzips der passive Genesis bei E. Husserl. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1952a). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch (Hua V). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1952b). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch (Hua IV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1959). Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Zweiter Teil (Hua VIII). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973a). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil (1929–1935) (Hua XV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973c). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil (1921–1928) (Hua XIV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft (Hua XVII). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Band (Hua III/1). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1980). Ideas for a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy. Third book. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas for a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy. Second book. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (2001). Die Bernauer Manuskripte über die Zielbewusstsein 1917/18 (Hua XXXIII). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2002a). Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23 (Hua XXXV). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2002b). Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1926–1935) (Hua XXXIV). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2005). Einführung in die Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis. Vorlesung 1909 (Hua-Mat VII). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2012). Zur Lehre vom Wesen und zur Methode der eidetischen Variation. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1891–1935) (Hua XLI). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014a). Ideas I. Hackett Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014b). Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie, Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1937) (Hua XLII). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Kern, I. (1964). Husserl und Kant. M. Nijhoff. Kern, I. (2021). Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität und metaphysische Monadologie. Schwabe Verlag. Lavigne, J.-F. (Ed.). (2016). Les Méditations Cartésiennes de Husserl. Vrin. Levinas, E. (2006). En découvrant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger. Vrin. Majolino, C. (2015). Individuum and region of being: On the unifying principle of Husserl’s headless ontology. In A. Staiti (Ed.), Commentary on Husserl’s ideas I (pp. 33–50). de Gruyter. Masullo, A. (1981). La “cura” di Heidegger e la riforma dell’intenzionalità husserliana. Archivio di filosofia, LVII(1–3), 377–394. Melandri, E. (1960). Logica e esperienza in Husserl. Il Mulino.

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Mertens, K. (2000). Husserls Phänomenologie der Monade. Bemerkungen zu Husserls Auseinandersetzung mit Leibniz. Husserl Studies, 17, 1–20. Millán-Puelles, A. (2014). Obras completas IV. La estructura de la subjetividad (1967). Ediciones Rialp, S.A. Moran, D. (2011). Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of Habituality and habitus. Journal for the British Society for Phenomenology, 42, 53–77. Oberhausen, M. (1997). Das neue Apriori. Kants Lehre von einer “ursprünglichen Erwerbung” apriorischer Vorstellung. Frommann-Holzboog. Øverenget, E. (1998). Seeing the self. Heidegger on subjectivity. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Overgaard, S. (2003). Heidegger’s early critique of Husserl. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 11, 157–175. Overgaard, S. (2004). Husserl and Heidegger on being in the world. Springer. Patočka. (2009, January). Husserlova nauka o eidetickém názoru a její současní kritikové. In Fenomenologické spisy. II (pp. 175–191). OIKOYMENH. Pradelle, D. (2006). Monadologie et phénoménologie. Philosophies, 92, 58–85. Ricoeur, P. (2004). Á l’école de la phénoménologie. Vrin. Scot, D. (2005). Le principe d’individuation. De principio individuationis. Vrin. Smith, A. D. (2003). Guidebook to Husserl and the Cartesian meditations. Routledge. Stapleton, T. J. (1983). Husserl and Heidegger: The question of a phenomenological beginning. State University of New York Press. Stein, E. (1962). Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstieges zum Sinn des Seins. Herder. Stein, E. (2005). Potenz und Akt. Studie zu einer Philosophie des Seins. Herder. Stein, E. (2010a). Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Herder. Stein, E. (2010b). Einführung in die Philosophie. Herder. Stein, E. (2015). Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person. Herder. Stein, E. (2016). Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Herder. Ströker, E. (1983). Zeit und Geschichte in Husserls Phänomenologie. Zur Frage ihres Zusammenhanges. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 14, 111–137. Tapper, M. (1986). The priority of being or consciousness for phenomenology: Heidegger and Husserl. Metaphilosophy, 17, 153–161. Vergani, M. (2004). La lecture husserlienne de Leibniz et l’idée de “monadologie”. Études philosophiques, 4, 535–552. Von Herrmann, F.-W. (2004). Subjekt und Dasein. Grundbegriffe von „Sein und Zeit.“. V. Klostermann. Widomski, J. (1986). Essence and individuation in Johannes duns Scotus and Edmund Husserl. Phenomenological Inquiry, 10, 15–28.

Chapter 4

Exemplary Entities: Formal Indication and Eidetic Variation

1. At the beginning of Being and Time (§§2, 7), Heidegger concerns himself preliminarily with the questions how to determine “the exemplar entity” (das exemplarische Seiende), from whose being the disclosure of being can get its start, and the “elaboration of the genuine mode of access to this entity” (Heidegger, 1967, 7; 2010, 6). Such entity, as we already know, is the entity that “we ourselves are in each case”: “This entity, which we ourselves are in each case […], we formulate terminologically as Dasein. The explicit and lucid formulation of the question of the sense of being requires a prior suitable explication of an entity (Dasein) with regard to its being” (Heidegger, 1967, 7; 2010, 7). The problem is more concretely addressed in §7C: Because phenomenon in the phenomenological understanding is always just what constitutes being, and furthermore because being is always the being of the entities, we must first of all bring being itself forward in the right way if we are to have any prospect of exposing the entity. This entity must likewise show itself in the way of access that genuinely belongs to it. Hence, the vulgar concept of phenomenon becomes phenomenologically relevant. The preliminary task of “phenomenologically” securing the exemplary entity, which has to serve as the point of departure for the analyses proper, is always already prescribed by the goal of this analysis (Heidegger, 1967, 37; 2010, 35).

The choice of this entity or, to put it better, the acknowledgement of the exemplary value and significance of a certain entity is legitimized by a two-step argument. In the first place, “the question of the sense of being” is explicitly “posited” (gestellt) (Heidegger, 1967, 6; 2010, 4); then, the positing of the question (of the sense of being) is recognized as an expression of “the mode of being” of a certain entity (see Heidegger, 1967, 7; 2010, 6), the entity which we ourselves always are.1 This is why

 Nous sommes cette question (Greisch, 2014, 85).

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_4

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the question (of the sense of being) “requires a prior suitable explication of an entity.” The question is posited; the position of the question expresses the mode of being of the entity that we are; this entity is recognized as having an exemplary value precisely because its mode of being is such that it can posit, and has already explicitly posited the very question (of the sense of being). Its mode of being is then to be elucidated. The analytics of Dasein is possible because Dasein is able to take position (Stellung) against the fact that “this question [of the sense of being] has today been forgotten” (Heidegger, 1967, 2; 2010, 1), thus “positing” (stellen) it anew explicitly. If we were not able to take position, posit questions in general, thus the specific question of the sense of being, the analytics of Being and Time could not even get started because we would not be in a position to recognize the exemplary value and significance of a certain entity.2 What is a question and how Heidegger conceives of its “position,” we shall not investigate here. But what is the task of the analytics of Dasein? In our elucidation of the task of ontology the necessity arose for a fundamental ontology which would have as its theme that entity which is ontologically and ontically distinctive, namely, Dasein. […] From the investigation itself we shall see that the methodological meaning of phenomenological description is explication (Auslegung). The λόγος of the phenomenology of Dasein has the character of ἑρμενεύειν, through which the proper sense of being and the basic structures of the very being of Dasein are made known to the understanding of being that belongs to Dasein itself (Heidegger, 1967, 37; 2010, 35).

As fundamental ontology, the analytics of Dasein seems to have one major “ambition”: to express and make known (kundgeben) both the sense of being of Dasein and its structures (the existentials). In this latter sense, the analytics of Dasein consists in an actual ἀνάλυσις, that is, in breaking down Dasein so as to un-fold its constitutive elements: “The question about [the ontological structure of existence] aims at the decomposition (Auseinanderlegung) of what constitutes existence. We shall call the connection of these structures existentiality” (Heidegger, 1967, 12; 2010, 11). But the analytics of Dasein aims at elucidating, in the first place, the sense of being of this entity. The sequence and the order of priority are clear: ἑρμενεύειν designates the character of the λόγος of the phenomenology of Dasein to the extent that such phenomenology first clarifies the proper or authentic sense of the being of Dasein (der eigentliche Sinn von Sein), then its basic structures. The ἑρμηνεία is ideally prior to the ἀνάλυσις. Indeed, if the connection or Zusammenhang between these structures is called existentiality, then unless we first elucidate the sense of Dasein’s existence to which the structures belong, the mistake can be easily made that consists in mis-interpreting the structures on the basis of a mis-­conception of existence. Which is always possible given Dasein’s tendency to mis-understand itself and its own being “in terms of” the world (Heidegger, 1967, 15; 2010, 15).

 For a most systematic discussion of these Heideggerian pages, see Hopkins, 1993, 82–102; a most radical critique of the very possibility of asking the question of being is proposed by Sasso, 1987, 17–44. 2

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In perfect compliance with the distinction between ἑρμηνεία and ἀνάλυσις, the analytics of Dasein consists of at least two different species or types of propositions. (i) Propositions that bear upon the existentials per se considered (= ἀνάλυσις), (ii) Propositions that directly regard Dasein, expressing the sense of its being (= ἑρμηνεία). In turn, the first type of propositions (= i) includes a further sub-distinction between: (i-a) Propositions that are about the relation(s) between different existentials, (i-b) Propositions that concern a given existential’s internal structure.3 For what concerns i-a, two cases can be mentioned to illustrate what we mean. For example, in §29 the three existentials known as “attunement,” “understanding,” and “discourse” are said to stand to one another in a relation of “original primordiality” (Gleichursprünglichkeit) (Heidegger, 1967, 137; 2010, 133). At the end of §27, “the authentic being a self” is described as “an existential modification of the they as an essential existential” (Heidegger, 1967, 130; 2010, 126). On the contrary, when it comes to i-b, the case can be considered of §26, where the concept of “care” (Sorge) undergoes two sub-divisions. A first, fundamental distinction is made between “taking care of things” and “concern” (Besorgen and Fürsorge); then a difference is recognized within the latter notion between “two extreme possibilities”: Dasein can either leap in for the other (einspringen) or leap ahead of it (vorausspringen) (Heidegger, 1967, 121–122; 2010, 118–119). As for the statements of the type ii (= ἑρμηνεία), the example of §9 could be recalled once again. Here, as we should remember from Chap. 2, Heidegger clearly points out, “The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence”; or also, “The ‘essence’ of this entity lies in its to be” (Zu-sein) (see Heidegger, 1967, 42; 2010, 41). Regardless of the difficulties involved in the occurrence of the term “Wesen” already highlighted, the two statements can be reframed as follows: if an entity is a who (rather than a what), its “essence” consists in its individual existence as a factual possibility to be. It is quite difficult to resist the temptation to regard the “original primordiality”sort of relation as a variation on the Husserlian notion of “demand for supplementation” (Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit) between species or genera; just as it is equally difficult not to interpret the Sorge-case as a result of the application of the idea of specific differences within a higher genus. The case of the propositions falling under the type ii is more difficult. How can a general proposition be formulated that bears  Le Dasein d’a rien de monolithique, ni du point de vue phénoménologique, ni du point de vue ontologique. Il « se compose » d’une pluralité de structures (Greisch, 2014, 173). Although without making any distinction between different kinds of propositions, also Shockey, 2010, 532–533 tackles the problem of the method of Being and Time in relation to the “propositions that make up the analytic of Dasein” (533): “These [existentials] each have articulated moments, and each is structurally related to the others […]: they represent a progressively deeper exhibition of the phenomenon of Dasein’s being and, in the case of temporality, that which ultimately gives it its unity and shows its connection to being as such.” 3

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upon Dasein as a whole, if Dasein, namely, its existence is always mine (absolutely individual), and has no corresponding region? That the analytics of Dasein does not proceed by ontic generalization (Heidegger, 1967, 199; 2010, 102), and that its outcomes have an “a priori” validity, is something that Heidegger himself admits in a footnote to §10: But the discovery of the a priori is not an “aprioristic” construction. Through Husserl we have again learned not only to understand the meaning of all genuine philosophical “empiricism,” but we have also learned to use the tools necessary for it. “Apriorisim” is the method of every scientific philosophy that understands itself. Because apriorism has nothing to do with construction, the investigation of the a priori requires the proper preparation of the phenomenal foundation. The nearest horizon, which must be prepared for the analytic of Dasein, lies in its average everydayness (Heidegger, 1967, 51; 2010, 49).

However, and regardless of the allusion to the everydayness (which does not concern us here)—, according to a phenomenological refrain, a priori statements are those statements rooted in the pure essence and eidos of the entity under investigation and to the extent that it individualizes a highest category and region. Heidegger seems to be caught up in a difficult alternative. Either a priori statements are formulated that bear upon Dasein’s “essence” and the connection between its structures, but then one is bound to presuppose a highest region under which Dasein is subsumed. In this case the analytics of Dasein would turn into a “philosophical anthropology.” Or Dasein has no sachhaltiges Was, but then the possibility of forming a priori propositions about it becomes unintelligible. For the statements would concern Dasein in general; but there is no such thing as Dasein in general: Dasein is always mine (Heidegger, 1996, 5). The issue at stake might look like a very technical and circumscribed one, concerning the nature of the propositions that de facto compose the analytics of Dasein. More generally, the issue is that of determining the meaning of the methodology underlying the ἑρμηνεία of the analytics of Dasein, and that alone makes it possible for Heidegger to form universal (a priori) propositions on Dasein while at the same he holds fast to the thesis that Dasein has neither sachhaltiges Was nor region.

2. An (extremely quick) mention of the methodological tool employed by the analytics of Dasein can be found right at the beginning of §12: In the preparatory discussion (§9) we already profiled the characteristics of the entity which are to provide us with a steady light for our further our investigations, but which at the same time receive their structural concretion in this investigation. Dasein is an entity which is related understandingly in its being towards that being. In saying this, we are indicating the formal concept of existence (der formale Begriff von Existenz angezeigt). Furthermore, Dasein is the entity which I myself always am. Mineness belongs to existing Dasein as the condition of the possibility of authenticity and inauthenticity. Dasein exists always in one of these modes, or else in the modal indifference to them (Heidegger, 1967, 52–53; 2010, 53).

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As the text says, Dasein’s existence is “indicated” as a “formal concept”; its definition in terms of Dasein’s understanding-relation to its own being is the formal indication of existence. Now, for the sake of our arguments so far, what matters the most is Heidegger’s reference to §9 (The Theme of the Analytics of Dasein), where, as we should remember from Chap. 2, §§4 and 5, the difficult and problematic talk of Dasein’s “Wesen” is introduced and developed. If we understand Heidegger correctly, his position could be so summed up: precisely because Dasein has no Essenz in the sense of a set of properties instantiating a “highest category” or region (= no sachhaltiges Was); precisely because its “Wesen” consists in its individual existence as a factual possibility to be, because of all of this, the concept of Dasein’s existence can be assumed, prior to any possible concretion, only as a formal indication. Or, to put it better, prior to any possible concretion (“Dasein is the entity which I myself always am”), the general concept of Dasein’s existence can be only formally indicated. That we are on the right track in relating the concept of formal indication back to the arguments of §9 can be confirmed on the basis of some of the following, further occurrences of the notion. Initially, the who of Dasein is not only a problem ontologically, it also remains concealed ontically. But, then, is the existential analytical answer to the question of the who without any clue at all? By no means. To be sure, of the formal indications (formalen Anzeigen) of the constitution of being of Dasein given above (§§9 and 12), it is not so much the ones which we discussed thus far which function as such a clue, but rather, the one according to which the “essence” of Dasein is grounded in its existence (Heidegger, 1967, §25, 116–117; 2010, 114). What was gained by our preparatory analysis of Dasein, and what are we looking for? We have found the fundamental constitution of the entity in question, being-in-the-world, whose essential structures are centered in disclosedness. The totality of this structural whole revealed itself as care. The being of Dasein is contained in care. The analysis of this entity took as its guideline existence, which was defined by way of anticipation as the essence of Dasein (als das Wesen des Daseins). The term existence formally indicates (in formaler Anzeige) that Dasein is as an understanding potentiality-of-being which is concerned in its being about its being. I myself am in each instance the entity that is in this way (Heidegger, 1967, §45, 231; 2010, 221). The formal indication (die formale Anzeige) of the idea of existence (Existenzidee) was guided by the understanding of being in Dasein itself. Without any ontological transparency, it was, after all, revealed that I myself am always the entity which we call Dasein, as the potentiality-of-being that is concerned to be this entity (Heidegger, 1967, §63, 313; 2010, 299–300).

The excerpt from §63 strongly corroborates our interpretation by explicitly speaking of the “idea of existence” (with the term Idee to be assumed technically): the concept of existence can be taken as an “idea” (in Idee gesetzt) only by means of “formal indication.” Or, otherwise and better stated: the idea of existence is not given to an eidetic intuition or ideation (as Husserl and Hering would quite likely contend); rather, it can only and exclusively be indicated formally. Moreover, if the passage from §25 supports our claim to the effect that it is §9, notably, the arguments concerning Dasein’s “Wesen” that necessarily require the introduction of formal indication, the excerpt from §45 adds a further, quite interesting element. It

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is indeed important to note that here Heidegger speaks of “the essence of Dasein” (das Wesen des Daseins) with no quotation marks. Now, since the text opens up by acknowledging that something has already been “found” by the analytics of Dasein (“the fundamental constitution of the entity in question”), the conclusion can be drawn that now the term Wesen, “essence,” can be resorted to without further ado because all of Dasein’s “essential structures” and the sense of its existence have already been worked out and all misunderstandings avoided. Of course, this does not mean that now we can claim that Dasein has a Wesen in the Husserlian or Heringhian sense, for example. Quite the opposite is in fact true; the point is rather to recognize the possibility of employing it vaguely since the Husserlian (and Heringhian) sense of the expression has already been excluded once and for all. Since all of Heidegger’s allusions to formal indication in Being and Time are quick, vague and supported by no thematic account able to properly and adequately explain its sense, the interpreter has not other option and strategy than to turn to some of Heidegger’s lectures.

3. The concept of “formal indication” has already been submitted by scholars to several insightful investigations in relation to the many aspects of Heidegger’s thought.4 It has already been studied in its overall development5; as the specific method of Heidegger’s philosophy,6 as well as in relation to Husserl,7 just to give a few examples. If in the following we will be commenting upon the lectures of 1920–1921 on The Phenomenology of Religious Life, it is for a quite specific reason: because here formal indication is assessed within the framework of a critical discussion of Husserl’s own ontology and, most importantly, because it goes hand in hand with the rejection of the concept of the subject in terms of region (this is the main reason why these lectures are prioritized over the “phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle” from 1921–1922, where Heidegger’s main concern is the determination of the concept of philosophy (Heidegger, 1994; 2001, Part II)). Right at the outset of what is now Chapter Four, the claim is made that, “the problem of ‘formal indication’ belongs to the ‘theory’ of the phenomenological method itself” (see Heidegger, 1995a, 55; 2004, 38); and such a method is introduced with the ultimate aim of casting light upon the sense of the “historical” (to which Heidegger will come back at the end of what is now §13). The more specific context, on the contrary, against the backdrop of which Heidegger assesses the

 See for example Kisiel, 1995, 20, for its “breakthrough”; and Kisiel, 1999, for an analysis that goes all the way back to Heidegger’s work on Duns Scotus. 5  Imdahl, 1994; de Vries, 1998. 6  Dahlstrom, 1994; Streeter, 1997; Overgaard, 2004, 82 and ff.; de Lara, 2008, 159–201. 7  Inkpin, 2010; Bancalari, 2005. 4

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method of formal indication, is represented by the traditional problem of “classification,” of the “division of what there is” (Einteilung des Seienden) in its generality (Allgemenheit). He proceeds as follows: he will first discuss the distinction that Husserl proposes in the opening chapter of Ideas between “generalization” and “formalization,” of which he will also highlight the insufficiency; then he will present formal indication as a peculiar mode of access to the “phenomena.” With the dismissal, so to say, of the generalization-formalization duality, what is left behind is also the pillar sustaining the edifice of Ideas I: “In Husserl’s phenomenology, consciousness itself becomes a region, and is subordinate to a regional consideration; its lawfulness is not only in principle original, but also the most universal. It expresses itself generally and originally in transcendental phenomenology itself” (Heidegger, 1995a, 57; 2004, 39). Heidegger starts out with the remark that the two concepts of “general” and “generalization” (das Allgemeine and die Verllgemeinerung) have always been controversial in philosophy, and also that “before Husserl” their investigation “was never seriously considered.” Husserl, Heidegger further explains, “differentiated ‘formalization’ and ‘generalization’ (Logische Untersuchungen, Volume I, final chapter; Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie, §13).” There is no need for us to address the question why Heidegger couples together these two Husserlian texts (see Bancalari, 2005; Villevieille, 2013, 25–32). Let us simply ask, what is the difference between the two methods? “Generalization” (Generalisierung) means generalizing (Verallgemeinerung) according to genus. For example, red is a color, color is sensuous quality. Or joy is an affect, affect is lived-experience. One can, so it seems, drive this further: qualities as such, things as such are essences (Wesen). Red, color, sensual quality, lived-experience, genus, species, essence, are objects (Gegenstände). But the question arises: Is the generalizing transition from “red” to “color,” or from “color” to “sensuous quality” the same as that from “sensuous quality” to “essence” and from “essence” to “object”? Evidently not! There is a break here: the transition from “red” to “color” and from “color” to “sensuous quality” is a generalization; that from “sensuous quality” to “essence” is a formalization. One can ask whether the determination “sensuous quality” determines “color” in the same sense as the formal determination “object” does any thing you like. Evidently not. Nevertheless, the difference between generalization and formalization is not yet entirely clear. The generalization is bound in its enactment to a certain material domain. The order of stages of “generalities” (genus and species) is determined materially (sachhaltig bestimmt). The measuring to (Anmessung an) the material context is essential. Otherwise for the formalization: for example, “The stone is an object.” There the attitude is not bound to the materiality of things (to the region of the material things and such), but is free in terms of its material contents. It is also free from any order of stages: I need run through no lower generalities in order to ascend to the “highest generality” “object in general.” The formal predication is not bound in terms of its material contents, yet it must be somehow motivated. How is it motivated? It arises from the sense of attitudinal relation itself (Einstellungsbezug). I see the determination of its “what” (Wasbestimmtheit) not from out of the object; rather I read the determination “off” the object (an). I must see away from the material content (Wasgehalt) and attend only to the fact that the object is a given, attitudinally grasped one. Thus the formalization arises out of the relational meaning of the pure attitudinal relation itself, not out of the “material content in general (Wasgehalt überhaupt)” (Heidegger, 1995a, 58–59; 2004, 40).

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This long passage is meant to convey a precise account of the difference between generalization and formalization, as Husserl himself presents it at the beginning of the book of 1913. Even the many examples offered are borrowed from that text. Generalization is the process by which an “order of stages” or Stufenfolge (Husserl speaks of Stufenreihe (Hua III/1, 30; Husserl, 2014a, 26)) is obtained in relation to a highest genus and starting from a lowest material determination (universality of the lowest level). Taking as its point of departure a specific color, say: red, the Generalisierung-process drives us all the way up to the species “color,” the sub-­ genus: “visual quality,” the genus: “sensible quality,” the highest genus: “quality.” Particularization or Besonderung, Husserl would also add at this point, is the process that runs the opposite way from the highest genus all the way down to its specifications and, possibly, lowest differences (Hua III/1, 30; Husserl, 2014a 26). As Heidegger does not fail to notice, Generalisierung (as well as Besonderung) is a materially determined process, i.e., a process that is bound to a Wasgehalt überhaupt and to κατὰ γένη διαρεῖσθαι (Sophist, 253D). The situation when it comes to formalization is completely different. For the transition from, say, color (as a materially determined species) to essence or, even better, to “object in general” (the term being Gegenstand überhaupt) is a process by which all possible material content is left behind. The process of formalization implies an Ent-Sachlichung or “de-materialization” (to coin an expression modeled on the Husserlian Versachlichung or materialization (Hua III/1, 31; Husserl, 2014a, 27)). In the very last lines of the excerpt Heidegger tackles a crucial problem, concerning one of the major differences between generalization and formalization. If, unlike the former, the latter cannot rely upon any materially given determination in order to justify or legitimize its mode of proceeding, on which ground can it be motivated? “The formal predication is not bound in terms of its material contents, yet it must be somehow motivated. How is it motivated?” The answer is, It arises from the sense of attitudinal relation itself (Einstellungsbezug). I see the determination of its “what” (Wasbestimmtheit) not from out of the object; rather I read the determination “off” the object (an). I must see away from the material content (Wasgehalt) and attend only to the fact that the object is a given.

A certain attitude is assumed vis-à-vis the “materially determined” object in such a way that if in the Generalisierung-process the Wasgehalt plays the stepping-stone or launching pad, in the case of the Formalisierung-operation, on the contrary, I look away from it (wegsehen) in order to only consider the fact (nur darauf sehen) that the object is given exclusively as an object. To resort to a distinction that Heidegger himself does not make, while Generalisierung is grounded materialiter and a parte obiecti, Formalisierung is grounded formaliter and a parte subiecti. Yet, as Heidegger points out, “the difference between generalization and formalization is not yet entirely clear.” In what sense is generalization (Generalisierung) a generalizing (Verallgemeinerung)? In what sense is formalization a generalizing (Verallgemeinerung)? Projected back onto our question, the question arises, how far and under what conditions may the general be posited as the last object of philosophical determination; and if that is not the case, to what extent does the formal indication, despite this, not prejudice a phenomenological consideration?

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Generalization (Generalisierung) can be described as a way of ordering. In it an integration of particular individuations into an encompassing material complex results. It is possible that this context itself can be integrated into a still more general, encompassing complex. Therefore the generalization always takes place in a material sphere. Its direction is determined through the right approach to the material (des Sachhaltigen). […] The generalization is a particular order of stages, and indeed a materially immanent order of stages of determinations, which stand among each other in the relation of mutual concernability (Betreffbarkeit), so that the most general determination refers all the way to the very last, most subordinate. Generalizing determinations are always determinations of an object according to its materiality from another [viewpoint], and indeed such that what determines, for its part, itself belongs within the material domain in which the to-be-determined“what” lies. Generalization is thus ordering; it is determination from another, such that this other belongs, as encompassing, to the same material region (Sachregion) as that to be determined. Generalization is thus an integration into the material connection of another. Is formalization also ordering? […] Formalization is not bound to the particular “what” of the object to be determined. The determination turns away from the materiality of the object, it observes the object according to the aspect in which it is given; it is determined as that which is grasped; as that to which the cognizing relation refers. An “object as such” means only the “to which” of the theoretical attitudinal relation. This attitudinal relation contains a plurality of meanings that can be explicated, and indeed such that this explication can be considered as determination according to the sphere of objects. But the relational meaning is not an order, not a region, or rather only indirectly, insofar as it is formed out into a formal object-category to which a “region” corresponds. The formalization is primarily only an order through this forming-out (Ordnung durch diese Ausformung). Thus we have to understand under formalization several things: determination of a something as object, assignment (Zuordnung) to a formally objective category, which is however for its part not original, but rather represents only the forming-out of a relation. The task of forming-­out the diversity of the relational meaning (Heidegger, 1995a, 60–61; 2004, 41–42).

The very beginning of this long excerpt re-states what is really in question for Heidegger: the actual “conditions” under which “the general” (in its many meanings) can be the object of a philosophical investigation. “Generalization” in the sense of Generalisierung perfectly expresses what has always been “the task of philosophy”: the classification of “the totality of being into regions” (Heidegger, 1995a, 60; 2004, 41). This is why Heidegger refers to it as a “way of ordering” (Weise des Ordnens): the totality of being is organized in such and such a hierarchical order from the lowest or ultimate differences all the way up to the highest genus or region (which Heidegger takes to be synonyms).8 As a consequence, Generalisierung always consists in looking at, or determining, the materiality of the object von einem anderen her, from the point of view of a different, higher “what”: “red is a color,” “color is a visual quality,” “visual quality is a sensible quality” and so forth. This being recognized, the question turns out to be, “Is formalization also ordering?” Although Heidegger recognizes that Formalisierung looks away from the material determination of the object, hence from all Sachgebiete and regions, one can still speak of “region,” but “only indirectly,” namely, “insofar as it is formed out into a formal object-category to which a ‘region’ corresponds.” In Heidegger’s words, it is Ordnung durch Ausformung, which consists in the determination of an

 See the systematic analyses proposed in Volume 2, Chap. 2.

8

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original materially determined something into an “object in general” and its “assignment” (Zuordnung) to a “category.” If this is the case, and notwithstanding all the crucial distinctions between Generalisierung and Formalisierung first worked out by Husserl, they both contribute to the “classification” of the totality of being, and the distinction between the two tends thereby to fade away. Indeed, both processes seem to turn out to be grounded a parte obiecti, at least to the extent that also the process of formalization consists in “assigning” or zu-ordnen something to such and such a (formal) category. It is part of Heidegger’s strategy to show that, the closer we get to the distinction between generalization and formalization, the more difficult it becomes to actually hold fast to any proper distinction between them. Indeed, whatever seems to make the generalization-process differ essentially from formalization (its being a way of ordering) can be said of the latter as well; just as what seems to characterize the formalization-operation alone (its being motivated by a certain attitude and mode of regarding) is also part of the generalization-process (in which I look at a “material what” von einem anderen her) (see also Bancalari, 2005). Ein Meister in der schärfsten Analyse, wenn er will, Edith Stein will say about Heidegger (Stein, 2015, 509).

4. Since Heidegger himself directly refers the reader to §13 of Ideas, we might want to start with a long citation from there. One must sharply distinguish the relations of generalization and specification from the essentially different sort of relations involved in universalizing something material into something formal in the purely logical sense, or, vice versa, in the materialization of something logically formal into something material. In other words, generalization is something totally different from formalization […] and specification is something totally different from de-formalization in the sense of “filling out” an empty logical-mathematical form or formal truth. Accordingly, subsuming an essence under the formal universality of a purely logical essence should not be confused with subsuming an essence under its higher essential genera. Thus, for example, the essence “triangle” is placed under the highest genus “spatial shape,” the essence “red” under the highest genus “sensible quality.” On the other hand, red, triangle and similarly all homogenous as well as heterogeneous essence are placed under the categorial title “essence,” which in no way has for them all the character of an essential genus but rather has it for none of them. To regard “essence” as the genus of material essences would be just as perverse as misconstruing object in general (the empty something) as the genus for every sort of object and the naturally simply as the one and only highest genus, as the genus of all genera. It is necessary instead to designate all formal-­ ontological categories as eidetic singularities that have their highest genus in the essence “formal-ontological-category-in-general” (Hua III/1, 31–32; Husserl, 2014a, 27).

The passage corroborates all of Heidegger’s points. Indeed, whereas the first half is committed to showing the essential difference between generalization and formalization, hence of what they respectively bring about (materially determined categories in one case; formal-empty categories in the other); in the second half a parallel is

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explicitly established between the “relations” (Husserl himself employs the term Verhältnisse) holding between the many material categories and the ones obtaining between the formal categories. The very last sentence leaves no room for doubt. The term eidetic singularity, which usually applies to the ultimate difference of a material species (e.g., “ruby red”), is here used to designate “all formal-ontological categories,” the highest formal genus of which is the “formal-ontological-category-in-general.” In short, “eidetic singularity” can be used to refer to “pearl white” (as the lowest difference of the materially determined species “white”) and to “Barbarasyllogism” (as the lowest difference of the species “inference”). If one can affirm that, “‘pearl white’ is a color” (thereby looking at it, as Heidegger writes, von einem anderen her), the same can be done with the eidetic singularity “Barbara-syllogism.” For instance, “‘Barbara-syllogism’ is an inference” or also “‘Barbara-syllogism’ is one of the lowest differences of the species ‘inference.’” Or, as could also be the case, “color” can itself be formalized and regarded merely as a “non-independent part” of a whole. In this case, the eidetic singularity is turned into an object and assigned to a certain category. Weise des Ordnens in the first case; Ordnung durch Ausformung and Zuordnung in the latter.9 In addition to this, it is worth noting that Husserl speaks of region in relation to both the domain of the material and the formal sphere. This happens in §10. After Husserl employs the phrase “form of region in general” (in contrast with “material region” sic et simpliciter), he remarks the following: Formal ontology seems initially to stand on the same level with material ontologies, insofar as the formal essence of object in general and the regional essence seem to play, on both sides, the same role. Thus, one will be inclined to speak much more of material regions than (as above) of regions simply, and then to add the “formal region” to the former. If we adopt this way of speaking, then some caution is needed. On the one hand, there are material essences, and these are in a certain sense the “proper” essences. On the other hand, however, there is, to be sure, something eidetic yet different in a fundamentally essential way: a mere form of essence, that is, to be sure, an essence but a fully “empty” essence, an essence that in the manner of an empty form is suited to every possible essence, an essence that in its formal universality subsumes under itself all universalities, even the highest material universality, and prescribes laws to them through the formal truths pertaining to it. The so-­ called “formal region” is thus not something coordinated with the material regions (the regions simply); it is not genuinely a region but instead the empty form of region in general. […] The subsuming of the material under the formal makes itself known in that the formal ontology contains within itself at the same time the forms of any possible ontology at all (namely, all “genuine,” “material” ontologies) and prescribes to the material ontologies a formal constitution common to them all (Hua III/1, 26–27; Husserl, 2014a, 22–23).

The passage contains two lines of thought and uses the term “region,” in relation to the domain of the “formal,” in two slightly different senses. On the one hand, as the second half of the passage shows, Husserl poses the question to what extent one can  For a systematic discussion of Heidegger’s reading of Husserl on the matter, see also Camilleri, 2017, 217–269, 240–251. The perspective adopted by the author is fully Heideggerian, otherwise he would not write that, for Husserl, la formalisation est philosophiquement supérieure à la généralisation or that the latter est une étape sur le chemin qui mène à la formalisation (Camilleri, 2017, 243). 9

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speak of the “formal” itself as an (empty) region or (empty) essence vis-à-vis the many material regions and their essences. For example, in this case one might wonder whether the formal-ontological formation called “moment” or “non-­independent object” (roughly to be defined as: “object that can only be as part of a more encompassing whole”) prescribes “laws” (as Husserl himself says) to its materializations in a region (be it “consciousness” or “world”) in exactly the same sense in which the regional-“material” essence “consciousness” and “world” prescribe laws to their own material individuals (= individual lived-experiences or individual material things). Husserl is both aware of the difficulty and yet also convinced of the parallel between the two. But the very beginning of the quotation talks of “region” in a second sense. Husserl maintains that the concept of region or “regional essence” plays or “seems to play” in both formal and material ontology “the same role.” In short, the question here is not whether the “formal” can play the role of the (formal) “region” vis-à-vis the many material regions; but rather whether there is a “region” within the formal itself. Husserl affirms the question in the affirmative: in both formal and material ontology there are highest categories or regions. One can distinguish between, say, the supreme genus “object in general,” the genera “dependent” and “non-independent object,” the two species “relatively non-independent object” and “absolutely non-independent object” and so on and so forth all the way down or back up. Since all of Husserl’s statements seem to justify Heidegger’s assessment of the difference (or non-difference) between formalization and generalization, let us go back to “formal indication.”

5. “What is common to formalization and generalization is that they stand within the meaning of ‘general,’ whereas the formal indication has nothing to do with generality. The meaning of ‘formal’ in the ‘formal indication’ is more original” (Heidegger, 1995a, 59; 2004, 41). The turn of phrase “more original” is here meant to express the fact that, unlike “formalization” (let alone the method of “generalization”), formal indication is not related to any region and its universality (if it makes any sense to still employ the expression) is not a regional universality: “the formal indication has nothing to do with this” (Heidegger, 1995a, 59; 2004, 41). How should it be better or more appropriately characterized in contrast with the former two? How is a “phenomenology of the formal” in the more original sense of formal indication at all possible? Here is how Heidegger sums up the difference between three conceptions of the “formal”: Thus we have: 1. Formalization. In this forming-out, a special task arises: the theory of the formal-logical and formal-ontological. Through their forming-out from the relational meaning, the formal categories make possible the performance of mathematical operations. 2. Theory of the formal-ontological (mathesis universalis), through which the theoretical region is posited as separate.

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3. Phenomenology of the formal (original consideration of the formal itself and explication of the relational meaning within its accomplishment (Bezugssinn innerhalb seines Vollzug)) (Heidegger, 1995a, 62; 2004, 42–43).

1 and 2 should be regarded as the two sides of the same coin (and they map onto the two aspects of the formalization-process earlier fleshed out by Heidegger). The first looks at the process of formalization as a “relational meaning” (Bezugssinn), namely, as the “attitudinal relation itself” that operates without any reference to the material content. 2, on the contrary, presents the process of formalization from the vantage point of what, in Husserl, it ends up bringing about: “the theoretical region” of the formal itself. Finally, 3 presents the more original phenomenology of the formal that shares with 1 the emphasis on the relational meaning, and yet, unlike 2, does not give rise to any (formal) region whatsoever. This is why Heidegger can state that, “Insofar as the formal-ontological determinations are formal, they do not prejudice anything” (Heidegger, 1995a, 62; 2004, 43). The problem is when the formal is turned into a region or understood from the perspective of a region (be it also the formal region), thereby being “prejudiced,” surreptitiously determined based upon a “classification” and division of what there is. These three understandings of the formal correspond to three more general ways of conceiving of the “phenomenon” of phenomenology: What is phenomenology? What is phenomenon? Here this can be itself indicated only formally. Each experience, as experiencing, and what is experienced, can “be taken in the phenomenon,” that is to say, one can ask: 1 . After the original “what,” that is experienced therein (content (Gehalt)). 2. After the original “how,” in which it is experienced (relation (Bezug)). 3. After the original “how,” in which the relational meaning is performed (performance (Vollzug)). But these three directions of sense (content-, relational-, performance-sense) do not simply coexist. “Phenomenon” is the totality of sense in these three directions. “Phenomenology” is explication of this totality of sense; it gives the “λόγος” of the phenomena, “λόγος” in the sense of “verbum internum” (not in the sense of logicalization) (Heidegger, 1995a, 63; 2004, 43).

The passage needs to be approached carefully. For even if Heidegger hastens to point out that these three “directions of sense” do not simply “coexist,” but rather determine all together “the totality of sense of the phenomenon,” the sense of the phenomenon varies depending upon which one is given priority over the others. For example, if the phenomenon is determined based on 1, that is, its content (material determination), then its “sense” will be from the very beginning prejudiced (as Heidegger would put it) materially in light of a certain order and, most importantly, “region” (under which it is categorized). This is exactly the way the “generalization”method works. Two corresponds to the way in which formalization works instead, One could say that a formal-ontological determination says nothing about the “what” of that which it determines, and thus does not prejudice anything. But exactly because the formal determination is entirely indifferent as to content, it is fatal for the relational- and performance-aspect of the phenomenon, because it prescribes, or at least contributes to prescribing, a theoretical relational meaning. It hides the performance-character (das

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4  Exemplary Entities: Formal Indication and Eidetic Variation Vollzugsmäßige), which is possibly still more fatal, and turns one-sidedly to the content. A glance at the history of philosophy shows that formal determination of the objective entirely dominates philosophy (Heidegger, 1995a, 63; 2004, 43).

It must be admitted that Heidegger’s point here is not particularly perspicuous. More specifically, it is not clear why, even though “a formal-ontological determination says nothing about the ‘what’ of that which it determines, and thus does not prejudice anything,” it ends up turning “one-sidedly to the content” (thereby prejudicing it in exactly the same way as 1). The explanation provided is that 2 “hides the performance-character” of the sense of the phenomenon; hence, by hiding or not taking into consideration das Vollzugsmäßige in order to determine the sense, it has not other option than that of bringing about a content-based determination (= it is the parallel recognized by Husserl between the formal (region) and the material (region)). If we are on the right track, the sense of the “formal” in the phrase “formal indication” should be determined exclusively based on 3. How can this prejudice, this pre-judgment, be prevented? This is just what the formal indication achieves. It belongs to the phenomenological explication itself as a methodical moment. Why is it called “formal”? The formal is something relational. The indication should indicate beforehand the relation of the phenomenon, in the negative sense, however, the same as if to warn! A phenomenon must be so stipulated such that its relational meaning is held in abeyance. One must prevent oneself from taking it for granted that its relational meaning is originally theoretical. The relation and performance of the phenomenon is not determined in advance, but is held in abeyance. That is a stance which is opposed to science in the highest degree. There is no insertion into a material domain, but rather the opposite: the formal indication is a suspension (Abwehr), a preliminary securing, so that the performance-­character still remains free. The necessity of this precautionary measure arises from the falling tendency of factual life experience, which constantly threatens to slip into the objective, and out of which we must still retrieve the phenomena (Heidegger, 1995a, 63–64; 2004, 43–44).

The passage is meant to be a characterization of what formal indication yields, as well as of the way in which it works in contrast with both formalization and generalization. As is evident, the account is mainly of a negative nature, and can be summed up as follows. A. It runs contrary to the mode of working of science, B. It accomplishes no “insertion into a material domain”: the phenomenon is not preliminarily “determined” as falling under a certain region, not even the “formal region” (which would in turn be determined by its materialization in such and such a (material) region), C. The possible material determination of the sense of the phenomenon is “suspended,”10 D. Its necessity arises from the “tendency” of factual life, “which constantly threatens to slip into the objective,” thereby determining in advance the sense of the

 In the lectures of 1921–1922, Heidegger will point out that what is “formally indicated” is gehaltlich unbestimmt (see Heidegger, 1994, 20; 2001, 17). 10

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phenomena in terms of “object” and “objectivity” (Objekt).11 In this latter sense, formal indication also runs contrary to the way in which factual life would tend to do the sense-determination. Bullet point D is of particular importance for our study, not only because it immediately reminds us of the very similar tendency that, in Being and Time, will characterize Dasein (= Dasein’s tendency toward mis-understanding itself in terms of the world), but for a more crucial reason. Heidegger is explicitly claiming that one of the goals of formal indication is to avoid determining the sense of the phenomenon prima facie based upon the way in which factual life tends to do it. This can be done only if we first “formalize” the phenomenon by means of formal indication; only then is one allowed to raise the question, “What is X originally in factual experience?” Accordingly, the notion of Vollzug or performance should be understood in two senses. “Vollzug” means in the first place the actual (philosophical) “performance” that consists in formalizing the phenomenon, i.e., its sense by formal indication (here: the sense of historical) (the opposition being between Vollzug and Gehalt); then, “Vollzug” refers to how the phenomenon is accomplished or performed, not theoretically, but directly in the original experience of factual life (the opposition being between Vollzug and Bezug). “Formal indication” amounts to a philosophical κένωσις, in which the sense of the phenomenon is cleared of all determinations (be they material or merely formal determinations), so that the phenomenologist can avoid assuming and analyzing it based on its preliminary inclusion in a category. We apply the results won to the problem of the historical. If the historical is taken as the formally indicated, it is not thereby asserted that the most general determination of “historical” as a “becoming in time” delineates a final sense. This formally indicating determination of the sense of historical is neither to be regarded as one which determines the objective historical world in its historical structural character, nor as one which describes the most general sense of the historical itself. “Temporal” is, preliminarily, still taken in an entirely undetermined sense: one does not know at all which time is being spoken of. So long as the sense of “temporal” is undetermined, one could understand it as [something] not prejudicing; one could mean: insofar as each objectuality constitutes itself in consciousness, it is temporal, and with that one has won the fundamental schema of the temporal. But this “general formal” determination of time is no foundation; rather it is a falsification of the problem. For with that a framework for the time-phenomenon has been pre-delineated from out of the theoretical. Rather, the issue of time must be grasped in the way we originally experience temporality in factual experience, entirely irrespective of all pure consciousness and all pure time. The way is thus reversed. We must ask, rather, what is temporality originally in factual experience? What do past, present, and future mean in factual experience? Our way takes its point of departure from factual life, from which the meaning of time is won. The problem of the historical is thus characterized (Heidegger, 1995a, 65; 2004, 44–45).

By formally indicating the sense of the phenomenon of what is “historical,” we avoid determining it in advance, e.g. as “a becoming in time”; as  a form of the  “The erroneous tendency thus resides in the fact that with respect to the object and its possible possession, a norm of determination is uncritically introduced, namely, always accepted in the traditional way as if it were self-evident” (see Heidegger, 1994, 20; 2001, 17). 11

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“objective historical world”; as something to be determined (temporally) by temporal consciousness. Indeed, these just mentioned are nothing other than different formal-theoretical conceptions of what is historical that, as they receive material content, falsify the sense of the phenomena by imposing upon them a previously assumed idea.12 It should be now clear in what sense two different meanings of the terms Vollzug and Vollzugssinn have to be distinguished.13 The “sense” of the phenomenon is to be directly drawn upon the original experience that factual life has of it (its sense is the sense of its Vollzug by factual life itself) if and only if this very same “sense” is first “secured” (Heidegger himself speaks of Sicherung) from any previous theoretical determination (= including those characterizing factual life itself). This can be obtained only if the phenomenologist first performs or accomplishes (Vollzug) the “emptying” of the phenomenon itself, in such a manner that the givenness of the phenomenon (its “original ‘how’”) is not pre-determined by any mis-conception of its what. This is what indicating formally a phenomenon properly implies.

6. If we now go back to Being and Time, we can appreciate the importance of the foregoing analyses to better understand in what sense “the idea” of Dasein’s “existence” is only “a formal indication.” Of course, the situation is not directly superimposable to that of the lectures of 1920–1921.14 For example, while the formal indication of the “historical” does not rule out the possibility that, in the end, the historical could be assigned a material determination (a what), this is what the analytics of Dasein excludes altogether. In other words, since Dasein has no sachhaltiges Was and no corresponding “region,” formal indication  is the only available methodological option. Here we are no longer confronted with a situation in which life tends to mis-­ conceive the sense of a phenomenon; given Dasein’s own tendency toward mis-­ understanding itself “in terms of the world,” it tends to ascribe a certain material “what” to a phenomenon (its own existence) that has no material “what” whatsoever. It is one thing to avoid to materially determine in advance a phenomenon that nevertheless has a what, but quite another to avoid materially determining a

 This has been rightly called die abwehrende Funktion der formalen Anzeige (de Lara, 2008,185–188); or, in the words of a recent interpreter, formal indication is meant to suspendre l’inférence non critique d’un concept à une constellation d’autres concepts (Villevieille, 2017, 346). Villevieille  builds on Arrien, 2011. 13  In the words of Villevieille, 2013, 36: « Effectuation » (Vollzug) désigne ainsi l’exercice même des actes tel qu’il se produit antérieurement à toute attitude logique et phénoménologique, ou postérieurement à elle: l’effectuation en est à la fois le point de départ et la vérification. 14  See Villevieille, 2013, 71 and ff., for an analysis of the role of “formal indication” in Being and Time that however differs from the one that we are proposing here. 12

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phenomenon that tolerates absolutely no material determination.15 If in the lectures of 1920–1921 factual life’s original experience was that which ultimately determined the sense of the phenomenon first formally indicated (there: the meaning of “historical”), in Being and Time it is this very same factual life (now replaced by “Dasein”), namely its mode of being, that can be determined only through a previous formal indication. As we already saw in §2 of this chapter, “of the formal indications of the constitution of being of Dasein given above (§§9 and 12), it is not so much the ones which we discussed thus far which function as such a clue, but rather, the one according to which the ‘essence’ of Dasein is grounded in its existence” (Heidegger, 1967, §25, 116–117; 2010, 114). By the phrase “the ones which we discussed thus far,” Heidegger refers to all the existentials “analyzed” after §9; they are, in the order: being-in-the-world; the phenomenon of significance; the phenomenon of spatiality (all of them being obtained during the discussion of Chapter Three: The Worldliness of the World). On the contrary, what is formally indicated is only and exclusively “the one according to which the ‘essence’ of Dasein is grounded in its existence” (first introduced in §9). Accordingly, the statement, –– “The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence” (Being and Time, §9) (and its variations) is a universal statement obtained by formal indication. It displays a universality that is neither the formal universality of Formalisierung (it does not point to a “formal” essence or region in need of being materialized) nor that of Generalisierung (it expresses no material region or supreme material essence). We could call it, “empty” or “kenotic” universality. It follows that, unlike Husserl’s universalities of essence (UE), it cannot be translated into a proposition expressing a necessity of essence (NE) of the form, –– If x is a Dasein, its “essence” will necessarily lie in its existence because this form would give the misleading impression that “Dasein” is a universal material essence to be “indifferently” individualized hic et nunc by an “x” in the sense of a Husserlian sort of “individuum.” In short, it would misleadingly suggest that Dasein has a sachhaltiges Was, just like any non-Dasein-Sache. However, since Dasein has neither Was nor region, its universality cannot be “particularized” in order to obtain a Stufenfolge or Stufenreihe of universalities with a progressively smaller extent (Umfang) all the way down to the eidetic singularities. And if in the lectures of 1920–1921 the accomplishment of formal indication “means a positing of the phenomenological explication (Explikation)”, we know that by the time of Being and Time the term designating the method of  “hermeneutics is factical life caught in the act, vigilantly caught in the act of interpreting itself,” as one could easily put in the words of Farrell Krell, 1994, 364. 15

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phenomenology as “hermeneutics” is “explication” as Auslegung. We can finally present Heidegger’s mode of proceeding in the following way: 1. At the beginning, there is the necessity of avoiding assuming the mode of being of Dasein, hence its structures, based upon its tendency to mis-understand itself in terms of the world; 2. The sense of Dasein’s existence can be indicated only formally as a “kenotic” universality so that its “analysis” is not “pre-determined” or “prejudiced” in any way whatsoever (this would correspond to the first sense of Vollzug singled out by us in §5); 3. In the mere how of its givenness, the sense of that phenomenon called Dasein is then, in the language of the lectures of 1920–1921, performed, not theoretically, but directly in the original experience of Dasein itself. This corresponds to the second sense of Vollzug and is immediately accompanied by the ἑρμενεύειν: the sense of the phenomenon is determined “hermeneutically” and interpreted without prejudices in its original experience.16 4. Based on 3, a relevant structure (existential) is analyzed in the sense of being first carefully distinguished (ἀνάλυσις), explicated (Auslegen), and eventually made known (Kundgeben); 5. Finally, propositions of the type i that we distinguished above are made possible. Now, the sequence can be confirmed by briefly considering, for example, §21 (The Hermeneutical Discussion of the Cartesian Ontology of the “World”). Already at the beginning, it is clear that, in Heidegger’s view, Descartes has committed a mistake that corresponds to 1; Descartes determines the Weltlichkeit, the being of the world as extensio, namely, “through an innerworldly entity initially at hand” (Heidegger, 1967, 95; 2010, 93). It is Dasein’s tendency to conceive of itself based on a “pre-determined” and “pre-judiced” manner. The text even goes on to point out the origin of such a “pre-determination”: “Mathematical knowledge is regarded as the one way of apprehending the entity […]. Whatever has the kind of being adequate to the being accessible in mathematical knowledge is in the true sense. This entity is what always is what it is” (Heidegger, 1967, 95–96; 2010, 93–94). The next section (C.  The Aroundness of the Surrounding World and the Spatiality of Dasein) refers the reader back to §12, where “the formal concept of existence” was explicitly “indicated” (based on §9) (see Heidegger, 1967, 52–53; 2010, 53) and  a “preliminary sketch of being-in (In-Sein)” was also offered (see   In the lectures of 1921–1922, Heidegger remarks that formal indication  gives the Ansatzcharactekter des Vollzugs (Heidegger, 1994, 33; 2001, 27). See also Lafont, 2002, 233, who explains that “formal” and “indicative “never refer to entities, thus they ‘fall outside the realm of the attitudinal theoretical. Second, they are merely indicative because of their essentially enacting or performative character: understanding them requires performing an action, a transformation, that the concepts as (mere) concepts can only indicate but not actually bring about. And third, they are formal, but not in the scientific sense of being general and unspecific (i.e. about no individual entity in particular), but precisely the opposite: they are as specific as they can be (the best example of this is Jemeinigkeit, as Heidegger points out), but, they cannot bring along with them the respective content they point at.” 16

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Heidegger, 1967, 101; 2010, 99). Based on both “the preliminary sketch” and the “formal concept of existence” the task arises to determine “in what sense space is constitutive for the world which in turn was characterized as a structural factor of being-in-the-world.” This would correspond to 2. At this point, §22 starts out with (to speak once again the language of 1920–1921) the performance of the phenomenon in the “original experience” of Dasein itself. Let us limit ourselves to a quote from the very first lines of the text: “This spatiality of things at hand has not yet been grasped phenomenally in an explicit way and its interconnection with the ontological structure of what is at hand has not yet been demonstrated. This is now the task.” Heidegger goes on to introduce the ἑρμενεύειν of the sense of the phenomenon by noting that, “The things at hand of everyday dealings have the character of nearness. To be exact, this nearness of everyday useful things is already hinted at in the term which expresses their being, in ‘handiness’” (Heidegger, 1967, 102; 2010, 100). After the ἑρμενεύειν, which characterizes the entirety of §22, §23 makes explicit and also “known” “de-distancing” “as an existential” (Heidegger, 1967, 105; 2010, 102). Finally, an a priori proposition that appeals to Dasein’s essence can be formulated: “An essential tendency (wesenhafte Tendenz) towards nearness lies in Dasein” (Heidegger, 1967, 106; 2010, 103).

7. It is striking to see how the manner in which every single existential (here, “de-­ distancing”) is analyzed, made explicit and then expressed in a proposition bearing on Dasein perfectly mirrors in nuce the overall trajectory and strategy of the analytics of Dasein all the way to §45. In order to avoid any misunderstanding concerning the mode of being of Dasein (and its existentials), at the beginning the term “essence” is either abstained from or used in “quotation marks” (“Wesen”); it is only at the end of the ἑρμενεύειν, when it is time to express its outcomes propositionally, that the concept of essence can be employed and is de facto  employed by Heidegger without further ado. Let us consider once again the opening lines of §45 (which marks the beginning of Division Two): The being of Dasein is contained in care. The analysis of this entity took as its guideline existence, which was defined by way of anticipation as the essence of Dasein (als das Wesen des Daseins). The term existence formally indicates (in formaler Anzeige) that Dasein is as an understanding potentiality-of-being which is concerned in its being about its being (Heidegger, 1967, §45, 231; 2010, 221).

The excerpt perfectly illustrates the difference between the beginning of the analytics in §9 and its conclusion at the end of Division One. At the beginning, Dasein’s existence can be only “formally” indicated and the term essence is either avoided or neutralized. Division One can be likened to §22: what happens in §22 in relation to just one single existential is what happens in the entirety of the former as regards Dasein’s existence  as a whole. And as in §23 Heidegger can finally form a

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proposition expressing something rooted in Dasein’s essence (An essential tendency (wesenhafte Tendenz) towards nearness lies in Dasein) without the term “essence” being used with suspicion, so in §45 can “care” finally be taken as expressing the essence itself of Dasein, i.e., the “concrete constitution of existence.” It is now clear, in fact, that the essence of Dasein no longer needs to be characterized exclusively per viam negationis (= no essence in the sense of a sachhaltiges Was), but it can also  and finally be presented positively (as the passage above points out, “The being of Dasein is contained in care”). Many of the points made in Chap. 2 concerning Dasein’s existence should now have become clearer. There we pointed out that, “Dasein’s ‘full concretion’ designates the connection between all the existentials […] to their very ultimate, that is, individual determination” (§7). For we now know to what extent this assertion should not be mis-understood as if “existential” were just another label for “category”. Dasein’s full concretion cannot be taken as the result of a process of particularization and then individualization. “Full concretion” means nothing but the “absolute individuality” of every Dasein. As one can put it, since Dasein has neither sachhaltiges Was nor region, and, accordingly, no “essence” in this sense, Dasein can and should be referred to only as my Dasein.17 If the first singling out of the “exemplary entity” is made possible by our adopting a position vis-à-vis the oblivion of the question of the sense of being, therefore by our “positing” it again, its determination as the actual entity to be investigated, hence the possibility itself of such investigation, derived from the method of “formal indication.” The phenomenologist is able to distance herself or himself from her or his own existence, namely, from the many pre-determinations and pre-judices affecting it. Only by formally indicating the phenomenon of existence can its sense be actually investigated, its many structures made known and eventually spelled out. It is here that the locus of the transcendental (Chap. 1, §1) finally appears and comes to full light. If the locus of the transcendental designates the problem of directly determining the entity that does the “constitution”; and if such entity can do the constitution because its “existence” does not have the “mode of being” of the presence-at-hand; and if the ascertainment of such “mode of being” is one of the outcomes of the analytics, then it is evident why none of this would be possible

 See also Shockey, 2010, 533–534: “The propositions that make up the analytic of Dasein in SZ may thus be seen as forming an account of the constitutive ontological or transcendental form of first-person singular being, developed from within the first-person perspective.” For Shockey, it is the first-person perspective employed by Heidegger in Being and Time that requires the method of formal indication. For us, on the contrary, they both (“formal indication” as well as the Jemenigkeit-­ character of Dasein) derive from the peculiar “Wesen” of Dasein. This is confirmed, we believe, from the following passage from the lectures of 1929–1930: “These concepts are indicative […]. They point into Dasein itself. But Dasein, as I understand it, is always mine. These concepts are formally indicative because in accordance with the essence of such indication they indeed point into a concretion of the individual Dasein in the human being (in eine Konkretion,des einzelnen Daseins im Menschen) in each case, yet never already bring this concretion along with them in their content” (Heidegger, 1983, 426; 1995b, 296). It is the “essence” of Dasein, i.e., its “concretion” as we analyzed it in Chap. 2, that requires the method of formal indication. 17

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without Dasein distancing itself from itself (= formal indication). The locus of the transcendental—the identity of the entity in which the transcendental harbors—can be established only because Dasein, the Dasein of the phenomenologist, distances itself from the many pre-determinations of existence, looks at it in its original how, and also performs it in the absolute concretion of Dasein, thus interpreting (ἑρμενεύειν) and analyzing (ἀνάλυσις) its many structures and unique mode of being.18 The method is such that the trajectory goes from existence (and its pre-judices) through its formal indication (existence in its original how) all the way back to (Dasein’s) existence (and its analysis). Asserting, as Ricoeur does, that the difference between the “starting point” of the Meditations and that of Being and Time is that in the former, quelque chose déjà est décidé avant le point de départ, puisque, à la différance du Heidegger de Sein und Zeit, la philosophie situe son acte philosophique par rapport è une activité déjà fortement théoretisée et non par rapport à une activité ou agir plus primitifs (Ricoeur, 2004, 191), writing something like this is not only a naiveté; it is a confession of ignorance of the actual methodological point of departure of the analytics of Dasein.19 But what is the methodological point of departure of the Cartesian Meditations? Exit Heidegger.

8. Enter Husserl. One of the fundamental points that must be made, and firmly kept in mind as one approaches the Cartesian Meditations, is that their structure and argumentative line radically differ from those of the first volume of Ideas. Failing to appreciate this might result in a misinterpretation of the very idea of phenomenology that Husserl is now presenting. Just to give an example, which however will turn out to be of the utmost importance: the introduction of the eidetic apparatus, thus the transition to the a priori dimension of the phenomenological account takes place only in §34 of the Fourth Meditation after the discussion of the monad (= §33). On the contrary, the transcendental sphere is already fully disclosed at the outset of the Second Meditation (The Field of Transcendental Experience laid out in respect to its Universal Structures). This is the exact opposite of what happens in

 The question to what extent all of this can be regarded as Heidegger’s transformation of the phenomenological epoché is a question that we cannot and do not want to ask, because it would take us far beyond the scope of the present work. The careful remarks made by Caputo, 1977 on the Husserl-Heidegger relation in connection to the method of the epoché are still valid. For a general introduction and discussion of the phenomenology of the epoché, see the essays published in Bancalari, 2015, Chapters 3, 4 and 5. 19  Accordingly, our reading radically differs from Burch, 2013, 262. The fact that “formal indication is not a theoretical attitude towards oneself” does not mean that it itself is not a theoretical tool employed by the phenomenologist. 18

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Ideas, where the eidetic toolbox is presented right at the outset of the text (First Section. First Chapter, §§2–17), and the performance of the many reductions takes place only in the Second Section. Fourth Chapter (§§56–62). From the eidetics to the transcendental in Ideas, from the transcendental to the eidetics in the Cartesian Meditations. To quickly resort to a distinction first made by Oskar Becker (1930, 140), while in Ideas Husserl first moves vertically from N (natural attitude) to E (eidetic attitude), then horizontally from E over to Φ (transcendental attitude); in the Meditations Husserl first makes the horizontal move from N (natural attitude) to T (transcendental-factual attitude), then the vertical one from T to E. The discrepancy between the two texts could not be greater. It is true that in §34 of the Meditations Husserl says, “We have delayed mentioning it [the eidetic method], only to facilitate the entrance into phenomenology” (Hua I, 103; Husserl, 1993a, 69). It is also true, as has been succinctly pointed out, that Les motifs pédagogiques ne peuvent suffire à rendre compte de ce retard (Didier, 1981, 65). But the proper reason why Husserl is here playing the role of the παιδαγωγός is explained immediately after the above line and testify to the very peculiar physiognomy that phenomenology displays in this text: The excessively great multiplicity of novel discoveries and problems was meant to act at first in the simpler attire of a merely empirical description (though conducted purely within the sphere of transcendental experience). The method of eidetic description, however, signifies a transfer of all empirical descriptions into a new and fundamental dimension, which at the beginning would have increased the difficulties of understanding; on the other hand, it is easy to grasp after a considerable number of empirical descriptions (Hua I, 103; Husserl, 1993a, 69).

Husserl is quite clear: it is the great number of new “discoveries and problems” (new with respect to what phenomenology was publically recognized to be like) that somehow requires the eidetic method to be introduced so late in the text. Moreover, the introduction of the eidetic method signifies a new and “fundamental dimension”; and had it been presented at the outset, it would have “increased the difficulties of understanding” what is going on. It would have been quite difficult to understand the peculiar eidetic method that Husserl is about to present and employ (= the method of self-variation) without previously clarifying the unique structure of the transcendental subject as a concrete ego. It is the very nature of the subject, namely, its “concreteness,” that requires an eidetic method to which Husserl resorts here publically for the first time. The trajectory of the Meditations is such that Husserl first elucidates the transcendental concrete subject; then, given the peculiar nature of the monad, a new eidetic tool is required that alone allows phenomenology to become truly scientific. By the method of transcendental reduction each of us, as a Cartesian meditator, was led back to his or her transcendental ego, naturally with its concrete-monadic contents as this factual ego, the one and only absolute ego. When I keep on meditating, I, as this ego, find descriptively formulable, intentionally explicable types; and I was able to progress step by step in the intentional uncovering of my “monad” along the fundamental lines that offer

4  Exemplary Entities: Formal Indication and Eidetic Variation (a) “I, this human being, am the one…”

101 (b.1.1) Consciousness-world relation

(b.1) Factual subjectivity (b) Transcendental subjectivity

(b.1.2) The concretely full being (b.2) The concretely full being as an eidos

(c) My Dasein as a human being

Fig. 4.1  Husserl’s three subjects (modified)

themselves. For good reasons, in the course of our descriptions expressions such as essential necessity and essentially forced themselves on us, phrases in which a definite concept of the a priori, first clarified and delimited by phenomenology, receives expression (Hua I, 103; Husserl, 1993a, 69).

The phenomenology pursued until now should be more properly referred to as a transcendental-factual phenomenology: since the transcendental reduction was performed without any previous introduction of the eidetic method, the ego, to which the Cartesian meditator was led back, is his/her factual, yet transcendental ego. Perfectly in line with the double distinction described in Ideas I (Hua III/1, 6; Husserl, 2014a, 5) between, on the one hand, “sciences of facts” and “eidetic sciences” and, on the other, “sciences of realities” and “irrealities,” the performance of the reduction paves the way for a description of the irreal and transcendental ego, which however is a “factual” one. It is my ego, the ego of the phenomenologist. And it is upon the basis of the self-explication of the life of my own, factual yet transcendental ego that the notion of monad is also obtained in the Fourth Meditation. As we should remember, towards the end of Chap. 1 a diagram was proposed to illustrate the distinction between three different forms of subjectivity according to Husserl. That diagram could now be re-proposed and supplemented (Fig. 4.1). The performance of the transcendental reduction has excluded a, namely, the determination of my own ego as a “human” one; de facto, the analyses of the first four Meditations are dedicated to b.1, to the transition from b.1.1 (Second and Third Meditation) to b.1.2 and to the concept of monad (Fourth Meditation). At this point, the introduction of the eidetic methodology (the method of self-variation) allows for the further transition towards b.2. Only now are all the eidetic expressions used during the previous meditations retrospectively legitimized.

9. Let us hasten to warn the reader that we will not be able to properly and fully tackle the manner in which Husserl re-thinks the locus of the transcendental until we get to the last part of this work (see Volume 2, Chap. 6). Now, the reason why this is necessarily the case should immediately leap into view as we remind ourselves that a, namely, the subject performing the transcendental reduction is myself as a human being (“I, this human being, am the one who is practicing the method of a

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transcendental change of attitude”). And, as we have already mentioned in passing and as will become more and more clear as we keep developing our research, it is not the task of transcendental phenomenology as a “first philosophy” to investigate the human subject. The latter, i.e., its existence and position in the world is what “metaphysics” (in the Husserlian sense of the term) is about (see Chaps. 4 and 5 of the second volume for a discussion of the different meanings of Husserl’s conception of metaphysics). Only at that point, the possibility for myself as “this human being” to perform the “reduction” in the Cartesian manner as Husserl describes it at the outset of the Meditations will be elucidated once and for all. Only then, the significance and overall implications of the Cartesian-phenomenological re-form of philosophy will finally display themselves. If the “performer” of the reduction is myself as “this human being,” and if phenomenology is concerned with the structure of the transcendental subjectivity, then it is a mistake to expect the transcendental phenomenologist to be able to directly shed light upon the very meaning of the I (as this human being) performing the reduction.20 This can be done only at the end of the enterprise, when all the constitution-operations have already been carried out, and the “metaphysical interpretation” of the factual world, the one we live in, is accomplished. Only at this point will a quite specific and new sense of “metaphysics” emerge (see Volume 2, Chap. 5). For the sake of our purposes in the present chapter, we will touch upon §8 of CM I exclusively with the ambition of understanding the introduction of the eidetic method in CM IV, therefore the transition from b.1 to b.2. At the beginning of §8, after the rehearsal of the path of the first two Metaphysical Meditations by Descartes, Husserl writes that, As radically meditating philosophers, we now have neither a science that we accept as valid nor a world that is (seiende Welt) for us. Instead of simply being (seiend), that is, being accepted naturally by us in our experiential ontological belief (Seinsglauben), the world is for us a mere claim of being (Seinsanspruch). Moreover, this affects also the intra-mundane existence of all the other egos, so that rightly we should no longer speak communicatively in the plural. Other humans than I, and animals, are experiential givennesses for me only by virtue of my sensible experience of their lived-bodies; and, since the validity of this experience, too, is called into question, I must not use it. Along with the other egos, I lose all the formations pertaining to sociality and culture. In short, not just corporeal nature but the whole concrete life of the surrounding world (ganze konkrete Lebensumwelt) is for me only a phenomenon of being rather than something that is (statt seiend nur Seinsphänomen) (Hua I, 58–59; Husserl, 1993a, 18–19).

 Only by ignoring all these crucial and small differences could one exclaim, Ce qui demeure inexploré, c’est, dans sa motivation, le surgissement de l’interrogation philosophique elle-même. Ce qui demeure présupposé, c’est la forme philosophante de la conscience de soi (Desanti, 1994, 64). If Desanti means this to be a bare description of the state of affairs at the beginning of the Meditations, then we agree with him. Yet, since we are under the impression that what he wants to express is the disappointment for not finding any such “exploration” (Ce qui demeure inexploré…), then all we can do is ask the reader to be patient and wait until the end of this work (see Volume 2, Chap. 6). 20

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What needs to be stressed is something that has never received, we strongly believe, enough attention (and which can easily be overlooked because of Cairns’ translation, which we have here almost fully modified): the opposition between the verb “to be” as a “present participle” (seiend) and in the “infinitive form” (Sein). Contrary to what is usually assumed to be the case (also based upon other Husserlian texts), the performance of the transcendental reduction does not imply any exclusion of the problem and the concept of being.21 Quite the contrary. As also the language testifies to, what is excluded by the reduction is the present participle, which is in fact turned into the infinitive form (in its nominalization). The seiende Welt or the Welt as seiende turns into a Seinsanspruch, a claim of being or, as it could be better translated in order to express directly Husserl’s intentions: being as a claim.22 The reduction frees the infinitive form from the present participle; but it would be a mistake to think that what we are trying to suggest is that Husserl is here speaking of something like Heidegger’s “ontological difference.”23 The problem is fully Husserlian. Given the impossibility of translating the terminological differences into English, while also avoiding translating seiend with the Heideggerian-sounding entity, we will stick with the German terms. Before the reduction, the world and what is “in” the world (other humans, animals, cultural formations, etc.) are assumed as seiend and ascribed certain properties based upon our opinions, convictions and what the many sciences have established about them. The transcendental reduction brackets the certainty of the present participle (seiend) so as to let being impose itself as a claim (Anspruch) or phenomenon (statt seiend nur Seinsphänomen). Freed from the certainty of the present participle, Sein “imposes” itself upon me and makes a “claim” to me, thereby prescribing such and such a corresponding mode of experience, or plurality thereof. Only because the reduction lets being impose itself upon me, can the meditator later on (§§21, 22) confirm the thesis that the regions of being are transcendental clues for the exploration of the different modes of consciousness. In fact, Husserl will point out that, “Transcendental subjectivity is not a chaos of intentional processes. Moreover, it is not a chaos of types of constitution either, because each organizes itself through its relation to a type or form of intentional objects” (Hua I, 90; Husserl, 1993a, 54). The phrase used is: durch Beziehung auf... In short, in virtue of the relation to a type or form of objects, the being of which imposes itself on me, the subject turns out to be structurally organized. Of course,

 Ricoeur, for example (2004, 194–195), recognizes the difference, and yet he overlooks what happens to the problem of being in the “transcendental transition,” so to say, from the present participle to the infinitive form that we are trying to elucidate here. 22  Accordingly, we will interpret these pages in a way that radically differs from B. Bégout’s interpretation in Lavigne, 2016, 43 and ff. (who in fact understands Seinsanspruch as a prétention d’être, an ontological pretension or “supposed claim” rather than an actual claim made by being). 23  Lavigne, 2005, 38 footnote, correctly emphasizes that Il n’est pas question de présupposer ici la problématisation heideggerienne de la différence ontologique, ni d’en donner l’apparence. Yet, in a very Heideggerian-sounding way, he keeps speaking of the difference between the entity and being itself (l’être même). 21

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this does not exclude that phenomenology has and can have only a πρὸς ἡμᾶς-­ perspective. Phenomenologically speaking, precisely because we let being impose itself (Seinsanspruch) on the subject, can the  difference between the regions be elucidated by “explicating” and describing the modes of consciousness. The major implication or consequence of the transcendental reduction as is performed at the beginning of the Cartesian Meditations is the exact opposite of what is usually believed. Contrary to the idea that the reduction “reduces” the ontological or, far worse: existential independence of the world to its dependence on the subject, the reduction establishes a correlation between “being” and “subject” consisting in the former’s self-“imposition” (Anspruch) upon the latter. Once it is freed from all our subjective beliefs about it (Seinsglauben) (see Hua I, 59; Husserl, 1993a, 19), “being” can give itself for what it is, thereby also disclosing the subject for what it is: a system of types and forms. And it is by explicating these types and forms that, a contrario sensu, phenomenology brings to the fore Sein’s (self-)articulation in regions and sub-regions (Meditation II and III). Husserl’s oscillation (Ricoeur, 2004, 196) in these pages between the two phrases für mich and aus mir that so deeply bothers Ricoeur (for it would imply, as he writes, une décision non-thématisée et qu’on peut bien appeler métaphysique) is nothing but an expression of this state of affairs.24 The simple fact that Husserl goes from the passivity of the für mich (= being imposing itself upon myself) to the aus mir (= the transcendental clarification of being via the explication of the many modes of consciousness) confirms our interpretation. Now, for the sake of our problems here, what is worth being pointed out is that the same applies to myself, i.e., to the determination of myself as a “human being” before the reduction. Husserl could not be more adamant on this point; here is what he writes in §11: No longer am I the human being who, in natural self-experience, finds himself or herself as a human and who, with the abstractive restriction of the pure contents of internal or purely psychological self-experience, finds his or her own pure mens sive animus sive intellectus; nor am I the separately considered psyche itself (Hua I, 64; Husserl, 1993a, 25).

The claim, which Husserl still advanced in his 1925 lectures, to the effect that phenomenology and psychology would “coincide” Satz für Satz is ruled out from the outset: not only does the reduction exclude the human determination of the “I” which I am; it also puts out of play the determination of the subject by means of “abstractive restriction.” The emphasis upon the subject being no mens sive animus sive intellectus is meant to exclude not only the human sive psychological determination of the transcendental subject, but first and foremost every abstract account of it. It is interesting to note that, positively, the transcendental subject is described by Husserl in two quite different ways:

 And upon which, as is evident from Ricoeur’s comments on the Second Meditation (Ricoeur, 2004, 211–212), he does not elaborate. 24

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• Either based on its function as a meditator (“I, the Cartesian meditator”) (Hua I, 66; Husserl, 1993a, 27) • Or in a progressively more de-humanized and de-personalized manner: “field,” “field of experience,” and  “structure of experience” (Hua I, 60, 67; Husserl, 1993a, 19, 28). The function of what Husserl calls “transcendental reflection” (see Hua I, 74; Husserl, 1993a, 36) is that of letting the subject’s Sein impose itself in such a way that its structures and “mode of being” will disclose themselves step by step all the way to CM IV, where, as we saw in the previous chapter, its threefold concreteness is eventually recognized and fixed. Our “beliefs” (Seinsglauben) about the nature of the subject, namely ourselves, are excluded so that its Seinsweise can show itself in “the form of its own self-constitution.” This is the reason why in the Cartesian Meditations Husserl introduces first the reduction, then the eidetic apparatus. Had he gone the other way around (first the eidetic transition; then the transcendental reduction), there would have been a risk of surreptitiously assuming among the “structures” of the eidos of the subject some of its human determinations.25 And since the explication of the structures of the subject is meant to bring to intuition also being’s (self-)organization in regions and sub-regions, then those human characterizations would have ended up affecting and determining the latter as well. The transition from the transcendental yet factual ego to its eidos is accomplished by means of the method of (self-)variation. Let us make this clear to ourselves, and then fruitful to ourselves. Starting from this table-­ perception as an exemplar (Exempel), we vary the perceptual object, table, with a completely free arbitrariness, yet in such a manner that we keep perception fixed as perception of something, no matter what. Perhaps we begin by fictively changing the shape or the color of the object quite arbitrarily, keeping identical only its perceptual appearing. In other words, abstaining from acceptance of its being, we change the fact (das Faktum) into a pure possibility, one among other fully arbitrary pure possibilities, but possibilities that are possible perceptions. We, so to speak, shift the actual perception into the realm of non-­ actualities, the realm of the as-if, which coveys us with “pure” possibilities, pure of everything that restricts to this fact or to any fact whatever. As regards the latter point, we keep the aforesaid possibilities, not as restricted even to the co-posited factual ego, but just as a completely free conceivability (Erdenklichkeit) of phantasy. […] The universal type perception thus acquired, floats in the air (in der Luft), so to speak, in the air of absolutely pure conceivability (in der Luft absolut reiner Erdenklichkeiten). Thus, removed from all factualities, it has become the pure eidos perception, whose ideal extension is made up of

 One can measure the great discrepancy between the Meditations and Ideas by keeping in mind that in the book of 1913, the transcendental reduction is eventually introduced after a series of analyses pursued in a purely psychological way. The beginning of §34 explains very clearly how the phenomenologist will be proceeding to determine the region “pure consciousness”: “Let us begin with a series of observations in which we do not trouble ourselves with any phenomenological ἐποχή. We are directed at the ‘external world’ in a natural manner, and, without leaving the natural attitude, we carry out a psychological reflection on our ego and its lived-experiences” (Hua III/1, 69; Husserl, 2014a, 59). Lavigne, 2009, 201 and ff., is to our knowledge the only scholar who has systematically discussed the importance and implications of this paragraph. We will come back to these problems in Chap. 6 of the present volume. 25

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all ideally possible perceptions, as purely conceivable ones. Analyses of perception are then essential analyses (Hua I, 104–105; Husserl, 1993a, 70–71).

Since in this paragraph Husserl moves without further ado from perception to the variation of my concrete ego in order to obtain the eidos “concrete ego,” we should first try to shed light upon the methodological concept of “variation” in general so as to appreciate the difference between the variation of one specific lived-­experience (e.g., perception) and that of a fully concrete ego. Elsewhere (De Santis, 2020a, b), special attention was brought to the distinction between the method of “eidetic variation” sic et simpliciter (as it emerges in Experience and Judgment and the relevant pages from Husserliana IX); what Husserl calls “co-variation” (Mitvariieren); and, last but not least, the method of “self-variation” (Selbstvariation). Now, if the latter brings to the fore the eidos of the transcendental-concrete ego (it is the variation of “myself” as a “monad”), the co-variation brings to intuition the eidos of the co-relation, within the transcendental domain, between a certain form of consciousness and a certain objectual form (korrelative Wesensform (Hua XVII, 253; Husserl, 1969, 246)). Finally, the eidetic variation provides us with the eide of ontological, yet non-transcendental objects (e.g., the eidos color or sound in general). As should be clear, what is used in the above text is not the method of eidetic variation; rather, it is the “co-variation,” which Husserl applies to the concrete ego, thereby turning it into the method of “self-variation.”

10. The methodological point of departure of the variation sic et simpliciter is an individuality or quasi-individuality given to consciousness. Formally-ontologically, Husserl calls it Individuum, or “a concrete individuum” (konkretes Individuum) (Husserl, 1972, 403; 1973b, 335). As we know from Chap. 3, §5, “concrete” and “individuum” had been two of the technical terms of Husserl’s official ontological toolbox since at least Ideas I: “A this-here, the essence of which is a concretum, is called individuum” (Hua III/1, 36; Husserl, 2014a, 30). Yet, as he would point out, the individual, i.e., the concretum (= concrete essence) “must be freed of the character of contingency” (Husserl, 1972, 410; 1973b, 340). The individual is no longer regarded as this individuality, but rather as an “exemplar” (Exempel) that from now will guide the process of variation as a model (Vorbild): it is “the starting point for the production of an open and endless multiplicity of variants” (Husserl, 1972, 410; 1973b, 340). Eventually, the variation-process will bring to the fore the eidos as the underlying “unity” of the manifold of variations. The overall sequence can be prima facie and quite succinctly presented as follows:

 i  This individuality   ii  This as an exemplar and model   iii  Variations   iv  Eidos

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The transition from i to ii brings about a first universality, i.e., the “concretum” as a universality of the lowest level. In other words, the “exemplar” or exemplary entity that puts the whole process into motion is obtained by disentangling the τι from the τόδε: “the lowest universal […] which we come upon from the very first is the one which arises from the mere ‘repetition’ of individuals capable of being experienced as independent and fully alike” (see Husserl, 1972, 403–404; 1973b, 334–335). This is why Husserl refers to the universality of the “lowest level” as “something repeatable” (ein Wiederholbares) (Hua XXXIII, 299 and ff.): something that can be repeated here and there in a countless number of other individuals. Unlike the lowest universals, the universals of higher level are not and cannot be characterized by “complete” or “full” likeness: If the likeness of the individual members of the extension of a generality is no longer complete likeness, then generalities of higher levels emerge. We have understood complete likeness as the limit of similarity. With the transition from the similar to the similar a coincidence appears which is still not a complete coincidence. The similar members that have overlapped one another are divergent. Different similarities can have different divergences, and the divergences are themselves again comparable, have, themselves, their own similarities. Similarity, therefore has a gradation, and its limit, complete similarity, signifies an absence of divergence in coincidence, i.e., the coincidence of elements that merely repeat themselves. It is the foundation for the lowest level of similarity. […] Generalities of different levels emerge, depending on these differences. Levels of generality are conditioned not only by the extent of the divergences in similarity of all the similar moments which are found in the individual members of the extension of the generality in question, in the case of total similarity these are all the moments, but also by the number of similar moments, i.e., by the degree of approximation to total similarity (Husserl, 1972, 404–405; 1973b, 335–336).

We are not interested here in the concept of “similarity” per se taken and how it operates within the method of eidetic variation (we have addressed this issue extensively in De Santis, 2011). We are recalling these pages only in order to better explain how the method of variation, i.e., the actual production of variants proceeds. According to the genetic language with which Husserl describes the process of contriving the variations, the universality of higher levels appears where there obtains, in the process, a coincidence between divergent variants. Which of course presupposes that, starting off with a repeatable universality of the lowest level, a series of divergences or divergent variants are produced intentionally and methodologically. Let us consider an example. The method can take as a point of departure an individual thing (i.e., as an individuum) here and now; by disregarding its “individualization” (τόδε), we let the corresponding concrete essence or concretum appear (τι) and function as the exemplary entity that will initially guide the variation. As the concretum represents a universality of the lowest level, it includes, say, (α) the ultimate difference of color (= a determined ultimate shade of color), (β) the ultimate difference of shape or form, (γ) the ultimate difference of the space-­ determination (= a determined way of occupying space), (δ) the ultimate difference of the time-determination (= a determined manner of filling up time), (ε) the ultimate difference of the materiality or causality-determination (= a determined manner of standing in causal relations with other things) (the list is based upon Stein,

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2010, 23–53, where a clear and systematic account of the structure of material things is provided in light of Husserl’s relevant descriptions in Ideas II). For illustrative purposes, they could be represented with the aid of a geometrical figure (Fig. 4.2). What the figure represents is a concretum made up of the abstract essences of a series of relevant determinations (α… ε), each of which characterized by the ultimate difference (1) of a species (A). For example, α (A-1) designates the ultimate shade (1 = ruby red) of a certain species or sub-species (A = red) of the determination α = color in general. The figure is the representation of a concrete τι, and it stands for something that can be repeated fully alike in countless other individuals. The method of variation consists in producing variants that diverge from the starting exemplar by varying, for example, either the ultimate difference (1  2) of one or more sub-species or species, or the species itself (A  B). Husserl is clear on this matter, “Levels of generality are conditioned not only by the extent of the divergences in similarity of all the similar moments…, but also by the number of similar moments.” The difference can consist not only in the “extent” of the divergence between similar moments (same color yet different shade; or different color), but also in the number of the actual divergent determinations (e.g., different color and different shape and so on and so forth). For example, by keeping all the determinations with the only exception of the shade of color (= from ruby red to rose red, or from α (A-1) to α (A-2)), one will contrive a variant and produce a concretum that slightly diverges from Concrete.1. Or one can keep all the determinations with the exception of the species of color (= from ruby red to sapphire blue, or from α (A-1) to α (B-1)). Or, to make a further and complex example, one could keep three out of our five determinations and change both the color and the shape: from ruby red to sapphire blue, or from α (A-1) to α (B-1) and from a cube of a certain side to a sphere of a certain diameter, or from β (A-1) to β (B-1). The extent of similarity or dissimilarity between the abstract essences taken as moments of the concretum itself determines the similarity or dissimilarity between the concreta themselves. Or, as one should better put it: the extent of similarity and dissimilarity between the concreta is determined by the degree of (quantitative and qualitative) divergence between the corresponding abstract essences (Fig. 4.3).

Fig. 4.2  The method of eidetic variation1

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Fig. 4.3  The method of eidetic variation2

As far as we understand Husserl, the dissimilarity between the concreta or between their abstract essences makes appear what there is in common (“the coincidence of elements that merely repeat themselves”). For example, in the series of variants that goes from A-1 to A-2, A-3, A-4 and A-5, what stands out is A as what is common to all the divergent ultimate shades (1… 5). By the same token, in the series of variants that goes from A-1 to B-1, C-1, D-1, E-1, what stands out is the species itself of “color” (α) as what is common to all the different sub-species of colors (A… E). “The idea of the difference, therefore, is only to be understood in its involvement with the idea of the identically common element which is the eidos. Difference is that which, in the overlapping of the multiplicities, is not to be brought into the unity of the congruence making its appearance thereby, that which, in consequence, does not make an eidos visible” (Husserl, 1972, 418; 1973b, 346). For what concerns the universalities of higher level, Husserl points out that, The universal of mere similarity is one of a higher level since the members of its extension, even if it is formed only by the coincidence of two similar objects, can already be conceived as a universal arising from the possible repetition of like members. It is thus the universal of a species, which already has under itself two or more concrete generalities; later on we come to higher species, genera, and so on. These are dependent universality, and this because they spring from the comparison of generalities (at the lowest level those of repetition). Thus, universals can be compared like other objects, e.g., red and blue; and in this synthetic activity a generality of a higher level is constituted. In this activity, the generality comes to self-givenness as a generality which has generalities under itself as particulars. Thus, on the basis of like concreta there arises a “concrete” species and, from concrete species, a “concrete” genus. Naturally, this is not to say that the “concrete” species, and so on, would itself be a concretum. We call it a “concrete species” only to call attention to its origin from the concrete, since there are also species which have under them dependent generalities, universals arising from the repetition of abstract moments, e.g., species of shapes and so on. In contrast with generalities of higher levels, we call these abstract: abstract genera and species (Husserl, 1972, 406–407; 1973b, 336–337).

The expressions “concrete species” and “concrete genus” are meant to designate the “species” and “genus” under which the original concretum falls. They are obtained by varying systematically the species or genera of all the determinations of the original exemplar or of some of them. Since there is no need for us to dig any further into the description of the method, let us just pose the following two questions. First, how is the original “exemplar” to be characterized with respect to the

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individuum upon the basis of which it is obtained? Second, how is the unity of the variants to be understood if such unity is that without which the eidos would not come to the fore? Let us start with this second question. in the free production of the multiplicity of variations, in the progress from variant to variant, we are not bound by the conditions of unanimity in the same way as in the progress of experience from one individual object to another on the ground of the unity of experience. If, for example, we envisage to ourselves an individual house now painted yellow, we can just as well think that it could be painted blue or think that it could have a slate instead of a tile roof or, instead of this shape, another one. The house is an object which, in the realm of the possible, could have other determinations in place of, and incompatible with, whatever determinations happen to belong to it within the unity of a representation. This house, the same, is thinkable as a and as non-a but, naturally, if as a, then not at the same time as non-­ a. It cannot be both simultaneously; it cannot be actual while having each of them at the same time; but at any moment it can be non-a instead of a. It is, hence, thought as an identical something in which opposite determinations can be exchanged. “Intuitively,” in the attainment of this self-evidence, the existence of the object is certainly bound to the possession of one or the other of the opposing predicates and to the requirement of the exclusion of their joint possession; however, an identical substrate of concordant attributes is evidently present, except that its simple thesis is not possible, but only the modified thesis: if this identical something determined as a exists, then a belongs to it in the canceled form non-a, and conversely. To be sure, the identical substrate is not an individual pure and simple. The sudden change is that of an individual into a second individual incompatible with it in co-existence. An individual pure and simple is an existing individual (or one capable of existing). However, what is seen as unity in the conflict is not an individuum but a concrete hybrid unity of individuals mutually nullifying and co-­ existentially exclusive […]. This remarkable hybrid unity is at the bottom of essential seeing (Husserl, 1972, 416–417; 1973b, 344–345).

The importance of the passage lies in the introduction of the notion of “hybrid unity of individuals” (Zwittereinheit... Individuen) in addition to that of individuum (with which we are already familiar). If we are on the right track, the term Individuen in the phrase hybrid unity of individuals should be taken at face value, that is, as the plural form of individuum—the latter understood (in the words of Ideas I) as a this-­ here, “the material essence of which is a concretum.” That this must be the case is shown by Husserl recognizing that, “An individual pure and simple is an existing individual (or one capable of existing).” An individuum is a concretum or a concrete essence realized here and now (= “existing individual”) or in any other possible here and now (= “one capable of existing”). In fact, two identical individuals are co-­ existentially possible as two different individualizations of one and the same concrete essence. Not as the same individuum, but as two individuals having exactly the same concretum. The hybrid unity of individuals, which is what lies at the bottom of the intuition of essence,26 is the synthetic unity of all the possible concreta that  “The old theory of abstraction, which implies that the universal can be constituted only by abstraction on the basis of individual, particular intuitions, is thus in part unclear, in part incorrect” (Husserl, 1972, 417; Husserl, 1973b, 345). Let us hasten to remark that the reason why, according to Husserl, the theory of eidetic variation, hence the concept of hybrid unity, represents a break with the traditional theory of abstraction cannot be investigated in the present context. 26

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the method of variation yields as it keeps proceeding the way we have described it (Concrete.1 and Concrete.2 etc.). Since the individuum can instantiate only one concretum, the concreta produced in this way stand to one another in a relation of mutual cancellation. The “hybrid unity of individuals” is an individuum that could possibly, and indifferently, be any of the concreta. In the lectures of 1925, Husserl calls the operation of forming the initial exemplar the fundamental operation or Grundleistung (Hua IX, 76) on which everything else depends (von der alles weitere abhängt). In Husserl’s modal language, this is the moment in which “the realities or actualities must be regarded as possibilities among other possibilities (die Wirklichkeiten müssen behandelt werden als Möglichkeiten unter anderen Möglichkeiten), i.e., as arbitrary possibilities” (Husserl, 1972, 423; 1973b, 350).27 As we could claim also based upon our analyses in Chap. 3 of the present volume concerning the different conceptions of the τόδε τι as a form, the “exemplar” is nothing but the consequence of the fact that, within the individuum, the relation between the τόδε τι and the concretum is one of indifference, as it were. The “reality” (= individuum) can be regarded as a mere “possibility” among possibilities (= as a concretum) because this concretum could have been individualized in any other individuum whatsoever just as the starting individuum could have been the individualization of any other concretum whatsoever. Only because the starting, existing “individuum” is indifferent can the “exemplar” be formed. The determination of the exemplary entity is an expression of indifference vis-à-vis the existence of the individual. Just like the hybrid unity of individuals is the synthesis of an endless multiplicity of concrete variants, each of which is in fact indifferent to the others and to its own individualization in an existing individuum. It is crucial to keep in mind that here the “exemplar” or “exemplary entity” is not the object of investigation (as, on the contrary, is the case with Dasein); rather, it is the starting point for the production of an endless system of variants, within which it ends up being nothing but one of the many possibilities mutually cancelling each other.28

 That Husserl himself in 1925 decides to lay so much emphasis upon the Grundleistung and its importance for a correct understanding of the method of variation might derive from a famous letter from G. Walther that Husserl received in 1920. In this letter, Walther points out that during a discussion revolving around Husserl’s lectures of 1919 on Natur und Geist, Scholem and Schwartz questioned the method of variation on the basis of the following argument: “[…] durch Umfingieren von Individuellem komme man immer nur zu Individuellem, nie zum Eidos” (Hua-Dok III/2, 257). As Husserl does not fail to stress in the lectures, the variation is never a variation of individuals or quasi-individuals, but always of concreta or singularities preliminarily obtained through the Grundleistung. 28  For a recent discussion of the method of variation in connection with the “horizon,” see Djian, 2021, 198–211. 27

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11. When the method is applied to the domain of consciousness, and the many lived-­ experiences that can be found therein, what we are confronted with is what Husserl refers to as “co-variation” (De Santis, 2020a, 428–430). Every constituted objectuality points back to a specific essence, hence to “a correlative essential form” (eine korrelative Wesensform) between the form of the object and that of a system of actual and possible intentionality that “is constitutive for that objectuality” (Hua XVII, 253; Husserl, 1969, 246). As was already the case with the method of variation analyzed above, here too the starting point is represented by an objectual τόδε τι. Yet, in this case the disentangling of the τι from the τόδε does not directly convey the guiding “exemplar”; rather, the concretum so obtained points back to a corresponding concretum within consciousness. It is such relation or “co-relation” between the two concreta that represents the exemplar that puts the process in motion, and the co-variation consists in methodologically varying the (transcendental) correlation itself. In contrast with the eidetic variation analyzed in the previous paragraph, in which the eidos that comes to the fore is that of a domain and region of objectualities, the eidos that the method of co-variation brings to intuition is the correlative eidos. It is not the eidos of such and such a region, but that of the transcendental correlation between the region consciousness (with its many species, sub-species and concreta) and the many possible objectual regions intended by it: “In this research, the variation of the necessary initial exemplar is the performance in which the eidos should emerge and by means of which the evidence of the indissoluble eidetic correlation between constitution and constituted should also appear” (Hua XVII, 254–255; Husserl, 1969, 247). When one turns one’s regard reflectively from the ontic essential form (all the way to the highest “category”) to the possible constituting experiences, the possible modes of appearance, one sees that these necessarily vary accordingly, and in such a fashion that now an essential form with two correlative sides (zweiseitige Wesensform) shows itself as invariant. Hence, it becomes evident that the ontic a priori is possible, as a concretely full possibility, as a correlate of a constitutive a priori that is concretely united with it (Hua XVII, 255; Husserl, 1969, 248).

As Husserl himself speaks of reflektive Blickwendung from the ontic form back to the constitutive a priori, therefore to their correlation, one is entitled to conclude that the method of co-variation is a further development of the method of variation. Thus, the turn of phrase concretely full possibility should be taken as referring to the “correlation” between the two forms and not to the concrete ego. Possibility stands here neither for the eidetic possibility of the object nor for any of the meanings of the monad’s concreteness that we so meticulously distinguished in Chap. 3: concrete possibility designates the transcendental possibility (eidetically studied) of the object and its relevant category; the possibility of the object in terms of the forms of consciousness to which it refers back.

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12. The example of variation with which Husserl first deals in §34 of the Meditations is a clear case of co-variation, for it takes as its point of departure a “perceptual-­ object,” an object whose “form” points back to “a correlative essential form” (“perception”). The “double-sided essential form” (perception-object) is that of a pure eidos (“it has become the pure eidos perception”) characterizing any possible ego. This is why, Husserl remarks, “it floats in the air (in der Luft), so to speak, in the air of absolutely pure conceivability (in der Luft absolut reiner Erdenklichkeiten).” The transition to the “method” of self-variation in these pages occurs without Husserl ever posing the question whether there is any difference between varying an “act” and a “concrete ego”: “With each eidetically pure type we find ourselves not indeed inside the factual ego, but within the eidos ego; and constitution of one really pure possibility among other carries with it implicitly, as its outer horizon, a purely possible ego, a pure possible modification of my factual ego” (Hua I, 105; Husserl, 1993a, 71). Husserl takes the outcome of the co-variation of the act of perception to be at the same time a solution, as it were, to the problem of the determination of the eidos ego. The successful variation of an initial, factual act of perception by means of which we obtain the eidos perception as a double-sided essential form yields at the same the eidos ego. Since the eidos perception is a pure possibility that characterizes any possible ego, then by obtaining the former we also obtain the latter. As if the ego were nothing else than the possibility of some acts. Yet, Husserl admits in passing that the possible ego to which the eidos perception belongs as a pure possibility is a “modification of my factual ego.” This latter observation is not without implications. It could in fact be objected that the transition from the pure possibility of a certain act to the ego as a pure possibility is a non sequitur. If it is difficult—if not eidetically impossible—to conceive of an ego without the possibility of having perceptions, this would not be the case were we to consider some other species of intuitive or non-intuitive, signitive or symbolic acts. On the basis of the variation of a certain type of act, we obtain a certain eidos ego, the ego which, as a pure possibility, includes in itself the pure possibility of the act in question. But if this is the case, then an analysis is required of what it means that the pure possible ego to which the eidos of the type of act in question belongs is necessarily “a pure possible modification of my factual ego.” Husserl recognizes that this could have been the strategy from the outset: “We could have started out by thinking this ego to be varied and could set the problem of exploring eidetically the explicit constitution of a transcendental ego in general” (Hua I, 105; Husserl, 1993a, 71). If phenomenology is an a priori science, “all its eidetic investigations are nothing other but uncoverings of the universal eidos transcendental ego as such, which comprises all pure possibility-modifications of my factual ego and this ego itself as a possibility” (Hua I, 105–106; Husserl, 1993a, 71). As we start considering the self-variation, one methodological aspect immediately leaps into view: “The beginning phenomenologist is bound involuntarily by the initial exemplar of himself-herself (ist… durch seinen exemplarischen Ausgang

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von sich selbst gebunden)” (Hua I, 110; Husserl, 1993a, 76). The exemplar or exemplary entity, by which the process of self-variation is set in motion, is the factual, yet transcendental concrete ego of the phenomenologist himself or herself with its concrete content. The issue is not simply of methodological character, but it is directly connected to what in the previous chapter we identified as the monad’s ontological concreteness: –– An ego regarded monadically or concretely is a singular-individual, namely, an ego for which there is coincidence between the universal of the lowest level and its individuality If in the case of both the process of eidetic variation and co-variation the “fundamental operation” consists in taking an individuum and disentangling the τι from the τόδε, thereby obtaining a relevant concretum or universality of the lowest level to be “indifferently” repeated in a countless number of other individuals, this is not possible with the monad. This does not mean that there is not and there cannot be any exemplar able to guide the variation; rather, it means that in the case of the process of self-variation, the exemplary entity is my own transcendental, factual ego. The variations are here variations of the τόδε τι which “I” myself am (singular-­ individual)—and not of a non-individual τι.  Husserl recognizes that the sense of the alter in the expression alter ego can only be elucidated transcendentally, that is, by means of the theory of constitution; then, it is important to point out that by varying myself, “I only feign myself as if I were otherwise, but I do not feign others (Mich fingiere ich nur, als wäre ich anders, nicht fingiere ich Andere)” (Hua I, 106; Husserl, 1993a, 72). This latter remark needs to be understood correctly. If it is true that by varying myself I cannot obtain an alter ego (= an ego, the transcendental sense of which would be given to me as an alterity), the variation of myself does not and cannot consist in merely changing some of the “individual moments” of the content of my concrete ego while keeping all the others (as was for example the case in §10 of the present chapter with the variation of some of the abstract moments of the “concretum” of a material thing). As if the variant were simply myself, yet with some different features. As Husserl remarks in a passage we discussed in Chap. 3 (§4), “Even if some of its individual moments are repeatable, and are hence distributed among individually different egos, the sum-total of the corresponding essential moments proper to an ego cannot be repeated” (see Hua XXXV, 262). Each “variant” is an individually different ego (ontological concreteness) understood as an individual history (historical concreteness) with its own concrete content (worldly concreteness). In short, the repetition (of some of the moments) always produces an irreducible difference. For example, if I imagine a variation of myself, the concrete content of which includes the possibility of perfect mastery of the Czech language, I would not be simply imagining a myself which has a different “individual moment.” I would be imagining an individual ego with a different individual history (= the forms of life that make up this ego’s history and its contingent a priori are different from mine) and a different concrete content (= this ego’s surrounding world is

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different from my surrounding world).29 In order to be able to master that language, such ego must have had a history that differs from mine (even if we share some other “individual moments”: e.g., both egos studied philosophy). Husserl starts out in §34 by introducing the variation of an object, the ontic form of which points back to a constitutive form, i.e., perception as the form of a possible ego. Such an ego is not any ego whatsoever: it is an ego, the structure of which implies from the beginning the possibility of that form called “perception.” In short, it is an ego, whose structure is that of my own (transcendental and yet factual) ego with its “contingent a priori” (Hua XVII, 33; Husserl, 1969, 29). Since the concreteness explored by the co-variation necessarily implies “the double-sided essential form” to be inscribed within the absolute concretion of the concrete ego (for the form called perception belongs to an ego with a certain factual structure), then it is clear why at the end of §33 the statement was made to the effect that the phenomenology of the self-constitution of the monad or concrete ego coincides with the whole phenomenology. By the same token, it is clear why after the publication of the Cartesian Meditations Husserl came back to the problem of self-variation and ended up recognizing that, Aber ich, der Umdenkende [...], bin apodiktisch das Ich der faktischen Wirklichkeit, und ich bin das Ich der Vermögen, die ich insbesondere als eidetisch denkendes und sehendes Ich mir faktisch erworben habe. Die Phantasiemöglichkeiten als Varianten des Eidos schweben nicht frei in der Luft, sondern sind konstitutiv bezogen auf mich in meinem Faktum, mit meiner lebendigen Gegenwart, die ich faktisch lebe, apodiktisch vorfinde und mit allem, was darin enthüllbar liegt (Hua XXIX, 85).

In the Meditations, Husserl remarks that the eidos “perception” “floats in the air (in der Luft), so to speak, in the air of absolutely pure conceivability (in der Luft absolut reiner Erdenklichkeiten).” In the just-quoted passage, on the contrary, “the variants of the eidos do not float freely in the air (schweben nicht frei in der Luft) but are constitutively related to me as a fact (in meinem Faktum).” The two passages do not perfectly overlap. The first refers to the eidos perception; the second to the variants of the eidos, namely, the variants produced in order to bring the eidos to intuition. What is meant in the former passage is that the eidos perception as a pure possibility, hence the a priori laws grounded in it, are not bound to any reality but are valid for every possible reality. The latter excerpt, by contrast, points to the fact that the process of variation, the possibility of contriving the variants (das Vermögen) is related to myself as a fact. Not only in the sense that this is a possibility that I have factually acquired as a “phenomenologist,” but first and foremost in the sense that the specific kind of variants that I am able to produce,  In the words of Sellars, 2007, 325, it would be a case of essentially autobiographical generalizations in contrast with accidentally autobiographical generalizations: if in the latter the “I” of the experience can be replaced by “anybody,” this does not hold true of the former. See also Hua XIV, 31 and ff., where different types of variations of myself are identified, albeit hastily. Husserl distinguishes between “alteration of subjectivity” and “alteration of my I-subject”: the difference is that the former does not entail the determination of a different concrete ego. 29

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contrive and imagine is related to the fact of the “contingent a priori” of my own transcendental ego. This is why the turn of phrase “all variations are variants and variations of myself” implies not only a genitivus obiectivus, but also subiectivus: I can produce certain variants insofar as my ego is imbued with a certain a priori structure. To use the example from Formal and Transcendental Logic (§6), a transcendental ego is possible without the possibility of sensing colors and sounds (Hua XVII, 34; Husserl, 1969, 30). If this were the case, the transcendental, factual ego of the phenomenologist would not be able to imagine variants such that the eidos “color” could be brought to intuition. The concreteness of this ego would not include this type of ontic form, and there would be for him or her no corresponding constitutive form. The point is not to be misunderstood as though Husserl were arguing that the eidos (“perception”), more generally the process leading to it, is determined by my real subjectivity as human. Quite the opposite. It is the structure of the transcendental subject, its concreteness or, even better, the monad which I am, that determines the possibility of the variations, therefore the intuition of the eide. In the Meditations this is acknowledged on two different occasions. Take the end of §37: The beginning phenomenologist is bound involuntarily by the initial exemplar of himself-­ herself. Transcendentally, he or she finds himself or herself as the ego, then as generically an ego, who already has (in conscious fashion) a world, a world of our universally familiar ontological type, with nature, with culture (sciences, fine art, mechanical art, and so forth), with personalities of a higher order (state, church), and the rest […]. At first, even eidetic observation will consider an ego as such with the restriction (in der Bindung) that a constituted world already exists for him or her. This, moreover, is a necessary level; only by laying open the law-forms of the genesis pertaining to this level can one see the possibilities of a maximally universal eidetic phenomenology. In the latter the ego varies himself or herself so freely that he or she does not keep even the ideal restrictive presuppositions that a world having the ontological structure accepted by us as obvious is essentially constituted for him or her (Hua I, 110–111; Husserl, 1993a, 76–77).

It should be kept in mind that when Husserl speaks of a “constituted world” that already “exists for him or her,” what he refers to is the ego’s concrete content (worldly concreteness). A marginal note to the end of §34 published in the 1973 edition of Husserliana I, which is present in both the French and Spanish editions, but unfortunately not in the translation by Cairns, reads: It should be noted that in the transition from my ego to an ego in general we presuppose neither the reality nor the possibility of other egos (eines Umfanges von Anderen). Here the extent of the eidos ego is determined through the self-variation of my ego (Hier ist der Umfang des Eidos ego durch Selbstvariation meines ego bestimmt) (my emphasis) (Hua I, 106; Husserl, 1993a, 72).

The sentence in italics is the one we were referring to. What is “determined” by the structure of my factual yet transcendental ego, hence by its variation, is the very Umfang des Eidos ego. The eidetic extent or scope (eidetischer Umfang) is the ideal sum of “species” or “singularities” that fall under a certain region (Hua III/1, 32–33; Husserl, 2014a, 28), here the concrete region: “ego.”

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This does not imply that, given the Bindung to my ego, the phenomenologist will never be able to determine the universal structures of the concrete ego in general. Quite the opposite, and this is what CM IV is about. In the transition from my own factual ego to the many variants contrived during the process of self-variation what is common emerges, that is, the many universal structures of the concrete ego or monad (which in the previous chapter we numbered under the headings: worldly concreteness, historical concreteness, ontological concreteness). Yet, the operation of mapping out the many different species and singularities of the region concrete ego is determined and limited by the transcendental structure of my factual ego as a phenomenologist.30

13. Husserl’s exemplar is not Heidegger’s exemplary entity. Heidegger’s exemplary entity is the starting point and the center itself of the analytics of Dasein as the entity that alone can grant the correct positing of the question of being; its exemplarity derives from its mode of being (= its “existence”). If in Being and Time, the line of thought is presented in such a way that it goes from the initial positing of the question of being by a certain entity to the investigation of this entity’s mode of being, what might be labeled the order of ontological foundation goes in the opposite direction. The mode of being of this entity is such that it itself understands being and therefore can ask about it. Asking about being, this entity stands out and displays its own exemplary value: Dasein’s exemplarity consists in the unique relation it has vis-à-vis being in general (relation of understanding). Husserl’s exemplar, too, is the point of departure of the phenomenological investigation, yet not its center. The “ego” of the meditator stands out as an “exemplar” because the phenomenologist can only take himself or herself as the methodological starting point in order to determine and map out all the structures of the concrete ego or monad. Heidegger’s exemplarity is of an ontological, that is to say, existential nature; Husserl’s exemplarity is merely methodological. That phenomenology, as a first philosophy, can lay out the foundation for the ontologies by working out the mode of being of the concrete subject does not mean that there is a certain entity, the mode of being or existence of which is such that a unique relation of understanding to being obtains. Heidegger’s exemplary entity is the entity around which the analytics of Dasein revolves; Husserl’s exemplar is the entity from which the phenomenological (eidetic) method moves away to determine the nature and the many structures of the monad. As already was the case in the previous chapters, here, too, it turned out that if there is any difference between the two, it is that Husserl holds to the idea of the subject as a “region.” Yet, and in contrast with the draft for the Encyclopedia

 Das Eidos transzendentales Ich ist undenkbar ohne transzendentales Ich als faktisches (Hua XV, 385). See also Hua XLII, 122–123. 30

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Britannica article—in the Meditations, the transcendental subjectivity as a monad is no longer regarded as corresponding to the psyche as an “abstract layer” of the human subject. The topos of phenomenology is no longer the region “pure consciousness,” but rather the region: “concrete ego” or monad. If Husserl’s effort consists in first excluding all the real, i.e. anthropological determinations of the transcendental field in order for the Seins-Weise of the monad to come forward and disclose itself to the phenomenologist (the monad that is in me, or which I myself am), one of the major ambitions of Heidegger’s analytics is to de-regionalize (by formal indication) the transcendental subject so that the Dasein in me or the menschliches Dasein’s mode of being and existence can first manifest itself.

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Greisch, J. (2014). Ontologie et temporalité. Esquisse d’une interprétation intégrale de Sein und Zeit. PUF. Heidegger, M. (1967). Sein und Zeit (GA 2). Max Niemeyer. Heidegger, M. (1983). Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit (GA 29/30). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1994). Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einführung in die phänomenologische Forschung (GA 61). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1995a). Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens (GA 60). Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (1995b). The fundamental concepts of metaphysics. World, finitude, solitude. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (1996). Einleitung in die Philosophie (GA 27). V. Klostermann. Heidegger, M. (2001). Phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (2004). The phenomenology of religious life. Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time. State University of New York Press. Hopkins, B.  C. (1993). Intentionality in Husserl and Heidegger. The problem of the original method and phenomenology. Springer. Husserl, E. (1962). Phänomenologische Psychologie (Hua IX). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1969). Formal and transcendental logic. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1972). Erfahrung und Urteil. Felix Meiner Verlag. Husserl, E. (1973a). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973b). Experience and judgment. Northwestern University Press. Husserl, E. (1973c). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935 (Hua XV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973d). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil (1921–1928) (Hua XIV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft (Hua XVII). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Band (Hua III/1). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937) (Hua XXVII). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993a). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993b). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband (Hua XXIX). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994). Briefwechsel. Die Münchener Phänomenologen (Hua-Dok III/2). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1997). Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Springer. Husserl, E. (2001). Die Bernauer Manuskripte über die Zielbewusstsein 1917/18 (Hua XXXIII). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2002). Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23 (Hua XXXV). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014a). Ideas I. Hackett Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014b). Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie (Hua XLII). Springer. Imdahl, G. (1994). “Formale Anzeige” bei Heidegger. Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, 37, 306–332. Inkpin, A. (2010). Formale Anzeige und das Voraussetzungsproblem. In F. Rese (Hrg.), Heidegger und Husserl im Vergleich (pp. 13–33). Klostermann. Kisiel, T. (1995). The genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. University of California Press. Kisiel, T. (1999). L’indication formelle de la facticité: vers une “gramma-ontologie” heideggerienne du temps. Études phénoménologiques, XV(29/30), 107–126. Lafont, C. (2002). Replies. Inquiry, 45, 229–248. Lavigne, J.-F. (2005). Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie (1900–1913). Vrin.

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Lavigne, J.-F. (2009). Accéder au transcendantal? Réduction et Idéalisme transcendantal dans les Idées I de Husserl. Vrin. Lavigne, J.-F. (Ed.). (2016). Les Méditations Cartésiennes de Husserl. Vrin. Overgaard, S. (2004). Husserl and Heidegger on being in the world. Springer. Ricoeur, P. (2004). À l’école de la phénoménologie. Vrin. Sasso, G. (1987). Essere e negazione. Morano editore. Sellars, W. (2007). In the space of reasons. Selected essays of Wilfrid Sellars. Harvard University Press. Shockey, R. M. (2010). What’s formal about formal indication? Heidegger’s method in sein und Zeit. Inquiry, 53, 525–539. Stein, E. (2010). Einführung in die Philosophie. Herder. Stein, E. (2015). Selbstbildnis in Briefen II (1933–1942). Herder. Streeter, R. (1997). Heidegger’s formal indication: A question of method in Being and Time. Man and World, 30, 413–430. Villevieille, L. (2013). Heidegger, de l’indication formelle à l’existence. Bulletin d’analyse phénoménologique, IX, 1–96. Villevieille, L. (2017). Indication formelle et déformalisation. Philosophiques, 44, 343–347.

Chapter 5

The Nomos of the Transcendental

1. In Chap. 1, §3 we first introduced the phrase the nomos of the transcendental, and also tried to clarify how its relation to the problem of the locus of the transcendental should be understood. There, we already hinted at the main thesis of the present chapter. As a consequence of the way in which, in the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl re-thinks the locus of the transcendental (“the concrete human being” to which the monad corresponds), also the problem of the “un-intelligibility” of the entities (as Heidegger calls it in his letter of 1927) is shaped anew. We are referring to the famous or infamous doctrine of transcendental idealism  that Husserl officially presents in §41 of CM IV. This being recalled, this new chapter will try to present and endorse two main claims. Firstly, it will elaborate on what was announced in Chap. 1 so as to shed a better light on the doctrine of transcendental idealism (hereafter TI) in the Meditations in connection to our discussions thus far. Secondly, and no matter how strange this may sound to most ears, it will advance the thesis to the effect that §41 of the Fourth Meditation, hence the terminology and conceptuality mobilized by Husserl to account for TI, should be linked to §32 of Being and Time. In turn, this thesis embraces two additional sub-theses. For if §32 of Being and Time should be read as a transcendental-existential re-elaboration of the concept of “sense” as first introduced by Husserl in the Logical Investigations (this being our first sub-thesis), §41 of the Fourth Meditation (and more specifically TI) is in turn a re-elaboration of §32 of Being and Time (this being the second sub-thesis). If there must be any such thing as a Husserlian “response” to Being and Time or, specifically, to the questions raised by Heidegger in his letter of 1927, then the core of such “response” or “reply” is precisely TI. Now, in order to slowly present and justify our theses, we will have to proceed as follows. We will first briefly review how Heidegger presents the problem of “the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_5

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nomos of the transcendental” in his letter of 1927; then, we will also briefly review how Husserl himself addresses it in his Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture of 1931. At this point, our strategy will make a zigzag sort of movement: we will first only introduce TI and then immediately go back to §32 of Being and Time. Only in this way, in fact, will we be in a position to show the direct connection between the two texts. Once we have succeeded in making the case for considering §41 as a “reply” to §32, we can return to TI once again for a systematic discussion.

2. In the second Appendix to his letter of 1927 Heidegger pointed out that, “the first thing in the presentation of the transcendental problem is to clarify what the ‘unintelligibility’ of the entities means” (Hua-Dok III/4, 147; Husserl, 1997, 139). In turn, this overall question includes two specific sets of sub-problems, one that bears upon the entities and another upon the subject. As for the latter, Heidegger’s series of questions are already familiar to us: • “What is the mode of being of this absolute ego, in what sense is it the same as the factual I; in what sense is it not the same?” The other group of sub-questions, on the contrary, asks: • “In what respect are entities unintelligible? That is, what higher claim of intelligibility is possible and necessary?” Chapter 3 was dedicated to showing to what extent the Cartesian Meditations, that is, the account of the concrete ego or monad offered therein, represents an actual re-elaboration of the structure of the transcendental subjectivity and its mode of being. Nevertheless, the question in what sense the transcendental ego is the same as the factual ego (and in what sense it is not the same) has yet to be fully tackled. For as we should recall, this question is intimately connected to the problem of “the locus of the transcendental” (Chap. 4, §9), and  we will not be able to properly address it until we reach the last part of this book. Indeed, since it concerns the relation between the “subject” that expresses himself or herself in the proposition, “I, this human being, am the one who is practicing the method of a transcendental change of attitude,” and the “transcendental subjectivity” itself, we will not be able to address it until we have followed the process of transcendental constitution all the way to its end (metaphysics and the metaphysical interpretation of the factual world). Only at that point, in fact, will the two subjectivities which at the end of Chap. 1, §7 were designated as a (“I, this human being, am the one…”) and c (“My Dasein as a human being”) be eventually reconciled. Only at that point will the possibility that “this human being” has to perform the transcendental reduction be finally elucidated. We have already seen how Husserl’s lecture of 1931 addressed the second set of questions, the one bearing upon the specific problem of the unintelligibility of the entities. It will be useful to recall the following passage.

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Recognition of transcendental relativity of all being, and accordingly the entire world in its being (der ganzen seienden Welt), may be unavoidable, but when it is formally set forth in this way, it is completely unintelligible (unverständlich). And it will remain so if from the start we allow ourselves to use the kind of argumentation that has always been the cure of the so-called “theory of knowledge.” But have we not already concretely (konkret) disclosed transcendental subjectivity as a field of experience and a field of cognition related to that as their ground? In doing this, have we not, in fact, actually opened up the way to solve the new transcendental enigma of the world? This transcendental enigma is quite different from all the other puzzles about the world in the usual sense; it consists precisely in the unintelligibility (Unverständlichkeit) with which transcendental relativity strikes us from the very start as well as when we discover the transcendental attitude and the transcendental ego. The starting point is not at all an end point. In any case, it is clear now what we have to do to transform it into something intelligible (Verständlichkeit), and thus to arrive at a really concrete (konkreten) and radically grounded knowledge of the world. We must embark on a systematic study of concrete transcendental subjectivity (konkreten transzendentalen Subjektivität), and specifically we must pose the question of how transcendental subjectivity in itself brings about the sense and validity of the objective world (Hua XXVII, 175–176; Husserl, 1997, 496).

As we tried to explain earlier (Chap. 1, §6), here Husserl makes a clear distinction between the un-intelligibility of the world in its “transcendental relativity” to consciousness (which corresponds to the way in which Husserl frames the problem in one of his drafts for the Encyclopedia Britannica article), and what he now considers a higher form of intelligibility that is obtained once we arrive at “a really concrete (konkreten) and radically grounded knowledge of the world.” The thesis of what he labels “the transcendental relativity” becomes itself part of a more encompassing “concretely full being.” This is why in the lecture of 1931 Husserl distinguishes the transcendental attitude from the absolute one (absolute Einstellung): the former corresponding to the ascertainment of the relativity of the world vis-à-vis consciousness, the latter to its inclusion within “the concretely full being.” In §41 of the Cartesian Meditations, immediately after he presents the core claims of “transcendental idealism,” Husserl remarks that, “this form of intelligibility is the highest form of rationality” (Hua I, 118; Husserl, 1993, 85). Highest also with respect to the determination of the consciousness-being correlation as it was first expounded in CM II and III. This being recognized, let us quote the central part of the text on transcendental idealism: Every thinkable sense, every thinkable being […] falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity as the one that constitutes sense and being (Sinn und Sein). The attempt at conceiving the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, hence as related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is nonsensical (unsinnig). For they belong together essentially (beides zusammen); and in this essential co-belongingness they are also concretely one (konkret eins), one in the only absolute concretion (absoluten Konkretion): transcendental subjectivity. If this is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely non-sense (Unsinn). But even non-sense is always a mode of sense and has its non-­ sensicalness (Unsinnigkeit) as a mode of evidence (Hua I, 117; Husserl, 1993, 84).

It is not our ambition to discuss right now this text (we will come back to it during the second half of this chapter); the point for us is rather to explicitly recognize that the language of the “concretion” employed by Husserl testifies to the close

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connection between the re-elaboration of the concrete subject as a monad and TI itself. As in fact we anticipated over the course of Chap. 1, the doctrine of transcendental idealism discussed in §41 is a most direct consequence of the re-elaboration of the transcendental subject and its mode of being. Thus, the major goal of the present chapter is precisely to elucidate this connection, which is nothing but the connection between the two Heideggerian questions above. If the Cartesian Meditation-version talks of “sense” and “non-sense” (Sinn and Unsinn), the Paris Lectures also employ the phrase “counter-sense” (Widersinn) (Hua I, 32). The concrete subject or monad is the universe of all “possible sense,” this being in a nutshell the thesis of transcendental idealism. Moreover, and as the title of paragraph §41 states: TI means nothing but The Correct Phenomenological Self-Ex-Plication (Selbstauslegung) of the “Ego Cogito.” If we are on the right track, when Husserl introduces TI as the correct Selbstauslegung of the “concrete monad,” thereby implicitly alluding to the fact that there can also be an incorrect explication and self-explication of the ego, he is thinking of §32 of Being and Time. As Oskar Becker had framed Heidegger’s stance, Die eigentliche Auslegung menschlichen Daseins ist Selbstausleung (Becker, 1927, 221).

3. The point for us is less to emphasize the importance of §32 for the project laid out in Being and Time (this being something already known that does not need any additional discussion1) than to acknowledge the central and pivotal role that, both publically and privately, Heidegger comes to assign to this paragraph, and the specific existential discussed therein, in the years that immediately follow the release of the book. And this is why, we think, TI is presented and framed by Husserl by means of exactly the same language and jargon mobilized by Heidegger in §32. As one could put it, Husserl regards the conception of idealism that derives from the re-­ elaboration of the transcendental subject as an alternative to the transcendental-­ existential transformation of the concept of “sense” accomplished in §32. According to Husserl, the former expresses the correct explication and self-explication of the concrete subject, whereas the latter is the incorrect one. Let us start out with a private document: a letter that in 1928 Heidegger writes to Julius Stenzel in response2 to an article that the great philologist had just published

 See for example, among others, von Herrmann, 2000; and Greisch, 2014, 187–204.  “Für die freundliche Zusendung Ihres Aufsatzes in der ‘Antike’ danke ich Ihnen vielmals. Das Problem, das Sie behandeln, wird nur durch eine entschlossene und produktive Auseinandersetzung mit der Antike ‘gelöst’ werden können. Nicht nur weil es Ihre freundliche Erwähnung meines Buches verlangt, sondern auch weil ich weiß, daß Sie zu der heute recht kleinen Schar derer gehören, die über echte Antriebe und das Werkzeug zu solcher Auseinandersetzung verfügen, liegt mir an einer gegenseitig förderlichen Verständigung” (Heidegger, 2000, 11). 1 2

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in Die Antike (a journal established and edited by Werner Jaeger), the title of which isThe Dangers of Modern Thinking and Humanism. The claims Heidegger advances and the points he politely makes against Stenzel are all the more interesting if we keep in mind that Stenzel explicitly mentions his name only on four occasions (if we are not mistaken), and only the first mention at the outset of the essay refers to Heidegger with a slightly polemical and critical tone (Stenzel, 1928, 43, 46, 61, 64). There is no need for us to go over Stenzel’s arguments in detail; for the sake of our problems, the following will suffice. Stenzel’s own effort consists in casting doubts on the legitimacy of a tendency proper to modern thinking and culture (von diesen philosophischen Tendenzen), namely, the tendency to move away or, even worse, “to overcome Antiquity” (die Antike zu überwinden) and the Greek humanistic ideal (Stenzel, 1928, 42–43). Against these tendencies, Stenzel does not intend to propose a “return” to Antiquity: the point for him is rather to recognize that throughout history of philosophy every opposition to the ideals of Antiquity always went hand in hand with a transformation and assimilation of those very same ideals. When it comes to the specific Bildungsidee of the “new humanism,” Stenzel regards it as consisting in radical “subjectivization” and “individualism” (Stenzel, 1928, 53). One of the examples that, in his opinion, perfectly epitomize the tendency of modern humanism at overcoming Antiquity is neo-Kantianism, whose motto Stenzel sums up as, “away from the Aristotelian logic, away from the Aristotelian ‘rigidly realistic’ ontology” (Stenzel, 1928, 43). It is against this backdrop that a reference is made to Heidegger. More specifically, the reference is made after Stenzel admits that phenomenology should be regarded as a real “ally” in this debate (Man durfte… in der Phänomenologie eine wichtige Helferin erblicken), because phenomenology is able to bring to a “new life” “the original motives of Greek thinking and Greek ontology” (originale Motive des griechischen Denkens, der griechischen Ontologie zu neuem Leben zu erwecken). Yet, as he hastens to immediately remark, “this school” has recently produced a work (Nun ist aber aus dieser Schule ein Werk entsprungen) in which the so far implicit discussion with the ancient spirit has become explicit: Heideggers “Sein und Zeit” (Stenzel, 1928, 43). Stenzel does not fail to stress that, although such “extremely significant work” takes, as a point of departure, “the ancient Platonic ontology,” it ends up discussing anxiety, care, and being-towards-death as what characterizes the narrow individuality (in engster Individualität) of the historically existing ego. What emerges from these pages, Stenzel concludes, is ein… unantiker Menschenbegriff. It is on this handful of lines that Heidegger focuses his attention. He immediately points out that there must be a “misunderstanding” here (Enttäuschung or Fehlinterpretation).3 For Dasein, as the ontologisch echt gefaßten “objektiven”  “Gehe ich fehl, wenn ich aus diesen Sätzen so etwas wie eine Enttäuschung über die Phänomenologie herauslese und mich selbst unter ‘die Gefahren des modernen Denkens’ gerechnet sehe? Das wäre eine, freilich auf den ersten Blick naheliegende, sogar verlockende Fehlinterpretation” (Heidegger, 2000, 11). 3

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Begriff der Subjektivität, does not express any “individualism” (engste Individualität) (Heidegger, 2000, 11). Only if this is kept in mind, can one also properly understand the interpretation of Dasein as “being-in-the-world” and co-being. Aber all das ist nicht wesentlich, “But none of this is really essential” (Heidegger, 2000, 11). The book’s ambition is to propose neither an anthropology, nor a world-view that stands in opposition to Antiquity: its “problem is that of the universal question about the possible ground for a rigorous interpretation of being according to all its possible modifications and regions (Abwandlungen und Regionen).” Hence, the book’s central and fundamental questions are listed as follows: Gehört es zur Seinsverfassung des menschlichen Daseins, daß für seine Existenz dergl. Wie Verstehen von Sein überhaupt konstitutiv ist? Was heißt aber Seinsverständnis und welches ist die Seins Verfassung des Daseins, die ein Verstehen von Sein möglich macht? Welcher Weg ist zu nehmen, um—in Absicht auf die Begründung der Möglichkeit von Seinsverständnis überhaupt und einzig in dieser Absicht—die Seinsverfassung des Daseins (ψυχή Platos der Funktion im Problem nach) Augen zu legen (Heidegger, 2000, 12).

What interests us in the present context is not only the almost exclusive emphasis on the existential assessed in §§31–32 of Being and Time (we wrote “almost,” because later on Heidegger also tries to clarify to his interlocutor the ontological significance of Sorge in general); what interests us is the “strategy” adopted by Heidegger and that consists in laying strong emphasis upon the ontological determination of Dasein, upon the understanding of being in general, precisely to better and more radically distinguish the analytics of Dasein from any anthropology whatsoever. As a consequence, one could be tempted to rephrase Heidegger’s expression das Dasein im Menschen and speak of das Seins-Verständnis im Menschen to spell out the proper subject-matter of the analytics (insofar as we do not take it as a whole but, as Heidegger himself does in the letter to Stenzel, only in relation to its goal, that of providing a new “possible ground for a rigorous interpretation of being”). Now, although Husserl could not have any cognition of this letter, the same strategy is adopted by Heidegger in a book with which Husserl was quite familiar instead, and which would soon be published: Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.4 If we follow closely the sequence of paragraphs in Section Four (The Laying of the Foundation of Metaphysics in a Repetition), we can immediately realize how the question of the determination of the “finitude” of the human being (see §39: The Problem of a Possible Determination of the Finitude of the Human Being) is answered by pinpointing the understanding or comprehension of being im Dasein (see §41: The Comprehension of Being and the Dasein in the Human Being) (Heidegger, 1965, 233–238; 2010b, 226–231). As Heidegger writes, thereby leaving no room for doubt about the fundamental role of the “existential” originally addressed in §§31–32 of Being and Time, “As a mode of being, existence is in itself finitude and, as such, is only possible on the basis of the comprehension of being” (Heidegger, 1965, 236; 2010b, 228). Das Seinsverständnis “is the most finite in the  Which, as Heidegger himself writes to Bultmann, is also “an introduction to Being and Time” (Da die Schrift zugleich eine Einfuhrung in Sein und Zeit werden soll) (Bultmann & Heidegger, 2009, 106). 4

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finite.” The conclusion can thus be drawn that, “It is upon the basis of its comprehension of being that the human being is the there, with the being of which takes place the revelatory irruption into the entity. It is by virtue of this irruption that the entity can become manifest as such to a self. More primordial than the human being is the finitude of the Dasein in him or her” (Heidegger, 1965, 237; 2010b, 229).5 In §42, Heidegger goes on to elaborate upon these problems by directly referring to the idea of a “fundamental ontology” of Being and Time. Let us quote a few paradigmatic excerpts. In the presentation of its problem as well as in the point of departure, course of development, and final objective, the laying of the foundation of metaphysics must be guided solely and rigorously by its fundamental question. This fundamental question is the problem of the internal possibility of the comprehension of being, from which all specific questions relative to Being arise. The metaphysics of Dasein when guided by the question of the laying of the foundation reveals the structure of being proper to Dasein in such a way that this structure is manifest as that which makes the comprehension of being possible. The disclosure of the structure of being of Dasein is ontology. Under the designation fundamental ontology is included the problem of the finitude in the human being as the decisive element which makes the comprehension of being possible. The finitude of Dasein, the comprehension of being (Heidegger, 1965, 240–241; 2010b, 232–234).

Husserl’s notes and comments on these paragraphs testify to the great attention he must have paid to the issues here discussed by Heidegger. He himself remarks, for example, “The understanding of being the innermost essence of finitude?” (Husserl, 1994c, 63; 1997, 468). Later on, he also points out, “NB. Earlier it was said [that Dasein is what it is] upon the basis of understanding of being, so Dasein would seem to be identical with the understanding of being” (Husserl, 1994c, 63; Husserl, 1997, 468); “So Dasein in human beings = understanding-of-being!” (Husserl, 1994c, 63; 1997, 469). All these remarks show to what extent, during the reading of Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Husserl must have been under the (quite justified) impression that das Seinsverständnis is the beating heart of the “analytics of Dasein.” Contrary to how Stein understands the relation between finitude and Seinsverständnis (Dasein’s finitude is what grounds das Seinsverständnis (Stein, 1962, 21)), Husserl is aware that the two are equivalent. Heidegger writes, “The question of being arises from the pre-conceptual understanding of being, as a question concerning the possibility of the concept of being” (Heidegger, 1965, 233; 2010b, 226). Husserl’s convoluted commentary reads as follows: What is at issue here, however, is not the possibility, essence, or concept of being, but rather the psychological and, and because it is so difficult, the transcendental possibility of an entity as such also being an entity for us; that is to say, with the not yet conceptually grasped, the not yet systematically investigated constituting subjectivity, and also the essential unity of that which has arisen out of naive, lived, but un-thematized constitution,  which is simply and exclusively for us as something that exists (entities and their

 For a most critical interpretation, see Maschietti, 2005, 1–55.

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concepts) with transcendentally functioning subjectivity and on the basis of this, of a concrete, full grasp of the essence of the being or thing, a grasp which leaves open no question of essence for beings-as-such and for the entity with world; this in the necessary transition to the totality and its necessity (Husserl, 1994c, 60–61; 1997, 464).

Husserl also talks of “the sense of being” (Husserl, 1997, 463), and the reference to the necessity of a “concrete, full grasp” of the essence of being seems to directly point in the direction of what in the lecture of 1931 he will call “the concretely full being” or, to put it better: being as part of the full concretion. To corroborate our thesis that §41 of the Cartesian Meditations, hence TI, should be read in a direct connection with Heidegger’s determination of the das Seinsverständnis, the following remark is of crucial importance. Indeed, the objection could be advanced according to which while the famous Paris Lectures were given by Husserl at the beginning of 1929 (Hua I, xxiii), he dedicated himself to a systematic reading of Heidegger’s works only during the Summer of 1929. In a letter of January 6, 1931, Husserl explained to Alexander Pfänder, “Immediately after the printing of my last book [Formal and Transcendental Logic], in order to come to a clear-headed and definitive position on Heideggerian philosophy, I dedicated two months to studying Sein und Zeit, as well as his more recent writings [= the Kantbuch and Vom Wesen des Grundes]” (Hua-Dok III/4, 184; the translation of the letter can be found in Husserl, 1997, 29). As Thomas Sheehan explains in a footnote: “Husserl sent off the last corrections to Formale und transzendentale Logik on July 3, 1929, and the book appeared by the end of the month. Husserl’s remark here could refer to either date, thus making the ‘two months’ refer to July-August or August-September” (see Husserl, 1997, 29). The typescript for the French translation was sent off to Strasbourg in May 1929. Now, there are only three texts published by Husserl in which his own phenomenology is publically presented as a form of “transcendental idealism”: the Paris Lectures/Cartesian Meditations, Formal and Transcendental Logic and the Nachwort to Ideas I. And all of them were composed during the period of Husserl’s “confrontation” with Heidegger: between the end of 1927 (after Husserl’s first reading of Being and Time), January 1928 (Husserl’s discussion of Being and Time with Heidegger) and June 1931 (when Husserl gives the Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture). If we consider that the Cartesian Meditations appeared only in French, that Formal and Transcendental Logic explains only how “transcendental idealism” should not be mis-understood, and that the Nachwort’s remarks about TI explicitly refer the reader to the soon to be published Meditations, it follows that, at least publically, Husserl never presented the German reader with any official and systematic assessment of TI. Our reading of the lecture on Phenomenology and Anthropology (Chap. 1, §§4–6) confirmed that the last part of lecture, in which Husserl tackles the problem of the “un-intelligibility” of the entities first raised by Heidegger in his letter of

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1927, corresponds to the text of CM IV.6 The reading of his personal notes on Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics showed how clearly Husserl regarded the understanding and comprehension of being as a problem, so to speak, the solution of which is given by the re-elaboration of the transcendental subject as a concrete ego (= “the concretely full being”). Rather than use as an objection the fact that the notes on Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics were written after the typescript of the Cartesian Meditations had been completed, one should seriously take into consideration the hypothesis that Husserl came to pay a great deal of attention to the pages on the Seinsverständnis from the book of 1929 precisely because he had already recognized the crucial importance of Heidegger’s re-elaboration of the concept of sense in the paragraphs dedicated to the link between Verstehen and Auslegung.7 This being recognized, it is now time to quickly turn to Being and Time.

4. In §31 on Dasein as Understanding or Comprehending (depending on how one may want to translate the German Verstehen), Heidegger succinctly points out, “The mode of being of Dasein as a potentiality of being lies existentially in understanding” (Heidegger, 1967, 143; 2010a, 139). If here Heidegger’s central concern is to introduce and slowly clarify the connection between “understanding” and “projecting” (Verstehen and Entwerfen), §32 will finally bring to full light the structure of “understanding” by focusing on Auslegung (which we have been translating thus far as explication). As we can read in §32, “We shall call the exercise of understanding explication. In the explication, understanding appropriates what it has understood (sein Verstandenes)” (Heidegger, 1967, 148; 2010a, 144). There is no need for us to go over the different aspects that Heidegger works out; for the sake of our arguments here, what matters is the manner in which Sinn (which we would translate as sense rather than “meaning”) is eventually presented as “an existential of Dasein” (Heidegger, 1967, 151; 2010a, 147).

 We should not forget that the manuscripts for the Umarbeitung of the Meditations cover a period of time that goes from March 1929 to March 1930 (Hua XV, Part I). Moreover, the strong connection between the 1931 lecture and the project of the Cartesian Meditations is somehow suggested by Husserl himself in a letter of 1931 to Edith Stein (Stein, 2000, 183–184). Husserl writes to his former assistant that he started working on the new, German edition of Meditations immediately after he had returned from his tour in Frankfurt, Berlin and Halle, where “I really had the chance to act for the sake of phenomenology” (ich […] hatte wirklich Gelegenheit, für die Phänomenologie zu wirken). 7  “Mais au lieu de reconduire toute fondation à la subjectivité transcendantale, il [Heidegger] se demande en outre dans quoi un questionnement relatif aux ‘conditions de possibilité’ elle-même est fondé. Heidegger répond: dans l’existential du comprendre. […] Ainsi Heidegger fonde le principe même de toute philosophie transcendantale—à savoir la recherché des conditions de possibilité de l’expérience—dans la structure ontologique de l’être-là” (Schnell, 2005, 74–75). 6

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When with the being of Dasein inner-wordily entities are discovered, that is, have come to be understood, we say that they have sense (Sinn). But strictly speaking, what is understood is not the sense, but the entity, that is, being. Sense is that wherein the intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) of something maintains itself. […] The concept of sense embraces the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what is articulated by the understanding explication. […] Sense is an existential of Dasein, rather than a property that pertains to the entities, which lies “behind” them or floats somewhere as an “in-between realm.” Only Dasein “has” sense in that the disclosedness of being-in-the-world can be “fulfilled” through the entities that are discoverable in it. Hence, only Dasein can be full of sense or deprived of sense (sinvoll oder sinnlos sein). […] If we adhere to this fundamentally ontological-existential interpretation of the concept of “sense,” then all entities the mode of being of which is other than Dasein’s must be non-­ sensical (unsinniges), essentially bare of sense in general. “Nonsensical” (Unsinnige) does not mean here a value judgment, but it expresses an ontological determination. And only the non-sensical can be counter-sensical (Und nur das Unsinnige kann widersinnig sein). What is merely present and is encountered by Dasein can, so to speak, run against the latter’s being, for example natural events which break in on us and destroy us. And we ask about the sense of being (nach dem Sinn von Sein), our inquiry does not become profound and does not brood on anything which stands behind being, but questions being itself in so far as it stands within the intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) of Dasein (Heidegger, 1967, 151–152; 2010a, 147).

Not only can there be little doubt about these problems being the ones Heidegger had properly in mind when he wrote down his questions for Husserl in 1927; the very last lines testify to the extent to which the outcomes of Heidegger’s analysis of this existential do not apply only to the “Dasein-entities” relation, but also to the question about the sense of being in general. Sinn is an existential of Dasein, and the entities can be said to have “sense” and to be “intelligible” only as long as they are “disclosed” by Dasein. The intelligibility of the entities is their being disclosed, and therefore understood by Dasein. Now, the expression that Heidegger has already introduced to designate the discovery of the entities on the part of Dasein, hence their being understood as such, is Auslegung. To say, as Heidegger does, that die verstandene Welt ist ausgelegt, means the same as to recognize that the world, that is to say, a given inner-worldly entity has been “understood” and projected upon by Dasein itself (Greisch, 2014, 194–195): “The concept of sense embraces the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what is articulated by the understanding explication.” It follows that something, e.g. a “natural event” like an earthquake, can be experienced as “absurd” (in the sense of the German widersinnig), thereby shaking Dasein’s existence, only because Dasein is or has sense. The Unsinnige and the Widersinnige are both a mode of the Sinn; just like the “un-intelligibility” of the entities is itself a mode of Dasein’s existential and its pro-jecting “intelligibility.” “Sinn,” Husserl remarks in italics in the margin of the above citation (Husserl, 1997, 345).8

 In the words of an excellent commentator such as Emanuele Severino, Il poter-essere, come progetto, e quindi come comprensione, costituisce il piano ontologicamente condizionante l’onticità (Severino, 1994, 150). More generally, see the entire §32 of the book (La comprensione). See also Kouba, 2014, 131–156 (Pravda v rozumění) for a quite powerful, Heidegger-inspired reflection on 8

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In §12 of the Fourth Logical Investigation on Unsinn und Widersinn, Husserl had made a clear-cut distinction between two different kinds of propositions. On the one hand, there are the “absurd” and “counter-sensical” propositions, those that express a material contradiction of the type “all squares have five angles.” On the other hand, Husserl speaks of “non-sensical” propositions to characterize propositions such as “a man and is” and “a circle or” (Husserl, 1984, 334–336; see Benoist, 2001, 63–110; 2002, 67–86). While in the theory of meaning of the Logical Investigations, the “non-sense” stands completely outside the domain of the sense (which stretches only so far as to embrace what is counter-sensical), in the transcendent-existential interpretation of the concept of sense accomplished in §32 of Being and Time, there is absolutely nothing that stands outside the domain of the sense, outside the realm of the intelligibility of being which Dasein itself is.9 If we put together the long passage quoted above from Being and Time with Heidegger’s emphasis on das Seinsverständnis (in both his letter to Stenzel and towards the end of the Kantbuch) to refer to what ontologically determines Dasein’s existence and finitude, then it should be evident what he wanted to suggest to Husserl when he first pointed out the connection between the question of the locus of the transcendental (the determination of the mode of being of the entity that does the constitution) and the one on the nomos of the transcendental (the elucidation of the unintelligibility of the entities). The mode of being of Dasein entails a transcendent-­existential interpretation of the concept of “sense.” By the same token, Husserl’s TI directly derives from the mode of being of the concrete ego. Whether this also implies that Heidegger’s stance on “sense” in §32 represents a form of idealism that would not substantially diverge from Husserl’s, we shall not decide here. Exit Heidegger.

5. Enter Husserl. Before we go back to the excerpt on TI quoted at the beginning of this chapter (§2), it will be crucial to rule out a possible misleading reading of Husserl’s transcendental idealism by elucidating, per viam negationis, what the problem at the basis of TI is not. We are referring to the series of systematic observations made by Husserl in §40 of CM IV, the title of which is: Transition to the Question of Transcendental Idealism. Now that the problems of phenomenology have been reduced to the unitary comprehensive title “the (static and genetic) constitution of objectualities of possible consciousness,” phenomenology seems (scheint) to be rightly characterized also as the transcendental theory of the relation between “understanding” and “truth” with a special focus on the problem of the things’ independence from the subject (142–147). 9  See also for example Stein, 1962, VI, §1, 306, in which the notion of Unsinn (hence, its distinction from the concept of Widersinn) is defined as what displays no “understandable sense” (auf keinen verstehbaren Sinn führt).

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knowledge. Let us contrast the theory of knowledge, as transcendental in our sense, with the traditional theory of knowledge (Hua I, 114–115; Husserl, 1993, 81).

Contrary to the impression the reader may be under when he or she reads this passage, i.e., that TI will be presented as a solution to a specific gnoseological problem (the problem of transcendence), Husserl’s intention is to do the opposite: to argue that there exists no such problem in general.10 This is why Husserl writes that phenomenology seems to be a transcendental theory of knowledge, yet this is not the case. He describes the problem from three different perspectives: from the angle of the natural attitude from which it actually arises; from the standpoint of Descartes (with whose philosophy it is often associated); finally from the perspective of Brentano, who allegedly provided its solution. The latter’s problem is transcendence. […] The problem arises […] in the natural attitude. I find myself here as a human being in the world; likewise as experiencing and scientifically knowing the world, myself included. And now I say to myself: whatever exists for me, exists for me thanks to my knowing consciousness; it is for me the experience of my experiencing, the thought of my thinking, the theorized of my theorizing, the intellectually seen of my insight. If, following Brentano, I recognize intentionality, I shall say: intentionality, as a fundamental property of my psychic life, is real property belonging to me, as a human being, and to every other human being in respect of his or her purely psychic inner being. (Indeed, Brentano had already made intentionality central for empirical human psychology). The first person singular of this beginning is, and remains, the natural first person singular; it confines itself, and likewise the whole further treatment of the problem, within the realm of the natural world. Accordingly, I go on to say, and quite understandably: whatever exists for a human being like me and is accepted by him or her, exists for him or her and is accepted in his or her conscious life, which, in all consciousness of a world and in all scientific doing, keeps to itself. All my distinguishing between genuine and deceptive experience and between being and illusion in experience goes on within the sphere itself of my consciousness […]. Every grounding, every showing of truth and being, goes on wholly within myself; and its result is a characteristic in the cogitatum of my cogito. Therein lies the great problem, according to the traditional view. That I attain certainties, even compelling evidences, in my own domain of consciousness, in the connection of motivation determining me, is understandable. But how can this business, going on wholly within the immanence of conscious life, acquire objective meaning? How can evidence (clara et distincta perceptio) claim to be more than a characteristic of consciousness within me? […] It is the Cartesian problem, which was supposed to be solved by divine veracitas? (Hua I, 115–116; Husserl, 1993, 81–83).

As one could rephrase Husserl’s line of thought here, the supposed problem of transcendence is the result of a projection of a conviction inherent to the natural attitude onto the philosophical dimension: “I apperceive myself as a natural human being” which exists “in space” and which has “an outside me” (Hua I, 116; Husserl, 1993, 83). Hence, the very (gnoseological) relation between consciousness and world is interpreted spatially, with “consciousness” standing for the ideal here of the knower and the “world” designating the ideal outside me of the “object of knowledge.” Also

 Which is what has been known over recent years under the label “the internalism-externalism debate”; for a more recent discussion of the different views on the matter, Zahavi, 2017, 77–82; Skirke, 2021. 10

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the waking life of natural reason generates monsters, here that of the “arcaica antitesi” or primordial antithesis (Guido Calogero) between subject and object. Descartes’ preoccupation is the result of the application of a spatial model to consciousness. By the same token, as long as Brentano conceives of intentionality as a property of the natural psyche, he also falls prey to this very same mistake. Regardless of the question whether all these claims could be justified, Husserl would quite likely put it as follows: Brentano’s notion of intentionality is a false solution to a false problem. As one can read at the beginning of §41, “the whole problem is counter-sensical” (Hua I, 116; Husserl, 1993, 83). In short, phenomenology’s task is not to provide a new, and better solution to the so-called problem of transcendence; quite the contrary, its ambition is to show that there exists no such problem.11 If we are on the right track, TI is not meant to be an assessment (meaning a “solution”) of the problem of transcendence. For as far as we understand Husserl, the problem of transcendence has already been, not solved, but rather dispelled by the doctrine of constitution first presented in CM II and III.  Here is what Husserl also writes: Manifestly, the conscious execution of the phenomenological reduction is needed, in order to attain that ego and conscious life by which transcendental questions, as questions about the possibility of transcendent knowledge, can be asked. But as soon as […] one sets to work, attempting a systematic self-investigation and as the pure ego to uncover this ego’s whole field of consciousness, one recognizes that all that whatever there is (Seiendes) for the pure ego becomes constituted in it itself; furthermore, that every type of being, including every kind characterized as, in any sense, “transcendent,” has its own particular constitution. Transcendence in every form is an immanent ontological character constituted within the ego (Hua I, 116–117; Husserl, 1993, 83–84).

Husserl’s words leave no room for doubt: the theory of constitution, interpreted as the correlation between the many Seins-Arten and the life of consciousness, is what rules out from the beginning the problem of transcendence. If this is the case, then the passage above directly confirms our thesis that this is not the problem around which TI revolves: TI rests on, yet does not coincide with, the doctrine of constitution and the “object-consciousness” relation. Although we have already touched on this (Chap. 4, §9), let us pose the question, in what does the doctrine of constitution consist? Necessarily the point of departure is the object always given “straightforwardly.” From its reflection goes back to the mode of the consciousness at that time and to the potential modes of consciousness included horizonally in that mode, then to those in which the object might be otherwise intended as the same, within the unity (ultimately) of a possible conscious life. […] We find that the multiplicity of possible modes of consciousness of the same, the formal type that all these exemplify, is subdivided into a number of sharply differentiated

 A still very good introduction to these problems is the anthology AA.VV., 1960, in particular the contributions by Enzo Paci (Tempo e relazione intenzionale in Husserl), by Paolo Caruso (L’io trascendentale come “durata esplosiva”), and by  Virgilio Fagone (Tempo e intenzionalità. Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger). 11

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particular types. For example, possible perception, retention, recollection, expectation, intending as something symbolized, intuitive representation by analogy, are such types of intentionality, which pertain to any conceivable object […]. All these types become further particularized in their whole noetic-noematic composition as soon as we particularize the empty universality of the intentional object. The particularization may at first be formal-­ logical (formal-ontological) […]. On the other hand, we have the material-ontological particularizations, starting from the concept of the real individual, which is differentiated into its real regions, for example: (mere) spatial thing, animal being, and so forth, and entails corresponding particularizations of the relevant formal-logical modifications (real property, real plurality, real relational complex, and the rest). To explicate systematically just this set of structural types is the task of transcendental theory, which, if it restricts itself to an objective universality as its clue, is called theory of the transcendental constitution of any object whatever, as an object of the form of category (highest of all, the region) in question. Thus arise, initially as separate, many different transcendental theories: a theory of perception and the other types of intuition, a theory of intending objects as symbolized, a theory of judgment, a theory of volition, and so forth. They become united, however, in view of the more comprehensive synthetic complexes; they belong together functionally, and thus make up the formally universal constitutional theory of any object whatever or of an open horizon of possible objects of any sort, as objects of possible consciousness (Hua I, 87–89; Husserl, 1993, 50–52).

As in §22 Husserl explicitly affirms that the object (i.e., any object) “designates” (bezeichnet) “a structural rule of the transcendental ego,” it should be apparent what Husserl intends to express when he speaks of “reflection” in the above citations. Reflection is the means by which the phenomenologist turns to, and thus explicates, the structural rules (Regelstrukturen) to which the ego or, more generally: the life of consciousness is submitted depending on the category of objects under analysis. Reflection does not designate the moving away from the object back to the “internal” life of the ego in complete isolation; quite the contrary. Reflection is the exact opposite of subjectivism and subjectivization: it discovers the structures that consciousness is; the rules that the life of consciousness is bound12 to follow as it experiences such and such a Seins-Art. Hence, when Husserl points out, in §41, “that every type of being, including every kind characterized as, in any sense, ‘transcendent’, has its own particular constitution,” what he is referring back to is ­precisely what we have just explained. Every object, depending upon its region and category, has its peculiar form of transcendence vis-à-vis consciousness. The theory of constitution affirms that it is the “mode of being” (Seinsart) of the object that ultimately determines its own relation to conscious life, its degree and modalities of dependence and independence, that is to say, its own specific form of transcendence. That Husserl can still point out that “in no wise” does all of this “alter the fact that it is conscious life alone wherein the transcendent becomes constituted as something inseparable from consciousness” (Hua I, 97; Husserl, 1993, 62), that Husserl  Bound to follow is here used in an improper way, for it could suggest the misleading idea that consciousness could not follow these “rules.” This is why we have been avoiding as much as possible the language of norms and normativity that has lately become so popular among phenomenology scholars and phenomenology-minded philosophers. A norm (in the juridically positivistic sense of the expression—the only acceptable one for us) is a juridical or judicial positum that can either be followed or violated. On this problems, see also the analyses by Carta, 2021. 12

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can still emphasize something like this, we were writing, is due to the very nature of phenomenology and its mode of working in contrast with that of the (non-­ phenomenological) ontologies. Transcendentally speaking, the regions of objects designate systems of “rules” that the subject cannot alter in any way whatsoever (Chap. 4, §9). Of course, and as we should remember from our analysis of the monad’s concreteness (Chap. 3, §3), the monad’s structure consists of the combination of “innate” and “contingent a priori.” The co-relation between the Seinsart of the object (i.e., of the region) and the ego signifies that a certain contingent a priori is present in the monad; that the monad is characterized by a certain contingent structure. A concrete ego that is not able to experience “colors” is an ego that does not have the transcendental, yet contingent “structures” required to stand in a co-­ relation with such a category of objects.13 Or, to put it better and less ambiguously, it is a monad for which such a correlation does not hold. For such ego, colors do not count as objects, hence they do not “designate” any relevant system of laws. To go the other way around: starting out from a transcendental ego, the “contingent a priori” of which entails no possibility of experiencing e.g. colors, the corresponding world would include no such Seinsart either. Co-relation means that a contingent a priori obtains.14 However, in what sense this does not imply any sort of ontological dependence of the object upon consciousness will be elucidated later. This being announced, in §29 Husserl remarks that, Besides formal-ontological investigations, that is to say, investigations that confine themselves to the formal-logical (formal-ontological) concept of any object as such (and thus are indifferent to the peculiarities of the various material particularizations of objects), we have then what prove to be the tremendous problems of the constitution which occurs with respect to each of the highest and no longer formal-logical categories (the “regions”) of objects, such as the regions subsumed under the heading: objective world. There is need of a constitutional theory of physical nature […], a constitutional theory of the human being, of human community, of culture, and so forth. Each title of this kind designates a vast discipline with different lines of investigation corresponding to the naive ontological partial concepts (e.g. real space, real time, real causality, real physical thing, real property and so on) (Hua I, 98; Husserl, 1993, 63–64).

Now, by the time of CM IV, all of this has already been introduced in terms of the consciousness-(category of) objects relation, which means that all of this is included within (sit venia verbo!) the monad. In relation to its own world (-Welt), the concrete subject is surrounded (Um-) by a manifold of objects in the broadest sense of the term with their irreducible modes of being and transcendence. Thus, the monad

 Even if we do not think that at this stage it makes any sense to distinguish between correlation and constitution, for the sake of more clarity one could claim that it is the theory of co-relation that makes the theory of constitution possible. 14  Whether the concept of constitution, as Husserl presents it in the Cartesian Meditations, should be regarded as a further stage in the development of the transcendental theory of constitution, is a problem that can be mentioned yet not properly addressed. A systematic discussion of this topic would take us in a completely different direction. 13

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itself is a system of structures and is bound to a system of rules. A certain monadic “structure” means a certain “system of rules” of experience corresponding to, or imposed by, a certain Seinsart.

6. If this is the case, then the following question needs now to be addressed: with respect to its foundational role vis-à-vis the assessment of TI, in what does the novelty of the monad or concrete ego properly consist? In addition to its threefold “concreteness” (= worldly concreteness + historical concreteness + ontological concreteness), in §32 Husserl had already spoken of Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen in order to specifically characterize the monad’s own relation to its world (Chap. 3, §2). Decisions, value-decisions and will-­decisions, such is the battery of terms with which Husserl intends to suggest that the monad’s “attitude” vis-à-vis the world is that of the practical reason (connection of values and will). Since a systematic discussion of this topic goes far beyond the scope of the present work, the following can suffice. Whereas the static approach to phenomenology as a theory of reason has the tendency to treat the different forms of reason (i.e., theoretical, practical, axiological or aesthetic, and evaluative reason) as coordinated (the paradigmatic example is §139 Ideas I, where only a “parallelism” is established between doxological, axiological, and practical truths (Hua III/1, 323; Husserl, 2014a, 278)), the state of affairs turns out to be different from within the genetic dimension. From the angle of the genetic constitution and self-constitution of the concrete ego that Husserl systematically pursues e.g. from the 20s onward, the so-called practical reason is with no doubts assigned a certain priority over the others. The question is not to lay claim to, or denounce, some kind of turn in Husserl’s thought; rather, the point is to acknowledge that, since “reason” designates not a faculty but a structural form of the transcendental subjectivity in general (Hua I, 92; Husserl, 1993, 57; see Pradelle, 2012, 169–259), all the different forms of such structure develop and constitute themselves out of a most fundamental dimension. It would be a mistake to surmise from this that the distinction between the different forms of reason is thus overcome or, even worse, abolished. Quite the contrary. The necessity of recognizing the fundamental meaning of the practical form of reason goes hand in hand with the equally fundamental necessity of laying claim to the peculiarity of the different specific forms that constitute themselves out of it. This is why Husserl can say both that the theory of reason includes “a universal theory of gnoseological, evaluative and practical reason” (Hua VII, 6; Husserl, 2019, 6), thereby denying any priority of one form over the others, and that “the theoretical reason itself is a particular practical reason” (Hua XLII, 474). In the latter case, the expression practical reason is taken as the fundamental dimension of reason, and the point for him would be to elucidate what kind of practical form the theoretical reason is. In the former, Husserl is laying claim to the irreducibility of the specific (besondere) forms and their own

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value-­correlates: the verum, the pulchrum, and the bonum (Hua VI, 7).15 In the incisive words of Benedetto Croce, il primato, che fu già attribuito alla vita contemplativa, viene ora trasferito non già alla vita attiva, ma alla vita nella sua integralità, “the primacy, originally attributed to contemplative life, is now extended not to active life, but rather to life in its totality” (Croce, 1948, 144). Husserl takes such primacy not to be a solution, but rather the problem to be addressed by a theory of reason properly understood: What is the peculiarity of that “form” of the practical reason which specifically strives towards realizing the true? What is its difference with respect to that form which specifically strives towards realizing the good?16 For the sake of our discussions here, the following points should also be made that bear upon the phrases Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen, as they are introduced in §32. As far as we understand Husserl, the concepts of “decisions,” “values,” and “will” are used to designate what we have been referring to as the practical reason in the most fundamental sense of the term. Two things follow from this. One, no opposition between “theory” and “practice” (practical and theoretical reason) is presupposed. Two, the fact that Husserl speaks of Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen, without any further characterization, does not imply that the concrete ego necessarily also displays the purely theoretical form of reason. Because the purely theoretical form of reason, which expresses itself in the purely theoretical attitude, is for Husserl peculiar to that specific mundane realization of the transcendental subject that de facto has invented philosophy: the human subjectivity (Hua XLII, 47417). As we will see, the emergence of philosophy coincides with the emergence of the purely theoretical attitude, that specific form of the (practical) reason that regards the world in a “purely theoretical” manner, thereby striving towards grasping the truth in a quite peculiar manner. While it does belong to the essence of the monad to stand in a fundamentally “practical” relation to its own world (= values + will in the broadest sense possible), it does not belong to its essence that this practice be that of the purely theoretical attitude. A monad without practical reason in the fundamental sense of the expression is contradictory to its essence (it would be a subject without structure, i.e., no subject at all); a monad without the capacity to take a purely theoretical stance vis-à-vis its world is conceivable and de facto possible. This is the reason why Husserl talks of Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen in such loose terms. Now, the elucidation of the practical reason or attitude, that is, the foundation of the will-functions in the value-functions (Hua XXXVII, 293), first requires a  A most recent discussion of the different aspects of the concept of praxis in Husserl can be found Slama, 2021, 255–288. 16  The question in which sense also the realization of the true is something good (the theoretical reason being a form of the practical reason in the broadest sense of the term) cannot be addressed here. 17  “Im menschlichen Dasein kann als besonderes praktisches Interesse das theoretische unter anderen Lebensinteressen auftreten, sich erweitern zum wissenschaftlichen und universal-­ wissenschaftlichen Interesse, sich ablösend.” 15

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clarification of what attitudes in general (Einstellungen) are.18 Husserl offers the most systematic assessment of the notion of “attitude” in his lectures on First Philosophy of 1923–24. Nevertheless, the analysis of the attitude requires the preliminary introduction of a “fundamental concept,” that of “interest” (Hua VIII, 99; Husserl, 2019, 302), upon which the entire argument will hinge. Here is how Husserl introduces the overall topic: What sense can it have to say, if we want to make ourselves understood, that we are at one time in a theoretical attitude, at another time in a feeling-valuing one, and then again in a practical attitude, directed objectively at realizations? How is it possible that in the manifold of acts of an egoic act-tendency a unity of an intellective act, be it a merely experiencing action, be it a theorizing action, comes to the fore and takes on such a unity that we speak of one act, albeit a synthetical one,, of an experiencing or a proving or a purely intellective act? As a total act it embraces perhaps a multitude of intellective partial acts, but not valuing acts, although they may also move the experiencing or theorizing agent. We see, even what we normally call an act, becomes questionable and requires a making-comprehensible-to-oneself, a which makes understandable inwardly (phenomenologically) the naive self-evidence of using this terminology. The same must be said, of course, for the talk of theme, which, while common in the theoretical sphere, can easily be expanded. What we are “directed at,” “attuned to” in a special manner is our theme, and it belongs, perhaps, to an infinitely encompassing sphere, which is co-viewed, to which we are co-attuned habitually, as our thematic universe. The same is meant with the talk of directions of interest and the self of interests (Hua VIII, 99–100; Husserl, 2019, 302–303).

The key-concepts here are theme (and thematic universe) and direction of interest, which serve to characterize the notion of attitude in general, and regardless of the distinction between theoretical, practical, and evaluative one. The direction of interest is what makes it phenomenologically possible to describe as one act a multiplicity of acts: what Husserl will soon call “action” (Aktion). Husserl is clear, the expressions “to be directed at” or “to be attuned to” (eingestellt, gerichtet) mean the same as “direction of interest,” for they both point at the “theme” on which we focus. In short, to be in a certain attitude or to have an attitude (eingestellt) means for a manifold of acts to be synthetically unified (= action) in view of a certain interest we pursue (= direction of interest). As is clear, the two concepts of act and action do not coincide: an “action” is a synthesis of “acts” on the ground of a certain direction of interest; hence, the same acts can be part of many different actions depending on the directions of interest. The point is then to analyze the many ways in which the acts can enter into a unifying synthesis. The acts […] are always more or less multifariously interwoven, connected, founded. In the case of some of these acts the impression immediately imposes itself that they are only possible as being founded in other acts. For instance, whoever models in clay, must have the latter before himself perceptually; moreover, he has the form to be created in mind in the manner of a, albeit dark, goal-idea, as a mere δύναμις, so to speak, and every intermediary shape as an approximated, more or less successful or unsuccessful realization. This obviously implies constant [acts of] valuing; all intermediary stages of the realizing activity are valued in their own way; what I strive for as a goal must hold valid for me. As a naive subject of such an active act I am thus at once the subject of many act-intentions, which, how-

18

 For a systematic introduction to this concept, see Luft, 2002, 35–52.

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ever, concatenate themselves as partial acts to the unity of a total act. Among these partial acts those that stand in a function of service can be distinguished from those that practice the domineering action, that is, those that bear what the act subject and the unified act, so to speak, are out for. And yet in another manner, acts can stand in a side action or also in a main action, and this concerns acts which are connected, but are not unified to the unity of a single total act. Thus I may be, as a botanist, delighted by the beauty of a flower, but this delight is not the main action, when I am in the attitude of getting to know it in observation and determining it in classification. Once I am finished with [observing and determining], then, in turn, instead of the theoretical attitude, now the aesthetical joy, which went alongside, may become the main action; and hence I am now in the aesthetic attitude, in that of the heart, instead of in the theoretical attitude, that of the understanding. Another example of such a switch is that between the aesthetical contemplation of a work of art and the theoretical attitude of the art historian. Here we would not say that both acts function as parts of a total act (Hua VIII, 100–101; Husserl, 2019, 303–304).

Although in this text Husserl seems to move from act to action and back without ever thematizing the difference, a few firm distinctions can still be made. First of all, there is the distinction between “founding” and “founded” acts in general; then, more specifically, Husserl distinguishes between those acts that, within the unity of an action, have a “function of service,” and those that practice the “domineering action” (= the acts at the service of which the former acts are). In sum, the latter is a distinction between acts or, to put it better, functions within the unity of an action. In this case, the direction of interest is what determines the action, that is, the acts’ function and relevant unifying synthesis. By contrast, the distinction between “side action” and “main action” concerns the concept itself of action and not that of act. As Husserl speaks both in the case of “act” and “action” of unity of a “total act” (zur Einheit eines Gesamtaktes), the conclusion can be drawn that just as many acts can be synthetized in the unity of an action, so also a manifold of actions themselves can enter into a unified synthesis of higher order. Later on, Husserl speaks of “such different forms of the action’s being together and intermingled” according to “different levels of complication” (Hua VIII, 104; Husserl, 2019, 305). This means that also the actions themselves (and not only the acts) can display certain functions (function of service or domineering) in relation to one another.19 Let us, in contrast, take a closer look at the relation between the domineering and serving function, which firstly defines the concept of a total act that is unified in all interwovenness of acts. When, for instance, the forming artist views the creation taking on shape before him, when he values it, when he, so to speak, approves with pleasure a surface design here,

 For a most penetrating analysis of these problems, see Majolino, 2020, who shows to what extent the account of the attitudes developed by Husserl in these lectures is a systematic application and re-elaboration of some of the crucial analyses already outlined in the Logical Investigations (Majolino, 2020, 91–97). As Majolino emphasizes the continuity between the two contexts, the question should have been asked, why at a certain moment Husserl decides to introduce a brand new term (Einstellung) to designate something that conceptually had already been accounted for in the work of 1901. Whereas Majolino’s account goes from the Logical Investigations to the lectures on First Philosophy and then back to the natural attitude in Ideas I, we would have followed the opposite direction: only in this way, probably, can one make sense of what Einstellung originally meant before Husserl systematically accounted for it by means of the language of the Logical Investigations (see De Santis, 2021, 165–175, where this reading is merely outlined). 19

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and a line there, an elevation or a mold, or rejects it with displeasure, when he during this realization constantly strives for an aesthetically satisfying [design] or one as satisfying as possible, then the actions of the heart, those of pleasure or displeasure, of wishing-such, and so on, are only in a serving function; but they are for that reason by no means only enacted on the side. For the artistically active I lives in them in the main enactment. However, the domineering function, the one that reigns over the process, continues throughout the serving function, namely the acting will, as the willing directed at the realizing action and through the latter towards a final telos. Serving has thereby, as we can see, a different meaning, depending on whether we consider the founding valuing and sensual perceiving or the serving intermittent phases of acting with their unfinished intermittent forms, although there are types of necessary foundings everywhere to be found here (Hua VIII, 101–102; Husserl, 2019, 304–305).

In the case of the botanist described above, what we are dealing with is the “interwovenness” of two different actions, i.e., two different attitudes and directions of interest. The main action or direction of interest is the theoretical one (= theoretical attitude), the goal of which is that of classifying the plant in question. The side action or direction of interest is the aesthetic action (= aesthetic attitude), the goal of which is no goal at all in the strict sense of the term, but that of enjoying “the beauty of a flower.” And since they are both actions, they both consist in the synthesis of a “manifold of acts,” e.g., of the many perceptions of the flower and acts of attention that might be required in order to have a clear and distinct perspective on the flower under the most optimal conditions. Yet, they themselves (i.e., the main action and the side action) do not enter into any unifying synthesis of a higher order, as it were. The case of the artist mentioned is different. Here the aesthetic attitude or the evaluation of the work of art (which is itself the synthesis of a manifold of acts) is no side action, but rather an action standing at the service of the dominating or domineering direction of interest: that of creating a work of art. In this case, the two actions or attitudes enter into a unifying synthesis of higher order (higher even with respect to the synthesis of the many different acts into one action). Accordingly, the talk of “founding” and “founded” acts can be understood in two different senses. In a mere formal manner, it means nothing but the fact that an action or “total act” is a “whole” founded on a multiplicity of founding partial acts or acts as parts of the whole (= the latter cannot be without the former). Yet, in a way that could more easily be called “dynamic” (in the sense of the δύναμις evoked by Husserl), the direction of interest determines the action to be carried out, which then displays, as a whole, a founding role vis-à-vis the many (founded) acts that are unified in it. As is clear from the example above of the botanist, the fundamentally practical dimension that the attitude in general is (= action in the relevant sense of the term) also includes the theoretical attitude or action in a very loose sense of the expression. If, as in our earlier examples, the domineering interest is an interest in the being and being-­ thus (Sein und Sosein), a cognizing interest in the broadest sense […], then the theme is a cognitive theme, perhaps a theoretical one in the strict sense of the term. Here, a teleological unity goes through all acts, although they may have many kinds of special teloi. It is the relation of the aiming cognizing to one and the same object, to the unity of an objective nexus, which perhaps only comes to the fore in a synthetic unification of the respective partially thematic acts, and firstly as something in turn to be attained; ultimately the the-

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matic drives further towards an encompassment of the realm. Ultimately the directed interest hereby at all times aims at attaining the respective “entity” (as what is posited as existing) by authenticating it according to its qualities, peculiarities and relations, in one word, in its truth. Through this manifold of thusly interwoven acts, each of which has its interest (here understood ontically, as the cognitive telos), runs the unity of “one” interest, which unifies, overarchingly, all special interests (Hua VIII, 103; Husserl, 2019, 306).

Two points need to be made immediately. In the first place, Husserl speaks of “cognizing interest in the broadest sense” possible, meaning this that what we are dealing with here is not necessarily the purely theoretical attitude of science or philosophy (i.e., the purely theoretical attitude proper to the ontologies and the ontological investigation of the regions of being); the expressions employed merely designate those actions, the goal of which is to ascertain and determine how things “are” in general. This is why Husserl can talk both of erkennendes (in general) and theoretisches Thema: the latter being that of a “purely theoretical attitude.” Of course, these gnoseological actions can merely serve some other action, as in the case of the artist, for whom the knowledge of the material she is molding works at the service of the creation of the work of art. But the cognizing action can also represent the “main action,” as in the case of the botanist, whose ambition is to classify the plant correctly. In the second place, it is important to keep in mind in what the “end-goal” of such an attitude and action in general consists: the ascertainment of “the being and being-thus” (= “qualities, peculiarities and relations”). In sum, the “truth” about such and such an entity, be it that of a piece of wood or marble used to create a statue; a new and exotic plant or virus to be classified, as well as “nature” in general in light of its most universal, a priori principles (= as is the case with the purely theoretical attitude of the ontology or eidetic science of nature). If we now go back to Husserl’s talk of Entscheidungen, Wert- und Willenentscheidungen in §32 of the Meditations, we should be able to finally and more properly appreciate what the text is trying to suggest about the nature of the monad. The concrete ego is such that it belongs to its essence that the “will-­functions” are grounded in the “value-functions” (Hua XXXVII, 293). Since the values in question are either the verum, the pulchrum or the bonum, the will can result in a system of actions having a certain direction of interest and synthesizing to this end a series of relevant (partial) acts.20 This is the main reason why in the Meditations the talk of the concrete ego follows the discussion of the consciousness-(category of) objects relation. The monad is an acting ego: the monad is determined by a given direction of interest in the very way in which it takes position vis-à-vis the world. In Chap. 3, §2 we wrote that,“The concretion also includes the system of the objectual correlates of such decisions and habitualities: all the objects intended by the subject, and eventually ‘constituted in their ontological determination’ (this being the way in which we have translated the expression: als seiend). The monad has as a correlate of its decisions whatever there is (als seiend); the world of the monad is everything that there is as a ‘correlate’ of all its decisions and positions.” Now we are in a position to appreciate what all of  For the sake of our interests here, there is no need to get into Husserl’s phenomenology of the will (as this would take us in a very different direction), and the remarks made so far will suffice. 20

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this means. The monad’s worldly concretion is not only that of the many Seins-­ Arten prescribing the structures which the monad itself is (= co-relation); the concretion also includes what the monad’s practical action or attitude realizes in it: the point is to recognize that the theoretical or gnoseological attitude (NB: we are not talking of the “purely theoretical attitude”) can also be one of its particular forms.21 With this mind, let us now move back to TI.

7. After Husserl makes a statement to the effect that, “Transcendence in every form is an immanent ontological character constituted within the ego,” the argument of §41 runs as follows: Every conceivable sense, every conceivable being, whether the latter is called immanent or transcendent, falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being (Sinn und Sein). The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is non-sensical (unsinnig). They belong together essentially; and, as belonging together essentially, they are also concretely one (auch konkret eins), one in the unique absolute concretion (in der einzigen absoluten Konkretion) of transcendental subjectivity. If transcendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely non-­ sense (Unsinn). But even non-sense is always a mode of sense and has its non-sensicalness as a mode of the evidence (in der Einsehbarkeit) (Hua I, 177; Husserl, 1993, 84; translation modified).

The passage is dense and presents the reader with the core of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. In a perfect compliance with the turn of phrase “the concretely full being” from the lecture of 1931, here the terminology of “concreteness” and absolute Konkretion is mobilized. Given the difficulty of the text, let us present our commentary as a series of remarks. (a) Let us start with an ambiguity. Husserl speaks of “transcendental subjectivity,” but also of “consciousness” and “absolute concretion,” thereby suggesting a one-sided dependence (of being) on consciousness (in the sense of Ideas). Yet, we know that we are no longer dealing with the region “pure consciousness,” but rather with the region “concrete ego.” (b) Similarly, what Husserl means to affirm with the phrase “the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law,” notably, the expression ein starres Gesetz is not apparent. Since the text does not indicate how that expression should or could be read, the commentary needs to make way for the inter-

 “The gnoseological reason is function of the practical reason” (Hua VIII, 201; Husserl, 2019, 450). 21

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pretation. As far as we understand Husserl, the “rigid law” would connect the universe of possible consciousness to the universe of true being from without consciousness itself. Since the domain of consciousness is the realm of the sense, the “rigid law” would be a law that connects consciousness and being from the standpoint of being itself. In other words, Husserl is here rejecting the thesis to the effect that the connection between consciousness (as a region) and being or, to put it better, world (as a region) is of “ontological” nature. For Husserl, the relation between consciousness and world, or consciousness and being cannot be a relation of being. If it will ever turn out that the world is somehow dependent on consciousness, this dependence cannot be ontological.22 (c) Contrary to the claim of the one-sided dependence relation of being upon consciousness, the expressions konkret eins and in der einzigen absoluten Konkretion suggest a quite different scenario. What is suggested is the unity or mutual belongingness, within the “absolute concretion,” between the “universe of possible consciousness” and the “universe of being” (= “universe of possible sense”). In other words, the universe of possible sense (UpS) is the unity of the universe of possible consciousness (UpC) and the universe of true being (UB) within the absolute concretion (AC): “[(UpC + UB) ∈ AC] = UpS.” Bullet point (c) must be carefully elaborated on, for it expresses what TI is really about. The first point to firmly make is that, based upon our account of the monad in the previous chapters, AC means by definition the presence of an actual concrete ego. A singular concrete ego that is not already individual is contradictory to the monad’s ontological concreteness (Chap. 3, §4). Husserl is not speaking of consciousness in general, and TI does not bear upon a “possible” consciousness in general; rather, the universe of possible consciousness that is co-related to the universe of possible being (UpC + UB) is the universe individualized (sit venia verbo!) in an individual monad or concrete ego (such being the sense of the expressions “absolute concretion” or “the concretely full being”). Indeed, and as we should remember from our discussion of the ego’s threefold concreteness from Chap. 3 as well as from §5 of the present chapter, the “co-relation” between the many Seinsarten and the monad’s worldly concreteness means the presence of a certain “contingent a priori” or system thereof. As a consequence, the universe of true being is the universe of being that belongs (∈) to the individual monad’s “contingent a priori” (what Husserl calls “the universe of possible consciousness” within the concretion). That we are on the right track is corroborated by what Husserl adds immediately after the long passage quoted above.

 And one should not speak of a corrélation ontologiquement asymétrique between the objects and consciousness (Lavigne, 2005, 22). We will show to what extent it is fundamentally, i.e., ontologically incorrect to speak of the world as “essentially dependent (momenta) on consciousness” (Stapleton, 1983, 80). 22

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Yet, and before we go on analyzing the rest of the passage, a burning objection could be asked that needs to be urgently addressed. Based on what we have been explaining so far, a quite strong impression might have arisen according to which TI would put on an equal footing “the universe of possible true being” and what de facto an individual monad can possibly experience. As if the realm of possible sense could or would be delimited by what de facto makes sense to an individual monad or concrete ego thanks to its structure and worldly concreteness. Now, if this were the objection, then, and no matter what consequences the reader may want to draw from it, it would be no objection at all—but rather a straightforward description of what we have been trying to suggest so far. Yet, a crucial clause needs to be added. Although the additional (and justified) impression may also have arisen according to which Husserl is considering only one individual, factual monad in isolation from every kind of inter-subjective commercium, such a misleading impression (which is however justified by Husserl’s own language and mode of arguing) is precisely what the rest of the argument on the present page is going to immediately correct. Here is what Husserl hastens to add after the passage on TI from above (what follows is the first step of a “two-step argument”): That is true, however, not alone in the case of the merely factual ego (faktische ego) and what is factually accessible to him or her as a being (als Seiendes), including an open plurality of other egos who, along with their constitutive operations, are for him or her (als seiende). Stated more precisely: if (as is factually the case) there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, not only other egos but also (as constituted in turn by the transcendental inter-subjectivity accruing to me thanks to the constitution, in me, of the others) an objective world common to us all, then everything said up to now is true, not alone in the case of my factual ego (mein faktisches ego) and in the case of this factual (diese faktische) inter-subjectivity and world, which receive sense and validity of being in my own [factual yet transcendental ego] (Hua I, 117; Husserl, 1993, 84).

As already stated, this passage represents the first step in a two-step argument, the overall goal of which is to extend to the transcendental, monadic “inter-­subjectivity” what Husserl has already argued about my own factual, transcendental ego. Such a first step consists in the following: even if the very notion of inter-subjectivity was never mentioned during the account of the concrete ego, Husserl is now retrospectively taking for granted that the reader knew that the concrete ego’s own “worldly concreteness” also included the other, i.e., the “plurality of egos” that factually constitutes “this factual inter-subjectivity and world [my emphasis].” If this is the case, then the expression AC used to designate the “absolute concretion” should be interpreted in such a way that it means not only and exclusively my own individual factual monad, but rather the factual individual inter-monadic-subjectivity corresponding to my worldly concreteness. Hence, TI would be stating that the universe of possible sense means the universe of possible (true) being corresponding to this factual inter-subjectivity (diese faktische), the one constituted by my own factual ego (mein faktisches ego). Yet, it does not seem that we have really made any progress. For a new objection could be made to the effect that I can think not only of my own factual, yet transcendental ego to be otherwise (= to have a possibly different monadic content), but also

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of different possible inter-subjectivities. Hence, the objection could go on to also add, the “universe of possible sense” cannot be limited to what makes sense to diese faktische inter-subjectivity. This is precisely the objection that the “second step” of Husserl’s two-step argument intends to tackled and rule out. The phenomenological self-explication that went on in my ego, this explication of all my ego’s constitutions and all the objectualities that are for it, necessarily assumed the methodic form of an a priori self-explication, one that gives the facts their place in the corresponding universe of pure (or eidetic) possibilities. This explication therefore concerns my factual ego, only insofar as the latter is one of the pure possibilities to be acquired by its re-shaping (fictive changing) of itself. Hence, as eidetic, the explication is valid for the universe of these, my possibilities as essentially an ego, my possibilities namely of being otherwise; accordingly then, it is also valid for every possible inter-subjectivity related (with a corresponding modification) to these possibilities, and valid likewise for every world conceivable as constituted in such an inter-subjectivity (Hua I, 117–118; Husserl, 1993, 84–85).

This second step of Husserl’s argument consists in the possibilization, as it were, of the first step. In short, what Husserl had originally argued about my factual, yet transcendental ego, and which was then extended to this transcendental-factual inter-subjectivity (= the one related to my own factual ego)—such argument is now raised up to the level of what is possible. As a consequence, in this second variation upon the same, initial argument the universe of possible (true) being is the one that corresponds to the (any) possible inter-subjectivity de facto constituted by own possible ego. If my ego were otherwise (= a different possible factual ego), also the transcendental inter-subjectivity constituted by it were otherwise (a different possible factual inter-subjectivity): now, the universe of possible (true) being would be the one corresponding to this otherwise constituted inter-subjectivity. As is clear, what changes in the three cases is the value of the “AC.” At the very beginning, AC = absolute concretion of my own factual monad; then AC acquires the meaning of this factual individual inter-monadic-subjectivity; finally, AC = every possible inter-subjectivity constituted by my own (possible) factual ego. Yet, we seem to have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The new argument does not seem to be able to really address our objection Quite the opposite. If it is possible for me to think otherwise my own ego and the transcendental, factual monadic inter-subjectivity that is constituted by me, then how can we really assert that the universe of possible (true) being can be limited to that which is constituted only by a given monadic inter-subjectivity, whatever this is? Just as I can think of other possible inter-subjectivities, I could also claim that there are other possible inter-subjectivities separate from my own inter-subjectivity. There might be possibilities other than those constituted by the factual inter-subjectivity constituted by my own factual concrete ego. Now, as we firmly believe, this most radical form of the objection is precisely what CM V is meant to rule out once and for all, thereby securing TI’s consistency.

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8. As far as our line of thought so far is concerned, the Fifth Cartesian Meditation (hereafter; CM V) should be read as a sort of long footnote to CM IV; or, to put it better, CM V is a sort of detour that Husserl takes to clarify the constitution of the inter-monadic-subjectivity and which ultimately will lead him back to CM IV. More precisely, CM V is dedicated to the clarification of the following passage: “if (as is factually the case) there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, not only other egos but also (as constituted in turn by the transcendental inter-­ subjectivity accruing to me thanks to the constitution, in me, of the others) an objective world common to us all […].” This presupposes that for Husserl the monad’s own “worldly concreteness” already includes the inter-subjectivity. Now, that this is precisely the case can be inferred not only from the manuscripts on which Husserl works during the period of composition and re-elaboration of CM (Hua XV, 6–7, in which the konkretes Sein als Monade includes die auf Fremdes gerichtete Intentionalität), but also from what Husserl himself explains in CM V, §§47–48. Here, the “fact of the experience of the other” is said to originally take place “within the domain of my own essential property, of what I myself am in full concretion or, as we may also say, in my monad” (Hua I, 135; Husserl, 1993, 105). Here comes our second remark. Contrary to what is usually assumed to be the case, we think that a clear-cut distinction should be made between CM V’s ultimate ambition and the means it works out to bring it to realization. In a few words, the clarification of the constitution of the experience of the other is not to be regarded as the end goal and ultimate ambition of the Fifth Meditation23; rather, it is only the means that Husserl needs (in CM IV) in order to realize his ambition. If now the question were, “In what does such ambition consist?”, the answer would be, to rule out once and for all the possibility that there could be inter-subjectivities other than the factual one (= the that is factually constituted by my transcendental, yet factual ego). This is nothing else than what Husserl will refer to as Leibniz’s problem concerning the existence of a plurality of possible worlds (§60). Since we have already dedicated a few works to this problem (De Santis, 2018a, b, 2020), and we are here not interested in reconstructing Husserl’s meticulous account of the constitution of the other,24 we will confine ourselves to first summarizing the outcomes of Husserl’s account, then we will show in what sense the arguments from §60 contribute to a more robust justification of TI.

 See Ricoeur, 2004, 233, who rightly recognizes that the problem at the very center of CM V est la pierre de touche de la phénoménologie transcendantale, even though in the end his commentary never reaches §60 (where the ultimate, metaphysical goal of the meditations is eventually spelled out). Our interpretation also differs from Hyppolite’s, for whom, as it seems, its end-goal consists in showing that, Le champ transcendantal est unité et multiplicité, il est multiple et pourtant il est un. Cette subjectivité devient alors une intersubjectivité, un nous constituant (Hyppolite, 1971, 512). 24  For some of the most important assessments of Husserl’s inter-subjectivity theory, see Bancalari, 2003; Pugliese, 2004, and Dodd, 1997, 17–21. 23

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9. In a previous publication (De Santis, 2018a, 69), we presented the outcomes of the explication of the experience of the other as a series of four theses (= Husserl’s “monadological outcomes”). MO.1. Nature as a first form of objectivity. What Husserl preliminarily calls “nature” (in the sense of the German Natur) is the first form of the objectivity, upon which all the other possible forms (with their spiritual and social predicates) build and are constituted: “The first form to be constituted as something in common and as the foundation for all other inter-subjectively constituted common forms is the commonality of nature” (Hua I, 140; Husserl, 1993, 120). “Nature” as the first form of the Gemeinschaft is the correlate of the most basic relation between the monads. Husserl labels it: die Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden (“the becoming-community-of-the-monads”). MO.2. The common time-form. The Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden primarily consists in what Husserl calls “temporal community,” that is, “in the co-­ existence of my ego (and my own concrete ego in general) with the alien ago, my intentional life and its, mine and its realities” (Hua I, 156; Husserl, 1993, 128). Husserl also speaks of “a common time-form,” of which every “individual” egological and monadic temporality is nothing but an individual and different mode of manifestation (einzelsubjektive Erscheinungsweise) (Hua I, 156; Husserl, 1993, 128). MO.3. Centered-Oriented Constitution. The connection between the monads, namely, their becoming-a-community in the one time-form and space-form is characterized by “the law of ‘oriented constitution’” (Hua I, 161; Husserl, 1993, 133): “As being for me [the community] is constituted purely within me, the meditating ego […]; nevertheless, it is also constituted as a community in every other monad […] as the same community, only with a ­different subjective mode of appearance and as necessarily bearing within itself the same objective world” (Hua I, 158; Husserl, 1993, 130). MO.4. Transcendental Inter-subjectivity. What we call “transcendental inter-­ subjectivity” is such an “open community of monads” that consists in a series of individual, oriented and centered modes of appearance of the same common time-form and space-form (= nature as the first form of objectivity) (Hua I, 158; Husserl, 1993, 130). In this respect, MO.4 is the unity of MO.1, MO.2 and MO.3. The conclusion could be then wrapped up as follows. A plurality (Vielheit) of monads becomes a community of monads (die Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden), therefore an inter-subjectivity as the correlate of nature as the first form of objectivity, to the extent that the monads are connected in a unique way (eigenartige Verbundenheit): they exist in the temporal co-existence of the one time-form (and space-form) of which they themselves and their temporalities are modes of

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appearance. It is on this basis alone that all the possible socio-cultural Um-Welten can build and rest.25 As is known, the constitution of nature as the first form of objectivity is possible thanks to a quite important peculiarity proper to the monad-world relation: the fact that the world is always experienced by my own ego from a here which can always be turned into a there and vice versa. I am here physically (leiblich), the center of a primordial world oriented around me. Consequently, my entire primordial properly as a monad has the content of the here, not the content varying with some “I can do,” and which might set in, and belonging to some determined there. Each of these contents excludes the other; they cannot both exist at the same time [in my monad]. But, since the other body there enters into a pairing association with my body here and, being given perceptually, becomes the core of an appresentation, the core of my experience of a co-existing ego, that ego, according to the whole sense-­bestowing course of the association, must be appresented as an ego now co-existing in the more there (such as I should be if I were there). My own ego however, the ego given in constant self-­ apperception, is actual now with the content belonging to its here. That which is primordially incompatible in simultaneous co-existence becomes compatible (Hua I, 148; Husserl, 1993, 119).

The constitution of “the becoming-community-of-the-monads,” hence of nature as “the first form of objectivity” is made possible by what one might label the in-­ difference proper to the dimension of co-existence between the monads themselves. Each monad exists hic et nunc, and the hic et nunc of one monad excludes the other monad’s hic et nunc in the dimension of simultaneity. Yet, what is “incompatible in simultaneous co-existence becomes compatible” based on a plurality of monads that co-exist, each of which has the possibility of switching place with the others. Nature as the first form of objectivity means the fundamental in-difference between the many individual modes of appearance of the one time-form and space-form. Let us introduce the Greek term δόξα (and in the plural: αἱ δόξαι) in the sense in which the verb δοκεῖν means “to appear” to designate the individual modes of appearance proper to the many monads and their fundamental “in-difference.” What we would call the doxastic nature of the peculiar Verbundenheit between the monads consists in the δόξαι being all different from one another—yet not qualitatively unrepleacable (der freie Wechsel (Hua I, 146; Husserl, 1993, 117) or wechselweise, as Husserl also writes (Hua XV, 490)). Quite the opposite. It belongs to the essence of the δόξα to exist only in the plural as a plurality of δόξαι that are in-different to one another. In sum, the doxastic character of the transcendental inter-subjectivity (= MO.4) consists in the qualitative in-difference between the monads themselves, notably their hic et nunc, and the individual modes of appearance of the one world or δόξαι (the two notions being here assumed as synonyms) corresponding to them.26

 As a manuscript from the end of 1932 emphasizes, the “ontological order” (Seinsordnung) of the “objectivity” is die Ordnung des Frühen und Späteren according to the different levels of foundation (Hua XV, 490). 26  For an assessment of the implications of the absolute “hereness” of my body, see Alweiss, 2003, 160–161 and ff. 25

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But in what sense is the connection between MO.1 + MO.2 + MO.3 + MO.4 meant to ultimately secure the foundation of TI? The question can be answered only if we first look at the conclusions that Husserl himself draws in §60.27 Here is how Husserl opens up the paragraph: “Our monadological outcomes are metaphysical, if it is true that ultimate knowledge of being should be called metaphysical. On the other hand, what we have here is anything but metaphysics in the ordinary sense: a historically degenerate metaphysics, which by no means conforms to the sense with which metaphysics, as first philosophy, was founded originally” (Hua I, 166; Husserl, 1993, 139). As Husserl also hastens to make clear, my own ego can be a “world experiencing” only to the extent that it is “in a community with others that are equal to it ontologically (mit anderen seinesgleichen in Gemeinschaft); member of a community of monads (Monadengemeinschaft), which is given orientedly, starting from itself. A coherent self-exhibition (Sich-ausweisen) of the objective world of experience implies a coherent self-exhibition of other monads in their being (als seienden)” (Hua I, 166; Husserl, 1993, 139).28 What Husserl means to say  with the expression ontologically equal (seinesgleich), we will try to clarify soon. It is however evident that the overall sense of the passage just quoted is to simply wrap up the results of the analysis of the constitution of the experience of the other accomplished in CM V. Conversely, I cannot even think of a plurality of monads (Monadenmehrheit) otherwise than as explicitly or implicitly forming a community (vergemeinschaftete). This means a community that constitutes in itself an objective world […] and that spatializes, temporalizes, and realizes itself within that world. The being-connected (Zusammensein) of the monads, their mere being-together (Zugleichsein) means necessarily being-at-the-sametime (Zeitlich-zugleichsein) and also being-temporalized (Verzeitlicht-sein) in the form of a real temporality (Hua I, 166; Husserl, 1993, 139).

The passage is not easy to decipher, especially because of the difficulty in translating the German terms that we have highlighted. Husserl is here partially re-­proposing MO.2 and MO.4; moreover, he is making a distinction between plurality of monads and community of monads (= MO.1 + MO.2), and the language mobilized is the language of eidetic necessity. As far as we understand Husserl’s reasoning here, the argument is as follows. It is eidetically impossible that a plurality of monads can be merely together and side-by-side (Zugleichsein) without yet forming a community of monads that is part of the same one and only real temporal form (= MO.2 + MO.3). It is not possible to conceive of a plurality of monads and inter-subjectivities each of which would be the separate pole of the constitution of a corresponding and separate “nature as the first form of objectivity.” As should probably be already evident, the overall ambition of §60 is to show that there cannot be a “plurality” of un-related inter-subjectivities, each of which would have its separate world—but rather only one actual community of monads, thereby only one nature understood as its own correlate. Husserl will not deny that there can be multiple communities of monads;  For a reading of this paragraph that differs from ours, see Bancalari, 2010.  Here the problem should also be raised concerning the relation between “human” and “non-­ human” monads. Since it cannot be discussed in this context, see Carella, 2021, 272 and ff. 27 28

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nevertheless, in this case the term “community” and, most importantly, “world” would display a different meaning (they would mean the many particular cultural communities with their relevant surrounding worlds (Umwelten)). This is the reason why Husserl can ask the following, purely rhetorical question: Is it conceivable (to me, the subject who asks this, or, starting from me, any conceivable subject who might ask it), that two or more separate pluralities of monads that do not constitute a community (nicht vergemeinschaftete Monadenvielheiten) co-exist, each of which accordingly constitutes a world of its own, so that together they constitute two worlds that are separate ad infinitum, two infinite space and space-times (Hua I, 166–167; Husserl, 1993, 140).

Husserl’s answer to such a rhetorical question is difficult to misunderstand: ein purer Widersinn.29 Each of these inter-subjectivities would have its own differently looking world (aussehende Welt), which is what Husserl labels Um-Welt or, in our terminology above, δόξα—and precisely for this reason they would all just be part of “one single objective world, which is common to them” (Hua I, 167; Husserl, 1993, 140). The reader could be under the impression that Husserl has been thus far mainly repeating and re-proposing the same argument over and over again. One needs to be careful though, because every single step of the argument introduces an almost invisible novelty: first, the distinction between plurality of monads and community of monads; thus, the distinction between the one and only objective world and the many differently “looking worlds.” Indeed, the two inter-subjectivities do not float in the air; as conceived or imagined by me, each of them stays in a necessary community with me (that is to say, as a possible modification of myself) as the constituting original monad. Accordingly, they belong in truth to a single total-community, which includes and comprises myself and all the monads and groups of monads that can be thought or conceived of as co-existent. […] This alone is ­possible: that different groups of monads and different worlds are related to one another, as those that may belong to stellar worlds we cannot see are related to us, that is, with animalia who lack all actual connection with us. Their worlds, however, are surrounding worlds with open horizons that are only factually and contingently un-discoverable to them (Hua I, 167; Husserl, 1993, 140).

The passage is more puzzling than actually helpful to understand Husserl’s strategy. For it is clear that Husserl aims at establishing a parallel between, on the one hand, “community” and “world” (= one community of monads corresponding to the one objective world) and, on the other hand, “groups” (of monads) and the many “surrounding worlds.” Nevertheless, it is not clear how Husserl intends to dismiss the argument according to which the ego, any ego, could claim to be able to conceive of possible worlds and inter-subjectivities that have “nothing” in common with me. In what sense would they still be part of “a single total-community”? What does this mean? As we saw above, Husserl conceives of such total-community of monads (in the one space and time) as “a community with others that are equal to it [my ego]

 In De Santis, 2018b, we elaborate upon the implications of Husserl’s argument in relation to three examples: Lewis’ modal realism; Rorty’s pragmatism, and Waldenfels’ own version of phenomenology. 29

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ontologically (seinesgleichen).” It is now time to verify what such an expression may imply in this context. To this end, let us quote from the very last part of §60, where Husserl first appeals to the authority of Leibniz, and then offers to the reader the final element that is needed to untangle the theoretical knot. Naturally Leibniz is right when he says that infinitely many monads and groups of monads are conceivable, but that it does not follow that all these possibilities are com-possible; and, again, when he says that infinitely many worlds might have been created, but not two or more at once, since they are in-com-possible. It is to be noted in this context that, in a free variation, I can think first of all of myself, this apodictic factual ego, as otherwise and thus acquire the system of possible variants of myself, each of which, however, is annulled (aufgehoben) by each of the others and by the ego which I actually am. It is a system of a priori in-com-possibility. Furthermore, the fact I am prescribes whether other monads are others for me and what they are for me. I can only find them. […] If I think of myself as a pure possibility different from what I actually am, that possibility in turn prescribes what monads are for it as others. And, proceeding in this fashion, I recognize that each monad having the status of a concrete possibility pre-delineates a com-possible universe, a closed world of monads, and that two worlds of monads are in-com-possible, just as two possible variants of my ego […] are in-com-possible (Hua I, 167–168; Husserl, 1993, 140–141).

There is no need for us here to expand on Husserl’s brief, yet significant, reference to Leibniz (a systematic reading is outlined in De Santis, 2018a, 74–76). What needs to be grasped is the “analogy” between the idea of multiple (in-com-possible) worlds and the many (in-com-possible) variations of myself as a monad and the meaning of the expression “annulled” (aufgehoben). The analogy should be read as follows: just as each of the many possible variations of myself as a monad, were it actual (wirklich), would “annul” and aufheben each of the others, so the concrete ego, which I actually am, and the community of monads constituted by me, annul all the other possible inter-subjectivities.30 The argument hinges upon the relation between aufheben and wirklich or Wirklichkeit, which Husserl had already systematically addressed in CM III during the assessment of the more pregnant concept of constitution. There, Husserl distinguished between two kinds of syntheses of “higher order,” that is, those “syntheses that, with regard to the initial intention, have the typical style of verifying and, in particular, of evidently verifying syntheses or, on the contrary, that of nullifying and evidently nullifying syntheses” (Hua I, 92; Husserl, 1993, 56–57). The correlate of the former is called reality or actuality in the sense of the German Wirklichkeit; by contrast, the correlate of the latter is called “the annulled or cancelled being” (des aufgehobenen, durchstrichenen Seins). Keeping this in mind, the argument contained in the passage above can be broken down as follows (we follow here De Santis, 2018a, 79; in De Santis, 2020, 87, a variation was introduced). I. Any community of monads (Monadengemeinschaft) implies a system of verifying syntheses the correlate of which is nature as the first form of objectivity (= MO.1 + MO.2 + MO.4); 30

 For a thorough investigation of Husserl’s own theory of modalities, see Belussi, 1990, Chapter 5.

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II. Every variation of myself (see Chap. 4, §12), as the pole of the oriented constitution of my factual monadic inter-subjectivity (= MO.3), brings about a possible pole of a possible oriented constitution of a possible factual monadic inter-subjectivity; III. If there is a plurality of monads (Monadenmehrheit), there would also obtain a plurality of systems of verifying syntheses, whose objectual correlate is a series of different and separate natures as the first form of objectivity (= I). In this case, only two alternatives are possible.

III.1. Either the two (or even more) systems of syntheses join together into a single system of verifying syntheses, thereby mutually verifying themselves and hence constituting just “one” real (wirkliche) nature as the first form of objectivity common to them all; III.2. Or one of the two (or more) systems of syntheses is “annulled” (aufgehoben) by the other, thereby being unable to constitute a real (wirkliche) nature as its correlate that would exist in complete isolation.



Tertium non datur.31 In either case (III.1 or III.2), there would exist only one inter-subjectivity having one nature as the first form of objectivity. It should be clear what the expression seinesgleichen, ontologically equal is meant to designate. There cannot be any Vergemeinschaftung between “ontologically” different or unequal monads, namely, between what really and actually is (in the sense of wirklich seiend) as a part of the one space-form and time-form (nature as the first form of objectivity) and what is not.32 Accordingly, to affirm—as Jean Toussaint Desanti does in his commentary—that la communauté intermonadique est une phantasme, une formation idéo-existentielle (Desanti, 1994, 131) amounts to a renunciation of the effort that consists in reconstructing the systematic backbone that sustains Husserl’s trains of thought. The importance of §60 did not escape the attention of Pfänder, who, in his still unpublished notes on the Cartesian Meditations written in April 1932, summarizes its content as follows: Es kann nur e[ine] Gemeinschaft aller Monaden geben, “there can be only one community of all the monads” (Pfänder, 1932, 15). However, the conclusion of Husserl’s argument is not simply that, eidetically speaking, there can be only one actual inter-subjectivity having one actual world as a correlate; rather, the conclusion bears upon the correlation between the one and only factually existing inter-subjectivity and the  world. The very last part of the quotation above is clear. The point is not simply to acknowledge that each modification would be “annulled” by each of the others, were they actual; Husserl recognizes

 An early, almost identical version of this argument can be explicitly found in a 1921 manuscript on transcendental idealism, where the notion of monadic ego is also mobilized (Hua XXXVI, 159–160). 32  Whether in the sense of the opposition between wirkliches Sein and durchstrichenes Sein, or of that between Wirklichkeit and phantasy-possibility (Hua I, 93–94; Husserl, 1993, 57–58). 31

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that they are all annulled by the ego, which I actually am. The thesis is not simply that there can exist only one inter-subjectivity and one actual world; the ultimate thesis of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is that the one and only, actual world that exists is this factual one and the one and only, actual inter-subjectivity that exists is this factual one.33 In Husserl’s succinct words, “the fact I am prescribes whether other monads are others for me and what they are for me.”

10. It should now be clear why in §8 of the present chapter we suggested that, “CM V is a sort of detour that Husserl takes to clarify the constitution of the inter-monadic-­ subjectivity and which ultimately will lead him back to CM IV.” Moreover, it should be apparent in what sense and to what extent the analyses that we have unfolded in the previous pages shed light on what Husserl affirms in §41: “if (as is factually the case) there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, not only other egos but also […] an objective world common to us all” (Hua I, 117; Husserl, 1993, 84). If we now put together our discussions of TI from §7 above and what §9 just explained, a few results follow. First of all, the core-thesis of TI assumes now a more definite and, we would add, precise physiognomy. The formula was,

 UpC  UB  AC   UpS

and should be read as: the universe of possible sense (UpS) means the unity of the universe of possible consciousness (UpC) and the universe of true being (UB) within the absolute concretion (∈ AC). Let us recall—one more time—the three long excerpts from §41 on which we focused in §7, and which de facto spell out TI in full force. Every conceivable sense, every conceivable being, whether the latter is called immanent or transcendent, falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being (Sinn und Sein). The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is non-sensical (unsinnig). They belong together essentially; and, as belonging together essentially, they are also concretely one (auch konkret eins), one in the unique absolute concretion (in der einzigen absoluten Konkretion) of transcendental subjectivity. If tran33  As far as we can tell, the first scholar who has noticed this is Marvin Farber in his 1935 review of the book. See Farber, 1935, 385: “this is the only (if not the best) possible world. Not more than one world could be constituted, for it follows from the egological premise that a second world would not be compossible.” This point is on the contrary completely neglected by Depraz in her commentary (see Lavigne, 2016, 208–210). Instead, she prefers to approach them via Michel Henry’s interpretation of the doctrine of inter-subjectivity. Michel Henry himself (Henry, 1990, 137–159), in turn, does not even seem to go beyond §55.

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scendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely non-­ sense (Unsinn). But even non-sense is always a mode of sense and has its non-sensicalness as a mode of the evidence (in der Einsehbarkeit) (Hua I, 177; Husserl, 1993, 84; translation modified). That is true, however, not alone in the case of the merely factual ego (faktische ego) and what is factually accessible to him or her as a being (als Seiendes), including an open plurality of other egos who, along with their constitutive operations, are for him or her (als seiende). Stated more precisely: if (as is factually the case) there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, not only other egos but also (as constituted in turn by the transcendental inter-subjectivity accruing to me thanks to the constitution, in me, of the others) an objective world common to us all, then everything said up to now is true, not alone in the case of my factual ego (mein faktisches ego) and in the case of this factual (diese faktische) inter-subjectivity and world, which receive sense and validity of being in my own [factual yet transcendental ego] (Hua I, 117; Husserl, 1993, 84). The phenomenological self-explication that went on in my ego, this explication of all my ego’s constitutions and all the objectualities that are for it, necessarily assumed the methodic form of an a priori self-explication, one that gives the facts their place in the corresponding universe of pure (or eidetic) possibilities. This explication therefore concerns my factual ego, only insofar as the latter is one of the pure possibilities to be acquired by its re-shaping (fictive changing) of itself. Hence, as eidetic, the explication is valid for the universe of these, my possibilities as essentially an ego, my possibilities namely of being otherwise; accordingly then, it is valid also for every possible inter-subjectivity related (with a corresponding modification) to these possibilities, and valid likewise for every world conceivable as constituted in such an inter-subjectivity (Hua I, 117–118; Husserl, 1993, 84–85).

Now we know in what sense the hypothesis-objection that there could be worlds divorced from the one constituted by this transcendental inter-subjectivity, or that there could be a  possible (true) being outside the domain of the sense, is a non-­ sense. The account of the constitution of the experience of the other, hence of the transcendental inter-subjectivity (implicitly present as part of the monad’s worldly concretion), has ruled out once and for all this sort of argument. A “being” that lies completely outside the domain of the sense would mean for Husserl a system of possible corresponding syntheses that stands in no relation whatsoever with the system of syntheses proper to AC. However, it follows from III (= III.1 and III.2 from the end of §9) that a system of syntheses which stands neither in a verifying relation nor in a nullifying one to AC and its system of syntheses is contradictory to its own essence.34 Un-Sinn, as Husserl would emphatically describe it. Yet, as he also hastens to add, “even non-sense is a mode of sense.” As a consequence, only two options seem to be available:  Following Husserl, we have been indifferently using being and sense (or syntheses) to capture the core-claim of transcendental idealism. Yet, the two conceptualities could be distinguished, and the point made in two slightly different manners: 34

–– Sense / Synthesis: a system of syntheses that stands neither in a verifying relation nor in a nullifying one to AC and its system of syntheses is contradictory to its own essence (= a system of syntheses that is not a system of syntheses); –– Being: a being that stands in no relation whatsoever to the totality of being (this being “nature as the first form of objectivity”) is contradictory to its own essence (= a being that is not a being).

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• What is supposed to be completely outside the domain of the sense is an “annulled being” that pertains to the domain of the phantasy-possibilities, as is the case, e.g., when we think of Ariel ready to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride / On the curl’d clouds (Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1, II, 191–192). Here, what is wirklich in general annuls whatever is non-wirklich in general, thereby reducing it to the rank of a phantasy-possibility. • A purported being is “annulled” (Nicht-sein) as false: the Nicht-sein being in this case one of the modalizations of the Wirklichkeit itself along with the being-­ possible, the being-probable, and the being-doubtful… (Hua I, 93; Husserl, 1993, 58).35 In both cases, the non-sensical has its own sense. For whatever is supposed to be un-sinnig turns out to be un-sinnig (in either one of the two senses just distinguished). This being recognized, a series of remarks impose themselves. For if our reconstruction in §9 was correct, then the conclusion would follow as regards TI and to the effect that Husserl would here be speaking exclusively of the one and only factual existing inter-subjectivity: the human one. Indeed, if the ultimate thesis of the Fifth Meditation is that the one and only, actual world that exists is this factual one and the one and only, actual inter-subjectivity that exists is this factual one, then it will follow that TI de facto bears upon the human determination of the inter-­ monadic-­ subjectivity. The impossibility—for such “human” inter-monadic-­ subjectivity—to step beyond the domain of its own human sense towards a realm of “true being” completely independent of it would find its literary representation in Dante’s Ulysses (Inferno, XXVI). Ulysses wants to experience the world beyond the sun, the one that is still and will always be unpeopled: non vogliate negar l’esperienza, / diretro al sol, del mondo sanza gente (116–117). Ulysses’ folle volo (“mad flight”), however, is crushed by a violent whirlwind, just as the Husserlian human inter-­subjectivity always collapses in on itself. Noi ci allegrammo, e tosto tornò in pianto; ché de la nova terra un turbo nacque. e percosse del legno il primo canto. Tre volte il fe’ girar con tutte l’acque; e la quarta levar la poppa in suso e la prora ire in giù, com’altrui piacque, infin che ’l mar fu sopra noi richiuso (136–142)

Husserl’s argument rests on the correlation between the totality of being and the totality of the system of syntheses. 35  A confirmation of our line of thought can be found in a 1921 manuscript (Hua XXXVI, 186): “‘Denkbar,’ ‘möglich’ heißt in Beziehung auf Wirkliches als in irgendeiner Gegebenheitsweise Erfahrenes oder Vermeintes, was in den offenen Horizont dieser Gegebenheitsweise sich phantasiemäßig und in Wesensverträglichkeit mit dem bestimmt Gesetzten hineinzeichnen lässt. Das Mögliche ist das in solcher Motivation für den Erkennenden noch Unentschiedene. In der reinen Phantasie, im Reich der reinen Möglichkeit haben wir aber die pure Willkür, die Quasi-Gegenstände erschafft in Quasi-Erfahrungen, Quasi-Vermeintheiten.”

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(We rejoiced, but joy soon turned to grief: / for from that unknown land there came / a whirlwind that struck the ship head-on / Three times it turned our stern reared up, / the prow went down, as pleased Another, / until the sea closed over us (Dante, The Inferno, trans. by R. and J. Hollander)). And yet, if this were the objection, it would be wrong, because Husserl’s inter-­ subjectivity and TI do not share the same destiny as Dante’s Ulysses. The thesis that Husserl argues for in §60 is based on the structure of the transcendental constitution of the monadic inter-subjectivity. In other words, and to make a long story short (see above, the beginning of our §9), it belongs to the essence of die Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden (MO.1  +  MO.2  +I  MO.3  +  MO.4) that there can obtain only one transcendental-factual inter-subjectivity, hence only one real world: the one constituted by my own factual and transcendental concrete ego or monad (AC). Otherwise put, it follows from the essence of the Monadengemeinschaft in general that the one and only factual existing inter-monadic-subjectivity is the one to which we happen to refer as human. Yet it is one thing to admit that based on the essence of the transcendental concrete (inter-)subjectivity only the human inter-­subjectivity exists,36 and another to confuse the two, thereby making the mistake of either transcendentalizing the human subject or anthropologizing the monad. Husserl is committed to the former to avoid the latter (which is what Heidegger does in his opinion37). Thus, Husserl’s inter-subjectivity maintains itself suspended in a sort of theoretical balance: between the eidetic characterization of its structure, constitution, and self-constitution and its almost immediate “self-mondanization” in the form of the factually existing human inter-subjectivity. The community of monads is first explicitly determined as “human” in §56, after the determination of nature as the first form of objectivity, and during the introduction of the concept of higher order communities (Hua I, 157; Husserl, 1993, 129).38 This being remarked, we can now approach the conclusion of this already quite long chapter.

 To quote use Husserl’s words from the Crisis, “Universal inter-subjectivity […] can obviously be nothing other than humanity (Menscheit)” (Hua VI, 183; Husserl, 1970, 179). At this point, the problem should be addressed concerning the “normal” character of the subject which Husserl seems to deem material to the constitution of the objectivity of the world. Since we cannot address this issue here (we are planning on doing it in a volume dedicated to Husserl’s political philosophy), the reader can consider the systematic assessment by Heinämaa, 2013. 37  It is the confusion between the different forms of the subjects which was first pinpointed at the end of Chap. 1, §7. 38  On the transcendental and teleological sense of the “human” determination of the inter-monadic-­ subjectivity, see the insightful analyses by Trizio, 2018, 94 and ff. 36

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11. A remark made by Husserl in Formal and Transcendental Logic, §95, will help us summarize the very sense and meaning of TI, that is, the function of the determination of the concrete ego as an acting one (according to the sense that such term acquired in §6 of the present chapter). To be correct, however, I must say expressly in the first place: I myself am this subjectivity, I who carry on this reflection concerning what is for me and is valid for me […]. But still […] the world is the world for us all; as an objective world it has, in its own sense, the categorial form, “once for all truly being (wahraft seienden),” not only for me but for everyone. […] World-experience, as constitutive, means not just my quite private experience, but community-experience (Gemeinschafterfahrung): the world itself, according to its sense, is the one identical world to which all of us necessarily have experiential access, and about which all of us by “exchanging” our experiences, that is, by making them common (Vergemeinschaftung), can reach an understanding; just as “objective” legitimization or display (Ausweisung) depends on mutual agreement and its criticism (Hua XVII, 243; Husserl, 1969, 236).

Although this passage does not directly bear on TI, it is crucial for us for at least two reasons. Firstly, because the terminology of the becoming-community of the inter-­ subjectivity (Vergemeinschaftung and Gemeinschafterfahrung) reconnects to the arguments of CM V. Secondly, because the use of the expression truly being (wahraft seienden) clearly hints at that particular form of the practical reason (in the most fundamental sense of the term) that strives towards discovering, ascertaining, and realizing the truth. The universe of possible true being, as TI maintains, corresponds to what the universe of possible consciousness can discover, ascertain and realize within the absolute concretion understood as this factual, yet transcendental inter-­ monadic-­subjectivity. The Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden means their actively realizing and determining the true being (wahraft seienden) of this world by means of mutual agreement and criticism. Yet, it would be a mistake, however, to believe that what we would be laying claim to here is the “social determination” of the concept of truth that has lately become so popular (like a Zauberwort) among philosophers and phenomenology scholars.39 As if the problem were to simply replace one concept of truth (say, the correspondence-doctrine) with another one. Indeed, this would simply amount to replacing one one-sidedness (= one all-­encompassing concept of truth) with another one-sidedness (= another all-­encompassing concept of truth). What is usually taken to be a solution would be, for Husserl, only the starting point to ask the general question, What is a “social” determination? What is, in general, a social act? How many different species of societies and communities exist (Otaka, 1932)? Just as there are different social determinations of the subject, thus different species of social acts, so there correspond to the different domains of being different practices of the ascertainment and realization of the truth (in the  And of which already Guido Calogero was aware in his 1943 Lezioni di filosofia (logica, etica ed estetica), that is, long before this was recognized by some of the nowadays more fashionable trends of contemporary philosophy. 39

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sense in which the theoretical reason is a particular form of the practical reason). No, what we are referring to is the problem spelled out by the title of the present chapter:  the nomos of the transcendental. Νόμος ὁ πάντων βασιλεύς θνατῶν τε καὶ ἀθανάτων (Pindar, Fragment 169) (“The nomos [is] sovereign of all / Of mortals and immortals”) The nomos belongs to the transcendental itself and is expressed by TI as Husserl presents it in the Cartesian Meditations. The transcendental is the πάντων βασιλεύς, “sovereign of all,” because there is no “being” which is not ruled over by the transcendental inter-monadic-subjectivity.40 As we saw for instance at the beginning of this chapter, the question that Heidegger asked in his letter of 1927 was, “In what respect are entities unintelligible? That is, what higher claim of intelligibility is possible and necessary?” To answer it, two points need to be made. As we first saw in Chap. 1, §6, in his lecture on Phenomenology and Anthropology Husserl does remark that, the “transcendental relativity of all being, and accordingly the entire world in its being, may be unavoidable, but when it is formally set forth in this way, it is completely unintelligible. And it will remain so if from the start we allow ourselves to use this kind of argumentation that has always been the cure for the so-called ‘theory of knowledge’” (Hua XXVII, 175; Husserl, 1997, 496). We are now in a position to appreciate what this passage wants to say. The formal transcendental relativity of all being vis-à-vis consciousness is nothing but the theory of constitution presented during CM II and III, and by means of which §40 rules out once and for all the very problem of the theory of knowledge as historically bequeathed to us by Descartes. And if, as Husserl goes on to remark, such transcendental relativity remains unintelligible and is in need of a higher form of intelligibility, this derives from the following reason. For the doctrine of constitution or co-relation, the “world” is in general nothing but a system of possible regions and categories of objects (different ontological Seinsarten), just as “consciousness” is in general nothing other than a system of possible structures corresponding to the former. Yet, as Husserl also adds in his lecture, The starting point is not at all an end point. In any case, it is clear now what we have to do to transform it into something intelligible (Verständlichkeit), and thus to arrive at a really concrete (konkreten) and radically grounded knowledge of the world. We must embark on a systematic study of concrete transcendental subjectivity, and specifically we must pose the question of how transcendental subjectivity in itself brings about the sense and validity of the objective world (Hua XXVII, 175–176; Husserl, 1997, 496).

The higher form of intelligibility is reached by placing the “transcendental relativity” of all being within AC, thereby switching from the transcendental attitude to the “absolute” attitude. The former is the attitude in which the correlation between possible categories and regions of objects and possible structures of consciousness is  See English, 2006, 283–339 (Pourquoi la phénoménologie est et ne peut pas qu’être une philosophie transcendantale).

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investigated; the latter the one in which AC is posited as the domain only within which the unity of possible sense is determined. In this respect, the higher form of intelligibility is reached by determining the one and only existing world among all the possible ones established by the theory of constitution. I—as a monad or concrete ego—am, then this inter-subjectivity (AC) and this world exist. As we will see in the last part of the present work (see Volume 2, Chap. V), the higher form of intelligibility can be established only within AC because only within this inter-­ subjectivity, the human one, once factually appeared that cultural-spiritual formation called philosophy, thus the purely theoretical attitude and that particular form of philosophy which is phenomenology. As should be evident once again, Phenomenology and Anthropology and CM fully overlap. Just as in 1931 Husserl brings his reasoning to a conclusion with his observation on the necessity of a higher form of intelligibility—so the same point is made in §41 of CM IV: This kind of intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) is the highest conceivable form (die höchste erdenkliche Form) of rationality. All wrong interpretations of being come from naive blindness to the horizons that join in determining the sense of being, and to the corresponding tasks of uncovering implicit intentionality. If these are seen and undertaken, there results a universal phenomenology, as self-explication of the ego, carried out with continuous evidence and at the same time in concretion (in Konkretion). Stated more precisely: First, a self-explication in the pregnant sense, showing systematically how the ego constitutes itself, in respect of its own proper essence, as a being in itself and for itself; then, secondly, a self-explication in the broadened sense, which goes on from there to show how, by virtue of this proper essence, the ego likewise constitutes in itself something other, something objective, and thus constitutes everything without exception that has for it, in the ego, the ontological validity of the non-ego (Hua I, 118; Husserl, 1993, 85).

Accordingly, Husserl hastens to add, “phenomenology is eo ipso transcendental idealism.” The passage also retrospectively justifies our claim to the effect that the constitution of the other pursued in the Fifth Meditation should be regarded as a (very long) footnote to CM IV and the constitution of the monad’s “worldly concreteness.” A long footnote,41 the ambition of which is not to show that there takes place the experience of the other, but rather that there cannot be more than one factually existing inter-subjectivity, more than one factually existing world (and all being is being within the absolute concretion). And it is only from within the absolute concretion, with the monad being a concrete, acting and interested ego in the sense of §6, that it makes sense to affirm that what “there is” is, as a part of AC, eine praktische Idee (Hua I, 121; Husserl, 1993, 86). This is the reason why in the 20 s and 30 s, Husserl more and more systematically characterizes the correlate of “reason” in general with the Platonic phrase ὄντως ὄν (Hua VI, 11). For each “region” of being, each world of ideas with its peculiarity, e.g., the objectivity of the world of experience or those categorial formations of the sciences that Husserl calls substructions (Trizio, 2021, Chapter 5), is the correlate of certain acts, actions, and interests of the transcendental inter-monadic-subjectivity.

 Our reading moves in a direction contrary to the one pointed out by Ricoeur (2004, 233), for whom CM V constitue un monde de pensées. 41

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12. Enter Heidegger. Heidegger points out in §31 of Being and Time that, “Sense is that wherein the intelligibility of something maintains itself. […] The concept of sense embraces the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what is articulated by the understanding explication. […] Sense is an existential of Dasein, rather than a property that pertains to the entities.”42 By the same token, Husserl writes that, “Every conceivable sense […] falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being.” Heidegger explains to us that, “Only Dasein ‘has’ sense”; and Husserl emphasizes that if transcendental subjectivity is “the universe of possible sense,” then sense and being “belong essentially together.” Heidegger points out that, “all entities the mode of being of which is other than Dasein’s must be non-sensical, essentially bare of sense in general”; and in §41 Husserl affirms that a being outside the universe of possible sense, i.e., a being outside AC is something non-sensical. Yet, just as Husserl hastens to add that even the non-sensical is a mode of the sense and has its own mode of evidence, so does Heidegger write that only the non-sensical can be “counter-sensical,” thereby always falling back into the domain of the sense as something that runs contrary to it (e.g., “natural events” that may destroy us). Whether all of this implies that Heidegger, too, would characterize his conception of the Dasein-being relation as a form of transcendental idealism, we do not venture to affirm43 (for a positive answer, see Becker, 1927, 744;  for a negative answer, see the beautiful analyses by McManus, 2012, 35 and ff.44). Far from us is the thesis that what we would be confronted with here is just one philosopher and one philosophy rather than two—as if either one of them (= either Husserl or Heidegger) would also be playing the role of the other: a sort of fowl-filcher who— in Der schwedische Reiter by Leo Perutz—steals the identity of the Namenlose Christian von Tornfeld in order to receive his honors and live his life. If from the standpoint of Heidegger, the Husserlian determination of the concrete subject in terms of region must be rejected altogether, no matter whether the region at stake is that of consciousness or the concrete ego (and Dasein is meant to proclaim precisely  See Graeser, 1993, 565–568, on the problem of Sinn in these Heideggerian pages.  But the “idealistic” nature or tendency of Being and Time was commonly acknowledged by some of the early phenomenological readers of Heidegger. The most paradigmatic examples are Beck, 1928; and Conrad-Martius, 1963, 15–31 (Seinsphilosophie); 38–38 (Was ist Metaphysik?); 185–193 (Heideggers “Sein und Zeit”); as well as Stein, 2009, 445–499 (Martin Heideggers Existenzphilosophie). On Stein on Heidegger, see Messinese, 2015. A quite interesting, yet unfortunately seldom considered reading of Heidegger is the one offered by Antoni, 1972, who resorts to the idealism of Benedetto Croce and his conception of the practical activity rooted in the useful-­ value (= economic form of the spirit) to read the structure of the Sorge. See for example what he remarks on page 86. 44  Let us add, however, that when it comes to clarifying Husserl’s idealism (and his theory of constitution), McManus seems to rely only on David Woodruff Smith’s interpretation. 42 43

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such rejection), Husserl would dismiss any possible anthropological characterization of the transcendental subject (and the monad is meant to represent a concrete subject, which however is not (yet) a human one). The extreme proximity between the two, however, would leap into view in an even stronger way if, in line with a strategy already adopted in Chap. 3, Edith Stein is brought once again into the picture. In her attempt at recasting the question of the sense of being in a way that she regards as alterative to Heidegger’s, the origin of “sense” (Sinn) is ascribed to the “pure form” (die reine Form) or, in the Platonic jargon that she speaks, εἶδος (Stein, 1962, 213). In short, it is the ontological structure of the object that, by realizing in itself a system of pure forms or εἴδη, displays a sense of its own independently of the encounter with the spiritual subjectivity. It is not the latter that represents the realm of the sense, therefore of every possible encounter with the entity; it is by contrast the entity itself (its intelligibility) that discloses the possible space for such an encounter.45 As is known, in Being and Time (§43A), idealism is recognized as a “fundamental priority” over the thesis of realism, yet only if it does not “misunderstand itself as a ‘psychological’ idealism” (which is what Husserl points out in the corresponding pages from both the Cartesian Meditations and Formal and Transcendental Logic): “If idealism emphasizes the fact that being and reality are only ‘in consciousness’ (im Bewußtsein), this expresses the understanding that being cannot be explained by the entities.”46 Yet, as he hastens to immediately warn the reader: But to the extent that it remains unclarified that an understanding of being occurs here and what this understanding of being means ontologically, how it is possible, and that it belongs to the constitution of being of Dasein, idealism constructs the interpretation of reality in a vacuum. The fact that being cannot be explained by the entities does not absolve us from asking about the being of consciousness, of the res cogitans itself. If the idealist thesis is to be followed consistently, the ontological analysis of consciousness is prescribed as an inevitable prior task (Heidegger, 1967, 207; 2010a, 199–200).

As we should know by now, it is not by means of notion of “consciousness” that the thesis of idealism is first advocated by Husserl in the Meditations. Husserl’s only public, official presentation47 of TI argues that being and reality are not “in consciousness,” but rather in the “absolute concretion.”  For a systematic assessment of this aspect of Stein’s philosophy and the concept of “sense,” see Ghigi, 2011; for an analysis of Stein’s stance on Husserl’s idealism that would diverge from ours, see Ales Bello, 2015. Unlike Husserl and Heidegger, Stein excludes the Unsinn from the overall domain of the sense, for the former is what cannot be understood at all (auf keinen verstehbaren Sinn führt) (Stein, 1962, 306). Of course, the very fact that the domain of pure forms or εἴδη is originally created by God and exists only as originally (and as long as it is) posited by such an infinite spirit—this aspect, were one to systematically expand on it, would probably result in a renewed form of Berkeleyan idealism (with the infinite spirit being the source and origin not only of all being, but also of all sense). See also Tommasi, 2011, 68 and ff; and Borden Sharkey, 2016. 46  See Gordon, 2013, for a reading of Heidegger’s passage on idealism in relation to the Neo-­ Kantian tradition. 47  Lavigne, 2005, 16, for example, speaks of le premier texte publié où Husserl revendique expressément cet intitulé [= transcendental idealism] pour définir la signification ultime de la phénomé45

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Of course, one could still object that here Husserl is simply replacing the “idealism” of Ideas with the “idealism” of the Meditations, the idealism of consciousness with the idealism of the monad. It is now time to tackle this point within the context of the critical doxography on Husserl’s idealism. CODA—Remarks on the Person in CM V A few remarks need to be made on the notion of person as it appears in CM V. As we saw during our discussion in Chap. 3, §2, Husserl speaks of personal character and personal I in §32 (Hua I, 101; Husserl, 1993, 67) during the assessment of the “I” as a “substrate of habitualities.” Yet, as we did not fail to notice, the term person is nowhere to be found in §33 during the presentation of the monad. Moreover, as we also added in passing towards the end of that chapter (see §8), the account of the monad differs from that of the person offered in the second book of Ideas in that it is not described as the con-junction of three ontological layers (body, psyche, and spirit). Hence, the conclusion to the effect that the former (= the monad) designates the transcendental-concrete subjectivity, while the latter (= the person) is the result of its “mundanization.” In short, and in perfect compliance with a manuscript of 1930 on the “transcendental person” discussed at the end of Chap. 3, §9 (footnote), the determination of the monad or concrete ego as a person is the result, so to speak, of the Vergemeinschaftung der Monaden and the constitution of the one and only factually existing inter-subjectivity (see §10 above). It is on this aspect that we want to expand a little. After the constitution of nature as the first form of objectivity in §55, §56 introduces the Constitution of the Higher Levels of Inter-Monadic Community. It is here that, for the first time after the radical reduction to the monad’s ownness performed in §44, the Monaden-gemeinschaft becomes a Menschen-gemeinschaft and the monad ein Mensch (Hua I, 157; Husserl, 1993, 129). One needs to be careful though. The label Mensch is not meant to primarily convey an anthropological determination of the Gemeinschaft; it is rather, and more generally, meant to signify the mundanization of the  Monadengemeinschaft: its self-determination into the one and only existing inter-subjectivity (this being a conclusion however that Husserl will draw only later on, in §60). It is in §58, dedicated to the Differentiation of Problems in the Intentional Analysis of Higher Inter-Subjective Communities. I and Surrounding World, that the “monad” (the zero-point of the constitution of nature as the first form of objectivity) will be called for the first time personality (the “zero-­ member” of a cultural or spiritual world) (Hua I, 162; Husserl, 1993, 134). It is here that die Menschen selbst are called Personen for the very first time. Monaden— Menschen—Personen: such is the sequence that we are trying to elucidate. If we are on the right track, a consequence follows. If it is true that, on the one hand, the “person” plays a constitutive role in the determination of the spiritual-cultural world (= “higher order” objectivity), on the other hand, and from the vantage point of the nologie. De facto, being published in 1931 in France, the Cartesian Meditations represent the third text published by Husserl in which the expression transcendental idealism is officially used (i.e., after Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) and the Nachwort (1930)).

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monad and its process of transcendental constitution and self-constitution, person is nothing but the name used by Husserl to refer to the transcendental subject or monad as a “mundanized” one (Mensch). Just as the monad was originally the Nullpunkt in the determination of nature as the first form of objectivity with its one space-form and time-form (see above §9, MO.1 + MO.2 + MO.3 + MO.4)—so is the Person the Null-glied of all the higher forms of objectivity (Hua I, 162; Husserl, 1993, 134–135). Yet, we know from our analyses above that the conjunction of MO.1 + MO.2 + MO.3 + MO.4 is precisely what allows Husserl to argue that there can be only one factually existing inter-subjectivity: the Menschengemeinschaft. Accordingly, Person is nothing but the name for the one and only factual “mundanization” or realization (Menschengemeinschaft as a result of ­ MO.1 + MO.2 + MO.3 + MO.4) of the transcendental Monad. Monad designates the transcendental, concrete subjectivity; Mensch designates the former’s mundanization and factual existence; Person is the term standing for the conjunction of the two, as it were, and as the center of orientation of all the higher forms of objectivity. This interpretation is in accord not only with the 1930 manuscript recalled above; it is also in accord with both a famous manuscript from the end of 1932 known as Universale Geisteswissenschaft als Anthropologie (see Hua XV, 480–508) and, once again, with the Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture. It is in accord with the latter (Chap. 1, §6), because it is now that the Heideggerian-sounding expression Dasein is brought in to designate the human determination of the (self-mundanized and constituted) subject (Hua I, 158; Husserl, 1993, 129). It is in line with the former, because it is only now that it would make sense to speak of “universal anthropology” (Hua XV, 481) and, as one could also frame it, of the consideration of the world sub specie humanitatis (die Einstellung der Anthropologie). Of course, this does not mean that the “monad” would be playing here the same role as Heidegger’s Dasein. The monad is not to the person what Dasein is to der Mensch; Dasein is the essence of the human being, but the monad is not the essence of the person or of the human being. The “monad” is what does  the constitution (and its own self-­ constitution), and “person” is the name employed to designate its “mundanized” form.

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Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Northwestern University Press. Husserl, E. (1973a). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjetivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935 (Hua XV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft (Hua XVII). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976a). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Band (Hua III/1). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976b). Die Krise der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Unterschungen. Zweiter Teil (Hua XIX/1). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937) (Hua XXVII). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1993). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994a). Briefwechsel. Die Freiburger Schüler (Hua-Dok III/4). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994b). Briefwechsel. Die Münchener Phänomenologen (Hua-Dok III/2). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1994c). Randbemerkungen zu Heideggers Sein und Zeit und Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Husserl Studies, 11, 3–63. Husserl, E. (1997). Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Springer. Husserl, E. (2003). Transzendentaler Idealismus. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1921) (Hua XXXVI). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (2004). Einleitung in die Ethik. 1920/1924 (Hua XXXVII). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (2012). Einleitung in die Philosophie (Hua-Mat IX). Springer. Husserl, E. (2014a). Ideas I. Hackett Publisher. Husserl, E. (2014b). Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik (Hua XLII). Springer. Husserl, E. (2019). First philosophy. Lectures 1923/24 and related texts from the manuscripts (1920–1925). Springer. Hyppolite, J. (1971). Figures de la pensée philosophique. Tome 1. PUF. Kouba, P. (2014). Život a rozumění. OIKOYMENH. Lavigne, J.-F. (2005). Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie (1900–1913). Vrin. Lavigne, J.-F. (Ed.). (2016). Les Méditations Cartésiennes de Husserl. Vrin. Luft, S. (2002). Phänomenologie der Phänomenologie. In Systematik und Methodologie der Phänomenologie in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Husserl und Fink. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Majolino, C. (2020). Husserl and the reach of attitudes. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 1, 85–107. Maschietti, S. (2005). L’interpretazione heideggeriana di Kant. Sulla disarmonia di verità e differenza. Il Mulino. McManus, D. (2012). Heidegger and the measure of truth. Oxford University Press. Messinese, L. (2015). Fenomenologia e metafisica. Riflessioni sulla critica di Edith Stein al Dasein heideggeriano. In A. Ales Bello & F. Alfieri (Eds.), Edmund Husserl e Edith Stein. Due filosofi a confronto (pp. 167–187). Morcelliana. Otaka, T. (1932). Grundlegung der Lehre vom sozialen Verband. Julius Springer. Pfänder, A. (1932). Notizen, Exzerpte und Kritik zu Husserls Méditations Cartésiennes. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (A VI 11) (unpublished). Pradelle, D. (2012). Par-delà la révolution copernicienne. Sujet transcendantal et facultés chez Kant et Husserl. PUF.

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Pugliese, A. (2004). La dimensione dell’intersoggettività. Fenomenologia dell’estraneo nella filosofia di Edmund Husserl. Mimesis. Ricoeur, P. (2004). Á l’école de la phénoménologie. Vrin. Schnell, A. (2005). De L’Existence ouverte au monde fini. Heidegger 1925–1930. Vrin. Severino, E. (1994). Heidegger e la metafisica. Adelphi. Skirke, C. (2021). Internalism and externalism in transcendental phenomenology. European Journal of Philosophy, 30, 1–23. (online version). Slama, P. (2021). Phénoménologie transcendantale. Figures du transcendantal de Kant à Heidegger. Springer. Stapleton, T. J. (1983). Husserl and Heidegger: The question of a phenomenological beginning. State University of New York Press. Stein, E. (1962). Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstieges zum Sinn des Seins. Herder. Stein, E. (2000). Selbstbildnis in Briefen I (1916–1933) (ESGA. 2). Herder. Stein, E. (2009). Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstieges zum Sinn des Seins. ESGA 11/12. Herder. Stenzel, J. (1928). Die Gefahren modernen Denkens und der Humanismus. Die Antike. Zeitschrift für Kunst und Kultur des klassischen Altertums, IV, 42–65. Tommasi, F. V. (2011). L’analogia della persona in Edith Stein. Archivio di filosofia, 79, 6–151. Trizio, E. (2018). The telos of Consciosuness and the telos of world history. Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 34, 77–103. Trizio, E. (2021). Philosophy’s nature: Husserl’s phenomenology, natural science, and metaphysics. Routledge. von Herrmann, F. W. (2000). Hermeneutik und Reflexion. Der Begriff der Phänomenologie beig Heidegger und Husserl. Vittorio Klostermann. Zahavi, D. (2017). Husserl’s legacy. Phenomenology, metaphysics, and transcendental philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Chapter 6

Primum Concretum and Transcendental Idealism

1. An important result derives from our interpretation of the idea of phenomenology that Husserl sets forward in the Cartesian Meditations. At the end of §33 Husserl points out, “Since the monadically concrete ego also includes the whole actual and potential life of consciousness, it is clear that the problem of the phenomenological explication of this monadic ego […] must include all constitutive problems without exception. Consequently, the phenomenology of this self-constitution coincides with phenomenology as such” (Hua I, 102; Husserl, 1993, 68). According to this statement, one can and should regard AC (= the absolute concretion) as the proper field of research of phenomenology. At such an advanced stage of the development of Husserl’s thought, phenomenology is neither the science of the region “pure consciousness” (as was the case in Ideas) nor of the transcendental inter-subjectivity constituted as a human inter-subjectivity. Rather, phenomenology is the science of the absolute concretion, of the monad or concrete ego with its threefold concreteness, i.e., as including also the transcendental inter-monadic-subjectivity. We shall label this: primum concretum. Primum intends here to stand for the term erste, first as characterizing phenomenology as a “first philosophy” according to the lectures of 1923–1924 on First Philosophy: Since the sciences are not arbitrarily ordered in a free combination but rather bear within themselves an order, and hence principles of ordering, First Philosophy will naturally be the name for that philosophy which is first “in itself,” i.e., according to inner essential principles. By that one could mean that it is the first in value and dignity, bearing within itself the Holy of Holies of philosophy, as it were, whereas the others, the “second” philosophies, would represent merely the necessary preliminary steps, so to speak the antechambers of that highest holiness. But its meaning could also be a different one, one in fact, that for essential reasons is the more obvious choice. It is, at any rate, the one that we shall prefer here (Hua VII, 5; Husserl, 2019, 4).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4_6

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Such a first conception of “first philosophy” is the one that Husserl himself used to apply to his own early conception of metaphysics (De Santis, 2021a; Trizio, 2019, 2021). According to it, metaphysics was labeled “first ‘in itself’” because it builds on the already accomplished work of the empirical sciences (called: second philosophies) in order to complete them and test their presuppositions and tacit assumptions.1 Yet, as Husserl also remarks, “its meaning could also be a different one, one, in fact, that for essential reasons is the more obvious choice. It is, at any rate, the one that we shall prefer here.” Which one? The one according to which “The name ‘First Philosophy’ would point towards a scientific discipline of beginnings.” By inner, inescapable necessity this discipline would have to precede all other philosophical disciplines, grounding them both methodologically and theoretically. The entrance gate, the beginning of First Philosophy itself, would accordingly be the beginning of all philosophy whatsoever. With regard to the philosophizing subject, we would then have to say that the beginner of philosophy in the true sense is the one who genuinely gives shape to First Philosophy from its very beginning (Hua VII, 5; Husserl, 2019, 4–5).

First philosophy is the science of the beginnings, of what is primum and able to ground “all other philosophical disciplines,” i.e., the ontologies or eidetic sciences in the Husserlian sense of the term. In short, “all the other philosophical disciplines” (e.g., ontology of the spirit; universal ontology of nature; pure psychology, or also eidetic anthropology) are possible to the extent that they are grounded in “first philosophy,” namely, in phenomenology as the science of the monad or, as we are striving to suggest here, primum concretum. We are calling it: primum (concretum) because its “concreteness” precedes that of all the possible domains investigated by the “other philosophical disciplines.” These, in fact, are obtained by means of an abstractio (the term is employed in an intentionally vague sense2) performed by the concrete ego within the primum concretum. Every such abstractio delimits and brings about the domain of an “other philosophical discipline,” “other” with respect to phenomenology itself. By analogy with the term pseudoconcetto (“pseudo-­ concept”) first coined by the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce,3 one could coin the expression: pseudo-concretum. A pseudo-concretum is a determination obtained by the concrete ego itself from within the primum concretum and assumed as an object of investigation. For the sake of our discourse, at least four typologies of pseudo-concreta can be pinpointed (the list is not meant to be exhaustive). (a) Abstraction from the monad in order to pursue the eidetic investigation of the world as a concrete whole with its many eidetic components and layers (see the text dedicated to the Eidetische Ontologie der Welt in Hua XLI, 323–339) (worldly pseudo-concretum-1).  We will address the development of Husserl’s conception of metaphysics in Volume 2, Chap. 4.  See Hua-Mat IV, 20–21, where Husserl speaks of Abscheidung, Ausscheidung, and Demarkationen in the same sense in which we are here speaking of abstractio. 3  Croce, 1947, 13–25; Sasso, 1975, 57–135, on the origin of this concept; but also the most recent Sasso, 2021, 95 and ff. 1 2

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(b) Abstraction from the concreteness of the world (worldly pseudo-concretum-1) in order to pursue the eidetic investigation of this or that abstract layer of the world, and possible relations between them (e.g., ontology of nature, ontology of cultural formations with their relations of foundation and dependence) (worldly pseudo-concretum-2). (c) Abstraction from the concreteness of the world as a whole (worldly pseudo-­ concretum-­1) to pursue the eidetic investigation of the structures of the transcendental subjectivity: for example, the eidetic investigation of the ego as a substrate of habitualities discussed in the Cartesian Meditations, §32 (transcendental pseudo-concretum-1).4 (d) Abstraction from the concreteness of the monad in order to pursue the eidetic investigation of a certain transcendental structure within it, e.g., the eidetic structure of the Leib or the Seele (and their relations of in-dependence), the region “pure consciousness” (with all its concrete and abstract essences), that of time-consciousness as the ultimate form, or the so-called “minimal self” (Jaakko, 2019) (transcendental pseudo-concretum-2). What a and d, and b and c have respectively in common is what they make abstraction from (the concreteness of the concrete ego; and the concreteness of the world); what a and b, and c and d have respectively in common is what they turn their attention to (the world in the first two cases; and the transcendental subjectivity in the other two). We insist upon calling them pseudo-concreta precisely because they are only (more or less) abstract elements of the primum concretum, and have thereby no “concrete” character in the sense of “AC.” By the same token, they are pseudo-­ concreta because they are obtained from within the primum concretum and by the concrete ego itself.5 In few, blunt words, pseudo-concretum is the character of the domains of investigation of the ontologies and eidetic sciences other than phenomenology as Husserl thinks of it in the Meditations. This means that the region “pure

 We should never forget that it is not possible to even speak of monad without the concreteness of the world or, as we called it in Chap. 3, the concrete ego’s “worldly concreteness.” 5  Consider the opening pages of Ideas II. Here Husserl introduces the discussion of nature as “the object of natural science” (Hua IV, 1; Husserl, 1989, 3)—with “nature” designating the “world-­ totality” as the sum of all spatial and temporal realities. Yet, as he hastens to add: “It will be immediately evident that not all predicates which are, in truth, to be ascribed to spatio-temporal realities are actually so ascribed by us, to for all that belong to the essence of the nature-object which is the correlate of the idea of natural science. […] A ruling ‘apperception’ determines in advance what is or is not a natural-scientific object, hence what is or is not nature in the natural scientific sense. The task is to bring that to clarity. In which respect it is evident from the outset that all the predicates we ascribe to things under the headings of pleasantness, beauty, utility, practical suitability, or perfection remain out of consideration (values, goods, ends, instruments, means, etc.). They do not concern the natural scientist; they do not belong to nature in his sense” (Hua IV, 1–2; Husserl, 1989, 3–4). Nature as the field of investigation of the eidetics or ontology of nature is obtained by abstractio from both the value and spiritual predicates characterizing the concreteness of the world (= worldly pseudo-concretum-2) and the concrete ego itself that posits them (= worldly pseudo-­ concretum-­1).). See Thao, 2013, 378, for a discussion of the regions of being as “abstract moments” du movement total. 4

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consciousness,” as the domain of investigation of phenomenology as that “new eidetics” which Husserl first officially strives to legitimize in Ideas, is also a “pseudo-concretum” obtained from within the primum concretum by the concrete ego itself (see d).6 What immediately follows from this is the dismissal of all the attempts at equating the concept of phenomenology of 1913 (= Ideas I) with that of 1931 (= Cartesian Meditations). The difference between the region “pure consciousness” and the region “concrete ego” was already, and partially elaborated on over the course of Chap. 3, §§4–6. We do not want to discuss right now the question whether the concept of phenomenology presented in the first volume of Ideas is itself already a form of “transcendental idealism.” Both classical (Spiegelberg, 1982, 14) and recent commentators (Philipse, 1995, 240; Melle, 2010, 93) have answered the question in the affirmative, even if the “label” (Spiegelberg), the “term” (Philipse), or the “expression” (Melle) is nowhere to be found in the book. In fact, even if Husserl never resorts to the phrase “transcendental idealism” in 1913 to refer to phenomenology; and even if the 1913 conception of phenomenology would turn out to be radically different from the one unfolded in 1931—even in this case, one could still claim that there exist (at least) two different versions of TI (Ingarden, 1992, 217): the one espoused in Ideas, and the other presented later in CM IV and Formal and Transcendental Logic.7 Since the point for us at this stage of the analysis is to lay emphasis upon the difference between the two frameworks (= Ideas and the Meditations), the following preliminary consideration will suffice. Although it would make no sense to claim that in Ideas there might be something corresponding to the concrete ego and monad as Husserl conceives of them in the Cartesian Meditations and, more generally, in the genetic framework after the work of 1913, there is a notion that shares some of the monad’s characteristics and traits. We are referring to what Husserl calls, by a Latin-sounding term, Animal or Animalia, and which is nothing but what its material-ontological terminology also  It goes without saying that the Croce-inspired idea of the pseudo-concretum, therefore the hypothesis that there can be an analogy between Husserl and Croce on this issue, cannot be explored in the present context. However, one crucial difference between the two should be kept in mind. If it is true that both Croce’s pseudo-concetto and Husserl’s pseudo-concretum are the result of the “practical” form of the subject ([il] loro momento costitutivo […] non è teoretico ma pratico (Croce, 1947, 21)), the latter is conceived of by the two philosophers differently. While for Croce practice stands in this case for the economic activity of the spirit and its result are “conceptual fictions,” this is not true for Husserl. For him, practice designates here that specific practical form of that subject that strives towards determining the “truth,” and it would be prima facie misleading to label its productions as “fictions.” See De Santis, 2021c, the conclusion. 7  Let me add that Ingarden’s position vis-à-vis Husserl’s turn to idealism is quite complex. If on the page just recalled (Ingarden, 1992, 217), he argues for the existence of more than one form of idealism, at the outset of the lectures (see Ingarden, 1992, 12), he had by contrast affirmed that the Wendung zum transzendentalen Idealismus “displays” (zeigen) only in Formal and Transcendental Logic and the Meditations. It might be the case that while the latter is nothing else than a descriptive statement, the former expresses Ingarden’s interpretation of the development of Husserl’s thought. 6

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calls “psycho-physical unity.” In §39, for example, he speaks of “psycho-physical unities, which we call animals (psychophysische Einheiten, die wir Animalia nennen)” (Hua III/1, 80; Husserl, 2014a, 68). Let us hasten to remark in passing that in the Cartesian Meditations the term Animalia appears, if we are not utterly mistaken, first in the Exkurs of §16, then in §56 during the constitution of all the communities of higher order (Hua I, 158; Husserl, 1993, 130). The term Animal designates here the overall domain of “living beings,” among which Husserl numbers not only “animals” in the strict sense of the term (Tiere), but also “human beings” as the mundanized form of the monad. There are two characteristics that the Animal of Ideas has in common with the monad. First of all, the psycho-physical constitution; for even if the body does not prima facie contribute to the self-constitution of the monad, this does not mean that the monad does not have a body. If this were the case, it would be impossible to even speak of habitualities and surrounding worlds. The monad is not the Animal; yet the “Animal” embraces also the mundanized form of the monad. Secondly, what the monad and the psycho-physical unity have in common is precisely the surrounding world; for each Animal has its own “corresponding surrounding world.” In §53 of Ideas, Husserl points out that the Animal “is conscious of being one with the body,” and that it recognizes “the world at the same time as the same surrounding world belonging in common to itself and all the others subjects” (Hua III/1, 116–117; Husserl, 2014a, 100). In §39, on the contrary, the Animal is characterized formally-ontologically. Here Husserl describes the “psycho-physical unity” or Animal in terms of a Verflechtung or “inter-twining” between two heterogeneous essences: the essence consciousness in its real determination as a psyche and the essence world. Formally-­ ontologically speaking, the Animal is the conjunction of an individual Erlebnis, or a multiplicity thereof, with an individual thing (Ding) (material body). […] it is easy to be convinced that the material world is not an arbitrary piece of the natural world but is instead its fundamental layer, to which every other real being is essentially related. What it still lacks are the souls or psyches of humans and animals (Tiere); and the novelty introduced by them here is first and foremost their “experiencing” (Erleben), which entails being consciously related to their surrounding world. Still, consciousness and thing in general are thereby a connected whole (ein verbundenes Ganze), combined into individual psycho-physical unities that we call Animalia and ultimately connected in the real unity of the entire world. Can the unity of a whole be united other than through the essence proper to its parts, parts that thus have some kind of essential commonality instead of an intrinsic heterogeneity? (Hua III/1, 80; Husserl, 2014a, 68).

Although we will have to come back to these issues during the second volume of this work (when the time will come for us to finally discuss the concept of region in general), let us note that the passage just recalled clearly expresses the irreducibility of the ontological framework of Ideas (which rests on the introduction of notion of “region”) to that first unfolded in the Logical Investigations (see De Santis, 2021b, Part V). If we were to use the distinction employed by Husserl, it could be shown that in the Logical Investigations Husserl is considering only “homogenous” essences, essences that, in the jargon of Ideas, fall under the same highest genus and

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region: for example, the relation of “non-independence” between extension and color (highest genus or region: sensible or sensuous quality); or between quality and matter of an act (highest genus or region: conscious experience). Hence, and with respect to the two key-terms mobilized in the Third Logical Investigation, i.e., Verknüpfung (= as the synthesis between “non-individual” species) and Verbindung (= employed to designate the synthesis between the relevant individual “moments”) (Hua XIX/1, 254 and ff.), Verflechtung as is employed by Husserl in §39 of Ideas represents a real break. For it designates a synthesis that would be ruled out in principle by the framework of the Logical Investigations: the synthesis or conjunction between essences that do not at all fall under the same highest genus or region, i.e., what in Ideas Husserl refers to as the region psyche and the region thing respectively. The result of such a synthesis is an intrinsically “heterogeneous” essence (= an essence made up of “heterogeneous” parts, as it were). If we are on the right track, the very last sentence of the quotation above entails a reference to the way in which Husserl used to think of these problems in the Logical Investigations: “Can the unity of a whole be united other than through the essence proper to its parts, parts that thus have some kind of essential commonality instead of an intrinsic heterogeneity?” While the Husserl of the Logical Investigations would have answered this question in the negative, the Husserl of the first volume of Ideas answers it in the affirmative instead: there can obtain unitary “wholes” composed of intrinsically heterogeneous parts/essences. Such is the crucial case of the Animal or “psycho-­ physical unity.” Now, based on that just explained, how is Husserl’s train of thoughts in Ideas to be characterized? The arguments that Husserl unfolds step by step in the second chapter of the book (Consciousness and Natural Reality), and which result in the famous or too infamous “annihilation of the world” (in the chapter on The Region of Pure Consciousness, §49), are led by one major concern. The concern to argue for the possibility that the psycho-physical unity, that is its heterogeneous essence, be broken down and, metaphorically speaking, dismantled in such a way that consciousness can be brought to the fore as the exclusive domain of investigation of the new a priori and material science called “phenomenology.” This consciousness is pure because it is not investigated as a part of the real Animal. Here is what Husserl writes right after the “annihilation of the world”: Here it becomes clear that, in spite of all the talk, certainly well justified in its sense, of a real being of the human ego and its experiences of consciousness in the world, as well as talk of anything that in any way belongs to it in regard to “psycho-physical” connections, it becomes clear that consciousness considered in “purity” has to hold as a connection of being that is, for itself, closed off, i.e., as a context of absolute being into which nothing can penetrate and from which nothing can slip away, a context that has no spatiotemporal outside and can exercise causality on nothing, on the supposition that causality has the normal sense of natural causality as a relation of dependence between realities (Hua III/1, 105; Husserl, 2014a, 90).

There will be time later to comment in detail upon this important passage. As for now, we need to lay emphasis on the following aspect. The quotation confirms our

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reading thus far to the effect that the “domain” of phenomenology, i.e., pure consciousness, is obtained by breaking down the Animal or “psycho-physical unity.” In other words, if the (“heterogeneous”) unity of the Animal could not be broken down, and if, accordingly, the psycho-physical unity were the one and only possible form of subjectivity (= the real “psycho-physical subjectivity” embedded in the total causal connection of the world), then “phenomenology” as a science would not even be conceivable. For there would be no “additional” field of investigation (additional, with respect to the Animal and the psycho-physical subject as the domain of research of a series of already established sciences such as psychology, anthropology, etc.) which phenomenology could study and explore. There would be no need for a new, eidetic and material science of consciousness. (Pure) psychology would be more than enough. If we now go back to the framework of the Cartesian Meditations, it should immediately leap into view how misleading, if not even incorrect, is the idea of coupling together the text of 1931 with the first volume of Ideas. On the one hand, there is the concrete subjectivity or monad, which includes in itself the “psycho-­ physical unity” (= Cartesian Meditations). On the other hand, there is this very same psycho-physical unity which is regarded, if not explicitly as an obstacle, at least as something to be ontologically surmounted, so to speak, in order to establish phenomenology as the new eidetic science of the region “pure consciousness” (= Ideas). Even if the first volume of Ideas is already committed to transcendental idealism, it cannot be the same transcendental idealism advocated by the Cartesian Meditations. With respect to the primum concretum, the region “pure consciousness” is nothing other than a pseudo-concretum. This is a point that Husserl himself makes during one of his conversations with Dorion Cairns: Another matter of which Husserl spoke was the passage in the Ideen where he speaks of the conceivability of such a chain of hyletic data that there would be no constitution of an objective world. With Fink’s help he tried to make clear to me that, whatever its value there, the non-being of the world was really impossible. It is valid only, so to speak, in the primordial sphere. But the primordial sphere is an abstraction: within the allegedly primordial sphere appear necessarily the motivations for the constitution of transcendental intersubjectivity. But the world is the necessary form of intersubjectivity. Hence the being of the self or the stream requires the being of a world. Ultimately it is a matter of the interpretation of the monads (Cairns, 1976, 40).

The point is not that the world is no longer regarded as contingent; for it is always regarded as contingent. The point is rather to recognize that the annihilation of the world, therefore the analysis of the region pure consciousness etsi mundus non daretur is only an “abstraction” belonging to the “primordial sphere” (which is part of the monad or concrete ego) of the primum concretum.8  Let us also add that if in Ideas I the argument of the “world-annihilation” is paramount to the disclosure of the region “pure consciousness,” in the Meditations the possibility of the “non-being” of the world is explicitly evoked by Husserl in §7 (Hua I, 57; Husserl, 1993, 17) to make room for the transcendental subjectivity as a “field,” that is, before its determination as a concrete ego or monad. Even if Husserl will never renounce the idea of the “contingency” of the world (it is not our problem here to understand why this is the case), by the time the field of consciousness has 8

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2. One of the main obstacles to coming to terms with Husserl’s transcendental idealism is the tendency to move back and forth between radically different texts without justifying this mode of proceeding. Unfortunately, this tendency remains prevalent today (see Philipse, 1995; Lavigne, 2005, 15–101). A systematic classification of Husserl’s texts is therefore needed with the explicit aim of shedding light on how the question about TI should be properly framed. In the first place, we should speak of the esoteric dimension of Husserl’s thought: by such turn of phrase we mean to include his research manuscripts and, more generally, the texts that were not meant to be published (hereafter: ES). One can then speak of a semi-public dimension of Husserl’s philosophy, which would embrace e.g. his correspondence (hereafter: SP). To this, one should then add a third dimension of Husserl’s production, the public one: this would include lectures, seminars as well as public speeches and conferences (e.g., the Paris lectures) (hereafter: PU). Finally, one can speak of the exoteric dimension, with which we intend to refer both to the texts actually published by Husserl during his lifetime and those meant to be published (as is the case, for instance, with the drafts of the Encyclopedia Britannica article) (hereafter: EX).9 ES = Esoteric dimension SP = Semi-Public dimension PU = Public dimension EX = Exoteric dimension It is important not to misunderstand the reason behind this division. The point for us is not to determine which texts should be taken into consideration and which ones should be banned. Negatively speaking, the point is to avoid moving back and forth between texts and contexts that are chronologically distant from each other, thereby running the risk of mixing them up systematically. Positively speaking, the goal is to acknowledge that as there exist different layers and strata of Husserl’s production and exposition of his thought, and as it might be the case that a certain system of concepts appears at one level, yet not at another or simultaneously at many levels, then a strategy is required that is able to justify our selection of texts and hermeneutics. That a concept can be at work in a certain text, been determined as a concrete ego or monad in CM IV, the hypothesis itself that the world could not be is ruled out in principle. There cannot be a “monad” without a corresponding existing “world” (and vice versa, according to Husserl). See Hua XXXIX, e.g., Texts Nr. 24 and 25, for they confirm our reading. As Husserl writes, the assumption of a certain world implies “analytically” (Hua XXXIX, 254) the assumption of a certain concrete subjectivity as part of it. 9  A similar, yet in many respects still extremely vague, attempt at identifying and distinguishing the many layers of Husserl’s work (Aspekte der Entwicklung und Wirkung) is made by Ingarden at the very beginning of his 1967 lectures on Husserl’s phenomenology (Ingarden, 1992, 12–14). Ingarden distinguishes between the layer of the published works; the different typologies of lectures and seminars; and the research manuscripts.

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even if its explicit presence is nowhere to be found (as is the case with the term/ concept “transcendental idealism” in Ideas) is one thing. That one could take for granted that—although a certain term (or concept) is nowhere to be explicitly found in a certain text or context—its latent presence can be equally assumed without further ado, is another. We can accept the former line of thought but have to decisively reject the latter. Since the strategy to adopt can and should vary depending upon the specific set of concepts and problems under scrutiny, let us here focus on what interests us in the first place: Husserl’s transcendental idealism. As should be apparent, our strategy has been so far, and is going to still be the following: primary attention is to be given to EX and PU, that is to say, to all those texts and contexts in which Husserl publically (PU) and officially (EX) presents his view on TI. Thus, and based on what we can firmly establish in this way, an attempt will be made at moving in two different, yet parallel, directions. On the one hand, the question will have to be asked why TI appears in certain EX and PU-texts, while not in other EX and PU-texts. In short, the problem will be why TI appears in certain official and public contexts (e.g., the Cartesian Meditations), yet not in others (e.g., Ideas I). On the other hand, we will try to move beyond the limits of PU-EX to understand how TI actually developed over the years in texts and contexts in which it is nowhere to be found. The highly problematic character of the state of affairs is shown by the following fact. In a letter of 1934 to Émile Baudin Husserl labels himself “the phenomenological ‘idealist;’” and yet, he hastens to add the following: “by the way, this is a word [= idealism] which I no longer use” (Hua-Dok III/, 7). The letter was written in June 1934. In the text written a few months later for his lecture for the eighth World Congress of Philosophy in Prague (September 2–9, 1934), Husserl will remark that terms such as idealism, subjectivism, and transcendentalism are now affected by a “bad reputation” (übelbeleumundetes Wort) (Hua XXVII, 195). That Husserl must have really felt this way is also shown by the last work he published during his lifetime: the Crisis of European Sciences. Here the term “idealism” seems never to be employed by Husserl to characterize his own transcendental phenomenology. In a letter of 1932 to Ingarden, Husserl speaks of a “completely new ‘idealism’” (Hua-Dok III/3, 287), yet only in quotation marks and, most importantly, only with an explicit reference to the Meditations. At least when it comes to EX, Husserl seems to make good on his words to Baudin. Albeit it is not easy to determine when, exactly, Husserl decided to stop using it to officially label his thought, the term is explicitly present in the Nachwort of 1930, yet appears nowhere in the Phenomenology and Anthropology lecture of 1931 (but we know that it surfaced in that very same year, in France, in the Méditations cartésiennes).10 This being anticipated, we would consider as falling under EX the following group of texts: (a) Méditations cartésiennes (1931) (b) The Nachwort to Ideas I (§5) (1930)  For a different, yet important reconstruction of the development of Husserl’s idealism in connection with the question of time, see Nobili, 2022, §§1.5, 4.1–4.4. 10

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(c) Formal and Transcendental Logic (§66) (1929) (d) The draft of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation (1929) (Hua X, 20–21) (e) The “first draft” of the Encyclopedia Britannica article (1927) (f) The text for the so-called “systematic work” (October 1926) (Hua XXXIV, 16)11 On the contrary, under PU we would number the following group of texts. A. The Paris Lectures (1929) B. The lectures on First Philosophy II (1923–1924) (Hua VIII, 181; see also 506) C. The lectures on Introduction to Philosophy (1922–1923) (Hua XXXV, 199) D. The text for the London conference (1922) (Hua XXXV, 336) E. Lectures on Nature and Spirit (1919) (Hua-Mat IV, 196) F. Lectures on Selected Phenomenological Problems (1915) (Hua XXXVI, 130) G. Lectures on Nature and Spirit (1913) (Hua XXXVI, 73–79)12 Without the ambition of being complete (while waiting for some other lectures to be published and made available in the near future), these two lists should already help us have a more fine-grained picture of the places where Husserl himself publically (= A-G) and officially (= a-f) presented his view on phenomenology as a transcendental idealism. The EX-list can certainly be regarded as more complete and reliable than the PU-list. What the latter suggests is that Husserl seems to have started using the phrase “transcendental idealism” to designate his phenomenology during the SS of 1913 (see the remarks by the editors in Hua XXXVI, 20913), immediately after the release of Ideas (April 1913) (Schuhmann, 1977, 177).14 The label is used constantly over the years; yet, almost none of these texts offer an assessment of TI that is minimally comparable to A and, most importantly, a. What the EX-list suggests is even more interesting. If we are on the right track, with the exception of f (= the texts for the so-called systematic work from Fall 1926), the trajectory of the official appearance of the expression “transcendental idealism” to designate phenomenology overlaps with the period of Husserl’s confrontation with Heidegger and his work.  We are intentionally leaving out of the picture Husserl’s Vorwort to the essay of 1933 by Eugen Fink on his Master’s phenomenology (now in Fink, 1966, vii-viii). This would require a deep examination which cannot be conducted in the present context. On the Husserl-Fink relationship, see Bruzina, 2004. 12  Let us remark that phrase “transcendental idealism” explicitly appears in the title (given by Husserl himself) of the text for the 1913 lectures on Nature and Spirit (Hua XXXVI, 73) (F), yet not in the published portion of the manuscript itself. When it comes to the 1925 lectures on Selected Phenomenological Problems it must be noted that the expression appears only in what is now the Beilage IV (Hua XXXVI, 130). According to the editors, the text was written in the 20 s. 13  If this fact is not disproved by any future publication of the still unpublished material from the Husserl Archive, the hypothesis can be advanced that Husserl started adopting the expression “transcendental idealism” to publically designate his own phenomenology after it had already been employed (for example, by some of his students) to criticize him. The same in fact had already happened with the label “Platonic,” or “Platonism”, which Husserl seems to have adopted only after Natorp and Marty had criticized the Logical Investigations for what they regarded as the book’s Platonic tendencies. 14  Moran, 2003, 49, also considers the Fichte lectures an important testimony to Husserl’s idealism. 11

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Being and Time was released in April 1927 as a separately printed book; Husserl’s first reading of the book was in August 1927; in October 1927, there takes place the failed attempt at a collaboration on the draft of the Encyclopedia Britannica article (Heidegger & Blochmann, 1990, 21); the two meet again in January 1928 (Heidegger & Blochmann, 1990, 23). In February 1929, Husserl is in France to give his lectures; during that very same year he will re-read once again all of Heidegger’s works; he will publish Formal and Transcendental Logic and also keep working on the manuscript of the Meditations; in 1930 the Nachwort is published and then, in 1931, the Méditations cartésiennes (where the most systematic assessment of TI is provided) (Husserl, 1997, 21–32). In that very same year, in Germany, Husserl will bring his confrontation with Heidegger to a personal conclusion with the lecture on Phenomenology and Anthropology. In sum, the period of Husserl’s confrontation with Heidegger is also the only period in which he officially designates his phenomenology as transcendental idealism.15 This being pointed out, a distinction is immediately necessary. For it is one thing to say that the confrontation with Heidegger represented the causa occasionalis for Husserl to present TI, i.e., the most advanced version of his phenomenology in order to sharply differentiate his position from the former’s, but it is quite another to believe that the confrontation with Heidegger was the actual reason for finally developing TI. We embrace the first and reject the second. Husserl officially presents TI because of Heidegger; yet this because is not the because of analysis (to speak à la Sellars), but only a descriptive because. The confrontation with Heidegger was for Husserl the occasion to offer an idea of phenomenology and of the subject understood as a concrete ego, which he had slowly developed over the years after the publication of Ideas (we tried to quickly reconstruct such development in Chap. 3, §§ 4–6). The confrontation was neither the occasion nor the reason for actually developing it. As we saw earlier, phenomenology as a form of transcendental idealism follows from the new (new—with respect to Ideas) understanding of the region ego. To go the other way around: in order for TI to be officially presented as a fully justified thesis, a re-elaboration of the subject as a concrete ego (= in opposition to pure consciousness) was required. The confrontation was the causa occasionalis for Husserl to show that the transcendental subject had already undergone such re-elaboration and, along with it, phenomenology itself. But it is only in the Meditations that the outcomes of the re-elaboration become officially apparent. The relation here pinpointed between the monad and TI will be later corroborated. Moreover, and based on what has been argued thus far, we will first present and then try to justify the claim to the effect that it is not correct to speak stricto sensu of “transcendental idealism” in Ideas.

15

 For the Heideggerian chronicle up to the year 1927, see Xolocotzi Yáñez, 2011, 112–121.

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3. Before we move on to the last two problems, let us consider the other two texts where Husserl officially presents TI between 1929 and 1930. The first to be taken into consideration is Formal and Transcendental Logic, §66 on Psychological and Phenomenological Idealism. As is clear from the title of the paragraph, Husserl’s main concern is to state the irreducibility of the “phenomenological idealism” to all sorts of psychological idealism (Hua XVII, 178; Husserl, 1969, 170). Given the limited scope of the book’s analyses, all Husserl does is say idealism deals with the operations and performances (Leistungen) of the transcendental subject, thereby aspiring to develop an all-encompassing critique of reason, “the transcendental critique of knowledge” (Hua XVII, 179; Husserl, 1969, 171). If one wonders why Husserl does not get into any discussion of “transcendental idealism” in the same manner in which he had already done in the text for the French lectures, the answer, we believe, is straightforward. TI and, more specifically, the conception of the (concrete) ego upon which it builds are not material to the specific problems with which Husserl is grappling in Formal and Transcendental Logic. There is no need to mobilize the concept of concrete ego, let alone TI, in order to deal with the themes with which Formal and Transcendental Logic grapples. The method of self-variation, thus the correlation between ontic form and subjective form, are more than enough for Husserl in this context.16 The situation with §5 from the Nachwort zu meinen Ideen (Hua V) is quite different and far more complex. In §4 Husserl has already touched upon the idea that it is “the I, which I am, that confers ontological validity to the being of the world.” The “world is for me only as long as it obtains sense […] from my own pure life” (Hua V, 149). Given such premise, §5 goes on to explicitly speak of “transcendental-­ phenomenological idealism” (Hua V, 149–150). One of the difficulties that one can face here is that TI is introduced as a “consequence” of the Second Section, Second Chapter, §§33–46 of Ideas. The difficulty arises because it is not clear what Husserl means when he refers to TI as a “consequence” of that chapter. Or, to put it better, what is not apparent is where such consequence is to be sought. Three alternative readings are possible. According to the first reading, he would be referring to the Third Chapter of this same section, namely, the one entitled The Region of Pure Consciousness, in which the quite infamous §49 and the Weltvernichtung can also be found. In this case, Husserl would be arguing that TI is de facto to be found in these paragraphs (which is what scholars usually tend to argue for). According to the second reading, Husserl would not be referring to the Third Chapter; rather, he would be making a broader point to the effect that TI should be, in general, regarded as a “consequence” of the main outcomes of the analyses unfolded in §§33–46 of Ideas. There is also a third option, however, according to which he has de facto in mind the Third Chapter of the Second Section—but the analyses sketched therein  For a discussion of this text, a still valuable contribution is the one by Bachelard, 1957, 238–289.

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are being implicitly re-thought by Husserl in light of the more recent acquisitions of his thought (this is why he refers the reader to the soon to be published Méditations cartésiennes (Hua V, 150, footnote)). As far as we are concerned, we would affirm that the text and Husserl’s own line of argumentation support the third proposed reading. Husserl explains that the “discussion” or Darstellung of the Second Section, Second Chapter is affected by many “imperfections” (Unvollkommenheiten). Even if the overall argument proposed is essentially unangreifbar, “un-attackable” (let us not forget that here Husserl is not referring to the chapter that includes §49 and the Weltvernichtung, but to the one before), it “lacks” (fehlt ihr) what only can “lay out” (anbelagen) “the justification and grounding of transcendental idealism” (Begründung des transzendentalen Idealismus): “the transcendental inter-subjectivity” (Hua V, 150). Now, that this can only confirm our hypothesis to the effect that Husserl is retro-projecting on the theoretical framework of Ideas that of the Meditations can be inferred from the following. In the first place, it needs to be said that the account and quick assessment of TI that Husserl here proposes (Hua V, 152–153) matches that of the Cartesian Meditations: TI is concerned with the sense or Sinn of the existing (= this) world. Secondly, the transcendental ego on which the clarification of the sense of the world rests is concretely (konkret) regarded (it is no longer the region “pure consciousness”17). And phenomenology itself is characterized as a “concrete science” (Hua V, 152), as the science of the concrete subjectivity or monad. As we shall remember, the fact that TI builds upon an inter-monadological-subjectivity does not simply mean the necessity of also accounting for the constitution of the alter ego; rather, it means that only the “inter-monadological-subjectivity” (in the sense of the primum concretum) can establish which real world factually exists. TI bears upon this world, the only one that we inhabit. For the sake of our problems here, the official version of TI to which both the Meditations and the Nachwort are committed can be roughly summarized in the following way. • The figure of the transcendental subject upon which it rests is that of the “concrete ego” or “monad” with its threefold concreteness (≠ region “pure consciousness”) (contrary to what happens in Ideas, where the possibility of establishing “phenomenology” and its domain of investigation requires that the Animal be set aside);

 That after Ideas Husserl might have tried to retrospectively and systematically understand the book of 1913 in light of the later development of this thought is for example shown by a 1921 text in which the idea of “pure consciousness” is equated with that of the “monadological being” (Hua XXXVI, 176). 17

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• More specifically, the monadological subject on which TI builds is already by definition an “inter-subjective” monadological subject (= AC or primum concretum); • What TI is about is not the world’s dependence on consciousness, but the determination of the only existing world as the universe of sense.18 Without concrete ego and monad,  there cannot be any monadological inter-­ subjectivity, and without the monadological inter-subjectivity there cannot be any determination of the sense of the one and only existing world: such being the trains of thought expressed by TI’s official version. Without getting into any detailed discussion of the Göttingen lectures in which Husserl resorts to the phrase transcendental idealism, notably, E and F from the PU-list, the following can already be ascertained. If we ask ourselves the question, what is the main problem around which the lectures on Selected Phenomenological Problems of 1915 revolve, the answer will be: the “justification” or “legitimization” (as one could translate Anspruch, Rechtsanspruch and Begründung) of the positing or assumption of one existing world (Annahme einer existierenden Welt) (Hua XXXVI, 117, where Husserl speaks of diese Welt und keine andere) over against an “infinite” number of possible worlds that could correspond to consciousness (Husserl speaks of viele besondere Ausgestaltungen der Idee “Welt,” eine Unendlichkeit von Möglichkeiten von transzendenten Dingmannigfaltigkeiten). Hence, it is no coincidence that the only portion of the lectures that we have at our disposal, notably, what is now §12 (Einfühlung als Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer und derselben Welt für mehrere Ich) ends with the question whether there can be a multiplicity (Mehrheit) of un-related (getrennte) egos, each of which with its own un-related world (mit getrennten und völlig verschiedenen Welten) (Hua XXXVI, 123). Even though we do not have yet all the concepts to which Husserl will resort in §60 (e.g., the distinction between world and Umwelt; the monad as the absolute concretum; a distinction between first order and higher order syntheses, and so forth), the argument is structurally the same. What is more, the subjectivity upon which such argument builds is not the monad of course, but the “psychophysical” one, the subject endowed with a lived-body, only thanks to whose presence can one speak of actual motivations and experience (Hua XXXVI, 126). However, the fact that the theoretical framework of 1915 does not perfectly overlap with that of 1931 is shown by the psychophysical subject (animalische Realität)  An objection could be made against our reconstruction of TI in the present context (see Tedeschini, 2014, 241). While in fact Husserl speaks of the “sense-being” relationship (TI consisting in the reduction of the latter to the former), we have been on the contrary emphasizing the question of the one real world, thereby limiting the semantic scope of the ontological determination of “being” to “reality.” Against such possible objection, it should be noted (De Santis, 2021b, Part VII) that Husserl quite soon abandons the talk of “idealities” in favor of that of “irrealities.” In other words, our talk of “the one real world” does not intend to exclude from the scope of TI the determination of ideal objects. Quite the opposite: to the extent that for Husserl the real world represents the only ground on the basis of which the constitution of idealities (= irrealities) is possible, then also the latter are indirectly included within our construal of TI. Moreover, it should be added that the objection in question seems to straightforwardly identify the “theory of constitution” and the core thesis of TI: the latter, in fact, bears directly and exclusively on the one real world. 18

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being eventually excluded by the reduction (Hua XXXVI, 126–129). In other words, Husserl is still far away from thinking that there can be an individual, concrete and yet also absolute subjectivity: the monad. The opening lines of the Beilage IV to the lectures of 1915 explicitly suggest that TI cannot be “demonstrated” without the inter-subjective dimension of the constitution (Hua XXXVI, 130; see De Santis, 2017). When it comes to the short text Nr. 5 from the 1913 lectures on Nature and Spirit (Hua XXXVI, 73–79)—which both Edith Stein and Roman Ingarden attended—a similar point can be made. Given the material at our disposal, this represents the first public appearance of “transcendental idealism” (see the PU-list), and the question these pages revolve around is the same one Husserl will tackle in the lectures of 1915.19 The problem is to determine what “justifies” and “legitimizes” the position or assumption of one existing world (die Existenz einer Welt) or of one actual reality (Existenz einer wirklichen Realität or Existenz des Dinges) (Hua XXXVI, 78–79) over against the possibility of imagining or contriving an infinite number of ideal worlds “incompatible” with one another (Hua XXXVI, 74–75). Unsurprisingly, a later remark made by Husserl himself reads: Hier habe ich aber die ganze Lehre von Intersubjektivität vergessen! Wie in der ganzen Vorlesung ; “But here I forgot the entire doctrine of inters-subjectivity. Just like in the lectures ” (see Hua XXXVI, 78, footnote). As a matter of fact, however, this text ends by recognizing the necessity of “assuming a multiplicity of co-existing monads,” yet without Husserl delving into it. Even if our comparison between the theoretical framework of the Meditations and of the two Göttingen lectures was brief and in need of further examination, one point should be evident to the reader. Some of the conceptual differences notwithstanding—e.g. the difference between monad in one case and “animal reality” in the other—the manner in which Husserl will officially present TI in the late 20s and early 30s matches with the way in which he had first publically presented and spoken of TI in Göttingen, right after the publication of Ideas. The two match, yet are not identical. For, it is one thing to realize that without the inter-subjective constitution TI cannot be justified; and quite another to have a full doctrine of the transcendental inter-subjective constitution. It is one thing to know that unless the subjectivity has a lived-body and a psychophysical constitution, one cannot lay claim to the presence of actual motivations and actual experience; and quite another to have a fully-fledged conception of the transcendental, yet individual and absolutely concrete ego. It is one thing to speak of the existence of the real world and real “thing” indifferently (as Husserl does in those two lectures); and another to have a more fine-grained idea of the world as a correlate of the monads, therefore of the distinction between surrounding and objective world. Last but not least, it is one thing to take the problem of the determination of the existence of one real world merely as one problem among many others; and quite another to deem it a metaphysical problem, a problem that implies a specific view on “metaphysics” as a part of the system of sciences.  Let us note that, considering the portion of the lectures that has been published, the phrase “transcendental idealism” appears only in the title (given by Husserl himself). 19

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What is evident is that, according to both its first public and official appearances, TI’s thesis is not the one affirming the one-sided dependence of the world (in general) on consciousness (in general). Rather, it is the basic thesis according to which the position of a determined real world requires the existence of a determined real ego (= a multiplicity thereof), just as the existence of a determined real ego (= a multiplicity thereof) means the position of a determined real world. We will elaborate upon the difference between requires (= “…requires the existence of a determined real ego”) and means (= “…means the position of a determined real world”) over the course of this chapter. This being emphasized, the time is now ripe to approach the first volume of Ideas and show in what sense and to what extent it is not correct to speak in this case of “transcendental idealism.”

4. We certainly have no ambition to propose some kind of scandalous or non-­conformist reading of Ideas (§49), or of the “world-annihilation.” Yet, we firmly believe that a distinction should be made between the following three kinds of questions: (i) Had Husserl already embraced TI by the time the first volume of Ideas was published? (ii) Are the arguments presented in Ideas already meant to introduce and justify TI? (iii) Is there any passage or argument that intentionally points in the direction of TI? Our position is the following. While questions i and iii should be firmly answered in the affirmative, ii is to be answered in the negative. By the time Husserl sets out to compose and then publish the first volume of Ideas, he has already come to embrace toto corde TI, as is clear from the lectures of 1913 on Nature and Spirit given right after their publications. Moreover, and even though we are firmly convinced that Ideas is not committed to legitimizing TI, in the text there are passages which undoubtedly point in that direction. Yet, if we are also firmly convinced that ii should be answered in the negative, the reason is the following. As already mentioned above (see §1 in the present chapter), if the question were, what is Husserl’s main, if not even sole concern in Ideas? The answer should be: His main, perhaps even exclusive concern is to justify the existence of a new eidetic and material science of consciousness! In this respect, and no matter whether such way of framing the problem might be less exciting than expected, Husserl’s preoccupation has to do with something that is far more fundamental than any discussion concerning TI. For it bears upon the very possibility and existence of phenomenology as a science with a field of investigation of its own, namely, “pure consciousness” as a region of being and as something different from the Seele, mind or psyche as the subject-matter of pure psychology. What is at stake is the possibility of his science. And since the preliminary condition that only can legitimize the introduction of a new science is the existence of a corresponding

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domain of research, it becomes crucial for him to lay claim to the possibility of describing pure consciousness as a self-sufficient “region.” This is the ultimate ambition of the book, and this is what the analyses unfolded in both the second and the third chapter of the second section systematically lead to (§§33–55). And such is the framework within which §49 and the infamous Weltvernichtung should be understood. If we are opposing the thesis to the effect that Ideas is already committed to justifying TI, it is not only because Husserl’s concern in the book has to do with something more fundamental than TI  itself, but first and foremost because Husserl’s conception of transcendental idealism does not and cannot hinge upon “pure consciousness,” but rather only upon the determination of the subject as a psycho-­ physical individual (= animalische Realität) endowed with a “body” (see §3 above). Since Husserl himself recognizes that the region “pure consciousness” has neither “body” (leiblos) nor “psyche” (seelenlos) (Hua III/1, 119; Husserl, 2014a, 101), the conclusion must be drawn that the region “pure consciousness” is simply per se unable to ground TI. And Husserl is fully aware of it.20 This being pointed out, let us now approach the text. As far as we know, the only scholar who has thus far recognized the non-transcendental character of the arguments that slowly lead Husserl to the Welt-Vernichtung of §49 is Lavigne (2009), although he does it in a sense that diverges from us. Majolino (2010) has laid strong emphasis on the eidetic dimension of Husserl’s mode of working, although it is not completely clear to us whether he would regard Husserl’s arguments as already transcendental, i.e., as taking place already in the transcendental attitude.21 Now, if at this point we were to explain how the arguments in Chapter Two and Three of Ideas should be understood, we would say they are purely psychological: purely psychological meaning that the analyses from §33 to §55 are conducted from the standpoint of pure psychology and within the psychological attitude. In sum, Husserl aims at showing that it is from within the psychological attitude that the necessity of recognizing the existence of a new, eidetic “science” of consciousness imposes itself. Since it is not our ambition to go over all these paragraphs page by page; and since our goal is on the contrary to shed light only and exclusively upon the nature

 Thus, it is not correct to talk of the region “pure consciousness” in terms of my pure consciousness (as Ingarden, 1992, 216 on the contrary does). 21  By contrast, the hypothesis that the Weltvernichtung would suggest “that some form of consciousness could exist and persist even when not being world-disclosing, i.e. even in cases where there is not yet (say, in infantile experience) or no longer (say, in psychosis) a harmonious and coherently regulated set of experiences that allow for the constitution of worldly objects” (Zahavi, 2017, 103)—such hypothesis has the merit of suggesting the non-transcendental character of the arguments, but nothing more than this. For nowhere does Husserl suggest that pure consciousness as a “residue” could be equated to an “infantile experience” (for Husserl an infant is a psycho-­ physical individual, just as is a psycho-physical reality the subject affected by “psychosis”). If this were on the contrary the case, then “pure consciousness” would still be a variation upon the concept of animalische Realität. 20

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of §49, in the following we will first justify our overall stance on the paragraphs §§33–55, then we will assess directly §49. In order to understand in what sense Husserl’s arguments in Chapter Two and Three do not have a transcendental nature, it should be kept in mind that if the “ἐποχή” is first performed by Husserl in §32 (The Phenomenological ἐποχή), this happens only in a preliminary way. Here is what Husserl writes at the outset of §33: “We come to understand the sense of the phenomenological ἐποχή, but in no way its possible operation (Leistung)?” (Hua III/1, 66; Husserl, 2014a, 56). If §32 has clarified the Sinn of the phenomenological ἐποχή, namely, how it is supposed to work, and in what sense it is not to be immediately identified with the Cartesian doubt, what is still in need of being clarified is its Leistung or, as we have translated it, “operation.” Leistung here does not designate “what it is capable of achieving” (as Dahlstrom translates in Husserl, 2014a, 56); rather, the phrase mögliche Leistung means that what is yet to be clarified is how the ἐποχή is at all possible; how its Leistung or actual operation could be justified and legitimized. We already know what it is (its Sinn); yet, we still do not know how its Leistung is at all möglich, possible. Accordingly, and if we are on the right track, the analyses and descriptions that Husserl is going to unfold from this moment on do not presuppose the already accomplished performance of the ἐποχή. Quite the contrary. They aim at (retro-) justifying its actual possibility. This is clearly shown by the opening lines of §34: Let us begin with a series of observations in which we do not trouble ourselves with any phenomenological ἐποχή. We are directed at the “external world” in a natural manner, and, without leaving the natural attitude, we carry out a psychological reflection on our ego and its Erleben. We delve further into the essence of the “consciousness” of something, just as we would do if we had heard nothing of the new kind of attitude, the very consciousness in which we are conscious, for example, of the existence of material things, bodies, human beings, the existence of technical and literary works, and so forth. We follow our general principle that each individual occurrence has its essence that can be grasped in eidetic purity and in this purity must belong to a field of possible research (Hua III/1, 69; Husserl, 2014a, 59).

The excerpt with which Husserl starts out his systematic investigations of the essence consciousness of… leaves no room for doubt on how they are meant to be understood. We do not bother ourselves with any phenomenological ἐποχή; we proceed as if we have never heard of the “new” attitude (i.e., the new attitude disclosed by the ἐποχή); we do not leave the natural attitude. Yet we carry out, not empirical investigations, but rather eidetic and essential ones. And the only eidetic investigation of consciousness possible on the ground of the natural attitude is the purely psychological one. This means that—in Husserl’s own perceptive—it is by means of a psychological-eidetic investigation of the essence of consciousness (“consciousness of…”) that we can slowly, yet systematically show in what sense and to what extent the performance of the phenomenological ἐποχή can be justified and made possible, thereby opening up a brand new field of eidetic inquiry. We shall not forget, in fact, that the actual performance of the many transcendental reductions will take place in Chap. 4, §56.

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The opening lines of §39 provide further confirmation of our hypothesis. All the essential characteristics of lived-experience and consciousness that we have attained are for us necessary preliminary steps towards reaching the goal constantly guiding us, namely, attaining the essence of that “pure” consciousness by means of which the phenomenological field is supposed to be determined. Our considerations were eidetic; but the singular individuals (singuläre Einzelheiten) of the essence lived-experience, stream of consciousness, and so of “consciousness” in every sense belonged to the natural world as real occurrences. Indeed, we have not given up the natural attitude as the basis (den Boden der natürlichen Einstellung). Individual consciousness is interwoven (verflochtet) in a dual manner with the natural world; it is some human being’s or some animal’s consciousness, and, at least in a large number of these particular instances, it is consciousness of this world (Hua III/1, 79–80; Husserl, 2014a, 67–68, translation slightly modified).

The excerpt is a robust confirmation of what we have been arguing thus far. Not only does Husserl emphasize once again that all the previous analyses had been conducted on the ground of the natural world and natural attitude; he clearly identifies the “consciousness of...” so far eidetically studied as a human or, more generally, animal consciousness. In sum, the consciousness here under scrutiny is the one belonging to, or making up, the real “psycho-physical unity,” the essence of which is called heterogeneous because it is the result of the Verflechtung of two heterogeneous essences or regions: the essence or region material thing and the essence or region psyche. […] it is easy to be convinced that the material world is not an arbitrary piece of the natural world but is instead its fundamental layer, to which every other real being is essentially related. What it still lacks are the souls or psyches of humans and animals; and the novelty introduced by them here is first and foremost their “experiencing,” which entails being consciously related to their surrounding world. Still, consciousness and thing in general are thereby a connected whole, combined into individual psycho-physical unities that we call Animalia and ultimately connected in the real unity of the entire world. Can the unity of a whole be united other than through the essence proper to its parts, parts that thus have some kind of essential commonality instead of an intrinsic heterogeneity? (Hua III/1, 80; Husserl, 2014a, 68).

The possibility of establishing an eidetic, material science of “consciousness” alternative to pure psychology requires that (pure) consciousness be brought to light as a new field of investigation. This being stressed once again, a remark immediately imposes itself in order to avoid a possible objection against our line of thought so far. In fact, we seem to have fallen into a vicious circle. For on the one hand, we have been arguing that Husserl’s goal in these paragraphs is to justify the very possibility of the Leistung of the phenomenological ἐποχή by means of which one can finally enter the phenomenological attitude and open up the new field of investigation (= “pure consciousness”). On the other hand, by recognizing that the descriptions that lead Husserl all the way to §49 are still carried out in the natural attitude, we seem to be implicitly saying that the phenomenological ἐποχή presupposes the already accomplished disclosure of the field of pure consciousness. Is the opening up of “pure consciousness” the result of the psychological descriptions carried out by Husserl from §34 onward? Or can it be actually opened up only by means of the phenomenological ἐποχή (from §56

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onward22)? If the former option is the correct one, then there would be no need to introduce the methodological tool of the phenomenological ἐποχή, and pure psychology would suffice. If, on the contrary, the second option is the correct option, then how is pure psychology supposed to disclose, from within the world, the (new) field of a different (and brand new) eidetic and material science? As we believe that this is no real alternative, a further and fundamental observation should be made. Husserl introduces the dizzying argument of the Welt-­ Vernichtung as follows: “If we add now the results obtained at the end of the last chapter, that is to say, if we think of the possibility of non-being that belongs to the essence of every thing-like transcendence, then it becomes evident that the being of consciousness […] would necessarily be modified, to be sure, by the annihilation of the world of things, but would not be affected in its own existence” (Hua III/1, 104; Husserl, 2014a, 88–89). The eidetic and ontological autonomy of the “being” of consciousness is conceived of as a possibility; and Husserl regards the overall operation as the actual and most coherent consequence of “the results obtained at the end of the last chapter,” i.e., at the end of §46: Indubitability of the Immanent, Dubitability of the Transcendent Perception. If we now go back to what Husserl asserts there, we will realize how conscious he already was of the crucial implications of that paragraph: With this conclusion, our considerations have reached a high point (Höhepunkt). We have gathered the knowledge that we need. The essential connections that have been disclosed to us already entail the most important premises for the conclusions that we wish to draw for the intrinsic detachability (die prinzipielle Ablösbarkeit) of the entire natural world from the domain of consciousness, from the lived-experiences’ sphere of being. […] To be sure, there will be a need subsequently for some remaining, easily supplied additions, in order to reach our final goals. Let us draw our consequences provisionally within the framework of limited validity (Hua III/1, 99; Husserl, 2014a, 84).

As the opening lines of §47 confirm (“In connection with the results of the last chapter…”), Husserl regards the descriptions presented from §47 to the outset of §49 as “easily supplied additions” and consequences of §46 itself. Hence, it is upon the latter that we shall dwell a little. Husserl’s discourse in this paragraph bears upon the difference between two modes of givenness, between the one proper to an object immanent to the flow of consciousness and the one proper to a transcendent object. Given the psychological perspective adopted by Husserl from §34 on, it is clear that here we are not directly dealing with the ontological and eidetic investigation of the two objects in question (consciousness and world), but rather with their respective Gegebenheit. When it comes to das Gegebene corresponding to the Dingwelt, Husserl concludes, “as a matter of essential law, thing-like existence is never an existence necessarily demanded by the givenness but is instead always contingent” (Hua III/1, 97; Husserl, 2014a, 83). By as a matter of essential law, Husserl is not referring to the essence of a thing as an individuum of the region Ding, hence to this very region; he is rather  Ja, aber das Wesen des reinen Bewußtseins soll doch erst vermittels der Reduktion entdeckt werden, nicht umgekehrt (Ingarden, 1992, 227). 22

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characterizing the essence of the Gegebenheit of a thing in general. The difference or, even better: the non-identity between the thing, or thing-like object, and its givenness to consciousness is such that the latter cannot postulate by itself nor guarantee (fordern) the former’s “existence.” That such discourse does not prima facie concern the ontological determination of the region nature, but rather the eidetic-­ reflective investigation (= pure psychology) of conscious experiences, is shown by Husserl using expressions such as Setzung or Erfahrungssetzung, Thesis (of the world) and für mich (Hua III/1, 98; Husserl, 2014a, 83–84). As is known, when it comes to the Dingwelt, Husserl’s strong conclusion is that, in a straightforward opposition to the thesis of the “ego-life,” “the thesis of the world is ‘contingent’” (Hua III/1, 98; Husserl, 2014a, 83). Accordingly, the character of contingency (Zufälligkeit) does not apply to the world itself, i.e., to the eidetic or ontological region “world” and its individuals, but rather to certain acts of consciousness, namely, those acts that give and posit as existent the individuals falling under the region “world” (things and thing-like objects).23 This is a crucial point that needs to be adequately stressed. In opposition to Roman Ingarden (see e.g. Ingarden, 1929), the ontological apparatus forged by Husserl does not include, in addition to formal ontology and the many material ontologies corresponding to the different regions and sub-regions, any “existential ontology.”24 This investigates neither the formal structure (der formale Aufbau) of the object nor its material essence (materiales Wesen), but rather its “mode of existence” (Existenzmodus). Here is what Ingarden writes: “The existential-ontological investigations that bear upon the various possible modes of being of the entity in general should not be merely limited to the determination of the two modes of existence of the real and pure consciousness; they have to take into account all the possible modes of being and their moments” (Ingarden, 1929, 163). Without getting into any detailed discussion of Ingarden’s philosophy (see Volume 2, Chap. 2), the point for us is to stress that there is no such thing as an existential ontology in Husserl.25 For him, the object’s mode of existence is not to be established and determined ontologically, i.e., via the analysis of its material essence or of “the content of the idea”26 under which it falls (Ingarden), but rather only via its Gegebenheit.  A strong criticism of these Husserlian arguments can be found in Landmann, 1923, 47–52. Landmann rejects the idea of an ontological Abgrund between reality and consciousness on the basis of the argument that Wirklichkeit and Unbezweifelbarkeit are two “heterogeneous determinations,” and the latter does not necessarily also imply the former. 24  Ingarden himself implicitly admits this during his analysis of Husserl’s concept of Seinsweise. Here he writes that Husserl’s conceptuality is to be re-framed in meiner Sprache (see Ingarden, 1992, 178). For an introduction of what has been rightly called La particularité de l’ontologie d’Ingarden: l’ontologie existentielle, see the editor’s introductory remarks in Ingarden, 2001, 45–49 and ff. 25  Ingarden himself recognizes this, but of course in a critical way against Husserl himself; see Ingarden, 1975, 5. 26  Dabei fasse ich hier der Einfachheit halber den Begriff der Ontologie etwas weiter als dies E. Husserl in seinen „Ideen“tut. Ich verstehe nämlich darunter jede apriorische Untersuchung der Gehalte von Ideen (Ingarden, 1929, 162). On the notion of content of the idea, see e.g. Ingarden, 23

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The predicate of Zufälligkeit applies only to the position of thing-like objects by consciousness. Contrary to what Hering and Ingarden contend, the object’s material essence does not include its mode of existence, not even as a moment (see Chap. 2, §5 of this volume; and Volume 2, Chap. 2). It is against the backdrop of such a premise that the further developments of Husserl’s argument need be read and understood. For what Husserl does is conceptually contrive (gedanklich) a series of variations upon the structures of consciousness that will eventually culminate in the “annihilation of the world” of §49: it is “the conceptual (gedankliche) destruction of the thing-like objectivity” (Hua III/1, 100; Husserl, 2014a, 85; see also De Santis, 2019a). The first step in such conceptual destruction consists in thinking of an “intuitive world” behind which “there would not be a physical world at all, i.e., that the things of perception dispensed with any possibility of being mathematically, physically determined” (Hua III/1, 100; Husserl, 1994a, b, c, 85). As Husserl admits—and this is exactly the point he is inviting us to take into consideration—in this case “the experiential connections” would be “typically other than they factually are” (in our world) yet “things” would present themselves “similarly to the way they present themselves now.” There would be an intuitive world, the experiential or perceptual connections of which do not point in the direction of a mathematically determinable “in-itself.” It is a world which is nothing other than the correlate of our relative and intuitive experiences. Here is how Husserl continues his reasoning: But we can also go further in this direction; no barriers keep us from carrying out in thought the destruction of the objectivity of things, as the correlate of our experiential connections. We must always bear in mind the following here: what the things are, the only things that we make assertions about, the only things whose being or non-being, whose being in a certain way or being otherwise we dispute and rationally decide, they are things of experience. […] Suppose, however, that we are able to subject the kinds of lived-experiences inherent in experience and in particular the basic lived-experience of the perception of a thing to an eidetic consideration, looking to their essential necessities and essential possibilities (as we obviously can), and accordingly also pursuing eidetically the essential possible variations of motivated connections of experience. If we are able to do so, then the result is the correlate of our factual experience, called “the actual world,” as a specific case of a manifold of possible worlds and non-worlds, that for their part are nothing other than correlates of essentially possible variations of the idea “experiencing consciousness” with more or less ordered experiential connections (Hua III/1, 100; Husserl, 1994a, b, c, 85–86).

As is evident, Husserl is pursuing the eidetic investigation of conscious experiences, and world is in this context nothing but a label for certain conscious experiences. Husserl’s ambition is to show that what we refer to as actual world, i.e., the factual world corresponding to the factual structure of our consciousness, is nothing other than one possible consciousness among many others—and they all are to be regarded as possible, factual realizations of the region consciousness. Husserl had already 1925, 175–176; and De Santis, 2014, 85–96. Let us also emphasize that according to Ingarden himself, the first phenomenological work dedicated to the ontological-existential problems is Conrad-Martius, 1916, 345–361. See Ingarden, 1992, 43–44; and the important recent study by Djian, 2021, Chapter 6, I.

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proposed the same line of thought in a series of 1907–1909 manuscripts on Kant (De Santis, 2019a, 272–278): there, he had already explained that the task proper to phenomenology is to show that the empirical structure of our conscious experience is only the mere factual realization of a system of eidetic possibilities (falling under the region pure consciousness). Thus, the arguments of §47 can be broken down as follows. –– The preliminary conceptual variation takes us from our actual consciousness with its actual and factual experiential connection (to which it corresponds a world having a mathematical objectivity behind it) to a possible consciousness with possible experiential connections that are intuitively similar to ours (but to which there corresponds mathematical objectivity); –– The second conceptual variation takes us from a possible world (intuitively similar to ours) to a system of worlds that are, from the standpoint of their intuitive structure, progressively more and more divergent from ours, all the way to what Husserl calls non-world. From the purely psychological angle that Husserl has been adopting in these paragraphs, a world is nothing other than a system of (psychologically determined) conscious structures. From our own factual consciousness, through a system of more or less possible divergent modifications of it, all the way to that radical Abwandlung of consciousness that Husserl calls Un-Welt (which designates nothing other than a conscious structure that is radically divergent from ours): such being Husserl’s train of thoughts in §47. Here is how he would probably summarize his conclusions thus far. If the factual, psychological structure of our factual consciousness means only one possible type of consciousness or possible conscious structure among others; if it is possible to conceive of a consciousness and a conscious structure to which there corresponds no “things” or thing-like objects (= a consciousness, the experiential connections of which do not have, as an intuitive correlate, a Ding-­ Welt), then the conclusion can be drawn that an eidetic investigation of consciousness is possible without the latter being necessarily part of a psycho-physical unity or Animal. The hypothesis of the Weltvernichtung of §49 is no hypothesis at all—if by this we mean that Husserl would assume the existence of such a type of consciousness as really possible. In perfect compliance with Husserl’s line of thought from §46 onward, the Welt-Vernichtung is the last step of “the conceptual destruction of the thing-like objectivity”: its result is what in §47 Husserl had already called Un-Welt—the correlate of a radical Abwandlung of our consciousness, one to which nevertheless corresponds no Ding-Welt.27 The point is, theoretically speaking, of crucial importance. If it were not possible to conceive of a possible consciousness to which no Dingwelt would correspond, hence no material body in the sense of a Körper; if the only possible consciousness were a consciousness connected with a Leib, then the only possible highest region

27  See the conclusions drawn by Majolino, 2010; for a different approach, see Mancini, 2011, 161 and ff.

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would be the region Seele and all the possible consciousnesses imagined in §47 would be only variations upon the idea “psychological consciousness.” Thus, pure psychology would be the only eidetic and material science of consciousness, and there would be no room left for phenomenology itself. On the contrary, if it is possible to conceive of a consciousness to which no Dingwelt corresponds, i.e., a consciousness that is not eidetically connected with a Leib (= psycho-physical unity or Animal),28 the claim can be advanced that what we refer to as psychological consciousness is itself only a case of consciousness in general. Thus, the case can be made for a new eidetic, material science of (pure) consciousness in general, which would also lay out the foundations for pure psychology and its eidetic inquiry of the region Seele.29 Let us take a look at what Husserl writes towards the end of §49. Here, it becomes clear that, in spite of all the talk, certainly well justified in its sense, of a real being of the human ego and its experiences of consciousness in the world, as well as talk of anything that in any way belongs to it in regard to “psycho-physical” connections, in spite of all this, it becomes clear that consciousness, considered in “purity,” has to hold as a connection of being that is, for itself, closed off, i.e., as a context of absolute being into which nothing can penetrate and from which nothing can slip away, a context that has no spatiotemporal outside and can exercise causality on nothing, on the supposition that causality has the normal sense of natural causality as a relation of dependence between realities (Hua III/1, 105; Husserl, 2014a, 90).

Once the eidetic possibility of a consciousness that is not intertwined (verflochtet) with a lived body (= animal) has been established, the possibility of the Leistung of reduction has also been legitimized with it. It is only in §50, in fact, after the Welt-­ Vernichtung (which could also be referred to as Animal-Vernichtung30), that Husserl will finally speak of “phenomenological attitude” and of “pure consciousness” as “the field of phenomenology” (see Ingarden, 1992, 187 ff.). If our reconstruction of the strategy and arguments that lead Husserl to the Animal-Vernichtung of §49 is right, then it is necessary to admit that what we face here is a situation that stands directly opposite to the ones in which Husserl argues for TI. We are not referring to the obvious case of the Cartesian Meditations. Rather, we are referring to Husserl’s lectures of 1913 and 1915. While the argumentation of Ideas goes from the factual and actual world (factual and actual consciousness) to its being nothing but one possible world among many possible worlds (many  Also here a concern could be voiced. Since Husserl characterizes from the very outset the Animal as the connection of two “heterogeneous” essences, the impression arises according to which the whole argument is based upon a petitio principii: should not the “heterogeneity” between the two essences (Seele + Ding) composing the Animal something to be first demonstrated? 29  It should be evident that there is no vicious circle in Husserl’s reasoning: the psychological descriptions introduced in §34 legitimize in negativo what that the phenomenological ἐποχή will bring to light in positivo. 30  Already Emiliano Trizio has proposed to understand the Welt-Vernichtung in terms of Leib-­ Vernichtung (Trizio, 2018, 89). If we opt for Animal-Vernichtung instead, it is only because we think it better and more directly expresses Husserl’s idea of the “psycho-physical individual.” On Husserl’s distinction between Animal and Tier, see the recent systematic study by Carella, 2021. 28

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possible conscious structures)—the arguments in support of TI always go the opposite direction. They open up by recognizing that our actual consciousness is just a possible variation among others, and that to different variations upon our conscious experience correspond different possible worlds as relative to it (Hua XXXVI, 53–61 and 75). Hence, a “psycho-physical” consciousness, i.e., a monad is to be assumed thanks to which the existence of the one actual world can be established over against the many possible ones. Only a psycho-physical consciousness, namely, a consciousness endowed with Leib and actual and real motivations (to adopt the language that Husserl speaks in these lectures) can determine which world exists and which ones are crossed out as “incompatible” with it. But this is exactly what the argument unfolded by Husserl from §46 onward intends to overcome. Thus, if the overall strategy proposed and followed by Husserl in Ideas should not be confused nor identified with the one aimed at presenting and justifying TI (in 1913 and 1915), the reason is the following: Husserl’s concern and goal in Ideas is not to ground TI. Rather, it is to introduce and justify a new eidetic material science of consciousness by vindicating the existence of the so-called region “pure consciousness” as a new field of eidetic inquiry higher than the already known region of Seele.31 That the latter point is material to the former is one thing—that the two could be merged without further ado quite another. One needs to accept the former while vehemently rejecting the latter. For TI requires the very subjectivity (= the psycho-physical unity in the words of Husserl in 1913 and 1915) that the arguments leading to §49 aspire to “ontologically” overcome. As a consequence, not only should one avoid pairing together Ideas and the Cartesian Meditations (the latter’s framework as well as the notion of monad are irreducible to that of the former, just as the overall arguments respectively presented in the two texts do not at all coincide); one should also avoid confusing what Husserl is doing in Ideas, where his sole concern is the legitimization of pure phenomenology as a science of the region pure consciousness, with what he will be doing in the lectures held after its release and in which the concern of grounding TI is (also) explicitly present. As should be apparent, we are proposing a double distinction. On the one hand, there is the distinction between Ideas and the Cartesian Meditations, notably, their different conceptions of what pure phenomenology is based upon their two different understandings of the transcendental subjectivity: pure consciousness in one case, the concrete ego or monad in the other. Although we have not been able yet to establish when, exactly, the talk of the region “concrete ego” replaces that of the region “pure consciousness,” it seems that by the early 20 s such a replacement has already taken place (see the observations made in Chap. 3, §4). On the other hand, there is the distinction between what Husserl does in Ideas and what he will do in the  And this means that the eidetic propositions bearing upon pure consciousness neither presuppose nor refer to the real being and constitution of the psyche with its own eidetic structure. Accordingly, one should regard the whole argument of the Animal-Vernichtung as an actual argumentum ad hominem directed only and exclusively against the psychologist and the idea that the one and only species of consciousness is the psycho-logical and psycho-physical one. 31

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lectures immediately following their publication. However, this distinction does not concern the concept of phenomenology that is being embraced by Husserl (as in the former distinction), but rather the goals he respectively pursues, hence the conceptuality that is being mobilized to the two different ends. As a consequence, what one thereby obtains is not only a picture of the way in which Husserl’s overall idea of phenomenology changes as the region pure consciousness is recognized to be only a “pseudo-concretum” abstracted from within the primum concretum, and therefore replaced by the region concrete ego (see §1 of this chapter). What one has is also a picture, to be further expanded upon, of the way in which Husserl’s conception of TI develops as Husserl realizes that there can be a concrete form of the subject which is not only the “constituted” psycho-physical individual but the monad as a “constituting” subject (see Ingarden, 1992, 217 and ff., for a different interpretation of such development).

5. Let us hasten to remark that the goal of the previous section was neither to justify nor to defend Husserl’s arguments in §§46–49 of Ideas: our goal consisted in elucidating the specific framework and the goal, only in relation to which they can be understood. Our goal is not to defend the way in which Husserl arrives at a new region of being; yet, we would like to shed light on Husserl’s statement that pure consciousness is “a connection of being that is, for itself, closed off, a context of absolute being.” To do so, a few critical observations on the terminology of Ideas should be made. In the first place, it should be no surprise that Husserl arrives at the determination of the “field” of investigation of phenomenology through pure psychology, and that many (if not all) the outcomes of the purely psychological descriptions pursued from §34 onward will become directly part of his phenomenological investigations. As we should remember, still in the “draft” for the Encyclopedia Britannica article (see our Chap. 1, §1) Husserl claims that pure phenomenology and psychology coincide Satz für Satz, “proposition for proposition.” And this is precisely one of the crucial aspects that Heidegger will dispute in his letter of 1927.32 The arguments of Ideas, the way in which Husserl obtains the discovery of the region “pure consciousness” perfectly epitomize his conception that the phenomenological subject can be “brought to light” by purifying the psychological subject.

 Consider the following Husserlian passage from §53: “Thus, in our case we have, on the one hand, the psychological attitude in which the focus in the natural attitude goes to the experiences (Erlebnisse), e.g., to an experience of joy, as a persisting state of a human being’s or animal’s experience. On the other hand, we have the phenomenological attitude co-implicated as an essential possibility” (Hua III/1, 117–118; Husserl, 2014a, 100). 32

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Secondly, precisely because, starting from §34, and then again in §38, Husserl adopts a purely reflective and “psychological” attitude, he should have quite likely avoided going back and forth from the language and conceptuality of lived-­ experiences (Erleben) to that of “worlds” (in the plural). Or, to put it better, precisely Husserl is here adopting the psychological attitude, for the sake of clarity he should have spoken only of Erlebnisse and Erfahrungszusammenhänge. The point is not to deny that—from the methodological angle of the purely psychological attitude—what we call world is nothing other than as series of Erfahrungszusammenhänge; the point is rather to recognize that, precisely because this is the case, the analyses should concern “lived-experiences” and only “lived-­ experiences,” not their correlates. Otherwise, the reader might be under the strong impression that either Husserl is reducing the correlate of an Erfahrungszusammenhang to this very same Zusammenhang (psychologically understood) or that he is already and surreptitiously bringing in the transcendental theory of correlation and constitution (in a way that is not yet justified). Such confusion extends over the entire Chap. 3 (The Region Pure Consciousness), §§47–51: being these actual transition-­ paragraphs (from pure psychology to pure phenomenology) where the “new attitude” is already evoked (§50), it is not always easy to tell from which angle Husserl is arguing—whether from the angle of the analyses started in §34 or from that of the new eidetic science called “phenomenology” (in this respect, see the important observations by Ingarden, 1992, 215 and ff.). One of the passages that is definitely written from the angle of the new science is the one referring to consciousness as “a connection of being that is, for itself, closed off, i.e., as a context of absolute being” (Hua III/1, 105; Husserl, 2014a, 90).33 What we would like to focus on is, specifically, the idea of consciousness as a “geschlossener Seinszusammenhang,” As we firmly believe, only in this way can one clarify in what sense TI is not and should not be understood as building on some kind of “ontological” dependence-relation of the world upon consciousness. What Husserl refers to as the transcendental relativity of the world vis-à-vis consciousness entails no ontological dependence. Quite the opposite. Precisely because there is not, and there cannot be, any ontological relativity and dependence of the region world vis-­ à-­vis consciousness (and vice versa), the one and only relation (of dependence) that is phenomenologically ascertainable is the “transcendental” one. If we are on the right track in so assuming, it follows that what Husserl tries to do in these paragraphs is not affirm or claim that the region “pure consciousness” is the one and only closed or self-contained region of being on which all the others would ontologically depend; for every region of being is by definition a closed and self-contained connection of being. The point for Husserl is rather to recognize that—next to the already established regions of being—there obtains a new closed and self-contained region (which is not to be confused with that region of being called Seele or, for the sake of simplicity, psychological consciousness). The

 For a discussion of the problem of the “absolute” in these Husserlian pages, see Bancalari, 2015, 57–68; and De boer, 1973. 33

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problem with the framework of Ideas consists in the ambiguity of the relation between the notions of thing or Ding and world as Welt. For on the one hand, that of Ding is just one region among others (= Seele and Geist) that belong to the macroregion world, the correlate of which is the natural attitude and all the possible scientific attitudes that, from within the world, investigate these many regions (see Hua V, 2–3; Husserl, 1980, 1–2). Within the macro-region world, the region Ding has an ontologically foundational role vis-à-vis the other two “worldly” regions, that is, the “psychological consciousness” (in combination with which it brings about the “psycho-­physical unity” or Animal (see Hua V, §3; Husserl, 1980, 9–17)), and the region “spirit.” On the other hand, however, in Ideas Husserl tends to identify Ding and Welt and to speak of Dingwelt in general (§46). In this case, Ding does not designate just  one worldly region among others within the macro-region world, but rather this very macro-region world in all its conceptual extent and including the many worldly regions within itself. Accordingly, the state of affairs should be presented in the following way. On the one hand, each particular worldly region (= thing, psyche, spirit) is a closed and self-contained connection of being—meaning that even if there are relations of dependency between them (the region thing is the most basic one; the region psyche builds on the region thing; and the region spirit rests upon both of them), the Verflechtung between, e.g., the region thing and the region psyche results neither in a psychologization of matter nor in a materialization of the psyche, as it were (i.e., the law of causality does not turn into the law of psychological motivation, nor vice versa).34 Rather, it results in the psycho-physical subjectivity or Animal, which is the complex ontological unity that Husserl tries to account for in Ideas II and at the very beginning of Ideas III. On the other hand, however, the macro-region world is itself to be understood as a “closed” and self-­ contained region of being (= it is closed and self-contained with respect to the new “macro-region” called “pure consciousness”). That Husserl tends here to identify Welt and Ding—thereby speaking of Ding-Welt sic et simpliciter—is due not only to the very ontologically foundational role played by the worldly region “thing” within the macro-region “world”; it is mostly due to the worldly region Ding epitomizing and exemplifying the idea of a connection of being regulated by the principle of causality. By laying claim to the fact that there is a “new” region, i.e., the region pure consciousness as a “closed” and self-contained region of being distinct from the macro-region world, Husserl intends to suggest that “pure consciousness” is not and cannot be understood as ruled over by any of the material determinations of the “causality”-relation that governs the worldly regions. Such a new connection  This does not exclude the possibility of inter-regional connections, as is the case with what Husserl calls Leib, lived-body, and its corresponding a priori science: somatology (Hua V, 5–10; Husserl, 1980, 4–9). Also the case of the data of sensations is paradigmatic. They are, so to say, the actual point of conjunction between the region thing or nature and the region psyche: they are components of the psyche, as well as determinations of bodily states (Zustände) (Hua V, 11–12; Husserl, 1980, 10–11). There is no need for us to get into any discussion of such difficult topics; the problem is simply to recognize that the regions being self-contained ontological connections does not exclude the possibility of inter-regional connections and relevant a priori sciences. See Stein, 2010a (21–40, 64–75), and Dodd, 1997, 64–81. 34

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of being (= pure consciousness) is to be understood neither as a specification of the thing-like-causality (= material causality), nor as a variation upon the psyche-like-­ causality (= psychological causality or motivation), nor of course as a form of the spirit-like-causality (= spiritual causality or motivation). It is a new ontological realm: La conciencia no es para Husserl realidad, precisamente por ser realidad el mundo (Millan-Puelles, 1990, 58). By the same token, as the macro-region world, too, is a closed region of being, it cannot be understood as standing in some sort of ontological relation to pure consciousness. Just as Husserl can write that “nothing can penetrate” into the macro-region “pure consciousness” and nothing can slip away from it, so the same could and should be said of the macro-region “world”: nothing can in fact penetrate into it, namely, nothing external to the law of causality with its three material specifications: thing-like-causality, psyche-like-causality, and spirit-like-causality. Hence, this is the one and only sense to be attached to the Cartesian-sounding phrase nulla re indiget ad existendum, which Husserl characterizes per viam negationis pure consciousness as a new domain of being: pure consciousness cannot be determined based on any of the material determinations of causality (the “re” standing here for the macro-region world, and not merely for the worldly region thing). The claim that there cannot be any kind of ontological relation between consciousness and world (understood as two macro-regions) follows from the idea of material ontology (and its difference from “formal ontology”) that Husserl introduces at the very beginning of Ideas.

6. Someone has rightly used the label head-less ontology (Majolino, 2015) to express the fact that the material macro-regions do not have a higher unifying ontological principle. Yet, as the phrase “head-less ontology” tends only to negatively highlight the “lack” of something, we would rather speak of hydra-like ontology to lay positive emphasis on the plurality of the regions and ontologies. However, when we state that the material regions do not have a higher ontologically unifying principle, what we are referring to is the two macro-regions pure consciousness and world. In this case, there is no higher region able to ontologically unify the macro-regions. By contrast, as soon as we take into account the three “worldly” regions thing, psyche, spirit—in this case, there is a “unifying” principle: the macro-region “world” to which they all belong. In short, while thing, psyche, and spirit have an ontological unity that derives from their being parts of the same macro-region, this is not the case with the pure consciousness-world relation. They are not parts of a more encompassing region. Accordingly, and to stick with our metaphorical language, if in the case of the three worldly regions one should quite likely speak of a Cerberus-like ontology (it is a three-headed ontology with just one body), when it comes to the macro-regions and their lack of ontological unity one

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should rather opt for some sobriety and avoid getting entangled with evocative, empty metaphors (for an introduction, see Erhard, 2020). Let us now try to expand upon this point. As is known, although Husserl sometimes resorts to the expression “formal region” to designate the domain of “formal ontology,” “The so-called ‘formal region’ is thus not something coordinated with the material regions (the regions sic et simpliciter); it is not genuinely a region but instead the empty form of region in general” (Hua III/1, 26; Husserl, 2014a, 23). That the formal region is not an actual and proper region means that it does not provide us with any ontological or material category or synthetic a priori law that would apply to the two macro-regions pure consciousness and world. The formal region, hence the “eidetic science of objects in general” corresponding to it, contains only purely logical and formal ontological categories such as “property,” “state of affairs,” and “relation,” “identity” and “sameness,” “whole” and “part” and so on. Since they are merely formal, they do not express any kind of material determination. Indeed, in order to receive material content, they first need to be materialized (= Versachlichung eines logisch Formalen) (Hua III/1, 31; Husserl, 2014a, 27); that is to say, they need to be included into such and such a “material region” (whether macro-region or worldly region). The meaning of “whole” and “part” for example, as well as of the category of “relation,” changes depending on which material region they are materialized in. For the material determination of the “part-whole” relation cannot be the same in the region Ding and in the region Seele, just as it cannot be the same in the macro-regions world and pure consciousness respectively. As a consequence, if the categories can receive material determination or content only within the regions, what follows is that where there is no region, there cannot be any material determination. It makes sense to talk of parts and wholes within the region pure consciousness: an Erlebnis is a whole made up of parts (matter, form, quality, etc.) standing in such and such a materially determined relation of “independence” and “non-independence.” It makes sense to speak of wholes and parts within the macro-region world and, in particular, within the region “thing” (or psyche or spirit): a thing is a whole made up of materially determined parts standing in various materially determined relations (for a more appropriate discussion, see Volume 2, Chap. 3). There can obtain parts and wholes only within the regions; there can be materially, ontologically determined relations only within the regions; there can obtain materially, ontologically determined relations of dependence and independence only within the regions. Now, if this is the case, it should finally leap into view why we have been stressing over and over again that there cannot be any ontological connection or relation between the macro-regions pure consciousness and world. Since these are two separate macro-regions, and since the “formal region” is no region at all (i.e., it is not a region able to provide material unity to the two macro-regions), it is simply not possible to apply any of the formal categories (e.g., whole, part, relation etc.) to their connection. There is no “super” material region able to give material content to the formal category relation, thereby connecting the two macroregions ontologically-­regionally. The “relation” between the two macro-regions is

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no relation at all (in the strict, “ontological” sense of the term), and this is the reason why Husserl almost always employs the expression “relation” with inverted commas when he has to speak of the pure consciousness-world “relation” (see Hua III/1, 105; Husserl, 2014a, 89; for a different account of the non-relationality of Husserl’s intentionality, see Erhard, 2014). A diagram could be provided to illustrate the situation (Fig. 6.1). If the category of relation cannot be applied to the connection between the two macro-regions, then it makes no sense to state that the world is either dependent upon consciousness or independent of it. Indeed, independence and non-­ independence are two ontological and material categories; they can be applied only within the two macro-regions (of being), yet they cannot be employed to characterize the alleged “relation” between them. In other words, pure consciousness and the world stand in no ontological “relation” whatsoever, be it of independence or non-­ independence (here is our difference with respect to Jansen, 2017, 33). As there is no “super-region” (Melandri, 1960, 44) or Überregion (see Fink, 1988, 91) able to embrace them, thereby making ontologically sense of their relation, the one and only possible connection between them is of transcendental nature: what Husserl labels “transcendental relativity,” which is no ontological relation or relation of being, but rather a “relation” of sense. There must be a transcendental “relation” between the “macro-regions” pure consciousness and world because there cannot obtain any ontological and material relation between them: this is what Husserl

Fig. 6.1  Husserl’s ontological regions

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also  labels intentionality.35 The problem would be of course to more concretely understand what such a “relation” of sense consists of (we will come back to this at the end of the present chapter). That Husserl’s mode of speaking can be from time to time misleading, we shall not dispute. Let us consider for example the following excerpt from the beginning of §50: Reality and reality of a thing taken individually as well as the reality of the entire world, essentially dispenses (in our rigorous sense) with self-independence (Selbständigkeit). 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, 106; Husserl, 2014a, 90–91).

In contrast with “the entire world,” consciousness is presented as having “absolute being” (Hua III/1, 107; Husserl, 2014a, 91). Husserl’s arguments could be easily misunderstood if one does not keep in mind what we have been explaining so far as regards the two macro-regions. That Husserl can speak of consciousness’ absolute being should not be a surprise: consciousness as a new macro-region of being is distinct from the macro-region “world” (ab solutus). It is ab-solute in the sense that it cannot be investigated by means of the same ontological principles and the same ontological laws that govern the macro-region world and its three worldly regions (= the three material specifications of the causality-relation). It is also quite interesting that if, on the one hand, Husserl denies that the entire world has Selbständigkeit, independence, on the other hand he never affirms apertis verbis that the world is un-selbständig vis-à-vis consciousness. The point for Husserl is rather to avoid altogether using the ontological terminology of the Un-Selbständigkeit: the “world” is neither selbständig nor un-selbständig, because there is no super-region in relation to which these two terms could acquire material content.36 Also the fact that Husserl

 As a consequence, Celms’ statement that the “transcendental reduction” would entail eine Zurückführung des Seins (Celms, 1993, 83 and ff.) of the Reduzendum to pure consciousness does not and cannot correspond to Husserl’s position on the matter. A similar position, it seems to us, can be found in Lipps, 1976, 49, who speaks of one-sided dependence of the being of the transcendent on the absolute being of consciousness. In one of the first works on Husserl’s idealism, Joseph Geyser defines it as the thesis “that all being is in general, essentially-necessarily experienced or thought being, that is to say, it exists insofar and only insofar (dadurch und nur dadurch) as it is experienced or thought (erlebt oder gedacht), in such a way that it is per se nothing independent” (Geyser, 1916, 189). 36  This is the reason why statements like the following should be approached carefully: Das An-sich-Sein der Welt mag also einen guten Sinn haben, eins ist aber absolute sicher, dass es nicht den Sinn einer Independenz der Welt vom aktuell seienden Bewusstsein hat (Hua XXXVI, 78). That Husserl is here denying the world’s “independence” from an actual consciousness is clear; no less evident, however, is Husserl’s talk of Independenz rather than Unselbständigkeit: and while the latter is an ontological technicus terminus, this is on the contrary not true of the former. As if Husserl were trying to suggest something that is not to be directly traced back to the ontological dichotomy of the Un-Selbständigkeit. See the recent interpretation by Romano, 2019, 105–124, in which the ontological discourse developed here about the different macro-regions, thus the non-­ ontological nature of the transcendental, is completely overlooked. 35

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affirms that the world has “no ‘absolute essence’” should be easy to understand. Indeed, in §50 Husserl is already speaking from within the phenomenological attitude (The Phenomenological Attitude and Pure Consciousness as the Field of Phenomenology): now, if the phenomenological attitude is the one in which we focus on the new region of being “pure consciousness,” then it is evident that for the phenomenologist the “world” comes into play only as the correlate of an act of consciousness, or a plurality thereof. To affirm that the world is only as an intentional correlate is the same as to simply acknowledge that, for the phenomenologist who is describing the new domain of being, the world is to be taken into account only as a correlate of consciousness, and not as a realm of being to be ontologically investigated in itself by the many ontologies dealing with the many worldly regions (ontology of nature: thing; pure psychology: psyche; ontology of the spirit in both its subjective and objective sense: spirit). However, to believe that for Husserl the world is, ontologically, nothing but a purely intentional object in the sense of a “non-independent” part of consciousness is to ascribe to Husserl an ontological language which he is not and cannot be speaking here. In sum, phenomenology is the new eidetic science of consciousness that also studies the world, yet only as a correlate of its own subject-matter. But in addition to phenomenology, there exists a plurality of other eidetic sciences that, by contrast, investigate the world as a closed and self-sufficient domain of being according to its division into the many worldly regions and their mutual relations.37 We should keep firmly in mind that every attempt at assessing the consciousness-­ world “relation” ontologically is bound to fail, according to Husserl. For example, we can try to make ontologically sense of the consciousness-world “relation” on the basis of the ontological principle that rules the worldly region “thing,” namely, the principle of causality. Now, since such a principle rules only and exclusively over things, any attempt at including “pure consciousness” within its connections would have to first regard the latter as a thing among things, yet not as a “region” other than the region “world.” In other words, either “pure consciousness” is recognized as a region other than the region “world,” but then none of the principles characterizing the latter can be applied to it. Or we strive to understand “pure consciousness” based upon one of the ontological principles belonging to the region “world,” thereby implying from the outset that “pure consciousness” is not what it is (= a new “region of being”), but rather part of one of the worldly regions (or of a combination thereof). Yet, in this second case we would no longer be speaking of “pure consciousness.”  This being emphasized, it is important to keep in mind that for the Husserl of the Cartesian Meditations and, more in general, for the Husserl who speaks of the region concrete ego, the problem will be that of understanding to what extent the many eidetic sciences and ontologies investigating the world are themselves the expression of the theoretical form of reason, hence part of the primum concretum (see §1 of the present chapter). For this Husserl, not only is the region of “pure consciousness” a pseudo-concretum; also the many worldly regions are pseudo-concreta to be more properly and concretely understood as parts of the primum concretum. For a quite different interpretation of the “absoluteness” of consciousness, see Stapleton, 1983, 24 and ff. The author recognizes the ontological independence of consciousness from the world, yet he seems to also assume that the world is ontologically dependent on consciousness. 37

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It is then quite surprising that Ingarden could at the same time recognize the “ontological difference” (for this expression, see Meixner, 2010, 186) between the two regions of being (among the many places, see Ingarden, 1992, 216, 230, 242), and keep mobilizing the language of the Seins-autonomie or Seins-heteronomie (see Ingarden, 1992, 260, 279 and 292) in order to describe the manner in which Husserl would be understanding their relation (see also Ingarden, 1992, 259–260, for a series of references to Conrad-Martius, 1916). That Husserl, according to Ingarden, intends to maintain that “real things” are only seinsheteronom, “ontologically hetero-­nomical” with respect to consciousness is not at all apparent based upon the premises of Husserl’s ontological discourse concerning the relation between the two macro-regions. The point for us is not to deny the possibility of arguing the way Ingarden does when he talks of Husserl’s “idealism”; the point is rather to acknowledge that his way of talking is the result of a translatio of Husserl’s language into a different and alien conceptuality.38 For Husserl, the material-ontological conceptuality of the Un-Selbständigkeit (Ingarden’s Seins-autonomie and Seins-heteronomie) has validity only within the macro-regions, yet it cannot be applied to the “relation” between them. This is the reason why we cannot accept the “Supervenienz”terminology used by Meixner (2010; and accepted also by Loidolt, 2017, 93 and ff.). Even though we are very sympathetic to this interpretation, we believe that the concept of “Supervenienz” should be applied only with the macro-region world, for instance to account for the relation between the worldly region psyche and the worldly region thing—yet not to make sense of the connection between the macro-­ regions pure consciousness and world. “Intentionality” is not an ontological concept, but a “transcendental” one: it has nothing to do with “being” but rather with “sense” (as rightly remarked by Loidolt, 2015, 112).  A similar point can be made in relation to a recently edited and published manuscript by Conrad-­ Martius (2020) on Ideas. Conrad-Martius assesses the notion of “reality” ontically (ontisch gesehen), i.e., beyond the attitude established by Husserl (jenseits der von Husserl fixierten Einstellung) (Conrad-Martius, 2020, 177). She makes a distinction between three types of attitudes: (1) the gnoseological or “phenomenological attitude,” in which the position of reality is necessarily suspended (= Husserl’s transcendental attitude); (2) the phenomenological attitude “in a universal sense” which is indifferent to the suspension of reality (= it seems to correspond to what Husserl would call ontology of nature or reality); (3) “the real-ontological attitude,” in which the thesis of the real world is necessary (Conrad-Martius, 2020, 179–180). As she further contends, it is crucial not to conflate 2 and 3 because attitudes 1 and 3 are mutually exclusive: “I believe in fact that an ontologically essential investigation of the real world fully requires the third attitude” (Conrad-Martius, 2020, 179–180). The point to be made is that whoever is familiar with the development of Husserl’s philosophy from the very beginning onward knows that this remark by Conrad-Martius does not at all contradict Husserl’s position, because he himself fully recognizes the existence of a science that corresponds to 3: metaphysics. In sum, alongside phenomenology in the sense of 1 and the many eidetic sciences, including the ontology of nature which corresponds to 2 (= eidetic inquiry of a possible nature in general), Husserl also proposes metaphysics as the science of the factually given real world (De Santis, 2021a, b 241 and ff., Trizio, 2021). Conrad-­ Martius seems to think that Husserl does not have 3, or that even if Husserl had 3, this would be made impossible by 1 and 2. Quite the contrary. For not only does Husserl accept 3; in his opinion only by means of 1 can one vindicate the possibility of a “real-ontological attitude.” For, only by means of TI can the existence of only one real and factual world be established. 38

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We agree with the thesis that the constitution is not a material kind of relation and the subject not a “material condition” (see De Palma, 2015, 33), if by material one means the ontological-material relation between the two macro-regions. However, the thesis that the subject should be taken as a merely formal condition, as the same interpreter also contends, thereby suggesting that the reference to the subject has only methodological implications (as we think the term could be read), we shall not accept.39 As should already have become clear, our aim is not to find out what Husserl’s idealism would be. What we are aiming at is the understanding of what Husserl publicly and officially calls “transcendental idealism,” that is to say, which specific claims or theses are connected to, and implied by, it. Yet, since we are aware that the first allegedly official discussion of Husserl’s “idealism” was connected to §49, it is time for us to take a look at such debate and to also further verify and confirm some of our own statements.

7. We wrote first allegedly official discussion of Husserl’s “idealism” because Jean Hering never explicitly speaks of idealism in his Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse of 1926. Quite the opposite. Hering’s view is that the doctrine of intentionality is the most radical refutation of every form of idealism (he speaks of la réfutation du truisme idéaliste par la conception intentionnaliste de la conscience (Hering, 1925, 84)). Yet, it is difficult to shake off the impression that Hering is insinuating that—insofar as the arguments presented by Husserl in §49 might undermine his own theory of intentionality—the father of phenomenology ends up falling back into idealism.40 The text by Hering to which we are referring is the Appendix to the end of the first part of the book (Le mouvement phénoménologique), where the fundamental concepts of Husserl’s thought are laid out and presented (Hering, 1925, 56–72). As is known, Hering’s analyses gave rise to a small Francophone debate: four years after Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, Emmanuel Levinas published his  Let us remind ourselves that a similar interpretation of the formal function of the subject was already proposed by Sokolowski, 1964, 137 and ff.; and subsequently criticized by De boer, 1973, 527 and ff. However, we disagree with De boer (1973, 514–515 and ff.) to the extent that he reads the ontology of Ideas in the light of the mereo-logy of the Third Logical Investigation, rather than the other way around. We will address this problem more systematically in Volume 2, Chap. 3. 40  See Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 26 and ff., according to which Hering’s text (which Avé-Lallemant wrongly dates to 1925 and not to 1926) represents the first “manifestation” of what he calls the Auseinandersetzung between Husserl and the “Munich” phenomenologists. What is not clear in his account is: (1) because Hering is deemed the initiator of a debate involving the “Munich” phenomenologists; (2) whether he takes Hering to be reproaching Husserl for his idealism, in the same sense in which, e.g., Conrad-Martius criticizes Husserl’s idealism (Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 29 and ff.). 39

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book, La théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl, in which Hering’s reading of §49 is partially accepted and partially firmly rejected. Two years later, in his review of Levinas’ book (Hering, 1932), Hering himself came back to his 1926 interpretation in order to both re-state it and stress the flaws of Levinas’ reconstruction of Husserl’s theory of consciousness and life (for a general introduction to the debate, see Monseu, 2005, 49–53). For the sake of our problems here, we can leave aside the “overall” interpretation of Husserl that Hering and Levinas respectively outline (on Levinas on Husserl, see De Santis, 2019b) and focus exclusively on the discussion around §49. Here is how Hering’s short Appendix opens up: Nous trouvons dans les « Idee » de Husserl, en plus des analyses phénoménologiques sur la conscience pure, considérées avec raison comme classiques par tous les phénoménologues, deux affirmations d’ordre métaphysique, surgissant incidemment et repoussées par la presque unanimité de ses collaborateurs. Les voici: I. « L’Être immanent (c’est-à-dire l’Ego cogitans), est sans aucun doute l’Être absolue en ce sens, qu’en principe, nulla « re » indiget ad existendum. II. D’autre part, le monde des « res » transcendantes dépend absolument de la Conscience, et non pas d’une conscience logiquement supposée, mais d’une conscience actuelle » (Hering, 1926, p. 83).

The excerpt needs to be approached carefully, because the way in which Hering presents and characterizes these deux affirmations is part of the problem. In the first place, it is worth noting that the words Hering uses to quote Husserl’s expressions are far from being innocent and neutral, as it were. In §49, Husserl writes that the world of transcendent things is auf Bewußtsein… angewiesen, it “refers back… to consciousness” (Hua III/1, 104; Husserl, 2014a, 89). By translating anweisen auf with dépend de, Hering embraces from the very beginning a strong reading of the text (this has already been remarked by Tedeschini, 2014, 249). Even if it is true that anweisen auf can be literally translated as “depending on,” this does not mean that this is the meaning Husserl is actually attributing to it. Moreover, as Hering himself refers to I and II as deux affirmations d’ordre métaphysique, the question arises, how we should construe the term metaphysics. As far as we can tell, none of the scholars who have thus far discussed Hering’s book have felt the need to ask this question.41 Of course, there is a reason for this. In these pages, Hering does not gratify us with any hint at how the expression métaphysique should be read; hence, it seems to go without saying that it should be regarded as having a merely negative sense, as standing for something to be discarded altogether (as the allusion to la presque unanimité de ses collaborateurs  would suggest). Here Hering confines himself to merely speaking of ces énoncés métaphysiques sur le primat ontologique de la conscience, “these metaphysical statements on the ontological primacy of consciousness” (Hering, 1926, 84). Since thirty years later Hering will insist upon

 Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 29; Monseu, 2005, 51, 53; Tedeschini, 2014, 248–249; 2018, 395; Mehl, 2021, 62. 41

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speaking of la thèse métaphysiques du primat de la conscience (Hering, 1959, 27), then the question cannot be avoided. However, a quick attempt at defining metaphysics can be found right at the beginning of the book, notably, §2: Précisions terminologiques (Hering, 1926, 6–8). Here the term “metaphysics” is quickly characterized against the backdrop of the distinction between religious philosophy and philosophy of religion: while the latter refers to a group of investigations, the object of which is religion itself, the former includes all the statements concerning God, the world, and the human being regarded sub specie of such and such a “natural” or “positive religion” (Hering, 1926, 7). As Hering immediately adds, Il nous reste enfin à préciser l’emploi du mot “métaphysique.” A statement is “metaphysical” to the extent that it bears upon (toute affirmation concernant) an “entity” (entité) that is represented as empirically non-accessible, and yet as “actually existent” (come inaccessible à l’étude empirique, mais comme existant “actuellement”). Contrary to metaphysics, Hering explains that ontology is the study of the “possible” (l’étude de ce qui est possible) (Hering, 1926, 8). Ontology and metaphysics are both investigations of “non-empirical” nature: the difference between them being that ontology studies what is possible (it seems to correspond to the study of essences (Hering, 1926, 37)), while metaphysics what actually exists. By contrast, the “historian” (= empirical scientist) studies what actually and effectively exists and that is also empirically accessible (Hering, 1926, 52). Now, since Hering is also very adamant about the fact that the two statements above should not be confused with some kind of idealistic doctrine (avec quelque doctrine idéaliste) (Hering, 1926, 84), for the “world of things” is and will remain transcendent to consciousness, then how are we meant to properly understand Hering’s criticism and doubt here? Hering explains that according to the two statements above, notably II, “the world of things” (= nature) would be “absolutely” dependent on consciousness. Yet, as he hastens to point out against Husserl, aucun raisonnement sur la nature en générale de la conscience ne suffira, à lui seuil, à nous permettre une décision pour ou contre cette doctrine (Hering, 1926, 85). It is not clear whether Hering would be willing to accept the thesis of nature’s dependence on consciousness;42 yet, regardless of this question, the core of Hering’s doubts seems to consist in the following: there is a discrepancy between Husserl’s arguments on the nature of consciousness in general and the two metaphysical statements above. As we already saw, whereas ontology is the non-empirical study of what is possible, metaphysics is the non-empirical study of what actually exists. Husserl is pursuing an ontological investigation of the essence of consciousness, on the basis of which a few “metaphysical” conclusions are drawn which bear upon both the dependent existence of nature and consciousness itself comme existant “actuellement.”  What he writes is, mais nous ajoutons qu’aucune des analyses qui précèdent le paragraphe 49 des « Idées », ne sous oblige à donner à cette question la même réponse que le vénéré maître phénoménologue (Hering, 1926, 86). 42

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The rest of Hering’s argumentation corroborates our reading. En effet, que Pierre ne puisse pas douter de l’existence de son propre « cogito », rien de plus certain. Mai que cette constatation l’autorise à affirmer l’existence nécessaire (« Seinsnotwendigkeit ») de ce « cogito », rien de plus douteux. Car dans ces cas, le fait avéré puise son indubitabilité non pas dans l’idée du « cogito » (comme dans le cas de l’existence idéale d’une essence, où dans le cas de l’existence actuelle de Dieu chez les ontologistes), mais dans la situation particulièrement favorable, dans laquelle est placé l’observateur. Aussi Paul peut-il parfaitement imaginer un monde dans lequel la conscience de Pierre n’existerait pas (Hering, 1926, 85).

That our interpretation so far is sound and consistent with Hering’s own line of thought is shown by the passage in parentheses: there, he is clearly suggesting that the conclusion regarding the necessary existence of the cogito (l’existence nécessaire) is not contained in the “idea” of the cogito, as can be on the contrary the case when it comes to “the ideal existence of an essence” (= ontology as the non-­ empirical study of the possible) and the “actual existence of God” (= metaphysics as the non-empirical study of what actually exists43). As one could re-phrase Hering’s position, the “eidetic” or “ontological” study of the “idea” of the cogito (phenomenology is the eidetic and a priori science of consciousness as a “possible” entity) does not result in the two metaphysical statements above. It is important to keep in mind that Hering does not reject the very possibility of drawing metaphysical conclusions based upon the ontological study of ideas. Quite the contrary (we touched on Hering’s ontological apparatus in Chap. 2, §5; see also De Santis, 2015). He is dismissing the specifically Husserlian conclusion to the effect that, based upon the study of the “idea” of the cogito, the two metaphysical conclusions above, notably I, could be actually drawn. In sum, the content of the idea “cogito” does not include the necessary determination of its actual existence. What is at stake is not the idealism-realism divide (Hering’s realism vs. Husserl’s idealism), but rather the ontology of the cogito and what the content of such an idea would contain as regards the mode of existence of its own individual exemplars. For Hering, who, just like Ingarden, believes that the content of the idea of a relevant object also tells us something about the “mode of existence” of the object’s exemplars, the “idea of the cogito” does not ontologically entail, as a moment, its “necessary” actual existence. Clearly, he is assuming that this is precisely what Husserl is doing in the first book of Ideas. Otherwise stated, Hering can make such a reproach against Husserl by assuming that for Husserl, too, the ontological study of the idea of an object can tell us something about the object’s exemplars’ modes of existence. This is confirmed by Hering translating Seinsnotwendigkeit (“ontological necessity” or “necessity of being”) as existence nécessaire, “necessary existence” (as if there were no distinction between Sein and Existenz for Husserl). He contends that if consciousness seems to display some form of necessary existence, this is due to the very “privileged position” of the observer vis-à-vis her or his own existence (yet not vis-à-vis the other’s own individual existence).

43

 For an introduction to this topic, see Scribano, 2002, 50–88 (Descartes et l’être nécessaire).

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In short, whereas Husserl is affirming that “consciousness,” unlike nature, has necessary existence (metaphysical statement) based on his own ontological analyses of the “idea” of the cogito, in truth this is nothing other than a perspective optical illusion (sit venia verbo) that is grounded in the observer’s, say, Pierre’s privileged position vis-à-vis his own individual “existence.” As a further confirmation, let us quote what Hering will emphatically point out in his future review of Levinas’ book: Il s’agit non pas, comme M. L. [= Levinas] le croit parfois, de la thèse sur la priorité de l’idéalisme transcendantal en lui-même, mais du passage brusque de l’interprétation épistémologique de cette thèse à son interprétation métaphysique (Hering, 1932, 480).

Contrary to what Levinas points out, what is at stake for Hering is not la thèse sur la priorité de l’idéalisme transcendantal en lui-même, i.e., “the claim of the priority of transcendental idealism per se taken,” but rather the sudden switch from the epistemological to the metaphysical interpretation of the thesis of consciousness’ necessary existence. Of course, this does not mean that Hering would accept transcendental idealism; quite the opposite. The point however is to recognize that what is at stake, for him and his discussion of §49, is something prior to the very assessment of the thesis of transcendental idealism. What is at stake for him is the manner itself in which Husserl arrived at his conclusions. As Hering himself affirms against Levinas (who, as we will see, had interpreted Hering as if the latter were directly addressing Husserl’s idealism), what his1926 book was disputing is Husserl thinking that I and II are two “metaphysical” statements that can be obtained with the “ontological” study of the “idea” of the cogito, whereas they are nothing other than the consequence of the epistemologically “privileged position” of the observer. Hering is against neither the possibility of making metaphysical statements based on the study of “ideas” (this being one of the pillars of his own ontology), nor the claim that the necessary existence of certain objects can de facto be ascertained by studying the relevant ideas (l’existence idéale d’une essence and l’existence actuelle de Dieu). What Hering is rather disputing is that this could also be the case with consciousness.44 The existence of an individual consciousness is epistemologically necessary from the observer’s own vantage  Our interpretation of Hering’s argument is confirmed by a recently published text. Here, Hering remarks that, “The disciples of the doctrine of the necessary positing of consciousness will perhaps object that a fact is itself existentially necessary (existenznotwendig), which exists on essential grounds, also falls into the realm of the purely eidetic. We refute this objection by asking whether ‘the necessary positing of a fact’ is the same as ‘the positing of a necessary fact.’ […] If we presuppose the correctness of the ontological proof of God’s existence, then the existence of God is included in the very idea. But how can the mere idea of ‘consciousness’ lead me also to the very existence of just one consciousness de facto? […] If I cannot doubt my consciousness it implies that I experience my lived experience in an indubitable way as truly existing; but not as if I could derive a fact from the idea ‘consciousness’ or ‘consciousness of such and such a type’” (Hering, 2015, 40, 47). It is interesting to note that one of Hering’s main concerns in this text is to clarify both the position and function that “metaphysics” (which Hering calls “phenomenology of facticity”) would have alongside eidetic phenomenology and ontology in the Husserlian sense of the expressions (Hering, 2015, 41, 49). 44

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point; yet, such a “necessity” is of no metaphysical nature. It does not belong to the essence (Husserl) or the idea (Hering) of consciousness that its individuals necessarily exist. According to Hering, Levinas thinks that the difference between them is that Hering criticizes Husserl’s “idealism” while Levinas defends it. But the situation is actually completely different. Hering was neither approving nor disapproving of it per se. He was disputing the character of I and II by arguing that none of the “ontological” descriptions of the “idea” of the cogito provided by Husserl confirm the two all-too-famous or infamous “metaphysical” statements from §49. It is Levinas who, by thinking that he had to defend Husserl’s own idealism against some of the claims made by Hering in 1926, turned the latter’s discussion of the ontology-­ metaphysics relation into a discussion about TI en lui-même. What is it, then, that Levinas had affirmed in his book on intuition of 1930?

8. At the end of chapter three (on the phenomenological theory of being: intentionality and consciousness), Levinas explicitly tackles §49 and the “hypothesis” of a consciousness without world: “this is in the famous section of Ideen (§49) which led to so many reservations and so many accusations of idealism”—and a footnote refers to Hering’s book and the Appendix discussed above (Levinas, 1930, 79–80; 1995, 48). Let us immediately note that, contrary to what Levinas is suggesting here, we saw Hering focusing almost exclusively upon the two metaphysical statements concerning the modes of existence of consciousness and nature respectively. As for the hypothesis of a world-less consciousness, in fact, what Hering affirms about it is that, Ce que Husserl affirme d’une manière non équivoque, c’est que le « cogito » peut exister sans entraîner par là l’existence du κόσμος. Acceptons cette thèse, quoiqu’elle aussi contienne quelque chose de plus que l’affirmation cartésienne de l’indubitabilité du « cogito » (Hering, 1926, 85).

On the contrary, by discussing Hering’s arguments within the framework of the idealism-reproaches moved against Husserl in connection to §49 and, more specifically, to the hypothesis of a world-less consciousness, Levinas produces the (misleading) impression that this is precisely what also Hering was criticizing Husserl for in his book of 1926. Not only does Hering never address the “world-less consciousness” sort of hypothesis per se; as the above text shows, Hering explicitly affirms: Acceptons cette thèse, “We accept this thesis.”45 Surprisingly enough, what Levinas on the contrary points out to his reader is that,

 One should be careful before hastily calling Hering a realist phenomenologist, as has been recently done by Romano, 2019, 109 (without this meaning that he would be an idealist instead). The recently discovered epistolary exchange between Roman Ingarden and Jean Hering confirms 45

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We agree with Hering’s refusal to follow Husserl in that direction (dans cette thèse), but the ground on which we challenge Husserl’s thesis is not so much his assertions that things have only a phenomenal existence, the assertion which is the main focus of Hering’s reluctance [our italics] (Levinas, 1930, 80; 1995, 48).

Levinas first includes Hering within the idealism-controversy around §49 and the hypothesis of a Welt-Vernichtung; hence, he also attributes to him the refusal of a thesis which on the contrary Hering never meant to reject. Levinas seems to be in agreement with Hering on the necessity of dismissing the thesis of a consciousness without world, and yet Hering had accepted it. On what ground, then, does Levinas intend to dismiss the “world-less consciousness”-hypothesis? We do not believe that things should have an existence independent of consciousness, since their dependence, according to our interpretation, is not conceived as the negation of transcendent existence but as its characteristic. We do not believe that consciousness needs things in order to exist, although things need consciousness. There we agree with Husserl. But if we follow Husserl on this last point, we find that our agreement is possible precisely because he does not conceive of consciousness at a level where it would make sense to speak of its dependence or independence with respect to the world. The precise function of intentionality is to characterize consciousness as a primary and original phenomenon, from which the subject and the object of traditional philosophy are only abstractions. In other words, it seems to us that if Husserlian idealism should not be followed, it is not because it is an idealism but because it is prejudiced against the mode of existence of consciousness as intentionality (Levinas, 1930, 80; 1995, 48).

It is not our intention to discuss Levinas’ argument;46 the vital point for us is rather to acknowledge that if Hering’s text of 1926 can be considered—and de facto has been deemed—the first official “manifestation” of the idealism-realism controversy (Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 26), this was due to Levinas’ interpretation of it rather than to what Hering himself was actually arguing for or against. By claiming to be defending Husserl against Hering’s idealism-criticism of §49, Levinas de facto projected or, to put it better, retro-projected on the text of Hering’s Appendix a series of concerns and preoccupations that are nowhere to be found in it. Of course, this does not mean that Levinas was not also aware of the specific arguments set forward by Hering himself as regards the theme of the cogito’s existence. Here is what he had already remarked in passing during the second chapter: The Seinsnotwendigkeit of consciousness must mean something quite different from the existence that follows necessarily from an essence. It concerns not the fact that consciousness exists but the mode of its existence. It does not mean that consciousness necessarily per viam negationis that he never meant to reject the Husserlian nulla re indiget ad existendum. It is clear from one of Ingarden’s letters (Ingarden, 1965, 1–2), that Hering must have tried to explain to his Polish friend that die Husserlsche Erneuerung der Wendung “nulla re indiget ad existendum” should not be deemed a mere expression of Cartesianism. Ingarden responds by stressing that in the relevant passage Husserl means by res something ontologically self-sufficient and independent (= die Welt der materiellen Dinge). A discussion of this letter is offered by Mehl, 2021, 65 ff., to whom I am grateful for putting it at my disposal. 46  In this regard, one should also consider Levinas, 1929, 252 and ff., where a distinction is made between “subject-oriented phenomenology” (= focused on the subjective side of intentionality) and “object-oriented phenomenology.”

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exists, but that inasmuch as it exists its existence does not contain the possibility of its not-­ being which is the characteristic of spatial existence […]. Now we can understand how Husserl could meet the objection raised by Hering in Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Hering’s objection concerns the impossibility of passing from the indubitability of the cogito to the assertion of its necessary existence. […] Hering is perfectly right in saying that the existence of the cogito does not have the same meaning as “the existence of God for the ontologists,” since, as we have tried to show, Husserl himself admits this. However, if the necessity of consciousness is, according to our interpretation, a characteristic of the mode and not of the fact of its existence, one can no longer appeal to its privileged situation. […] The possibility of such a privileged situation is precisely what characterizes the existence of consciousness (Levinas, 1930, 60–61; 1995, 33–34).

Regardless of the value that one might want to ascribe to it, Levinas’ reading of Hering, hence his position vis-à-vis the alleged idealism-realism debate surrounding §49, perfectly epitomize the case in which one’s discussion of a text is more revealing of the interpreter’s own position rather than of what is actually going on in the text under scrutiny. As we have argued in the last two chapters, the problem for us is not to oppose a particular interpretation of TI by developing an alternative reading of it. The problem is to understand how Husserl himself understands TI. And as we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, TI does not consist in just one thesis; rather, it consists in a “cluster” (to borrow an expression from Majolino) or “set” of inter-related problems or theses. As spelled out in §3 of the present chapter, such a “set” can be presented as follows. • The figure of the transcendental subject on which it rests is that of the “concrete ego” or “monad” with its threefold concreteness (≠ region “pure consciousness”) (what in the 1913 and 1915 lectures is still the individual psycho-physical subjectivity); • More specifically, the monadological subject on which TI builds is the “inter-­ subjective” monadological subject (= AC or primum concretum, as we also called it); • What TI is about is not the world’s (ontological) dependence upon consciousness (which is not possible due to Husserl’s concept of regional ontologies), but the determination of the sense of the one and only existing world. There is TI in the Husserlian sense of the term if and only if all the above theses obtain. And on the basis of such a set of theses one can also raise the question whether there is TI in such and such a context where the name, the expression, or the term “transcendental idealism” does not appear or is nowhere to be properly found. That one could speak of TI where the three theses above do not obtain all together, thus resorting to or relying upon a different conception of “transcendental idealism” (= different from Husserl’s), is of course possible, yet only under the condition that one is clear about how TI is understood and how its characterization has come about. For instance, Celms and, in particular, Alexander Pfänder in his own review of the former’s book (Pfänder, 1929, 2049), regard the Abgrund between consciousness and reality presented in §49 as an insufficient Husserlian argument in

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favor of transcendental idealism. On the contrary, in his famous Idealismusbrief of 1918 (Ingarden, 1998, 5), Roman Ingarden explains to his former Master that the “essential heterogeneity” (Wesensheterogenität) between consciousness and reality is what prima facie (zunächst) makes the position of Ideas non-idealistic (nicht idealistisch). Since idealism is defined as the “identification” of being and consciousness, it applies only to the chapters on the noesis-noema relation: for it is here, Ingarden writes, that the “heterogeneity” is replaced by an “essential identity.” In her tentative Sachregister to Ideas (Hua III/1, 386), Gerda Walther explains that although in Ideas there is no talk of transcendental idealism, there are “expressions” (Äußerungen) that seem to speak in favor of it as well as expressions that seem to run against it. For example, the Husserlian thesis to the effect that consciousness is durch Weltvernichtung nicht aufgehoben (Hua III/1, 387) is listed among the former type of expressions (pro); but the claim that consciousness would be durch Weltvernichtung modifiziert (Hua III/1, 387) belongs to the second group of phrases (contra).47 If we ask ourselves the question of the meaning Gerda Walther ascribes to TI in order to understand how she decided to categorize and classify Husserl’s statements and expressions  as  either pro or contra, the answer is unfortunately nowhere to be found in the text (for a biographical account of the composition of the Register, see Walther, 1960, 214–21648).

9. One last aspect about TI must be addressed before we can move to the conclusion of the chapter: the “exhibition-principle” or das Prinzip der Ausweisbarkeit (see §3 of this chapter). The topic can be introduced by recalling how Stein describes Husserl’s students’ reactions to Ideas: Shortly before the semester began, Husserl’s new work, Ideas, appeared. It was to be discussed in the seminar. Besides that, Husserl announced that he would make it a rule to be at home one afternoon a week so that we might come to discuss our questions and concerns with him. Of course, I bought the book at once […]. On the occasion of his earliest “at home,” I found I was the first guess to arrive at Husserl’s home and presented my concerns. Soon others arrived. All of us had the same question on our mind. The Logical Investigations had caused a sensation primarily because it appeared to be a radical departure from critical idealism which had a Kantian and neo-Kantian stamp. It was considered a “new scholasticism” because it turned attention away from the “subject” and toward “things” themselves.

 The confusion and the difficulty would derive from the fact that while the former thesis concerns the Sein or “being” of consciousness (which is not aufgehoben by the annihilation of the world), the latter on the contrary bears on its So-Sein or “being-thus” (= the extent to which consciousness is modifiziert by the annihilation of the world). 48  “Besonders wichtig war mir das Problem, ob Husserl erkenntnistheoretischer Realist oder Idealist (wie viele behaupteten) sei und ich trug alle Äußerungen zugunsten jeder der beiden Auffassungen zusammen” (Walther, 1960, 214). See also Mokrejš, 1969, 12–15 (Teze idealismu), who argues against the possibility of divorcing phenomenology from TI. 47

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[…] All the young phenomenologists were confirmed realists. However, the Ideas included some expressions (Wendungen) which sounded pretty much as if their Master wished to return to idealism. Nor could his oral interpretation dispel our misgivings. It was the beginning of that development which led Husserl to see, more and more, in what he called “transcendental idealism” (which is not to be confused with the transcendental idealism of the Kantian schools) the actual core of his philosophy and to devote all his energies to its establishment (Stein, 2010b, 200–201; 1986, 250).

It is not our intention to propose here a fully-fledged reading and interpretation of this description, although it would be important and interesting to identify the “young phenomenologists” mentioned by Stein. What we want to draw attention to is the fact that, according to Stein’s account, the first volume of Ideas was not regarded to be per se of idealistic nature: the book is said to include some expressions that sounded pretty much as if Husserl wanted to return to idealism. Since Ideas, in Stein’s words, marks only the “beginning” (Anfang) of the development which will eventually lead Husserl to TI, it follows that TI cannot to be found as such in the book of 1913. Now, if we were to ask Edith Stein, what kind of “expressions” she means to denounce, the answer would point to a specific “ominous statement” (der ominöse Satz): Streichen wir das Bewußtsein, so streichen wir die Welt. This can be roughly translated as follows: “if we cross out consciousness, then we cross out also the world” (Stein, 2014, 89). Let us immediately point out that in spite of what some Husserl scholars seem to believe (e.g., Magrì & Moran, 2017, 35), that statement is nowhere to be found in Ideas. In many of his texts and writings, Roman Ingarden says that this was a phrase quite often employed by Husserl during his period in Göttingen (Ingarden, 1964, 149; 1998, 213). Let us hasten to confess that we have not been able yet to “literarily” find that ominöse Satz in any of the Göttingen lectures at our disposal. However, as Stein refers to Husserl’s lectures of 1913 on Nature and Spirit (see Stein, 1986, 252; 2010b, 203), and as Ingarden himself seems to be basing his accounts upon the content of the lectures held by Husserl in 1913–1914 and the Selected Phenomenological Problems of 1915 (see the Erinnerung an Husserl in Husserl, 1968, 113–117; Stein, 1986, 309; 2010b, 253)— the hypothesis could be advanced that Stein retro-projects on Ideas an “ominous statement” de facto heard in some of the lectures held by Husserl after Ideas had already been published. Since she reported for duty in April 1915 (see MacIntyre, 2007, 70), it is unlikely that she could have in mind the lectures of 1915 on Selected Phenomenological Problems. As a matter of fact, if we take a look at the only published part (Hua XXXVI, 73–79) of the lectures of 1913 on Nature and Spirit (attended by both Stein and Ingarden, among others), we will find a statement not exactly like the one  condemned by Stein and Ingarden, but which nevertheless sounds pretty much rather like a variation on it:

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Jeden Bewusstseinsstrom aus dem wirklichen Sein streichen, das heißt: die wirkliche Welt, alle wirklich existierende Realität wegstreichen (Hua XXXVI, 78).49

The text could be roughly translated as follows: “to cross out every flow of consciousness from real being means to cross out the real world, i.e., every actually existing reality.” Husserl regards such a statement (hereafter: SBSW) as a most coherent consequence of what goes by the name of the “exhibition-principle” (Hua XXXVI, xv). In the words of the two editors of Husserliana XXXVI, the principle states that, the “position” of “something as a being” (von etwas als seiend) can be deemed justified and “rational” (vernünftig) only to the extent that it is “in principle” possible to “exhibit” (ausweisen) the posited as such (in an intuitive way). The question whether one can really speak of principle has already been correctly answered in the negative (see Marchesi, 2019, 99–100). Let us add that since Husserl resorts to the alleged “exhibition-principle” in different contexts and in relation to different issues that should not be identified nor conflated, in the following we will mostly confine ourselves to the lectures of 1913 (published in Hua XXXVI). Moreover, since the “principle” has already been submitted to several analyses,  both by contemporary scholars50 and former students of Husserl,51 we will confine our inquiry to just one question: what kind of “equivalence” is the one established and spelled out by the “principle”? In 1913, Husserl presents as “equivalent” the following “propositions” (a, b) and “ideas” (c): 1a. “A exists” 2a. “A path towards the possible Ausweisung of the existence of A can be constructed” 1b. “A exists” 2b. “There obtains the ideal and intuitive possibility of an Ausweisung of A” 1c. The idea of “Truth” 2c. The idea of an “Ideal possibility of intuitive Ausweisung” (Hua XXXVI, 73). The problem for us is to understand in what sense and to what extent SBSW is deemed by Husserl a direct and most coherent consequence of any one of the above “equivalences.” If we understand him correctly, there obtains equivalence not only within each one of the above groups (1a = 2a; 1b = 2b; 1c = 2c), but also between a  Husserl will re-propose the statement in 1915: Streiche ich die ganze Welt durch mit allen animalischen Realitäten, so ist doch auch alles Bewusstsein durchgestrichen (Hua XXXVI, 125). Let us also point out that a similar sentence can be found in §64 of Ideas II: streichen wir alle Geister aus der Welt, so ist keine Natur mehr (Hua IV, 297). It does appear also in the new version of Ideas II (Urtext II, §14)—or at least in one of the versions of the new edition of Ideas II which I had the chance to quickly study. The further hypothesis could be advanced that Stein projected on Ideas I a passage which she happened to find in the manuscripts of the future second volume of Ideas. 50  See Rizzoli, 2008, 277 and ff.; Melle, 2010, 97 and ff.; Meixner, 2010, 201–202; Marchesi, 2019. 51  Ingarden, 1992, 173 and ff; Stein, 2010c, 76. 49

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and b on the one hand, and c on the other (1a/1b = 1c; 2a/2b = 2c). Husserl’s point would be that if a “proposition” of the type 1a/1b is “true” (1c), and A obtains as existent, this is “equivalent” to “a possible intuitive Ausweisung of A,” namely, A is “the correlate of a possible intuition.” This being preliminarily pointed out, a few remarks are necessary concerning what Husserl scholars have already affirmed about the “principle” in question. In a more specific way, two interrelated questions need to be tackled. First of all, there is the question whether it is possible to pinpoint and identify the context in which it first appeared, even if only still in an embryonic way. Secondly, the question should be directly tackled that bears on the relation between the so-called “principle” and TI. What is the relation between them? Are they the one and the same thing? Or is the “principle” merely a tool with which Husserl tries to “prove” TI? It has been maintained (Hua XXXVI, xiii) that in the Logical Investigations a most significant text could be found that was crucial for the “development” of TI. It is the appendix to the end of the second chapter of the Fifth Investigation, where the following excerpt can be found: “the intentional object of a representation is the same as its actual object, and on occasion as its external object, and that it is absurd to distinguish between them” (Hua XIX/1, 439; Husserl, 2001b, I, 127). Now, according to these scholars, Husserl is here establishing an identity between intentional and transcendent being (Hua XXXVI, xiii) that will represent the background of all of his attempts at proving TI. But the argument must be rejected. Whoever is familiar with Husserl’s early theory of intentionality and, more specifically, with the reasons why he criticizes the so-called “image-theory,” knows that Husserl never tries to identify transcendent and intentional being (by reducing the former to the latter). Rather, he wants to reject the idea that there exists an “intentional object” alongside the “transcendent” one (see Erhard, 2014, 258 and ff., and Künne, 2013, 102–120). It is one thing to reject the existence of intentional objects alongside intentional acts of consciousness and transcendent objects, thereby concluding that the former are nothing other than the latter; but quite another to claim that transcendent objects are only and exclusively intentional (as the two editors of Hua XXXVI seem to suggest). Husserl affirms the former but not the latter (for a discussion of a series of related topics, see Benoist, 2001a, b, 120 and ff.). Of course, this does not rule out the possibility of finding, already in the Logical Investigations, a text that would point in the direction of the future “exhibition-­ principle.” According to the first “embryonic” appearance of the “principle” in 1902–03 (Hua-Mat III, 132–139; see Marchesi, 2019, who was the first to draw attention to this text), as well as to the texts for the re-elaboration of the Sixth Logical Investigation (see Hua XX/1, 266–271), the conclusion can be drawn to the effect that chapters four (Compatibility and Incompatibility) and five (The Ideal of Adequation. Evidence and Truth) of the Sixth Logical Investigation can be retrospectively deemed the source-point of the so-called “exhibition-principle” (Hua XIX/2, 632–656; Husserl, 2001b, II, 250–277; for a confirmation of our reading, see Becker, 1930). For example, it is here that “the ideal existence of a species” (die ideale Existenz einer Spezies) means the same as its being given in a corresponding intuition. Or, as Husserl writes as regards meanings, “The reality of a meaning is

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hence equivalent to (besagt also dasselbe wie): the meaning is an objectively complete ‘expression’ of an intuitive compatibility of content” (Hua XIX/2, 636; Husserl, 2001b, II, 252). The reality of a meaning or the ideal existence of a species is equivalent to their compatibility within a “unitary intuition” (einer einheitlichen Anschauung). However, it should be kept in mind that in this context expressions such as “existence” and “reality” refer only to the domain of “ideal beings” and “ideal objects.” Already at the beginning of the Second Investigation, in fact, Husserl had explained in relation to ideal beings that several categorial truths are valid of them: “If these truths hold, what is presupposed as an object by their holding must have a being (so muß all das sein)” (Hua XIX/1, 130; Husserl, 2001b, I, 250; see also De Santis, 2021b, 62 and ff.). In this respect, the “principle” as is used in 1913 consists, among other things and in contrast with Husserl’s original line of thought in the work of 1901, in its extension to the domain of real beings (= individual things). Which is precisely what makes it quite problematic to most readers. Let us now come to the second battery of problems listed above. If the question were whether the exhibition-principle, as it already emerges in the Investigations, is the “principle,” the radicalization of which eventually  leads Husserl to embrace TI, the (disappointing) answer would be that we do not know yet. Renouncing any talk of cause-effect, condition-conditioned, and motivation-­ motivated, all we can affirm is that the re-elaboration of the “exhibition-principle” goes hand in hand and de facto accompanies the development of Husserl’s philosophy all the way to the Cartesian Meditations. What is the cause and what is the effect? What determines what? These are questions that we cannot and do not want to answer. For just as it would fully make sense to say that it is the radicalization of the “principle” that pushes Husserl towards TI, so it could also be argued that the turn towards transcendental philosophy, hence towards TI, carries with it a radicalization of the “principle.” All we can offer to the reader at this stage of our inquiry is a distinction between the following three stages of development. • The first stage is that of the Logical Investigations and, most interestingly, of the 1902–03 lectures on Allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie. • The second stage or context is the one epitomized by the 1913 lectures Nature and Spirit: here, the “exhibition-principle” is part and parcel of Husserl’s attempts at grounding SBSW and TI, without the two being however identical. • The third stage and framework is represented by the Cartesian Meditations, where the “principle” is not merely a tool to introduce and prove TI; rather, it is a constitutive part of TI itself. As Husserl points out in §60: “A coherent self-­ exhibition (Sich-ausweisen) of the objective world of experience implies a ­coherent self-exhibition (Sich-ausweisen) of the other monads as being (als seienden)” (Hua I, 166; Husserl, 1993, 138).

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10. The backdrop against which the “exhibition-principle” makes its first appearance in the 1902–1903 lectures is represented by the discussion of the idea of “truth” as “correspondence” between a proposition, notably, the “ideal content of its intention,” and the corresponding “ideal content of its fulfillment” (Hua-Mat III, 134). In perfect compliance with §39 of the Sixth Logical Investigation, one can apply the term “truth” to the “correspondence” itself, just as one can affirm that “the truth-­ making thing” (die wahr machende Sache) given to the intention is what is “true” (das Wahre). It is here, Husserl remarks, that “the concept of being has its origin.” Taking up a line of thought already pursued in §44 of the Sixth Investigation,52 Husserl asks now the question concerning the origin of the concept of “existence.” While in the Logical Investigations Husserl could affirm that it is in the “objects” of the propositional acts, notably, their “fulfillments,” that there lies “the true source of the concepts state of affairs and being,” he can now affirm that it is not in perception, but rather in the “being-perceived” (das Wahrgenommensein) that there lies the origin of the concept of “existence” (Existenz) (Hua-Mat III, 136): “Without perception we would have no concept of existence.” Thus, as he hastens to add, “What is thereby implied (Darin liegt) is that a being, which were so to speak non-­perceivable in principle, would be a non-sense” (Hua-Mat III, 136). The argument needs to be rightly understood. For Husserl is far from maintaining that “perception” or “real perceivability” belong to  the “idea” of an object (zur Idee keines Gegenstandes gehört die Wahrnehmung oder reelle Wahrnehmbarkeit): “Perception is an intention directed towards the object, but even in the cases of adequate perception there obtains a distinction between intention and intended object. To the object’s content there belongs no intention but only the object-like moments.” The question for Husserl is rather to acknowledge that an object or entity is the possible aiming point of an intention, so that here “object” means “what is found in a possible perception.” Husserl denies that this is equivalent to the “esse = percipi”-position; and it is also clear that his reasoning mostly relies on a very loose meaning of the term “existence”. Husserl moves back and forth, in fact, between Existenz, Gegenstand, and Sein (taken as synonyms). As far as we understand Husserl’s argument here, the conclusion can be drawn to the effect that the source of the “concept” of being as existence lies not in the intention directed towards the object, but rather in the possibility for the latter to be given in a (possible) perception fulfilling the intention itself. Were we to re-phrase Husserl’s words from §44, one could write, “Not in reflection upon intentions, nor even on perceptions as the fulfillment of intentions, but rather in what is given in  “Not in reflection upon judgments, nor even upon fulfillments of judgments, but in the fulfillments of judgments themselves lies the true source of the concepts state of affairs and being (in the copulative sense). Not in these acts as objects, but in the objects of these acts, do we have the abstractive basis which enables us to realize the concepts in question” (Hua XIX/2, 670; Husserl, 2001b, II, 279). See the work by Benoist, 2002, 206 and ff., in which a discussion of the problem of the ausweisen is implicitly present. 52

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perception lies the true source of the concept of being as existence.” In line with the Sixth Logical Investigation (§44), Husserl’s only preoccupation here is to identify the source-point of a concept. This does not mean that “every being” should be given (dass jedes Sein jemals gegeben sein): “It would be correct to say that being and adequate perception are concepts, the extent (dem Umfange nach) of which coincide, only if there belonged to every object the being-perceived as one of its characteristics, or whether we could show with evidence that there is ideal incompatibility between the concept of being and the concept of non-being-perceived” (Hua-Mat III, 137). But there is in principle no incompatibility between being and non-being-perceived—and the Umfang of the concept of being does not coincide with the Umfang of the concept of being-­ perceived: an object can fall within the former without necessarily falling within the latter. Being-perceived is not a Merkmal of the object, otherwise no object could be (as an object) without being perceived. This is the reason, according to Husserl, why his argument does not coincide with the “esse = percipi.” Husserl’s argument consists of two separate, yet inter-related theses. On the one hand, he strongly rejects the esse = percipi on the basis of the distinction between “object” and “intention”: it is not possible to assert that being-perceived is an objectual “characteristic” in the sense in which, e.g. being-red is a Merkmal of the object. In this respect, to be an object does not signify nor imply to be perceived. On the other hand, as the origin of the concept of being as “existence” is traced back to what is given in a possible perception, Husserl can emphatically say that a being that is non-perceivable “in principle” is a non-sense. For this would amount to an ideal incompatibility between the concept of “being” (as existent) and the concept of “being-perceived.” As a matter of fact, if we affirm that A (an object) is or exists and yet it cannot be perceived, then only two alternatives are possible. Either what we are stating is merely a fact—in such a way that what we are denying is that A is and can be de facto perceived (this would correspond to Husserl’s recognizing that the Umfang of the concept “being” and the Umfang of the concept “being-­perceived” do not coincide). Or what we are affirming is that A cannot be perceived in principle, in such a way that—at least in this one case—there obtains a de jure “incompatibility” between the concept “being” (as existent) and the concept “being-perceived.” But there can exist no such thing as “a one-time de jure incompatibility”: a de jure incompatibility does not admit exceptions. We cannot accept “a one-time de jure incompatibility” without this implying a de jure incompatibility tout court. The statement to the effect that, at least in one case, there could exist an object which cannot possibly be perceived implies a de jure incompatibility between the concept being and the concept being-perceived, hence the general (and “non-sensical”) conclusion that whatever is (and falls within the extent of the concept: being as existent) cannot be perceived (for it cannot in principle fall within the extent of the concept: being-perceived) and vice versa.

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Whatever falls within the extent of the concept: being-perceived cannot “be” because it does not and cannot fall within the extent of the concept: being as existent. Whoever were to endorse such argument would end up embracing a position that is the exact opposite of the “esse est percipi;” she or he would have to admit— volens nolens—that “percipi est non esse.”53

11. If we now move on to the second context of appearance and discussion of the “principle,” i.e., the 1913 lectures on Nature and Spirit, we find ourselves confronted with a quite different situation. For in this case, the “exhibition-principle” appears within the framework of “the phenomenology of reason” first outlined by Husserl towards the end of Ideas. The Second Chapter (Phenomenology of Reason) of Section Four (Reason and Actuality) opens up with the following remarks: When one speaks straightway of objects, one normally means actual (wirkliche), objects that truly are (wahrhaft seiende Gegenstände) of the respective category of being. If one speaks rationally, whatever one then says of these objects, what is meant as well as said must be capable thereby of being “justified,” “exhibited” (ausweisen), directly “seen” or, in a mediated way, “discerned.” In the logical sphere, the sphere of assertion, “being true” or “being actual” and “being rationally exhibited” (vernünftig aus-weisbar-sein) stand intrinsically in correlation and this holds for all doxic modalities of being or positing (Hua III/1, 314; Husserl, 2014a, 270).

Now, this is the larger context in which Husserl’s 1913 discussion of the “exhibition-­ principle” is to be prima facie inscribed. Here, phrases such as vernünftige Ausweisung (Hua III/1, 314; Husserl, 2014a, 270), motiviert and vernünftig motiviert (Hua III/1, 316; Husserl, 2014a, 272) are equivalent. In §138 Husserl writes, “‘The thing is real or actual (wirklich)’ is […] equivalent to positing: ‘It is real or actual (Es ist wirklich)’, provided that ongoing experience does not bring with it ‘stronger and rational motives’ which establish that the original positing is one that must be, in the wider context, ‘crossed out’” (Hua III/1, 319; Husserl, 2014a, 274). In this regard, the three equivalences established by Husserl in his lectures (see above, §8) should not look problematic at all. For Husserl is arguing that in order for a proposition of the type 1a (“A exists”) to be true (1c), it means that this very same proposition has already been rationally justified, grounded and ausgewiesen or,  This is the only possible starting-point in order to properly understand Husserl’s emphasis on the difference between his own idealism and Berkeley’s; see for example Husserl’s letter to Maximilian Beck on October 28, 1928: “Es thut mir leid, daß Ihre so sorgsame Arbeit darin mir, trotz eingehender Kritik meiner Grundauffassungen, nicht helfen kann. Es ist bedauerlich, daß Ihnen der eigentliche Sinn meines phän. Idealismus, wie offenbar schon der Sinn der ph. Reduction, nicht zugänglich ist u. Sie die Abgründe nicht sehen, der ihn vom Berkeleyschen u. allen traditionellen Idealismen trennt” (Hua-Dok III/2, 9–10). A quick, yet important reading of the “principle,” and its “empiristic” nature is offered by Seron, 2017, 42–46. See in particular p. 46, where a comparison is sketched between Husserl and Reinach. 53

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which is the same: that it can be rationally justified, grounded and ausgewiesen. If this is not the case, two alternatives are possible. Either we are assuming the proposition to be true, yet without having any reason for so doing; or the proposition affirming the existence of A is an empty intention, one which has not yet been justified nor proved wrong. But if this is the case, then we are no longer discussing the cases mentioned by Husserl himself in his lectures of 1913: for Husserl considers the case of a true proposition (stating that “A exists”). Now, that Husserl does not prima facie gratify the reader with any determination of what “existence” means in this context (it seems to be equivalent to “being” in general) nor with any account of what the “ausweisen-operation” consists in, this is justified by the very idea of a phenomenology of reason. The latter states that the fundamental species of sense and “evidence” by means of which a statement is justified and ausgewiesen and a corresponding being posited as truly being varies depending upon the ontological region and category in question (Hua III/1, 321; Husserl, 2014a, 276). As a consequence, to frame the claim under scrutiny as “If A exists, then the exhibition of A’s existence is possible,” and to add that this would make the “principle” “an idealist proposition” (Marchesi, 2019, 101), amounts in our opinion to a misunderstanding of what is going on at this stage of Husserl’s argument. In the first place, it is not at all evident what “idealism” would mean here. In the second place, one should never lose sight of Husserl speaking of “true propositions” (and Marchesi, 2019, 100, is fully aware of it54). What Husserl would say is, “If the proposition ‘A exists’ is true [= equivalence between 1a and 1c from §8], then the exhibition of A’s existence is possible.” Otherwise, we would not even be entitled to say that “A exists” is a true proposition. Yet, since we are actually saying that “A exists” is true, then a possible exhibition of A’s existence obtains  (must obtain). What is really problematic in Husserl’s own reasoning in the 1913 lectures is SBSW: “to cross out every flow of consciousness from real being means to cross out the real world, i.e., every actually existing reality” (Hua XXXVI, 78). The discrepancy between SBSW and the “principle” could not be greater. Based on the latter, it does not follow that were there no real consciousness, there would be no reality either. All we could affirm is that, if there were no real consciousness, one could not “verify” the statement “A exists,” or, more radically: it would not even make sense to assume it, yet without this meaning that there is no actual existing reality. Quite likely, Husserl would make us note how paradoxical, or even “non-sensical,” our situation will sound if we assume that there is no real consciousness able to verify “A exists” while we still claim to be able to affirm that there is no real consciousness able to verify “A exists.” Now, as there is no need for us to elaborate on this point, let us directly tackle SBSW to clarify its sense and how, in our opinion, it should be properly comprehended. We have already introduced our reading in §3, and it is always important to

 Unlike Roman Ingarden (1992, 173 and ff.), who tends to confuse the talk of “propositions” (“A exists”) and that of “existence” sic et simpliciter. 54

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keep in mind that the main difficulty in interpreting the text derives from its fragmentary character, which prevents the reader from having a clear and fully-fledged perspective of Husserl’s reasoning as a whole. Let us also hasten to point out that any coherent reading of SBSW should start out by recognizing that the crossing out in question is not to be prima facie understood as a factual crossing out, that is to say, as the factually imaginable hypothesis that all (human) real consciousness will in the future, at some point, disappear due to a cosmic or natural catastrophe. This is not the situation Husserl is describing here. Husserl is rather dealing with the problem of what it means or, to put it better, of how it is possible, given a multiplicity of “possible” real worlds, to determine the only actual one. In his mind, this is no idle talk but a rather crucial issue. Since it belongs to the very nature of ontology of nature, as the science of what is “possible,”55 to contrive and frame different possible natures (in the plural), i.e., different possible ontological frameworks of what it means for a nature in general to be, the decision as to which one exactly exists cannot be an ontological decision. Ontology decides on matters of possibility (in this case: possible realities or natures), and yet it is not able to establish which one, among the many possible conceivable natures and realities, is the de facto existing one. Husserl’s line of thought in the pages in question should be described as follows. The starting point is the idea of a “transcendent individual being” assumed as an exemplar to be freely varied (beliebig variieren lassen) (Hua XXXVI, 74). What is thereby obtained is the region “thing” designating any possible real thing (Ding) and nature. The second step consists in recognizing that every possible nature does correspond to a possible conscious system, in such a manner that given a multiplicity of “possible” natures a multiplicity of “possible” conscious systems is thereby prescribed (the correlation being to be understood as an “ideal possibility”). As each one of these natures, were it to obtain, would be incompatible with the others (unverträglich sind sie), then how is the existence of the one and only existing real nature, i.e., its Daseinsthesis to be established, thereby ruling out all the others? Only the assumption of an actually experiencing consciousness (ein aktuell erfahrendes Bewusstsein) can justify and ground the “positing” of this (possible) nature rather than the positing of that (possible) nature. For it is the system of actual conscious experiences or syntheses (as Husserl will more properly explain in the Meditations) that can exclude as annulled or as a fiction, and as really impossible, what could be assumed as a different and ideal possible world with a different possible ontological structure. As is clear, what is in question is the relation between phenomenology and ontology, notably, the eidetics of nature, hence the necessity of establishing the sense of the existing reality (and not of reality as an ontological possibility) by ruling out the talk of “possible worlds.” If we are on the right track, what SBSW is suggesting or pointing the finger at is not some kind of “factually” apocalyptic scenario that would wipe out all real  For a text in which Husserl clearly addresses this point, see Hua XXXII, 49 and ff. Here Husserl explains that the transition from the factual dimension to the eidetic one corresponds to a transition “from the given world” to “an infinite multiplicity of worlds” (Welten), each of which with its own possible structure. 55

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consciousness (merely animal or other) and which would then make the real world vanish into thin air. SBSW is expressing what Husserl takes to be the relation between “phenomenology” and “ontology.” Better framed: SBSW expresses the result of the inclusion of the ontological discourse (in this case, the ontological discourse about nature and possible natures) within the “phenomenology of reason,” thereby addressing the question of the rational assumption (Annahme) and positing of the one and only real nature (among the many possible and incompatible ones) (De Santis, 2017; Bernet, 2004, 160 and ff.). If we cross out every real and factual56 flow of consciousness or “animal reality” (Hua XXXVI, 125), every reality with a lived-body, we cross out the real world in the specific sense that—ontologically speaking—we are left with a potentially infinite number of “possible” real worlds and natures mutually incompatible with one another, yet without having any instrument to determine which one is the actually existing real world (see also Hua XXXVI, 159–160, where this point is made quite clearly). If we now ask the crucial question, What kind of “equivalence” is the equivalence established by Husserl when he affirms that the assumption of the one real world means the same as the existence of an actually experiencing or experiential consciousness?, the answer should be easy to fathom. If in the lectures of 1902 it was the Erkenntnistheoretiker who established the “equivalence” between “being” and “being-perceivable,” in 1913 the equivalence is established by the transcendental phenomenologist of reason. The equivalence between 1a = 2a; 1b = 2b; 1c = 2c first, and between the existence of the one real world and an actual system of consciousness then, is a “transcendental” equivalence. They are not ontological equivalences. For the ontologist who investigates nature as an idea, there is no such thing as a “transcendental consciousness” as a new region of being. It is the “transcendental phenomenologist” that can affirm, X = a certain Ausweisung. Since the “=” does not designate an “ontological” equivalence, it would be a mistake to construe of it as proposing an ontological form of dependence of the one term upon the other. This kind of in-dependences can obtain only within the macro-regions  yet not between them.

12. A “realistic hypothesis” and argument has been recently borrowed (by De Palma, 2017, 22–23) from Lewis (1934, 143) contra TI or, to put it better, contra the idealistic reading of the Ausweisung-“principle”: “If all minds should disappear from the universe, the stars would still go on in their courses.” Now, if such argument is meant to suggest that, for Husserl, to be experienced essentially belongs to what things are, to their being and essence, we have to reply that this is precisely what

 Husserl himself stresses the importance of assuming factual experience and factual determinations of consciousness; see for example Hua XXXVI, 53–54; 55; 60 and ff.; 117 and ff. 56

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Husserl denies apertis verbis (see the discussion in §9 above and, most importantly, in Hua XXXVI, 191). TI does not imply any ontological dependence between the two macro-regions “consciousness” and “world”: to believe this and, as a consequence, to dismiss TI as an ontological doctrine affirming some kind of ontological relation (that would make statements of the type above unthinkable) is just a misunderstanding. If the question were whether Husserl would accept the above statement, the answer would be straightforward, not in spite of TI, but rather because of it: “yes!” To the extent that the statement above is a “justified” one, i.e., a statement expressing a truth rationally grounded, there is no reason to think that Husserl would deny its truth and validity. The point for him is to recognize that the truth of the statement has been justified and proved “true” by the inter-monadic-subjectivity. The sense of the truth of the statement requires its rootedness in the inter-­subjectivity, in reason’s capacity to ascertain how things “really are” (e.g., by means of the distinction, proposed in §40 of Ideas, between primary and secondary qualities on the one hand, and between “perceptual things” and “physicalistic things” on the other). However, the problem could be viewed from a different angle. The statement above could imply the following question: in case the inter-monadic-subjectivity were to factually disappear from the world (e.g., due to a natural catastrophe), what would Husserl argue as regards the statement above as well as the existence of the world itself? Now, let us hasten to add that, as far as we know, Husserl never seems to take into account such “apocalyptic” scenario; there are manuscripts where the problem of the relation between the actual inter-subjectivity and a past without “rational beings” is explicitly mentioned (see for example in Hua XXXVI, 144). Yet, the hypothesis of a possible, factual future with no “rational beings” seems never to occur to Husserl.57 This can be explained in two ways. The first explanation would affirm that de facto Husserl died before the very possibility for humanity to annihilate itself became reality (= atomic bomb). This is why Husserl is not even considering it. The second explanation would be philosophical instead: it would affirm that, for Husserl, the hypothesis makes “transcendentally” no sense. For either the hypothesis is made by the actual inter-monadic-subjectivity, in such a manner that it makes sense for “it” to ontologically describe what the world would look like even with no “rational beings.” Or, sense being a transcendental notion, a world without “rational beings,” i.e., without reason would be deprived of sense, hence it would make no sense to say how it would be or how it would not be (see also Volume 2, Chap. 5). It would make no sense to affirm that it disappears nor that it will not. But if we can de facto say

 With the exception, for example, of a 1923 text where the hypothesis of a Kältetod of our planet is mentioned (Hua XLII, 307) (but here Husserl’s concern is ethical and regards the possibility of a meaningful life in a world about to end) and a 1934 short but famous manuscript on the Erde that bewegt sich nicht. Here Husserl mentions the hypotheses of a “heat death” (Wärmetod) that would end all life, and the case of a “celestial body” that crashes into the Earth (auf die Erde stürzende Himmelskörper) (see Husserl, 1940, 324). And yet Husserl is clear, Aber mag man in unseren Versuchen die unglaublichste philosophische Hybris finden: wir weichen in unserer Konsequenz der Aufklärung der Notwendigkeit aller Sinngebung für Seiendes und für Welt nicht zurück. 57

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that, were all minds to disappear from the universe, “the stars would still go on in their courses,” this is possible and the statement makes sense because it has been uttered and established by the inter-monadic-subjectivity (see for example Husserl, 1940, 325). Inferring from the non-material (we would rather say: ontological) character of TI that the position of the concrete ego (= inter-monadic-subjectivity) would be of merely formal, i.e., methodological nature is an oversimplification of what Husserl would claim instead. As we saw in the previous chapter (§10), Husserl claims that the universe of possible sense is the “unity” of the universe of possible consciousness and the universe of true being within the absolute concretion. It is the concrete content of the inter-­ monadic-­subjectivity, that is to say, the contingent a priori (see Chap. 3, §3) of its structure that determines what can be established as “truly being” in the world. As Husserl had already recognized in a text of 1921, to a subject without the ability to see (Beschauen) corresponds absolutely no “visual Ausweisung,” just as there corresponds no “tactile Ausweisung” to a subject without the ability to touch (Betasten) (Hua XXXVI, 165). What is to be added is that the world of an inter-subjectivity, the contingent a priori of which includes no visual Ausweisung, has no determinable visual determinations either. Unless it is itself “part” of a larger inter-monadic-­ subjectivity, the contingent a priori of which includes the visual Ausweisung. In this case, the latter would be in a position to correct the former’s experience by ascertaining the visual ontological determinations and truths of the world.58 For example, the argument to the effect that an inter-subjectivity could be imagined, the contingent a priori of which includes Ausweisungen which we do not avail, in such a way that the universe of true being cannot be limited to this inter-monadic subjectivity— this hypothesis can be interpreted in two ways. Either such inter-subjectivity is merely imagined, thus negated as a “fiction” by the factually existing inter-­ subjectivity (so that nothing is really added to the universe of true being). Or it factually exists—thereby standing in a possible factual relation with the factually existing inter-subjectivity. To affirm that just as there are blind subjects as part of this inter-subjectivity, so there could be possible subjects different from us, and able to experience the world in a way other than ours, to say this, we were saying, presupposes what are trying to argue for. Only two alternatives are available. Either the two inter-subjectivities join up together in just one inter-subjectivity to which there corresponds the one universe of true being; or either one is annulled by the other, so that the being corresponding to it is aufgehoben.

 Contra Husserl, Edith Stein claims that the monad cannot be deemed “absolute” because it is always, and from the very beginning, ins Dasein gesetzt (Stein, 2005, 244; 2009, 364). But this is exactly what Husserl himself admits when he speaks of the monad’s “worldly concreteness” and, more specifically, of its “contingent a priori.” 58

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In either case, the universe of true being is the one universe, the “sense” of which corresponds to the absolute concretion of the one and only (factually existing) inter-subjectivity.59 If in the lectures of 1913 the “exhibition-principle” is the background against which an incomplete justification of TI is provided (incomplete because Husserl himself later recognized that it still lacks the inter-subjective dimension), in the Cartesian Meditations the principle turns out to be an actual constitutive part of TI: “A coherent self-exhibition of the objective world of experience implies a coherent self-exhibition of the other monads as being” (Hua I, 166; Husserl, 1993, 138). This is also the reason why—although TI is not an “ontological” doctrine60—it is not true that for Husserl the reference to the subject’s role and function would be merely methodological.

13. It should be evident in what sense TI is Husserl’s way of tackling Heidegger’s question of 1927 concerning the higher form of intelligibility: what we called the nomos of the transcendental (see Chap. 1 of the present volume). Such “intelligibility” is higher than the “ontological” one (which Husserl also labels the Rationalität61 established by the many eidetic sciences as they investigate the a priori truths of the many domains of being). It is to be deemed higher because it is obtained by including or re-including the abstract domains that are investigated by the ontologies within the primum concretum (see above §1), thereby also regarding the eidetic sciences as the expression of the theoretical form of reason of the concrete ego or, to put it better, of the monadic inter-subjectivity. It is to be called higher, however, also for a second reason. Over against the ontological intelligibility established by the eidetic sciences—which regard the world sub specie possibilitatis and are hence unable to determine and decide which world actually, really exists—TI establishes transcendentally the existence of the one and only real world, the only one in which we, ephemeral human beings, dwell and sojourn. As we will see in the last part of the present research  (Volume 2, Chapters 4 and  5), this is the moment when the ontological rationality of the world established by the ontologies and the transcendental rationality established by TI are confronted with the factual, metaphysical

 What we have just finished describing is what makes TI irreducible to any “verificationist”-sort of position (see on the contrary De Palma, 2015, 17, for whom the latter can and should be separated from the former). In our opinion it would be better to speak of transcendental positivism (Szilasi, 1959, 1). On the role played by the concept of “validity” in shaping Husserl’s idealism in contrast with Kant’s, see Luft, 2007, 377–383. 60  Some of the texts published in Hua XXXVI show how aware Husserl was of speaking an ambiguous language. In a text from 1908, for example, where the talk of “sense” occurs on every other page, he remarks: Es handelt sich also nicht um “Sinn” als “Wesen” des Dinges (Hua XXXVI, 27). 61  In De Santis, 2021b, Part VI, we have extensively explained what this means. 59

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form of irrationality—the one peculiar to this factual world and our own human existence in it. It is here that the question of metaphysics “in a new sense” will eventually appear on the stage.

References Avé-Lallemant, E. (1975). Die Antithese Freiburg-München in der Geschichte der Phänomenologie. In H. Kuhn (Hrsg.), Die Münchener Phänomenologie (pp. 19–38). M. Nijhoff. Bachelard, S. (1957). La logique de Husserl. Étude sur Logique formelle et logique transcendantale. PUF. Bancalari, S. (2015). Logica dell’epochè. Per un’introduzione alla fenomenologia della religione. ETS. Becker, O. (1930). Die Philosophie Edmund Husserl. Kant Studien, XXXV, 2/3, 119–150. Benoist, J. (2001a). Représentations sans objet. Aux origines de la phénoménologie et de la philosophie analytique. PUF. Benoist, J. (2001b). Intentionnalité et langage dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl. PUF. Benoist, J. (2002). Entre acte et sens. Recherches sur la théorie phénoménologique de la signification (Vol. 30, p. 21). Vrin. Bernet, R. (2004). Conscience et existence. Perspectives phénoménologiques. PUF. Bruzina, R. (2004). Edmund Husserl & Eugen Fink. Beginnings and ends in phenomenology, 1928–1938. Yale University Press. Cairns, D. (1976). Conversations with Husserl and Fink. M. Nijhoff. Carella, V. (2021). Animalità del soggetto, soggettività animale. Il contributo della fenomenologia di Edmund Husserl a un’etica per l’ambiente. Orthotes. Celms, T. (1993). Der phänomenologische Idealismus Husserls und andere Schriften (1928–1943). Peter Lang. Conrad-Martius, H. (1916). Zur Ontologie und Erscheinungslehre der realen Außenwelt. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, 3, 345–542. Conrad-Martius, H. (2020). “Über Ontologie.” Ein unveröffentlichtes Manuskript von Hedwig Conrad-Martius zu Husserls Ideen I. In H. Rainer-Sepp (Hrsg.), Natur und Kosmos. Entwürfe der frühen Phänomenologie (pp. 170–188). Verlag von Traugott Bautz. Croce, B. (1947). Logica come scienza del concetto puro. Giuseppe Laterza e figli. De boer, T. (1973). Die Begriffe “absolut” und “relative” bei Husserl. Versuch einer Analyse. Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung, 27, 514–533. De Palma, V. (2015). Eine peinliche Verwechselung. Zu Husserls Transzendentalismus. Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 1, 13–45. De Palma, V. (2017). Kommentare. Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 1, 13–25. De Santis, D. (Ed.). (2014). Di Idee ed essenze. Un dibattito su fenomenologia e ontologia (1921–1930), con saggi di Jean Héring, Roman Ingarden e Herbert Spiegelberg. Mimesis. De Santis, D. (2015). Wesen, Eidos, idea. Remarks on the “Platonism” of Jean Hering and Roman Ingarden. Studia Phaenomenologica, XV, 155–180. De Santis, D. (2017). Edmund Husserl on Leib and transcendental idealism: Sketching a counter-­ approach based on Husserliana XXXVI. Interpretation, 2, 34–50. De Santis, D. (2019a). “Das Wunder hier ist die Rationalität.” remarks on Husserl on Kant’s Einbildungskraft and the idea of transcendental philosophy (with a note on Kurd Laßwitz). The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, XVII, 268–287. De Santis, D. (2019b). “Nové pojetí bytí.” Levinas o Husserlově fenomenologickém idealismu. In O. Sikora & J. Sirovárka (vyd.), Lévinas v konfrontaci. OIKOYMENH.

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De Santis, D. (2021a). The development of Husserl’s concept of metaphysics. In H. Jacobs (Ed.), The Husserlian mind (pp. 481–493). Routledge. De Santis, D. (2021b). Husserl and the a priori. Phenomenology and rationality. Springer. De Santis, D. (2021c). Thought, being and the given in Hans Vaihinger’s Die Philosophie des Als Ob (with a Husserlian Conclusion). Phänomenologische Forschungen, 2, 93–111. Djian, A. (2021). Husserl et l’horizon comme problème. Une contribution à l’histoire de la phénoménologie. Presses universitaires du Septentrion. Dodd, J. (1997). Idealism and corporeity. In An essay on the problem of body in Husserl’s phenomenology. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Erhard, C. (2014). Denken über Nichts. In Intentionalität und Nicht-Existenz bei Husserl. De Gruyter. Erhard, C. (2020). Phänomenologie: Edmund Husserl. In J. Urbich & J. Zimmer (Eds.), Handbuch Ontologie (pp. 169–176). Springer. Fink, E. (1966). Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930–1939. M. Nijhoff. Fink, E. (1988). VI.  Cartesianische Meditation. Teil 1: Die Idee einer transzendentalen Methodenlehre (Hua-Dok II/1). M. Nijhoff. Geyser, J. (1916). Neue und alte Wege der Philosophie. Eine Erörterung der Grundlagen der Erkenntnis im Hinblick auf Edmund Husserls Versuch ihrer Neubegründung. Verlag von Heinrich Schöning. Heidegger, M., & Blochmann, E. (1990). Briefwechsel 1918–1969. Marbach an Neckar. Hering, J. (1926). Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Alcan. Hering, J. (1932). Recension d’E. Levinas. La théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 113, 474–481. Hering, J. (1959). Edmund Husserl. Souvenirs et réflexions. In Edmund Husserl 1859–1959 (pp. 26–28). M. Nijhoff. Hering, J. (2015). Phänomenologie als Grundlage der Metaphysik. Studia Phaenomenologica, XV, 35–59. Husserl, E. (1940). Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Räumlichkeit der Natur. In M.  Farber (Ed.), Philosophical essays in memory of Edmund Husserl (pp. 307–325). Oxford University Press. Husserl, E. (1952). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch (Hua IV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1956). Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil (Hua VII). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1959). Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Zweiter Teil. Hua VIII, M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1968). Briefe an Roman Ingarden. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1969). Formal and transcendental logic. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1971). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch (Hua V). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973a). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935 (Hua XV). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft, Hua XVII. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Band, Hua III/1. M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1980). Ideas for a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy. Third book. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Unterschungen. Zweiter Teil (Hua XIX/1; XIX/2). M. Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1989a). Ideas for a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy. Second book. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1989b). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937) (Hua XXVII). Kluwer Academic Publisher. Husserl, E. (1993). Cartesian meditations. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Appendix  f a Hegemonic Discourse About the History of Early O Phenomenology: Outline of a Paradigm Revision1

1. Some of the bold claims and theses that we advanced over the course of chapter 6 require us to tackle a most crucial issue. As a matter of fact, our reconstruction of the first appearances and further developments of Husserl’s understanding of his phenomenology as a form of transcendental idealism seems to inevitably and openly enter into contradiction with a well-established and broadly accepted historiographical paradigm (hereafter: HP), namely, the one concerning the so-­ called first “schism” of the early phenomenological movement (Spiegelberg, 1982b, 3)—the alleged “second” schism being the one initiated by Heidegger (see Heffernan, 2016, for a most interesting criticism of this distinction). In a few words that will suffice for the time being, HP states roughly the following. After the publication of the Logical Investigations, a first meeting with Johannes Daubert in 1902 (see Conrad, 2021) and a 1904 trip to Munich, where Husserl met Th. Lipps and gave a lecture at the Psychologischer Verein, an intensive exchange began between Husserl himself and some of Lipps’ students. Led by Daubert, some of them moved to Göttingen to study phenomenology with Husserl: it is the famous Invasion aus München (see Schapp, 1959, 20). Adolf Reinach and Daubert arrived in 1905, soon followed by Moritz Geiger; Theodor Conrad moved in 1907, but only for a semester, and then came back again in 1910–1911; von Hildebrand moved in 1909, whereas Hedwig Martius joined the group in 1910 (to name but a few) (see Spiegelberg, 1982a, 167; for a chronologically more accurate presentation, Feldes, 2015, 30–31). Now, even though the historical reconstructions might at this point slightly diverge and take different routes depending on whether the hagiographic 1  The meaning of  the  expression hegemony is explained in  the  Introduction to  the  present volume, §6.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4

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tone is laid upon the role played by either Daubert2 (Schuhmann & Smith, 1985) or Reinach, the alleged first schism of the “phenomenological movement” (for the meaning of this expression, see Spiegelberg, 1983, 282–288; Schuhmann, 1983; Avé-Lallemant, 1988) is presented in almost always the same way, and the “disappointment” felt by the young phenomenologists vis-à-vis the latest developments of Husserl’s thought is described with almost always the same words.3 In contrast with the view of the Logical Investigations, with which the Munich philosophers had familiarized themselves, between 1905 and 1907 Husserl started moving in a direction that appeared to them to be directly at variance with the spirit of the work of 1900–1901. Such Husserlian turn might be described in slightly different ways. Depending on whether one maintains that the phenomenology of the Logical Investigations was committed to “realism” (Seifert, 1987; Dubois, 1995, 146), “objectivism” or “metaphysical neutrality” (Koyré in AA.VV., 1932, 72), Husserl’s newly espoused perspective can be described as a form of neo-Kantianism (Schapp, 1959, 20), “transcendentalism,” “idealism” (Lavigne, 2005, 21) or even just “subjectivism.” A quick, yet telling mode of describing the scenario at stake can be found in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s book What is Philosophy? Here a distinction is made between Husserl’s transcendental idealism, and […] a completely different meaning of phenomenology [which] is in strict, radical opposition to any idealism. It signifies in fact the most outspoken objectivism and realism. It is this meaning of phenomenology which we find in the writings of Adolf Reinach, Alexander Pfänder, myself, and several others, and which we, at least, identified with the meaning of phenomenology in the first edition of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen. In fact, the historical impact of this work of Husserl, attracting students of all countries to Göttingen, was due to its unambiguous refutation of psychologism, subjectivism, and all types of relativism (von Hildebrand, 1960, 273).

“Transcendental idealism” or merely “idealism” and “subjectivism” on the one hand, “objectivism” and “realism” on the other: such being the battery of oppositions by means of which von Hildebrand describes the radical discrepancy between  Labeled by Theodor Conradder führende Kopf der Münchner Husserl-Schüler (Daubert, 1907a, 1). 3  An important attempt (probably the only one) at questioning the hegemony of HP is so far represented by Salice, 2012. But it is not clear to us in what sense the difference between Husserl and Reinach/Conrad concerning the way in which intention, fulfillment, and “representation” should be understood implies an “agenda” or a “phenomenological program” different from that of the Logical Investigations. If we understand correctly the argument, the point would bear upon the theory of “correlation,” which Reinach/Conrad would not embrace precisely on the basis of their different stance on “representation” and “fulfillment.” However, an objection can be raised. Whereas Salice understands “correlation” as a relation between “empty intention” and “intuitive fulfillment” (in the Logical Investigations), the “theory of correlation” that Husserl has in mind in the 20s, when he retrospectively looks back at his 1900 book, is the “correlation” between different forms of intuitive consciousness and corresponding modes of being. Husserl can claim that there is continuity between the Investigations and his later (transcendental) work because already in the former he tackles the correlation between the mode of being of logical formations and the logical experience by which they are intuitively given. There is no correlation at the level of empty and signitive intentions because they are devoid of intuitiveness. 2

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“the meaning of phenomenology in the first edition of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen” (to which Reinach, Pfänder and others remained faithful) and the meaning Husserl attached to it later on. Now, leaving aside the opposition between subjectivism and objectivism (as it is not clear whether von Hildebrand would take it to be equivalent with the distinction between idealism and realism),4 transcendental idealism is the label under which the newly adopted Husserlian version of phenomenology, the one which the young phenomenologists always refused to embrace, could be and de facto is almost always categorized. More specifically, in the debates revolving around HP, and the origin of the disagreement between Husserl and the young phenomenologists, two major points have been so far discussed and debated. (a) The apparently harmless, because it is purely historiographical, problem concerning the date of the so-called “Munich invasion” of Göttingen; (b) The seemingly innocent—yet theoretically important—question of when the disagreement between Husserl and the young phenomenologists officially began, as it were. As we will see, even though the overall interpretation of the “nature” of the disagreement does not change (this representing the core of HP), slightly different perspectives have been developed based on the different views that can be adopted on either a or b and their combination. Before we move on to a systematic discussion, two methodological remarks preliminarily impose themselves. There is a very specific reason why we have been using the intentionally vague turn of phrase “the young phenomenologists” without yet using any explicit name or distinction. Avé-Lallemant, for example, speaks both of “a properly Munich group” that revolves mainly around “Pfänder, Daubert and Geiger,” and more broadly of “a Munich-Göttingen [group]” the axis of which was represented by the pair Reinach-Conrad (Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 23). The latter, Avé-Lallemant further writes, includes at least thinkers such as Hering and Schapp, Koyré and Hans Lipps, Hedwig Martius and von Hildebrand, Stein and F. Kaufmann, Ingarden and Grimme. Theodor Conrad—who also speaks of a “Munich-Göttingen school”—maintained, in a later text, that the rejection of the transcendental reduction as the method of

 The ambiguity of the objectivism-subjectivism distinction was already pointed out by Moritz Geiger in his attempt at outlining a “first” history of phenomenology from the Munich standpoint (Geiger, 1933). The difference between the two “phenomenologies” is not for him to be prima facie understood in terms of the opposition between Wendung zum Objekt (= Logical Investigations & Munich phenomenology) and Wendung ins Subjektive (= Husserl after the Logical Investigations). The latter, Geiger points out, was already at work in the Logical Investigations, but in such a way that it presupposed and built on the former (Geiger, 1933, 15). As a matter of fact, the term subjectivism can simply designate a thematic interest, i.e., an interest directed towards the subject (= consciousness as a new field of study) which does not prima facie mean the refusal of the objective method, but rather the opposite (De Santis, 2021a). Or, second possibility, it can mean that the analysis of the subject is a means towards the determination of the object so that the Wendung ins Subjektive is a preliminary step in order for the Wendung zum Objekt to be accomplished: this is Geiger’s interpretation of the methodological stance of the Logical Investigations. 4

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phenomenology was shared by the entire school (he speaks of denselben methodischen Standort) (Conrad, 1992, 80). By contrast, Hering wrote that it is not true that none of Husserl’s early students and disciples ever accepted the transcendental reduction (Hering, 1959, 27). Now, it is precisely in order to avoid making any preliminary assumption about the unitary identity of any of the so-called “circles” that we have been sticking with the “neutral” expression “the young phenomenologists” (from Stein, 2010, 200). Using as a point of departure Hering’s statement, il y a presque autant de types de phénoménologies que de phénoménologues (Hering, 1959, 27), the use of the plural (= phenomenologists) is meant to express the plurality of the figures involved as well as to avoid taking for granted the idea of a substantial identity (whether doctrinal or even also merely methodological) of the circles (see Feldes, 2010, 2015 on the so-called “Bergzabern circle”). The second remark bears on the very nature of the “historiographical paradigm” under scrutiny in the present appendix. Far from us is the idea of reducing the complexity of early phenomenology, that is, the richness of problems, concepts, and discussions animating it, solely to HP (Schuhmann, 2005, 79–99; Salice, 2020). The problem is that despite such richness due to the plurality of the protagonists, HP has thus far represented the major, if not even the sole, hermeneutical paradigm able to produce a narrative of the history of early phenomenology.5 A great amount of ink has been spilled by scholars on the most “technical” problems: the structure of judgments and the relation between judgments and states of affairs; the nature of intentionality; the relation between linguistic and non-­linguistic acts; the difference between consciousness and the ego; the status of ideal objects and the existence of truth-makers, and so forth. However, none of these themes has ever been relied upon to compose and write a narrative that would differ from, or compete with, HP. In sum, HP displays the status of a hegemonic discourse. This being pointed out, let us flesh out the thesis that we set out to propose and argue for. Let us hasten to remark that it is not our intention here to call into question HP per se; rather, what we will dispute is that the “idealism-realism controversy” was actually the first controversy shaking the early phenomenological tradition. We will make the case for introducing a different “paradigm,” on the basis of which a narrative different from HP can be developed. Yet, in the present context we will not be able to fully develop the narrative; we will merely confine ourselves to making the case for its legitimacy. If there ever was any idealism-realism controversy in the early phenomenological tradition (we are not going to question this straight away), it came after or followed from (the actual relation is left “undecided”) a more original controversy—both chronologically and systematically. Chronologically, because it concerns a “turn” that Husserl started imposing upon his thought almost right after the release of the Logical Investigations. Systematically, because it bears upon a problem far more decisive than the one concerning the distinction between  The works by Alessandro Salice could be regarded as ultimately directed towards developing a different, alternative narrative of the history of early phenomenology. See also the recent attempt by Vendrell Ferran, 2023. 5

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“idealism” and “realism:” it is the problem of the nature itself of phenomenology, i.e., its being either merely a method with no field of investigation of its own or a science with a specific field of research of its own. Although the topic may sound far less dramatic and mind blowing than HP, we firmly believe that its importance for a correct picture of the development of early phenomenology has been thus far underestimated, if not even completely neglected. Were we to spell out in a few words what our paradigm-revision would imply, the following could be said. After familiarizing themselves with the Logical Investigations, upon their arrival in Göttingen the Munich phenomenologists realized that, meanwhile, Husserl had come to systematically regard phenomenology as a science with just one field of investigation: what he will later call “pure consciousness” as a new region of being. They (we will soon see who) saw this as a departure from the idea of phenomenology originally espoused in the work of 1900–1901, and to which they intended to remain steadily faithful. Such an idea, as we will verify more closely here, was that of phenomenology seen as a method with no limitation or exclusive field of application. In other words, if our hypothesis will ever turn out to be at least justified if not true, what would follow is that it is not true that the first grand, yet also dramatic “opposition” lacerating the living tissue of the early phases of the phenomenological tradition crystalized in the divide between “transcendental idealism” (Husserl) and “realism” (the members of the Munich-Göttingen circles). Rather, it first presented itself as the opposition between what we could label, for the sake of brevity, the methodological and the scientific conception of phenomenology respectively. Hence, HP would rather follow (chronologically) the latter, thereby building (systematically) upon it.6 As should be already evident, we will not be arguing against “the young phenomenologists”; it is not they who misunderstood Husserl and the sense of the development of his philosophy. Quite the contrary. The target against which our paradigm-revision is polemically directed is HP itself and the way in which scholars and interpreters have been thus far reading, construing and using (some of) the texts in order to endorse its validity. Now, as it is difficult, if not even impossible, to prove a negative (the non-existence of HP), we will be adopting three different, yet related, strategies. One, we will be resorting to texts to which little or no attention has been thus far paid. Two, we will be showing that the very same passages and texts used to support HP turn out to have a quite different sense and meaning as they are placed back into their context. Three, we will maintain that in some cases the interpretation is the result of an actual ὕστερον πρότερον-mistake: it is the result of a projection upon the texts of the very thesis which they are on the contrary meant to demonstrate.

 See Funke, 1972, for a retrieval of the discussion concerning the methodological understanding of phenomenology. 6

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2. After the first grandiose historical picture presented by Spiegelberg in his monumental book, it is Karl Schuhmann who first set out to analytically address a and b. When it comes to the problem of dating the Munich invasion of Göttingen, if Schapp speaks of SS 1907 (Schapp, 1959, 20), Schuhmann’s decision to opt for the year 1905 (see Schuhmann & Smith, 1987, 8; Schuhmann, 2005, 186) is based upon a still unpublished 1905 letter from Wolf Dohrn to Aloys Fischer: Es hat eine Fahnenflucht nach Göttingen stattgefunden, “There has been a desertion towards Göttingen” (footnote 33 to Conrad, 1992, 87). As Schapp arrived in Göttingen in 1905, one might be tempted to think that he directly witnessed both the arrival of the Munich students in 1905 and the 1907 “invasion,” and that he must have had a reason for not dating the “invasion” to the year 1905. Yet, if Reinach and Daubert spent in Göttingen the SS 1905 (Reinach, 1902–1917, Nr. XIV, XV, XVI), Schapp arrived only in the WS 1905 (see Schapp, 1959, 13, and 19). Which means that, regardless of whether there had been any invasion from Munich in the SS of 1905, Schapp was not there to either confirm it or disprove it. It must be noted that Dohrn’s letter does not say anything about any “invasion.” Since the letter was written by someone who was in Munich, it could only testify to a Fahnenflucht.7 In Schuhmann & Smith, 1987, 8 (footnote 25), a reference is made to Spiegelberg (1982a, 167), who, however, unlike Schuhmann and Smith, never seems to use the term “invasion” to refer to the events occurred in 1905–07.8 Avé-Lallemant (Avé-Lallemant, 1975, 25) maintains that even if the rift (zweilinige Entwicklung) between Husserl and the Munich phenomenologists opened up immediately after the first encounter in 1904, thereby agreeing with Schuhmann’s reconstruction offered in Schuhmann, 1973,9 it is only in 1907 that the radical irreconcilability between Husserl’s views and theirs became visible. On the contrary, Jean-François Lavigne, whose position has been recently endorsed by Tedeschini, 2018a, 35—criticizes and rejects Schuhmann’s reading of the Seefeld-affair, thereby questioning his reconstruction of “when”  one should exactly date  the disagreement between Husserl and the phenomenologists from Munich (see Lavigne, 2005, 403–425). Apparently, in fact, in both cases the seemingly factual and merely historiographical problem of when the disagreement should be dated directly bears upon the nature of the disagreement itself. It seems to us that Schuhmann wants to directly link, and perhaps even identify, the event of the “invasion” of Göttingen (a) with the origin of the disagreement between Husserl  Let us be clear on this point. We are not denying the fact of the invasion; rather, the point for us is to note that already at such basic level of the reconstruction there seems to be no solid or univocal textual basis. 8  In her late autography, Gerda Walther uses the expression Secessio der Lipps-Schüler (Walther, 1960, 379). 9  And according to which the origin of the first “schism” should be dated to the year 1905, in particular, to the summer discussion in Seefeld (with its relevant texts) between Husserl, Daubert and Pfänder (Schuhmann, 1973, 128 and ff.; 145 and ff.). 7

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and the Munich phenomenologists, with a special attention to Daubert and Pfänder (b). The year 1905 is for Schuhmann an inaugural moment in which both the “invasion” takes place and the irreconcilability between Husserl and (some of) the Munich phenomenologists emerges. As Schuhmann contends, it is in the 1905 Seefeld manuscripts that the method of the “transcendental reduction” was first introduced and discussed by Husserl. By contrast, Lavigne (who does not seem to concern himself with a) rejects Schuhmann’s hypothesis by systematically showing that the reduction of 1905 is not yet the transcendental reduction of 1907 (or, to put it better, of the end of 1906). Hence, it could not be perceived as pointing towards a new, transcendentally oriented direction of thought (as Tedeschini, 2018a, 36 explicitly affirms). As Lavigne himself concludes his own reconstruction, La réduction phénoménologique, fin 1905, n’est donc pas la réduction transcendantale ; elle n’a pas encore acquis le sens ontologique de la voie d’accès à un domaine d’être absolu, où trouverait son origine (transcendantale) toute visée intentionnelle d’objet et position de réalité (Lavigne, 2005, 527).

It is not our goal here to systematically review Schuhmann’s and Lavigne’s reading of the 1905 manuscripts on the “reduction”; the point for us is rather to recognize that Lavigne’s (and also Tedeschini’s) disagreement with Schuhmann takes place against a shared backdrop: the conviction that the disagreement can have something to do exclusively with Husserl’s turn towards transcendentalism and subjectivism (Lavigne, 2005, 523) (= transcendental idealism). Schuhmann’s mistake, according to Lavigne, consists in dating such a “turn” to the summer of 1905, during the Seefeld discussion with Daubert and Pfänder, whereas it should be more correctly dated between the end of 1906 and 1907. While the thesis could have been advanced to the effect that there were (at least) two disagreements between Husserl and the Munich phenomenologists, or a two-step sort of disagreement (the first in 1905, the second in 1907), Lavigne (and Tedeschini on his basis) would deny that there could have been any disagreement in 1905 based on the simple, yet strong argument that there was no reason for Daubert and Pfänder to disagree with Husserl.10 Since HP is always taken for granted, in such a way that the only possible disagreement is the one deriving from Husserl’s “transcendental-idealistic” turn, and since there was no “transcendental reduction” in 1905, it follows that the rift between Husserl and the Munich phenomenologists can only have opened up later on, notably, between the end of 1906 and the summer of 1907.11 This reading officially points the finger of

 This does not mean that Husserl, Daubert and Pfänder were in complete agreement on everything, e.g., from the nature of intentionality and perception to the question about the existence of sense-data and the relation between meaning-intention and fulfilling intuition (to give only a few examples). This only means that as Husserl had not yet embraced a transcendental-idealistic conception of phenomenology, there could not be any disagreement deriving from it. As Lavigne describes the “reduction” of 1905, À Seefeld, la réduction n’est donc pas devenue transcendantale ; elle est devenue seulement… phénoménologique (Lavigne, 2005, 425). 11  It must be remarked that Schuhmann admits the difference between the 1905 reduction and the 1907 transcendental version of it, but he regards the latter as a Weiterentwicklung of the former (see Schuhmann, 1973, 166 and ff.). 10

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blame at the infamous SS 1907, when Husserl held his lectures on The Idea of Phenomenology and the Dingkolleg (Tedeschini, 2014, 243 and ff.; 2018a, 37–42). Faced with the very possibility of questioning HP, Lavigne and Tedeschini decide to confirm it by postponing the emergence of the one and only issue (Husserl’s transcendental-idealistic conception of phenomenology disclosed by means of transcendental reduction) around which the disagreement is always deemed to revolve and which eventually led to the purported first “schism.”12 The words with which Lavigne brings the first part of his book to conclusion are symptomatic of his own attitude vis-à-vis the development of Husserl’s thought, namely, the way in which it should be understood and reconstructed: La phénoménologie à la fin de 1905 est déjà, implicitement, idéaliste et subjectiviste parce que l’idéalisme l’a précédée dans la pensée de son fondateur (Lavigne, 2005, 523). 3. Tedeschini, however, adds a further and crucial argument in favor of Lavigne’s position and in order to cast additional doubt on all those reconstructions which, just like Schuhmann’s, claim to date to around 1905 the beginning of the first “schism.” The argument is presented during a discussion of a later text composed by Theodor Conrad on “the beginnings of the phenomenological movement” (Conrad, 1992). In order to support the thesis that the beginning of the “schism” (he does not use such expression) should be dated already to the year 1905 (when Reinach and Daubert, along with Weinmann and Schweninger, visited Husserl in Göttingen), Conrad quotes an excerpt from a letter that Reinach had written to him on June 16, 1905 directly from the phenomenological capital: “The most beneficial thing that Husserl can offer is the careful and rigorous way of working” (Reinach, 1902–17, Nr. XVI).13 Tedeschini points out that, although the superlative das Heilsamste may sound ironical and even critical of what Husserl can offer to the young students, a quick look at the context of the letter will suffice to dispel this impression (Tedeschini, 2018a, 30–31 and ff.). Right before the just quoted excerpt, Reinach had declared, “I am totally satisfied with the Göttingen stay. I have written to You how nice Husserl is with us. My scientific expectations have been more than fulfilled” (Reinach, 1902–1917, Nr. XVI, 1–2).14 Whereas Tedeschini goes as far as to  For the sake of honesty, one must recognize that the analyses devoted by Lavigne to the 1905 texts and Schuhmann’s assessment of them do not have per se the ambition of determining the origin of the first “schism”; rather, the point for him is to determine the first appearance of the method of transcendental reduction. Yet, on the basis of what he writes in passing in the opening chapters of the book (Lavigne, 2005, 21 ff.; 56 ff.), the opposition between Husserl’s idealism and the realism of the “young Göttingen phenomenologists” (Lavigne, 2005, 56–57) is part of the background against which he develops his interpretation of the development of Husserl’s philosophy. 13  “Das Heilsamste, was Husserl geben kann, ist die vorsichtige und gründliche Arbeitsweise.” 14  “Mit dem Göttingen Aufenthalt bin ich sehr zufrieden. Wie nett Husserl mit uns ist, habe ich Ihnen schon geschrieben. Meine wissenschaftliche Erwartungen / sind mehr als erfüllt werden.” 12

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affirm that Conrad “twists (trasforma) the sense of Reinach’s words” (Tedeschini, 2018a, 31, footnote)—we do not believe that this is the case. On one point we fully agree with him though: Reinach’s words to Conrad do not betray any critical attitude against of Husserl. They are indeed merely descriptive. Why, then, would Tedeschini go as far as to maintain that Conrad is literally twisting the sense of Reinach’s own words? Because Conrad is quoting the letter in order to support the thesis that when they arrived in Göttingen for the first time (in the SS of 1905), the Munich students were “quite astonished” (vielfach recht erstaunt) to “find a Husserl” (dort einen Husserl vorzufinden) different in so many respects from the one “they had studied in Munich” (der von dem in München studierten in wichtigen Punkte erheblich abwich) (Conrad, 1992, 82). As a matter of fact, Conrad does not say in what respects the Husserl that Reinach, Daubert and the others found in 1905 was different from the Husserl which they had studied in Munich, i.e., the Husserl of the Logical Investigations. Yet, Reinach’s words do not testify to nor betray any disappointment. Of course, we should always keep in mind that what Tedeschini (following Lavigne) is constantly looking for is the moment when Reinach would start perceiving Husserl’s phenomenology as a form of transcendental idealism.15 The situation would turn out to be quite different if we were to put aside, even just for a moment, the strong conviction that HP is or should be our only hermeneutical paradigm. Upon closer examination, in fact, the issue that Conrad is addressing when the letter from June 16, 1905 is quoted has nothing to do with HP and the idealism-realism controversy. Although we will have to come back to this topic later on in this appendix, the following can already be pointed out. Whereas the problem concerning the “phenomenological reduction” is introduced by Conradafter the mention of Reinach’s letter, the letter is quoted in order to support the idea that what the Munich phenomenologists had primarily learned from the Logical Investigations was “Husserl’s method” (Husserls Methode) (Conrad, 1992, 80), a “method directed towards the objective” (diese aufs Objektive gerichtete Methode) (Conrad, 1992, 82). It is against this background that the decision to resort to Reinach’s letter should be properly understood. In sum, Conrad is not trying to suggest that, in contrast with the realism of the Logical Investigations (or whatever other philosophical position one may want to attribute to them), what Reinach, Daubertet alii found in 1905 when they finally arrived in Göttingen was already a transcendental-idealist Husserl. Rather, he is trying to suggest that the Husserl of 1905 differed from the Husserl of the Logical Investigations in that while the 1900–1901 book gave the impression of understanding phenomenology in a purely methodological manner, Husserl had meanwhile developed a different view. This, we firmly think, is the wider and proper context within which Conrad’s account (as well as Reinach’s letter) should be read. Of course, an objection could still be made. While in fact we claim that Reinach’s words from the letter of June 16, 1905 should be ascribed a merely descriptive sense  È poi significativo che, in un passaggio in cui Kant e Natorp vengono affiancati a Husserl, Reinachnon alluda in nessun modo all’avvicinamento del maestro alle posizioni dei primi due pensatori (Tedeschini, 2018a, 32). 15

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(Reinachis describing what is it that one can learn from Husserl), it is quite difficult to deny that they do not betray any feeling of disappointment vis-à-vis Husserl. In other words, even if Reinach is admitting that the one and only thing that one can learn from Husserl is the method, this is not presented as a disappointment; quite the opposite: “My scientific expectations have been more than fulfilled.” Since there is no possible reply to this objection, the only way out is to recognize that, unfortunately, the situation is just as difficult for us as it is for those endorsing HP. We have carefully read all of Reinach’s correspondence with Conrad, just as we have transcribed and studied Daubert’s letters to both of them: in none of these correspondences is there any (critical) mention of Husserl’s idealism. Of course, this does not mean that Reinach, or Conrad or Daubert, had accepted Husserl’s move to a transcendental conception of phenomenology, let alone his idealistic position. The point is rather to acknowledge that, since no direct text has yet been found in which their position on this matter is expressed in real time (sit venia verbo), everything seems to rest on how we decide to interpret the material at our disposal. The famous letter that Reinach sent to Conrad in Fall 1907 (according to Avé-­ Lallemant), which is often regarded as a most direct testimony to an already recognized divorce between Husserl and the Munich phenomenologists, represents absolutely no exception. Reinach is back in Munich, and what the letter describes to Conrad is the content of the conversation that Reinach had with Daubert as regards Husserl’s own phenomenology. Here is what Reinach writes: Shall I tell You about Daubert? I cannot say much about it here. We have mostly gossiped. I told him about Göttingen and he fully agreed with all our problems, notably, our position vis-à-vis Husserl. In accord with Your view (was ganz in Ihrer Richtlinie liegt), he thought that one could really doubt whether the authentic phenomenology, as is practiced in Munich, has its root in Husserl (Reinach, 1902–1917, Nr. XXXVII, 1–2).16

Reinach is quite explicit in denying that the phenomenology “practiced” or “carried out” in Munich could be regarded as having its origins or roots (Wurzel) in Husserl. However, in what exactly such difference would consist, Reinach does not explain: it can consist in the difference between realism and idealism; or in the refusal to adopt the transcendental perspective; it could also consist in a quite different conception of the phenomenological description; or in a different position on the nature of consciousness and the character of intentionality; or it could consist in the rejection of the concept of Empfindung.17 Many are the perspectives which the interpreter himself or herself could adopt in this case, precisely because none of them is explicitly suggested nor supported by Reinach’s words. As a consequence, even if one could state that Reinach was always skeptical about the idealistic turn of Husserl’s philosophy (Reinachwie Conradstanden dieser

 “Von Daubert soll ich Ihnen erzählen? Ja, viel kann ich da nicht sagen. Wir haben meistens getratscht. Ich habe ihm viel von Göttingen erzählt und er war mit all unsren Problemen sehr einverstanden, besonders mit unsrer Stellungnahme zu Husserl. Er meint—was ganz in Ihrer Richtlinie liegt—, dass man eigentlich bezweifeln könne, ob die eigentliche Phäno-/menologie, wie man sie in München betreibe, bei Husserl ihre Wurzel habe.” 17  Schapp, 1959, 21: “The Munich group no longer believed in sensation as a constituent of perception, and explained any statements claiming this as construction.” 16

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Entwicklung skeptisch gegenüber), such a claim cannot be based on Reinach’s letter of 1907 quoted above, as by contrary Schuhmann (1987, 241) does, yet without explaining on what grounds Reinach’s words from (to which he refers) should be taken as referring to Husserl’s idealism. Moreover, upon closer examination the situation is far more complex than it may at first seem. In the first place, this is not the only letter that Reinach wrote to Conradafter the summer semester. The letter Nr. XXXVI, for example—which was written on October 26, 1907—does not affirm anything about Husserl. Even more interestingly, the letter that Reinach wrote on May 11, 1907 (letter Nr. XXXV) from Tübingen to Conrad, who was already in Göttingen, reads: “It pleases me greatly that Your accounts from Göttingen sound so satisfied.”18 The SS of 1907 had started on April 25 (Schuhmann, 1977, 104); which means that by the time of Reinach’s letter, Conrad had attended the lectures The Idea of Phenomenology (April 25–May 2) and part of the Dingkolleg. And yet apparently he did not mention any transcendental turn nor express any surprise about the latest development of Husserl’s thought. Quite the contrary: Your accounts… sound so satisfied. What the Berichte were about, we ignore;19 but this only confirms our hypothesis that everything here seems to rest on the interpreter’s own perspective. What is interesting about Reinach’s letter above is that no distinction is made between the Logical Investigations and Husserl’s more recent position. Taken at face value, Reinach’s words mean that according to Daubert, the Munich phenomenology has simply nothing to do with Husserl’s: the expression “root,” Wurzel suggests that the two were different ab initio (no turn being hence to be held responsible for the discrepancy between them). In sum, were we to literarily read what Reinach is communicating to his friend, then the conclusion would have to be drawn that according to Daubert (as well as Conrad) the Munich understanding of phenomenology should not be traced back to Husserl, regardless of any distinction between an early (realist or neutral) Husserlian phenomenology and the more recent (transcendental and idealist) one. Last but not least, the turn of phrase used by Reinach to introduce Daubert’s view concerning the two phenomenologies suggests that— quite probably—it is Conrad who first made such a critical point. In fact, Reinach explains to his friend that Daubert’s idea ganz in Ihrer Richtlinie liegt. What derives from this is not that Conrad, rather than Reinach or Daubert, should be seen as the major and more reliable historiographical “source” in order for us to

 “Es hat mich herzlich gefreut, dass Ihre Berichte aus Göttingen so befriedigt klingen” (Reinach, 1902–1917, Nr. XXXV, 1). 19  Based on a long 1907 letter from Daubert to Conrad (Daubert, 1907b), it can be inferred that right after his arrival in Göttingen, Conrad had something like a verbal altercation with Husserl: it seems that Husserl reproached Conrad for being impolite (unzufrieden) in the way in which he had constantly interrupted him with his questions. Nothing is said as to what the discussion was about, and Daubert uses almost the entire letter to explain to his friend the reason behind Husserl’s behavior (e.g., that it was no expression of persönliche Antipathie and that der Konflikt nicht ernstlich ist), thereby also suggesting possible strategies to make peace with him. 18

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reconstruct what happened in Göttingen between 1905 and 1907. The point is rather to acknowledge that, as at this stage of the systematic reconstruction there is no historiographical ground for regarding such and such a letter or document as a real-­ time testimony to what happened back then, HP should no longer be taken for granted. Contrary to what we might be accustomed to think, none of the letters usually used in order to support HP mentions Husserl’s “transcendental idealism.” In most cases, we are confronted with a real ὕστερον πρότερον sort of operation: the texts, in this case Reinach’s letters to Conrad, are interpreted and read in light of an already accepted interpretation. Whereas in theory the letters are meant to support the exegesis—what de facto happens is that the interpretation turns out to be preliminarily guided by HP as the already accepted hermeneutical paradigm. Now, if we have managed to convince the reader of the necessity of not taking for granted, if not HP itself, at least the existence of documents and letters that directly testify to it, we can slowly yet systematically start making the case for our paradigm-­ revision. The problem for us will not be that of simply re-dating the so-called first “schism,” but rather of re-thinking its very nature. 4. Since there seems to be no real-time and direct testimony to the “nature” of the difference between Husserl’s phenomenology and that of the Munich (and Göttingen) “circle” in 1905–1907, we will be basing our paradigm-revision on a thus far understudied text written by Theodor Conrad in 1968 for the 30th anniversary of Husserl’s death (Conrad, 2021).20 This short piece is part of a “group” of four texts (Conrad, 1953–54, 1968, 1992)21, two of them being still unpublished, written by Conrad after WWII and dedicated to the beginnings and development of the early phenomenological movement as well as to the many different manners in which the phenomenological method was practiced back then. Of course, they need be taken cum grano salis, and this for different reasons. In the very first place, this being the most obvious reason, they were all written more or less half a century (at least) after the events they attempt to reconstruct. Secondly, at least two of them were written by assuming as a reference point Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ later distinction between transcendental and ontological phenomenology (Conrad-Martius, 1959): they present an account teleologically oriented towards justifying that specific distinction. This being pointed out, however, not only are the four texts in agreement with one another; upon closer examination they propose a rich and fine-grained account of the development of the early phases of the phenomenological tradition that has yet to be taken into consideration and further developed. To do so, we will proceed as follows. We will first reconstruct Conrad’s account on the basis of the texts  A partial exception is Brettler, 1973, 6 and ff., who quotes Conrad at the very beginning of her dissertation. 21  To be clear, two of them were written in the years 1953–54 (Conrad, 1953–54,1992), while the other two in 1968 (Conrad, 1968,2021). So far only two of these four texts have been published. 20

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mentioned above; then, we will show to what extent such reconstruction can find further confirmation by looking at Husserl’s lectures and texts. How should we describe the development of early phenomenology, according to Conrad  (for systematic discussion of Conrad’s own views on the matter, see De Santis, 2024)? 5. There is perfect agreement between the Bericht composed by Conrad in 1953–54 (Conrad, 1992) to present to a small group of students the beginnings of phenomenology (Conrad, 1992, 79) and the one written in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Husserl’s death in 1968 (Conrad, 2021). In fact, if it is true that the Bericht explicitly speaks of transcendentalism and idealism as what the so-called Munich-Göttingen circles fully rejected, thereby aligning itself with HP, this happens only at the end of the text and as a consequence of two other issues: the interpretation of the function and necessity of the phenomenological reduction (Conrad, 1992, 83); the conception of phenomenology as a “method vs. science” (Conrad, 1992, 80–82), to which de facto most of the Bericht is dedicated (but to which, unfortunately, no systematic attention has been thus far dedicated). At the beginning of the Bericht, Conrad lays out the general coordinates of his reconstruction with the following words: “phenomenology” should be understood merely as “the philosophical method” (philosophische Methode) practiced by the “Munich-Göttingen school,” and as originally proposed in the Logical Investigations. Philosophische Methode, Husserls Methode, Vorgehensweise, such are the terms mobilized by Conrad (Conrad, 1992, 80) to describe what it is that those who first read the Logical Investigations found in it. He speaks of a “methodical training” (methodische Schulung) and of the desire “to overcome psychologism” “by learning from Husserl’s method” (Conrad, 1992, 82). After describing such method, which consists in grasping the objective contents given to our subjective experience, Conrad makes the following, revealing observation: What in the school of Lipps was felt as a liberation was this method directed towards the objective, not really Husserl’s specific doctrines, nor his endeavor (which emerged in particular in the subsequent years (in späteren Jahren)), to legitimize phenomenology as a proper science. None of the Munich Husserlians was in agreement with Husserl on this latter point (Conrad, 1992, 82).

In light of this passage, it should become apparent why in §3 above we claimed that Reinach’s own words to Conrad in his letter from June 16, 1905 (“The most beneficial thing that Husserl can offer is the careful and rigorous mode of working”) concerning what one could “learn” from der göttliche Husserl (as Reinach himself refers to him in the letter Nr. II from 1903) should be attributed a mere descriptive meaning. On the basis of Conrad’s own retrospective accounts, the fascination that the Logical Investigations exerted on the first generation of Munich phenomenologists was not due to any specific doctrine contained therein, be it for example the

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structure of intentionality, the nature of judgment, or the distinction between expressions and indications,22 but rather to its method. In particular, what none of the Munich Husserlians ever accepted was Husserl’s attempt at grounding or legitimizing phenomenology als eine eigene Wissenschaft. Such is the first main discrepancy between the young phenomenologists from Munich and Husserl that Conrad spells out in his 1953–54 Bericht. In a still unpublished text from the very same years, Conrad affirms once again that Husserl was anxious “to make phenomenology a scientific system, a separate ‘science,’ rather than simply let it also be a philosophical method (as all the most important ‘disciples’ did)” (Conrad, 1953–54, 1).23 If we are on the right track, this is what Conrad alludes to when he remarks that upon their arrival in Göttingen, the Munich students were “quite astonished” to “find a Husserl” different in so many respects from the Husserl “they had studied in Munich.” For what they found was a Husserl already concerned with the question whether phenomenology was only a method or also, and primarily, a self-sufficient science. Now, not only are the two 1953–54 accounts in agreement on this point; they perfectly agree what Conrad will explain in his 1968 still unpublished typescript, Was ist und was will die Phänomenologie Husserls? as well as in the commemoration of Husserl’s death. The former text is quite explicit in dating to the year 1905 the appearance of such a first discrepancy between the Husserl of the Logical Investigations, with which the Munich students had familiarized themselves, and the one they found as they moved to Göttingen for the first time. Here is what Conrad points out: “This trip [= from Munich to Göttingen] was for sure and for the most part a disappointment, because in the meantime Husserl’s philosophical position had essentially changed, thereby moving away from his phenomenological method towards his concern about the ‘science’ of phenomenology” (see Conrad, 1968, 1).24 In his 1968 commemoration of Husserl’s death, Conrad even speaks of a second Husserl (einen zweiten, standpunktmäßig veränderten Husserl) (Conrad, 2021, 11), different from the first Husserl, the one of the Logical Investigations with his “peculiar philosophical method” (besondere philosophische Methode) (Conrad, 2021, 10). Interestingly, such a second Husserl is not yet characterized as a transcendentalist or idealist: it is a Husserl standpunktmäßig different from that of  This statement, too, is to be taken cum grano salis. For example, it can be inferred from letter Nr. XII from January 16, 1905, that Reinach was particularly interested in the Third Logical Investigation; moreover, based on Daubert, 1907a, 2, we know, by contrast, that Conrad was almost exclusively familiar with the Prolegomena to a Pure Logic. 23  “[Husserl] bestrebt war, aus der Phänomenologie ein wissenschaftliches System, eine besondere Wissenschaft zu machen, statt [sie] wie alle maßgebenden ‚Schüler’ auch weiterhin eine philosophische Methode bleiben zu lassen.” 24  Here is the text: “Und so bildete sich die Husserl verehrende Schar der von ihm sogenannten ‘Münchner’ heraus, die dann für ca. ein Semester jeweils einzeln oder zu zweien–eben als Husserlianer–von München nach Göttingen fuhren, um Husserl persönlich kennen zu lernen und hören. Freilich wurde diese Ausreise dann meist eine große Enttäuschung, da inzwischen Husserls philosophischer Standort sich wesentlich–nämlich von seiner phänomenologischen Methode weg zu seinem Bemühen um eine ‘Wissenschaft’ der Philosophie verwandelt hatte.” 22

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1900–01. If the other three texts mention Husserl’s new concern about legitimizing phenomenology als eine eigene Wissenschaft (Conrad, 1953–54, 1; 1968, 1; 1992, 82), in the 1968 commemoration a different turn of phrase is used: “His development at the time showed that, popularly spoken, he thought he had found ‘security’ in the embedment of lived-experiences in ‘consciousness’” (Conrad, 2021, 11). But none of the Munich phenomenologists was convinced by the necessity of assuming “consciousness” as a domain only within which “certainty” (be it gnoseological or ontological certainty) can be ascribed to lived-experiences. Conrad speaks of die Wendung zum Bewusstsein (Conrad, 2021, 11), yet without such “turn” being ascribed a transcendental or, even worse: “idealistic” nature. It seems to be a “thematic” turn, so to speak. However, after this second HusserlConrad mentions also a third Husserl and “a new turn” (eine neue Wendung) that is determined by the introduction of “the so-called ‘transcendental’ reduction.” It is at this point that Conrad speaks of “transcendentalism,” and of “dependence upon the subject” (Conrad, 2021, 12). In this respect, let us note that Conrad uses the term idealism in the Bericht of 1953–54 (Conrad, 1992, 83) written for Conrad-Martius’ students, and in Was ist und was will die Phänomenologie Husserls? (Conrad, 1968, 2)—in which the view propounded by his wife (Conrad-Martius, 1959) is embraced. The term is nowhere to be found in the commemoration, nor in Conrad, 1953–54. In these two, in fact, he merely speaks of “transcendentalism.” This being said, a few remarks impose themselves. Whereas Conrad is quite precise in identifying the year 1905, i.e., the first trip to Göttingen, as the moment when the first difference between (a second) Husserl and the students from Munich becomes visible, it is not equally easy to understand to what year he would date the second turn and the appearance of the “third Husserl.” What is clear is that Conrad does not speak of reduction in relation with the appearance of the second Husserl in 1905, but only as regards the third Husserl. As he was personally in Göttingen in the summer of 1907 and witnessed the introduction of the transcendental reduction in The Idea of Phenomenology, one could be then tempted to date the appearance of the third Husserl to the SS of 1907. This is what the retrospective accounts seem to suggest—although none of the letters from Reinach and Daubert to Conrad from that period could directly bear witness to it. Now, if we were to date the appearance of the third Husserl to the SS of 1907, the overall picture of the development of the relationships between Husserl and the students from Munich could be so summed up. • The Munich philosophers first familiarized themselves with the Logical Investigations, from which they learned no particular doctrine, but rather the “phenomenological method” construed as the “method directed towards the objective.” It was this method, Conrad also recalls, that “was felt as a liberation.” • However, upon their arrival in Göttingen during the SS of 1905, Reinach, Daubertet alii realized that, meanwhile, Husserl had changed his “standpoint” and seemed to be mostly concerned with the problem of legitimizing phenomenology as a peculiar science. Now, as we already know from Chap. 6, a science for Husserl is possible if and only if a specific field of investigation can be identi-

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fied: for Husserl the question whether phenomenology is or can be a “science” is tantamount to asking whether there is a domain of investigation belonging exclusively to it (what in Ideas he will label the region “pure consciousness”). It is no coincidence that Conrad remarks that the consequence of Husserl’s new position was the unnecessary restriction of the method (die Methode unnötig eingeengt werde) (Conrad, 1992, 83). The same point will be made by Conrad-Martius in 1959. During the assessment of what she now deems the main deficiency of Husserl’s philosophy (= the reduction of the ontological dimension of reality to its being-intended), she confesses that “for a long time” she thought that the problem with Husserl was his methodological restriction (Einengung) of phenomenology to “pure consciousness” (Conrad-Martius, 1959, 179).25 • After the thematic Wendung zum Bewusstsein, and the relevant methodological Einengung accomplished by the second Husserl, a new, third Husserl appears on the stage. It is now that Conrad speaks of “transcendentalism.” This is the consequence of the “thematic” turn towards consciousness and the introduction of the reduction: after limiting the field of investigation of phenomenology to ­consciousness as a region of being, Husserl regards the phenomena, notably, reality exclusively from the angle of consciousness itself. These are—according to Th. Conrad—the three phases (and the two Husserlian turns) that have characterized the early development of the phenomenological movement. Were we to stick with the term “schism” (first used by Spiegelberg), then it would be better to speak of a two-step schism: the first step being dated to 1905; the second later on, say, to the year 1907. Of course, in this case the “schism” would not be primarily “content”-determined; it would not bear on such and such a doctrinal aspect of Husserl’s early philosophy, from which he would depart from a certain moment onward. Rather, it would have a meta-philosophical sense, so to speak, concerning what phenomenology is all about: what it is and how its domain of investigation (if any) should be properly identified and disclosed. In the collective volume published in 1959 for the anniversary of Husserl’s birth (AA.VV., 1959), at least three texts are included that confirm our core-hypothesis, or part of it. The first contribution is the already mentioned Erinnungen an Husserl by Wilhelm Schapp, who explicitly recognizes that the “value” and “appeal” (Wert und Reiz) of the Logical Investigations derived from the method, die phänomenologische Methode, as he himself says (Schapp, 1959, 13).26 At the beginning, he adds, “the individual investigation [was] everything, the system [was] nothing” (Schapp,  “Es handelte sich auch nicht, wie ich lange gedacht habe, um eine thematisch-­phänomenologische Einengung: so als ginge es eben bei Husserl allein um die Wesensdurchforschung des Bewußtseins in allen seinen möglichen Bezügen (our italics).” As Herbert Spiegelberg will point out during his historical reconstruction in a passage yet to be pondered: “Phenomenology meant to the circle primarily a universal philosophy of essences (Wesensphänomenologie), not merely a study of the ‘essence of consciousness’” (Spiegelberg, 1982a, 168). For Conrad-Martius’ position in relation to the topic here under discussion, see De Santis, 2022. 26  Let us not forget that already in his Contributions to the Phenomenology of Perception of 1910 Schapp speaks of “phenomenology as method” (Phänomenologie als Methode) (Schapp, 1981, 2). 25

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1959, 14). For us in Göttingen, he continues, phenomenology meant “an enormous field of work” (ein ungeheures Arbeitsfeld) to be investigated following “the method of phenomenology”: “each attempted to cultivate a field (even if only a small one) with phenomenological methods” (Jeder versuchtet ein, wenn auch kleines Feld, nach phänomenologischer Methode, zu bestellen) (Schapp, 1959, 19).27 The distinction between “method” and “system” is made also by Hans Reiner in his contribution Sinn und Recht der phänomenologischen Methode: the system is said to be Husserl’s own creation (Schöpfung), whereas the “method” was developed “independently from him” by the students of the Munich school of philosophy originally founded by Th. Lipps (Reiner, 1959, 134). The reconstruction offered in this very same volume by Helmut Plessner in his Bei Husserl in Göttingen is quite interesting. Husserl’s preoccupation with the possibility of clearly determining the field of investigation (= the region “pure consciousness”) proper to phenomenology is explained as follows. In contrast with the “rhapsodic” way in which his students would pick any random topic to be submitted to the phenomenological method (rhapsodischen Aufgreifens x-beliebiger Themen), he wanted to establish a material principle (Sachprinzip) of research (Plessner, 1959, 34–35) (to avoid what H. Kuhn once called eidetische Anarchie (Kuhn, 1933, 211)). The sharp opposition between method (without any material principle able to guide it) and science (based on a specific material principle of research) mirrors, according to Plessner, the opposition between “the picture book-phenomenology” (Bilderbuchphänomenologie) (Plessner, 1959, 35) and Husserl’s “disciplined (disziplinierte) phenomenology” (see Plessner, 1959, 37). If the former takes phenomenology to be a method to be applied to any topic, the latter hinges on a delimited or well-defined domain (abgegrenztes Gebiet) (Plessner, 1959, 36)  that also functions as an actual material criterion in order to decide which line of research should be pursued (for a different, positive assessment of the picture book-­ phenomenology, see Salice, 2020; see the critical remarks made by Heidegger on the Bilderbuchphänomenologie in Heidegger, 1988, 110 and ff.). In at least three cases (Conrad, Schapp, Plessner), Husserl’s idealism is regarded as a consequence of his transformation of phenomenology into a “science” (Conrad, Plessner) or “system” (Schapp, Conrad), thus of the “restriction” of its application to just one field (pure consciousness). This does not mean that the accounts they respectively offer would all perfectly coincide; nor that they are all equally reliable. Conrad first personally moved to Göttingen in 1907, whereas Schapp was already there in 1905; Plessner first visits Husserl in 1914 (Plessner, 1959, 29), and Hans  Schapp had already proposed an interesting reflection on the history of phenomenology in a 1953 text posthumously published in the first volume of the Nachlass (Schapp, 2016, 57–62). Here Schapp explicitly raises the question as to what the “phenomenological method” properly is (Dabei ist es schwer zu sagen, was die phänomenologische Methode ist). Now, although Schapp does not seem to realize it, his answer is completely Reinachian. In his own words, the so-called phenomenological method consists in establishing, in every domain of knowledge, a corresponding “system of a priori synthetic propositions” (Schapp, 2016, 59). And phenomenology itself is nothing but “the connection of all these objectual domains” (Alle diese Gegenstandgebiete zusammen machen das Gesamtgebiet der Phänomenologie). 27

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Reiner started studying with Husserl only in 1919 (Henckmann, 1996, 142). Moreover, Conrad’s own account should also be looked at with a certain dose of skepticism. Since his 1907 visit in Göttingen lasted only one semester, and it is only in 1910–11 that he will finally come back (Conrad, 1992, 78), how can the hypothesis be ruled out that his retrospective accounts express the experiences he went through during his second stay, when Reinach was also active in Göttingen both as Husserl’s main collaborator and reference-point for the young phenomenologists? 6. According to HP, Reinach is a most central figure, for he paradigmatically embodies the realist conception of phenomenology as straightforwardly opposed to the Husserlian “transcendental” and “idealistic” one.28 Now, if our tentative paradigm-­ revision is at least justified, then one should strive to understand what sort of role and function Reinach would be assigned in it. As far as we can tell, there are at least two essays by Jean Hering where Reinach is explicitly regarded as epitomizing what in §1 of this appendix we called the methodological concept of phenomenology in opposition to the (Husserlian) scientific one: the book of 1926 on Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse (already discussed in Chap. 6), and the 1939 short essay La phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans. Let us start with the latter, since in it Hering retrospectively evaluates his experience in Göttingen between 1909 (when he first arrived there) and 1913 (when he moved back to Strasbourg to finish his dissertation (De Santis, 2021b)). The essay emphasizes right at the beginning the importance of the lectures held by Husserl and Reinach (les cours et les exercices de Husserl et d’Adolf Reinach) (Hering, 1939, 366). Hering is of course aware of the difference between the two: C’est ici que les cours et les colloquia d’Adolf Reinach, jeune Privat-Dozent issu de l’école de Théodore Lipps, et converti, si on ose ainsi dire, par les Logische Untersuchungen de Husserl, nous furent d’une très réelle utilité, parce qu’il savait, d’une manière admirable, se mettre à la portée des débutants. Toutefois nous ne pûmes nous dégager de l'impression (qui alla s’accentuant), qu’il n’entendait, par le terme de « phénoménologie », pas exactement la même chose que le Maître lui-même. Aussi lorsque Reinach, lors de notre première visite chez lui (Husserl lui-même était décidément trop impressionnant pour qu’on eût le courage de sonner à sa porte, et nous étions loin de soupçonner les trésors de patience, de bienveillance et d’amitié paternelle qu’il nous prodigua plus tard) lorsque Reinachnous demanda si selon notre impression Husserl enseignait la même chose que lui, nous ne pâmes que lui répondre ceci : «  Pour vous, la phénoménologie est une méthode, pour Husserl une branche de la philosophie. » Nous eussions peut-être mieux fait de dire que la méthode (d’autres phénoménologues préféraient dire la manière de voir et de faire voir) était la même, mais que Husserl était avant tout préoccupé de la mettre au service d’une discipline fondamentale qu’il appelait phénoménologie (Hering, 1939, 367–368).

 See for example: von Hildebrand, 1960, 273; Dubois, 1995; Seifert, 2000; Meyrhofer, 2005; Fisette, 2007; Benoist & Kervégan, 2008; De Vecchi, 2012; Dubois & Smith, 2014; Baltzer-Jaray, 2016, 2021; Salice, 2020; Tedeschini, 2021. 28

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What Reinach means by “phenomenology” is not precisely the same as what Husserl himself means by that very same expression. They practice the same “method” (which is what Reinach means by phenomenology), the difference being that Husserl puts the method at the service of a fundamental discipline  that he keeps calling “phenomenology.” What is interesting about Hering’s reconstruction here is that the entire discourse is presented in the plural. In short, Hering does not seem to be relating just his own personal opinion on the difference between Husserl and Reinach, but rather that of an entire group of students: phrases such as nous demanda…, notre impression…, Nous eussions peut-être mieux fait… explicitly support such hypothesis. The difference between the Master and his collaborator was not perceived as revolving around the opposition between idealism (the former) and realism (the latter), but rather around the method vs. science (“fundamental discipline”) divide. If we keep in mind that Hering is here recalling his experience and memories from the year 1909, then it should come as no surprise that he employs the expression “fundamental discipline” to refer to Husserl’s understanding of phenomenology. As far as we know, it is precisely in 1909, during the lectures Introduction to the Phenomenology of Knowledge, that phenomenology is for the first time called by Husserl “first philosophy” (Phänomenologie als erste Philosophie). Phenomenology is explicitly deemed the one “science” “from which the sense of the performances or operations of all the other sciences should receive its own ultimate clarification” (Hua-Mat VII, 92).29 In this respect, the monograph of 1926 is even more telling on the difference between Reinach and Husserl. On the basis of Hering’s own words in his review of Levinas’ book, we have already and systematically argued in the previous chapter (§§7–8) in what sense it is misleading, if not simply wrong, to regard this text as initiating the public discussion bearing upon Husserl’s idealism. If we now come back to it, focusing this time on §2 on Les définitions de la phénoménologie, our thesis so far on Reinach’s role within our paradigm-revision will receive further corroboration. At the very beginning of this paragraph, Hering recognizes that there exists no universally accepted “definition” of phenomenology, and that at least three different conceptions are available. The first definition is the “methodological” one, which he finds expressed by the manifesto published in the first volume of the Jahrbuch:30Il semble résulter de ces déclarations que l’inspiration du mouvement  “Die Phänomenologie als Wesenslehre der rein gegebenen Phänomene hat, sagte ich am Schluss der letzten Vorlesung, ihre eigene Berechtigung wie jede andere Wissenschaft. Andererseits hat sie aber ihre besonders ausgezeichnete Stellung allen anderen gegenüber, sofern sie die im strengsten Sinne Erste Philosophie ist, diejenige, aus der alle anderen Wissenschaften die letzte Aufklärung des Sinnes ihrer Leistungen zu empfangen haben.” 30  “Es ist nicht ein Schulsystem, das die Herausgeber verbindet, und das gar bei allen künftigen Mitarbeitern vorausgesetzt werden soll; was sie vereint, ist vielmehr die gemeinsame Überzeugung, dass nur durch Rückgang auf die originären Quellen der Anschauung und auf die aus ihr zu schöpfende Wesenseinsichten die großen Traditionen der Philosophie nach Begriffen und Problemen auszumessen sind, dass nur auf diesem Wege die Begriffe intuitiv geklärt, die Probleme auf intuitivem Grund neu gestellt und dann auch prinzipiell gelöst werden können” (Hua XXV, 63). 29

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phénoménologique se manifeste uniquement dans l’application intégrale d’une certain méthode intuitionniste (Hering, 1926, 36–37). Such first definition immediately carries within itself the second one; for the phenomenological intuitive method could not even be conceivable without at the same time assuming the existence of “essential truths”: Cependant, à regarder de près, cette définition se révèle comme un peu trop simpliste. Tout d’abord l’affirmation de l’existence de vérités d’ « essence » que nous venons de relater, dépasse le cadre d’un programme purement méthodologique ; esse semble impliquer une thèse d’ordre ontologique (Hering, 1926, 37).

The conjunction of these two “definitions” (methodological + ontological, as one could call it) (De Santis, 2014, 20 and ff.) results in the idea of “an infinite field of investigation” (champ illimité de recherches propre à la phénoménologie). And yet, here comes a possible objection: has not Husserl identified a specific, and welldelimited domain of investigation in his Ideas? Is not phenomenology according to Husserl a “discipline” (the same expression that he will employ in the 1939 essay) with just one specific and self-sufficient “theme” or field of research? …comment ne pas voir que la « phénoménologique » réclamée dans les « Idées » est bel et bien une discipline qui, tout en exigeant une méthode particulière, est nettement circonscrite par une thème précis d’études, à savoir la « conscience pure » comprise d’une certain manière ? Et cette science est loin de coïncider avec la philosophie en générale ; elle en forme seulement la base indispensable (Hering, 1926, 37).

This is what we have been labeling: “the scientific conception of phenomenology,” according to which phenomenology is not primarily or exclusively a “method” of investigation with no specific field of application, but quite the opposite—a science having only one specific field of research. The agreement between the pages published in 1926 and what Hering will recall thirteen years later about the difference between Husserl and Reinach is striking: exactly the very same ideas; exactly the very same expressions. Given these three definitions and conceptions of phenomenology— which one will Hering himself decide to espouse in his book? Will he opt for the combination of the first two, as he had already preliminarily done in his famous 1921 booklet Remarks on Essence, Essentiality and the Idea?31 Or will he lean towards the Husserlian-sounding definition instead, thereby limiting the application of the intuitive method (first definition) to the study of the essential truths (second definition) of the one and only region called “pure consciousness”? The question is far from being rhetorical, since Hering himself explicitly investigates the epistemology of religious cognition (see L’épistémologie intentionnaliste et la théorie de la connaissance religieuse) (Hering, 1926, 118 and ff.) and the intentionality involved in it. And yet, Hering could not be clearer on this point. As he goes on to explain, in fact, if, given our “embarrassment” (si dans notre embarras), we resort

 See the opening page of Hering, 1921, 495: “Ein von allen phänomenologisch gerichteten Philosophen in gleicher Weise erkannte... Grundtatsache läßt sich schon jetzt namhaft machen: Die Existenz nichtempirischer Gegebenheiten, die die sogenannte apriorische Forschung möglich machen.” On this point, see also the remarks by Reiner, 1931, 24. 31

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to Reinach’s conference on phenomenology (Über Phänomenologie), nous y retrouvons dans toute sa netteté la définition purement méthodologique (Hering, 1926, 38–39). Here comes the opening passage of Reinach’s conference, which Hering quotes from the version first published by his students: “[…] phenomenology is not a system of philosophical propositions and truths, which all who call themselves phenomenologists must accept, but rather it is a method of philosophizing that is required by the problems of philosophy […]” (see Reinach, 1989, 531).32 “Phenomenology” is eine Methode des Philosophierens (in Reinach’s original German); or, in the French translation by Hering: une certain méthode de philosopher. Hering is of course conscious of both the difficulty and ambiguity of a position like this: what kind of method would that be, if it could be  applied to any problem of philosophy (in general)? As he a few pages later concludes (with a polemically-sounding tone): phenomenology will not then be “a method in the proper sense of the term” (ne sera donc même pas une méthode proprement dite), because it will have to change depending upon the relevant “field” or “point of observation” (variera avec chaque nouveau champ d’observation, qui se présentera sous son horizon illimité) (Hering, 1926, 43). It is not our ambition here to investigate Hering’s own position more deeply and the peculiar way in which he strives towards combining the three definitions mentioned above. If we are on the right track, and if Hering’s 1926 and 1939 accounts could be granted some trust, then what follows is that Reinach can be regarded as the most anti-Husserlian phenomenologist, yet not by virtue of his alleged realism or anti-idealism.33Reinach is a most anti-Husserlian thinker primarily because of his purely methodological conception of phenomenology as opposed to the scientific one.34 In this respect, the conference of 1914 Über Phänomenologie should be regarded as an anti-Husserlian manifesto.  The words used by Stein to describe phenomenology as a method are almost identical. In a 1930–21 essay, Stein writes that for the Husserl of the Logical Investigations, “phenomenology” was a method to be applied to all problems of philosophy: “Dabei macht er [Husserl] die Entdeckung, daß diese Methode nicht nur zur Behandlung logischer, sondern aller philosophischen Fragen überhaupt geeignet sei” (Stein, 2014, 148). On the Stein-Reinach relation, see Schuhmann, 2005, 163–184 (Edith Stein und Adolf Reinach); on Stein’s methodological conception of phenomenology in relation to the topic here under discussion, see De Santis, 2022. 33  I must confess that not even the recent account of Reinach’s realism proposed by Seron, 2022 is really and fully convincing. In the first place, it is not clear to us why one should keep calling his position “realism” if the very term is nowhere to be found in his writings. Moreover, it would be our contention that almost none of the differences between Husserl and Reinach on which Seron relies are really such, especially the ones concerning the intuition of essence and the alleged independence of things from their apprehension. The only real difference between the two which can be recognized is the one deriving from Reinach’s logical objectivism (see Seron, 2022, 7). Here too, however, it is not clear why one should not be content with the mere talk of “objectivism.” 34  Far from us is the idea that Reinach would be in agreement with Husserl’s own transcendental idealism, and that the distinction between “phenomenology as a science” and “phenomenology as a method” would designate the only point of disagreement between the two. However, in what we regard as one of the most important books (if not the most important book) on Reinach to appear 32

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I have not set myself the task of telling you what phenomenology is. Rather, I would like to try to think with you phenomenologically. To talk about phenomenology is the most useless thing in the world so long as that is lacking which alone can give any talk concrete fullness and intuitiveness: the phenomenological look and the phenomenological attitude (Einstellung). For the essential point is this, that phenomenology is not a system of philosophical propositions and truths, which all who call themselves phenomenologists must accept, but rather it is a method of philosophizing that is required by the problems of philosophy: one which is very different from the manner of viewing and verifying in life, and which is even more different from the way in which one does and must work in most of the sciences. And so today my aim is to touch upon a series of philosophical problems with you, in the hope that, at this or that point, it will become clear to you what the peculiarity of the phenomenological attitude (Einstellung) is (Reinach, 1989, 531).

We are in January in 1914; Ideas has already been published for ten months. In it, the idea of phenomenology as the eidetic science of the region pure consciousness is officially presented and—this being Husserl’s own preoccupation (Chap. 6, §§4–5)—defended and justified. Nothing could shake more violently the foundations of Husserl’s own position than these seemingly innocent and highly rhetorical remarks. To affirm, as Reinach does here, that phenomenology is no “system” (the expression which also both Conrad and Schapp will later use) of propositions and truths is to deny apertis verbis that phenomenology is a “science”: a science being for Husserl a “system” of inter-connected true propositions bearing upon a more or less delimited domain of objects. That we are on the right track is further corroborated by the following argument. As far as we know, the peculiar way in which Reinach uses the expression “phenomenological attitude” has yet to be noted and emphasized. Husserl starts introducing the concept of “attitude” around 1906–1907, during the period of the so-called transcendental turn; yet, it is only in the lectures of 1910–1911 on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (when Reinach and Conrad were in Göttingen) that a most systematic distinction between (at least three) attitudes is fully worked out. We are referring to the distinction between natural attitude, a priori attitude (which he will later call eidetic attitude (Hua III/1, 130; Husserl, 2014, 116)), and transcendental attitude. In the language of the lectures of 1910–11, the “a priori attitude” (apriorische Einstellung) is the one in which “ideas” or “objectualities of essence” (Wesensgegenständlichkeit) are “given” (zur Gegebenheit) (Hua XIII, 126; Husserl, 2006, 16). It is the attitude proper to any and every a priori science, be it

thus far, namely, Tedeschini, 2015, the author (who is no friend of Husserl’s idealism) systematically shows that none of the passages where Reinach critically refers to the doctrine of idealism is directed against Husserl. That Reinach is no transcendental-idealist philosopher is one thing; that one could find, in any of his writings, explicit passages against Husserl’s transcendental idealism quite another. For example, Conrad-Martius speaks of Reinach as der Phänomenologe unter den Phänomenologen, der Phänomenologe an sich und als solcher (Conrad-Martius, 1951, 7) during her presentation of the Marburg lecture of 1914. Here she explicitly and exclusively regards Reinach’s phenomenology as a method for intuiting essences, as a Wesenslehre (Conrad-Martius, 1951, 6).

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formal or material (as is the case with geometry and the ontology of nature).35 On the contrary, the “phenomenological attitude” is the attitude peculiar to transcendental phenomenology alone, which we access by means of the “reduction” and in consequence of which we focus on “pure experience” (das reine Erlebnis) (Hua XIII, 149; Husserl, 2006, 40–41). In this respect, the transcendental attitude includes, so to say, the eidetic and a priori attitude—yet the reverse is not true. If there cannot be any phenomenological investigation of pure experience that is not already and by definition a priori, there exists a plurality of a priori or eidetic sciences (i.e., formal ontology, arithmetic, geometry, ontology of nature, and so on) that do not need any preliminary performance of the transcendental reduction in order for their subject-matter to be laid open and brought to the fore. If we now come back to Reinach’s lecture of 1914, and the way in which he uses the notion of phenomenological attitude, it is hard not to note the discrepancy visà-­vis Husserl. For Reinach is here employing the expression phänomenologische Einstellung to designate what Husserl would label apriorische Einstellung instead. In short, for Reinach the phenomenological attitude is not the attitude in which the self-contained domain (= pure experience) of a new science (= transcendental phenomenology) is disclosed. For him phenomenological attitude means the same as the attitude in which the “essence” (Wesen or Essenz) or the “being-thus” (So-Sein) of an object comes to intuitive givenness (zur anschaulichen Gegebenheit) (Reinach, 1989, 532, 533, 535)—no matter what field or scientific discipline we are considering.36 The phenomenological attitude is the attitude of the intuition of essence (Wesenserschauung) required by the problems of every discipline (ist auch in anderen Disziplinen gefordert) (Reinach, 1989, 535).37 If, in the passage above, Reinach speaks of Blick, “look” to refer to the phenomenological attitude in general, in 1939 Hering uses the terms manière de voir et de faire voir (Hering, 1939, 368)

 See De Santis, 2021c, Part IV; for an introduction to the concept of attitude, see Majolino, 2020.  This point has also been noticed by D. Pradelle in his introduction to Reinach, 2012, 17–19. It is a pity, however, that Pradelle repeats the realist phenomenology-refrain without exactly clarifying in what sense a phenomenology that devotes itself exclusively to the study of the domain of pure possibility, as is the case with Reinach’s (Reinach, 2012, 17), can decide about questions of “idealism” and “realism.” That Reinach does not characterize his phenomenology transcendentally and idealistically is one thing; that one could infer from this a positive legitimization of realism is quite another (especially given the lack of direct and explicit textual characterizations). 37  Hering’s words will later be echoed by Conrad-Martius, 1951, 10, who, during the presentation of Reinach’s thought, writes that for the latter: Man sieht das Wesen, oder man sieht es nicht. More fancily, one could characterize Reinach’s view as modal or, more emphatically: adverbial—as for him phenomenology amounts to thinking in a certain manner, i.e., phenomenologically (phänomenologisch zu denken) about such and such a problem or concept. In Conrad-Martius’ introduction to the 1921 edition of Reinach’s collected works, his phenomenology is presented either simply in terms of look or Blick (Conrad-Martius, 1921, vii–viii) or just as the method of intuiting essences in order to spell out the essential laws grounded in them (Conrad-Martius, 1921, vi, x, xvi–xvii). 35 36

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to express his position.38 Similarly, Max Scheler will write in his essay on Phenomenology and the Theory of Cognition that phenomenology “is neither the name of a new science or a substitute for the word philosophy; it is the name of an attitude of spiritual seeing in which one can see or experience something otherwise hidden, namely, a realm of facts of a particular kind” (Scheler, 1973, 137). 7. Our tentative paradigm-revision has been thus far based on a group of (originally) unpublished texts written by Th. Conrad almost 50  years after the events they recount; a few retrospective essays published in 1959 for the anniversary of Husserl’s birth; Jean Hering’s book of 1926 on philosophy and phenomenology of religion as well as his memories written right after Husserl’s death. Roughly put, the idea would be to develop a (broader) “hermeneutical paradigm” able not to replace HP sic et simpliciter, but to include it as a part within itself. Accordingly, what usually goes by the name of the “idealism-realism” controversy should have to be regarded as following chronologically and systematically a more original controversy revolving around the nature of phenomenology. As our goal here is only “to make the case” for the paradigm-revision, and as we are not yet in a position to account for all its episodes and all its protagonists, the reader cannot be gratified yet with any full and detailed account of the development of the controversy in question (this being a task that would go far beyond the scope of the present appendix and its function within this book as a whole). As the anonymous biographer of Orlando remarks, “We have done our best to piece out a meagre summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even to use the imagination” (Woolf, 2014, 74). Hopefully, the reader can agree that, in the case of our paradigm-­ revision, the use of imagination was kept to a bare minimum. This being recognized, a possible objection needs to be tackled that has already been anticipated by Tedeschini, 2018a, 34. The objection would be directed against Conrad’s claim, which we have so far endorsed, to the effect that the beginning of the controversy between Husserl and the Munich students should be dated to the SS of 1905, when Reinach and Daubert first visited Husserl in Göttingen. Yet, as the objection would at this point make us notice, the lectures held by Husserl in the SS 1905 are dedicated to the theory of judgment (see Hua-Mat V), and nothing is to be  The following remark, made by Husserl during the lectures of 1910–1911 on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology right after the introduction of the reduction and the idea of phenomenology as a science, testifies to his awareness of the discussion on how phenomenology should be properly understood: “Perhaps within the phenomenological reduction itself one must distinguish again between different modes of givenness. And among these we must distinguish those that are absolutely indubitable from those that are not. And perhaps the title phenomenology is more a title of a method than of a discipline. Perhaps there are several phenomenological disciplines, some related to absolute givennesses, and others to ‘incomplete’ givennesses” (Hua XIII, 158; Husserl, 2006, 51). 38

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found in them that could give rise to the Auseinandersetzung between Husserl and the phenomenologists from Munich. The argument is correct—but only because it is proposed from within the framework of HP. In other words, as long as what we are looking for is the beginning of the “idealism-realism” controversy, then it is difficult, if not even impossible, to accept Conrad’s reconstruction. Yet, as we tried to show above based upon Conrad, 2021, what he is talking about is not HP—but rather the problem concerning the nature of phenomenology as either method or science. If we set aside HP and accept, even just for a moment, the hypothesis, proposed by Conrad, that the controversy first revolved around Husserl’s determination of phenomenology as a science or as a discipline, then the reference to the 1905 lectures on the theory of judgment is more than justified (Brettler, 1973, 3). It is here that, quite likely for the first time, Husserl describes phenomenology as a “discipline,” as “the all-encompassing essential analysis of consciousness” (Hua-Mat V, 49, 57). Husserl has already said that “phenomenology needs to be a completely independent discipline” (Die Phänomenologie soll ein völlig independente Disziplin) (Hua-­ Mat V, 56) lying at the basis of the critique of reason.39 The phenomenology of judgment, here outlined by Husserl, is part of the phenomenology of knowledge, which is in turn part of the phenomenology of the many genera and species of “lived-experience” according to the distinction between ethical, theoretical, and axiological reason (Hua-Mat V, 42 and ff.). A quick look at a Randbemerkung to page 47 added by Husserl in 1906-07 will corroborate our reading hypothesis. An issue which here I do not tackle more closely concerns the question about the unity of phenomenology (Einheit der Phänomenologie). Can one call it a science if it consists of disconnected domains (zusammenhanglose Gebiete): sensuous essence, categorial essence… (essence of the psychical in the proper sense, and so on)? In this respect I tend to say, phenomenology designates more a method, a mode of research based upon clarification and bringing to evidence than a unitary science (einheitliche Wissenschaft) (Hua-Mat V, 47, footnote).

That Husserl felt the need to add this remark in 1906–07 should come as no surprise. If phenomenology needs to be a unitary science (an “independent discipline”), and if a science requires a unitary domain of research, then it is not possible to consider phenomenology a science unless its own, peculiar field of investigation is laid open. Since phenomenology cannot consist of “disconnected domains” (to which it would be simply applied as a method), a tool is hence required in order for a new scientific domain to be disclosed which is also able to embrace all such other domains, and give them unity: the “phenomenological reduction,” which Husserl develops between the end of 1906 and the SS of 1907 (on this we agree with Lavigne’s exegesis).  It would be important, but it cannot be done in the present context, to specifically understand whether there is any difference between the manner in which Husserl speaks of “discipline” and “science” respectively; and whether his conception of what a “science” in general is develops in a substantial way from the Logical Investigations onward. 39

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It will be during the five lectures The Idea of Phenomenology that phenomenology is first labeled an attitude or, to put it better, a posture in the still vague sense of Haltung and Denkhaltung and a “method” (Hua II, 8 and 23; Husserl, 1999, 16 and 19), but also, more systematically, a science, a science of immanent phenomena (Hua II, 7; the page is not included in Husserl, 1999). In the third lecture, the introduction of the phenomenological reduction is motivated first and foremost by the necessity of securing (versichert)40 the field of pure knowledge so that “the science of pure phenomena” can be “established” (etablieren): phenomenology (Hua II, 46; Husserl, 1999, 35). And the name for such a new field of scientific study is “pure consciousness” (yet to be designated by the ontologically more appropriate concept of “region”). And if in these lectures Husserl oscillates between a still preliminary characterization of phenomenology as a “method” and “posture” and its determination as a science, it will be in Ideas that phenomenology as a science of the region “pure consciousness” will be separated from its possible applications (angewandte Phänomenologie) to any domain other than “pure consciousness” itself (Hua III/1, 133; Husserl, 2014, 113). With respect to the latter—whose sciences Husserl classifies under the rubric “second philosophies”—the former alone deserves to be granted the noble and traditional title of “first philosophy.” It should be then evident in what sense, were we able to fully work out our paradigm-­revision, HP would display only as a part of it. In fact, the characterization of phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy, hence the transcendentalidealistic account of the consciousness-world “relation,” does presuppose and rest upon the discovery of “pure consciousness” as a region of being other than the region “world.” In turn, such discovery is made possible by the phenomenological reduction. Only by means of the latter, in fact, can Husserl lay claim to the existence of “a new eidetics” (eine neue Eidetik) (Hua III/1, 67, 149; Husserl, 2014, 57, 128) different from pure psychology.41 It is in order to legitimize a new eidetic science (of consciousness) that the method of reduction is worked out. If the publication of the first volume of Ideas will officially make Husserl the representative of the scientific conception of phenomenology, the lecture held by Reinach in Marburg in January 1914 should be regarded as an actual manifesto of the methodological conception of phenomenology. And if the latter holds phenomenology to be a general intuitive method or attitude to be applied to the field of any discipline (from arithmetic to psychology and history), the former takes it to be a  Let us remark that Conrad will explicitly speak of Sicherung to describe Husserl’s position in Conrad, 2021, 3: “Seine [Husserl’s] damalige Entwicklung zeigte, dass er—populär gesagt—jene ‘Sicherung’ in der Einbettung der Erlebnisse in dem ‘Bewusstsein’ gefunden zu haben glaubte.” 41  In this regard, a most crucial text is Smid, 1982, on the history and pre-history of the term phenomenology in Munich as a form of pure psychology before Husserl. On the basis of the material discussed by Smid, the thesis can be advanced (to be further verified) that the phenomenologists from Munich regarded as fully unnecessary the introduction of a new science of consciousness (= phenomenology as the eidetics of consciousness) in addition to psychology. See also Djian, 2021, 30-40 and ff., for an interpretation of The Idea of Phenomenology, in particular, the relation-­ difference between pure phenomenology and psychology (and corresponding subject-matter) that corroborates our reading here. 40

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science proprio sensu with a field of investigation of its own (the region “pure consciousness”) and able therefore to play the function of first philosophy vis-à-vis all the other (a priori and empirical) sciences. And if Reinach (along with Conrad and Conrad-Martius) would criticize the (Husserlian) scientific conception for restricting (Einengung) the validity and application of phenomenology to just one domain (prior to the possibly divergent views which they would hold about how such and such a particular aspect of consciousness should be comprehended), Husserl would on the contrary scold them for not basing their analyses on any unitary, material principle of research. Greater discrepancy there could not be. 8. If there is any phenomenologist who already early on recognized that this is what was really at stake in the controversy between Husserl and the Munich phenomenologists, it is Heidegger. In his lectures of 1920 Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression, the following and illuminating remark is made, the sense of which should not be too difficult for us to fully grasp: The sharp and essential opposition between Husserl and the so-called Munich phenomenology is a philosophical one or, more exactly, a gnoseological one, which determines as such the whole of philosophy. The difficulty however does not lie in whether the “realistic” or the “idealistic” transcendental comprehension and orientation asserts itself against the other, but rather in whether it is in principle permissible to posit phenomenology as the ­fundamental science for philosophy without having a radical concept of philosophy (Heidegger, 1993, 31; 2010a, 22).

To whom Heidegger refers by “the so-called Munich phenomenology” is not possible to fathom; nor is it possible to tell whether he would, in the end, side with Husserl or with the so-called Munich phenomenology. Heidegger, too, explicitly recognizes in his lectures the “basic” function of phenomenology within the whole of philosophy as a “fundamental science” (Heidegger, 1993, 30; 2010a, 22). Nevertheless, not only does Heidegger already speak here of “factual life-­ experience” (see also Kisiel, 1995, 123 and ff.) in contrast with Husserl’s “pure consciousness”; we know that during the years that will lead him towards Being and Time, he will more and more reject the Husserlian conception of the transcendental subject as a “region” and will end up conceiving of phenomenology in a purely methodological way. Already in 1956, Diemer (1956, 9) noticed the continuity between Reinach’s own 1914 methodological conception and Heidegger’s claim that “phenomenology” is primarily “a concept of method” (Heidegger, 1967, 27; 2010b, 26). Hence, at least three macro-conceptions of phenomenology could be pinpointed. • In the first place, there would be the scientific conception of phenomenology epitomized by Husserl, according to which phenomenology is primarily a science with one proper field of research: the region “pure consciousness” (= this corresponding to the position of Ideas)

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• In the second place, there would be the methodological conception of phenomenology as is paradigmatically represented by Adolf Reinach: phenomenology is a method of philosophy with no exclusive field of research or investigation (= the lecture On Phenomenology). La phénoménologie est méthode, one can say echoing the words used by Alexander Koyré during the 1932 Juvisy conference on phenomenology (AA.VV., 1932, 73).42 • Last but not least, there would be Heidegger’s own methodological conception according to which phenomenology is (primarily) a method (in line with Reinach) and not a science; yet, in contrast with Reinach and in line with Husserl, such method does not apply to any and every “problem” of philosophy, but to just one “theme” (Thema): “the being of the entity.” What Reinach, along for example with Conrad and Conrad-Martius, does not primarily accept is Husserl’s determination of phenomenology as a science with one field of investigation, the consequence of which is the “restriction” of its application and validity. What Heidegger is more interested in refusing is by contrast the determination of what such science would be about, i.e., the subject as a “region of being.” The former rejects the scientific understanding of phenomenology43; the latter the ontological characterization of the subject (as a region) that directly derives from it.

 Since a full reconstruction of the way the phenomenological method was conceived by the early phenomenologists goes beyond the scope of this appendix, let us confine ourselves to the following. Even if we have been speaking in the singular (the phenomenological method), this does not mean that there was full agreement thereupon. In Conrad, 1968, 5–8, for example, a distinction is made between the manner in which the method was practiced in Göttingen by Reinach (in line with the Logical Investigations, as it seems) and by Daubert and Pfänder in Munich. Although it is not easy to understand the sense of such difference, for the text is quite obscure on this, Conrad seems to maintain that the former hinges on the articulation between language and intuition and the opposition between Denken and Schauen (see Conrad, 1968, 5, who speaks of eine Methode des „Schauens“ im einem spezifischen Sinne; im Gegensatz zu begrifflichen „Denkmethoden“), while the latter is presented with the following, concise words: Ein anderes Schema stammt aus dem Pfänder-Daubert-Seminar. Es heißt abgekürzt: „Vom irgendwie Gegebenen zur Selbstgegebenheit“ (Conrad, 1968, 8 and ff.). In Conrad, 1992, 83, Conrad himself presents his position as follows: “Correctly understood, phenomenology signifies: to go through the phenomenon towards the underlying essence that somehow announces itself in it, regardless of what it is about.” As for Reinach, in the Marburg lecture two moments are distinguished: after a first, preliminary Bedeutungsanalyse (an explicit reference is made to the Logical Investigations) and the Anleitung durch die Bedeutung der Worte, an “intuition” is required in order for the essence originally intended by the language to be directly grasped (Reinach, 1989, 542). For the sake of the goal of the present appendix, there is no need to get into a discussion of these differences; the point is to recognize the overall methodological conception of phenomenology that all these philosophers share in contrast with the scientific one endorsed by Husserl (see De Santis, 2024). 43  Of course, “scientific” is here to be taken in the Husserlian sense, namely, as concerning a circumscribed “scientific” domain of investigation. This does not mean that for Reinach (or Theodor Conrad) phenomenology would not proceed “scientifically.” Quite the contrary: the different being that here “scientifically” means “rigorously” and has nothing to do with the delimitation of a particular field of application (as is the case with Husserl). 42

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They represent two sides of the same coin, if we can so express ourselves. Which does not mean that there would be no difference between Reinach and Heidegger, notably, the ways in which they would respectively and critically tackle Husserl’s own phenomenology. The point for us is rather to recognize that Heidegger’s conception of phenomenology as ein Methodenbegriff is itself part of a history that harks all the way back to Husserl’s Göttingen years and the alleged “first schism” of the phenomenological movement.44 HP tends to usually exclude Heidegger from the account of the realism-idealism controversy and, more generally, of the history of the early phenomenological movement based upon the argument that his critical attitude vis-à-vis Husserl comes too late, so to speak, taking place always from within an already accepted transcendental and idealistic paradigm (for instance, the first Italian translator of Being and Time, Pietro Chiodi, once spoke of secessione esistenzialistica (Chiodi, 2007, 151)). But were our paradigm-revision to turn out to be justified, Heidegger, too, would occupy a position within the history of the “science vs. method” divide: the rejection of the regional concept of the subject (rather than the “methodological” conception of phenomenology, as is too often believed) representing his personal contribution to it.45 Recognizing this, we are thereby led back to what has been a leitmotif of our reconstruction of the Heidegger-Husserl confrontation and the former’s fundamental criticism of the latter.

 Not only do we agree with Heffernan, 2016’s skepticism about the “Tale of Two Schisms;” we are here proposing a paradigm-revision that would eventually allow us to account for Heidegger’s relation vis-à-vis the early generations of phenomenologists (Reinach in the first place) that is both of theoretical continuity and specific difference. 45  Our interpretation would then differ from what is argued by Spiegelberg, 1982a, 339 and ff.; for a different view, see San Martin, 1998. In some respects, it is possible to claim that Heidegger’s criticism was anticipated by the Munich school. Based on Conrad, 1968, 14; , 2021, 3, it is clear that under the label of “Cartesianism” two aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology from the time of Ideas are rejected. One, the idea that “consciousness” as something different from the many lived-­experiences (i.e., as a region) is required in order for the latter to be apprehended with “certainty” (Conrad, 2021, 3). Two, the claim that the “ego” would be a constituens of consciousness itself (Conrad, 1968, 11). Quite likely, Conrad would contrast the conception of egological consciousness presented in Ideas with the conception first outlined in the Logical Investigations, where there is no “region” yet, nor any need to appeal to the “ego” as a unifying pole of consciousness. On Heidegger’s criticism of the concept of intentionality in Husserl, see Hopkins, 1993, 103–121. 44

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Conclusion to Volume 1

1. With the analyses offered in the last chapters, this first volume of our work comes to a close. As announced in the introduction, and as the subtitle of this volume explicitly states, the analyses have systematically focused on the Husserlian doctrine of “transcendental idealism” (TI) as presented in the Fourth Cartesian Meditation. But the clarification of the full meaning of this doctrine preliminarily required that the nature of the transcendental subject be clarified: it is the monad or concrete ego, whose structure is at the heart of the project of the Cartesian Meditations. The main thesis of this first volume, and of the book as a whole, is that if there is any text in which Husserl responds or would ideally respond to the idea of phenomenology first presented in Being and Time, that text would be the Cartesian Meditations. The justification of this overall claim was the aim of the first chapter of this first volume; as a consequence, a comparative examination of the nature and structure of what these two conceptions of phenomenology are about was also necessary. The second and the third chapters were accordingly dedicated to a close and systematic assessment of the nature of Dasein (Chap. 2) and the monad (Chap. 3). Chapter 4 shifts its focus to a methodological issue instead: there, in fact, we addressed the nature of both Dasein and the monad from the angle of the two methodologies respectively utilized to bring their “essence” and structure to full light (the method of eidetic variation, notably “self-variation,” and what Heidegger calls “formal indication”). In Chap. 5 we set ourselves the goal of demonstrating that §41 of CM IV, and thus the way in which Husserl presents his conception of phenomenology as a transcendental idealism, should be regarded as a direct re-elaboration of the terminology utilized by Heidegger in §31 of Being and Time. It is here that also the expression “absolute concretion” is first introduced to capture the nature of the subject on which TI actually hinges. Having spelled out TI’s core, the analysis finally moved on to the last chapter of this first volume, where the development of © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. De Santis, Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics, Contributions to Phenomenology 123, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39586-4

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Husserl’s understanding of TI is carefully followed and reconstructed with the aim of also dismissing the “thesis” (actually, a real commonplace assumption) that Husserl had presented TI already in the infamous §49 of Ideas I. Most of the chapter’s arguments are indeed directed towards dismissing such an interpretation by also introducing and clarifying Husserl’s notion of region (of being), and hence the overall idea of “material-regional ontologies” (eidetic-material sciences). Introducing what for the sake of brevity could be called the principle of regional materialization, namely, the principle according to which formal-ontological categories acquire a material meaning and sense only when they are materialized in a given macro-region of being (= macro-region “pure consciousness” or macro-region “world”), we argue against any ontological reading of the relation between pure consciousness and the world. For since the formal-ontological categories can acquire a “material” (sachlich) meaning only when they are materialized in a region, and since there is no material region above the macro-regions of “pure consciousness” and the “world” that would be able to embrace them both, then no ontological category (whether formal or material) can be mobilized to account for their commercium. “Pure consciousness” and the “world” stand to one another with absolutely no ontological relation (be it that of independence or non-independence).

2. This is also the reason why our systematic assessment of the Husserl-Heidegger divide cannot stop here, with the discussion of TI. For after this brief, initial introduction of the concept of “region,” a more systematic discussion of its meaning, function and structure is required. And this is precisely what the second volume of our work will be about. For after the assessment of the “transcendental” dimension, the question of being will have to be taken into consideration. To this end, the first three chapters of the second volume will be dedicated to the concept of “region”: the first two will tackle Heidegger’s understanding or misunderstanding of it, while Chap. 3 will finally clarify the peculiar meaning that Husserl attaches to the term “region” already in the first volume of Ideas. The problem of being will be dealt with also from the angle of the distinction between ontology and metaphysics in the philosophy of Husserl. In fact, and as the second volume will systematically argue for, part of our reading of Husserl’s critique of Heidegger builds precisely on that. Or, better: by recognizing that Husserl makes a sharp distinction between ontology (“formal” and “material”) and “metaphysics,” not only does the chapter provide the very first systematic “reconstruction” of the development of Husserl’s own conception of metaphysics; it also argues for considering the confusion between “first philosophy” and “metaphysics” as “last philosophy” (in Husserl’s sense of the expression) as the main shortcoming of Heidegger’s analytics of Dasein. Finally, the last chapters of the second volume (Chaps. 4, 5, and 6) will expand upon the many different meanings of the term metaphysics in Husserl by showing that what—in a footnote to his lectures on First

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Philosophy of 1922–1923—he labels “metaphysics in a new sense” bears upon the “irrational” nature of our own human existence in the world. Accordingly, Chap. 5 (“The Sea of Suffering”) will explicitly deal with this aspect of Husserl’s philosophy, thereby determining the position or locus of the problems of human existence within the architecture of his conception of the system of philosophy (based on the difference between first philosophy, second philosophies, and metaphysics). The last chapter of the second volume (Chap. 6 on Forms-of-Life and the Reform(s) of Philosophy) will bring our overall assessment of the Husserl-Heidegger divide to conclusion by trying to understand Husserl’s neo-Cartesian reform of philosophy. It will do so by means of the concept of “form-of-life” or Lebensform that Husserl himself systematically mobilizes in some of his manuscripts. And it is in light of this new concept that the conclusion to the second volume will announce the topic of the third, and last part of our trilogy on the many different forms of rationality in Husserl.

Index

A Absolute concretion, 167 Absolute individuality, 70 Alexander Pfänder, 152 Analytics of Dasein, xiv, xvi, 23–26, 28, 30, 31, 36, 40, 44, 46, 47, 72, 80–84, 94, 97, 117, 126, 127, 260 Anthropology, x, xi, xiv, xvi, xvii, 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 23, 24, 26–30, 36, 40, 47, 63, 75, 82, 122, 126, 128, 158, 159, 163, 168, 173, 175, 177 B Being and Time, ix, xi–xvii, xix, 3, 4, 6, 13, 17, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35–37, 39, 43, 44, 46, 47, 54, 71, 73, 79, 80, 84, 93–95, 99, 117, 121, 122, 124, 126–129, 131, 160, 161, 177, 255, 257, 259 Brentano, F., 133 C Cartesian Meditations, xiv–xvi, xviii, 7–12, 19–21, 25, 30, 31, 38, 47, 51, 52, 74, 75, 99, 100, 104, 105, 115, 121–123, 128, 129, 146, 152, 153, 158, 161, 162, 167, 169–171, 173, 175, 176, 179, 190, 191, 213, 222, 259 Concrete ego, xviii, 56–59, 61, 62, 69, 75, 100, 106, 112–115, 117, 118, 122, 129, 131, 135–137, 141–145, 147, 151, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 167–170, 173, 177–181, 191, 192, 208, 221, 222, 259

Concrete essence, 54, 67, 68, 106, 107, 110 Concrete monad, 43, 54, 124 Concrete subjectivity, 15, 25, 163, 173, 179 Conrad, T., xii, 229–232, 234, 236–246, 250–257 Constitution, 133 Core of the essence, 70 Co-variation, 112, 114, 115 D Dasein, xi–xiii, 6, 12–15, 17, 23–47, 54, 63, 70, 71, 73–75, 79–84, 93–99, 111, 117, 118, 122, 125–127, 129–131, 160, 161, 163, 259 Daubert, J., ix, xix, 229–231, 234–239, 242, 243, 252, 256 Descartes, 51 E Early phenomenology, x–xiii, xvii, xix– xxi, 229–257 Eidetic phenomenology, 116, 205 Eidetic singularity, 61 Eidetic variation, 79–118, 259 Epochè, 11 Essence, 4, 28, 60, 81, 127, 169 Essence of a person, 70 Existence, xi, xiii, xvii, xviii, 6, 29–31, 33–38, 41, 42, 44, 54, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 75, 80–83, 94–99, 102, 110, 111, 117, 126, 130, 131, 146, 163, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 203–208, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217–220, 222, 232, 248, 261

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268 F Formal indication, xii, xviii, 83–86, 90, 92–95, 98, 99, 109, 118, 259 Form of life, 57, 62, 69, 75 Full concretion, 62 G Gramsci, A., xix–xxii H Hegemony, ix–xxiii Heidegger, M., 3, 23, 56, 71, 79, 121, 176 Hering, J., xiii, xvii, xxi, xxii, 31–36, 38, 42, 44, 69, 83, 188, 201–208, 231, 232, 246–249, 251, 252 Husserl, E., 3, 23, 51, 82, 121, 167 I Idea, 4, 25, 127 Idealism, xvi, xix, xxi, 8, 52, 124, 131, 161, 162, 175, 178, 200, 201, 204–207, 209, 210, 216, 217, 222, 230, 231, 233, 238, 239, 241, 243, 245, 247 Idealism-realism divide, xxii, 204 Ideas I, xvi, 32, 35, 39, 46, 51, 53, 54, 56, 61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 73, 85, 101, 106, 110, 128, 136, 170, 175, 260 Individual, xiii, xvii, 10, 32, 33, 35, 38–42, 44, 59, 61–69, 72, 75, 81, 83, 90, 98, 106–108, 110, 111, 114, 115, 134, 143–145, 147, 148, 171, 172, 181, 183–185, 187, 192, 204, 205, 208, 213, 218, 244 Individualization, 107 Individuum, 32, 66, 107, 110 Ingarden, R., ix, xii, xiii, xv, xvii, 31–36, 38, 42, 43, 170, 175, 181, 187, 188, 190, 192, 193, 200, 204, 206, 209–211, 217, 231 Innate a priori, 58 Intentionality, 133 L Levinas, E., 201, 202, 205–208, 247 M Metaphysical neutrality, 230 Monad, xviii, 8, 9, 25, 51–75, 99–101, 106, 112, 114–118, 121, 122, 124, 135–137, 141–154, 156, 159, 161–163, 167, 168, 170, 171, 173, 177, 179–181, 191, 192, 208, 213, 221, 222, 259

Index P Phenomenological method, 84, 240, 242, 243, 245, 256 Phenomenological structuralism, 134 Phenomenology as a science, 59, 182, 191, 233, 249, 252–254, 256 Primum concretum, 168 Psychology, 4–8, 15, 16, 20, 21, 24, 56, 104, 132, 168, 173, 182, 183, 185–187, 190, 192, 193, 199, 254 Pure consciousness, xi, xxi, xxii, 59, 60, 71, 73, 74, 93, 105, 118, 142, 167, 169–170, 172, 173, 177–179, 182, 183, 185, 187, 189–197, 199, 200, 208, 233, 244, 245, 248, 250, 254, 255, 260 R Realism, x, xxi, 161, 204, 230, 233, 237, 238, 247, 249 Region, 82–84, 87, 91, 95, 112, 187 Reinach, A., ix, xix, xxi, xxii, 216, 229–231, 234, 236–243, 246–252, 254–257 S Self-variation, xxii, 100, 101, 106, 113–117, 178, 259 Stein, E., 59, 69, 70, 72, 127, 210 Stenzel, J., 124 T τόδε τι, 64 Transcendental idealism, vii, xvi–xviii, 10, 18, 52, 53, 121, 123, 124, 128, 131, 142, 152, 154, 159–161, 167–223, 229–231, 233, 235, 237, 240, 259 Transcendental inter-subjectivity, 11, 144–148, 154, 167, 179 Transcendental phenomenology, xiv, 4, 8, 12, 85, 102, 175, 251 Transcendental reduction, 51, 100, 101, 103–105, 122, 184, 198, 231, 232, 235, 236, 243, 251 Transcendental subject, 51 W Wesen, 31, 32 World-annihilation, 182 World-existence, 130