Values and Ontology: Problems and Perspectives 9783110325522, 9783110324976

Table of contents :
Introduction BEATRICE CENTI
Practical Necessity: The Subjective Experience1 CARLA BAGNOLI
Relations, Quasi-Assumptions and Material Aprioris: Reality and Values in Brentano, Meinong, Husserl BEATRICE CENTI
Value Facts and Value Experiences in Early Phenomenology Maria E. Reicher
Facts, Values, Emotions, and Perception FIORENZA TOCCAFONDI
A Glimpse into the Sphere of Ideal Being: The Ontological Status of Values ROBERTO POLI
Brentano, Marty, and Meinong on Emotions and Values ARKADIUSZ CHRUDZIMSKI*
How is the Pair of Contraries “Activity and Passivity” Envisaged in Husserlian Phenomenology? MARIA VILLELA-PETIT
Ethical and Ontological Dimensions of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception MARA MELETTI BERTOLINI
Experiencing Art Austrian Aesthetics between Psychology and Psychologism WOLFGANG HUEMER
The Contributors to this Volume
Name Index
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Citation preview

Beatrice Centi, Wolfgang Huemer (Eds.) Values and Ontology Problems and Perspectives

PHENOMENOLOGY & MIND Herausgegeben von / Edited by Arkadiusz Chrudzimski • Wolfgang Huemer Band 13 / Volume 13

Beatrice Centi, Wolfgang Huemer (Eds.)

Values and Ontology Problems and Perspectives

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de

Volume stampato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Filosofia dell'Università degli Studi di Parma nell'ambito di un progetto di rilevante interesse nazionale (PRIN 2006). This volume was printed with the friendly support of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Parma in the context of a national research project (PRIN 2006). North and South America by Transaction Books Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854-8042 [email protected] United Kingdom, Ire, Iceland, Turkey, Malta, Portugal by Gazelle Books Services Limited White Cross Mills Hightown LANCASTER, LA1 4XS [email protected]

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2009 ontos verlag P.O. Box 15 41, D-63133 Heusenstamm nr. Frankfurt www.ontosverlag.com ISBN 978-3-938793-022-4 2009 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use of the purchaser of the work Printed on acid-free paper ISO-Norm 970-6 This hardcover binding meets the International Library standard Printed in Germany by buch bücher dd ag

Foreword

Raising the question concerning the relation between values and ontology is tantamount to inquiring whether values are real, whether perception or experiences of values are possible, as well as to exploring the question of how and to what extent value objectivism and objective validity are tenable in ethics and aesthetics. These issues, which offer interesting problems for historical and conceptual analysis, have already been dealt with by early phenomenologists like Brentano, Meinong, Ehrenfels, exponents of Gestaltpsychology like Köhler, Husserl, Hartmann and French phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty. Ethics, as well as aesthetics, must contend with ontological problems in order to justify the possibility of value judgements and their motivational force in the various contexts in which practical reason is involved; these are issues concerning the constitution of the object and of subjectivity itself. The essays collected in this volume discuss one of the most crucial issues of contemporary debate – which has recently witnessed a rebirth of interest in ontology – and aim to investigate the relations interlinking ontology, ethics, and aesthetics. The editors wish to thank their colleagues from foreign and Italian Universities for contributing to this project promoted by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Parma in the context of a national research project.

Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer

Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................ 7 BEATRICE CENTI Practical Necessity: The Subjective Experience ...................................... 23 CARLA BAGNOLI Relations, Quasi-Assumptions and Material Aprioris: Reality and Values in Brentano, Meinong, Husserl ................................. 45 BEATRICE CENTI Value Facts and Value Experiences in Early Phenomenology ........................................................................ 105 MARIA E. REICHER Facts, Values, Emotions, and Perception ............................................... 137 FIORENZA TOCCAFONDI A Glimpse into the Sphere of Ideal Being: The Ontological Status of Values .......................................................... 155 ROBERTO POLI Brentano, Marty, and Meinong on Emotions and Values ...................... 171 ARKADIUSZ CHRUDZIMSKI How is the Pair of Contraries “Activity and Passivity” Envisaged in Husserlian Phenomenology? ............................................ 191 MARIA VILLELA-PETIT

Ethical and Ontological Dimensions of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception................................................................. 213 MARA MELETTI BERTOLINI Experiencing Art Austrian Aesthetics between Psychology and Psychologism ................ 267 WOLFGANG HUEMER List of Contributors.............................................................................. 289 Index of Names .................................................................................... 293

Introduction BEATRICE CENTI

The essays collected in this volume investigate the problem of objective validity in the ethical sphere from different standpoints, which are, however, complementary and convergent in considering ethical action as a way of experiencing and thus of relating to reality, where the agent is involved in the complex of his own capacities of evaluation and apprehending of values. In particular, the very meaning of ‘experiencing’ and also of the possibility of considering values as realities is explored. Thus, on the one hand, the volume proposes to analyse the acceptations of the real – in their historical evolution from the discussions on the term of intentional reference in Brentano’s doctrine of intentionality – which distinguish the thought of Meinong and Husserl, but also of Marty and Hartmann, inasmuch as they converge towards a notion of objectivity viewed as independence from the subject, which can also be seen as objectivity of values. In a clearly post-Kantian context, such a notion excludes every form of substantialism; on the contrary, it implies an idea of the real – above and beyond the conflict between idealism and realism – as objective validity, as being valid regardless of its being affirmed and accepted and thus having the force to request and impose affirmation. It is from this point of view that values may also be intended as forms of reality. On the other hand, the different ways of experiencing – including the experiencing of validity, viewed as the experiencing of the self-imposing force of what has value, of the force of moral obligation – will be explored. In refusing also the opposition between formalism and anti-formalism, these studies have aimed to focus on the issues involved in the interlacement between form and content, a crucial step in order to posit the problem, considered to be anti-formalistic par excellence, of the reality of values. This problem can, however, be posited from the view point of

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 7–22.

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formal – but not formalistic – ethics, and thus with full awareness of the inseparability of form and content; from a historical point of view, an example of this is represented by Husserl’s ethics, developed by analogy with an acceptation of formal ontology intending the real – of which the subject of ethical action is part – as a continuous taking form process. 1. To speak of ontology in these pages does not entail any reference to a substantialistic conception of the real or to an atomistic conception referring back to unrelated entities; thus there is no reference to a solipsistic subject, perhaps viewed as an aggregate, with a rational part detached from the other parts composing it atomistically. Indeed, in order to validate the experience of practical necessity, in the Kantian sense of the authority of practical reason, it is possible to resort to manners whereby, in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the concept of normative force was investigated in the field of the philosophy of logic and cognitive theory in particular by Lotze, Windelband, Rickert, Frege, Brentano, Meinong, Marty, Husserl, and Hartmann. In these researches, a notion of the word ‘formal’ which differs from that pertaining to formal logic and in certain cases coincides with that of Kantian transcendental logic has evolved; a notion that has been interpreted in various ways, but all of these aim to signify the normative interprenetration of form and content. In this historical perspective, the objectivity of Kantian practical reason is viewed as consisting in its force to become a subjective motive through respect, and therefore in its being perceived as valid, because, as Carla Bagnoli states, morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated and this can be linked to Husserl’s formal ethics. Indeed, for Husserl, the word “formal” certainly does not denote in the ethical sphere a void demand as opposed to the world of life, which is full of contents, but the process of evaluation and apprehending of what is absolutely due, albeit in a precise context, for every moment of time and for every subject, inasmuch as both subject and object, while being mutually independent, are correlated. In a different cultural ambit, being devoid of Kantian ascendency, as is that of Brentano’s philosophy, the same issue of objective validity in ethics is posited as a problem of correctness and is dealt with from the point of

Introduction

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view of a close link between feeling and judgement, which obliges us to approve what we feel as being correct. For this reason, Brentano’s ethics is also a constant reference for Husserl’s, which finds in feeling, as well as in the reflection of rational pondering, the means to evaluate correctly and thus to discover the validity of the relations in which consist the objectivity of values, their so-being and not their being in a different way, and in this sense their being real, parallel to what occurs in cognitive processes. If rational reflection is not opposite to the sentimental, psychological and cultural components of ethical action, but on the contrary it is considered to be interwoven with these; if ethical action is not considered separately from the context in which it takes place, but as part of this; and if the context is considered as a specific configuration of a form, as a variant of general structures, it is possible to justify the validity of determinate relations such as those expressed by values. This is Husserl’s view of formal ethics, which correlate ethical action with states of affairs; this perspective is adopted, in the French phenomenological tradition, by Merleau-Ponty, for whom ethical behaviour – that is voluntary and rational – cannot be isolated in a world apart, different from the empirical world, but it takes shape in the global phenomenal field of perception and in the orientations that are outlined there. In this field, by way of the multiplication of different viewpoints and by substituting one perspective with another, it is possible to comprehend and exploit the polyvalence of the structures. As Mara Meletti underlines, manifold perspectives exhibit a form, which by its own force takes on diverse configurations, and which in this sense is independent of subjectivity, but it is engendered by the relationship of corporeal sensoriality and the surrounding world, and by their correspondence. The interlacement of form and content, of form and matter can manifest itself in complex configurations, in articulated structures, which can be variously integrated. In this sense there is an important historical and theoretical link between phenomenology and Gestaltpsychologie, in the way in which the problem of form and the relation of the whole with the parts is posited and in the way in which values and reality are connected. Towards the end of the 1930’s Köhler’s work The Place of Value in a World of Facts is emblematic; his explicit criticism of the dichotomy between fact and value represents a finishing point and lies in various ways at the base of the theoretical perspectives discussed in these essays. In opposition to

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logical empiricism, which sets whatever is descriptive and factual, that is to say objective and neutral, against what is evaluative, Köhler defends a more complex conception of the conformation of the real, where facts and values permeate one another. As demonstrated by Fiorenza Toccafondi, “by value, Köhler means all that implies a sense of requiredness as well as anything that deals with negative, positive, attractive, tempting, or repulsive features of an object, situation, or event” (p. 140); in this sense, there is a link between this definition of value and the concept of valence (Aufforderung) developed by Lewin, emphasizing the value of invitation or the obstacle to certain actions given by certain objects, events and perceptual situations. Representing a long tradition of Gestaltism of the Berlin School, Köhler holds that an object can possess the quality of value in itself, and not because it is invested with the interests of the subject that contemplates it: objects are connoted by an emotional component, by a degree of attraction or unpleasantness. These are tertiary qualities or expressive qualities, which have aroused so much interest in contemporary ethical debate. The subject is no neutral or contemplative observer, but often becomes part of situations with emotional implications. Experience consists not only of purely factual components, but of situations, structures and contexts having an orientation or tendency, an “ought to be”, a circumstance that finds expression in both descriptive and evaluative concepts. Tertiary qualities, the properties of value, are thus for Köhler objective Gestalt qualities in the field of perception, whose objectivity does not differ from that of secondary qualities; and, as with secondary qualities, tertiary qualities are relational properties dependent on the presence of a subject in relation to events and states of affairs and they are experienced directly. Therefore for Köhler perception is not neutral but can be emotional in itself, at the primary level of perception, disclosing to the perceiver the value of what is being perceived. In this sense Köhler can speak of emotional perception, whereas values can be considered as properties of states of affairs in a realistic perspective – in a perspective of phenomenal objectivity – which considers them to be dependent both on states of affairs and on the characteristics of the perceiving subject. The analogy with secondary qualities also characterizes the reflection on the value of beauty, which in turn has its origins in issues implicit in Brentano’s doctrine of intentionality, on which Twardowski has focused in particular in his

Introduction

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distinction between object and content; as is shown in the essay by Wolfgang Huemer, an example of this is the aesthetics of Witasek, for whom content, as an immanent object, can express the peculiar reality, the quasi-existence, of properties such as beauty, precisely because they are analogous with secondary qualities. If the concept of value has been historically considered as the most appropriate concept to offset the faults of abstraction and emptiness associated with ethical formalism – traditionally considered to be of Kantian origin, but often in an acceptation of formalism that still needs to be liberated from certain historiographical constraints due, above all, to the interpretations of Hegel and Scheler – it has also provided an interesting testing bench for the reflection on the real, which became intense in various moments in the history of thought towards the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, and which was obliged to contend with the question of the reality or non-reality of values. This is a question that has enabled us to discover new and more interesting acceptations of formalism, both by way of the elaboration of the concepts of pure logic and formal ontology, and by way of the distinction between validity and values, and finally by way of the elaboration of notions of objective validity transversal to cognitive theory and ethics. In particular, the discussion on the relation between reality and the term of intentional reference, departing from Brentano, has presented significant ethical implications mainly in Meinong and in Husserl. As demonstrated in Beatrice Centi’s essay, for Meinong value can also be termed as real on the strength of the analysis of the mental phenomenon of assumptions and of the elaboration of the concept of “objective”, as the expression of a wider acceptation of the real with respect to that of existence, the analysis and possible ethical valence of which form the subject matter of Maria Reicher’s essay. For Husserl, value can be considered as real inasmuch as it is possible to translate its formal ontology in ethical terms, that is to say, that complex acceptation of the real overcoming the opposition between the ideal and the real, which had always constituted the object of his studies as from the Logische Untersuchungen. The definition of what can be intended as real is a constant theme in 20th century philosophy, as illustrated by Roberto Poli, who – with reference to Hartmann – states “that the sphere of ideal being does not only include formal (logical or mathematical) entities” (p. 159),

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but also values; the same can be said for Meinong’s theory of dignitatives and desideratives, which are – as Reicher points out – ideal objects of a higher order, like numbers or melodies. The possibility of conceiving of the formal, without considering it as being abstract or empty, but as having a content, emerges as a theoretical perspective which once again forms a link with Brentano and, in particular, with his analysis of the feeling of correctness (also dealt with in Arkadiusz Chrudzimski’s essay), Meinong’s theory of value, and Husserl’s formal ethics; once again, it reveals signifycant correspondences with Gestalpsychologie, departing from Brentano’s reflections on the whole and on the parts, for the impulse these have given to the study of the concept of form, which has become more and more suited to the elaboration of complex “idealreal” entities. Thus, as Poli states, underlining the anti-relativistic and critical approach vis-à-vis the skepticism which seems to be a common denominator among these philosophers, values will be studied as ideal entities, regardless of whether they are grasped by any subject. In his essay, Chrudzimski focuses on the importance of Hume’s claim that emotions constitute the basis of our moral evaluations, but he also reminds us that Brentano – who nevertheless attributes great importance to feeling – does not subscribe to the skeptical and relativistic implications inherent in Hume’s thought; and it is worth mentioning that Husserl, who also attributes the same importance to feeling, does not hold with Hume’s separation of facts and values. For Chrudzimski too, it is particularly significant that judgements and emotions should be interpreted by Brentano as mental states of a higher order. Like judgement, emotion is also a “mental acceptance or rejection, but this time the acceptance or rejection has an emotional character” (p. 173), a standpoint that has led many philosophers to ponder on the nature of what is being referred to in this case and which can be identified as a state of affairs. In Chrudzimski’s opinion, Brentano anticipated here and in other texts “ontological doctrines of Sachverhalte and Objective proposed by Stumpf and Meinong” (p. 178); moreover, in this connection, Marty’s standpoint is interesting because he is convinced of the necessity to introduce “mind independent truth-makers in the objective world” (p. 180); so, if there were to be such a thing as an objectively right emotion, then there must be objective values in the world. Therefore if, on the one hand, we have a line of thought that tends to advocate the

Introduction

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independence of values and their objectivity, on the other hand we have a line of thought headed by Moore, whereby even if Hume demonstrated that no normative claims descend from a pure description, Moore observed that for every situation there seems to be a close correlation between its descriptive properties and the normative truths regarding it. This line of thought is linked to the theme of supervenience, whereby “normative properties of a given situation supervene on its descriptive properties” (p. 182), a perspective that is attuned to that of Marty, for whom objective values or states of values mean “that all values attached to the objects in the world that provide us with truth-makers for our right emotions supervene on the descriptive properties of these objects” (p. 183). Marty introduced mind independent states of values in the role of truth-makers for our emotions. As Reicher reminds us, the same function of truth-makers of our true value judgements is attributed by Meinong to peculiar entities; the objects of higher order supervene upon their inferior and qualities like being pleasant, beautiful or good are based upon inferior qualities, so that every object that has the appropriate inferior qualities is necessarily pleasant, beautiful or good. Analogous considerations apply in the case of desideratives, the expression Meinong uses to designate ethical objectives. Moreover, something similar can be said also for the value of beauty, as is pointed out by Wolfgang Huemer in connection with Witasek’s aesthetics, thanks to the interplay between an object’s mode of giving itself in a subjective emotive reaction and the judgement of beauty. In addition to secondary qualities – and similar ones to these – Witasek also holds that it is possible for aesthetic properties to emerge, depending on the interaction between the object that has the relevant properties and the subject perceiving it, because a presentation of an object arouses a positive or a negative emotion depending on the characteristics of the object. As Huemer explains, this means that it is the object that distinguishes aesthetic judgement from other forms of judgement and that it is the object that has the properties to arouse pleasure, but also that “the ontological status of aesthetic values and properties are considered relevant only insofar as they become intentional objects of our aesthetic experiences” (p. 268). 2. As Poli states, “values will be studied as internal objects of specific types of experience” (p. 159) and this also applies as much to Husserl – it

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will be sufficient to consider the theme of the analogy between perception (Wahrnehmung) and perception of value (Wertnehmung) – as to Brentano and Meinong, to Hartmann and Merleau-Ponty. Yet this is a theme that can be related to the particular phenomenon of experiencing the force of moral law, of its necessity, a theme isolated by Kant and to which Carla Bagnoli devotes her essay. The analysis of what is to be understood by the subjective experience of morality, in the light of the Constructivist interpretation of Kant’s philosophy advanced by John Rawls, reveals such an experience as being inextricably bound up with the conception of oneself as a rational agent. If moral obligations become authoritative through selflegislation, they do not exist prior to and independently of the activity of practical reason; in self-reflection reason acquires knowledge of the lawlike form of the working of reason itself: “moral law can oblige us only insofar as we represent it as an act of self-legislation” (p. 31), which is the form of moral knowledge; “the autonomy of reason does not simply refer to the origin of principles, but it concerns the logical form of the law” (p. 33). As a reflection that binds agent and moral request, self-legislation has a subjective aspect, because it is reasoning that confers the structure of the law to moral requests; inasmuch as it demonstrates that rational will is a law in itself, it has an objective aspect. This explains the authority of morality and can be considered as the appeal to the Fact of Reason argument, a “‘phenomenological argument’, which points out that autonomy is inextricably bound up with the consciousness of freedom, and there is nothing further upon which to ground this consciousness […]. It is called ‘Fact’ because it is underivative” (p. 35). Such a fact allows a subjective consciousness – in this sense the argument is merely phenomenological – which nevertheless enables us to understand the objectivity of the moral law. Thus Kant has already transcended the mere opposition between realism and non-realism; the working of reason itself, which is a process, shows the structure of the will in its full autonomy, that is, in its validity and authority. Being rational is synonymous with being self-reflective and, as such, being able to proceed to the structuring of will in addition to that of cognition; as shown by the Constructivist approach, for the ratio essendi of morality to have objectivity, it must be related to its ratio cognoscendi, in the sense that self-legislation consists in taking the logical form of the law and being bound by it. The direct experience of the objectivity of

Introduction

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practical reason is the experience of respect; this feeling expresses the consciousness that moral law is obligatory, and this is a form of experience, a direct experience of the objectivity, of acting rationally, of principled action. Speaking of ethical objectivity is also tantamount to speaking of experience. This is demonstrated not only in Carla Bagnoli’s essay, but also in the essays by Maria Villela-Petit and Mara Meletti, dedicated in particular to the various ways of experiencing and to the wealth of nuances inherent in each of these, from corporeal experience and the different forms of sensitivity and sensitive receptiveness to the experience of the unitary flow of consciousness. Experiencing ultimately involves the detection of a so-being and the apprehending of relations of validity interacting with the constitution of the experiencing subject; this is even more so in the case of practical necessitation, which always occurs in precise contexts and in which there is the interaction – this is the evaluation process – of the capacities of feeling and reasoning. Both the peculiar Kantian theme of respect and the theme of feeling, developed notably by Hume, Kant, and Brentano, have imposed on ethics a reconsideration of the connection between feeling and judgement and have prompted investigation on feeling itself as a form of experience, whether this be empirical feeling, or the feeling of values as an experience of validity itself. For this reason particular attention has been dedicated in these essays to the involvement of both feeling and judgement in the evaluation process, a complex phenomenon in which the correlation of subject and object is a highly close one: let us consider, for example, the problem of the relation between secondary and tertiary qualities and the participation also of emotional modes (such as the experiencing of joy), assumptive and imaginative, which render evaluation the object of a psychology of judgement and will, as well as a logic of feeling. Both the sphere of Gestaltpsychologie and that of phenomenology have provided us with tools for a more in depth examination of these themes, such as the qualitative analysis of experience according to the phenomenological method advanced by Köhler and the identification of possible forms of necessarity as Gestalt qualities of the perceptive field, regardless of subjective interests. As for Husserl’s phenomenology in general and its developments in particular in French philosophy, we may consider the relationship of the ethical agent with the context of his action, also from

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the point of view of the dynamics of passivity and activity, a significant issue not only – as is well-known – in the cognitive sphere, but also in the sphere of ethics and in the conception of the subject itself. The essays by Villela-Petit and Meletti underline the fact that receptivity and activity are not opposed and that receptivity is no other than a preliminary level of activity, whose acts of perception are never isolated or partial, but always included in a sensitive field pre-given to consciousness. The study of the life of consciousness in the alternation of activity and passivity is part of Villela-Petit’s more general effort to interpret Husserl’s transcendentalism as being interwoven with the life-world, so that, as Husserl states, “the ontic meaning (Seinssinn) of the pre-given life-world is a subjective structure (Gebilde), it is the achievement of experiencing, prescientific life. In this life the meaning and the ontic validity (Seinsgeltung) of the world are built up – of that particular world, that is, which is actually valid for individual experience” (p. 194n); thus phenomenology seeks out the structures, the ultimate laws of the overall life of consciousness, at the heart of which is the ego, which is therefore not only at the heart of thinking, but also of perceiving, judging, feeling and will. Passivity is not merely receptive but it is a living passivity that unifies experiences, placing them in correlation with one another, forming but also extending the synthesis of the lived experience which thus takes shape in the unitary complex of consciousness; in this sense, there is no form without content and syntheses already occur within the same sensitive experience – an organized field, not a chaos of sensations – and not solely in the intellect. From the point of view of the denial of the dualism of activity and passivity and of matter and form, the ego, the individualized subject, cannot but emerge from the pre-given passivity. Moreover, the regularity of the associative links immanent to consciousness, regardless of the will of the subject, and presupposed by his acts, which have been stimulated by this regularity, is also given. From the ethical point of view, not only the context in which a person lives becomes important, but also the history of his life – the inner field of the lived past experience – with respect to which the person can know, evaluate and practically determine himself. A person’s rational reflexive capacities enable him to retrieve his personal course of life, to act upon his own nature, upon what has become, by habit, character or circumstance, a (passive) second nature and to transform

Introduction

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it in order to be able to act without constraint. This is a sequence of events in which, as far as both the individual and the community is concerned, active tension must always be reinstated vis-à-vis passivity, viewed also as a complex of egotistic motives. In this context, the feeling of love deserves particular attention. This feeling – whether intended as love for the person who is close to us or as love for humanity – inspires a renewal of the person and makes him aspire towards good; with respect to this, spiritual activity itself becomes receptive, thus revealing even more patently the complexity of the continuous interplay between activity and passivity. Consciousness is not an isolated entity, but a pre-given sensitive field, with its own organised structure. These themes, present in Husserl’s studies on the connection between the body and the psyche, are taken up by Merleau-Ponty, for whom, as Meletti points out, what is given is given in an individual experience but also in structured configurations enabling its recognisability and communicability. A universal ground, in which perceptive differences as differences of Gestalt are rooted, is also given. Normativity is thus deep-rooted in common corporeal and behavioural structures that operate prior to every individual and historical differentiation, because evaluative and selective abilities are also proper to ante-predicative life. Whereas the empirical body is intended as the cross-roads between generality and individuation, as the site of original sensorial syntony, the genesis of reflection from the antepredicative and impersonal life causes it to be embedded in a common naturality, in general – and also evaluative – modes of experiencing. If the phenomenical field of perception operates as a global whole, having the power to orientate intentions, gestures, meanings and coordinating them in a unity, things do not appear as neutral objects but display meanings and values to which gestures and actions originally conform; and the multiplicity of perspectives can take account of complex cognitive behaviours, of motivated practical behaviours and choices. This leads to go beyond the dichotomy between fact and value, already adumbrated – despite his relationship with Hume – in Brentano’s concept of secondary reference, which can be a feeling or an evaluation, as well as a judgement, and in the analogies between objectivating and non-objectivating acts, which represents the most fruitful aspect of this Husserlian

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distinction. A wider notion of objectivity is possible, whereby descriptions can be interlaced with evaluations, a major theme in Husserl’s ethics and Gestaltism of the Berlin School elaborated by Köhler, who was convinced that experience consists of structures and contexts having orientations supported by an intrinsic necessarity. Behaviour and perceptive situation interrelate by way of a common form which perception configures, in the words of Merleau-Ponty, as an initself-for-me; any philosophy of substance generating dualisms becomes useless, inasmuch as unity of sense already manifests itself at a pre-categorial level. This is how Merleau-Ponty explicits the meaning of a material apriori, which he takes up from Scheler – but it was also an important concept for Husserl, too – as an apriori of forms that are self-regulated according to intrinsic norms also preceding scientifically established laws. Values also emerge in the field of perception – and we are able to perceive them – from variously configured relations and in correspondence with a specific behavioural structure, intended as an open and remodulable form. Therefore it is possible to have ever more integrated perceptions, and ever more profound forms of apprehending of the real. Perceptive experience – always remodulable – manifests a primitive dimension of intersubjective communication, because perception is not the act of a single subject, but it is the fundamental process whereby subjectivity and the world jointly acquire their configuration. The real is focused, with different end results depending on the organisation of the field, the variation of perspectives and the networks “optically” offering different landscapes. This process is facilitated by the perceiver’s aptitudes, by his corporeal and by his mental, cultural and social attitudes; thus what is perceived is not only an intended object as a term of cognition, but it is a unit of value, as in perception there are co-determining emotional, sentimental and evaluative factors. Therefore it is possible to have shared evaluations and values, inasmuch as they are not abstractly elaborated and imposed but they emerge from the shaping of the field of experience, from the process of configuration of the real with which we mutually relate via perception and the more complex attitudes this engenders. The forms of the real with their own particular structures emerge all the more clearly when the attitude of the person referring to these is more organized and differentiated – being enriched with perspectives – on the different levels of his life and natural

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and cultural, or passive and active, constitution. It is particularly significant how, by way of the concepts of the adequate power of “vision” of the real, of attitude and of perspective, it is possible to approach the phenomenological philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and that of Iris Murdoch, who comes from a totally different cultural context, but considers the possibility of links between cognitive and evaluative activity, between perceptive configuration and values, and considers the contribution of the imagination to the perceptive configuration of the real to be an important one. The question of whether the psychological constitution of the subject variously referred to in the perspectives we have developed might imply psychologism, in the sense in which Husserl introduced the term and criticised it as the root of skepticism and relativism, becomes unavoidable. As Huemer reminds us, according to Brentano, always considering the experiencing subject also as the psychological subject does not necessarily entail a psychologistic conclusion. The analysis of the interaction between psychology and modes of experiencing enables us, on the contrary, to identify even more closely the wealth of such modes, departing from the experience of beauty, analogous to that of truth and good, but more appropriate to signal the unyielding subjectivity of experiencing, inasmuch as this is interwoven with feeling and the experience of pleasure. However, also in the aesthetic experience it is possible to identify properties of the object analogous to secondary qualities, precisely because these are apprehended by way of a merely subjective reaction. On the borderline between object and subject, a reality to which the value of beauty can be attributed and which can thus be considered to be of aesthetic importance, takes shape. This is a valence of experiencing which, on the one hand, is dependent on the conformation of the object, but on the other hand, on the conformation of the subject, that is to say, ultimately on psychological laws that, being normative for all mankind, elude the criticism of psychologism, and enable a judgement of beauty to be valid for everyone, and the attribution of the value of beauty to be objectively valid. An emotive experience thus reveals other aspects of the real and, as demonstrated by Witasek, taking up Brentanian issues from a standpoint based on Meinong’s theory of objects, it is possible to have a form of aesthetic experience, not related to what exists and is perceptible through the senses, but which has the

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power to refer to what does not exist and yet, in a certain way, exists, to non-existent objects, to fictitious objects, to objects apprehended in the imagination. The aesthetic properties of objects are ideal, extra-objectual properties, and express the relations in which such objects consist and which are can be identified by way of feeling and in a determined psychological order, which only allows the presentation of these relations and the experiencing of these, an experience objectively valid; the object urges the acknowledgement of characteristics that must elicit a subjective – but objectively valid – reaction for them to be considered as real. From the point of view of the Meinongian theory of the object, the psychological constitution of the subject and the most subtle modes of its experiencing not only find a place, without any implications of psychologism, but even complement each other: in fact, on the one hand, as Huemer points out, “the term “is beautiful” in the judgment ‘A is beautiful’ does not mean that A arouses pleasure, but rather refers to a property of an object A, which is completely in A and not relative to (the experiences of) a subject, and which can be grasped (it is anschaulich erfassbar)” (p. 281); on the other hand, this is only possible by way of subjective experience regulated by psychological laws that found aesthetic norms. This is a valence of experiencing, which could be defined as quasi-universal and which enables us to find out other properties and more extensive boundaries of what is real. Even Ehrenfels, a subjectivist as far as ethical values are concerned, considers, as Reicher states, that it is possible to have a sort of value objectivism in the domain of aesthetics and that it is possible to speak of absolute beauty, if this is intended as a property of objects of our imagination, of complexes of presentations, in general of immanent objects; moreover, “aesthetic value properties are somehow directly perceived along with the sensory (and perhaps other) properties they supervene upon” (p. 130). Significantly Reicher underlines how not only Brentano, a supporter of empirical psychology, “takes it for granted that there are true genuine value judgements” (p. 113), in his proposal of “a type of strong value objectivism” (p. 114), but also Meinong is inclined to value objectivism as early as the 1890’s, when he devotes his studies to psychological and ethical investigations concerning value. Meinong never identifies having value with being valued, but with the possibility of being valued; an object can have the property “of having the ability to be the actual basis of a value

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feeling” (p. 115), a dispositional property, independent of the existence of a subject that values the object and analogous to secondary properties. An object can arouse “feelings in subjects of an appropriate nature under appropriate conditions” (p. 116), and this is why it is possible to speak of dispositionalism as a version of objectivism in Meinong. Of great importance are value feelings in which the experience of value takes shape, because “value feelings are said to present [präsentieren] values, just as cognitive states (perception, thoughts) present objects and states of affairs. Feelings thus get a quasi-cognitive function” (p. 118) and are a means of apprehending values, a perspective that permits the justification of the action-motivating force of value recognition thanks to the interplay between feeling and cognition. The unitary path outlined by Reicher in Meinong’s theory of value affords her the opportunity to underline how this ends with an explicit declination in the ethical sense of objectives, which “are very close to what is nowadays commonly called ‘states of affairs’ or ‘facts’” (p. 119). In the field of emotional presentation, the dignitatives can correspond to the objects and the desideratives correspond to the objectives (thanks to their propositional structure, they are of the type “that x ought to be done”). Other entities have a propositional structure, the value facts, expressed in the form “that x is good”. In a Meinongian spirit, it is possible, for Reicher, “to assume that there are ‘value objects’ and ‘value objectives’” (p. 122). Although Meinong did not fully develop this aspect of his philosophy, it detains the merit of having posited the issue of what type of entities the dignitatives and desideratives are, and how certain entities can be “from an objectivist point of view – the truthmakers of our true value judgments” (p. 122). Also for Meinong there is the possibility of value experiences, which are perfectly compatible with his objectivist viewpoint, thanks to which Meinong’s value theory is the most highly developed from an ontological point of view; moreover, he shares with Brentano and Ehrenfels (despite the latter’s opposition to ethical subjectivism, which matured in the debate on the possible value of the past and other non-existent objects) – and with Husserl – the idea that there is a connection between values and emotions as well as the Cognitivist conviction that there are true value judgments. In the common perspective of a critical valence of the reality of values, the studies presented in this volume lay emphasis on modes of integration

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between cognition and evaluation, based on the ability to perceive the real in its multiple modes of configuration, to which correspond human capacities of constitutive and self-constitutive interaction with the real. They are based on a wider notion of perception, which can also be a perception of values which, in turn, “are present” in a wider acceptation of the real; in this way, it is possible to speak of value objectivism and justify the way in which the apprehending of these can be objectively valid and constitute an ethical subject, inasmuch as the subject’s action is normatively oriented by such an apprehending, and is capable of an action-motivating force. It would seem possible to posit fundamental issues in the ethical domain, without necessarily having recourse to traditional dualisms that inevitably generate skeptical and relativistic conclusions, but in the light of correlative dynamics, that is to say, of modes of relation to the real, which root ethical action, evaluations, and values in the shaping of reality itself, both subjective and objective. Although explored from different points of view, these themes let emerge common problems and solutions, representing fecund issues of the philosophy in 20th century.

Practical Necessity: The Subjective Experience1 CARLA BAGNOLI

Moral obligations appear to have a force that other kinds of obligations do not have: they seem inescapable, irresistible and overriding. Moreover, they seem to derive these qualities from nothing external to their own domain. That is, moral obligations are inescapable and obligating per se and also without qualification. They seem to rest on no other condition but their being moral obligations. Apparently, the unconditionality of moral obligations sets them apart from other kinds of obligations, which similarly rule over conduct, such as the norms of etiquette or the rules of chess. These norms are binding and obligating only conditionally, that is, on the condition that one wants to behave properly or intends to play chess. By contrast, moral obligations are obligating also unconditionally, that is, even when the agent does not want to abide by morality. How to account for these alleged features of moral obligations is one fundamental question about the justification of morality, and one traditional answer to this question is that moral obligations derive their special authority from reason. On this prominent philosophical view, which appeals to the Kantian tradition, their normative force is akin to necessity, and it is the mark of objectivity in ethics. The idea of practical necessity is meant to capture both the external (constraining) and the internal (motivating) aspects of the special bindingness of moral obligations. The objectivity of morality is illusory, unless we are capable of showing that moral obligations work like instances of practical necessity.

1

I would like to thank Beatrice Centi and Robert Stern for their comments on earlier drafts.

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 23–43.

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These claims are, however, largely disputed. Some philosophers doubt that the criteria for the objectivity of morality should include necessity and unconditionality, and argue that to be compelling obligations must always be part of the agent’s deliberative set (Williams 1985). Others deny that moral obligations are unlike the norms of etiquette, or that they have a dignified status that accounts for a special kind of bindingness and inescapability that distinguish them from any other kind of normative statement (Foot 1978, pp. 158–173). It is thus an open question whether moral obligations really enjoy the unqualified normative authority that Kant attaches to them (Darwall 1990). Even more problematic seems Kant’s project to ground the alleged unqualified authority of moral obligations on reason. Many have objected that the rationalist project is hopeless and fruitless, and ultimately at odds with the scientific conception of the world (Mackie 1977). One reason for this kind of skepticism is that practical necessity appears to be of a different kind and rank than causal necessity; it is a special kind of causality that pertains to rational beings insofar as they are rational (Kant G, 4, p. 446).2 Skeptics argue that the special kind of force that moral obligations appear us to have is nothing but a subjective illusion created by the complex web of devices that attend to the enforcement of moral norms. It is no evidence that moral obligations exert a peculiar kind of authority. It could be, then, that the difficulty that philosophers face in offering a persuasive construal of the special bindingness of moral obligations depends on the fact that this is no problem at all. The claim that moral obligations carry a special normative or motivational force is simply false, and rests on some confusion about the nature of moral discourse and of practices of social enforcement (Foot 1978, pp. 162ff; Mackie 1977). In fact the binding force of moral obligations is nothing but the impression that “we feel ourselves unable to escape” (Foot 1978, p. 162). The special kind of inescapability that Kant associates to moral obligations “may turn out to be merely the reflection of the way morality is taught” (Foot 1978, p. 162). There is nothing distinctively “moral” about this sort of psychological necessitation, except in the material sense that it concerns the training and the enforcement of moral customs. 2

Page references to Kant’s texts refer to the Prussian Academy edition.

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Contrary to this Kantian dogma, skeptics also argue, we do not actually experience them as inescapable, irresistible or overriding. That things are not as the rationalist has it is just a fortunate fact of human life, because to accord moral obligations the sovereignty that Kant attributes to them would defeat and undermine all other projects and endeavors of ours, depriving us of any reason to live our life (Wolf 1986). That is to say, giving up the unconditionality of moral obligations is a good thing, after all. There is nothing to lose in disabusing ourselves from the realist misconception of morality (Mackie 1977, Williams 1995a and 1995b). My aim in this paper is to reject this conclusion by attacking the grounds on which the skeptical argument works. My argument will be that skepticism about practical necessity arises from an unsatisfactory conception of the subjective experience of morality and of the role that it is supposed to play in the argument for objectivity. Skeptical arguments often appeal to the subjective experience exactly to undermine Kant’s claim about practical necessity. For instance, Philippa Foot writes that there is no difficulty about the idea that we feel we have to behave morally, and given the psychological conditions of the learning of moral behaviour it is natural that we should have such feelings. What we cannot do is quote them in support of the doctrine of the categorical imperative (Foot 1978, pp. 162f);

subjective moral experiences is not proof of the reality of the categorical imperative. To think otherwise is to rely on an illusion as if “trying to give the moral ‘ought’ a magic force” (Foot 1978, p. 167; cf. Anscombe 1958). I will illustrate that the constructivist interpretation of Kant affords an alternative conception of moral experience, which deserves to be called “moral” in a peculiar sense, that is, not because it identifies a specific domain of moral facts that are subjectively available to us via introspection or self-reflection. Rather, it is because it is “inextricably bound up” with the conception of oneself as a rational agent. I shall argue that Kant’s conception of moral experience as the experience of one’s autonomy and recognition of others, offers decisive resources to respond to the skeptic and help us account for practical necessity as an ordinary basic phenomenon pertaining to our agency. In the closing section, I will briefly comment on the epistemological import of this view.

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1. Practical Necessity as a Mark of Objectivity For the rationalist practical necessity names a complex cluster of moral phenomena that depend on the objectivity of morality insofar as it is authorized by reason. But it is disputable that practical necessity is a mark of ethical objectivity, and it is also questionable that we should take the aspiration of moral judgments to objectivity at face value. When addressing the issue of practical necessity as an aspect of objectivity, the main source of skepticism seems to be the causal efficacy of moral obligations. That is, if there is anything like “practical necessity”, and moral obligations might be thought to exert a special kind of causal pressure on us. If one ascribes objectivity to moral judgments about obligations, it seems as though one is committed to the view that there are normative properties that are directly efficacious, which commits one to a queer metaphysics. One has either to reject the claim that moral obligations are efficacious or to give up the claim that moral judgments are objective. But if we take practical necessity as an aspect of objectivity either move is ruled out. A second source of skepticism about practical necessity as an aspect of ethical objectivity is that it seems hard to point a homogenous cluster of phenomena that exhibit enough unity and integrity to be referred to as “moral experience”. As the rationalist has it, “moral experience” is a notion internal to moral theory and not totally reducible to empirical psychology. It contains specifications of the relevant capacity of rational agents, and more specifically the capacity to be guided by norms. But even granting the status of “normative psychology”, it is an open question whether there is anything further to investigate beyond the claims that there rational requirements and normative attitudes such as being “in the grip of a norm” (Gibbard 1990, p. 73, see also 55–82; Railton 2006). That is, one may still object that there is nothing further to explain about moral obligations, besides the very general idea of recognizing that something is a reason (Scanlon 2003). The objection that reasons resist further explanation is especially threatening when it concerns moral claims. If we cannot explain that moral obligations oblige us in virtue of their being moral, then it means that they are inert and their apparent force depends on external devices of enforcement and teaching.

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It might seem that the question of the enforcement of morality is a rather different issue than the problem of the objectivity in ethics or the status of practical necessity. But for a rationalist, to say that morality gains authority via incentives and sanctions is to admit that it has no authority of its own. Moreover, for the rationalist the claim that moral objectivity lacks independent authority amounts to the claim that moral obligations lack objectivity. But should one take the inertia or inefficacy to show lack of authority and objectivity? I shall argue that we find important resources to address this question and enrich the current debate about practical necessity by re-reading John Rawls’ constructivist interpretation of Kant. 2. The Constructivist Account of Moral Obligation Moral philosophy owes to John Rawls as much as to Kant the elaboration of Kantian Constructivism (Rawls 1980, 1989, 2000). Rawls’ lectures on moral philosophy brought Kantian ethics to the attention of analytic philosophers. Rawls’ interest in Kant is not primarily historical and exegetical, but political and philosophical. As he stated at the outset of “Kantian Constructivism”, his task was to recover the Kantian roots of his theory of justice as fairness and to develop independently his political constructivism (Rawls 1980, p. 303). While Rawls departed significantly from Kant, he also indicated some important philosophical reasons to reintroduce Kant in present ethical debates (O’Neill 2003, pp. 347–367). He represents Kant as steering a middle course between realism and skepticism (Rawls 1980, pp. 343–346; cf. Korsgaard 2008). On his interpretation, it is precisely Kant’s complex conception of ethical objectivity that deserves attention and needs to be further understood. Rawls’ own plan is in many ways more modest than Kant’s original plan, because the key idea of political constructivism is to remain agnostic as to the ontological and epistemological import of moral claims. It is enough for Rawls’ purposes to show that the realist criteria of objectivity are simply “unnecessary”, not to prove that intuitionism or dogmatism is false (Rawls 1980, 356). Partly out of a mistaken overlap between Rawls’ constructivism and Kant’s constructivism, Kantian costructivism has been

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identified the claim that there are no moral truths or that they are the products of the agent’s deliberation (Rawls 1980, pp. 351f; Darwall, Gibbard & Railton 1992). Under this anti-realist interpretation it is hard to see how anybody could possibly regard Kant as a constructivist. Indeed, such a reading would be utterly mysterious since Kant sets out to argue for the possibility of a priori practical laws and defends practical reason as a cognitive capacity (Kant G 4, p. 414; C2 5, p. 58). The slip from constructivism to anti-realism is not totally surprising, however. One of the main aspects of novelty introduced by Rawls’ reading of Kant is a procedural interpretation of autonomy. It is thus easy to (mistakenly) infer that constructivism simply amounts to proceduralism, the view that moral objectivity is the result of a hypothetical agreement reached by endorsing a given decision-procedure (Darwall, Gibbard & Railton 1992, pp. 13–15). Moreover, it should be noted that in the analytic debates Kantian ethics has been routinely associated with formal proceduralism, which takes of action as a mere outward performance (cf. Murdoch 1956). In such debates, Kantian objectivity is equated to intersubjectivity and construed as an anti-realist notion. However, the constructivist interpretation of Kant does not lead to an anti-realist reading, as so often critics presume (Kain 2004; Wood 2008; Hills 2008). What does Kant’s alleged constructivism contend, then? The basic claim of the constructivist interpretation is not that we create the moral law, but that moral obligations become authoritative through self-legislation. While there are unconditional practical laws, moral obligations do not exist prior to and independently of the activity of practical reason. The scope of constructivism is thus limited to the way obligations are understood as binding by human agents. This way of limiting the scope of constructivism is objectionable from two opposite interpretative perspectives. On the one hand, realists object that such a limitation reveals an intrinsic weakness of constructivism, which ultimately lapses into realism. The constructivist interpretation of the ratio cognoscendi of freedom under the guide of the moral law must presuppose the realist construal of its ratio essendi. This means that constructivism does not really account for the objectivity of the moral law, which is either independently established or merely assumed.

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On the other hand, anti-realists will object that this interpretation deflates the radicality of Kant’s claim that “the concept of good and evil must be defined after and by means of the law” (Kant C2, 5, p. 63). For the antirealist this statement means that the moral concepts can be rendered procedurally because they do not track any independent reality. As Schneewind writes, “Moral goodness and badness is not prior to or independent of the moral law, but it is an outcome of its operation” (Schneewind 1991, p. 305). There is no problem of moral contents prior to the adoption of the moral procedure. The matter of contention between the realist and the anti-realist is thus the scope of the construction. I will argue that Kant’s Constructivism concerns the authority of the moral law, not its contents. Such contents hold for all rational beings, not only for human agents. They are in this respect like the contents of the laws of nature. Even when presented as a law of nature, however, the moral law is thought to be coming to be through the exercise of one’s will (Kant G 4, p. 421, Engstrom 2009, p. 153, § 6.4). (And yet it is true that Kant sometimes sounds a straightforward realist that moral laws resides in the nature of things). However, I disagree that the rejection of anti-realism justifies a straightforward realist interpretation of Kant’s ethics. Instead, my contention is that Kantian constructivism makes sense of Kant’s efforts to steer a midway between the realist pretense of a rationalist foundation of morality, and the skeptic denial that any justification would be possible. I take Kant’s constructivism to be a form of cognitivist irrealism (Bagnoli 2000, 2009a, 2009b). To see why this constructivism is not realism in disguise, it is important to bear in mind Kant’s general argument about the heteronomy of all previous foundational moral theories. Such theories fail to account for the obligatoriness of morality because they trace the authority of moral obligations in external sources. That is to say that they fail as theories of practical reason (Kant G 4, pp. 441–444; C2 5, pp. 35–41). The charge of heteronomy indicates two sorts of mistakes, one metaphysical and one practical. First, heteronomous doctrines mistake the proper domain of reason, by inverting the ontological relation between reason and its objects. The constructivist procedural interpretation helps us capture the reason why this ontological inversion leads to heteronomy. The sentimentalist holds that moral sensibility determines our moral ends, and thus the commands of

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reason can be only conditional upon the dictates of sensibility. The realist holds that we reason correctly when we track truths that are independent of the reasoning that leads us to them. But this is to say that the sole role of reason is to track an independent moral reality, and it thus amounts to denying that reason has any independent authority over its claims. This explains the reason why dogmatic rationalism is heteronomous. Because of its realistic metaphysics, it misunderstands the practical role of reason and makes moral claims conditional upon external sources, hence reducing practical reasoning to instrumental reasoning (Kant G, 4, p. 441; Rawls 1980, pp. 343–346; Rawls 1989, pp. 510–513; cf. Wood 2006). This general charge generates more specific arguments directed against sentimentalism and rationalist dogmatism, which I shall not examine. To establish my point, it is enough to register that Kant intends to reject the realist criteria of objectivity, not because he thought that they were unnecessarily demanding, but because he thought that they were too weak. His charge against the realist position is that it is, ultimately, a form of skepticism about the powers of practical reason, and it fails to provide morality with any firm foundation. Realism does not provide a sufficient response to the skeptic challenge that morality claims no justified authority. In arguing for an alternative response, the task is not to weaken the criteria of realism, as anti-realism does, but to strengthen them. The constructivist alternative consists in vindicating the possibility of practical necessity, via its subjective experience. 3. Practical Necessity and Lawmaking The constructivist claim is that the contents of the moral law that perfect beings know as laws of nature become authoritative cognitions for us, animals endowed with reason, only when we represent them as self-legislated. Self-legislation accounts for the authority of the moral law, not for its contents. But the claim about self-legislation allows for contrasting interpretations. On the anti-realist interpretation, we create our laws (Schneewind 1991). On the Realist interpretation, we are not the legislators of the moral law, but only its executors (Ameriks 2003; Wood 2008). Neither interpretation is very appealing. The anti-realist interpretation clashes with

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Kant’s own statements to the contrary (Kant G, 4, p. 414, 4, pp. 454–55; C2 5, pp. 81–82, 32–33; MM 6, pp. 227f). But the Realist interpretation undermines Kant’s contention of the autonomy of reason. The constructivist interpretation provides a third view between the two. While Kant holds that a principle cannot bind a rational agent unless it is one that the agent legislates, it does not follow that the agent is bound by requirements because she legislates them (Korsgaard 1996, pp. 234f; O’Neill 2003; Reath 2006, pp. 92–170, esp. 112; Korsgaard 2008, pp. 207– 229). The constructivist claim is that the moral law can oblige us only insofar as we represent it as an act of self-legislation. But this is not to say that the authority of the moral law rests on the agent’s own arbitrary decisions. Rather, the claim is that autonomy amounts to being governed by principles that are both law-like in form and universal in scope (Kant C2 5, p. 70). Some interpreters have objected to constructivism that the autonomy of reason as self-legislation makes sense only after that we have recognized some obligations as valid (Larmore 2008, pp. 83f). This is to say that the constructivist hypothesis ultimately rests on realist grounds, and thus offers nothing new about the alleged ontology of moral obligations. The claim about self-legislation rests on a realist foundation about the validity of the law. More moderate critics trace realist and anti-realist strands in Kant’s ethics (Krasnoff 1999, Kain 2004, 2006). In both cases, however, the general claim is that Kant’s overall project is foundational or realist about moral ontology (Wood 1999, pp. 157, 114; Rauscher 2002; Ameriks 2003; Tiffany 2006; Johnson 2007; Wood 2008, p. 108; Hills 2008). What drives the realist objection is the supposition that constructivism is simply an epistemic argument that accounts for the ratio cognoscendi of freedom under the guise of the moral law. Ameriks, for instance, thinks that the argument behind both the anti-realist and the constructivist interpretation should be formulated in “epistemic rather than metaphysical terms” (Ameriks 2003, p. 270). According to the epistemic interpretation, constructivism reduces the way things are and the way we know of them, conflating the ratio essendi and cognoscendi of morality. This move threatens to be self-defeating, as the obligatoriness that human agents attach to the moral law is more than a mere subjective impression only if it is grounded independently of how human agents perceive of the law. Realists

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claim this dependency undermines the objectivity of morality. The authority of the moral law has to rest on its validity, and the validity depends on how things are. In other words, the appeal to self-legislation serves some purpose only against the background of a realist ontology. Kant’s theory of human knowledge “remains in crucial ways like knowledge of independent things”, even though he is not a dogmatic rationalist (Ameriks 2003, p. 269). The key point in the defense of the realist interpretation is thus the worry that relaxing the realist metaphysics forecloses the possibility of unconditional and necessary practical laws. This same worry seems to be behind Paton’s claim that the justification of the categorical imperative can be based solely on a kind of “direct insight” (Paton 1947, p. 272). However, the question remains whether moral knowledge depends for Kant on something “merely human and internal”, as it is for the Moral Sense School (cf. Schneewind 1991). The constructivist agenda is best seen as an articulated attempt to explain how it is that “the moral law is a creation of reason” (Beck 1965, p. 210). However, constructivists would disagree with the thrust and the details of he anti-realist argument. They would not endorse the view on which Kant “holds that we can live in accordance with an order that we impose on ourselves as a individuals” (Schneewind 1991, p. 307). Contrary to both anti-realist and realist interpretations, their explanation rests on an account of “the work of reason on itself”. They do not dispute that Kant’s task is to offer a philosophical elucidation of a priori moral cognitions, but argue that moral knowledge is produced reflexively not intuitively (Beck 1965, p. 211; Korsgaard 1996, 2008; O’Neill 1989). This claim may be substantiated by an alternative construal of the distinction between the ratio essendi and ratio cognoscendi of morality. The ratio essendi is not captured by hypostatizing an independent moral ontology, but by specifying the requirements of practical reason, that is, the idealized conditions of rationality under which the moral law would be a law of nature. The moral law counts as a law of nature for perfectly rational agents who suffer no subjective limitations, that is, under ideal conditions of rationality. For such agents, thinking and acting morally would be a matter of course, since they would experience no obstacle because they would not be sensitive to natural incentives. Sadly, animals endowed

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with reason are far away from such ideal standards of rationality. Does it mean that the moral law lacks any binding force for them? If this were so, then morality would have no objectivity, and would be proved a mere chimera. The question arises as to how to bring animals endowed with reason closer to this ideal standard of moral rationality. This is where the constructivist interpretation proves most useful. It shows that in order for the ratio essendi of morality to have any objectivity, it must stand in a significant relation to its ratio cognoscendi. The order of such relation is inverted in respect to the realist interpretation. It is not that our apprehension of the moral law is justified by how things stand in a remote moral reality. Rather, we can approximate the moral law, by our own distinctive cognitive tools; and more precisely, by attending at the form of the law. Self-legislation is the form of moral knowledge. The role of the categorical imperative in the formula of humanity and the Kingdom of ends, is to bring the moral law closer to our intuition; that is, to make common moral cognitions more self-transparent. It does not bring knowledge of an independent moral reality, but it makes a bridge for defective and limited rational agents to understand the perfection of the moral reality. Perfection is thus represented under the guise of the law. It is in this sense that “the moral law serves as a ratio cognoscendi of freedom” (C2 5, p. 4n). The anti-realist reading points out that to defend ethical objectivity one does not need to rely on “some knowledge of an independently existing moral standard” (Schneewind 1991, p. 268). However, it focuses only on the expressive meaning of lawmaking, hence equating it to a demand or an imperative. This leads to treating Kantian ethics as a form of subjective voluntarism (Schneewind 1991, p. 294). The realist reading conceives of self-legislation as the subjective or cognitive aspect of the moral law as a law of nature, but it does not account for the subjective authority of moral obligations. The constructivist interpretation starts from the claim the autonomy of reason does not simply refer to the origin of principles, but it concerns the logical form of the law. It shares the cognitivist position that self-legislation captures the form of moral knowledge. It thus rejects the anti-realist suggestion that we “create” values and we “make” laws for ourselves. Anti-realism reduces practical reason to the executive aspect of the will. In contrast to it, constructivism insists that reason has laws of its own. Constructivists thus agree with the realists, against the anti-realists, that

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executive freedom is not sufficient for self-determination (Ameriks 2003, p. 271; Allison 2006, pp. 387–393, 407). The advantage of constructivism is apparent when we consider that the thesis of self-legislation fulfills two distinct roles (Reath 2006, p. 109). First, it accounts for the relation of authority between the agent and the moral demands. In this sense, it says that human agents are bound by specific moral requirements insofar as they legislate them, that is, through the reasoning that makes such requirements into laws. Second, the thesis of self-legislation indicates the relation between practical reason and the categorical imperative. In this case, the role of self-legislation is to point out that the rational will is a law to itself. The implication is that considerations about the nature of rational will are sufficient to give a principle that governs its own activity. The anti-realist reading of the thesis of self-legislation overlooks this second function, and thus interprets it narrowly as a substantive claim about agency. The Realist reading focuses exclusively on the second function of the thesis of self-legislation, and thus fails to account for the subjective authority that moral requirements have for imperfect agents. The constructivist interpretation comprises the two functions, which correspond to the subjective and the objective aspects of the autonomy claim respectively. It thus let emerge that the notion of self-legislation is importantly reflexive (Kant G 4: pp. 431, 438). That is, it applies to the principles of action rather than to individual agents who reason their way to the moral law. It is in this sense that the appeal to self-legislation is meant to elucidate the constitutive principles of the rational will, as opposed to the will of any one rational agent (Korsgaard 1996, pp. 36, 233f; Reath 2006, pp. 112f; O’Neill 1989, 2002). Constructivism proposes an explanation of Kant’s contention that “the will of a rational being can be a will of its own only under the idea of freedom” (Kant G 4, p. 448). But the realist must rest dissatisfied with this answer. As Ameriks objects, If a being, qua thinking, is to have “a will of its own”, then this can be taken to mean that its judging acts (like all others) must have their absolute source in him. But this still does not show that he idea of such a rational will is anything more than a “mere phantom”. (Ameriks 2003, p. 171)

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Even if to have such a will would be to have a will of its own, it does not follow that anyone actually has it (cf. Ameriks 2003, p 171). We must be shown that there is an independent necessity for such a structure of the will (Ameriks 2003, p. 172). How is the constructivist interpretation supposed to establish this? 4. Autonomy and the Fact of Reason To answer this question, I believe that we should take into account the argument from the “Fact of Reason”. This is a notoriously problematic argument, which raises a host of foundational questions. One important issue, which I will set aside, is whether this argument can be reconciled with Kant’s original project of the Grounding, or it indicates that Kant changed mind about the feasibility of the deduction (cf. Ameriks 2003, pp. 161– 192; Beck 1960, pp. 166–175; Beck 1965, pp. 200–214). My only task is to identify the role that the argument from the “Fact of Reason” plays in the constructivist interpretation. My aim here is neither historical nor exegetical; I want to show that the appeal to the Fact of Reason plays a fundamental role in Kantian constructivism, and that constructivism takes place within a specific account of moral psychology. The appeal to the Fact of Reason argument does not amount to a strict deduction, in the sense that it does not produce a linear argument from premises to conclusions. My interpretative suggestion is that it counts as a “phenomenological argument”, which points out that autonomy is inextricably bound up with the consciousness of freedom, and there is nothing further upon which to ground this consciousness (Kant C2 5, pp. 42f). It is called “Fact” (Faktum) because it is underivative. It is a fact exactly because it is not an empirical or a pure intuition; it is a fact in contrast to what might be a consequence of a proof (Kant C2 5, pp. 31, 42f, 47, 55, 91, 104; LE 28, pp. 582, 773). It just is. The implication is that in defense of the objectivity of morality we cannot claim that there is a theoretical proof of our transcendental freedom. We should rest content with our subjective consciousness that this is so. To this extent, the appeal to the Fact of Reason is “merely” phenomenological, and it provides no proof. Yet it helps us to fully understand the objectivity of the moral law. In order to

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appreciate this role, we need to consider what kind of phenomenon the Fact of Reason purports to convey. It is, indeed, a rather queer kind of fact, as it exhibits both subjective and objective aspects (Allison 1990, p. 232). Objectively, it establishes the validity of the moral law and thus it shows the autonomy of the will; the acceptance of the moral law as authoritative licenses a rational belief in our freedom for practical purposes, that is, in the representation that we should have of ourselves when we are deciding to act (Kant C2 5, pp. 55–57.) Subjectively, it is the consciousness that the moral law is binding, and this is shown by the moral sentiment of respect. Respect names this subjective motive, and it qualifies as the only incentive that comes from reason alone, that is, the only moral incentive (Kant C2, 5, p. 76). The experience of respect is a direct experience of the objectivity of practical reason. This immediacy is exactly what makes respect a peculiar feeling, which differently than all other pathological feelings directly derives from reason (Kant C2, 5, pp. 79–81). This subjective aspect indicates our consciousness of the moral constraints on our deliberation and thus testifies to our capacity to act for the sake of morality. The objectivity of pure practical reason crucially depends on the subjective experience of it. Rawls attributes crucial importance to the Fact of Reason and thinks that it completes the constructivist argument by supplying an account of moral motivation (Rawls 2000, pp. 253–272, 268, 273; cf. Kant C2, 5, p. 15). In recognizing the centrality of this argument within constructivism, Rawls registers a significant shift from Kant’s early moral psychology, and more precisely concerning the theory of the incentives (Rawls 2000, pp. 291– 308; cf. Guyer 1990; cf. Wood 1997). The very concept of pure practical reason is objective if it is applicable; and it is applicable if it becomes a subjective motive for us, animals endowed with reason. Moral psychology plays a constitutive role in Kantian constructivism (Baldwin 2008, pp. 251, 254–257). In Rawls’ view, the argument of the Fact of Reason points at the congruence between the deliverances of practical reason and our moral experience. This congruence is an integral part of the vindication of practical reason (Rawls 1980, p. 340; Rawls 1989, pp. 523f). This is because “our concept of freedom is practically but not speculatively sufficient.” (Kant Lectures 28, p. 270). It would be to “go beyond the practical” to ask how freedom is possible (Lectures 28, p. 269).

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Rather, we should attend at how pure practical reason affects our sensibility, and this is the subjective aspect o the Fact of Reason. The subjective aspect, named respect, importantly account for the phenomenon of practical necessity. Reason works on the mind and sensibility of animals endowed by reason as a form of necessitation. It binds, curbs, obliges, and to this extent is experienced as an external constraint. But it is a mistake to think of the effects of reason in purely external terms, as if it were to issue only restraining orders. The role of reason is more basic and pervasive than that. It does not simply forbid us to take certain courses of action as immoral. More fundamentally, it allows us to undertake principled action. It makes acting on principle possible. The experience of respect is not only negative, but also positive because it is the very experience of acting rationally. 5. The Epistemological Import of Kant’s Constructivism This account of the crucial role that respect plays in showing that morality is the condition of possibility of rational agency may also help assess the epistemological import of Kant’s phenomenological argument. Appeals to experience in the realist fashion focus on moral experience to vindicate the possibility of moral knowledge, which they interpret as gaining access to an independent moral reality. It is thus interesting to consider whether the argument of the Fact of Reason has any epistemological import. There is a tendency to think that if Kant’s ethics is interpreted as offering a constructivist rather than a realist account of moral propositions, it thereby forgoes any ambition to account for knowledge. This result follows from describing Kantian constructivism as a form of “hypothetical proceduralism”, according to which moral propositions are valid as a result of correct procedures of reasoning (Darwall et al. 1992). To be sure, a constructivist interpretation of Kantian ethics does not encourage any foundationalist account of moral knowledge. It is incompatible with the view that moral propositions are grounded on reason in the way Intuitionism or other forms of rationalism require. Constructivism is also alternative to the view that Kant’s ethics is deductive or that we may derive moral propositions from a prefabricated deontological structure (Donagan 1977; Johnson

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2007). However, this only means that Kantian constructivism denies that we may acquire and retain knowledge by rational intuition or deduction from first principles. Recent defenses of Kantian constructivism are agnostic about the epistemological status of moral judgments, and refrain from offering a full-fledged account of knowledge, because they define themselves by contrast to contemporary forms of foundationalism, which are based on naturalistic or special moral ontologies. However, a plausible interpretation of Kant’s ethics should account for the fact that Kant regarded moral judgments as having rational cognitions as their contents. My last point is that Kantian constructivism not only makes sense of this aspect of Kant’s ethics, but it also presents a significant advantage over its realist and anti-realist counterparts. The constructivist emphasis on the reflexive nature of the thesis of self-legislation points out that Kant has developed “not only a constructivist conception of practical reason, but a coherentist account of its authentication” (Rawls 1989, p. 523; O’Neill 1989). I would like to specify in which sense the project is coherentist but it is not an endorsement of non-cognitivism. To say that reason is self-authenticating means that it is structurally reflexive (O’Neill 1989, p. 173; Rawls 1989, pp. 517–528). To depend on alien authorities would be a self-defeating move. Its acquisitions are not derivative, because any derivation would make them arbitrary and spurious. But this is not to deny that reason is a cognitive capacity. As Engstrom points out, Kant is actually faced with the traditional epistemological question as to whether moral knowledge proceedes from first principles or toward them (Engstrom 2009, p. 245). His alternative answer is that moral knowledge consists in the reflexive work of reason over itself. The process from common cognition to philosophical examination is not a foundation in any of the two traditional senses stated above. Rather, it amounts to selfreflection. What does reason acquire in self-reflection? It acquires authority and self-transparency, but it also acquires knowledge of the law-like form that underlies these achievements. Philosophical reflection makes this feature of common cognition explicit, but it is not knowledge of something else besides the workings of reason, lying as its foundations. It is not knowledge of the conditions of possibility and authority of reason. While the acquisitions of reason are negative in content, they are not trivial, be-

Practical Necessity

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cause the activity of reason is thus shown to be legislative; they amount to the demand that agents act on principles (Kant G 4, p. 421). But it would be a mistake to conclude that this reflexive exercise brings nothing new. On the contrary, in offering an account of the self-authenticating status of reason, Kant also uncovers the dialectic internal to the working of reason, which is a process. He thus account for the dynamic dimension of reasoning, which eludes both realist and anti-realist theories. Because the progress of reason is internal, and concerns the very structure of the will, it is perhaps not too fanciful to regard the main epistemological import of Kantian constructivism to be cast in terms of self-understanding (cf. Kitcher 2006, pp. 179–199). Its task is not knowledge of some objects external to the will, but to elucidate the structure of the will, so as to advance in our understanding of how we represent ourselves in thinking and acting. If the argument of the Fact of Reason works as I have illustrated, then we are at the same time advancing our understanding of how we must think and act, that is, under the law of freedom. References Allison, Henry (1990): Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Allison, Henry E. (2006): “Kant and Freedom of the Will”, in: P. Guyer (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 381–415. Ameriks, Karl (2003): “On Two Non-Realist Interpretations of Kant’s Ethics”, in: Interpreting Kant’s Critiques, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 263–282. Anscombe, Gertrude Elisabeth Margaret (1958): “Modern Moral Philosophy”, in: Virtue Ethics, R. Crisp and M. Slote, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 26–44. Bagnoli, Carla (2000): “The Claim of Objectivity in Ethics
”, in G. Usberti (ed.), Modi dell’oggettività, Milano: Bompiani, pp. 7–22. Bagnoli, Carla (2009a): “Review of Larmore The Autonomy of Morality”, in: The Philosophical Review, 118: pp. 536–540.

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Bagnoli, Carla (2009b): “Review of Korsgaard The Constitution of Agency”, in: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2009-6, on line at: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16307. Baldwin, Thomas (2008): “Rawls and Moral Psychology”, in: Oxford Studies in Metaethics 3, pp. 247–271. Beck, Lewis (1960): A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Beck, Lewis (1965): “The Fact of Reason. An Essay on Justification in Ethics”, Studies in the Philosophy of Kant, Indianapolis: Hackett. Darwall, Stephen (1990): “Autonomist Internalism and the Justification of Morals,” in: Noûs 24, pp. 257–68. Darwall, Stephen, Allen Gibbard, and Peter Railton (1992): “Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some Trends”, in: The Philosophical Review 101, pp. 115–189. Reprinted in: S. Darwall, A. Gibbard, and P. Railton (eds.), Moral Discourse and Practice, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 3–47. Donagan, Alan (1977): The Theory of Morality, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Engstrom, Stephen (2009): The Form of Practical Knowledge, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Foot, Philippa (1978): “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” in her Virtues and Vices, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 158–173. Gibbard, Allen (1990): Wise Choices, Apt Feelings, Oxford: Clarendon. Guyer, Paul (1990): “Feeling and Freedom: Kant on Aesthetics and Morality”, Kant’s Experience of Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–47. Hills, Alison (2008): “Kantian Value Realism”, in: Ratio 21, pp. 182–200. Johnson, Robert N. (2007): “Value and Autonomy in Kant’s Ethics”, in: Oxford Studies in Metaethics 2, pp. 133–148. Kain, Patrick (2004): “Self-Legislation in Kant’s Moral Philosophy”, in: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 86, pp. 257–306. Kain, Patrick (2006): “Realism and Anti-Realism in Kant’s Second Critique”, in: Philosophy Compass 1, pp. 449–465. Kant, Immanuel (1775–1780): Lectures on Ethics Tr. L. Infeld. Indianapolis: Hackett Publisher, 1980. Kants gesammelte Schriften, Königlich

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Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1902, vol. 27. (Abbreviated LE) Kant, Immanuel (1785): Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Tr. Ellington (ed.) Immanuel Kant's Practical Philosophy, Indianapolis: Hackett Publisher, 1983. Kants gesammelte Schriften, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, vol. 4. (Abbreviated G) Kant, Immanuel (1788): Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, ed. by A. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Kants gesammelte Schriften, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1907, vol. 5. (Abbreviated C2) Kant, Immanuel (1797): Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, in Practical Philosophy, ed. by A. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Kants gesammelte Schriften, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1907, vol. 6. (Abbreviated MM) Kitcher, Patricia (2006): “Kant’s Philosophy of the Cognitive Mind”, in: P. Guyer (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–202. Korsgaard Christine M. (1996): The Sources of Normativity, ed. by O. O’Neill, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. (2003): “Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral Philosophy”, in: The Journal of Philosophical Research, APA Centennial Supplement, Philosophy in America at the End of the Century, pp. 99–122. Reprinted in: Korsgaard 2008, pp. 302– 326. Korsgaard, Christine M. (2008): The Constitution of Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krasnoff, Larry (1999): “How Kantian is Constructivism”, in: Kant Studien 90, pp. 385–409. Larmore, Charles (2008): The Autonomy of Morality, New York: Cambridge University Press. Mackie, John Leslie (1977): Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin. Murdoch, Iris (1956): “Vision and Choice in Morality”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 30, pp. 32–58. O’Neill, Onora (1989): Constructions of Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 206–218.

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O’Neill, Onora (2003): “Constructivism in Rawls and Kant”, in: S. Freeman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 347–367. Paton, Herbert James (1947): The Categorical Imperative, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (reprinted New York: Harper, 1967). Railton, Peter (2006): “Normative Guidance”, in: Oxford Studies in Metaethics 1, pp. 3–33. Rauscher, Frederick (2002): “Kant’s Moral Anti-Realism”, in: History of Philosophy 40, pp. 477–99. Rawls, John (1980): “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”, in: Journal of Philosophy 77, pp. 515–72. Reprinted in: Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. by S. Freeman, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1999, pp. 303–358. Rawls, John (1989): “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy”, in: Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. by S. Freeman, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 497–528. Rawls, John (2000): Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. by B. Herman and C.M. Korsgaard, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Reath, Andrews (2006): “Legislating the Moral Law”, in: Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 92– 121. Scanlon, Thomas M. (2003): “Metaphysics and Morals”, in: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 77, pp. 7–22. Schneewind, Jerome B. (1991): “Natural Law, Skepticism, and Methods of Ethics”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 52, pp. 289–308. Tiffany, Evan (2006): “How Kantian Must Kantian Constructivists Be?”, in: Inquiry 49, pp. 524–46. Williams, Bernard (1981): “Practical Necessity”, in: Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 124–131. Williams, Bernard (1985): Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Williams, Bernard (1995a): “Ethics and the Fabric of the World”, in: Making Sense of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 172–182.

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Williams, Bernard (1995b): “The Point of View of the Universe. Sidgwick and the Ambitions of Ethics”, in: Making Sense of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 153–171. Wolf, Susan (1986): “Moral Saints”, in: Journal of Philosophy, 1986, reprinted in R. Crisp and M. Slote (eds.) Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 79–98. Wood, Allan (1997): “Final form of Kant’s Practical Philosophy”, in: The Southern Journal of Philosophy 36, pp. 1–21. Wood, Allen (1999): Kant’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Allen (2006): “The Supreme Principle of Morality”, in: P. Guyer (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 342–380. Wood, Allen (2008): Kant’s Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Relations, Quasi-Assumptions and Material Aprioris: Reality and Values in Brentano, Meinong, Husserl BEATRICE CENTI

An acceptation of the real as so-being, as developed in Brentano’s and Meinong’s discussions of the real and in Husserl’s reflections on formal ontology, may be adopted in the ethical sense: also the concept of value expresses this acceptation of the real as a qualitatively determined relational configuration; in this sense it is a so-being, and thus a structured formality, a legality having the power to determine. This represents a possible formulation of a problem involving above all the concept of an object as a term of intentional reference – and therefore of the real – and that of the qualitative differences existing among intentional attitudes. This is a problem which clearly emerges from the writings of Brentano in a series of “borderline” issues that arise from his classification of mental phenomena, and which was to be handled in different ways by Meinong and Husserl, respectively, i.e., by two philosophers who formulated significant implications regarding the theory of intentionality.1 Albeit from different perspectives, their reflections on ethics are focused on how a general model of action can be valid in a concrete situation; on how among the various possible configurations of the situation that of value can be apprehended, that which, for an agent in the ethical sense, demands realisation. Value is both a request for validity, for potential universalisation, as well as the expression of a so-being which, in a concrete situation, can be perceived and judged as valid. Taking up Brentano’s analogy 1

On Meinong, cf. Albertazzi, Jacquette, Poli 2001, p. 31; Grossmann 1974, pp. 85–88; p. 106 and p. 252 on the relationship between Meinong and Husserl.

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 45–104.

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between truth and goodness, by way of a critical analysis that leads them to extend the concept of the real, Meinong and Husserl reconfirm this analogy on the basis of a more wide-ranging notion of correctness and validity. I 1. Differences and Relations Between the Modes of Intentional Attitude In Brentano’s distinction of mental phenomena into three broad classes based on their qualitative differences – and not without a hint of polemic towards Kantian ethical formalism – in the third class he combines feeling and will in one distinct kind of act, which intends a particular reality as being endowed with value. The differences among the three classes of mental phenomena lie in the type of reference2, in the modes of the consciousness of an object; so, on the one hand, it is possible to pass from one to the other, on the other hand, there is great insistence on the differences among the phenomena of presentation, judgement, and also of will and feelings. It is highly significant that Brentano should insist on the relation between presentation and feeling (the term I use to designate the third class phenomena) and that this should become paradigmatic to introduce and explain also the relations between presentation and judgement and, in a more general sense, between primary reference and secondary reference. Thus a beloved object is presented in a dual manner, because it is both presented and loved, just as it can be both presented and judged. There is a different quality of mental phenomena that is constantly emphasised and sustained by Brentano; but in his overall explanation of intentional reference there are moments when these qualitative differences do not exclude “beyond boundary” forms. Let us consider, for example, primary reference, presentation, which envisages two phases, namely a sound as a primary object and hearing the sound as a secondary object, implying a form of consciousness, a sort of inner feeling. And let us now consider the whole presentation as an overall primary reference and the primary object of a secondary reference, which could be a feeling of pleasure or displeasure (different from the previous 2

Brentano 1911, p. 33; Eng. p. 197.

Relations, Quasi-Assumptions, and Material Aprioris

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inner feeling but akin to this in that the secondary reference is, in turn, a form of consciousness) or a judgement. This situation makes us wonder first of all whether a pure and simple presentation can ever occur and secondly whether consciousness is a feeling and whether, for this very reason, all intentional references and mental phenomena may be accompanied by some kind of feeling; in what way this differs from inner perception; or whether consciousness, inner feeling and inner perception may somehow coincide; and, finally, we have endeavoured to shed light on the relationship between this feeling and the feelings in the third class. However the situation prompts us to look into the relation between judgement and presentation. Indeed, whereas presentation should always apparently be present for there to be an intentional reference (and in this sensory presentation is prioritised, so to speak), the way in which judgement is defined seems to make the relation a problematic one. Like every intentional reference, judgement is also a form of acknowledgment, but differs from other forms in that it demands assent and adhesion, because it has the power to establish that something exists. But when towards the end of the Preface to Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene Brentano claims that intentional reference can have as its object only a real3 thing, which attitude in particular is he thinking of? Most probably he is referring to judgement, the only class of mental phenomena that has the power to establish that x is real, i.e., that it exists, whereas a presentation could also be a presentation of something that does not exist (a centaur, a historical character); the class of presentation therefore loses its centrality because it can attain the real as something that exists and not get lost in the meanders of fantasy or in the realm of the unreality only in a presentation that becomes a primary object of a judgement. We face the same problem in the case of judgements that are apparently directed towards universals, which for Brentano – in fierce polemic with Husserl (see Appendices V, IX, XI) – are unreal in the pejorative sense.

3

This standpoint dates back to 1904, as F. Mayer-Hillebrand recalls in her preface to Brentano 1977, p. VI, which is largely dedicated to the elucidation of the origin and significance of the so-called reistic turn, also giving particular prominence to Brentano’s letter to Marty dated September 10th, 1903 (in ibid., pp. 108f).

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The importance of judgement – and Brentano was fully aware of his rather innovative interpretation of it, intended as acknowledgment – is all the more evident, if we also consider the in recto and in obliquo distinction. The primary relation can be either in recto or in obliquo, as when, for instance, I present a flower-lover: the flowers, which I present in obliquo, could be termed as an in obliquo a. To this primary reference 1 can be referred a secondary attitude which in general has its primary in recto but also in obliquo if we consider that, being a secondary attitude, it has itself in recto, as a form of consciousness: every mental activity can relate “to itself as object, not, however, primarily, but secondarily or […] ‘incidentally’ (‘nebenbei’). In a single mental activity, then, there is always a plurality of references and a plurality of objects”4; in this sense we have a primary 2 in obliquo. In the secondary attitude, I think of myself in recto and the object that primarily was in recto now becomes in obliquo. The flower-lover that was the primary in recto and the flowers that were the primary in obliquo become altogether the primary 2 in recto 2 of a secondary, which is the consciousness of this situation, of my self as I judge it: there is a flower-lover. In so doing, I who have consciousness of myself as I judge, also have a primary 3 in recto 3, whereas the primary 2 in recto 2 becomes an in obliquo b. But then, as a whole, with respect to primary 3 and in recto 3, that is, in viewing myself reflexively, the in recto 1 and the in recto 2 become an in obliquo c. I am at the same time a judging ego and an ego aware of judging. Therefore, on a level : I know in recto 3 that on the level : I am judging in recto 2 that on the level
: there is a flower-lover, in recto 1. The reflexive consciousness on the gamma level implies judgement on the beta level which affirms and declares – by acknowledging its existence – a presented state of affairs. Presentation alone, while being an inner perception and as such evident, does not imply a declaration of the real. It is a well-known fact that Brentano, in Psychologie II, underlines that “one of the most important innova-

4

Brentano 1911, Appendix II, p. 138; Eng. pp. 275f.

Relations, Quasi-Assumptions, and Material Aprioris

49

tions is that I am no longer of the opinion that mental relation can have something other than a thing [Reales] as its object.”5 Interestingly, these considerations taken from Psychologie II, along with a few others from the Appendices, can be supported by a few basic themes in Über den Ursprung der sittlichen Erkenntnis (1889), a work in which Brentano draws attention to the presence of a natural preference (Vorzug) on which a rule is based; of a certain inner correctness, which entails the Vorzug of certain acts of will as opposed to others, also by way of a comparison and choice consisting in an affirmation or acknowledgment (Anerkennung): also in the field of ethics the correctness of a preference is entrusted to judgement. Indeed, at the root of concepts both of truth and of goodness there is a relative affirmation of correctness, which holds both for the cognitive and ethical spheres: something is true if the relative affirmation is correct, and good if the relative affection is correct. However, in relation to both the parallelism with the cognitive sphere and what we intend as correctness, which apparently implies evaluation and rectification, comparison and deliberation, there seems to be the intervention of an act of judgement. The Einsicht that something is true or better certainly goes hand in hand with the identification of correctness and this is no simple, immediate perception. This same parallelism also posits a problem of reality: what is our judgement of correctness referred to in the ethical sphere? Brentano also includes in the third class feelings of pleasure and displeasure, the power to experience joy – which is a mark of goodness – and to experience hate as a mark of evil. But what is it that inspires feelings of pleasure and joy, for instance? What does this intentional act refer to? Finally, if consciousness is an inner feeling like inner perception, the question we need to ask is whether all consciousness coincides with this acceptation or whether there exists another acceptation, which on a different level links it to judgement. The same question can be asked in relation to evidence which, although provided by inner perception, is also however proper to judgement as a form of affirmation and it is therefore possible in various ways, because judgement does not appear to be merely attributable

5

Brentano 1911, p. 2; Eng. p. XX. As Chisholm and Baumgartner observe, 1982, p. XIV, objects of presentation are individual things or entia realia, or concrete things.

50

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to inner perception, as may be the case for presentation intended as primary reference.6 On the one hand, therefore, we have inner perception in terms of immediate and never deceptive inner consciousness, as expounded in Psychologie I, and proper to presentation, which is, indeed, always the perception of a sound and the hearing of a sound7 and of all mental phenomena insofar as they must have a primary reference in presentation; on the other hand, we have a form of consciousness which differs at least in part, pertaining to complex mental phenomena, in which primary and secondary, in recto and in obliquo are variously composed. In this sense inner consciousness is affirmation (Anerkennung) and, in certain ways, it is already a form of judgement; indeed: In cognition through inner perception we have before us in particular a judgement which quite obviously contradicts the usual view of psychologists and logicians. No one who pays attention to what goes on within himself when he hears or sees and perceives his act of hearing or seeing could be mistaken about the fact that this judgement of inner perception does not consist in the connection of a mental act as subject with existence as predicate, but consists rather in the simple affirmation of the mental phenomenon which is present in inner consciousness.8

On this basis Brentano was to speak of judgement in the true sense of affirmation and therefore as a judgement of existence and not of mere connection. Yet for this type of mental phenomenon, which Brentano, in considering them as a separate class, distinguishes from the class of presentation, consciousness intended as immediate inner perception cannot be totally sufficient, above all because the phenomenon, although fused, in order to be fully conscious, demands awareness of the different levels of primarity and secondarity, of in recto and in obliquo and their inter-relations. Brentano himself was forced to admit these distinctions between in recto and in obliquo in his Appendices, to insist on existent reality as intentional reference term, when inner perceptions also of non-real phenomena are possible, in other words to insist on the implications of his distinction between presentation and judgement. 6

Brentano 1874, p. 128; Eng. p. 91. Ibid., p. 179; Eng. p. 127. 8 Ibid., p. 201; Eng. p. 142. 7

Relations, Quasi-Assumptions, and Material Aprioris

51

Moreover, the inner consciousness of each mental phenomenon is already termed as dual and appears to suggest a dimension of not mere perception, when Brentano states that every mental act is therefore linked to a twofold inner consciousness, a presentation and a judgement which refer to it, the so-called inner perception, which is an immediate and evident cognition of the self-same act.9 The consciousness that emerges appears to be a more complex phenomenon than immediate inner perception; it appears to be more akin to inner feeling, not totally corresponding to a situation in which the mental phenomenon might be a judgement. On the one hand Brentano insists on the coalescence of every mental phenomenon, on the evidence with which it appears to the consciousness, on the certainty of our inner perception; on the other hand he himself is obliged to admit the greater complexity of these phenomena, to the extent of modifying his views on certain issues with respect to 1874. 2. Intentional Reference as a Complex In Psychologie I, Brentano is already aware of these difficulties, for example, when he states: the simplest act, for example the act of hearing, has as its primary object the sound, and for its secondary object, itself, the mental phenomenon in which the sound is heard. Consciousness of this secondary object is threefold: it involves a presentation of it, a cognition of it and a feeling toward it. Consequently, every mental act, even the simplest, has four different aspects under which it may be considered. It may be considered as a presentation of its primary object, as when the act in which we perceive a sound is considered as an act of hearing; however, it may also be considered as a presentation of itself, as a cognition of itself, and as a feeling toward itself. In addition, in these four respects combined, it is the object of its self-presentation, of its self-cognition, and (so to speak) of its self-feeling. Thus, without any further complication and multiplication of entities, not only is the self-presentation presented, the self-cognition is known as well as presented, and the self-feeling is felt as well as known and presented.10

9

Ibid., p. 203; Eng. p. 143. Ibid., pp. 218f; Eng. pp. 153f.

10

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There is also another passage in Psychologie I that sheds light on the issue, and perhaps the implications of this awareness triggered Brentano’s decision to publish in 1911, with a few variants and Appendices in a separate volume, the chapters of Psychologie dedicated to the distinctions among the various mental phenomena, to their differences, involving further issues. Brentano wrote: Our investigation has shown that wherever there is mental activity there is a certain multiplicity and complexity. […]. But this lack of simplicity was not a lack of unity. The consciousness of the primary object and the consciousness of the secondary object are not each a distinct phenomenon but two aspects of one and the same unitary phenomenon; nor did the fact that the secondary object enters into our consciousness in various ways eliminate that unity of consciousness. We interpreted them, and had to interpret them, as parts of a unified real being.11

Brentano is aware not only of the fact that this complexity does not undermine the unity and cohesion, but also that the unity of consciousness does not exclude either the plurality of the parts or the multiplicity of form. However, if unity is not tantamount to simplicity, we are faced with borderline issues among the different qualities of mental phenomena interacting and among the aspects of reality which are their reference terms. Also consciousness12, intended as a complex, is not that of the single modes of act; in the same way that evidence pertaining to a complex of actions is not identical to evidence pertaining to each mode of act. Brentano shows that we can reasonably speak of a complex of acts in the following explanation: every act of consciousness, however simple it may be, as for example the act in which a sound is the object of my presentation, contains simultaneously a presentation and a judgement, a cognition. This is the cognition of the mental phenomenon in inner consciousness, the universality of which we have demonstrated above.13

This standpoint reveals that Brentano was not convinced of mere inner perception being the sole form of cognition and relation to the real – which is also in part the impression Husserl had of Brentano –; in this light, the 11

Ibid., p. 221; Eng. p. 155. Brentano 1911, p. 38; Eng. p. 201. 13 Ibid., pp. 70f; Eng. pp. 225f. See reference to Brentano 1874, book II, chapter III, with further considerations on inner consciousness. 12

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function of judgement, which Brentano reinterpreted in existential terms, would appear to be reduced; but also his conception of the real as something totally and exclusively innerly perceived would be reduced. This is true in the sense that inner perception must be in any case, but in a wider sense of consciousness, which also comprises forms pertaining to classes of phenomena different from presentation. Moreover, not all the things that I am able to perceive innerly are real, because further criteria of demarcation with regard to fantasy, imagination and artistic creativity would be necessary; finally, perception without the ability to judge is one matter, perception combined with judgement is quite another. In this sense, § 2 of chapter six of Klassifikation strikes me as being important; here Brentano reiterates the core of his theory of intentionality, namely the intentional inexistence of objects, whereby the beloved is in the lover, who in turn could not be a lover without something to love. These are the problems that have led to the distinction between content and object, in the sense attributed by Brentano, when he states that “Nothing distinguishes mental phenomena from physical phenomena more than the fact that something is immanent as an object in them”14; he means that in mental phenomena we relate to reality with different attitudes of which we are conscious in different ways and this is the very reason why a mental phenomenon is of such interest, in that it marks the reality of something in different modes and in different relations with our general way of perceiving it. Brentano’s insistence with regard to this fundamental issue is significant, given that he is not so much concerned with the obvious reference to the reality of mental phenomena as with the different qualities and modes of these references; equally significant is his clarification that he is no longer of the opinion that a mental reference can have as an object something different from the real. Thus for Brentano what counts is the different reference of mental activity towards the immanent object and the different mode of its intentional existence15, and thus the different quality of the modes in which we have an object as object. Contrary to Husserl’s admission – at one with Lotze and Bolzano – of the possibility of the reality of 14

Brentano 1911, p. 32; Eng. p. 197. Ibid. (Brentano writes “intenzionale Existenz”; the English translation runs as “intentional inexistence”). 15

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ideal essences, Brentano reaffirms a kind of empirical realism, in that mental phenomena refer to empirical realities, being in themselves and as such always intentionally inexistent. For Brentano what we refer to is the real and not the unreal16, and we can refer to it in qualitatively different modes. These two tenets appear to engender important consequences on the ethical plane, as well as a few interesting issues, which Meinong and Husserl in particular worked on in the first decade of the 20th century. The Appendices published in 1911 are largely dedicated to his dissociation from their works and specifically focused on the issue of the real and of the autonomy of objects from our intentionality. The articulated act referring to an object renders it as a content in a qualitatively different way from others; not only because it constitutes a different act with respect to another, for instance, a presentation, rather than a judgement or a feeling, but also and primarily because in any case it constitutes an act in which the mode whereby the diverse qualities of intentional reference are merged differentiates content and object, my general way of intending and the overall reference of the act. This is what engenders the possibility of regarding a distinctive act – an axiological act or one intending value – as being qualitatively different from all other acts (it is the greater number of typologies of acts what characterises Meinong’s and above all Husserl’s dissociation from Brentano) and which intends a qualitatively different content and the respective object capable of further differentiations. In 1911 Brentano gave several explanations concerning this issue17, anxious as he was not to be confused with those who conceived of unreal things in terms of existing things and of the reality of universals. Brentano states that he only considered to be real what could be judged as empirically existent. These considerations become even more intricate in Brentano’s polemic against the supporters of the distinction between being and existing, a polemic levelled above all at Meinong, but also at Husserl – which is probably recalled in Kraus’ note, in which ideal entities are deemed as an erroneous interpretation of intentional in/existence and, as 16

On the theoretical notions formulated by Brentano himself, cf. Gozzano 1997, pp. 10–13. 17 Brentano 1911, pp. 8f, note ; Eng. pp. 180f.

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such, as forms of being18 – and which concludes with the admission of the concept of existence, whereas that of being has no legitimacy. Therefore for Brentano the notion of a triangle in general, subsistent in itself, or of universals is a meaningless one. However Meinong has also been criticised, more or less for the same reason as Husserl, for his unwarranted multiplication of classe of mental phenomena and of entities, given that he introduces a fourth class of reference to an object, halfway between presentation and judgement, namely the class of assumptions, positing a problem which, in my opinion, leads Brentano to accept the possibility of “subordinate forms of the indirect mode of presentation.”19 Appendix IX is even more explicit; here Brentano contests the procedure which, as he sees it, induces us to include among being things not only objects but also contents, for example, the judgement that the centaur is not, and therefore the non-being of the centaur, just like Meinong’s objective or Husserl’s eidos. However, only things (Dinge)20 can be objects and realities for Brentano, who, in order to avoid errors of this kind, elaborated the in recto and in obliquo distinction but apparently failed to take into consideration the circumstance whereby I am able to present something that is not a real thing, the centaur, for instance. What kind of mental phenomenon is this, if it is not comprised in the three fundamental classes? Brentano’s tripartite classification really requires further clarification21 and in-depth examination. Both Meinong and Husserl were to channel their efforts in this direction. 3. Feeling and Value The same need for in-depth analysis seems to emerge from an ethical point of view; here the Kantian theme of the diversity and impossibility of reducing the human faculties to a single ground and the innovative Kantian theme of the autonomy of feeling, as well as the theme – in this case, anti18

Ibid, p. 136, note 10; Eng. p. 274. Ibid., Appendix V, p. 149; Eng. p. 285. 20 Ibid., Appendix IX, p. 158; Eng. p. 291. 21 Also because the presentation itself is more complex, due in particular to its temporal modes (cf. Chisholm and Baumgartner 1982, pp. 165–167, annotation 6), namely the determinations of past and future comprised in non-reality. 19

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Kantian – of the interconnection between feeling and will, become united in an anti-formalistic perspective, as the product of Brentano’s re-reading and re-processing of the age-old theory of the faculties of the soul. His reelaboration of this theory and his evaluation of the qualitative differences of the faculties are premises to his theory of intentionality, in terms of the awareness of the qualitative differences among the modes of intentional reference, which cannot be limited to one single and homogeneous act. The same object, the same empirical reality which can be judged as such is intended in different modes of reference and, as a complex, appears in a certain manner, in that it is considered to be the recipient of such a multiplicity of references. From the ethical point of view, there is a situation whereby a complex object, or a certain conduct in a given situation, is felt with pleasure, which means that it is good and it gives joy, according to Brentano’s anti-formalistic and context-related standpoint. So – as he wrote in 1889 – it is possible to feel the correctness of the feeling of joy oriented towards goodness. Therefore it is not only a question of this being a source of joy because it is good, but also of the reason why it is good, or correct. But what type of act, what type of intentional reference attains to correctness? As in the circumstance indicated by Meinong regarding the inadequate distinction between presentation and judgement, for which reason he had thought it necessary to distinguish another quality of mental phenomena, so in the third class, where Brentano had good reasons to assemble various mental phenomena, it may be necessary, already in the sphere of feeling, to make a few distinctions. And not merely to identify once more a feeling of the self that is a form of consciousness, but to identify a quality of feeling which has the power to feel correctness, to appreciate, to evaluate, namely a type of discriminating feeling whereby judgement and feeling are fused and interlocked, as will emerge from Meinong’s in-depth analysis. For Brentano, feeling and will constitute a common mode of reference which assumes or declines, appreciates something good or declines something that is not good, in a similar way to the class of judgement, whereby “here we are concerned with an object’s value or lack thereof, while in the other case we were concerned with its truth or falsity”; it is “a particular

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kind of intentional reception of an object, a distinctive kind of mental reference to a content of consciousness”).22 Thus: Similarly, then, the expressions which we used in an analogous manner, “to be agreeable as good”, and “to be disagreeable as bad” […] denote a distinctive way in which the mental act refers to a content. And here the only correct interpretation is that a person whose consciousness is directed toward a content in such a way will, as a consequence, give an affirmative answer to the question of whether the object is of such a kind that it can enter into this sort of relation, which simply means ascribing goodness or badness, value or disvalue to it.23

Its value emerges from intending an object in a distinctive mode of reference, it is loving or hating which is, at the same time, an attribution of value or lack of value, apprehending – and indeed herein lies the difficulty – the correctness or lack of correctness of such a love and of the joy that ensues from it and the relationship between the goodness and badness, value and disvalue of objects, and the phenomena belonging to this class, is analogous to that which obtains between truth and falsity and judgements. And it is this characteristic reference to the object which, I maintain, reveals itself in an equally direct and evident way in desire and will, as well as in everything that we called feeling or emotion, through inner perception.24

Once again, in a note, Brentano states that, just as we ascribe truth to the object of a judgement, on the basis of this same judgement, so in the same way and with the same necessity we assign value or disvalue to the object of an act of the third class, “as a result of this act […]”.25 The feeling of pleasure or displeasure, by way of approval or disapproval, is what highlights value, in that it constitutes a distinctive mode of reference or attitude, far removed from presentation and judgement, even though they have the modes of reference and affirmation in common with them, of being an inner experience and therefore, as I pointed out, the

22

Brentano 1911, p. 89; Eng. p. 239 and p. 240. Brentano 1911, p. 90; Eng. p. 240. 24 Ibid.; Eng. pp. 240f. 25 Ibid., p. 94, note; Eng. p. 243. 23

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taking part in a complex reference consisting also in borderline forms and intermediate grades in common. Brentano’s decisive anti-formalism also leads to a reflection on the interplay between feeling and judgement, which enables us to rethink the very notion of formalism, half way between psychology and logic: this acceptation of feeling (anti-formalism) can coexist with an acceptation of judgement (formalism) in a more general idea of normativity, in the sense that a distinctive acceptation of feeling as a feeling of certainty is precisely what accompanies judgement in the verification of correctness also in the ethical domain, as demonstrated in particular in the pages of Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik (from years 1876–1894). On the level of the analogy between judgement and feeling, the question regarding the term of this distinctive intentional reference lies open, as well as the question of whether this – as is generally the case in every mental reference – can be no other than the real, and what this consists of in the ethical sphere. The feeling of pleasure, appreciation, the attribution of value constitute a different mode of reference from presentation and judgement but they refer to the same object, to the same real term, apprehending what conditions our experiencing of joy and what we term goodness or value, what – as Husserl was later to observe – we have a Wertnehmung of and which is therefore real, in a particular acceptation of realism of values; but it is such by virtue of distinctive characteristics, of a distinctive so-being, so to speak, which differentiate it as a term of that particular reference, while being the same reference term also for other attitudes. On the one hand, therefore, to feel goodness or value also has a real reference; on the other hand, this reality is the relation of the different parts of a complex. Brentano lays great emphasis on the analogies between judgement and feeling, like the opposition between affirmation and negation and between love and hate; or the circumstance whereby not only certain judgements are correct and others erroneous, but also love and hate can be correct or incorrect in certain cases. In this connection, Brentano refers the reader to his writings dedicated to the origin of moral cognition, where – he recalls – he held that

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many emotional attitudes are immediately experienced as being correct, just as judgements are. […] And just as we see the judgement to be generally and necessarily true because of this, the same thing holds true of such an emotional attitude. For example, we recognize not just in particular cases or just for human beings, but universally and necessarily that, other things being equal, pleasure is to be preferred to pain and knowledge to error.26

These are analogies which, for Brentano, should under no circumstances lead us to unify the two classes, which reflect significant differences; thus, whereas a mid-term between true and false does not exist, in the domain of love there is not only a “good” and “bad” but also a “better” and a “less good”, “worse” and “less bad”. This has to do with the distinctive nature of preference, a special class of emotional attitudes which, as I show in my Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, has no counterpart in the domain of judgement.27

The phenomenon of analogy28 is so important as to induce Brentano to undertake new researches in the field of descriptive psychology, namely phenomenological researches, new studies prompted by these issues, borderline in some respects but fundamental in other respects; and it is all the more significant that these should emerge from the very domain of ethics, whose problematic issues Brentano discusses, as we have seen, in the 1911 Appendices. This is all the more reason why research has been promoted on the true immediacy of that reference, as demonstrated by the reflections of Meinong in primis on evidence and its degrees and on peculiarities of feeling and of consciousness in the ethical sphere and subsequently by the research conducted by both Brentano and Meinong – but also by Husserl – on the divergences and hierarchies between values and material goods and on their relations of priority. What a term of a mental reference of feeling is in reality, and what we mean by ‘correct’ with reference to an identification of goodness, are issues that seem to me to emerge clearly from Brentano’s writings. In this connection, he himself undertook a certain amount of research in the field of descriptive psychology and delivered a series of lectures, of which we 26

Brentano 1911, Appendix VII, p. 153; Eng. p. 288. Ibid., p. 155; Eng. p. 289. 28 Brentano 1889, p. 6 and p. 11; Eng. p. 6 and pp. 10f. 27

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possess manuscripts dating from the years 1887–88 and 1888–89, dedicated to “Descriptive Psychology or Descriptive Phenomenology”, and others from the years 1890–91, entitled “Psychognosy”, which are of particular interest considering that, in the Preface to Über den Ursprung der moralischen Erkenntnis, dated 1889, Brentano states that his considerations of an ethical nature are, in fact, based on descriptive psychology. We are dealing with research on the elements of human consciousness – consisting in a multiplicity of parts29 which can, in turn, be differentiated in parts, whose modes of connection need to be determined. These “distinktionelle Teile”30 constitute the most important concept for Brentano inasmuch as they are parts of elements or elements of elements of consciousness, albeit non spatial, which provide an explanation for a phenomenon like original association, for instance that of notes in a melody, in which the present note is distinct, yet at the same time associated with the previous note and which, being in the past, is no longer real, but is nevertheless, by virtue of this distinction, “considered as present.”31 Brentano’s analysis is also focused on the parts of the intentional pair of correlates (Korrelatenpaar), whereby, in referring to the loved or desired object, consciousness also addresses itself “nebenher”32; and whereby it is also possible to distinguish between coexisting in consciousness and being noticed in a specific way and being apprehended distinctly so as to be appropriately determined and described.33 Observing in a specific way and making distinctions in order to give accurate descriptions is, therefore, what takes place in the consciousness as a secondary reference. It corresponds to the relational dynamics discussed by Brentano in the in recto and in obliquo forms but he attempts further distinctions in these texts. In addition to these, we must consider the highly interesting tasks of a psychognostic also in the ethical sphere: reliving, observing, fixing and gathering what has been observed, generalising inductively, intuitively apprehending these general laws, when there is a patent necessity or impossibility to unify certain elements on the basis of concepts, and finally utilis29

Brentano 1982, p. 10; Eng. p. 13. Ibid., p. 13; Eng. p. 16. 31 Ibid., pp. 19–20; Eng. pp. 21–23. 32 Ibid., p. 22; Eng. p. 25: “is concomitantly directed upon itself”. 33 Ibid., p. 23; Eng. pp. 25f. 30

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ing deductively what has been obtained.34 In particular, a psychognostic should pay attention to the singularities, to the individual phenomena of human consciousness which he relives and to their essential parts.35 All these analyses show the relation between consciousness and inner perception, which, inasmuch as it is synonymous with consciousness, must be differentiated, and indeed Brentano speaks of both implicit and explicit inner perception: observation is an explicit perception of what was implicitly enclosed within the perception of our consciousness, but for such an explicitation to exist, it will be necessary to make the distinction clear.36 If perceiving is equivalent to affirming (anerkennen), affirmation pertains to a whole consisting of parts, which are affirmed collectively: each single part is still not explicitly affirmed in the specific.37 Yet, above all, they contribute to the confirmation that consciousness is not simplistic38 and that unity is not synonymous with simplicity; the same mental acts are parts that can be distinguished into fundamentals and supraponierte39 (the desire to undertake a journey is based on the presentation of the journey), many of which are, in turn, fundamental acts of other superimposed acts, like conjecture as opposed to fear or hope: the reference to the primary object is a dual one, because it consists in a presentation and in a “blind assertoric accepting.”40 Fundamental sensitive acts originally imply a belief which superior acts variously explicit and rectify, and the primary objects of the fundamental acts are “concreta of mutually pervading parts”41, spatially determined or specifically determined in a similar way to space (one of their pervading parts is the determination of place or its analogue) and, in addition, they possess the characteristic of filling this space with a quality such as colour or sound. This is one of the areas in which perhaps the change reported in 1911 is visible to a certain 34

Ibid., p. 28; Eng. pp. 31f. Ibid., p. 31; Eng. p. 34. 36 Ibid., p. 33; Eng. p. 36. 37 Ibid., p. 34.; Eng. p. 36. 38 Ibid., p. 79; Eng. p. 83. 39 Ibid., p. 84; Eng. p. 90. 40 Ibid., p. 86; Eng. p. 92; a “non-evident assertoric believing” is also possible, p. 99; Eng. p. 105. 41 Ibid., p. 89; Eng. p. 94. 35

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extent, as regards the real as the sole intentional reference term, inasmuch as presentation is made to refer back to spatially and qualitatively determined sensation (these are reflections which become more and more closely linked with those regarding temporality and the continuum, the change and flowing of sensations in inner perception).42 Thus sensation and proteraesthesis (Proterästhesie) constitute the fundamental mental act, and Brentano expounds his own personal distinctions also on the term of the reference, when he speaks of the primo-primary object (primoprimären Objekt): if sensation is the primary object, in proteraesthesis of sight it is possible to distinguish between the Gesehenhaben of a coloured object – which is the primary object43 – and the relative coloured object, namely the primoprimäre object44, which anchors the reference term to the existent. The in-depth analysis entailed by descriptive psychology on the subject of presentations – whereby the presentations of our inner perception are now considered not as a starting-point but as a target for the description of the objects of our sensations (Empfindungen), of our original associations, of our superimposed presentations45 – also gives rise to a reflection on the reality of the intentional reference term, between the reaffirmation of the concept of intentional inexistence46 and to occur of issues such as that of the reality of centaurs and of circular squares. Brentano chooses to declare as real what exists, what is recognisable on the basis of judgement, certainly not in contradiction to the concept of intentional in/existence, because everything I intend, everything I refer to, has in any case an intentional inexistence; then there is the problem of the subsets of what is also real in the sense of being existent and of what is devoid of this type of reality, and which Brentano assigns to the non-real, declaring that only the real/existent can be an object of intentional reference, but also omitting to answer questions such as what mode of reference is constituted by the centaur, certainly endowed with intentional inexistence,

42

Ibid., p. 94; Eng. pp. 99f. In proteraesthesis we can speak of temporality as a pervading part, pp. 96f; Eng. p. 102. 43 Ibid., p. 120; Eng. p. 126. 44 Ibid., pp. 102–103; Eng. pp. 107–109. 45 Ibid., p. 130; Eng. p. 138. 46 Ibid., p. 131; Eng. p. 139.

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or what mode of reference is constituted by mathematical entities, which nevertheless “are present”. On the contrary, these are, above all, the questions posed by Meinong and Husserl, in the wake of the reflections previously made by Brentano himself on the distinctions between the complexes that constitute both the intentional reference term, and the attitude of the intentional reference itself, as well as, on yet another level, the consciousness of these. Similar and even greater difficulties come to the surface if, instead of privileging, as has usually been the case, presentations or judgements as mental references, we consider the emotions, a feeling, a volition. In these lectures, Brentano also insists both on the specificity of this type of reference, and on the analogies with judgement, so that it is possible to speak both of correct love and correct judgement, of being affirmable as being correct and of being affirmed as something good, something to love correctly. Finally, being “‘justifiably lovable by being good’ is then an analogue to ‘being tenable as existing’.”47 On the analogy, the fact that something appears as affirmed means that it appears as something existing and the fact that something appears as having been emotionally apprehended signifies appearing as pleasant or welcome or unpleasant or unwelcome, and therefore as having or not having value. Brentano establishes an important link between correctness, evidence and motivation which, in turn, leads back to the question of the nature of what exists as an object of judgement or of a correct love (or both). For Brentano evidence has a motivational connotation, as underlined by the editors.48 If, however, it is a certainty that evidence pertains to inner perception, for which reason – if I hear a sound – I evidently hear it, it is also a certainty that for Brentano there exists evidence of another kind, that relating to judgement, which therefore specifies this particular class of mental phenomena. In this acceptation, evidence ultimately coincides with consciousness, both in the sense of consciousness pertaining to secondary reference and in the sense of a complex. In other words, if a mental act takes place, and I accomplish this act and at the same time I judge that I have accomplished it, then I judge with evidence that I have accomplished 47 48

Ibid., p. 151; Eng. p. 160. Chisholm and Baumgartner 1982, note 7, p. 167.

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or realised it.49 Brentano termed this type of consciousness inner feeling, inasmuch as it accompanies the different types of mental phenomena; when it accompanies judgement, it affirms with evidence that something exists and when it accompanies feeling it affirms that something is good and has value and this can also be expressed in terms of judgement; in this sense, its intentional reference also exists as something that is good and has value, as modes of being qualitatively distinguished by our intentional reference term. This seems to me to be a fundamental issue also in relation to the ethical sphere, in order to explain what Brentano means by correctness, and therefore by correct love, appreciation and joy. It is true that love, and together with this, the beauty and goodness revealed by joy constitute emotions which can either remain as such, and thus as primary references in presentation and secondary references in emotions, or they can, at the same time, be second degree references, inasmuch as they have undergone judgement and can appear as evident, also because they have been affirmed as lovable, beautiful, good, which is the very level on which attitude assumes an ethical quality. Indeed, judgement not only affirms (anerkennt) by avowing that something exists, but in relation to this something, it can also affirm (accord) or deny (condemn) something else or similarly judge that this is good or bad; over and above cognitive judgement there is the possibility of an ethical judgement, whose object of intentional reference may be defined as value, in the sense that it acknowledges the reality of the value and thus discloses another quality of the real (its being of value) – thanks to a qualitatively differentiated attitude: different attitudes correspond to differences in the intentional reference term, in the real as a complex possessing qualities that are further differentiated. The problem of the classification of mental phenomena, of their qualitative differences and the limitations within the classes of mental phenomena was also to capture the interest of Meinong and Husserl, both of whom were concerned with the particular effects of the evidence of judgement and that of feeling and to analyse the characteristics peculiar also to their reference term; an analysis which conducts them far from Brentano. What is it that makes the real appear to me as existing and the judgements concerning it as true on the one hand, and on the other hand what is it that 49

Ibid., note 11, p. 170.

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makes it appear to me as being endowed with value: what exactly is my intentional reference term in both cases? This is the issue of the so-being of the real, which was to be expounded in different ways both by Meinong and by Husserl; it is an issue rooted in Brentano’s analysis of the complexity also of the intentional reference term, of its components and their inter-relations, but further developing Brentano’s thought. II 1. Assumptions and Objectives Meinong declares already in 1899 that he does not consider the words content and object as synonyms50 (Brentano continues to attribute this idea to him still in the Appendices of 1911) and in fact states his intention to tackle the problems implicit in this distinction, such as that of non-existence, that is, of a wider extension of the concept of the real with respect to that of existence, departing from his understanding that, whereas content as such is always present, the same cannot necessarily be said for an object.51 There may indeed be a class of objects definable as objects of a superior order, because they are founded on others as presupposed and are therefore characterised by intrinsic dependence.52 These are relation-objects and complexion-objects, the former consisting of members, the latter of components, however of inferiora; objects that are more than a collective, in the same way that a melody is more than a grouping of sounds. Like Brentano, Ehrenfels, Stumpf, Husserl, Erdmann, in Beiträge zur Theorie der mathematischen Erkenntnis, published in 1891 (the same year as Husserl’s Philosophie der Arithmetik), and albeit from a different perspective, Meinong formulates his reflections on the concept of complexes and their relations, determining their form and qualities.

50

Meinong 1971, p. 381; Eng. p. 141; he revises also his position in foregoing researches into the theory of value. 51 Ibid., p. 384; Eng. p. 143. 52 Ibid., p. 386; Eng. p. 144.

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Given a whole and given its parts, there is a relation which is “added” (“hinzukommt”)53, to qualify it and make it subsist as an object of a superior order, real or thought54, as a certain type of reality, differentiated as a so-being. Although they were ultimately derived from – I believe – the problems posited by Brentano and the definition of the reality of the intentional reference term, but they also ran parallel with his own reflections on the complex and its parts, these Meinongian considerations dating from 1899, which also distinguish between first and second degree relations – and which may have aroused the interest of Brentano, when he distinguishes between in recto and in obliquo – mark a significant departure from Brentano. Indeed, Meinong considers as real even objects that do not exist, but which can exist (a house, a book, a colour) and those that are non-real, or ideal (in the Lotzian sense of the irreal) such as lack or absence, a limit, the past; or like the resemblance between an original and a copy of it, which does not exist but subsists (besteht); or like what could not exist, that is, the ideal as opposed to the real. The conclusion is that the real cannot be identified with the perceivable55, a conclusion strenuously opposed by Brentano in his Appendices of 1911; and that founding (Fundierung) of the superiora by inferiora allows the representation of ideal objects (Fundirungsgegenstände) just as perception allows the representation of real objects56 (Erfahrungsgegenstände); ideal objects for which Meinong makes reference to Ehrenfels and to his concept of Gestalt57, because it is 53

Ibid., p. 391; Eng. p. 147. On the history of the problem of the perception of the complex, cf. Calì 2003, pp. 184–243, in particular pp. 215–223. On the concept of relation in the young Meinong, cf. Chrudzimski 2007, p. 82, pp. 93–100, pp. 138–41, p. 165. 54 Meinong 1971, p. 389; Eng. p. 146. 55 Ibid., p. 397; Eng. p. 151. 56 Ibid., p. 399; Eng. p. 153; cf. note 60. 57 Ibid., p. 400; Eng. p. 153. In his review of Ehrenfels’ essay Über Gestaltqualitäten of 1890 (Meinong 1969, pp. 282f), Meinong emphasises the concept of the complex as founding of the Gestaltqualitäten and Gestaltqualitäten of a superior order, as well as the issue (of particular interest to Meinong) of the connection between relation and complexion, whereby there is no relation without complexion, and moreover there is no complexion whose components are not related both to one another and to the com-

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their own particular Gestalt that identifies and qualifies them, by differentiating them. The answer to what is perhaps the most difficult question in relation to Brentano’s theory of intentionality is implicit, that is, the question of whether the certainty that inner perception gives us regarding our own contents – immanent, in-existent – is also given with regard to the objects to which these contents refer and by which they are originated. Brentano gives an affirmative answer to this question that leads him to make his declaration on the real in 1911, so as not to be compelled to accept the alternative solution, which is actually what Meinong now opts for and will develop in his Über Annahmen and Über Gegenstandstheorie, regarding the reality of ideal objects. For Meinong, too, having perceptions is equivalent to having a representation, so that both judging and perceiving through feeling presuppose representation; so, for instance, not only do I relive within myself as a desiring being, but I also relive what I desire, and I also know (wissen) the relation between desiring and the object of desire. Meinong terms it Wahrnehmungswissen58, a perceptual knowledge by way of inner perception, and makes it refer to both what really exists, including feelings and desires, and to relations and ideal objects, by virtue of what he calls, by analogy, pseudo-perception. Objects that can therefore be considered as pseudo-existent and which will become, during the elaboration of his Über Annahmen (1902) – from chapter 7 onwards, thus halfway through the year 1901 – the objectives59, the particular reference terms of a particular attitude, plexion itself as a whole (pp. 289f and note 9 on the concept of the complexion as a complex). Cf. also Schubert Kalsi 1978, pp. 15–19; Rollinger 1993, pp. 66–83 58 Meinong 1971, p. 414; Eng. p. 163. 59 Haller 1977, p. XI (the second and more extended edition of Über Annahmen dates from 1910). Haller also quotes Meinong’s explicitation in the second edition of the use of the terms Objektiv and Sachverhalt (Meinong 1977, p. 101), the former having a wider sense, the latter a more restricted sense, being more suited to coincide with positive objectives or factual ones. Meinong nevertheless does not exclude a wider application, which he detects also in Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen, where he already sees the presence of the problem of objectives. This is what Husserl himself affirms in his letter to Meinong dated 5th April 1902 (Husserl 1994, p. 142 and note 40). On objectives and states of affairs, cf. also Chisholm 1982, p. 37, p. 54; Grossmann 1974, pp. 57f, pp. 61f, p. 78, p. 113, p. 188.

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namely assumption. In this way Meinong reveals a more articulated version of Brentano’s classification of mental phenomena, with the introduction of the class of assumptions; he develops the Brentanian concept of the whole/parts by way of the concept of foundation and of objects of a superior order (supraponiert) and faces the issue of the configuration of a complex, as a premise to the problem of the so-being; finally he enlarges the concept of the real, of which an ethical variant can be distinguished and of which Meinong himself was to develop further implications, with his Gegenstandstheorie of 1904. A person who judges believes something, he has been persuaded of something and this very moment of persuasion paves the way to another class of mental phenomena, that of assumptions, “technical term for all those experiences which, as I hope to show, belong to the previously mentioned intermediate domain, the domain between representation and judgement”60; by means of these, it is thus possible to address the problem of negations, for instance, which cannot come to the fore in the absence of representations, but which lie beyond representations61 and refer to something known only in a negative sense but which is, nevertheless, an object (Gegenstand).62 An objective is not only judged, but it can also be evaluated and the fact (Tatsache) of this evaluation (Beurteilung) has interesting psychological prerequisites, because nothing can be evaluated unless it has been presented to judgement; now the experience of the presentation (präsentierende Erlebnis) is a representation (Vorstellung), but also the evaluated experience (beurteilte Erlebnis) “itself can at the same time function as presenting.”63 Meinong gives an example of the type “it is true that Schiller 60

Meinong 1977, p. 6; Eng. p 12. As is customary with English translators, I translate Vorstellung with presentation in Brentano and with representation in Meinong; as regards the translation of the word Vorstellung in Meinong, I share Heanue’s translation (representation) but not Kalsi’s translation (idea). When I am not quoting from Brentano, I use the word representation. I do not consider here Meinong’s distinction between presentation (Präsentation) and representation (Vorstellung), which requires another study. 61 Ibid., p. 9; Eng. p. 14. 62 Ibid., p. 43; Eng. p. 38; cf. also p. 45; Eng. p. 39 and p. 49; Eng. pp. 41f. 63 Ibid., p. 50; Eng. p. 42.

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has not been to Switzerland”, so whereas A and B are presented by way of representation, the objective “that A is not B” is not: judgement is the presenting experience with regard to the objective. So a new type of judgement is necessary, qualitatively different, which Meinong’s analytical psychology differentiates thus. If a person says, “I find that the weather today already has a spring-like quality”, he is making a judgement about the objective indicated, in that he states that he “finds” it. But in order to do this, he must first really find or have found just that, and the finding naturally consists in his judging the objective. And so while making a judgement about the same objective is certainly not a more important step in thought, at least one can have no doubt about its being a second one and having the judgement of the objective as its prerequisite, in the way that judging about a colour, a musical tone, or some other objectum has the representation of this objectum as its prerequisite.64

An objective can therefore, by virtue of a judgement having analogous capacities to those of a representation, be presented to another judgement, a circumstance which seems to me to offer significant considerations on the ethical plane, in which the conjunction “that” can be substituted by “it is correct that”. Meinong makes an introduction to this second-order dimension by distancing himself above all from Brentano, as well as from Marty, in his declaration that being does not consist in being affirmed or in being able to be affirmed or in possibility (as for Marty) but that every objective is entitled to the position of an object of a superior order.65 These are said not to exist but to subsist like facts (Tatsachen)66: my writing-desk is not a fact, but it is a fact that it stands in front of me. And “If every objective may be called being, in the broadest sense of the word, then the totality of objectives divides up according to three pairs of opposites: being in the narrower sense and so-being, positivity and negativity, existence and subsistence.”67 Being is expressed by “A is”; so-being is expressed by “A is B”, whereas the equality between 3 and 3 and the difference between red and green 64

Ibid., p. 52; Eng. p. 43. Ibid., p. 63; Eng. p. 51. 66 Ibid., p. 69; Eng. p. 55. 67 Ibid., p. 72; Eng., p. 57. 65

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certainly subsist, but they do not exist in the same way as a house or a tree exist. In a more general sense, because assumption is analogous both to hypothetical judgement and to a disjunctive proposition, and it is both a form of judgement and evaluation, it can express, as evaluation, an emotional reaction of appreciation or non-appreciation in the aesthetic and ethical sphere. Value can thus be intended as an objective, as the real reference term of an evaluation connoting the evaluated object in a more complex way, in the sense of being able to apprehend an its more profound configuration. While the Fundierung makes the value a relation, in which the object is included, acquiring further determinations, an assumption affords the possibility of evaluation, through a reflexive and evaluational moment, and in a sort of suspension, which is the prelude to deliberation; its reference term is a particular, complex form of the real, that of a situation presenting the rightness of a specific action on the part of a subject, that is to say, the intending of the value as an objective; a subject that, by acting, realises value in an action that for this very reason is ethically valid. Whereas existence is the appropriate sphere of knowledge of empirical apprehending, subsistence is that of apriori apprehending68, being able to both apprehend (ergreifen) an object and to evaluate (beurteilen) it, that is to apprehend the object in its initially pre-given so-being. In this sense, also objects that do not exist are real, and Meinong labels these with the expression “absistence of the pure object.”69 Ideal so-beings may, or may not exist, just as they can express forms of non-being, which are however real as modes of absistence. Among these, values such as the value of being loyal, are featured. Thus it is possible, in the face of a given situation which we represent to ourselves and in which we are able to judge that x gives something to y, to apprehend the same situation, evaluating that x is keeping a promise, as may emerge from the relations established in the situation, therefore assuming “that it is loyal that” as a prior perspective of apprehending, enabling us to gather a particular understanding of what is happening before us: the keeping of promises corresponds to an ideal state of things, an ideal complex relation that could be expressed as the objec68

Ibid., p. 77; Eng. p. 61. Ibid., p. 79; Eng. p. 62. Meinong refers us to Über Gegenstandstheorie, pp. 9ff., for further clarification of this concept. 69

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tive of being loyal, as the value of loyalty that absists, as regards the existence of a given situation, but which enables us to intend the actual configuration of the situation, the actual mode of so-being, on a more profound level of evaluation, in a more complex way of referring to it. The possibility of configuring a multiplicity of so-beings on the one hand opens the way to a pre-evaluation enabling us to explore the feasibility of one so-being in comparison with another and also the higher degree of correctness of one as opposed to another; this depends on the very same relational links, because it is the way they configure that determines their correctness, that is, their ability to be true or false, and their ability to be appreciable or unappreciable, good or bad. Meinong describes the variants of configuration of the so-being, whereas Husserl focuses on the issue of the legislative power implicit in this, underlining, from the ethical point of view, its normativity. The very complexity of the intentional reference term gives rise to an independent series of reflections on the real and on what is entailed in the process of intending it in qualitatively different acts of reference. Qualitative differences between acts are correlated to qualitative differences among the various ways of being – existence, subsistence, absistence; moreover, the way is open to a theory of the differentiations of being, also intended as so-being (hence the persistent analogy with colour, with secondary qualities), by virtue of its specific form or configuration. From a further qualitative analysis on modes of attitude, which expands Brentano’s classification, and which Husserl was to expand to an even greater extent, Meinong moves on to the differentiation of the modes of being of the real. The identification of assumptions as intellectual capacity and, as we shall see, as emotional capacity, also denotes the ability to describe another mode of being which assumptions allow us to apprehend, in many possible configurations. Indeed, a particular so-being is configured on the basis of the relations between inferiora and superiora so that, for example, it is possible to apprehend good or bad, thanks to that moment of suspension that always coincides with assumption. This can be expressed in terms of ‘that’-sentences, it can also be declined as a moment of deliberation, in turn intended not only as a transition from an assumption to the acknowledgment that x is good, that is to say, to ethical judgement, but also as a

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request for an adjustment of behaviour, and thus as a stepping-stone towards decision and volition. Goodness, intended in the general sense as an ethical type of value, can thus be considered as a mode of givenness of the real, which justifies what Brentano realized, namely that there is a link between goodness, a feeling of joy and a feeling of appreciation, the latter being independent of human will and dependent on the type of reality they are facing (and which, moreover, can influence it and spur it to action); it justifies above all – more than Brentano himself was able to do – the circumstance of the feeling of correctness, itself involuntary and aroused by the apprehending of a certain state of affairs, a certain configuration of given reality. Thus an objective can be considered as a configuration of value, as an articulated state of affairs, apprehendible in a concrete situation, with respect to which assumptions are possible, in a strong analogy between the ethical and cognitive spheres. One of the most important conclusions produced by the concepts of objects of a superior order and of objectives, is Meinong’s conviction that – in contrast to Brentano’s standpoint – evidence, too, can be arranged on a gradual scale (Abstufbarkeit)70, in correlation to the various moments of the relation of founding of superiora, to the different parts of the complex, with consequent distinctions in the circumstantial pointing out of the qualitative differences of the individual values. 2. Assumptions Between Judgements and Feelings As analogous forms of thinking, assumptions also consent to the representability of relations71, as well as to the memory of lived-experiencing or for the sharing of extraneous lived-experiencing, as in the borderline phenomenon, as a psychological, ethical, aesthetic complex of empathy. Being fully aware that he is venturing in as yet unexplored territory – which he was to explore, ethically speaking, in his works from the years 1917 (Über 70

Ibid., p. 91; Eng. p. 69, in the realm of a more comprehensive and interesting theory of evidence such as Einsicht, according to which to see or realize something (einsehen) and to understand it (etwas verstehen) is substantially the same. 71 Ibid., p. 138; Eng. p. 103.

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emotionale Präsentation) and 1923 (the posthumous Grundlegung zur allgemeinen Werttheorie) – Meinong attempts to describe possible modes of apprehending “borderline” experiences, far from Brentano’s classification. Like Brentano, also Meinong proceeds on the path of analogy, which enables him to attribute to assumptions powers of quasi-representation and at the same time of quasi-judgement, thus a wide field of application, which situates them in a more general and extended space of pre-consideration, anterior to “apprehending” itself; an expression, this, surely suited to the objectives of the intellectual life of the consciousness, but not to emotional objectives, for which Meinong prefers the more general expression “the approaching” (Aggredieren)72. So the ‘that’-sentences, proper to assumptions, are the natural designation for objectives mediately approached, whether these be intellectual or emotional. In our emotional life, assumptions give rise to expressions of the type “I like it, it uplifts me, it affects me” or to expressions of feelings of value such as “I rejoice, I deplore, I fear, I hope that”. With the explicit affirmation that all feelings of value and all convictions of value (Werthaltungen) entail reference to an objective, the ethical bias of Meinong’s argument becomes clearly visible; it is to be remembered that, as early as § 25 he had pointed out how objectives penetrate into the our mental life and how only assumptions have the power to approach them, given that feelings and desires lack the power to immediately apprehend objects. For example, in relation to desiring, I do not desire A, but merely I desire A to be, or to be “thus”.73 In this sense, feelings of value are feelings of existence, in that they do not refer themselves primarily to a thing, but to the existence of the thing, or even to its non-existence74; and the Werthaltungen are expressed in ‘that’-sentences or also in sentences as “I give value to this book” in the sense that “I give value to this circumstance, namely that I possess this book”. There is a strong analogy between judgements and wishes: every wish, just like every judgement, has its objective expressed by assumptions. Just as one cannot judge, without passing judgement on something, so one cannot desire, without desiring something, or rather, without desiring this something to 72

Ibid., p. 145; Eng. p. 107. Ibid., pp. 166; Eng. p. 122. 74 Ibid., pp. 162f; Eng. p. 120. 73

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exist or not to exist, without desiring it to be like this or like that, or not to be in a certain way. The importance of this point is underlined in the quotation from Ehrenfels’ System der Werttheorie, with which Meinong declares that he is in agreement, unlike other issues. Nevertheless, for Meinong, assumptions of the type “it is full of value that” pertain to the sphere of feeling and not to that of desire – which, by contrast with Ehrenfels, he considered to be secondary in the field of ethics. It is this identification of the role of assumptions also in the field of ethics that first and foremost allows Meinong to separate the issue of feeling from that of desire, thus complicating once more Brentano’s classification, on the one hand, and on the other hand, distancing himself from an eminent interlocutor and former pupil of his, such as Ehrenfels. In order to contend with the problem of the part played by feeling in desire, and to demonstrate the way in which the discovery of assumptions interacts with this issue, Meinong quotes some of Ehrenfels’ views in Über Fühlen und Wollen of 1887, revised in the first volume of System der Werttheorie, as well as a few of his own lectures of 1884–85, thus dissociating himself from Ehrenfels, who related desire to the representation of a possible increase of pleasure. On the contrary, it is by way of the concept of assumption that Meinong views the relation between desire and the object, in that every desire has its objective, in other words, it is directed towards the being or non-being of its object. Of particular importance are the cases in which the objective has already been given before the desire referred to it and where the act of reflection whereby the objective has been given – the assumption – is to be viewed as a partial cause of the ocurring of the desire, in this sense as a motive of the desire; these are cases similar to those in which desire was already present.75 From this perspective, it is possible to put forward the relation between feeling and desire as a sort of priority of feeling over desire, a feeling also linked to the real being of the object, as subsistence or absistence of its objective. Thus for Meinong the relation of feeling – that is, the capacity to appreciate and experience joy – with correctness, already identified by Brentano, takes on a particular relevance: correctness can be felt, when it is assumed that a given complex establishes a determinate relation and as75

Ibid., pp. 287f; Eng. pp. 207f.

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sumes a determinate configuration. Yet for this to be possible, we need to conduct further investigation into the very phenomenon of assumption, primarily resorting to the psychological description of the state in which the subject finds itself prior to the fulfilment of the desire; indeed, according to pre-psychological experience, before reaching a decision, given that we have a certain amount of time to “reflect”, we place ourselves in the situation to be fulfilled, that is, we try to clarify “what it would be like if” what we are about to desire had already been fulfilled. Now, the nature of such a reflection, says Meinong, is known to us: what we are about to live is neither a judgement nor a simple representation; it is an assumption, which in the field of ethics reveals itself to be linked to a particular acceptation of feeling, to which are attributed the capacities of the imagination, to a quasi-assumptive feeling prior to desire. Also in this case, assumptions display all their analogies with hypothetical judgement76, but in addition they reveal themselves as being similar to feeling. Even in a non-intellectual, emotional context, it is thus possible to assume, also discovering, thanks to Meinong’s method (which I think could be termed as analiticophenomenological), further significances of feeling. Meinong recalls having found himself repeatedly urged to describe assumptions as mental acts occupying an intermediate position between representation and judgement; now he is equally driven to affirm, in a totally analogous manner, that there are also mental acts to which a sort of intermediate position between representations and feelings must be assigned. Therefore the borderlines among the classes of mental phenomena established by Brentano are reconsidered not only as being halfway between representations and judgements, but also as being halfway between representations and emotions or feelings. There are particular mental phenomena that lead us in this direction, like lived-experiencing reawakened by tragedy – fear and compassion – with the conjoint mental phenomenon of empathy, studied by Witasek in particular. Yet there is also the phenomenon of feelings for something that is not present and non-real, which have as a reference term, once again, the non-existent; all these phenomena trigger powers of imitation, imagination,

76

Ibid., pp. 307f; Eng. p. 220.

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transposition and substitution.77 In brief, there are quasi-representative feelings, thanks to the imagination, which occupy an intermediate position between representation and feeling. Feeling is thus considered not so much as the power to move or stimulate – which was one of the commonplaces of ethical anti-formalism – as the power to apprehend broadly speaking, thanks to powers of assumption78 which, in another sense, reveal feeling as also being analogous to judgement; it is therefore able, when placed, so to speak, within the perspective of the observer, to value and understand the relation that makes a given state of affairs subsist; moreover, if placed within the perspective of the agent establishing the relation (for instance, that of keeping a promise to give something back), it is able to value and intend its feasibility in a concrete situation. In both cases there is a wide range of possibilities of valuation, of the assumption of being and so-being of possible relations. Assumptions enable us to identify particular states of affairs in their particular so-being, detecting in the ethical field the correctness of the relation established by way of motions of appreciation and feelings of joy that, in turn, as such, assume its correctness. Meinong’s doctrine of assumptions can be transposed into a complex and in many ways innovative doctrine of feeling, as a premise to the doctrine of reflexive deliberation based on the possibility of imagining a situation in the “as if” perspective. We are not, however, dealing with a real feeling79 and, just as Meinong is incapable as yet of indicating the analogue of that moment of persuasion which is what – when associated with assumption – transforms this into a judgement, so he offers no better explanation for the phenomena according to which it is possible to feel “with” the characters of a tragedy and really relives something within himself. This is neither joy nor pain, nor fear nor hope in the true sense, although it is something analogous: we may speak of imaginative feelings (we can also experience feelings for characters in a novel) which enable us to assume, in relation to given states of affairs, that 77

Ibid., § 54, entitled Imaginative Feelings and Imaginative Desires. Empathy (Phantasiegefühl und Phantasiebegehrungen. Die Einfühlung) 78 Ibid., p. 316; Eng. p. 226. 79 Ibid., pp. 312f; Eng. p. 223.

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“it is good”/“it is bad”/ “it is right”/“it is nice that”. So, on the one hand, assumptions become quasi-feelings, on the other hand, feelings acquire the power to assume, by taking possession, so to speak, of those capacities analogous to judgement (in particular, hypothetical judgement) which are typical of assumptions themselves. In their reference to possible relations, assumptions proceed hand in hand with imaginative feelings80 and Meinong can thus speak of a quasi-feeling with assumptive powers (AnnahmeQuasigefühl), by introducing a further “borderline” differentiation among the classes of mental references. As an imaginative feeling, it is able to represent the potential worth of value of given states of affairs, apprehending in a relational complex the correctness of a so-being of value; correlatively, value, in its being apprehendible by this quasi-assumptive feeling, is an objective, a form of subsisting objectuality, whose inherence to given states of affairs can be apprehended, but which is independent of these, absistent with respect to these, anterior in its subsistence. The circumstance whereby it is possible also to feel the value of something that does not exist afforded Meinong the opportunity to strictly correlate his studies on value with those on assumptions. In this connection, the link between hypothetical judgement and assumptions must be borne in mind: this type of judgement exactly pertains to something that has been assumed81, thus revealing the apriori-ideational powers of assumptions – to which Meinong associates the concept of presenting (darstellen) – as the capacity to reveal and outline scenarios, to conceive and apprehend various possibilities of givenness, of particular significance in the ethical sphere. The fact that for Meinong evidence may be immediate or mediated82 and (contrary to what Brentano states) have various degrees, and the fact that the link between hypothetical judgement and assumption may also enable the foundation of objectives by means of objectives, connected by way of the relation of a superius to its inferiora, provides Meinong with the op-

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An attitude that Meinong succeeded in identifying, also thanks to the studies of Witasek, of Saxinger on imaginative feelings and emotional fantasy, of Schwarz, Siebeck and Dilthey, who already spoke of the not merely representative reproduction of acts of feeling and will, in the essay Die Einbildungskraft des Dichters dated 1887. 81 Ibid., pp. 193f; Eng. p. 142. 82 Ibid., p. 172; Eng. p. 127; cf. also § 28.

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portunity to create collectives of objectives83, configurations of ever more articulated relations, allowing the representation of complex states of affairs. These attain such a high degree of complexity that, in this pre-ideational and pre-assumptive phase – which precedes the verification of truth and the valuational and deliberational moment and accompanies them, consenting to their occurring – Meinong is compelled to introduce a further degree of assumption with the expression of “Quasi-assumption”, as the outcome of a further exploration of the meaning of hypothetical judgement and of the relation between judgement and assumption.84 This is the most wide-ranging and interesting implication of this concept, which runs parallel to the abandonment of the centrality of existence in favour of other modes, qualitatively different of the real. Meinong himself recalls that, at the time of the first edition of his work, he was still convinced of his being obliged to refer to a factual85 Sein; but that in the meanwhile in the Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie (1904), a collection featuring the essay Über Gegenstandstheorie, he had begun to consider this as a “prejudice in favour of the actual (wirklich)”. 3. Assumptions and Relations On the basis of this elaboration, assuming tends to become synonymous with believing or intending (meinen). Indeed, in § 38 of the second edition of Über Annahmen, assumptions no longer merely constitute the fourth class of mental phenomena, but they are also a mode of attitude preliminary to judgement and representation itself. It is virtually a radical reformulation of the doctrine of intentional reference, unchained, according to Meinong, from the prejudice of the real as existent and open to the different modes of givenness of being in differentiated modes of so-being. Meaning (Meinen) is thus tantamount to assuming86 (and vice versa) and absistence (Aussersein) is not only the third type of objective of being, to 83

Ibid., p. 208; Eng. p. 152. Ibid., pp. 213–6; Eng. pp. 155–8. 85 Factual being (das tatsächliche natürlich), ibid., p. 218; Eng. p. 159. 86 Ibid., pp. 241; Eng. p. 175.. 84

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be co-ordinated with existence and subsistence, but it is a superordinate and prior dimension, in which the other two are included before becoming respectively existence or subsistence. Thus – in contrast with the first edition – it is possible to have a sort of Annahmeansicht, in addition to a view of being (Seinssicht), even if Meinong admits that this is not such a foregone conclusion as the others; that is to say, a view of being from the perspective of assumption. Therefore, in order to judge or assume that “it is not raining”, the object “rain” must first of all be apprehended and meant as such (meinen): in a certain sense, even the negation of being supposes the affirmation of being. In the unfolding of this work, during the course of the various chapters, including the transition from the first to the second edition, we witness several significant changes, whereby assumption is no longer primarily linked to what does not exist, but it lies above all on an affirmative basis, and assumptions are no longer flanked by other intentional attitudes, but are pre-requisites to these. This evolution runs parallel to his reflections on the complex and ultimately leads Meinong to intend the reference term of assumption not only as an additional modality of the real but also as a more comprehensive one: assumptions foreshadow possibilities of relations, they apprehend/approach potential differently-structured complexes.87 For this reason, Meinong was compelled to abandon a conception of evidence as being punctual and immediate and to consider it also as something mediated and gradual, parallel to his distinction between intuitive and non-intuitive complexes88, between representational compositions (Vorstellungszusammensetzungen) and representational juxtapositions (Vorstellungszusammenstellungen). Intuitive representation apprehends partial objects simultaneously (for instance, in the expression “red cross”), non-intuitive representation apprehends them in succession (for instance, in the expression “cross, which is red”). The juxtaposition (Zusammenstellung) of the representations cross and red does not yet establish whether the cross is represented as red or non-red, or whether the red is in the form of a cross or not in the form of a cross89, because all these conformations are assumable; the 87

Ibid., p. 246; Eng. p. 178. Ibid., pp. 253ff.; Eng. pp. 183ff. 89 Ibid., p. 257; Eng. p. 185. 88

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intending by way of being is always flanked also by an intending by way of so-being, whereby what is, is invariably configured also on different levels of complexity. Believing and meaning are modes of choice which let emerge, from the sphere of absistence, configurations founded on initially given determinations.90 We can certainly speak of the same thing with reference both to the mode of being and to that of so-being. However, it is very interesting to note how, on the contrary, it is a totally different matter if I apprehend the colour black by means of intending by way of being, and then on another occasion I use the same content to think of “something that is black”, or more briefly, of “something black”. The difference is clear if, instead of the indefinite “something black” we propose more definite objects, evoked by the colour black, so for example “a table, which is black”, “a hat, which is black”. We disclose a domain to which all objects apprehendible through this objective of so-being belong.91 The power to assume places us in a situation whereby, in the face of the effectual objective “pitch is black”, there is also (in the sense of absistence) an objective such as “milk is black”, that is to say, it places us before a widening of the limits of intending, as a result of the possibility to distinguish between the intuitive and non-intuitive. Of the numerous objects thus lying before the same content, the one to be apprehended through intending by way of being, which can invariably be only one for a given content, can be considered as the closest; those to be apprehended through intending by way of so-being are termed as the farthest objects of the content in question (which therefore can also be defined as a quasi-content). By means of the distinction between the nearest object and the farthest object of the same content, Meinong observes on the psychological plane and on that of the object theory how assumptions are made to function as ideational powers of possible configurations, among which we must identify the nearest to a given state of affairs, shaped by a given relation; in this procedure, the feeling of correctness, and also in the ethical field, the feeling of appreciation will be indispensable, both from the cognitive point of view, in order to arrive at judgement, and from the ethical point of view to arrive at valuational judgement. However, this implies a general level of objectivity that can 90 91

Ibid., p. 275; Eng. p. 198. Ibid., p. 277; Eng. pp. 199f.

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never be reduced or allow itself to be absorbed by content.92 These are the very conclusions that Meinong valued the most, as they represented the end product of his work on assumptions and his work dedicated to the object theory, formulated between the first and second editions of the former. From these considerations of Meinong, which are inscribed within the articulated debate during the first years of the 20th century on the relation between content and object, I think that two important viewpoints come clearly to the fore; the first is that the so-being invariably precedes and naturally precedes as an assumption – or rather as assumability – the being and the assumption of being; the second is that there is no being that is not a so-being, that is, configured in one mode or another, at a given level of complexity of configuration and qualitative determination. And thus it is mostly complexes with their own peculiar configurations that precede, objectives and not objects, the latter assumable first – that is, approachable in a broad sense – and then apprehendible in the proper sense, therefore in the cognitive sense, by means of objectives, that is through mediated apprehending. Intending by way of being is therefore preceded by intending by way of so-being, which enables us to adequately relate to objects very general objectives, such as “black”, in simpler modes in so far as they are intuitive and in less simpler modes in so far as they are non-intuitive. Meinong can now clearly demonstrate how assumptions can have an explicative function, that of identifying, among possible alternatives, the one which is functional to the case in progress. If we take the simpler case of the “red cross” and of the “cross that is red”, we see immediately that intuitivity goes with intending by way of being, where objectives of so-being are merely implicated, whereas non-intuitivity goes with explicit intending by way of so-being. The “red cross” offers me, with the most reliable intuitivity, intuition itself, characterised by so-called pure intending by way of being (Seinsmeinen). Partial contents, whose nearest objects are constituted by “red” and “in the form of a cross” are in this case compounds (zusammensetzen) in the full sense of the word: the complex “red cross” 92

Not even Husserl succeeded in correctly separating the terms “content” and “object”, just as he did not succeed in intending the object in a sufficiently general way, precluding insight into the natural generality of thought of the object (pp. 277f; Eng. p. 200).

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can be apprehended intuitively even without perception. However, in the case of the “cross that is red”, the secondary clause “that is red” demonstrates intending by way of so-being, at least in relation to its being red, as being completely disclosed. Therefore the objective of so-being “the being red of the cross” is surely involved. Just as I apprehend “the cross that is red”, I also apprehend by the same means “the cross that is not red.”93 Thus I can apprehend “x that keeps his promise to y” and “x that does not keep his promise to y”, in a crescendo of generalisation of the concept of assumption and its functions of explication of states of affairs through other objectives. Not arbitrarily, of course, because first and foremost we must consider the possibility of there being a link. This is all the more valid when the objective consists in a relation that pertains not only to “how” – being different, for instance – but also to “what” – being married, for instance. When we compare the colours green and red, we obtain “different” as content of representation which is, with respect to the content red and green, a real relation and can be expressed as “the difference between red and green” and is apprehendible in an evident judgement of being. We can intuitively say what it is, namely that red is different from green, and vice-versa, according to the aspect of the complex under survey. On the contrary, the objective relation, which enables us to intend by way of so-being, is certainly not intuitive. We are dealing with a specific object R, which, as Meinong says, is habitually termed as relation, but which could be more appropriately termed as “relatant” (“der Relat”).94 These are objectives of how-being, whose object of determination is not natural as in red or green, consisting of only one, but it consists of at least two. The objective “A and B is R” is an objective of so-being like any other. Also relative apprehending can present itself as intending by way of sobeing, except for the fact that in this case what is intended is neither A in itself or B in itself, but A and B just together. There is, however, also an objective of so-being that binds A alone or also B alone to the relatant R, as soon as the latter is determined by another member of the relation. I cannot affirm that red is different, but only that it is different from green. There is nothing more ordinary and significant for the standard procedure 93 94

Ibid., pp. 281f; Eng. p. 203. Ibid., p. 283; Eng. p. 204.

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of cognition than the apprehending of an object through a relation and Meinong recalls having opposed in the Hume-Studien 2, this mode of apprehending under the name of “indirect representation” with habitual intending by way of so-being, as intending by way of being as “direct representation” and he recalls K. Bühler’s critical observations, in particular in his thesis Über Gedanken (1907). The non-intuitive apprehending of “A and B, in the R-relation” must be viewed from the point of view of intending by way of so-being.95 The so-being of so characterised complexes which enables their characteristics to emerge is apprehended through objectives of relation. This holds also in the ethical field, where there subsists the relation of “keeping a promise”, which we can also express in terms of “being loyal” or also in terms of “being loyal is fully valid” or “let us be loyal”, to which the objective of the value of loyalty corresponds as absistence. As a particular attitude of reference, assumptions reveal themselves to be a fundamental mode of attitude, whereby objectives are apprehended; these, in turn, as a further acceptation of the real, become the mode according to which all forms of reality are intellectually apprehendible and approachable, and especially those complexes which build on a relation and are not immediately intuitive. 4. Assumptions and Values This issue is particularly significant in the ethical field, where there is all the more reason for what is apprehended to be apprehendible by way of objectives; indeed, the relational situation, whereby, for instance, x gives something to y, can become complicated in that x gives y something that he had promised to give him, that is to say, he keeps his promise. At this point, the assumability of the different possible relations comes into play, in order to configure the relation that is being established between x and y; and all the powers pertaining to assumption are necessary: a certain activity, the expounding of possible situations, the explicitation of the relations of non-intuitive states of affairs. On the other hand, it is Meinong’s constant concern with problems relating to ethics and value that induces 95

Ibid., p. 284; Eng. p. 205.

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him to discover the necessity, on this front, to interpose assumptions between representations and the third Brentanian class of the emotions, as well as between judgements and emotions, and, even more so, between representations and judgements on the one hand and emotions on the other; this is why Meinong’s subsequent ethical considerations must also be read in close connection with his writings on assumptions, which represent a theoretical premise. Indeed, in the 1902 revision of his own lectures on ethics and in his reading of Meinong’s Psychologisch-etische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie of 1894, Husserl considers the eighth chapter of Über Annahmen, which deals specifically with ethical issues, to be of particular relevance.96 As in the context of mental activity described by Brentano, when there is the possibility of referring to an object – represented and perhaps judged – also with a mental motion of appreciation, accompanied by joy, this produces the attitude of attributing value or considering something as being endowed with value, that is to say, the Werthaltung, which is only directed towards particular relational configurations. In this sense, value is independent of the existent, that is, from the being the value of objects or goods desirable in that they are useful or advantageous and is dependent of appreciation (of which joy is the external sign) for the correct relation showed in a particular so-being. When keeping a promise, the state of affairs is apprehended by these feelings, due to the establishment of that precise configurable situation in terms of restitution and keeping. It is the particular relational complex that elicits appreciation, and conversely this feeling concerns the particular relation that has been established, identifying in the mode in which it is accomplished, the correct one, the one that, among the many objectives, makes the objective of keeping a promise subsist; an objective that must be able to be assumed as relative to such a situation, as being referable to the present state of affairs, which is apprehendible – we might say interpretable – also by way of other objectives, but which a mediated and complete apprehending (as erfassen and as aggredieren) allows us to correlate to the given situation. Such an issue is inscribed – in the history of ethics – within the reflection on ethical formalism, which has led us to question the role of feelings, first 96

Husserl 1994, p. 145, again in his important letter dated 5th April 1902.

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and foremost, that of respect, so fundamental in Kant’s ethical writings, as well as that of pleasure or displeasure, whose connection with judgement he discovered through the Gemeinsinn introduced in the third Critique; secondly, within the reflection on the relation between ethical formalism and values, as in the Neo-Kantian tradition from Windelband to Rickert and Vorländer and in Husserl’s and Scheler’s studies on ethical formalism; and, lastly, within the reflection on the relation between objective possibility and values as in Weber. Meinong places himself in an original perspective, by establishing a link between assumption, feeling and reality, enabling the justification of the reality of value. Thanks to his in-depth analysis conducted on the function of imaginative feelings, and on their connection with assumptions, Meinong no longer simply links the feeling of value with an existent or with desire97 and he understands how the problem of value is above all a theoretical one and consists in establishing what we think of when we attribute or negate value to something.98 It is always the issue of the nonexistent which, after being conducive to the discovery of assumptions, and subsequently to their relation to feeling, has given rise to these developments in the theory of values: values are also admissible as objectives of so-being, as genuine objectives of value.99 Indeed Meinong states that assumptions and imaginative feelings connected with these allowed him to bridge the gaps remaining in his previous writings and to perfect his theory of feeling of the value (Gefühlstheorie des Wertes)100, on the basis of an analysis of circumstances whereby, for instance, a sick person, who attributes value to health, a poor man, who attributes value to riches, not only feel the significance of the lack of these goods, but they also put themselves in the place of those who possess them, which, as we know, is a “borderline” attitude, an assumption intellectually speaking, and an imaginative feeling emotionally speaking. And conversely: anyone who possesses these things can gain a better understanding of their value if he 97

As he himself recalls, the first edition of Über Annahmen had afforded him the opportunity to explicit this in relation to his own writings in Über Werthaltung und Wert. 98 pp. 324–6; Eng. pp. 231–2. 99 Ibid., p. 319; Eng. p. 228. 100 Ibid., p. 330–2; Eng. p. 235–7.

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places himself in the position of someone who does not possess them. In so far as it is possible to assume both existence and non-existence and react to each of these assumptions by way of an imaginative feeling, the relative object is appreciated according to its value. Feelings of value are thus not only feelings of judgement, but also feelings of assumption; or rather, they are similar states to feeling, by way of which the subject reacts to assumptions. We are referring, as we have already seen, to quasi-feelings (Quasigefühlen), to a special case of imaginative feelings, for which Meinong – who recalls having already utilised the term valuing (Werthalten) to refer to the feeling aroused by the conviction of the existence or non-existence of an object, and the term evaluation (Bewerten) to refer to the apprehending of a value in a purely intellectual way in the value judgement – now chooses the expression valuation (Werten), to mean the attitude of reacting to an assumption of existence or non-existence of an object with an imaginative feeling (Phantasiegefühl). Wertung is therefore the reverse of Werthaltung, being distinct from this because the judgement pertaining to the latter is replaced by an assumption, whereas the feeling of judgement indispensable to the former is replaced by an assumptive quasi-feeling (Annahme-Quasigefühl)101, whose objective is value as a mode of the real that subsists or absists. This is why Meinong, on the one hand, declares that he was previously wrong in thinking that all modes of apprehending value, apart from the intellectual one, or Bewertung, led back to Werthaltungen, that is to say, to feelings of judgement. On the contrary, Werthaltungen must be supported by Wertungen, indispensable for the emotional apprehending of a fact of value, of quasi-feelings having the power of motivational force. By further elaborating Brentano’s idea that feelings and volitions belong to the same class, Meinong also considers feeling as a power able to spur us to action, but he considers it such because it is predominantly able to express a precise reaction of appreciation or non-appreciation not only directed towards the being or non-being of a state of affairs, but also implicitly to its so-being; indeed, Wertungen are manifold and are addressed to the specific relations, to the configurations of the state of affairs as a whole. This reaction is made possible thanks to the imaginative powers of assumption, which enable us to experience feelings also for an 101

Ibid., pp. 333f; Eng. pp. 237f.

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objective that absists; through the mediation of a mental phenomenon as ductile as assumption it is thus possible to apprehend the so-being of the ethically significant configuration of a given state of affairs, which enters or has entered – depending on whether we view it from the viewpoint of the agent or from that of the observer – into the true context of ethical action, whereas werten becomes werthalten. The intermediate degrees between assumption and judgement and those between judgement and feeling established by Meinong lead him to identify a situation, which is not that – suggestive and over-simplified at the same time – of the jungle of realities, but that of the assumability of multifarious objectives, real as objects of a superior order, as complexes governed by relations, as states of affairs, whose configurations have the possibility of mutual comparison, of emerging more or less evidently according to their different degrees, of arousing different forms of reaction of appreciation: for this very reason, it will be possible to identify the correct one which stands out most distinctly for appreciation. There is a kind of qualitative emergence, whereby we may assume that it is good that x should render what he has promised, so this is the objective that corresponds to such an assumption and can be transferred to judgement, whereby keeping a promise is good. If we refer the judgement to a state of affairs that, as well as being represented is also judged in this sense, it is possible to affirm that x is good, that is, to attribute an ethical quality also to the agent. The mediation of the assumption whereby “it is a good thing that x should keep his promise”, configures a general state of affairs, an objective prior to the contingent situation, but to which this is referred by way of a feeling of appreciation and evaluation like Beurteilung, which Meinong has succeeded in analysing with such subtlety; the distinction between Werthaltung, Wertung and Bewerten, can be considered as the analysis of the feeling of correct preference identified by Brentano, aimed at finding fundamental evidence and certainties also in the field of ethics, and aimed at avoiding a type of ethical formalism without lapsing into relativism or utilitarianism. It is by way of this moment of assumption of an ethical type, of quasi-assumption of feeling, that Meinong describes the apprehending of an emerging quality of an ethical nature, which enables us to judge an action as part of a relational complex as being good and to consider as an

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expression of value the state of affairs configured by that particular relation which the action allows us to accomplish. Objectives express a concept of the real which is more wide-ranging than the existent and which, in the ethical perspective, comprises value. It is the outcome of a study conducted via an analitico-phenomenological method, which led Meinong to identify further powers of reference to the real and further modes of the real, articulated in particular configurations of relations prior to the phase of apprehending and which can also be expressed in terms of ethical judgements. This prior dimension is fundamental for Meinong, who wishes to avoid the accusation of psychologism102, which he attributes both to Brentano and Husserl. However, it is possible to avoid psychologism only by recognising the apriority of manifold, differentiated configurations of subsisting and absisting relations with respect to their potential existence or to their being apprehended. Meinong was to clearly explicit his convictions after the first edition of Über Annahmen, in his Über Gegenstandstheorie, in which apriori are not categorial intersubjective forms but forms of reality. The Gegenstandstheorie, parallel to Brentano’s change of standpoint vis-à-vis the real in the years 1903–4, subsequent to and probably fully conscious of the Logische Untersuchungen of Husserl, whom Meinong criticises for his excessively restricted concept of 102

In a letter to Husserl dated 12th July 1900, he had complained that the latter in his Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, in volume I of the Logische Untersuchungen, had considered him, together with Höfler, as a psychologist, and he had expressed his surprise at such an affirmation, considering that he had found himself in agreement with him on several points (Husserl 1994, p. 135 and notes 26, 27). These points of consensus had also been identified by Husserl who, in a note to § 10 of Ideen I, had mentioned that, in the studies he had undertaken for the third of the Logische Untersuchungen, he had not ventured to use the term ontology, but had preferred to speak of an “‘a priori theory of objects as objects’, a phrase contracted by A. v. Meinong to make the word ‘Gegenstandstheorie’ [‘object-theory’]. Now that times have changed, however, I consider it more correct to rehabilitate the old expression, ontology” (Husserl 1976, p. 28, note 2; Eng. p. 22). This is a note that Meinong, in spite of his numerous critical observations with regard to Ideen I, did not fail to endorse, and in a manuscript after 1914 he observed that also in the case of formal ontology it was more natural to speak of the general theory of objects instead of the eidetic science of objects (Meinong 1978, p. 216; cf. also p. 219, p. 230, p. 244, p. 246 on Husserl’s criticism of Meinong in § 112 of Ideen I).

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object103, establishes the very idea of the antecedence of the real with regard to every form of its apprehending. The capacity of assumption had to be differentiated into a capacity analogous both with judgement and with feeling, in order to address itself not only to potential configurations of the real, but also to the emotional reactions that the real can arouse, inasmuch as it is independent. The necessity of the priority of the real is also posited by the Husserlian problem of the eidos or the noematic nucleus, with a greater concern for its normative import, which Husserl derived – in a narrower conception of the correlativity of the givenness of the real and of its apprehending – from Kant, Lotze and Rickert. The conception of the link between feeling and assumption remains peculiar to Meinong’s philosophy, whereas the problematic co-ordinates within which it is inscribed – first and foremost the reflections on the real and on the analogies between judgement and feeling – show certain resemblances with Husserl (especially with regard to the concept of relation and so-being) and with Brentano (inter alia with regard to the concept of correctness). III 1. Formal Ethics and Formal Ontology Like Brentano and Meinong, also Husserl attributed to feeling in the ethical sphere a wide-ranging and differentiated import, as demonstrated in Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre of 1908–1914, Einleitung in die Ethik, comprising lectures delivered in 1920 and 1924 and a large section of Ideen II; Husserl focused on the problem of developing a logic of action, with a motive of an ethical nature not at variance with the emotional sphere, but in such a way as to make this form of logic emerge – by means of rational pondering enlightened by evidence – from this very sphere and from its being interlocked104 with that of judgement. Husserl analysed the structure of the will from its original impulses to its decision and choice motivated by “rational pondering, illuminated by evidence, by the clarity, by virtue of which reasons and foundation links reach full givenness, thus 103 104

Ibid., p. 25. A term recently adopted with insistence by Putnam in 2002.

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enabling the response to attest itself as a rational response.”105 Like Brentano and Meinong, Husserl holds that what is correct can appear, and give itself as such to the intending act which for Husserl is always an interlacing of cognitive, emotional and volitive acts. Also for Husserl there exists an analogy between the theoretical and cognitive context and the practical context, for which reason the interweaving of the intending acts apprehends also in this the noema, the connections of sense in a dispositional interaction between consciousness and reality, which allows us to identify what is best in a given situation, making in this sense the concept of material apriori106 all the more meaningful, in the ethical field. A lecture in the summer semester of 1920, held in Freiburg under the title of Einleitung in die Ethik, and repeated in 1924 under the title of Grundprobleme der Ethik107, reaffirms these issues but puts an emphasis on the independence and self-subsistence of value as eidos, which seems to me to intensify, on the one hand, the analogy between the objectivating and non-objectivating act and, on the other hand, the particularity of the reference term of the latter. Husserl still relies on his early lectures on ethics in Halle and on the lecture on the fundamental issues of ethics in 1902, as well as on Brentano’s lectures, dating back to the years 1884/5 and 1885/6 and published, in 1952, in Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, to which he owes a debt of gratitude. As early as the years 1908–1914 he was at one with the theories of Brentano, voiced also in the Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, on the role of feeling in apprehending as such the just and correct purpose and in identifying what is good by way of the approval it arouses and the joy it inspires; on the possibility of comparative laws among values, always context-related, and on the idea of a judging affinity between affirming as true and affirming as good. Thus Husserl now declares himself to be particularly in agreement with Brentano in retaining that ethics is a Kunstlehre aiming to determine the principles of rational action, in analogy with the logic as Kunstlehre of the principles of rational 105

Husserl 1988, pp. 118f. Ibid., p. 139, p. 14; “materiales Apriori” is a rare but significant expression in Husserl, maybe introduced just in ethical ambit; cf. Melle 1988, p. XIX, pp. XXIVf; on the ontological dimension of value in Husserl, also in relation to Meinong, see Gigliotti 2006, pp. 154–159. 107 Husserl 2004, p. XIII. 106

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thinking; ethics as a science not only expounds the formal legality of a consequently rational acting, but also makes a critical analysis of the correctness of ends of action, and is as much a practical discipline as a normative science.108 In continuity with the theories developed in the Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, according to which there are foundational relations (Begründungszusammenhänge) governed by a normative law, as a form common to an infinite number of other foundations, as the expression of a level of normativity and validity common to all domains of the real and all forms of cognition, Husserl reaffirms, also in the ethical sphere, the concept of foundation links, of the eidos proper to a state of affairs (Sachverhalt). The eidos expresses a mode of being in terms of validity (Geltung) and pertains to a non-finite number of foundational relations. Thus the application of the concept of ontology – formal and material at the same time – elaborated in the Ideen I of 1913 assumes a particular significance in ethics. Formal ontology, which studies the “fundamental structures according to which reality is necessarily organised, that is to say, the characterisation of something on its own, or something in general”; and material ontology, which studies “the structure of specific sectors or aspects of reality: that pertaining to physics, biology, and so on”109, are complementary, in an acceptation of ontology as a mode of singularisation of the general, as expounded in §§ 9–12 of Ideen I. So, if each concrete empirical objectuality is subordinated with its material essence to a supreme material genus, to a region of empirical objects, the eidos of the region is a necessary material form for all the objects of the region110 and it is possible to speak of original objectuality and variations of this.111 Husserl elaborates the concept of the category of a region as a term that correlates a given material region with the form of a region in general or, what amounts to the same, with the formal essence of an object in general and with the formal categories pertaining to it. Thus, a purely essential form that, in its formal universality, subordinates under it even the highest material generalities, prescribing 108

Ibid., p. 4. Varzi 2005, pp. 26f. 110 Husserl 1976, pp. 23f; Eng. p. 18. 111 Ibid., pp. 25f; Eng. pp. 20f. 109

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laws that issue from its intrinsic formal truths. Thus the so-called formal region is not simply co-ordinated with the material regions, but it is an empty form of region in general, so that all the regions, with all their peculiarities, find themselves subjected to it. This subordination of the material to the formal is shown by the circumstance that formal ontology contains the forms of all ontologies (scl. all ontologies “proper”, all “material” ontologies) and prescribes for material ontologies a formal structure common to them all […]112

In a particular essence “the more universal essence is ‘immediately or mediately contained’ – in a determined sense, the character of which can be seized in eidetic intuition.”113 Among the modes of the real thus presented, Husserl includes values, declining in Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre (1908–1914) the concept of formal ethics as a variant of formal ontology. In this connection, of particular significance is the parallelism between logic and ethics, between mathematics and ethics, and between admitting as true, whereby something is and is such, and affirming that something is good, by approving of it through feeling. In the same way that there is a significant distinction between Stoff as empirical matter and Inhalt as pure matter, as general content of form. Husserl’s ethical standpoint is always geared to the evaluation of how the universal can be realised in particular contexts, through processes in which the formal structures make themselves known with evidence, showing their own validity by means of phenomenological analysis.114 The certainty that this can always be possible for anyone with the will to identify what is valid (in the cognitive, aesthetic or ethical spheres) allows the validity of the value to be defined as claimed and requested; indeed, it allows universality itself to be defined as requested, in the sense that whatever can advance the claim of being acknowledged as universal has validity. For this reason, every act of will aimed at being transposed into an ethically motivated action implies, on the one hand, an idea of will and action in general; on the other hand, it implies something willed, a 112

Ibid., p. 26; Eng. p. 21. Ibid., pp. 30f; Eng. p. 25. 114 Husserl 1988, pp. 26–8. 113

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quid which appertains a priori to will in the same way that the judged quid appertains to judgement.115 Within the perspective of formal/material ontology, it is thus possible to interpret the model of the intentional act as an act intending the foundational relation of a particular class of objectuality, that of value (in the formal sense), deducing from this that something is valid, and in a given context can become a value, for instance that of loyalty (in general); inasmuch as it becomes the motive of a precise action, such an action assumes ethical importance and can be judged as good. We are referring to an act that is an interlacing of cognitive and evaluative acts, which holds for every domain: indeed, also true and false are evaluative predicates, that is to say predicates of theoretical correctness, just as practical evaluative predicates are with regard to practical correctness and incorrectness.116 A complex act therefore corresponds to a complex reference term which, in his Vorlesungen of 1908–1914, Husserl termed meant objectuality (bedeutete Gegenständlichkeit) or also the judged something (das geurteilte Was) or in any case ethical reality (ethische Realität).117 The ethical act, inasmuch as it is intentional, apprehends a foundational relation, which is real in itself, that is, it subsists even if it is not apprehended; and which, if apprehended, becomes normative, having the power to show what is valid, and hence universalisable, and what is a value in a given situation. On the whole, the ethical act is an evaluation that complies with norms (normgemässes Werten), that is, it is able to evaluate as it is right118 and consists – this is a further detail – in an interplay of axiological and evaluative acts and acts of will. The axiological act entails passing from a general request for validity to the apprehending of a value, of a quid affirmed in its general content and in the validity of it; as such, the axiological act becomes the motive of the voluntary act, it subsumes it, determining the decision to prefer X as opposed to Y, within the domain of an articulated theory of rational motivation. The ethical act also comprises an evaluative act, which brings to light an even more complex level of it – discovered by phenomenological analysis – that of 115

Ibid., p. 45. A theme of great relevance also in Putnam’s ethical philosophy. 117 Husserl 1988, p. 51. 118 Ibid., p. 57. 116

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valuation (werten) or the intending of a value (Wertmeinen)119; this correlates with value as ideal aim or value complying with reason. The valuative act is an act of emotion (Gemütsakt) able to feel goodness, as well as truth and beauty; it is an act of valuations (Beurteilungen) by way of feeling – of approval and compliance – whereby what is judged as good is seen evidently. Through the interplay of acts and forms of consciousness – emotional and clarified – to be worth of those forms of the real that are values is apprehended.120 2. Values and Reality Real are those legal forms that structure states of affairs, material aprioris, relating to specific configurations, which can be attained from the particular existing situation by means of the complex procedures of eidetic reduction, within the context of the dynamics of intuition and reflection. Thus Husserl is able to reaffirm in 1920 that action, the placing of our aims and the determination of our ways and means, is subordinate to valuations of practical rationality, that is, to the assessment of whether the end is worth pursuing121, positing the issue of the relation between the universal and the particular. This is an issue that can only be solved by way of the phenomenological analysis of essence (Wesensanalyse), concerning the dynamics whereby will and the attribution of value are inseparably entwined in a conviction of value (Werthalten). The act of will is motivated by means of value intended as such (vermeinten) in the Werthalten – an idiosyncratic expression of Meinong – a value whose validity is apprehended in a particular concretion of form and matter, with reference to a given Sachgehalt and in a given Sachverhalt.122 With regard to the latter, decision prefers a possibility of action corresponding to a value felt and judged as being the preferable one, that is, the best and most correct, and as such prescrip-

119

Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 61–3. 121 Husserl 2004, pp. 4f. 122 Ibid., p. 235. On Husserl’s ethical realism and on a few distinctions between Sachverhalt and Wertverhalt, cf. Mulligan 2004, pp. 187–202. 120

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tive123, in an articulated deliberative process which echoes Weber’s concept of objective possibility and the studies undertaken by Husserl and above all by Meinong on probability. Like Brentano and Meinong, also Husserl retains that it would be meaningless to speak of will devoid of valuing and feeling. This would even be contradictory, it would be like speaking of a sound without intensity of sound, or of a colour without extension or of a presentation without what is being presented. From an a priori perspective, in an unconditioned generality of essence, every voluntary subject must be a subject that values and feels and thus intends the nature of the forming of value, the structure of validity. So the determination of will finally takes place by way of the apprehending of ideal objectualities (ideale Gegenständlichkeiten)124, given that there is not only a normativity of mere form but also a normativity of highly general contents, whereby we can speak of discoveries, just as we would in the case of empirical objects of nature, of the stars, or the parts of the world. These objectualities are producible in different forms of realisation (Verwirklichungen)125 precisely because they are ideal, valuable and producible only on the basis of Werthaltungen; only in that they are values intended as such (vermeinte) and potentially “seen” (eingesehene) can they become objects of will, purposes and hence motives of action.126 Only their discovery as generalities of content requiring realisation127 displays their reality in terms of absistence, almost in the Meinongian sense, and in any case in their independence from the subject that stages the intentional attitude and which, by way of this very attitude, discovers them as valid and thus both as real and to be realised. Values are discovered in the same way as theorems, because these are real in their particular concretions of matter and form, of modality of configuration in states of affairs, devoid of spatial and temporal determinations of existence but objective in a particular acceptation of subsistence. 123

Husserl 2004, p. 231. p. 217 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid., p. 218. 127 Ibid., pp. 218f; realised as spiritual objectivities, in the cultural world. 124

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Just as the act of perception is an apprehending – completed by the action of the ego – of the object that exists (ein von Ichtat vollzogenes Erfassen des daseienden Gegenstandes) and thus is a blend of real apprehending and mere intending, which is fulfilled or confuted during the progression of the perceptions, so active feeling (or valuing by way of feeling (fühlendes Bewerten)) is an active apprehending of the value of the existing thing, but in such a way as to be a mixture of genuine apprehending of value (Werterfassung) and anticipation of value (Wertantizipation), of simple intending of value (Wertmeinung), which has to be confirmed or confuted in the proceeding of the object of perception and in the consequent apprehending of it by way of feeling (Durchfühlen)128,

in the different types of affective acts. As in the simple sphere of cognition, the doxic sphere, a doxic act is supported by a doxic act, a doxic credence by a so-called experience, in the affective sphere (which, however, has a doxic basis), an affective credence is supported by a so-called experiencing of feeling, by a self-having value in the feeling, the value itself in its full originality.129

On the basis of strong analogies between the forms of experience and using a terminology similar to that habitually employed by Husserl in his phenomenological analysis of the given, value can also be apprehended and intended as such; from what has been attributed with value it is also possible to arrive at an eidos which, as such, is an ideal objectuality, capable of manifold forms of realisation. It is the normal phenomenological procedures that enable values to be intended as such (vermeinte) and to become the correct ends to pursue and aim at. In continuity with the plane of experience and yet on a different plane from that of the existent, such objectualities are for Husserl real and founding links, preceding what they constitute the foundation of. Thus an apriori in the true sense of the word is a material apriori, a truth of essence apprehendible in a pure seeing. So they are real truths which have validity in their universal sense – it is their being valid that is seen – but for different possible individualities, which accomplish the singularity 128 129

Ibid., p. 223. Ibid., p. 224.

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of such generalities. In this sense, the apriori must be apprehended by way of the various degrees leading to evidence, as a law of concretely existent formations. On the level of analogy, feeling can make exactly the same claims on validity as judgement, in that it is capable of a correct apprehending of perception (Wahrnehmungserfassung). Husserl awards Brentano with the merit of having understood that feeling constitutes a sphere of particular compliance with norms (Normierung), when he discovered the intentionality of consciousness.130 Phenomenology is left with the task of investigating the qualities of feeling, its distinct and differentiated gradualities, present in feelings, as in colours or sounds; and, in view of the fact that what is most elevated in feeling is the preferable, the study of the phenomena of preference in the individual as a person or as a member of the community remains to be completed. Indeed, it is through distinct degrees of evidence and consciousness that we are persuaded of normative correctness, arriving by way of the eidetic process and by reflection and deliberation, at a justification based on evidence.131 The complexity regarding the interplay of acts corresponds to the complexity of their reference term and its way of being real; in the case of value, this also proves to be divided into fundamental typologies – theoretical values, aesthetic values, ethical and personal values – each of them, in turn, with qualitative differences, governing their feasibility in different ways and contexts. The quality of values, their being values of a different type, causes them to be realised in different ways and to regulate will in different ways. In different states of affairs, different configurations of value are given. Differences in attitude correspond to differences in reference terms, which are, however, in turn further differentiated: the attitude that apprehends value, apprehends values realisable in different ways and does so by ideating them in the different, concrete situations in which they are realised. Every situation concretises a particular so-being, whose value is the type, but it is from the same so-being (for example the situation of the keeping of a promise) that the validity of the type emerges, its being a value and the value of the state of affairs – for instance, of the relation of keeping a promise z made by x to y – which 130 131

Ibid., pp. 228f. Ibid., pp. 247f.

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is apprehended when the attitude towards such a concrete situation is that of Werterfassung and of Werthaltung. Indeed, erfassen becomes Werthalten in the ethical field, that is, feeling and intending value as such and it is this apprehending of the value of a concrete situation that can be expressed in sentences of obligation and not vice-versa. Having been aroused by feeling but being capable of valuation and of judgement, so that valuation and judgement retroact on feeling, as revealed by joy – which is autonomous from subjective will – we apprehend structures of objectuality, hence relations of so-beings that are better than others in a given context and which require action to bring them to be realized. In this sense there is an antecedence and autonomy of value with respect to duty and there is a pluralism of values and duties, of purposes and goods, admitted to and justified by the relation of formal and material ontology. The axiological component of acts represents their aspect both of cognition and of judgement, proper to consciousness; the practical component represents the active transposition into the concrete situation, in conformity with various degrees of universalisation of the contents. Material aprioris specify and at the same time condition the level of universalisation, in an acceptation of comparative formalism, from which the comprehension of the possible degree of universalisation will emerge. Ideal contents allow themselves to be intended by an evaluative and comparative consciousness that apprehends them. And values are, irrespective of their apprehending, indispensable for whoever wants to intend them, as a real independent object of discovery and understanding, on which their foundation and normative power depends. In their sharing – as a premise to their intellectual itineraries – some of Brentano’s ideas and in their attempts to tackle a few of the difficulties relating to these, Meinong and Husserl reach the conclusion that it is always possible to “see” what has value and what is good, just as we can “see” what is true, and that it is possible to intend it as such. Every form of the real is a configuration of relations on which the type of reality and quality depend. Different configurations can, in giving themselves, elicit different attitudes, such as the feeling of appreciation or non-appreciation, of desire or repulsion, as well as of knowledge or will.

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A common denominator of their different ways of thinking is the notion of the so-being as a foundation and as a qualitatively differentiated characterisation of Sachverhalten. In giving themselves, these arouse – by virtue of their particular articulations – different attitudes, including appreciation, in the event of the value being apprehended. Meinong is thus able to underline passiveness of feeling as being Wertgefühl, namely as the capacity to feel a Wert that absists, in a particular mode of reality; and Husserl is able to speak of Wertnehmen and of Werterfassen, that is, not only of analogies between cognitive and non-cognitive acts and their interplay, but also of analogies between their reference terms, among which he includes values, apprehendible – on different levels of passiveness and activity – in their independence from acts. We cannot speak of good in abstract terms, but of situations in which there is a good action – universally good – an action determined by feeling and intending that a value in general, but individualised, such as the value of loyalty, is concretely realisable by way of an action in the given situation, which already demanded it and configured its feasibility, by referring back to an antecedent state of affairs that prefigured it. These further developments of Brentano’s ideas justify the theory expounded in Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, which entrusted the foundation of morals to the evident manifestation of value. However the reflections of Meinong and Husserl express and resolve difficulties which Brentano did not consider to be further analysable in that work: an “ethical object” is the structured complex of a situation, in which we act, by an action motivated in its logical development by the feeling and the judgement of what is the value to be realised in the given context. The “ethical object” is, therefore, more properly the configuration of value preceding a given situation but it is apprehendible in it. The analogy between formal and ethical ontology and the modes of perceiving and feeling truth and perceiving and feeling values implies that both truth and values are particular modes of real being, in a similar way to logical and mathematical objects.132 In this way, a complex begins to take shape, in which the parts are in some way inter-related, qualifying it as a specific so-being: the relations

132

In the sense in which Putnam also refers to objectivity.

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between the parts can only so-be, in the co-existence of generality and individuality. For Meinong as well as for Husserl, every relational complex in its generality subsists or absists, in the peculiar configuration that typifies and qualitatively differentiates it from all others.133 This difference involves quality, which we could also intend as something that emerges from the complex and its relations, something that is superimposed or founded; on the ethical plane, it is the quality of being good that can, in turn, be declined in the various modes in which it is possible to be good. In this sense, the configuration of value is an apriori, it is a concept that expresses priority and antecedence, but also an idea of relationality, inspired by Hume’s relations of ideas which, for Husserl, were an ante litteram correction of Kant’s apriori, giving form to a highly general content.134 Assumability and apriority (or antecedence) are two modes of expressing real being135 of a formal or typical categorial, of a complex and its form, viewed as a legal and more widely normative link; two modes of expressing its formal and material objectivity (in general). By virtue of its configuration, of its so-being, the real allows itself to be apprehended as a possible 133

Differences apprehendible by way of modes that could be defined as the function of valorisation of the imagination, to quote an expression used by Piana 1979, p. 142, who has provided us with some illuminating reflections on “a sort of circularity between ‘quality’ and ‘relation’. Qualities lie first and foremost at the basis of relations […] quality precedes relation and founds it […]. At the same time it can be correctly stated that, as soon as contents make their entry into a perceptive setting, they are themselves the outcome of the syntheses of which they constitute the foundation” (ibid., p. 53); the concept of structural typicity to which Piana refers (ibid., p. 59) with reference to the perceptive field can, in my opinion, be generalised in several ways. 134 Ibid., p. 221. On material synthetic aprioris, see Benoist 1997, p. 116. 135 Kraus had already observed how Meinong and Husserl themselves had amplified out of all proportion the realm of irreal essences, also termed as contents or states of affairs (Kraus 1974, p. 169) or, to cite the words of Brentano himself, in a letter to Husserl dated 1905, Gedankendinge (Brentano 1974, p. 157); as Kraus states, also for Marty, Sachverhalt was a term that could be used in place of Inhalt, in a sense similar to that in which Meinong and Russell spoke of Objektiv (Kraus 1974, p. 193). Kraus’ prompt defence of Brentano’s conviction that there can be no concept common to the real and to the non-real had already been affirmed in Kraus 1919, pp. 30f, as well as the divergence between Brentano and Meinong on the fundamental concept of relation (ibid., pp. 43f).

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structure of concrete contexts, on the borderline between the state of affairs and the situation in which such a configuration can be received in the cognitive and emotional modes of the subject that relates to it. In this sense, values are also real and, as structured objectivities, as complex of states of affairs, they can be felt and judged as such, they can be affirmed as correct and transformed into motives for a particular attitude, that of will, and of a particular type of action, namely ethical action. References Albertazzi L., Jacquette D., Poli R. (eds.) 2001, The School of Alexius Meinong, Burlington: Ashgate. Benoist, Jocelyn 1977. Phénoménologie, sémantique, ontologie. Husserl et la tradition logique autrichienne, Paris: PUF. Brentano, Franz 1874. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol. I, ed. by O. Kraus (1924), Hamburg 1973: Meiner Verlag; eng. trans. by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell and L.L. McAlister, London 1973: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Brentano, Franz 1889. Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, ed. by O. Kraus (1921), Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot; Hamburg 1969: Meiner Verlag; eng. trans. by R. M. Chisholm and E. H. Schneewind, London 1969: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brentano, Franz 1911. Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene, in Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol II, ed. by O. Kraus (1925), Hamburg 1971: Meiner Verlag; eng. trans. by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell and L.L. McAlister, London 1973: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Brentano, Franz 1974. Wahrheit und Evidenz. Erkenntnistheoretische Abhandlungen und Briefe ausgewählt, erläutert und eingeleitet von O. Kraus (1930), Hamburg 1958: Meiner; eng. trans. by R. M. Chisholm, I. Politzer, K. R. Fischer, London 1966: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brentano, Franz 1977. Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, F. Mayer-Hillebrand (ed.), Hamburg: Meiner.

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Brentano, Franz 1978. Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, F. Mayer-Hillebrand (ed.), Bern 1952: Francke; Hamburg 1978: Meiner; eng. trans. by E. H. Schneewind, London 1973: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brentano, Franz 1982. Deskriptive Psychologie. R. M. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner Wilhelm (eds.), Hamburg: Meiner; eng. trans. by B. Müller, London and New York, Routledge 1995. Calì, Carmelo 2003. “Percezione e qualità gestaltiche. Saggio sulla scuola di Brentano”, in: Rivista di estetica, XLIII, pp. 184–243. Centi, Beatrice 2004. “Il concetto di valore nelle lezioni di etica (1914) di Husserl: Intrecci, nodi e senso della forma”, in: B. Centi, G. Gigliotti (ed.), Fenomenologia della ragion pratica. L’etica di Edmund Husserl, Napoli: Bibliopolis, pp. 255–325. Chisholm, Roderick M. 1972. “Objectives and Intrinsic Value”, in R. Haller (ed.), Jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein. Beiträge zur Meinong-Forschung, Graz: Akademische Druck-u.Verlagsanstalt, pp. 261–269. Chisholm, Roderick M. and Baumgartner Wilhelm 1982. “Einleitung der Herausgeber”, in Brentano 1982. Chisholm, Roderick M. 1982. Brentano and Meinong Studies, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz 2007, Gegenstandstheorie und Theorie der Intentionalität bei Alexius Meinong, Dordrecht: Springer. Ehrenfels, Christian von 1988. Über Gestaltqualitäten (1890/1922), in Psychologie Ethik Erkenntnistheorie. Philosophische Schriften, vol. 3, ed. by R. Fabian, München-Wien: Philosophia Verlag, pp. 128–167. Findlay, John N. 1963. Theory of Objects and Values (1933), Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gigliotti, Gianna 2004. “Materia e forma della legge morale nell’interpretazione husserliana del formalismo kantiano”, in B. Centi, G. Gigliotti (ed.), Fenomenologia della ragion pratica. L’etica di Edmund Husserl, Napoli: Bibliopolis, pp. 13–114. Gigliotti, Gianna 2006. “Fenomenologia e ontologia dei valori nell’etica di Husserl”, in M. Failla (ed.), “Bene navigavi”. Studi in onore di Franco Bianco, Macerata: Quodlibet, pp. 150–162. Gozzano, Simone 1997. Storia e teorie dell’intenzionalità, Roma-Bari: Laterza. Grossmann, Reinhardt 1974, Meinong, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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Haller, Rudolf 1977, Vorwort zur Neuausgabe, in Meinong 1977, pp. IX– XIV. Husserl, Edmund 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie (1913), Hua B. III/1, ed. by K. Schuhmann, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; eng. trans. by F. Kersten, The Hague/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff 1982. Husserl, Edmund 1975. Logische Untersuchungen, vol. I, Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (1900), Hua B. XVIII, ed. by E. Holenstein, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund 1988. Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre1908–1914, Hua B. XXVIII, ed. by U. Melle, Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer. Husserl, Edmund 1994. Briefwechsel, vol. I. Die Brentanoschule, ed. by K. Schuhmann, Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer. Husserl, Edmund 2004. Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924, Hua XXXVII, ed. by H. Peucker, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer. Kraus, Oskar 1919. Franz Brentano. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre, München: Beck Kraus, Oskar 1974. “Anmerkungen des Herausgebers”, in Brentano 1974, pp. 167–220. Meinong, Alexius 1968. Psychologisch-etische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, in A. Meinong Gesamtausgabe (1894), vol. III, ed. by. R. Haller and R. Kindiger, Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt. Meinong, Alexius 1969. Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen (1891), in A. Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. I, ed. by. R. Haller and R. Kindiger, Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt. Meinong, Alexius 1971a. “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung (1899)”, in A. Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol II, ed. by. R. Haller and R. Kindiger gemeinsam mit R. M. Chisholm, Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, pp. 377–480. Meinong, Alexius 1971 b. “Über Gegenstandstheorie (1904)”, in A. Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. II, ed. by. R. Haller and R. Kindiger gemeinsam mit R. M. Chisholm, Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, pp. 481–535; eng. trans. by M.-L. Schubert Kalsi, in Schubert Kalsi 1978, pp. 137–208.

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Meinong, Alexius 1977. Über Annahmen (1902, 19102) in A. Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol, IV, ed. by. R. Haller and R. Kindiger gemeinsam mit R. M. Chisholm, Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt; eng. trans. by J. Heanue, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1983: University of California Press. Meinong, Alexius 1978. “Meinong’s critical notes on E. Husserl’s Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie”, in Schubert Kalsi 1978, pp. 209–252. Melle, Ullrich 1988. “Einleitung des Herausgebers”, in Husserl 1988, pp. XIII–XLIX. Mulligan, Kevin 2004. “Husserl on the ‘logics’ of valuing, values and norms”, in B. Centi, G. Gigliotti (ed.), Fenomenologia della ragion pratica. L’etica di Edmund Husserl, Napoli: Bibliopolis, pp. 177–225. Piana, Giovanni 1979. Elementi di una dottrina dell’esperienza. Saggio di filosofia fenomenologica, Milano: Il Saggiatore. Peucker, Henning 2004. “Einleitung des Herausgebers” in E. Husserl, Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924, Hua XXXVII, ed. by H. Peucker, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, pp. XIII–XLV. Putnam, Hilary 2002. The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays including the Rosenthal Lectures, Harvard: Harvard University Press. Reicher, Maria 2006. “Alexius v. Meinong: Über Gegenstände, Annahmen und Werte”, in K. Acham (ed.), Geschichte der österreichen Humanwissenschaften, vol. 6.2, Wien: Passagen, pp. 187–205. Rollinger, Robin D. 1993. Meinong and Husserl on Abstraction and Universals. From Hume Studies I to Logical Investigations II, AmsterdamAtlanta: Rodopi. Schubert Kalsi, Marie-Luise 1978. Alexius Meinong on Objects of higher Order and Husserl’s Phenomenology, The Hague-Boston-London: Martinus Nijhoff. Schuhmann, Karl 1991. “Probleme der Husserlschen Wertlehre”, in Philosophisches Jahrbuch 98, pp. 106–113. Schuhmann, Karl 2001. “Value Theory in Ehrenfels and Meinong”, in Albertazzi L., Jacquette D., Poli R. (eds.) 2001. pp. 541–570. Varzi, Achille C. 2005, Ontologia, Bari-Roma: Laterza.

Value Facts and Value Experiences in Early Phenomenology Maria E. Reicher

0. Introduction A value fact, as the term is used here, is a thing’s having a value property, for instance, a fact of the sort that this is good (or bad or right or wrong or beautiful or ugly etc.). If there are value facts at all, there are various kinds of them, moral (ethical) value facts and aesthetic value facts being the most prominent ones among them. Value experiences are mental phenomena that belong to the category of emotions. Phenomena in this category fall into a positive-negative divide. Positive value experiences include, for instance, appreciation, admiration and desire, while negative value experiences comprise, for instance, disapproval, disgust and contempt. In turn, value facts are also either positive (that this is good) or negative (that this is bad). Thus, it is easy to get the impression that there is a correspondence between value experiences on the one hand and value facts on the other. Appreciation, admiration or love seem to correspond to positive value facts; disapproval, condemnation or hate seem to correspond to negative value facts. We appreciate/admire/love things we hold to be good; we disapprove of/condemn/hate things we hold to be bad. But just how exactly is this correspondence to be understood? Is it that we appreciate things because they are good? Or is it rather the other way around, that things are good because we appreciate them? Are value experiences in some sense appropriate or inappropriate? If so, in which sense? Are appropriate value experiences somehow “true to value facts”? Do our value experiences somehow represent value facts that exist independently of our experiences? Or do value experiences somehow constitute those very facts? These and other related questions are extensively discussed in contempoValues and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 105–135.

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rary value theory. (See, e.g., D’Arms and Jacobson, 2000; Mulligan, 1998, and Mulligan, in print; Nussbaum, 2004; Tappolet, 2000.) But these questions also concerned a number of philosophers in the last third of the 19th and the first third of the 20th century, philosophers that might be classified as early phenomenologists. This holds in particular for Franz Brentano (1838–1917), Alexius Meinong (1853–1920) and Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932).1 The aim of this paper is, first, to give a relatively concise account of the above-mentioned authors’ approaches to value theory, second, to show that they raise questions and put forward arguments that are still worthy of note, and, third, to critically assess these arguments. To be clear from the outset: This is not done from a “neutral” standpoint, but from an objectivist point of view. As I use the terms “objectivism” and “subjectivism” here, objectivism is the view that value facts exist independently of actual value experiences and/or value judgments, and subjectivism is the negation of this view. The sort of objectivism that provides the background to a critical assessment of Brentano’s, Meinong’s and Ehrenfels’ value theories may be characterized by the following principles: 1. Value judgments (i.e., judgments of the form “This is good/bad/beautiful etc.”) are, at least sometimes, to be taken at face value, i.e., are uttered with the intention to ascribe a value property to an object. 2. Some value judgments are true. 3. In order for a value judgment to be true, there must be a fact in the world that makes it true. 1

The term “phenomenology” is used in (at least) two senses: In the first, narrower, sense, it refers to a school founded by Edmund Husserl. In the second, wider sense, it denotes a way of doing philosophy that is essentially concerned with the description, classification and analysis of mental phenomena, and in particular with what is perhaps the most significant feature of mental phenomena, namely intentionality. This sort of philosophy was dubbed “descriptive psychology” by Franz Brentano. Phenomenologists in this wider sense include Brentano and his followers, including, among others, Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Oskar Kraus, Edith Landmann-Kalischer, as well as Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Nicolai Hartmann. (See Mulligan 2003.) Here, the term “phenomenology” is used in the second, wider, sense.

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4. In principle, it can be known whether a given value judgment is true or false. 5. People may disagree about questions of value. 6. Questions of value may be rationally debated. 7. Our ability to recognize value facts can be improved. In other words, in the field of value recognition, progress is possible. 8. The recognition of value facts has an action-motivating force. 9. The recognition of value facts has an action-motivating force because emotions play a role in this recognition. To summarise the sections that follow: Section 1 is dedicated to Brentano’s theory of correct and incorrect emotions. In section 2, the development of Meinong’s value theory is delineated. Thereby, it is argued that – despite some statements to the contrary – Meinong was a disguised value objectivist rather than a firm subjectivist already in his early period. In section 3, two pivotal concepts of Meinong’s later ontology of values, namely “dignitatives” and “desideratives”, are explained, and an understanding of them that to some extent deviates from Meinong’s is proposed. In section 4, Ehrenfels’ subjectivist value theory is outlined, and, in so doing, a question is addressed that plays an important role in both Ehrenfels’ and Meinong’s work: Can past and other nonexistent objects have value? In section 5, I discuss whether value experiences are feelings (as Meinong claimed) or rather desires (as Ehrenfels argued). Finally, in section 6, I discuss the view that value properties are objective properties, but objective properties of “immanent objects” only – a view that has been held, among others, by Ehrenfels for aesthetic values. 1. Brentano on Correct and Incorrect Emotions In his paper “The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong”, Brentano asks the following questions: Is there such a thing as a moral truth taught by nature itself and independent of ecclesiastical, political, and every other kind of social authority? Is there a moral law that is natural in the sense of being universally and incontestably valid – valid for men at all places and at all times, indeed valid for any being that thinks and feels –

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and are we capable of knowing that there is such a law? (Brentano 1889/1969, § 5, p. 6)

Brentano answers these questions in the affirmative without qualification. There are, according to Brentano, universally valid moral principles, and we are capable of knowing them. But just what is it that makes a particular moral principle valid, and how can we know that it is valid? To say that a moral principle is valid, Brentano explains, is to say that one should comply with it for its own sake, not just for fear of punishment, in the hope for reward, from a feeling of compulsion or a belief in an external powerful will. (Ibid., §§6–10) Rather, “acts of will”2 that conform to moral principles are “naturally superior” to actions or acts of will that do not conform to moral principles, just like “thought processes that conform to [logical] rules are naturally superior to those that do not.” (Ibid., §11, p. 9) A will that is moral is intrinsically superior or preferable to one that is immoral – in just the way in which evident judgements and correct inferences are intrinsically superior to prejudice and to fallacious reasoning. […] Belief in this intrinsic superiority or preferability is an ethical motive. Knowledge of it is the correct ethical motive and the sanction which gives permanence and validity to the moral law. (Ibid., §12, p. 10f.)

Thus, according to Brentano, moral acts of will (and their related actions) have an intrinsic superiority to immoral acts of will, a superiority that is not reducible to psychological or other natural phenomena. It just is good to act morally, and it is bad to act immorally. But what does it mean to say that something is good? To answer this question, Brentano delineates the basic categories of mental phenomena, as he distinguishes them in his “descriptive psychology”: presentations [Vorstellungen], judgments and emotions. Presentations are those phenomena that are called “ideas” by Descartes as well as by the British empiricists Locke and Hume. They include “the 2

For Brentano, acts of will, not actions, are the proper subjects for the predicates “moral” and “immoral”. (See Brentano 1889/1969, §15, p. 11.) But since actions involve acts of will, there are no relevant consequences of this distinction in the present context.

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concrete intuitive presentations that are given to us through the senses [presentations like red, sweet or horse] along with those concepts that are not properly called sensible [concepts like just, true or nation].” (Ibid., §20, p. 15) Judgments are distinguished from mere presentations by the following: In addition to there being an idea or presentation of a certain object, there is a second intentional relation which is directed upon that object. The relation is one of either affirmation or denial – either acceptance or rejection. If a man says “God”, he gives expression to the idea of God. But if he says “There is a God”, then he gives expression to his belief in God. (Ibid., p. 16)

That is, a judgment (contrary to a presentation) involves a kind of pro- or contra-attitude (depending on whether the judgment is positive or negative), which Brentano calls at times “acceptance” and “rejection” and at times “affirmation” and “denial”. After having stated this, Brentano goes on to state that there is an analogous opposition of pro- and contra-attitudes involved in emotions. In the case of emotions, however, Brentano is not talking about “acceptance” and “rejection”, but rather about “inclination” and “disinclination”, “joy” and “sorrow”, “being pleased” and “being displeased”, or simply “love” and “hate”. (Ibid., §§20 and 21, p. 16f.) This alleged analogy between the opposing attitudes involved in judgments and those involved in emotions plays a crucial role in Brentano’s answer to the above questions (what is good, and how can we know it?). His reasoning is as follows: Psychological acts that belong to the first class [i.e., presentations] cannot be said to be either correct or incorrect. But in the case of the acts that belong to the second class [i.e., judgments], one of the two opposing modes of relation – affirmation and denial – is correct and the other is incorrect, as logic has taught since ancient times. Naturally, the same thing is true of the third class [i.e., the emotions]. Of the two opposing types of feeling – loving and hating, inclination and disinclination, being pleased and being displeased – in every instance one of them is correct and the other incorrect. (Ibid., §22, p. 17f.)

The alleged analogy between affirmation and denial on the one hand and love and hate on the other leads Brentano to a definition of the concept good:

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We call a thing true when the affirmation relating to it is correct. We call a thing good when the love relating to it is correct. In the broadest sense of the term, the good is that which is worthy of love, that which can be loved with a love that is correct. (Ibid., §23, p. 18)

One might object at this point that Brentano overstretches the analogy between the opposing attitudes involved in judgments on the one hand and emotions on the other. He starts with the following – unproblematic – observations: (1) Judgments as well as emotions involve pro- and contra-attitudes of some sort. (2) The pro- and contra-attitudes involved in judgments are either correct or incorrect.

From this, however, he proceeds to: (3) The pro- and contra-attitudes involved in emotions are either correct or incorrect.

Brentano evidently does not consider the step from (1) and (2) to (3) to be problematic. Nevertheless, it might well be questioned.3 Obviously, (1) and (2) do not entail (3). (1) and (2) do not rule out the possibility that some pro- and contra-attitudes are correct or incorrect and some are not. Indeed, at first sight, it seems implausible to claim that all pro- and contra-attitudes are correct or incorrect.4 For instance, some people love rice pudding; others hate it. Who is right? – The question does not seem to make much sense. A Brentanian might reply along one of the following two lines: She could claim that there are various kinds of love and hate, and that the love and hate that people have for rice pudding is distinct from the love and hate that people have for, say, knowledge, and that some, but not all, sorts of love and hate are correct or incorrect. Alternatively, she might say that there is just one kind of love and hate but that love and hate is correct or incorrect when it is directed to some objects and not correct or incorrect when it is directed to others. Thus, she might claim that love and hate is

3 4

For this sort of objection, see Topitsch, 1971, p. 17f. Interestingly, Brentano has seen this point. (See Brentano 1889/1969, §27.)

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not correct or incorrect when directed to rice pudding, but is indeed correct or incorrect when it is directed to knowledge. However, in both cases the Brentanian owes us some further explanation. If she chooses the latter option, she must answer why love and hate directed to some objects is correct or incorrect and love and hate directed to other objects is not. If she chooses the former option, she needs to answer why some kinds of love and hate are correct or incorrect and others are not. But let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the sort of love and hate Brentano has in mind is either correct or incorrect; and let us accept furthermore that an object is good if, and only if, someone who loves it would love it correctly. Thus, Brentano has answered the first of his two questions: What is it to be good? – To be good is to be worthy of love. But Brentano’s second question remains still to be answered: How can we know whether a given object is good? Can we know that something is good through our value feelings (love or hate) for it? Is the feeling of love for an object evidence of the object’s being good? – Obviously not. As Brentano himself noticed, it happens that people love things that are not worthy of love. (See Brentano, 1889/1969, §25.) To know whether something is good is to know whether it would be correct to love it. But how can we know that? Brentano finds the solution to this problem in his theory of evidence. Originally, Brentano introduced evidence as a characteristic of certain judgments. Brentano distinguishes between judgments which are “blind” and judgments which are evident. Actually, on Brentano’s classification, most of our judgments are blind. They include, among others, those judgements that are based upon so-called external perception and those that are based upon memories of the recent past. What is affirmed in this way may often be true, but it is just as likely to be false. For these judgements involve nothing that manifests correctness. (Ibid., §26, p. 19)

Brentano contrasts these “blind” judgments with those judgments which he considers as “insightful” or “evident”: The law of contradiction is one example. Other examples are provided by so-called inner perception, which tells me that I am now having such-and-such sound or colour sensations, or that I am now thinking or willing this or that. (Ibid., p. 19f.)

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What, exactly, distinguishes blind judgments from evident ones? It is not, as Brentano hastens to note, “a distinction with respect to degree of conviction”. (Ibid., p. 20) People may be strongly convinced of the truth of some of their blind judgments. Nevertheless, evidence is an intrinsic quality of judgments, given to us in inner perception. Brentano talks about a characteristic sort of “clarity” that is supposed to distinguish evident judgments from blind ones. In the case of an evident judgment, the question “Why do you believe that?” is impossible to answer, but in this case the clarity of the judgement is such as to enable us to see that the question has no point; indeed, the question would be completely ridiculous. Everyone experiences the difference between these two classes of judgement. As in the case of every other concept, the ultimate explication consists only in a reference to this experience. (Ibid.)

Brentano takes this doctrine of evidence to be more or less generally accepted. His next step, however, is to transfer the blindness-evidence distinction from the sphere of judgments to the sphere of emotions: The feelings of inclination and disinclination often resemble blind judgement in being only instinctive or habitual. […] Many philosophers, and among them very significant thinkers, have taken into account only that mode of pleasure that is peculiar to the lower types of activity within the sphere of the emotions. They have entirely overlooked the fact that there is a higher mode of being pleased or displeased. […] [I]t is natural for us to take pleasure in certain tastes and to feel an antipathy toward others. In both cases, our feelings are purely instinctive. But it is also natural for us to take pleasure in the clarity of insight and to feel displeased by error or ignorance. (Ibid., §27, pp. 20–22)

This latter sort of pleasure is a “higher” type of emotion than the pleasure in certain tastes or other sensory qualities, and it is, Brentano believes, “common to all the members of our species” (ibid., p. 22). If there were another species whose members would not share our love of knowledge and insight but rather would love error and despise insight, Brentano “would say that such love and hatred are basically perverse and that the members of the species in question hate what is indubitably and intrinsically good and love what is indubitably and intrinsically bad.” (Ibid.) Another example for correct emotions, according to Brentano, is this:

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Just as we prefer insight to error, so, too, generally speaking, we prefer joy to sadness – unless it be joy in what is bad. Were there beings who preferred things the other way around, we would take their attitudes to be perverse, and rightly so. For here, too, our love and hatred are experienced as being correct. (Ibid.)

Theories of evidence in general are vulnerable to the following objection: If evidence is merely a feeling of certainty, clarity and distinctness, then it does not guarantee truth. No matter how strong a conviction is, how certain one feels about it, it may still be wrong. Therefore, if evidence is just a feeling of certainty, clarity and distinctness, or whatever, the mere fact that a judgment is evident is not a sufficient justification for it. If, on the other hand, evidence is supposed to entail truth, then there must be more to it than just a feeling of certainty, clarity, distinctness and so on. There must be, then, a way to distinguish between real evidence (i.e., evidence which guarantees truth) and merely apparent evidence (i.e., a feeling of evidence that does not guarantee truth). However, nobody so far (including Brentano) has provided a criterion which would allow us to distinguish between real and merely apparent evidence. Therefore, appeal to evidence is never a sufficient justification for a judgment. Brentano himself notes “that there is no guarantee that every good thing will arouse in us an emotion that is experienced as being correct. When this does not occur, our criterion fails, in which case the good is absent so far as our knowledge and practical purposes are concerned.” (Ibid., §27, p. 24) Following from the above sceptical objection to evidence theories, one should add that there is also no guarantee that everything that arouses in us an emotion that is experienced as being correct is indeed intrinsically good. Thus, the criterion fails twice over. To sum up: Like the other authors discussed in this paper, Brentano takes it for granted that there are true genuine value judgments. Furthermore, he holds that value judgments are made true by certain facts in the world. He also holds that, in principle, we can know whether a certain value judgment is true or not, and his account leaves room for disagreement about value judgments. However, his account of knowledge about values is dubious, since it is based on the dubious concept of evidence.

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2. Alexius Meinong: From subjectivism to objectivism? Without doubt, Brentano’s value theory is a type of strong value objectivism. With Brentano’s disciple Alexius Meinong, however, things are more complicated. At first sight, the story of Meinong’s value theory appears to run as follows: Meinong starts as a value subjectivist in 1894 in his “Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werth-Theorie” (“Psychologicalethical Investigations in Value Theory”), is of two minds in a middle period around 1912, which becomes evident from a certain tension in his “Für die Psychologie und gegen den Psychologismus in der allgemeinen Werttheorie” (“For Psychology and Against Psychologism in General Value Theory”), and finally ends up as a full-blooded value objectivist in his “Über emotionale Präsentation” (“On Emotional Presentation”) in 1917 – a position he sticks to until his death in 1920. This story fits well with many of Meinong’s statements in the abovementioned texts. Closer inspection, however, reveals that Meinong had a strong inclination to value objectivism already in his early period (i.e., in the 1890s). In his first value theoretic writing (Meinong, 1894/1968), Meinong’s aim is to clarify the concept of value “by means of psychology”, as he puts it. Of course, “psychology” is to be understood in this context as “descriptive psychology” in the Brentanian sense. Just as with Brentano, in Meinong’s value theory emotions play a crucial role. A core concept of Meinong’s value theory is the concept of value attitude [Werthaltung]. A value attitude is a feeling – Brentano’s inclination or love and so on. Indeed, Meinong starts with a relativist concept of value: If an object has value for me, he says, I have a particular feeling for that object, namely a value feeling. (Ibid., §§5 and 6) In the same essay, Meinong explicitly denies the existence of an “absolute” (i.e., objective) value: Everything that has value has value for somebody. Value attitudes can be fallacious only insofar as they are based on false judgments; but the value attitude as such can never be “wrong” in any sense. Meinong declares: A thing may have any properties and abilities whatsoever, by themselves they do not yet constitute its value, unless a subject exists in whose emotional life this thing has a particular place. Without changing itself in the least, a thing that had value a

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moment ago may lose this just because the subject on whom it was reliant with respect to its value ceases to exist.5 (Ibid., §10, p. 406)

This sounds like full-blooded subjectivism. From this, one might expect the following view on the relation between values and value feelings: That an object has value for a subject just means that the subject has value feelings for the object. Surprisingly, however, this is not Meinong’s view. Meinong rejects the option of identifying having value with being valued because, as he argues, it often happens that people value things that are not really valuable, and, on the other hand, it often happens that things have value without actually being valued. Often, we are simply not aware of an object’s value and thus do not hold the appropriate value feeling – if only because we do not think about the object in question in the first place. (Ibid., §9) Therefore, Meinong states that, although the value somehow “goes back to the value feeling”, having value is not the same thing as being valued. (Ibid., §9, p. 36) He characterizes the relation between value and value feeling as follows: Value is not dependent upon actually being valued, but upon the possible valuation, and even here one must insist upon favourable circumstances, in particular upon an adequate orientation as well as normal mental and emotional life. Thus, value does not consist in being valued [Wertgehalten-werden] but in the possibility of being valued [Wertgehalten-werden-können], under the presupposition of the necessary favourable circumstances. An object has value insofar as it has the ability, for an adequately oriented person with a normal disposition, to be the actual basis of a value feeling. (Ibid., p. 377)

At first sight, at least, it is hard to see how this fits with Meinong’s subjectivism in the very same essay. The property of having the ability to be the actual basis of a value feeling, under favourable circumstances (whatever these are) is surely a property that an object has independently of the existence of a subject that actually values the object. It is a dispositional property – the ability to arouse in subjects of a certain nature under certain conditions feelings of a particular kind. In this sense, the property of having 5

Unless otherwise indicated, the translations of the following quotations are mine. The page numbers refer to the Gesamtausgabe, not to the original. 7 The translation of this passage largely follows Eaton, 1930, p. 100f. 6

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value is akin to John Locke’s secondary properties. Thus, Meinong’s theory from 1894 is a dispositionalist theory of values.8 Dispositionalism, however, is a variant of objectivism, i.e., it entails that there are values independently of subjects with appropriate attitudes or feelings. If an object has the ability to arouse certain feelings in subjects of an appropriate nature under appropriate conditions, it has this ability independently of whether there is a subject with the appropriate nature exposed to it under appropriate conditions. It is the nature of dispositional properties that objects have them even when they are not “actualized”. (That a glass is fragile does not entail that it is actually broken; that a sugar cube is water-soluble does not entail that it is actually dissolved in water.) So, how can Meinong, in the light of his own dispositional characterization of value, claim that an object’s value depends on the existence of an appropriate subject that actually has value feelings for it? Both the most charitable and plausible answer to this question is that Meinong, in his 1894/1968, uses the term “value” (as well as “having value”, “being valuable” etc.) in two senses: in a dispositionalist and an actualist sense, as it were. Meinong was not completely unaware of this ambiguity, as the following passage shows: So, if someone means by “value” really not more than the ability to be valued, then there is nothing objectionable in the view that an object may have an immanent and absolute value that is independent of any changes in the object’s environment. (Ibid., §10. p. 41)

The fact that Meinong moves from one use of “value” to the other and back again in one and the same paper may be taken as a symptom of a deep indecisiveness – although, in the end, he seems to take a (preliminary) decision. For he continues the above quotation with the remark that 8

A much clearer and more explicitly formulated dispositionalist theory, strongly based on the analogy between value properties and secondary qualities, is developed in Landmann-Kalischer, 1905. In common with Meinong, she considers the attribution of value properties on the basis of feelings to be analogous to the attribution of sensory qualities on the basis of sensations. Cf. also Landmann-Kalischer, 1910. (Incidentally, Landmann-Kalischer obviously did not recognize the dispositionalism in Meinong’s early value-theoretic writings. She considers Meinong to be a plain subjectivist.) For a more recent version of a dispositionalist value theory see McDowell, 1988.

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this [i.e., the dispositionalist] value is not what one usually means by this word: for the value in the usual sense is […] rather anything but independent of the environment of the thing to which it is applied. (Ibid.)

The tension between subjectivist and objectivist inclinations in Meinong becomes even more apparent in his “Für die Psychologie und gegen den Psychologismus in der allgemeinen Werttheorie” dating from 1912. The larger part of this paper is devoted to what Meinong calls “personal value”, which, as Meinong declares, is the proper subject of general value theory. (Meinong, 1912/1968, p. 270f.) In principle, Meinong’s theory of personal value in his 1912/1968 is still the dispositionalist theory of his 1894/1968, although with certain new complexities built in. Meinong distinguishes four “aspects” of the concept of personal value, namely the object, the subject, the circumstances and what he calls the “occasion” (Anlass, namely the occasion at which a subject allows herself to be emotionally affected by an object). The distinction of these four aspects leads Meinong to a further differentiation of distinct personal value concepts, based upon different degrees of potentiality, as it were. So, it might be that the object is actual, but the subject, the circumstances and the occasion are merely potential. Or it might be that the object and the subject are actual, but the circumstances and the occasion are merely potential, and so forth. To take an example, one might say that an object O has value if, and only if, there could be a subject S such that under certain circumstances, given a certain occasion, S would have a value experience. Alternatively, one might say: O has value, if, and only if, there could be such an occasion that S would have a value experience. And so forth. (Ibid., p. 274f.) This sheds some light on the vagueness of dispositional concepts, but it does little to further clarify the concept of value. But in the final section of the same essay, Meinong suddenly moves to objective, “impersonal” values, whose existence he denied so fervently in his earlier works: An object has value in this new sense (which has not been taken into account in the preceding explanations) not just insofar as a subject’s interest is directed to it but only insofar as it deserves this interest. To put it more simply: it has value insofar as it actually has that which is to be presented by value experiences, and in this lies the still simpler characterization: Value is that which is presented by value experiences. Naturally, the emotionally presented object as such is no more an experience as the cognitively [intellektuell] presented one. Thus, although value in the sense meant

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here is comprehended through an experience, just like everything else that is comprehended, in its essence it does not have a relation to an experience anymore: it is neither personal nor relative, and thus may well be called an impersonal or absolute value. (Ibid., p. 280) [Emphasis added.]

This is an unambiguously anti-subjectivist conception of values. At this stage, Meinong completely gives up the idea that value feelings are somehow constitutive of an object’s value. Rather, they now become a means of comprehension of values, where the values themselves are completely independent of the value feelings. Value feelings are said to present [präsentieren] values, just as cognitive states (perceptions, thoughts) present objects and states of affairs. Feelings thus get a quasi-cognitive function. To sum up: The position of the later Meinong is plainly objectivist. But the germ of this theory was already present in Meinong’s early value theory. It is present in his claim that people sometimes fail to value things which have value for them, and even more so in the plainly normative conditions which he packed into his dispositionalist definition of value (“favourable circumstances”, “adequate orientation” etc.). These conditions would not make sense within a real subjectivist framework. In what sense should some conditions for value experiences be more “favourable” than others? – Obviously some conditions are considered to be more favourable than others in the sense that they are more likely to yield the correct or appropriate value feelings! And in what sense is a certain value feeling correct or appropriate if not in the sense that it corresponds to an objective value fact? –Thus, Meinong takes from Brentano the idea of correct and incorrect emotions, but without making use of the latter’s dubious concept of evidence. Admittedly, one might wish that Meinong would say more about the “favourable circumstances” for value experiences. But at least he takes a first step towards an epistemology of values that not only provides an account for disagreement, rational debate and progress in the field of values, but also allows us to account for the action-motivating force of value recognition: Since, as we learned from Hume, it is emotions that motivate our actions, if the recognition of values involves emotions, it is not surprising that the recognition of values has motivational force.

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3. Meinong’s Value Objects: Dignitatives and Desideratives In his later writings, in particular in his “Über emotionale Präsentation” from 1917, but also in the posthumously published “Zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Werttheorie” (“On the Foundation of General Value Theory”), Meinong defends his objectivist stance and develops it in further detail. In “Über emotionale Präsentation”, Meinong’s value objectivism is enriched by explicit ontological commitments to objects that can be presented exclusively by emotions. Until then, Meinong distinguished only two basic categories: objects [Objekte] and objectives [Objektive]. The latter are distinguished from the former by their propositional structure. The tree in front of my house is an object; that there is a tree in front of my house (in other words, the being of a tree in front of my house) is an objective. Objectives are very close to what are nowadays commonly called “states of affairs” or “facts”.9 Presentations present objects; judgments and assumptions present objectives. Until 1917, Meinong thought that emotions (i.e., feelings and desires) have no presentation function at all, but rather are just kinds of attitudes to objects or objectives that are presented by presentations, judgments or assumptions. In “On Emotional Presentation”, however, Meinong introduces two new categories: dignitatives [Dignitative] and desideratives [Desiderative]. (Meinong 1917/1968, §11) Dignitatives and desideratives are supposed to be neither objects nor objectives, but entities in their own right. As examples for dignitatives, Meinong names the pleasant, the beautiful and the good. As far as desideratives are concerned, he distinguishes “oughtnesses” [Sollungen] and “expediencies” [Zweckmäßigkeiten]. (Ibid., §11, p. 401) Both dignitatives and desideratives are ideal objects of higher order. (Ibid., p. 392) That an object is ideal means that it is neither material nor mental. Numbers are paradigmatic examples of ideal objects, in Meinong. That an object is “of higher order” means that it is based upon other (“inferior”) objects. A paradigmatic example of a higher order object is a melody. Higher order objects supervene upon their “inferiora” but are not reducible to them. Qualities like being pleasant, being beautiful and being 9

For the sake of simplicity, I do not distinguish here between “states of affairs” and “facts”, although Meinong surely would have done so if he had used this terminology.

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good are based upon other (“inferior”) qualities (probably ultimately natural qualities), such that every object that has the appropriate inferior qualities is necessarily also pleasant, beautiful or good. Analogous considerations hold for desideratives. Meinong’s explications of the concepts of dignitatives and desideratives are somewhat confusing. In the light of his examples and remarks, it seems, roughly, that dignitatives are valuable objects (or properties10), while desideratives are normative facts (that something ought to be done or that something ought to be desisted). However, Meinong emphasizes that dignitatives and desideratives are neither objects nor objectives. Thus, Meinong’s picture seems to be this: Entities

objects (e.g., the red11)

objectives

dignitatives

(e.g., that x is red)

(e.g., the good)

desideratives (e.g., that x ought to be done)

Nevertheless, it looks as if he tries to transfer something like the objectobjective distinction from the intellectual domain to the field of emotional presentation, where dignitatives correspond to objects and desideratives 10

See note 11 on objects and properties in Meinong. Some explanation for this Meinongian wording may be appropriate: Meinong is famous for holding the view that for every (non-empty) set of properties there is a corresponding object that has exactly the properties that are elements of the set. The red is the object which has the property of being red – and no other properties. (See Meinong 1904/1960.) (I disregard here certain modifications of this theory that the later Meinong adopted, important in other contexts but disregarded here to avoid complications that would lead us away from the topic of this paper.) Although there are objects which have only a finite number of properties, these objects do not exist. Meinong prefers to talk about these “incompletely determined” nonexistent objects to talking about properties. Therefore, it is only natural for him to talk about “the good” instead of “the property of being good”. 11

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correspond to objectives. For it seems that one of the essential differences between dignitatives and desideratives is that the latter, but not the former, have a propositional structure. If this is correct, there is, despite Meinong’s statements to the contrary, no compelling reason why one should not consider dignitatives and desideratives as particular kinds of objects and objectives, respectively. Therefore, one might revise Meinong’s picture as follows: Entities objects

objectives

non-axiological

axiological

non-normative

(e.g., the red ...)

(= dignitatives, e.g., the good) (e.g., that x is red)

normative (= desideratives, that x ought to be done)

Note that this is not Meinong’s picture and that it probably even goes beyond what one could rightly call an “interpretation” or “reconstruction” in the usual sense of the words. Rather, it is a proposal to make use of what I take to be Meinong’s basic idea, in a Meinongian spirit, in order to develop something that somewhat deviates from Meinong’s own theory. One might object, however, that neither Meinong’s own picture nor the revised version leave room for value facts (that something is pleasant/beautiful/good). These entities (given there are such) clearly have a propositional structure – just like objectives in general and desideratives in particular. On the other hand, they are clearly no “oughtnesses” or “expediencies”, although one may expect that there are close relations between value facts and oughtnesses, such that if we believe that something is good, this gives us a prima facie reason to believe that we ought to foster it. Thus, value facts neither belong to the category of dignitatives (because of their propositional structure) nor to the category of desideratives (because they are no “oughtnesses”). However, from the perspective of the later Meinong, there is no reason to deny that there are such things as value facts. Moreover, there is no reason to deny, for the later Meinong, that there are such objects as the commanded (the German expression would be

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“das Gesollte”), the expedient, the forbidden etc. However, there is no room for these objects in either the original or in the revised Meinongian picture. Thus, one might propose another revision: Entities objects non-axiological

axiological

objectives normative

(e.g., the commanded)

non-normative

normative

axiological

(e.g., that x is good)

Again, I do not claim that this is the picture Meinong had in mind. But it seems to me that one can make better sense of his dignitatives and desideratives if one integrates them thus into a broader picture. If we put aside the details, it can be said that, from a Meinongian point of view, it is only consistent to assume that there are “value objects” and “value objectives” in addition to non-axiological and non-normative objects and objectives. Even if Meinong’s theory of dignitatives and desideratives is not fully mature, it is one of Meinong’s lasting merits that he has explicitly addressed the nature of those entities that are – from an objectivist point of view – the truthmakers of our true value judgments. 4. Ehrenfels and Meinong on the Value of Past and Other Nonexistent Objects In contrast to both Brentano and Meinong, Ehrenfels defends a clear-cut value subjectivism – at least in the sphere of ethics.12 He defines value as follows:

12

Interestingly enough, in the sphere of aesthetics, Ehrenfels believes in objective values. This partial value objectivism comes, however, with a particular metaphysics of value objects. For more on Ehrenfels’ theory of aesthetic values and aesthetic objects see section 6 below.

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This thing is valuable for me means: this thing is an object of my desire. Value is a thing’s relation to a human desire that is directed to it – a relation that has been erroneously objectified by language. (Ehrenfels, 1893/94/1982, p. 31; original italics.)

Ehrenfels admits that value subjectivism is in conflict with the ordinary language use of value expressions. He claims, however, that the ordinary language use is inconsistent in this respect. He argues that, according to the ordinary language use, an object x may have value at a time t even if x does not exist at t. But, he goes on to argue, a nonexistent object cannot have objective value properties: If value is a […] property of those objects to which it is applied, then it is tied in its existence to the objects’ existence. An object may have value, then, only as long as it exists, and of an object that ceased to exist one can presently only say that it once (namely, at the time of its existence) had value, but not that it still has this value presently, or independently of any temporal determination. (Ehrenfels 1897/1982, §21, p. 260)

Ehrenfels’ argument may be reconstructed as follows: 1. It is possible that x does not exist and x is valuable. 2. It is not possible that x does not exist and x has valueO (i.e., has value as an objectified property). 3. If being valuable is the same as having valueO, then: If it is possible that x does not exist and x is valuable, then it is also possible that x does not exist and x has valueO. 4. Thus, it is not the case that being valuable is the same as having valueO.

Ehrenfels indeed takes it for granted that a thing may be valuable for someone, even if it does not exist (premise 1). (See Ehrenfels, 1897/1982, p. 260f.) On the other hand, he denies that a thing may have value (as an objectified property) if it does not exist (premise 2). (See the quote above.) Ehrenfels can hold both premises consistently, because he considers being valuable for somebody to be an intentional relation (on a par with imagining, being afraid of, etc.), and, as he argues, intentional relations do not require that the object of the relation exists. Premise 3 is not explicitly stated, but is a clear instance of the principle of substitutability of co-referring expressions, and thus one may safely assume that Ehrenfels has accepted it.

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Let us consider premise 1: Is it really the case that something that does not exist may nevertheless be valuable for someone? Ehrenfels gives the example of a late 19th century German nationalist, for whom the Battle of the Teutoburger forest (9 AD) is valuable. But the example is dubious. On closer inspection it seems much more natural to say that what is actually valuable for the German is not the battle itself but rather the fact that the battle had taken place (and had this particular outcome) – and this fact still exists. Even in the light of Ehrenfels’ own definition of value, it seems wrong to say that for the German nationalist the Battle of the Teutoburger forest is valuable. For according to Ehrenfels’ definition, this would be the same as to say that the German desires the Battle of the Teutoburger forest, which would be a very queer desire – even for a German nationalist. An objection to Ehrenfels’ assumption that past (and other nonexistent) objects may have value is also put forward by Ehrenfels’ contemporary Edith Landmann-Kalischer. She accuses Ehrenfels of confusing real value with merely imagined value. One may of course imagine an object’s value, she argues, just as one may imagine the object itself and its other qualities. “But its [the value’s] realization depends on the object’s realization.” (Landmann-Kalischer, 1905, p. 275) To summarize: Ehrenfels’ argument for subjectivism rests on the questionable assumption that nonexistent objects may have value. This, however, is a very weak basis. Like any value subjectivist, he faces the difficulty to explain apparent disagreement and rational debate about values. According to his theory, the disagreement must be considered to be merely apparent: As soon as the opponents realize what value really is, there is no longer any room for disagreement about it. For “A desires x” and “B does not desire x” are not inconsistent; and thus, there is no point in quarrelling about it. Furthermore, there seems to be no possibility for moral progress, for this would require the existence of a norm, such that subjective value feelings and desires themselves could be evaluated as more or less appropriate. But the existence of such a norm is exactly what Ehrenfels denies.

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5. Ehrenfels and Meinong on Feelings and Desires It is, however, not only the patent subjectivism that distinguishes Ehrenfels’ definition of value from Meinong’s but also the fact that Ehrenfels bases the concept of value on the concept of desire, whereas for Meinong the psychological basis for an object’s value is not a desire but a feeling that is (or can be) directed to it. This was one of the main points of discussion between Meinong and Ehrenfels.13 Meinong objects to Ehrenfels’ definition that one cannot desire what already exists. (Meinong, 1894/1968, §5) One might object to Meinong at this point that he ignores the difference between a thing’s existence and a thing’s being at one’s disposal. As a matter of fact, we often desire things that already exist – if they, despite their existence, are not at our disposal. (Think, for example, of the desire for something one sees in a shop window.) This objection, however, would be beside the point in this context. For at any rate it seems true that one cannot desire something that is already at one’s disposal – and yet things that are at our disposal may nevertheless have value for us. This is the point of Meinong’s objection to Ehrenfels’ definition. (See ibid., §6, where Meinong explicitly discusses the role of possession for value feelings.)14 If a thing can have value for me although I do not desire it (if only because the thing is already at my disposal), an object’s value for me cannot depend on my desire for the object. Thus, Ehrenfels’ definition of value is inadequate. Ehrenfels reacts to Meinong’s objection in Ehrenfels, 1897/1982. There, he accepts Meinong’s point and offers a revised definition: We start from the results of our previous investigation that we ascribe value to things because we desire them. This proposition, however, immediately requires a 13

Incidentally, for Brentano this question did not even arise, because Brentano does not explicitly distinguish between feelings and desires but subsumes them under the general concept of emotions. 14 Indeed, neither Ehrenfels nor Meinong always clearly distinguish between the case where an object does not exist and the case where the object exists but is not at someone’s disposal. See the quotation below, where Ehrenfels moves from “One cannot desire an object that one already possesses” to “One can only desire something which one believes not to exist” without any ado.

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qualification: There are things to which we ascribe value, although we cannot desire them – simply because we already possess them. One can only desire a thing if one is convinced of the thing’s non-existence or at least doubts the thing’s existence. By contrast, one can ascribe value to things whose existence is beyond doubt or at least seems to be beyond doubt. […] Nevertheless, a definition of value with reference to the being desired is not only possible but it is the most obvious and natural one. We ascribe value to those things which we either actually desire or at least would desire if we were not convinced of their existence. A thing’s value is its desirability. (Ehrenfels, 1897/1982, p. 253; original italics.)

Later on, Ehrenfels concedes that Meinong’s value-based definition “seems to meet essentially the usual value meaning as well as to harmonize with our desire-based definition” (ibid., §20, p. 254), and – after having made some modifications concerning details, without, however, altering the spirit of Meinong’s definition – he even states: “After these modifications, the [Meinong’s] definition is probably materially incontestable” (ibid., p. 256), and finally he arrives at a disjunctive value definition which admits both desires and feelings as possible bases of values: Value is a relation between an object and a subject which expresses that the subject either actually desires the object or at least desired it if he were not convinced of its existence – or that a maximally clear, vivid and complete presentation of the object’s being causes a state on a higher level of the emotional pleasure-displeasure scale than the same presentation of the object’s non-being. (Ibid., §21, p. 261; original italics.)

Thus, Ehrenfels made considerable advances to Meinong with respect to the feeling-desire question. On the other hand, in his middle period, Meinong concedes to Ehrenfels that not only value feelings but also desires are a kind of value experience. (See Meinong, 1912/1968.) Until then, Meinong had claimed that value feelings are the only sort of value experience. However, Meinong still holds that value feelings are the primary value experience. One of his main arguments for this claim is the following: A miser may desire a treasure – as long as he does not possess it. But as long as he desires it, it has no value for him. It only would have value for him if he possessed it. (Meinong, 1912/1968, p. 272) This argument is ambiguous, however, since Meinong’s miser case may be fleshed out in (at least) two ways. Case 1: The miser desires a treasure

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that already exists but is owned by another person or rests in a treasure chest that has been buried on a distant island centuries ago. Case 2: The miser is not yet wealthy but tries to make a fortune (perhaps by saving his pennies). In this case, the object of the miser’s desire does not yet exist. The difference between the two cases is the same as the difference between a person who desires a house that, say, she has seen out on a walk, and a person who desires a house that has yet to be built. Now, the principle of charity demands that Meinong’s objection is read in the second sense rather than in the first. For if we interpreted Meinong’s argument in the first sense, his assumption that the treasure does not have value for the miser is dubious. Why should the treasure chest the miser believes to be buried on a distant island not have value for the miser – even if he is not yet its owner? Remember that for Meinong a thing’s value is the thing’s disposition to arouse a value feeling in an appropriate subject under appropriate circumstances. Obviously, the treasure on the island may have this disposition for the miser – independently of questions of ownership. Is it not just because the treasure has this value for the miser that the latter is disposed to try to get it into his possession? Meinong’s example makes sense, however, if we interpret it in the second way. In this case, the desired treasure is nonexistent, and, indeed, it seems inappropriate to say that a nonexistent treasure has value for the miser – although it makes sense to say that he desires a treasure. To generalise Meinong’s argument: 1. It is possible that x does not exist, and S desires x. 2. It is not possible that x does not exist, and x has value for S. 3. Therefore, it is not true that x is valuable for S if, and only if, S desires x.

This is not only an argument against Ehrenfels’ original definition, but also against the revised version. Let us consider the latter version again: We ascribe value to those things which we either actually desire or at least would desire if we were not convinced of their existence. A thing’s value is its desirability. (Ehrenfels, 1897/1982, p. 253; original italics.)

One might paraphrase this revised definition as follows:

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(Er) x is valuable for S if, and only if, either S desires x, or S would desire x if S believed that S does not exist (or if S believed that x does exist but is not at his disposal).

Think, again, of Meinong’s miser example. The miser desires the treasure; thus, the disjunctive condition of (Er) is met (since the first disjunct is met). Yet – according to Meinong’s argument –, the (nonexistent) treasure cannot have value for the miser. Therefore, (Er) is wrong. It seems that the essential disagreement between Ehrenfels and Meinong at this point concerns premise 2 of Meinong’s argument, i.e., the premise that something that does not exist cannot have value for anyone. Ehrenfels, by contrast, explicitly claims that something nonexistent may have value for someone (recall his example of the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest and its alleged value for the German nationalist). This is surprising – not primarily because of the content of the debate but rather because of the particular role distribution in it. Meinong is known first and foremost not as a value theorist but rather as the philosopher who believes that there are nonexistent objects – and, of course, for Meinong, nonexistent objects may have properties. (See Meinong, 1904/1960; see also note 11.) Therefore, one would expect that Meinong – not Ehrenfels – claims that a nonexistent object may have value for somebody. But, interestingly enough, it is the other way around. To sum up: The debate between Meinong and Ehrenfels concerning the priority of feelings or desires for the constitution of values seems decided in favour of Meinong. I have argued, however, that this debate is intertwined with the topic of the former section: the question of whether nonexistent objects may have value. 6. Ehrenfels’ Aesthetic Immanent Objectivism Surprisingly, Ehrenfels, the unswerving subjectivist with respect to ethical values, defends a sort of value objectivism with respect to aesthetic values. In a short paper entitled “Was ist Schönheit?” (“What Is Beauty?”, 1906), Ehrenfels defends the existence of “absolute beauty”. However, he points out that absolute beauty is not a property of material objects but rather a

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property of objects of our imagination, “complexes of presentations” [Vorstellungsgebilde], as he sometimes calls them.15 Ehrenfels claims that – in apparent contrast to everyday experience – there are no differences in aesthetic taste among individuals but only differences in the capacities of musical perception, that is, in mental powers, imagination and memory for sound structures [Tongestalten] – moreover differences in the inner rhythm and the inner gestures with which we unconsciously accompany our speech, thoughts and feelings – differences in drives [Triebleben] and even in the development of the senses. (Ehrenfels, 1906/1986, p. 165)

Ehrenfels’ idea is that art consumers form complexes of presentations on the basis of the artworks themselves (i.e., of material objects, such as musical performances, paintings etc.). Distinct subjects may form distinct complexes of presentations based on identical works of art, due to differences in the subjects’ mental powers, imaginations, memory and so on. If two subjects disagree about the aesthetic value of a work of art, this is not because they differ in their respective aesthetic tastes but rather because they have formed distinct complexes of presentations. (Ibid., p. 166f.) Ehrenfels develops this line of thought in more detail in his posthumously published essay “Über das ästhetische Urteil” (“On Aesthetic Judgment”). There, he writes: If, for the time being, we consider only the domain of human art, certainly nobody should, no matter how fervently he defends the existence of something that is common to all beautiful works, assume that this common something is in the external objects, which convey us the artistic impression. It is not the vibrations of air brought about by the instruments to which we apply beauty, but the sound object of our imagination which those vibrations cause in us. […] This is even more conspicuous with a poem that we read. Not the printed sheet of paper contains the beauty of the poem, but the complex of presentations which it arouses in us. In the same way, it is not the painted canvas as such that bears the beauty which we admire in the picture. This will be particularly evident if one takes into account that there are no colours at all outside us, but only fabrics which set vibrating the ether in such a way that it, by means of our sense organ, causes the colour sensations in us. (Ehrenfels, 1986, p. 203)

15

A similar view is defended in Witasek, 1904, and Witasek, 1915.

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Why does Ehrenfels think that beauty is a property of complexes of presentations rather than a property of those material objects which arouse these complexes of presentations? The last sentence of the above quotation hints at an argument that Ehrenfels perhaps had in mind: 1. Aesthetic properties supervene upon sensory properties. 2. Material objects do not have sensory properties. 3. Complexes of presentations have sensory properties. 4. Therefore, complexes of presentations, but not material objects, have aesthetic properties.

Apart from the obvious problem that the argument hardly fits the case of the poem, both premise 2 and premise 3 require at least some further explanation: What is the underlying conception of sensory properties here, and (perhaps even more importantly in this context) what is the nature of complexes of presentations? Unfortunately, Ehrenfels does not answer these questions. It is clear that complexes of presentations are not just complexes of mental acts. Rather, complexes of presentations are supposed to come into existence somehow through mental acts (acts of perception and/or imagination). But are they “immanent objects” (i.e., something that exists only as long as the corresponding mental acts exist)? Or are they rather something like Roman Ingarden’s “merely intentional objects” (i.e., objects that come into existence through mental acts but then go on to exist independently of these acts as abstract and publicly accessible objects)? This remains unclear. Furthermore, in both cases it remains unclear in what sense (if any) these objects may have sensory properties. Value experiences do not play any obvious role in Ehrenfels’ account of aesthetic value. Clearly, for Ehrenfels, aesthetic values are neither constituted by aesthetic value feelings nor by desires. Furthermore, it seems that Ehrenfels does not assume that we recognize aesthetic values by means of value feelings or desires. Rather, he seems to believe that aesthetic value properties are somehow directly perceived along with the sensory (and perhaps other) properties they supervene upon. Ehrenfels spends a lot of space describing the role of imagination in the process of the perception of paintings, sculptures, works of architecture, music and literature. In general, the role of imagination is twofold, he explains: First, we need “recollective imagination” in order to get a more or

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less complete presentation of the object in question. (For instance, in order to have a presentation of a musical work, we need to recall what we have heard before.) Second, we need “creative imagination”, among other things in order to add certain details which have been only outlined or not at all represented by the artist (like, for instance, the back side of an object that a painter shows us from the front side only). Furthermore, we need imagination in order to grasp the mental states of represented persons. (Ehrenfels, 1986, pp. 204–211) Ehrenfels uses his insights into the role of imagination in order to explain the fact that there is considerable disagreement with respect to aesthetic judgments. According to Ehrenfels, different persons have poorer or better developed imaginations and therefore produce different objects of presentation under the impression of the same external objects. These differences may be partly innate but they may also be the result of the environment, conditions of life and a person’s personal development. This is supposed to explain individual, national and social differences in aesthetic judgments. (Ibid., p. 211f.) At first sight, this sounds plausible for many (though probably not for all) cases in point. However, a closer inspection reveals that Ehrenfels’ explanation misses the point. For if the theory of immanent objectivism were right, there would be no room for real disagreement about aesthetic value questions: If person A claimed that x is beautiful and person B claimed that x is ugly, they would – contrary to the superficial impression – not be talking about the same object. Rather, A would be talking about A’s object of imagination and B would be talking about B’s object of imagination, and obviously, A’s object of imagination would not be identical with B’s object of imagination. Therefore, if A says that x is beautiful and B says that x is ugly, both of them may be right. Consequently, there would be no room for a rational debate about value questions. After all, if there is no real disagreement, what should one debate? Second, it would be beneficial to use the idea of the construction of complexes of presentation in order to explain the possibility of progress in the field of aesthetic valuation. Such an explanation could run as follows: We are able to improve our abilities of imagination through exercise and education. By doing so, we get more and more adequate mental represen-

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tations of the works themselves, and thus our judgments about the works’ aesthetic qualities become more and more adequate. Unfortunately, however, Ehrenfels cannot provide himself with this explanation. For according to his theory, our aesthetic judgments are not about the works themselves, but rather about our complexes of presentations. If we take him at his word, he does not consider complexes of presentations as mental representations of the works. Rather, the works themselves are something like props for the production of complexes of presentations – the relation between works and complexes of presentations seems just a causal one. For him, it is the complexes of presentations that matter, not the works themselves. Therefore, there is no room for talk about the “adequacy” of complexes of presentations and it seems hard to make sense of the idea of progress in the field of aesthetic valuations. Summary The early phenomenologists Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong and Christian von Ehrenfels have provided highly original contributions to general value theory. They shared as common ground the cognitivist conviction that there are true genuine value judgments as well as the conviction that there is a close connection between values and emotions. However, they developed a number of quite diverse theories: From Brentano’s theory of evidence to Meinong’s dispositionalist theory, Ehrenfels’ ethical subjectivism and his “immanent objectivism” of aesthetic values. Of these, Meinong’s (mature) value theory is the farthest developed (in particular from an ontological point of view), and it has the best arguments on its side. From each of them, however, there is still something to be learned.16 Literature Brentano, Franz (1889/1969): The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, ed. by O. Kraus, trans. by R. M. Chisholm and E. H. Schnee-

16

My thanks go to Johann Christian Marek for his useful comments.

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wind. London: Routledge, 1969. [German original: “Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis”, 1889, 2nd ed. 1921 by Felix Meiner, Leipzig.] D’Arms, Justin and Daniel Jacobson (2000): “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61, pp. 65–90. Eaton, Howard O. (1930): The Austrian Philosophy of Values, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Ehrenfels, Christian von (1893/94/1982): Werttheorie und Ethik, in: R. Fabian (ed.), Christian von Ehrenfels. Werttheorie. Philosophische Schriften, Band 1, München–Wien: Philosophia, 1982, pp. 23–166. [Originally published in 1893/94.] Ehrenfels, Christian von (1897/1982): System der Werttheorie. I. Band. Allgemeine Werttheorie, Psychologie des Begehrens, in: R. Fabian (ed.), Christian von Ehrenfels. Werttheorie. Philosophische Schriften. Band 1, München–Wien: Philosophia, 1982, pp. 201–405. [Originally published in 1897.] Ehrenfels, Christian von (1906/1986): “Was ist Schönheit?”, in: R. Fabian (ed.), Christian von Ehrenfels. Ästhetik. Philosophische Schriften, Band 2, München–Wien: Philosophia, pp. 155–171. Ehrenfels, Christian von (1986): “Über das ästhetische Urteil”, in: R. Fabian (ed.), Christian von Ehrenfels. Ästhetik. Philosophische Schriften, Band 2, München–Wien: Philosophia, pp. 201–260. Landmann-Kalischer, Edith (1905): “Über den Erkenntniswert ästhetischer Urteile. Ein Vergleich zwischen Sinnes- und Werturteilen”, in: Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie 5, pp. 263–328. Landmann-Kalischer, Edith (1910): “Philosophie der Werte”, in: Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie 18, pp. 1–93. McDowell, John (1988): “Values and Secondary Qualities”, in: Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca–London: Cornell University Press, pp. 166–180. Meinong, Alexius (1894/1968): Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werth-Theorie, in: R. Haller and R. Kindinger (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3: Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, pp. 1–244. [Originally published in 1894.]

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Meinong, Alexius (1904/1971): “Über Gegenstandstheorie”, in: R. Haller and R. Kindinger (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1971, pp. 481–530. [Originally published in: Alexius Meinong (ed.), Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, Leipzig: Barth, 1904. English translation: “On the Theory of Objects”, in R. M. Chisholm (ed.), Realism and the Background of Phenomenology, Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960, pp. 76–117.] Meinong, Alexius (1912/1968): “Für die Psychologie und gegen den Psychologismus in der allgemeinen Werttheorie”, in: R. Haller and R. Kindinger (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3: Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, pp. 267–282. [Originally published in 1912.] Meinong, Alexius (1917/1968): “Über emotionale Präsentation”, in: R. Haller und R. Kindinger (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3: Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, pp. 285–465. [Originally published in 1917. English translation: “On Emotional Presentation”. Translated, with an introduction, by Marie Luise Schubert Kalsi. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1972.] Meinong, Alexius (1923/1968): “Zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Werttheorie”, in: R. Haller und R. Kindinger (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3: Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, 468–656. [Originally published in 1923.] Mulligan, Kevin (1998): “From Appropriate Emotions to Values”, in: Monist 81, pp. 161–188. Mulligan, Kevin (2003): “Searle, Derrida and the Ends of Phenomenology”, in: Barry Smith (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Searle, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 261–286. Mulligan, Kevin (in print): “Emotions and Values”, in: Peter Goldie (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Emotions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, Martha (2004): “Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance”, in: R. C. Solomon (ed.), Thinking about Feeling. Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 183– 199.

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Tappolet, Christine (2000): Emotions et Valeurs, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Topitsch, Ernst (1971): “Kritik der phänomenologischen Wertlehre”, in: H. Albert und E. Topitsch (eds.), Werturteilsstreit, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 16–32. Witasek, Stephan (1904): Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik, Leipzig: Barth. Witasek, Stephan (1915): “Über ästhetische Objektivität”, in: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 157, pp. 87–114 and 179–199.

Facts, Values, Emotions, and Perception FIORENZA TOCCAFONDI

1. The theme of values and the relationship between facts, values and emotions is far from being a marginal interest of the Berlin Gestalt tradition. Significant examples are given in Some problems in the theory of ethics (1935), by Max Wertheimer, The Place of Value in a World of Facts (1938), by Wolfgang Köhler, as well as in Ethical relativity? (An enquiry into the psychology of ethics) (1939) and On Pleasure, Emotion and Striving (1941) by Karl Duncker. Two points characterize the Berlin School and, in particular, The Place of Value in a World of Facts (1938), which was written in the wake of the William James Lectures delivered by Köhler at Harvard University, in the United States, between 1934 and 1935. Firstly, the fact/value dichotomy is weaker than it might appear at first sight. From a phenomenological analysis of experience, in fact, it seems to emerge that values originally derive from the world of facts, where the two domains apparently coexist and, in a way, interpenetrate. Secondly, man is sensitive to values, as he has been experiencing them since his first and most fundamental relationship with the world: his perceptual relationship. As to The Place of Value in a World of Facts, it is necessary to bear in mind that one of the aims of this book, completed by Köhler soon after he emigrated to the United States, was to become part of the overseas cultural scene. Compared to Gestalt Psychology (1929) – also written and aimed at the American public1 – Köhler relied on The Place of Value to pursue an eminently philosophical purpose and he radically and professedly opposed the current trend, which he considered to be the “fashion of the day” on the North American cultural scene: the blending of “modern Positivism” and 1

After having been visiting professor at Clark University in 1925–26, at the end of the 1920s Köhler addressed Gestalt Psychology (1929) to the American public.

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 137–154.

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behaviourism (Köhler 1938, p. 67). The objection to the fact/value dichotomy, in fact, goes hand in hand with a controversy – sometimes explicit, sometimes hidden, but always constant – against the theoretical framework of logical empiricism. Before W.V.O. Quine’s criticism of the analytic-synthetic distinction – which dates back to the early 1950s – the opposition between descriptive or factual (objective and neutral) and evaluative statements was, in fact, a firm assumption of the neo-positivist approach and it undoubtedly proves to be one of the most typical features of this school of thought. Against logical empiricism, Köhler observed that considering phenomenal data to be interesting just because their function is to verify empirical statements, thus conceiving them as neutral and “merely” factual, fits in very well with the foundational ideal of the neo-positivist science. But this perspective – according to Köhler – coincides with an attitude that can hardly not be considered “dogmatic”. This perspective, in fact, “freely” admits experiences as long as they belong to “a particular class, the class of ‘mere facts’” and, by doing so, “it refuses to recognize some of the most essential and general characteristics of experience”. In his opinion, the neopositivist position on the fact/value problem is therefore vitiated at the root, because the conception of experience as being made up of evaluatively neutral facts results from an attitude which presumes to know what the structure of the world “must be” (Köhler 1938, p. 340). As a result, Köhler, who proposed an original interpenetration between facts and values, gave an indication that was in stark contrast with the dichotomy between descriptive statements and evaluative statements, which lies at the root of the stereotype of the neutral and non-evaluative nature of science. At the same time Köhler’s perspective was also very dissonant from the applications of this approach to ethics by expressionism and emotivism. Considering the supremacy of the neo-empiricist approach referred to by R. Carnap, A. J. Ayer, H. Reichenbach and C. L. Stevenson, it is easy to understand why this book by Köhler did not attract any attention in the North American milieu of that period. In 1936, two years before Köhler’s book was published, Alfred J. Ayer encouraged the following reflection in his Language, Truth and Logic. If we make a value judgment on a certain fact or action, we do not add anything to the factual content of a statement describing that fact or that ac-

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tion. Besides, two interlocutors might know about all the empirical facts connected to a certain action and, nevertheless, make completely different value judgments about it.2 Therefore, if one may agree on facts, but may completely disagree on values, it means that facts and values belong to different domains. For this tradition of thought, in fact, value judgments must be considered as expressive rather than assertive judgments: in other words, judgments that do not state anything about the world, but that express subjective attitudes, points of view, sensibility and emotions of the subject. Just one year before Köhler’s book was published, Charles L. Stevenson3, even though he enriched Ayer’s picture, confirmed in his turn that the sphere of values is something profoundly different than the domain of facts and material things, which is correlated with sensory perception.4 This remains a fundamental assumption of Stevenson’s approach: if with the observative terms (such as for instance “blue”, “big”, etc.), we describe some properties of the world, with the evaluative or ethical terms (for instance with the term “good”), we do not provide further physical information on the objects, nor do we describe anything that adds to their physical features. In short, within emotivism (Stevenson’s interpretation included), value judgments do express the beliefs, attitudes and emotions of the interlocutor, therefore, in this sense, they are subjective and do not belong to the world of facts. Köhler tries to fit in this picture by bringing the objectivistic approach to the issue of values typical of European phenomenology onto the American scene. Yet, compared to the latter, Köhler’s perspective stands out for taking an approach which intends to limit his investigation of the fact/value relationship to the primary level of sensible perception. While treading this ground, Köhler and the tradition of Berlin Gestaltism propose an interpretation of perception which substantially extends the kind of properties disclosed by sensible perception. As I shall try to demonstrate, this interpretation proves to be fruitful also in light of the debates on the relationship among sensible perception, values and emotions in the way this was subsequently developed within the cognitive tradition. 2

Cf. Ayer 1936/1946. Cf. Stevenson 1937. 4 Cf. Stevenson 1962. 3

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2. Understanding how the sense of “requiredness” and values become part of the human experience is one of the leitmotifs of The Place of Value in a World of Facts. According to a telling expression by K. Mulligan, we are “struck by values”.5 Mulligan’s perspective is entirely specific and different from that of the Gestalt perspective, but this expression, this loanword so to speak, renders well the idea of Köhler and that of the Berlin School of Gestalt, according to which we are sensitive to values since values strike us already in our perceptual relationship with the objects and events of the natural world. This primary experience of values gives rise to our inclination to being struck by values well beyond the perceptual world. The term “value” is used by Köhler in the broadest sense of the word: besides the values expressed by terms such as “threatening”, “clumsy”, “lovely”, “cruel” and “mean”, by value, Köhler means all that implies a sense of requiredness as well as all that deals with negative, positive, attractive, tempting, or repulsive features of an object, situation, or event. Mainly in this latter meaning, it is obvious that this definition of value has the concept of valence (Aufforderung) by K. Lewin behind it. With this expression, Lewin precisely aimed at emphasizing the value of invitation or obstacle to certain actions given by certain objects, events, and perceptual situations.6 Once defined in this way, values are therefore capable of influencing actions and attitudes of the individual. The question Köhler asks himself is the following: besides the subjective evaluation or appreciation of an object or situation, is there anything else lying at the root of what our values express? Köhler acknowledges that subjectivist theories can explain many of the “value-properties” we concretely see in objects. In fact, it cannot be denied that in most cases it is our state, our interest, or our attitude which cause an object to acquire “new concrete value-qualities”. Just think, for instance, of the value-properties that a hot roast may take on when we are hungry or when, instead, we are completely full: in both cases it is actually the state of the subject that gives “colour” to the object, that makes it attractive, that drives us towards it or not. 5 6

Cf. Mulligan 2009. Cf. Lewin 1926, p. 350.

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Still, Köhler invites us to ask ourselves: is it always so? In other words, supposing that the subjectivist theory proves to be valid in many cases, does this rule out the possibility of situations in which, “besides the self and its interests, other factors could […] create value-properties in certain objects” and “just as objects are round or tall, events slow or sudden, so some [people] have charm, some are ugly by themselves” regardless of our emotional state and our interest or attitude towards them (Köhler 1938, pp. 78-80)? Köhler and the whole tradition of Berlin Gestaltism position themselves in favour of this possibility, namely of the possibility that sometimes an “object may […] have value-qualities of its own” or may turn out to be attractive or repulsive without being invested with any precise interest by the subject. These qualities, or “value-attributes”, belong to “the objective side of the phenomenal field” and the Berlin School of Gestalt theory often calls them “tertiary qualities” or “expressive qualities”. They seem to belong phenomenally to the object regardless of any subjective interest and, at the same time, they are connoted by an emotional component, by a degree of attraction or unpleasantness (Köhler 1938, p. 83, p. 78). Before dwelling on the characteristics of tertiary qualities, it is worth referring to Köhler’s preliminary and constant invitation to burn the bridges with those conceptions that see the world correlated with sensory perception as something consisting of just neutral things or facts on which we project our subjective evaluations. The “subject” of a phenomenological investigation – observes Köhler – is not the one dealt with in the epistemology books, a subject which is essentially nothing but a mental “construct”, an entity that does not exist in the ordinary experience. Within ordinary experience, unlike such “epistemological subject”, we are not at all disinterested observers: rather, we often become part of situations which are pregnant with emotional implications (Köhler 1938, p. 87). The widespread resistance to acknowledging the “perceptual existence” of tertiary qualities stems – according to Köhler – from our way to consider percepts, which tends to be hidden and ineradicable at the same time. According to this tendency, percepts reproduce only macroscopic characteristics and

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qualities of the things and events recognised as such by natural sciences (Köhler 1938, p. 79).7 But the phenomenological investigation shows that the panorama of facts our ordinary experience is composed of is actually richer than the one given to us by a physicalist or physical-geometric description of the world. In fact, experience does not only consist of “merely” factual components, but also of facts, situations, structures, contexts having “a direction or directedness”, facts “in which beyond mere existence and occurrence there is an ‘ought’ or an ‘ought not’” (Köhler 1938, pp. 73, 339). This seems to be suggested by a series of concepts we usually use and which are descriptive and evaluative at the same time. It is on these concepts that Köhler invites us to reflect on. Two massive columns, for instance, seem to be out of place in a building inspired by the canons of elegance and lightness. If “a visual configuration is not entirely balanced a certain part may appear not simple as ‘out of place’, but as ‘a trifle too high’, ‘too much to the left’, ‘too heavy’, and so on” (Köhler 1938, pp. 28, 338). By stating that these columns are out of proportion, it seems like we cannot describe them without resorting to an evaluative component at the same time. The term “out of proportion”, therefore, expresses a concept that is factual and evaluative at the same time. This concept seems to depend, on the one hand, on the way things are and on questions of fact and, on the other hand it must incorporate an evaluative component in order to fully characterise that state of things. Such experiences –Köhler observes again – are far from being neutral; they feature an inner sense of requiredness that shows us how to improve the given situations, by pointing out those changes “which might produce such improvement” (Köhler 1938, p. 338). Therefore, the term “facts” must include not only “mere facts” – that is indifferent facts – but also those kinds of experiences that seem to be impregnated with an intrinsic sense of “requiredness” as well as with value attributes (Köhler 1938, p. 103). 7

Cf. also Koffka 1935/1962, p. 360: “Sensations and their attributes appear as products of a particular kind of organization achieved by human beings in highly developed civilizations, but no longer as the raw material out of which all consciousness is built. We must assume that features like ‘threatening’ or ‘tempting’ are more primitive and more elementary contents of perception than those we learn of as ‘elements’ in the textbooks of psychology”. Cf. also ibid., p. 359.

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This is the case as it seems to be attested also by terms that – in Köhler’s opinion and according to the Berlin School of Gestalt – express paradigmatic occurrences of tertiary qualities, namely of properties appearing as “special value-quality” and that a naive approach does not agree to consider as ascribable to our subjective attitudes: threatening, clumsy, lovely, cruel, mean (as, for instance, a face may be) (Köhler 1938, p. 91 note 27, p. 77 foll.). In Psychologie. Die Entwicklung ihrer Grundannahmen seit der Einführung des Experiments Psychologie (1941), Metzger, in turn, mentions terms such as “vehement”, “placid”, “merry”, “proud”, “gloomy”, “lovely”, “feminine”, “masculine” as examples of tertiary properties (Metzger, 1941, p. 61).8 Referring to the contemporary philosophical panorama, we might state that, in some ways, the characteristics attributed by the Berlin School to this typology of terms are very close to the concepts Bernard Williams calls “thick concepts” in ethics. When we describe a behaviour as noble or cowardly, brutal or brave, we express a value judgment, but at the same time we consider it as something objective that can be seen and not as something depending on how we subjectively see things.9 One of the peculiarities of the relation between tertiary qualities and subjective attitudes emphasized by Köhler, and to which it is necessary to pay attention, is that – according to the Berlin Gestaltism – our subjective attitude does not typically change the expressive characteristics of the object or situation with which we are connected. For instance, the stupidity of a face is a matter, whilst another matter is the attitude I may have towards it. A face expressing stupidity does not cease to express it when I feel affection or benevolence towards it. Similar considerations may also be applied to charm, femininity, or loveliness: the degree of attractiveness or non-attractiveness I witness in recognising such qualities is a matter, whilst another matter is my interest or attitude towards what I describe and evalu-

8

Koffka prefers calling this type of tertiary properties “physiognomic”; cf. Koffka 1935/1962, p. 360. Expressive qualities, Duncker affirms in his turn, concern “that wide range of qualities which are as genuinely subjective traits of feeling as they are objective traits of spatial perception, such as, for instance, softness, fierceness, gloominess, vastness, uproar, relaxation, peace…” (Duncker, 1941, p. 406, note 28). 9 Cf. Williams 1985.

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ate at the same time in this way.10 The non-modifiability of tertiary or expressive qualities by our emotional states and cognitive evaluations is a particularly important point concerning the relationship among perception, emotion and values upon which we will dwell in the next paragraph. It is especially emphasized by Köhler, as it is a characteristic that portrays tertiary qualities as objective Gestalt qualities of the perceptual field, whose objectivity does not differ from the one we attribute to secondary qualities. We experience the element of threat as a property of thunder rather than as a property ascribable to my Self and localizable in that. The analogy between secondary and value qualities is not new at all in the history of philosophy. Most likely, the first one to set it forth was La Mettrie in L’homme machine, and it reappeared, with different purposes and nuances, in Hermann Lotze, Franz Brentano, and Max Scheler. The fact that one may state that value properties feature a type of objectivity similar to that of secondary qualities is however a theme still present today in ethics. This perspective is advocated in particular by D. Wiggins and by J. McDowell11, who trace the objectivity of value properties back to a modification of our ethical sensibility due to our involvement in shared forms of life, experiences, and rules. The specific nature of the perspective put forward by Köhler and Gestaltism consists, instead, in emphasizing that there are value properties in the perceptual field we directly recognise as such without any conceptual mediation, and that their phenomenal reality is not inferior than that which, always on the perceptual level, we attribute to secondary properties. Against this perspective, Ralph Barton Perry – one of the leaders of the American neo-realism – objected that, unlike secondary qualities, all tertiary qualities are nothing else but “misplaced facts of subjective interest”, namely “qualities of feeling” of the subject, projected or located in a place which they do not belong to, that is the objects at which we attribute them (Köhler 1938, p. 82). Köhler conversed with him several times over The Place of Value in a World of Facts and he even dedicated this book to Perry. In the case of red, in fact, there is nothing that, despite all the efforts 10

Köhler 1938, p. 82. Cf. also Koffka, 1935/1962, pp. 360–362 and Metzger 1940 p. 61. 11 Cf. Wiggins 1976/1997 and McDowell 1985.

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we could make, can make us give up the conviction that it is a property of the object in front of me, and that in no way it could be traced back to an attitude or a state of the Self. For this reason we are inclined to consider it as “a truly objective quality”. In the case of tertiary qualities, instead, we may realize – with a proper effort of attention – that, on the phenomenal level, such qualities do not belong to the object, as it may seem at first sight, but derive from the subject. Through a proper effort of attention, tertiary qualities prove to be nothing different from “the correlate” of our “interest-attitudes”) (Köhler 1938, pp. 80–81 passim). Against this argument Köhler claims that it is undoubtedly true that tertiary qualities may sometimes disappear as objective qualities, if subjected to a proper effort of attention, “but it does not follow that their previous existence was in any sense illusory” (Köhler 1938, p. 81). Let’s take into consideration the case of red mentioned above. The fact that colours may be considered as phenomenally objective because they are more resistant than tertiary qualities to be deemed as relational qualities (i.e. deriving from the relation between certain properties of external objects and psychophysical characteristics of the perceiving subject) is not a sufficient argument to assert the illusoriness of tertiary qualities. If a piece of china is hit by a hammer – Köhler observes – it breaks, whilst an iron bar does not. However we cannot state that china is less real or objective than iron for this reason (Köhler 1938, p. 81). Just in this respect, it is worth pointing out that Köhler’s attitude – and this is true for all his epistemological perspective – does not coincide at all with a form of naive realism. Köhler makes this plain. Tertiary properties are relational properties exactly as secondary qualities are. Like the latter (e.g.: a colour), tertiary qualities would not exist without the presence of a subject with our psychophysical characteristics, who establishes a relation with the things and events of the world. In contrast, this fact is not a necessary condition for the existence of any primary property. We are certainly those who “perceive thunder as threatening and the attitude of the beggar as demanding” (Köhler 1938, p. 91, note 27). But the point is that, although they depend on a subject, tertiary qualities – as claimed also by Metzger – “are not experienced as properties or states of the Self”, thus

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showing a phenomenal objectivity on an immediate level similar to the one of secondary qualities (Metzger 1941, p. 61).12 3. Beside belief, judgments, memories, assumptions, and acts of imagination, perception is typically deemed to be one of the cognitive bases of emotions. In the case of perception, it is said that an emotion may emerge because perception tells us something about the world, provides us with some types of knowledge about it – in this sense it is a cognitive basis. But it is necessary to clarify what must be meant by cognitive basis. Within the Berlin tradition, the fact that perception verbs may have – as we say today – a propositional type of linguistic structure is meant exclusively as a consequence of the fact that, through our perception, we do not only grasp single objects, but also events. In particular, the fact that perception verbs might have a propositional structure (“I see that p”, “I perceive that p”, for instance “that a snake is slithering towards me, towards my feet”), does not mean they express a propositional knowledge similar to the one involved in the case of beliefs, if with the term belief we typically mean a state whose content implies the presence of concepts. This point of view, which we might consider today as a clear example of a non-conceptual theory of perception, is especially important in the case of perception of values and emotions. Let’s refer back to a particularly effective example by Köhler, by adapting it to what we are discussing here: the perception of the “rumbling crescendo of distant thunder” is a “menacing” perception in itself (Köhler 1929/1947, p. 144). It is emotional in itself, burdened with an emotional aspect (it is exactly menacing), and these characteristics disclose to me the negative value of what I perceive, cause what I perceive to be negatively connoted, by getting me ready to look for shelter, run inside the 12

Cf. also Koffka 1935/1963, p. 360: words like “horrible”, “majestic”, “enchanting” “describe objects with reference to ourselves. May we then venture the assumption that these characters arise in organizations which include the Ego? This does not mean that they belong to the Ego; we leave them where we find them, in certain objects […]”. “According to our hypothesis, the physiognomic characters – Koffka states once again – […] arise in objects when these objects are in dynamic relation with the Ego, when, otherwise expressed, a state of tension exists between them and the Ego” (ibid., p. 362).

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house, etc. But neither believing the thunder is menacing nor that whoever lives that experience cognitively knows the notion of “menacing” are necessary. In other words, tertiary qualities are qualities directly experienced (Metzger includes them in the general category of the “encounterable”, antreffbar) (Metzger 1941, p. 61), and they do not derive from an attribution of value performed later, and more precisely from an evaluation. As to the relationship between language and experience, the idea that there is a close relation between salient aspects of the natural language on the one hand, and observable structures and properties of the phenomenal world on the other is typical of the Berlin Gestalt tradition. Within this general picture, the fact that the meaning of certain axiological predicates and certain terms of the lexicon of emotions is characterised – as we have already seen – by a descriptive component as well as by an evaluative component is traced back by Berlin Gestaltism to the fact that the objective correlate of the experiences described by such terms has its roots in a phenomenal matter, in perceptual experiences that are characterised by an interpnetration of facts, values, and emotions, by the impossibility to discriminate between factual, emotional and evaluative components.13 As we have seen, Köhler dismisses as entirely arbitrary and phenomenally untenable, the idea of a supposed neutrality of perception, of an originally neutral dimension of experience to which emotions and values would add later. He also went so far as to blatantly assert that it is necessary to recognise the existence of a “pathetic percept”: there are some perceptual experiences which are emotional in themselves and which disclose the value of what we perceive to us (Köhler 1938, p. 91). Emotional experiences – as I have already mentioned in the previous paragraph – are such because objects often have certain “expressive” characteristics on the level of pure and simple perceptual immediacy. 13

The idea is that experience often bursts into the language by imposing its pregnancy and self-significance to it. From this, among other things, that methodological complementarity between linguistic analysis and phenomenological description can be understood. It is typical of Köhler, who often uses it in The Place of Value in a World of Facts. These same assumptions inspire Albert Michotte’s inquiries on the conceptual and linguistic structure of notions such as causality, identity, and unity. In this regard, Michotte speaks of “prefigurations” of such concepts in perceptual facts. Cf. Michotte, 1950, pp. 20–22. Cf. also Michotte 1962.

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Preferentially, Gestalt psychology confines this matter to the primary level of perception, before objects and situations of perception are burdened with even only a conceptual knowledge. But let’s imagine we are under a lightning conductor and I know that, by virtue of the place where I am, thunders following one upon the other in the sky are not dangerous to me. Nevertheless, the thunder usually still looks threatening, frightening. Such a case would nowadays be classified under the typology of inappropriate emotions, i.e., those for which the relation between emotions and rational knowledge is not congruent. In summary, this case is ascribable to that “inertia of emotions” which caused more than one problem to the standard cognitivist conception, i.e., a conception according to which all emotions would stem from a cognitive basis consisting of beliefs and evaluations. In order to cope also with this phenomenon, some similarities between the perceptual and emotional systems were emphasized within the cognitivist literature. According to R. De Sousa (who resumes J. A. Fodor’s terminology on this point), both systems would be “informationally encapsulated” with reference to belief: propositional contents, in fact, are not often capable of directly influencing emotions (as proved by the phenomena of emotional inertia), and this imperviousness to propositional knowledge is exactly one of the most typical characteristics of perception (as shown, for instance, by the several cases of optical illusions, starting from MüllerLyer’s one). For this reason, emotions would be very similar to perceptions. However, they are similar, but only within certain limits, because in each case, perception and emotion represent two distinct mental facts within the cognitivist tradition (De Sousa 1987, pp. 64f, pp. 152f). In fact there is, among other things, an empirical fact that seems to substantially differentiate emotions from perceptions and that at the same time strongly brings emotions close to other cognitive systems such as judgements, evaluations and beliefs: the fact of not having specific sensory transducers. In this regard, although only incidentally, it is interesting to note that Köhler was well aware of both the fact that emotions cannot be considered perceptual facts because they lack specific sense-organs and the fact that this is also the case for values (as already underlined by Hume). He indeed considered this to be one of the main reasons that had precluded the recognition of the existence of a pathetic percept.

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Parenthesis closed, C. Calhoun – very critical of the standard cognitivist position – was the one who mainly drew the attention to the inertia of emotions, i.e. to the cases where – as with phobias – we may be afraid of something, even though we consciously consider it to be completely inoffensive. To explain this kind of phenomenon, and in general the various cases where emotions prove to resist the influence by rational knowledge, Calhoun made a distinction between conscious intellectual beliefs and beliefs stemming from interpretative schemas that do not reach the conscious level. The latter type of beliefs is supposed to bring forth emotional experiences characterised by a type of evidence entirely similar to the one typically belonging to perceptual experience. Even Calhoun, therefore, establishes a similarity between the emotional and perceptual field: as emotions are characterised by a type of evidence similar to the perceptual one – as it typically happens for perceptual contents – they do not always prove to be permeable to rational knowledge. The sight of a spider may therefore trigger a reaction of fear, even though I know that the spider is not dangerous at all.14 As regards such a picture and in virtue of the performances ascribed to perception, the Berlin School of Gestalt proposes a more economic model. In many cases, and more precisely in our ordinary perceptual relationship with the world, perception and emotion do not seem to be two distinct mental facts. As we have already seen, in fact, the properties the perception catches in itself do not phenomenally seem to limit themselves to primary and secondary qualities such as extension and colour. The emotional tona– lity and the value experience are parts of some perceptual experiences that cannot be separated, just as the colour perceptual experience cannot be separated from the extension perceptual experience. Therefore, the emotional tonality and value experience do not originate from an act integrating or intervening on the perceptual content (a reflection or evaluation act), but it is an integral part of the perceptual act. This perspective creates advantages in the case of the inertia of emotions. It is certainly completely inappropriate for those phenomena of inertia regarding emotions that are clearly mediated cognitively, and where the role played by the propositional and evaluative component is entirely 14

Cf. Calhoun 1984.

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manifest (contempt, jealousy, hope, regret, etc.). But – and this is substantially the perimeter of the inquiry of the Berlin School – if we limit the question to cases concerning primary emotions that are more tied to our immediate relation to the world, it shows interesting implications. Stating that when emotions are inert, they seem to imitate the encapsulated nature of perception, since the former like the latter prove to be impervious to cognitive belief15, is a plausible perspective and entirely consistent with the modular vision of the mind typical of the cognitive science. Instead, the solution emerging from Berlin Gestaltism perspective is different: certain emotions do not simulate, do not imitate perception; rather, they are a particular kind of perception. For this reason Köhler speaks of “emotional perception”. The rumbling crescendo of a thunder still appears threatening to us, even thug we are under a lightning conductor, as the expressive property – on perceptual level – remains the same, and, just as perceptual content, it can hardly be changed by belief. The connection of values, of which we are aware thanks to emotional perception, with expressive properties of objects and states of affairs shows some interesting implications. As we have seen, the type of realism asserted by the Berlin Gestalt tradition is not naive at all, and it consists in considering values as properties depending on some, particular properties of natural objects and events (the expressive properties, to be precise) and on the perceiving subject’s characteristics. Therefore, they are relational properties, exactly as secondary properties, with which – as we have seen above – they share the same level of phenomenal objectivity. A certain type of expressiveness and the emotional tonality connected to it discloses to us the value of what we are faced with, thus giving rise to certain axiological beliefs. Just in this regard, what deserves to be underlined is that, in the Berlin Gestalt perspective, the expressiveness of phenomena definitely proves to be unmodifiable, but not the axiological beliefs that take shape as a result of the immediate perception of object and situation value. A task of ethical systems – Köhler, for instance, states in this regard – is to subdue the requiredness and value we originally ascribe to expres–sive qualities “to some principle of selection according to which certain things must secondarily be rejected that were primarily objects of positive required15

Cf. De Sousa 1987, pp. 64 ff.

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ness”, and vice versa (Köhler 1938, p. 339). Schematizing the sense of the Gestalt perspective, we may state that to certain expressive properties originally some values generating certain axiological beliefs correspond, but the latter ones, as beliefs, can be modified unlike expressiveness. Resuming the example of thunder once again, the expressiveness of its rumbling crescendo will always be threatening or dreadful even when it forecasts rain to farmers who have been living in a state of drought for months, but its value, in this case, will be definitely different. Therefore, the position of Berlin Gestaltism is also interesting because it is compatible with value change, a thing that is not consistent at all with the naive or radical forms of ontological realism. 4. Compared to other and better known components of European phenomenology, the analysis of emotional experience and values provided by Berlin Gestaltism (at least of the first generation16) may seem poorer, and in particular – as sometimes it was blamed with – not much attentive to the intentional aspects and stratified structure of experience. A comparison between the perspective of the Berlin School and the one of authors like E. Husserl and M. Scheler (the latter being an author well present, even more than Husserl, to the attention of Berlin Gestaltism17) lies beyond the purposes of this essay. Therefore, I shall confine myself to observing that the analysis of the Berlin School of Gestalt concerning the relation among facts, values and emotions is in the first place contained in the perceptual field. Moreover, it methodologically remains tied to what may be deemed as one of the leading ideas of the type of phenomenology carried out by the Berlin School: the total respect of the “sovereign nature of the phenomenon” (Duncker 1947/2008, p. 39). Inspired by this methodological princi16

The perspective offered by K. Duncker in 1941 is far broader, subtler, and more structured, and it would deserve to be dealt with separately. 17 About Scheler, for instance, Duncker states: “we owe to Max Scheler […] an account of the ‘stratification of the emotional life’ which is enlightening whether or not one agrees with his hierarchy of the ‘sensory’, the ‘vital’, the ‘emotional’ (seelische), and the ‘mental’ or ‘spiritual’ (geistige) feelings – a hierarchy that is a bit rigid and incomplete besides, lacking, for instance, a proper place for aesthetic enjoyment” Duncker 1941, p. 406.

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ple, the first generation of the Berlin Gestaltism commits itself to prove that the interpenetration of facts, emotions, and values is a fact phenomenologically so intrinsic and essential to certain perceptual experiences that speaking of perceptual acts and emotional acts (as happens in Husserl) could result but a perspective hardly harmonisable with such a typology of inquiry. Moreover, the analyses we find in the works of Köhler, Koffka, and Metzger tend to focus on inner facts within certain perceptual experiences and to show why they have certain characteristics: expressiveness, the relation among expressiveness, emotions, and values is dealt with under an objectivist perspective that, however, never results in – as already seen – a form of naïve realism. As regards Köhler’s book I preferentially dwelled upon in this essay, it is necessary to remind once again that he had tried to fit into a cultural context dominated by that ‘great division’, by that rigid dichotomy between facts and values that I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Köhler intended to oust the dichotomy between factual and descriptive statements, and tried to do so by focusing his attention on a ground (the perceptual one) that not only was congenial to him, but that was also the most functional to discuss the theoretical framework of logical empiricism, which was just founded on the neutrality principle of empirical statements and perceptual contents. Köhler’s analysis places itself – as underlined by himself – on a “primary level”, hence prior to values and emotions that “have places of honor” in books dealing with ethics or aesthetics (Köhler 1938, p. 339). That does not mean that – as I tried to show in this essay – the implications of the analysis of Berlin Gestaltism concerning the relations among expressiveness, emotions and values are not the starting point for reflections which are useful and entirely original still today. Bibliography Ayer, Alfred Jules (1936/1946): Language, Truth and Logic, London: V. Gollancz, 2nd ed. rev. 1946. Calhoun, Cheshire (1984): “Cognitive Emotions?”, in: C. Calhoun and R. C. Solomon (eds), What is an Emotion?, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–42.

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De Sousa, Ronald (1987): The Rationality of Emotion, Boston: MIT Press. Duncker, Karl (1941): “On Pleasure, Emotion and Striving”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1, pp. 391–430 Duncker, Karl (1947/2008): “Phenomenology and Epistemology of Consciousness of Objects”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 7, pp. 505–542. [German original version: Erscheinungslehre und Erkenntnistheorie des Gegenstandsbewußtseins, published for the first time in Duncker, Karl (2008): pp. 32–61.] Duncker, Karl (2008): Erscheinung und Erkenntnis des Menschlichen. Aufsätze 1927-1940, H. Boege and H. J. P. Walter (eds), Wien: Krammer. Koffka, Kurt (1935/1962): Principles of Gestalt Psychology, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Comp. (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul: 1962). Köhler, Wolfgang (1929/1947): Gestalt Psychology, New York: Liveright, rev. ed. (1947), New York: Liveright (repr. New York: The New American Library, 1947). Köhler, Wolfgang (1938): The Place of Value in a World of Facts, New York: Liveright. Lewin, Kurt (1926): “Vorsatz, Wille und Bedürfnis (Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie II)”, in: Psychologische Forschung 17, pp. 330–385. McDowell, John (1985): “Values and Secondary Qualities”, in: T. Honderich (ed.), Morality and Objectivity, London: Routledge, pp. 110–129. Metzger, Wolfgang (1941): Psychologie. Die Entwicklung ihrer Grundannahmen seit der Einführung des Experiments, Dresden und Leipzig: Steinkopf. Michotte, Albert (1950): “La préfiguration dans les données sensorielles de notre conception spontanée du monde physique”, Proceedings and Papers of the 21th International Congress of Psychology, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, pp. 20–22. Michotte, Albert (1962): Causalité, permanence et réalité phénoménales, Louvain: Publications Universitaires. Mulligan, Kevin (2009): “On being struck by value. Exclamations, motivations and vocations”, in: Wohin mit den Gefühlen? Emotionen im Kontext, Barbara Merkel, Paderborn: Mentis-Verlag, forthcoming (preprint version: http://www.unige.ch/lettres/philo/enseignants/km/doc/ ValueStruck.pdf).

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Stevenson, Charles (1937): “The emotive meaning of ethical terms”, in Mind 46, pp. 14–31. Stevenson, Charles (1941): Ethics and Language, New Haven: Yale University Press. Wiggins, David (1976/1997): “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life”, in: Proceedings of the British Academy 62, 331–378 (also in Wiggins, David (1987): Needs, Values, Truth, Oxford: Blackwell, 3rd ed. 1997, pp. 184–187. Williams, Bernard (1985): Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A Glimpse into the Sphere of Ideal Being: The Ontological Status of Values ROBERTO POLI

1. Back to Ontology After two centuries of mainstream denial, ontology is back. In fact, the past two or three decades have seen the slow resurgence of ontology as a progressively accepted and even respected field of philosophical inquiry. The beginning of disinterest in ontology can possibly be ascribed to Kant’s decision to omit from the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reasons (1787) some sections that had been present in the first edition of 1781 (for a reconstruction see (Albertazzi, 1996)). It is well known that the first edition of the Critique presents three different deductions (subjective, metaphysical, transcendental) of the categories, whilst the second edition of the Critique considers only the problem of the validity (Geltung) of our knowledge. In short, the second edition views the categories only as logical functions operating independently of sensibility. Between the first and the second edition, the nature of categories is radically modified: according to the latter version, categories no longer depend on the subjective deduction based on the pure intuitions of space and time (especially time). The move from the first to the second edition can then be read as a declaration of failure. As Albertazzi puts it: “Kant found himself trapped in a theoretical impasse – the nature of consciousness and of its acts – which forced him to abandon part of his theory and to concentrate solely on the question of the categorical validity of empirical knowledge” (Albertazzi, 1996, p. 431). In turn, it is obvious that the problems of consciousness and its acts cannot be faced without addressing the problem of temporality.

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 155–170.

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Given these premises, it comes as no surprise to find that the two main ontological readings of the first edition of the Critique, namely the idealistic reading by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, and the phenomenological one by Husserl, are both closely concerned with the problem of time (for further discussion of time and ontology, see Poli, 2009b). Closer to today, ontology has primarily returned as the effort to establish the basic categorial grid of being, the main discussion being focussed on understanding which is the best option among one-, two-, three- or fourcategory ontologies. One-category ontologies are represented by pure trope theorists (Campbell, 1990). Two-category ontologies are represented by those who defend individual substances and individual accidents or tropes (Martin, 1980, 1993) and by those that defend individual substances and universal accidents (Armstrong, 1997). Three- and four-category ontologies accept individual substances, individual accidents and universals. The difference is between those who only accept one and those who defend two different kinds of universal, namely universals for both individual objects and individual accidents. On the latter case, see Lowe (1998, 2006), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1994, 1997). I maintain that one-, two- and three-category ontologies are patently too poor to be acceptable as real ontologies, and I therefore side more closely with the four-category ontologists. However necessary the ontological square may be, it is important to understand that even a four-category ontology is nothing more than the minimal starting point required for developing an ontological framework able to address the many subtleties of reality and our experience of it, not to mention the foundation of natural science (the expression “ontological square” is Angelelli’s; see (1967, p. 9), for a way to go beyond the square, see Poli (2009a)). Apart from the categorial poverty shown by most of the recent ontological proposals, another aspect requiring renewed consideration is the distinction between the main spheres of being. The claim that there are two and only two spheres of being, namely those of concrete and abstract beings, is usually accepted. The former comprises everything that exists in time (e.g. you and me, stones, and subatomic particles), whilst the latter comprises what is outside time (e.g. sets and mathematical entities). Two problems arise, however.

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The first problem is that none of the recent contributors to ontology seems aware, or at least willing to consider – and eventually refute – the idea that there may be three and not just two spheres of being. To provide some minimal data, it is of relevance that the old stoics distinguished among soma, on and ti; Gregory of Rimini (1300–1358) distinguished res, ens and aliquid; Alexius Meinong (1853-1920) distinguished real, ideal and pure objects (on the stoics see Laertius (1925) and Melandri (1989), on Gregory, see Elie (1936), and on Meinong Poli (2001b)). The three types of entity considered by the Stoics are the soma or the individual, effectively existing body, the on or entity, and the ti or something indeterminate. That which actually exists, the genuine object, is only the soma. An entity, by contrast, may well be asomaton or incorporeal. Thus while the soma is subject to the principle of individuation, the on admits at most to some criterion of identity, and the ti admits neither to identity nor individuation. For them the on can be objective without having to be existent, a soma. I leave Gregory’s distinction aside because it is of more epistemological concern. Meinong’s Gegenstandstheorie considers objects from the point of view of their nature. The distinction between complete and incomplete objects ensues. Complete objects, in their turn, are classified among real, those that of their nature can exist, and ideal, those that of their nature cannot exist. The realm of complete objects is the realm of being; that of the incomplete objects is the realm of Aussersein, a realm that cannot be scientifically considered because of its extreme plentitude (Poli 1996). I do not have to settle here the question as to whether there are two or three spheres of being. I only wish to show that there are arguments in favour of the latter option, arguments that deserve to be explicitly refuted, not dismissed by simply refusing to consider them. The second problem arising from the contemporary mainstream distinction between concrete and abstract being is that all authors I have read consider only formal – logical and mathematical – entities to be abstract entities. As far as I know, no contemporary ontologist seems willing to consider values as legitimate citizens of the sphere of abstract entities. In this paper I shall try to show that values are indeed legitimate members of the sphere of abstract entities.

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Before presenting some of the arguments in support of my claim, it is worth noting how misleading the terminology adopted by most contemporary ontologists is. The distinction between concrete and abstract, in fact, is flawed in many respects. To mention only the most obvious defects, the claim that only concrete entities are real entities already includes a possibly reductionist attitude: why should one be obliged to accept that non-concrete entities are not real entities? The underlying problem is not that some entities are dependent upon others in such a way that the ontological weight rests with the latter only (e.g. holes are ontologically parasitical on their hosts). The authentic problem is given by those dependent entities that, although they are dependent, nevertheless increase the ontological richness of the world. The claim that all these dependent entities must be concrete seems to require careful argument and not just a verbal stipulation (see Poli 2001a, 2006b, 2007). Another set of problems concerns the use of the term “abstract” for nontemporal entities. “Abstract”, in fact, is naturally connected with the epistemological process of abstraction, a process with little or no connection to ontology. In this sense, “abstracting” means “leaving aside”, “omitting”. In other words, abstraction is an operation that takes place within a particular universe of discourse. It involves the setting aside of a particular section of the universe with regard to the predicates being considered. Let us suppose that our experience provides us with some basic quantitative information: one apple, two chairs, three friends, four walls, etc. We can continue as long as we wish to abstract natural numbers from the many experiences that we may have, but in this way we will never be able to develop a mathematically acceptable theory of naturals, because there will never be enough experiences to fill in all the natural numbers. There will always be infinite naturals without a supporting real experience. Mathematics requires a different categorical framework, namely the framework based on (1) generating rules (eventually, impredicative ones), (2) their products, and (3) the idealizing condition that the rules have generated everything that was generable. As far as naturals are concerned, the rule could be as simple as “add 1” to whichever starting point is available (nothing or zero is a good starting point).

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For these reasons I prefer to continue with the old-fashioned terminology and distinguish the two main spheres of being as the sphere of “real” being and the sphere of “ideal” being. Finally, my concern in this paper is to show that the sphere of ideal being does not include only formal (logical or mathematical) entities. For the time being, I shall content myself with the claim that ideal being includes values as well. Values will be analyzed in a twofold way. Firstly, values will be studied as ideal entities, regardless of whether they are grasped by any subject. Secondly, values will be studied as internal objects of specific types of experience. We shall see that both frameworks of analysis have their merits in the sense that they are able to shed light on different aspects of the nature of values. I shall show in particular that analysis of the experience of value provides the basis for understanding values as “impersonal” (Findlay, 1961) or ideal entities. Both of the roads that I shall follow in trying to understand values are forms of descriptive ontology: the former being of a more formal nature, the latter of a more explicitly material one (on the differences among descriptive, categorical and formalized ontology see Poli (2003, 2009a)). 2. On the Ties Between Real and Ideal Being Taking the definition of ideal being as timeless being for granted, the contemporary understanding of ideal beings is confronted by three main problems: • Where are ideal beings located with respect to real beings? • What are the internal sub-domains of the sphere of ideal being?, and • What are the relations between the ideal and the real spheres of being? Leaving aside Plato and his theory of ideas, the two main contemporary readings of ideal beings can possibly be summarized as the claims that (A) the sphere of ideal being constitutes the lower-order level of being (Alexander, Hartmann), something like an internal network of relations and determinants that is the starting point for anything real, and (B) the sphere of ideal being is the result of a process of idealization, the ironed out outcome

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of our internal procedures of generalization and systematization. In this case, ideal being is better understood as idealized being (Husserl, Ingarden, Mac Lane). Both perspectives have weaknesses, some of which will I shall soon mention. Before doing so, however, I must sketch the answers to the other two questions. As to the problem of the internal organization of ideal beings, most contemporary analytic philosophy seems to believe that there is only one type of ideal entities, namely mathematical entities (usually sets). If they are right, this paper is completely and utterly wrong. On the other hand, given that in my defence of the claim that there are different kinds of ideal beings I am in the company of a remarkable group of most non-contemporary philosophers, I feel reassured. Even if the question of how many different types of ideal being there are is still unresolved, most non-contemporary philosophers accept the thesis that values should flank sets (or other suitable mathematical entities) as legitimate members of the sphere of ideal being. Provided that the thesis is accepted that there are at least two main types of ideal beings, the first interesting problem arising from this thesis is what else apart from atemporality is shared by the entities included in the sphere of ideal being. In fact, it does not seem at first sight that sets and values have much in common, apart from their both being atemporal entities. On closer inspection, however, something further emerges. Here I consider the following three general features. A fourth one will be mentioned at the end of the paper. First. The overall geography of both mathematical entities and values is unknown. The constant efforts of the best minds and the accumulated experience of humankind have been able to explore some of their territories, and partially to map their landmarks. The overall shape of mathematics and the overall shape of the territory of values, however, are far from being completely charted. Second. Both the region of mathematical entities and the region of values extend beyond the boundaries of real being. Many mathematical structures are far from being exemplified in reality and some will never be. The same patently applies to values. Third – and most intriguing. Both mathematics and ethics claim universality. This is part of their nature as ideal beings. On the other hand, neither

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mathematics nor ethics are able to capture – from their own point of view – the whole of reality. There is no single mathematical model of the world and there are reasons to believe that there will never be one. Similarly, there is no single ethical understanding of the whole of human experience and there are reasons to believe that there will never be one. This last issue is of especial importance from an ontological point of view, because it shows that the universality of either mathematics or ethics is different from the universality of ontology. 3. The Internal Geography of Values Values belong to different families, and not just in the sense that, say, aesthetic values are different from ethical values. A number of further subdivisions can be made within each family. I call a sub-family of values an “atlas”. Atlases comprise mutually related homogeneous groups of values. The realm of values can therefore be seen as a series of atlases (which may have zones in common). Many aspects of values are still obscure, also because we do not know all the relationships connecting the various atlases together. Structural relations depend on how the atlases are arranged, and on their intrinsic strength (not to be confused with the strength of the values composing any given atlas, see below). The values composing an atlas are related to each other according to laws that will be soon specified. Moreover, as said, there are relations among the atlases themselves. As to the organizing principles of values, two of them seem of particular importance: that of strength and that of height. These two principles operate in opposite directions: the strongest values are also the lowest values, whilst the highest values are the least strong ones. Usually, lower values are simpler, while higher values are more complex. The laws of strength and height have significant consequences, the two most important of which are the following: • Violating a lower value is a more serious evil than violating a higher value. • Fulfilling a higher value is a greater good than fulfilling a lower value.

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In Hartmann’s words: Sinning against lower values is ignominious, shameful, revolting, but their fulfillment only reaches the level of decency, without rising above it. Offending against higher values, by contrast, does indeed have the character of moral failure, but nothing of the directly degrading, while fulfillment of these values may have something uplifting, liberating, indeed thrilling about it” (Hartmann, 2003, p. 53).

By way of example: “heroism warrants admiration, but a lack of heroism arouses neither contempt nor indignation”. On the other hand, whilst trustworthiness warrants respect, “a lack of trustworthiness warrants contempt or even indignation” (Hartmann, 2003, p. 450). The strength of a value indicates the gravity of its violation. The height of a value expresses the merit deriving from its fulfillment. Offending against life is a grave offence whilst respecting it has very little merit. But the fulfillment of spiritual goods is a merit much greater than the merit corresponding to respect for more elementary goods. Those who violate lower goods are wicked; but the reverse does not hold: a person who violates higher goods, someone who fails to fulfill them, “is not on that account a bad man; his conduct threatens no one; it merely lacks the higher moral content” (Hartmann, 2003, p. 440). It is also well known from basic moral experience that respect for more elementary goods is often the condition for acceding to higher goods. Structuring by levels is important, not only because it furnishes us with the tectonic laws governing values, but also because it provides us with criteria with which to distinguish, at least in some cases, authentic values from bogus ones. If the architecture of values is based on levels of dependence, then the authentic elevation of value is also divided into levels; it develops through intrinsic stages from the lower values to the higher ones. Although the situation may still lack full theoretical analysis, it is well known in practice. A person whose behaviour is oriented to a higher value, but who does not simultaneously respect the values that support it, is structurally discordant. The higher values to which s/he refers are not credible. Loving with distrust or giving with cowardice are not authentically virtuous behaviours (Hartmann, 2003, p. 456). Values are constructed step by step from the most elementary levels upwards.

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These last observations bring into focus the other side of the analysis of values, namely values as seen by a valuing subject. 4. Values and Emotions It is widely agreed that values are accessed through emotional or egological acts. These are structured in levels of depths, ranging from acts conveying more superficial information to ones conveying more intimate information (Poli (2006a, b). Three different layers can be distinguished. The most external (superficial) layer concerns information about how we sense our body. Feeling cold, warm, just ok are some of the most typical cases. Let us call them sensorial feelings. The next layer comprises information about our moods. Feeling bored, excited, relaxed, angry, and exhausted make up only a tiny section of the rich and highly articulated field of moods. Feelings pertaining to this second group are typically twofold: they have a more bodily-oriented side and a more psychologically-oriented one. By default, they merge, but they may diverge and their manifestation may follow different routes according to a variety of conditioning factors, from social to individual. Let us call this second group of feelings mood feelings. The third and deepest-lying layer is our personal style, the way in which we react to what happens to us. Suppose that something hurts you. You may resist the pain, tolerate it, combat it, accept it, or even enjoy it. Let us denote this third group of feelings with the term character. A character is defined by a number of different parameters (Hartmann, 2003), each of which is a cline ranging from a maximum to a minimum. The first dimension varies from activity to passivity. By “activity” is meant stance-taking or commitment; by ”passivity”, indifference, inertia or apathy. The second dimension centres on the opposition between a person’s strength or weakness. Strength and activity are not synonymous: also passivity may be strong. The stance-taking associated with activity may be strong or weak; and inertia may be strong in the sense of stubborn.

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The third dimension ranges from the capacity to suffer to the incapacity to suffer. The positive valence assigned to the capacity to suffer is signalled by the patent negativity of the incapacity to suffer. The former consists of resistance against the adversities of life, the character’s tempering through suffering; the latter consists of inner fragility. The fourth dimension is anticipation: a more or less broad vision of the future to which the person may accede. In this case, the opposition takes the common-sense form of the difference between a broad and narrow outlook on the future. The fifth dimension is the ability to select goals and to find the means with which to achieve them. I call this ability “purposefulness”. Put slightly differently, and by way of summary: 1. Openness/closure towards the environment and other agents (no agent can be either entirely closed or entirely open, the agent has a more or less porous boundary; openness means taking a stance or being committed; closure means indifference, inactivity or apathy). 2. Self-modification (capacity of the agent to modify its own settings; an agent may be open and have a very low capacity for self-modification, or vice versa; 1 and 2 are different dimensions). 3. Other-modification (capacity of the environment or other agents to modify the setting of the agent; having a character means that other-modification should be set low). 4. Horizon (having broad or narrow views; the windowing of the agent’s future; it can be more or less wide). 5. Purposiveness (ability to set oneself purposes, to choose goals and find the means to achieve them).

A character is defined by the position it assumes along each of these dimensions. Each dimension consists of a continuum ranging from an extreme of value to an extreme of disvalue. Furthermore, each dimension also has points of breakdown where values change directly into disvalues (different from disvalues as complements). Consider the capacity to suffer. It is true that suffering tempers the character, so that the person is able to achieve higher thresholds of value. However, if the suffering exceeds the ability to withstand it, the person is destroyed and the suffering changes directly into disvalue. Note that the various dimensions are different but not

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orthogonal: indeed, a modification in one dimension may reverberate on the other dimensions. Furthermore, behind the structure just outlined there lies the choice of certain values that orient the person from within. These choices concern, for instance, the options between altruism and egoism or between individualism and solidarism. In human beings, adoption of these orienting values is the result of the first phases of the educational process (for further analysis on motivation and the structure of the ego see Poli (2009c). 5. Values as Demands Values as ideal entities do not change. What may change is our access to values. The individual capacity to “see” values changes with age and axiological maturity. Groups and communities change by selecting different guiding values. This latter case shows how historical and social conditionings are at work in shaping the territory of accessible values. The interplay between individuals and the groups to which they belong finds moments of stability in the mutually adjusted selection of shared values. This is one of the reasons why the firmament of values “cannot be peopled by passing meteors, whose place and brightness changes rapidly: its contents must be constant, and must have registered themselves slowly on an exposed sensitive plate” (Findlay, 1961, p. 209). Repeated acts of valuation tend to produce stable or fixed orders of individual and social preference, whose guiding values press to be realized. These values have the ontological nature of demands. They do not work as laws of reality, which in fact comprises both values and disvalues. The demands made by values work in twofold manner according to the already mentioned laws of the strength and height of values. New visions and corresponding behaviours can and usually are rejected, or they may occasionally be accepted and contribute to behaviours shaped by different values. A more articulated understanding of values requires consideration of further laws besides those of the strength and height of values. We find higher forms of value difficult to achieve. They resist our efforts. As far as values are concerned, Christianity’s most important result has possibly

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been the discovery that the path to the highest values entails frustration and pain. Providing that this understanding of values is correct, the consequences that derive from it are of the utmost importance. If the path to the highest values does indeed entail frustration and pain, this means that higher values contain disvalues as one of their structural features. The possible presence of disvalues embedded in the very nature of values (at least of the highest ones) immediately requires specification of the correct proportion between values and implied disvalues. By way of example, there is neither merit nor justification in risking one’s life to rescue a lady’s pocket-handkerchief (the example is Meinong’s). More seriously, for each value, the proportion between values and implied disvalues constrains the degree of disvalue that can be accepted as correct. There are cases in which “it is more meritorious to realize a lower value at a given level of difficulty … than to realize a higher one” (Findlay, 1961, p. 381). 6. On the Relation of Preference Both Austrian schools of value – the economic school of Menger, Wieser and Böhm-Bawerk and the philosophical one of Brentano, Meinong and Ehrenfels – start from acts of valuation. Both schools ground their theories on the relation of preference, interpreted however as ranging between different kinds of entities: for the economists, the relation of preference acts upon choices among goods, while for Brentano preference relations act upon values. The other remarkable novelty introduced by Brentano is that the theory rests on a categorial basis constituted by a theory of parts and wholes. Both these aspects distinguish Brentano’s approach sharply from modern social choice theory (more in Poli (2006c)). In this regard, it is worth noting that while Brentano is well known as one of the foremost Aristotelians of the nineteenth century, it is not entirely clear which aspects of Aristotelian theory he reprised and modernized (for details see Poli (2004)). The three laws of the height, strength and effort of values work together and constrain the relation of preference. The expanded version of the relation of preference is then: A is preferable to B as to their heights, or as to

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their strengths. The asymmetry between strength and height results in two different articulations of the relation of preference, which we can respectively distinguish as the SH-kind of preference (Strength first, Height after) and the HS-kind of preference (Height first, Strength after). SH-preference states: for values at a given level of strength, it is correct to prefer those that are higher. HS-preference states instead: for values at a given level of height, it is correct to prefer those that are stronger. Finally, the third dimension represented by the effort or pain involved in achieving a value should also be considered. For each of the two articulations of the relation of preference, the degree of effort involved should be considered, and the appropriate balance should be sought between levels of effort and the height of the value pursued. 7. Person and Society Different societies and different social groups envisage different regions of values. They “choose” different sets of guiding values. Accepted social values have a bearing on individual values. Socialization is precisely the effort to shape people’s behaviour according to socially accepted norms. Societies can choose whatever set of values they wish and select the values they prefer. They may choose, say, understanding and cooperation, or instead individualism and conflict. Or equality instead of difference. As soon as one comes across anthropological data, one will find any possible combination of guiding values, even the weirdest one imaginable. The important lesson we have learned, however, is that choices have consequences. In fact, there is evidence for both healthy and sick societies (Edgerton, 1992). When the chosen values are dysfunctional, society falls sick and loops of possibly increasing evils develop. Choices have consequences. Societies and persons – like everything else in this world – have natures. Put otherwise, there are universals, human as well as social (Brown, 1991). Both societies and persons may flourish if appropriate choices are taken; otherwise they will decline and fall sick. Choices are free, but they have consequences.

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Sick societies (and morally sick individuals) evidence that there are connections between the real and the ideal sphere of being. The latter does not work as a direct constraint on reality. Ideal entities are not laws of real entities. Ideal laws connect and constrain only ideal entities. This is why each and every ideal law can be violated. However, the network of connections between ideal items is such that its violation reverberates on reality; it has consequences. As far as formal items are concerned, the violation of their laws may imply contradiction, i.e. internal self destruction. As far as values are concerned, violation of their laws may imply a failure of the corresponding real entity: it may block its flourishing, which is again a kind of internal self-destruction.

Bibliography Albertazzi, Liliana (1996): “From Kant to Brentano”, in: L. Albertazzi, M. Libardi, and R. Poli, The School of Franz Brentano, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 423–464. Angelelli, Ignacio (1967): Studies on Gottlob Frege and Traditional Philosophy. Dordrecht: Reidel. Armstrong, David (1997): A World of States of Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Donald E. (1991): Human Universals. Boston: McGraw Hill. Campbell, Keith (1990): Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell. Edgerton, Robert B. (1992): Sick Societies. Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony. New York: The Free Press. Elie, Hubert (1936): Le complexe significabile. Paris: Vrin. Findlay, John N. (1961): Values and Intentions. London: George Allen and Unwin. Hartmann, Nicolai (2003): Ethics, vol. 2: Moral Values. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Hoffman, Joshua, and Gary S. Rosenkrantz (1994): Substance among other Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoffman, Joshua, and Gary S. Rosenkrantz (1997): Substance. Its Nature and Existence. London: Routledge.

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Laertius (1925): Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lowe, Jonathan (1998): The Possibility of Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lowe, Jonathan (2006): The Four-Category Ontology. A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Martin, Charles B. (1980): “Substance Substantiated”, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58, pp. 3–10. Martin, Charles B. (1993): “The Need for Ontology: Some Choices”, in: Philosophy 68, pp. 505–522. Melandri, Enzo (1989): Contro il simbolico. Dieci lezioni di filosofia. Firenze: Ponte alle grazie. Poli, Roberto (1996): “Res, ens, and aliquid”, in: R. Poli and P. Simons (eds), Formal Ontology, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 1–26. Poli, Roberto (2001a): “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality”, in: Axiomathes 12, pp. 261–283. Poli, Roberto (2001b): “General Theses of the Theory of Objects”, in: L. Albertazzi, D. Jacquette, and R. Poli (eds), The School of Alexius Meinong, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 347–372. Poli, Roberto (2003): “Descriptive, Formal and Formalized Ontologies”, in: D. Fisette (ed.), Husserl’s Logical Investigations Reconsidered. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 193–210. Poli, Roberto (2004): “Approaching Brentano’s Theory of Categories”, in: A. Chrudzimski and W. Huemer (eds), Phenomenology and Analysis. Essays in Central European Philosophy, Frankfurt: ontos, pp. 285–321. Poli, Roberto (2006a): “First Steps in Experimental Phenomenology”, in: A. Loula, R. Gudwin, and J. Queiroz (eds), Artificial Cognition Systems, Hersey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, pp. 358–386. Poli, Roberto (2006b): “Levels of Reality and the Psychological Stratum”, in: Revue Internationale de Philosophie 61, pp. 163–180. Poli, Roberto (2006c): “Value-Wholes”, in: W. Strawinski, M. Grygianiec, and A. Brozek (eds), Mysli o jezyku, nauce i wartosciach. Warsaw: Wiedza powszechna, pp. 371–385. Poli, Roberto (2007): “Three Obstructions: Forms of Causation, Chronotopoids, and Levels of Reality”, in: Axiomathes 17, pp. 1–18.

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Poli, Roberto (2009a): “Ontology: The Categorial Stance”, in: R. Poli and J. Seibt (eds), TAO--Theory and Applications of Ontology. Vol. 1 Philosophical Perspectives, Dordrecht: Springer, forthcoming. Poli, Roberto (2009b): “The Complexity of Anticipation”, in: Balkan Journal of Philosophy 1, pp. 19 – 29. Poli, Roberto (2009c): “The Structure of Motivation. A First Introduction”, in: R. Poli (ed.), Causality and Motivation, Frankfurt a. Main: ontos, forthcoming.

Brentano, Marty, and Meinong on Emotions and Values ARKADIUSZ CHRUDZIMSKI*

At least since Hume we have a serious problem with explaining our moral valuations. Most of us – with notable exception of certain (in)famous esoteric thinkers like Nietzsche or De Sade – share a common intuition that our moral claims are in an important sense objective. We believe that they can be right or wrong; and we believe that if they happen to be right, then they are binding for each human being conducting a similar action in similar circumstances. Now Hume drew our attention to the fact that our valuations do not follow from descriptions of the actions in question. There seems to be nothing in the “descriptive content” of the world around us that could make them true or false and in face of that it becomes very puzzling how they ever could be right, objective or committing. As we all know Hume’s solution proclaims emotions as the basis of our moral valuations. Calling something right or wrong should be in the first place understood as an expression of our emotional attitude toward it. This move explains a part of the initial puzzle, but it also leaves us with a certain unpleasant consequence. It seems that in the strict sense emotions could be neither rational nor true, and consequently we can hardly imagine any conclusive moral argument. De gustibus non disputandum est. Our feeling of objectivity vis à vis our moral valuations has to be classified as a kind of illusion and what follows is a kind of moral relativism or scepticism. Some philosophers are happy with this conclusion, but some others find it untenable. Brentano and his followers belonged to the second group. They generally *

I should like to thank Robin Rollinger for brushing up my English. The work on this paper was financially supported by the Austrian Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Research (FWF).

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 171–189.

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accepted Hume’s claim that emotions constitute the basis of our moral valuations but developed interesting strategies to avoid his relativistic conclusions. 1. No Satisfaction: Brentano’s theory of Intentionality Hume has shown that our valuations do not follow from the description of the relevant parts of the world.1 The simplest explanation of this observation is a theory to the effect that in the world around us there is literally nothing that could justify our value claims. According to this view the world as such is “purely descriptive”. It contains no axiological or normative aspects. Nothing can make our value claim true. This was of course also Hume’s view. Precisely for this reason he sees emotions as the only foundation of our valuations. Let us call the claim that the world around us contains no truth-makers for our valuations the No Satisfaction Hypothesis. Franz Brentano in his official, published works accepts it without further ado.2 Nonetheless, he doesn’t agree with Hume’s sceptical conclusion. According to Brentano the fact that there are no truth-makers for our value statements doesn’t conflict with the view that these statements could be objectively right and wrong. To understand how such a view could be possible we have to make a short detour to describe Brentano’s theory of intentionality and in particular his theory of emotion. There are, according to Brentano, three main classes of mental phenomena: presentations, judgements, and emotions (or phenomena of “love and hate” as he calls them). Presentations3 constitute the most primitive level of our mental life. A presentation is a mental act of having something (an object) before one’s mental eye, or a mental act of being rudimentarily intentionally directed at something. It is important to stress that in light of this theory every presentation has an object. It makes no difference whether 1

See Hume 1739/40, vol. II, p. 245f. In section 3 we will see that in his lectures he also tested other views which proved to be particularly inspiring for his students. 3 I use here traditionally the word “presentation” for Brentano’s “Vorstellung”. Some (e.g. Peter Simons) propose to translate it as “idea”. 2

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there is something in the real, transcendent world that “corresponds” to the presentation in question or not. Even if we imagine Santa Claus and at the very same time are convinced that he doesn’t exist, we are still able to describe what we are just imagining. In this sense Brentano says that every presentation has its immanent object.4 I won’t go here into details of the ontology of immanent objects. Let me only mention that the young Brentano tended to an ontologically parsimonious, conceptualist version of this doctrine, while in his middle period (roughly 1874–1900) we find an ontologically robust interpretation.5 Judgements and emotions are interpreted by Brentano as “higher-order” mental states. They are built on presentations and take their objects. The difference between a higher order mental state (a judgement or an emotion) and a presentation consists thus not in a new object, but in a new mental modus by means of which the same object is apprehended. A judgement is a kind of mental “acceptance” or “rejection” of an object. Roughly a positive judgement accepts its object as existing and a negative one rejects it as non-existing. An emotion is a similar mental acceptance or rejection, but this time the acceptance or rejection has emotional character. A positive emotion accepts its object emotionally as good, nice or pleasant while a negative one rejects it emotionally as bad, ugly etc. If we are prepared to use the words “love” and “hate” in the possibly broadest sense, we can adopt Brentano’s terminology and label these positive and negative emotional modi “phenomena of love and hate”. An important point is that in the light of this theory neither judgements nor emotional phenomena need any new objects that would be structurally different from the objects of underlying presentations. In particular Brentano introduces at this point no entities resembling propositions or states of affairs that are often postulated as correlates of grammatically closed sentences. From the standpoint of ontological parsimony it is doubtless a nice feature of Brentano’s theory that it has no need for such “propositional entities”. 4

See Brentano 1874/2008, p. 106. The ontologically robust version of the theory of immanent objects can be found in Brentano 1891/1980. Cf. also Chrudzimski 2004, chapter 3. For Brentano’s early theory see Chrudzimski 2004, chapter 2.

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This was at least Brentano’s “official” doctrine as documented in his published works. In section 3 I am going to take into consideration theories developed in his unpublished lectures that give us a different picture of intentionality, but for the time being let me cling to Brentano’s “official” views. According to this non-propositional theory of intentionality the structure of an intentional state looks like this: judgement or emotion

+/–

presentation

subject

immanent object

The subject on the left has an immanent object before his mind. As said above this object is provided solely by the act of presentation. Judgements and emotions do not change objects but only apprehend them through some binary (theoretical or emotional) mental modi (+/–). In the limited scope of this paper it is impossible to investigate the question whether the Brentanian program of reducing all propositional entities to nominal objects plus mental modi of acceptance and rejection has any chance of success. Let me only stress that for the proper functioning of this program it must be possible to transfer all the complexity of propositional entities into the nominal objects of presentations. Let me explain what I mean. According to Brentano each predication must be in principle translatable into existential form “A exists / A doesn’t exist”. It goes without saying that in most cases the resulting nominal phrase “A” will be quite complicated. Consider the following sentence: (1) A pink rat under my table is very angry.

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Its Brentanian translation will be: (2) There is a very angry pink rat under my table,

or (3) A very angry pink rat under my table exists.

According to Brentano translations (2) or (3) give us a notation that is ontologically more perspicuous than the original sentence (1). They make clear that all we need to explain the semantics of this sentence is a nominal object (a very angry pink rat under my table) and the mental modus of acceptance expressed by the word “exists” or “there is”. This was Brentano’s story. But should we believe him? The matter is controversial. Philosophers like Wittgenstein or Meinong would argue that the entity referred to by the nominal phrase “a very angry pink rat under my table” is so complicated that it must involve a structure that is exactly as rich as the original propositional content that a pink rat under my table is very angry. They would conclude that a very angry pink rat under my table is in fact a kind of disguised state of affairs. If they are right, then the Brentanian translation gives us no genuine ontological reduction. In this paper I won’t even try to decide this question. I just want to warn the reader that Brentano’s promise of ontological parsimony should be carefully checked.6 2. All You Need is Love: Brentano’s Theory of Right Emotion Now what about the correctness or incorrectness of our judgements and emotions? Let me begin with the question of a correct (or true) judgement. The classical view says that a judgement is true exactly in case if it “corresponds” to reality. This idea could be easily applied to our scheme. Recall that according to Brentano a judgement is an existential acceptance or rejection of an object. What would be easier than to say that a positive judgement is true if and only if its object exists and a negative one is true if it is not the case? 6

For the record: I happen to believe that Meinong and Wittgenstein were right.

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It would indeed be a possible solution, but Brentano doesn’t adopt it. Instead he defines truth epistemically as a kind of idealised justifiability.7 The maximal grade of epistemic justification is in Brentano’s epistemology evidence; and a true judgement is defined as a judgement that would be also judged by someone who judges with evidence.8 Brentano’s motivation for this redefinition of the concept of truth has to do with his concept empiricism (i.e. with the view that all our concepts have its source in experience). Brentano argued that there is no experience from which the concept of truth could be abstracted other than the experience of an evident judgement. To understand that the only access to “the truth” that we can have is through a justified judgement, it is enough to observe that to know a truth is in fact nothing else then to have a justified belief (in Brentano’s terminology: an evident judgement). The best concept of truth that is accessible to a human being is therefore the concept of an idealized epistemic acceptability.9 This epistemic interpretation of truth, which by the way is characteristic to all contemporary antirealists and pragmatists, make it possible to dis7

Sometimes it is claimed that the epistemisation of the concept of truth was characteristic only for the late Brentano (cf. e.g. Srzednicki 1965), but in fact the epistemic construal of truth prevails in all periods of his philosophy. Cf. Chrudzimski 2001a, chapter 2. 8 Cf. “Es läuft dies alles eigentlich auf nichts anders hinaus als darauf, dass die Wahrheit dem Urteile des richtig Urteilenden zukommt, d.h. dem Urteile dessen, der urteilt, wie derjenige darüber urteilen würde, der mit Evidenz sein Urteil fällt; also der das behauptet, was auch der evident Urteilende behaupten würde.” Brentano 1930, p. 139. 9 The argumentation of this kind is characteristic also to the majority of contemporary anti-realists and pragmatists, who typically find the realist concept of truth either “occult” or “empty”. Cf. “To say that truth is ‘correspondence to reality’ is not false but empty, as long as nothing is said about what the ‘correspondence’ is. If the ‘correspondence’ is supposed to be utterly independent of the ways in which we confirm the assertions we make (so that it is conceived to be possible that what is true is utterly different from what we are warranted in taking to be true, not just in some cases but in all cases), then the ‘correspondence’ is an occult one, and our supposed grasp of it is also occult.”, Putnam 1995, p. 10. “[T]he notion of truth, when it is introduced, must be explained, in some manner, in terms of our capacity to recognize statements as true, and not in terms of a condition which transcends human capacities.”, Dummett 1976, p. 116. On the epistemisation of the concept of truth cf. also Chrudzimski 2001b and Chrudzimski 2008.

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pense with the notion of satisfaction and that of truth-maker. The concept of correctness of a judgement is defined not by relation to some external reality but instead by relation to our epistemic procedures of justification. Now what about emotional phenomena? It is easy to see that a similar technique can be directly applied to them. All we have to do is to introduce a correlative notion of emotional evidence or emotional justificatory procedures. If we do that, we will be able to speak of a correct emotion without postulating any objective values in the world. This was indeed the way proposed by Brentano in his On the Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong.10 In this important lecture he claims that the notion of a correct emotion is not to be defined by any relation to objective values magically attached to the objects in the external world. We have to proceed exactly the other way round: an object is valuable if and only if it is a possible target of a correct love;11 and as we have an emotional analogue of evidence (let’s call it “evidence*”) applicable to our emotions, we can define a correct emotion as an emotion that could be had with evidence*. According to Brentano all you need to explain our valuations is thus (correct) love. What we get in the end of the day is a kind of anti-realist, conceptualist approach. The answer to the question what is right and wrong depends not on any objective structures in the external, mind independent world, but rather on the justifiability of our value claims. The truth of our normative claims is grounded not in mind independent truth-makers, but in the inner logic of our normative discourse. 3. If You Ask Me How I Knew, My True Love Was True: Marty’s Truth-Makers for Emotions Brentano’s epistemic construal of the concept of truth (and generally of the concept of satisfaction for various mental acts) is doubtless very attractive. There are however exactly as strong realist intuitions that move many philosophers to define truth (or satisfaction) as a kind of correspondence with reality. It seems that Brentano himself was somehow undecided at this 10 11

Brentano 1889/1955. Cf. Brentano 1889/1955, p. 19.

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point. True enough the theory of intentionality that we find in all his published works looks in relevant aspects as described above. It contains always (i) a non-propositional account of judgements and emotions and (ii) epistemisation of the concept of truth. But in Brentano’s unpublished Logic Lectures from his Würzburg and Vienna periods12 we find a different theory of intentionality. Brentano says there that every judgement and every emotional phenomenon produces its own immanent entity that is structurally more complex than the immanent object of the underlying presentation. Compare the following passage from the mentioned Logic Lectures: Like names, assertions too have a double reference: (a) to the content of a psychical phenomenon as such; (b) to a putative external object. The first is the meaning. The phenomenon at issue in this case is however not a presentation, but a judgement. The judged as such is the meaning. Similarly in the case of the request: the desired as desired is the meaning. Because [in the case of a judgement] that which mediates the reference to the putative object is a different type of phenomenon, we designate it differently, calling it not a naming, but rather an announcing [ein Anzeigen]. The announced [das Angezeigte] is that which is accepted or rejected. We can call it indication [andeuten] or counter-indication [abdeuten] (and for the latter we can speak also of an indication of non-being).13

No doubt this passage is little bit cryptic and it leaves room for various interpretations, but it seems that Brentano anticipated here later ontological doctrines of Sachverhalte and Objective proposed by Stumpf and Meinong. Brentano himself called entities of this kind contents (Inhalte). The judgment contents are referred to by phrases like: “accepted object” or “rejected object”, while the contents of emotional phenomena are called: “desired object” / “undesired object”. On other places Brentano introduced also transcendent correlates of judgements and emotions that can function as truth-makers for the corresponding mental acts. He called them “be12

Manuscript EL 80. According to Franziska Mayer-Hillebrand these lectures are from the second half of the 1880’s, but the resent research of Robin Rollinger (personal communication) suggests that the basic layer of this manuscript is from the winter semester of the 1869/70. 13 Brentano Ms. EL 80, p. 36. Cf. also Chrudzimski 2001, pp. 62–66.

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ing/non-being of an object” or “a good/bad object”.14 The scheme of an intentional state complicates thus to the following form:

judgement or emotion

+

immanent content

transcendent content

accepted / rejected

existent / non-existent

desired / undesired

good / bad

presentation

immanent object subject

transcendent object correspondence

We have here a kind of three level theory of intentionality. When moving from left to right we encounter (i) mental acts, (ii) their immanent contents, and (iii) corresponding transcendent entities. According to Brentano’s semantics outlined in the Logic Lectures a particular act of speech express (gibt kund) the appropriate mental act, means (bedeutet) the corresponding immanent content, and refers to (nennt) the appropriate transcendent entity. In case of judgements and emotions both immanent and transcendent contents are to be construed as propositional entities. As said above Brentano refers to them typically by phrases like “an accepted / rejected A” or “an existence / non-existence of A” but obviously they can be exactly as well described by that-clauses like “that A is accepted / rejected” or “that A exists / doesn’t exist”. A similar complication appears within the framework of emotional intentionality. On the side of immanent entities we have a desired / undesired A and on the side of transcendent entities a good / bad A.

14

Cf. Brentano 1889/1930.

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Also in this case we can easily rephrase this in terms of that-clauses: “that A is desired / undesired” or “that A is good / bad”. This is a kind of irony of history that not the parsimonious ontology of intentionality described in sections 1 and 2 but the ontologically robust scheme from the present section proved to be particularly inspiring for Brentano’s students.15 It enjoyed in his school a status of “the standard view”. Many works of Stumpf, young Meinong and young Husserl take this picture for granted and develop their theories on its basis. Anton Marty also accepted this scheme in his works from 1884–1904.16 Latter he rejected all immanent entities17, but insisted on the indispensability of transcendent propositional contents. He argued that without them we could explain neither the objectivity of our true judgements, nor that of our right emotions.18 He says explicitly that beside states of affairs (Sachverhalte) that can make true our beliefs we need also states of values (Wertverhalte) as an objective basis for the correctness of our emotions.19 The No Satisfaction Hypothesis, that was crucial for Brentano’s official view, has been hereby rejected. Concerning the epistemisation of the concept of truth Marty parts thus company with his teacher. According to him truth couldn’t be defined in terms of evidence.20 If the notion of truth should retain its objectivity, we have to introduce mind independent truth-makers in the objective world. In application to the emotional intentionality this means: If there should be such thing as an objectively right emotion at all, then there must be objective values in the world as well. This turn to the objective values, initiated in Brentano’s lectures, was crucial for the later development of the whole phenomenological tradition with its extreme in Max Scheler’s theory of objective material values. 15

The late Brentano, who became a partisan of a very extreme kind of reism, had to struggle with his students who still defended his own earlier views. 16 Cf. e.g. Marty 1884, p. 301; Marty 1892, pp. 145 f., 148 f., 155; Marty 1901, p. 233; Marty 1903/4, p. 57. 17 Cf. Marty 1908, p. 336. 18 On Marty’s theory of intentionality cf. Chrudzimski 2005, chapter 3. 19 Cf. Marty 1908, p. 370. 20 According to Marty an epistemic construal of truth gives us only a criterion, but not a proper definition of truth. Cf. Marty 1908, p. 302.

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Brentano’s official antirealism has been replaced by an ontologically robust approach postulating mind independent “normative facts” in the external world. It is no surprise that this kind of ontology strikes many philosophers as extremely baroque. It functioned also as a convenient basis for moral intuitionism that nowadays is rather in disrepute. Therefore it is important to note that this kind of moral objectivism is neither contained in, nor implied by Brentano’s original program as presented in his On the Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. What we find there is an ontologically parsimonious conceptual approach. To be sure the price for this ontological parsimony is, as we have seen, the primitivity of some normative concepts (like the concept of rightness or evidence of a mental state) which can be easily defined within the framework of a richer ontology. This is up to you which disadvantage will appear to you as more expensive. 4. So Easy to Love: Marty on Supervenience of Values Whether we accept objective values of Marty-style or not, sooner or later we will face anew the problem of a puzzling relationship between the “descriptive content” of a given situation and its “value-properties”. Hume demonstrated that no normative claims follow from a pure description, but G. E. Moore observed that in spite of that for every situation there seems to be a strict correlation between its descriptive properties and the normative truths about it. To understand the matter just imagine a world that is descriptively exactly as ours (let’s call it “the twin world”) and ask if it is possible that certain things that are bad in our world (say the existence of Auschwitz or the fact that many people suffer hunger) were not bad in the twin world. According to Moore the obvious answer is: “no”. Situations that are descriptively alike are bound to be alike in their normative aspects. So we have a new puzzle: on the one hand it seems that the normative properties of a given world are not logically inferable from its descriptive properties, but on the other hand they seem to be somehow “generated by”, “founded on”, “emanated from” or “forced by” them. In the nowadays fashionable technical jargon relationships of this puzzling sort are often called supervenience. In this terminology the Moore thesis could be ex-

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pressed as follows: Normative properties of a given situation supervene on its descriptive properties. If we accept Brentano’s claim that the goodness of a given object consists in its being a possible target of a correct love, then this supervenience principle would mean that there are in the world some objects which, on the ground of their descriptive properties, are as it were “easier to love” then the others. For a philosophically not biased common-sense it sounds quite reasonably. This supervenience thesis mashes well with Marty’s overall ontological views. Marty divides his ontological universe into two parts. On the one hand we have (i) real entities, like human beings, apples and cats, on the other hand there are (ii) non-real ones like space and time, collections of objects, or relations. All propositional contents we have spoken about above belong to Marty’s non-real entities. It is important to note that the non-reality of a given entity doesn’t mean for Marty that the entity in question is in any sense ontologically “weaker” or “insignificant”. Marty says that non-real entities exist in exactly the same sense as real objects.21 He doesn’t introduce ontologically noncommitting (or less-committing) “meinongian” modes of being. The state of affairs that snow is white exists thus in exactly as strong sense as the snow itself; and the state of affairs that snow is black doesn’t exist at all, exactly like witches and centaurs. Nonetheless there are important differences in the nature of real and non-real entities. Only real entities, according to Marty, are “substantial” in the sense that they exhibit causal powers and real coming into being and passing away. Non-real entities are in contrast “unsubstantial” and “powerless”. Their coming into being and passing away is purely epiphenomenal. The state of affairs that John wears a nice shirt comes into being exactly in case when John has a certain property (the property of wearing a nice shirt, of course) and the state of affairs that snow is white will persist exactly as long as snow retains its characteristic colour property. A change in the domain of non-real entities is thus possible only in a dependence on the changes of “underlying” real entities. From the ontological point of

21

Cf. Marty 1908, p. 323.

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view such a change is only a kind of shadow cast by a change in the underlying reality.22 In application to the objective values (or “states of values” as Marty would say) this means that all values attached to the objects in the world that provide us with truth-makers for our right emotions supervene on descriptive properties of these objects. If a particular object (say a certain particular country being democratic, well developed, etc.) is good (read: is a good thing to have or to bring about), then its goodness must be a function of its descriptive properties listed above. Needless to say, Hume’s problem demonstrates that there is no simple explanation how the descriptive properties in question generate the normative ones, but the brute fact of such a generation is hardly questionable. 5. Give Me a Reason to Love You: Meinong’s Theory All the philosophers referred to so far accept the general thesis: all you need is love. The only basis we can find for our valuations lies, according to them, in our emotional acts. Of course there are deep differences concerning their interpretations of emotional phenomena. For Hume there was no question of their objective rightness or wrongness and the consequence was a kind of moral relativism. The official Brentano insisted on the objective soundness of ethics and introduced the emotional evidence* as a primitive concept. Marty introduced mind independent states of values in the role of truth-makers for our emotions. But the thesis that the emotional intentionality is the only thing that counts as a basis of our valuations remained untouched. In this sense they all believed that love is all you need. The late Meinong rejected this claim.23 His reasons are deeply entrenched in his ontology (or better: his theory of objects). I have no space to describe it here in details24, so let me mention only a few main points. As you probably know Meinong was the philosopher who believed that there

22

As Marty says non-real entities have only a kind of co-becoming (Mitwerden). Marty 1908, p. 318. 23 In this paper I am interested only in the late (or “mature”) theory of Meinong. 24 An interested reader should consult Chrudzimski 2007.

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are objects that don’t exist.25 There are many possible interpretations of this puzzling claim26, but in this paper I just assume dogmatically that it amounts to introduction of an ontologically non-committing quantification. In Meinong’s universe there is literally everything. Beside cats and dogs there are golden mountains, centaurs, and round squares. All these entities are in Meinong’s sense and some of them also exist. The part of Meinong’s universe containing existing objects can be roughly identified with the totality of our “actual” world. We see that this picture resembles ontologies of possible worlds that are so fashionable nowadays (with the exception that in Meinong’s universe you can find also impossible objects). In Meinongs universe we can find not only objects of the nominal form but also many propositional entities like states of affairs (Meinongs objectives) and states of values (Meinongs desideratives and dignitives). But while among states of affairs there are both existing (obtaining) and nonexisting (non-obtaining) ones27, no state of values can ever exist. According to Meinong this is a part and parcel of the ontology of desideratives and dignitives that they couldn’t exist or obtain like states of affairs.28 The consequence of this view is that in Meinong’s world states of values cannot function as truth-makers for our correct valuations. The state of values that it is a good thing when every child has to work in a mine to survive will be, according to Meinong, exactly as non-existing as the state of values that it is a good thing when every child is well educated and respected by its parents. Consequently we cannot take Marty’s route and explain the incorrectness of the first and the correctness of the second valuation by reference to the existence or non-existence of the corresponding state of values. To repeat: In Meinong’s universe both states of values are bound to be non-existing. So what should we do? According to Meinong we should refer to a state of affairs corresponding directly to a judgement that explicitly predicates a value on an object. Until now I simplified our discussion a little and spoke 25

Cf. Meinong 1904, p. 490. Cf. Chrudzimski 2007, chapter 8. 27 In Meinong’s terminology actual nominal objects exist while actual states-of-affairs obtain (bestehen). There is, however, no deep ontology behind this terminological distinction. 28 Cf. Meinong 1917, p. 405. 26

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as if the states of values of Marty’s sort could be directly expressed by phrases: “That A is good / bad”. This is not quite correct. What the phrase “That A is good / bad” expresses is not a state of values, but rather a state of affairs corresponding to a normative judgement: “A is good / bad”. An emotion should be expressed rather as “I like / dislike A” and for the corresponding state-of-values we need a special symbol that will function as a kind of a modal operator. I will simply write “[Good:]” or “[Bad:]” before the given propositional content. To be precise even the phrase: “I like / dislike A” is not a correct expression of emotion directed at A. “I like / dislike A” is rather a kind of self-description expressing a belief concerning ones own mental states. In our language we have no direct linguistic means to express emotions.29 We need here again a kind of modal operator (let me use this time the symbol “
/ ”). To explain relations between these expressions and corresponding states of affairs and states of values consider the positive emotion and the corresponding value judgement directed at respecting human rights. The following table summarises our discussion: Mental state Emotion:
human rights are respected

Corresponding entity State of values: That [Good:] human rights are respected Normative judgement: Normative state of affairs: It is a good thing when human That it is a good thing when human rights are respected rights are respected According to Meinong neither a correct emotion, nor the corresponding state of values can function as a sufficient basis for our valuations. We need in addition an explicit value judgement, because only judgements can be made true by mind independent propositional entities. In this sense

29

This is the general problem with expressing “illocutionary forces” like assertion, wish, etc. Typically they are expressed either by means of extra-linguistic contextual features (intonation, gesture) or by a kind of self-descriptive preambles like “I believe…”, “I want…” etc.

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Meinong is not romantic at all. If our love has to have any axiological relevance, we always need a reason for it. But on the other hand also in Meinong’s eyes each value judgement will be still based on the corresponding emotion. In order to make a value judgement we must have an appropriate value predicate at our disposal. But the only place where such predicates can be found is our emotional intentionality. At this point Meinong remained true to Brentano. Our concepts of right and wrong can only be built when we reflect on our emotions. This is the only place where they originally appear. The value predicate “it is a good thing” has its source in the modal “[Good:]” and the ultimate origin of the concept of right and wrong lies in our phenomena of love and hate. 6. The End If we compare the positions ranging from Hume to Meinong we can observe that the role of emotions has been gradually weakened. Hume claimed that (i) the emotion is the only source of our valuations and (ii) that there are no truth-makers for our emotions. He believed further that the consequence of this claims is (iii) a kind of moral relativism or scepticism. Therefore we can ascribe to him three theses: (i) All you need is love; (ii) No satisfaction; and (iii) De gustibus non disputandum est.

What happened in Brentano’s philosophy was the suspension of the third thesis. Brentano is convinced that it is possible to discuss our value claims and that such discussions can be even sometimes conclusive because some of our emotions are evident*. But the theses (i) and (ii) remained untouched. Also for Brentano emotions constitute the only basis of our valuations and he postulates no truth-makers for them. Marty takes the next step and rejects the No Satisfaction Hypothesis. According to him there are objective, mind independent states of values that make our emotions right or wrong. But they are all we need. In this sense the thesis (i): All you need is love holds also for Marty.

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The philosopher who dared to claim that love is not all we need was Meinong. If our love is right, then there must be always a particular reason for it. In addition to a correct love and the corresponding state of values we need an obtaining state of affairs making true the appropriate value judgement. The following table illustrates this transition: De gustibus non disputandum est No satisfaction

All you need is love

Hume

Brentano

Marty

Meinong

Bibliography Brentano, Franz (1874/2008): Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte. Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene (Sämtliche veröffentlichte Schriften, vol. I, ed. by T. Binder and A. Chrudzimski), Frankfurt: ontos. Brentano, Franz (1889/1930): Über den Begriff der Wahrheit, in: Brentano 1930, pp. 3–29. Brentano, Franz (1889/1955): Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, Hamburg: Meiner. Brentano, Franz (1891/1982): Deskriptive Psychologie, ed. by R. M. Chis– holm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg: Meiner. Brentano, Franz (1930): Wahrheit und Evidenz, ed. by O. Kraus, Hamburg: Meiner.

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Brentano, Franz (EL 80): Logik. Manuscript of the Logic Lectures from the second half of the 1880’s. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2001a): Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2001b): “Ist die Wahrheitsdefinition Tarskis philosophisch uninteressant? Die semantische Wahrheitsdefinition, Verifikationismus und Begriffsempirismus”, in: Conceptus 34, pp. 33–45. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2004): Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2005): Intentionalität, Zeitbewusstsein und Intersubjektivität. Studien zur Phänomenologie von Brentano bis Ingarden, Frankfurt: ontos. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2007): Gegenstandstheorie und Theorie der Intentionalität bei Alexius Meinong, Dordrecht: Springer. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz (2008): “Truth, Concept Empiricism, and the Realism of Polish Phenomenology”, in: Polish Journal of Philosophy 2, pp. 23–34. Dummett, Michael (1976): “What is a Theory of Meaning? II”, in: G. Evans, J. McDowell (eds), Truth and Meaning, London: Oxford University Press. Hume, David (1739/40): A Treatise of Human Nature, in: The Philosophical Works, T. H. Green and T. H. Grose (eds), Aalen: Scientia Verlag 1964. Meinong, Alexius (1904): “Über Gegenstandstheorie”, in: Gesamtausgabe, vol. II, pp. 481–535. Meinong, Alexius (1917): “Über emotionale Präsentation”, in: Gesamtausgabe, vol. III, pp. 285–467. Meinong, Alexius (1969–78): Gesamtausgabe, hrsg. von R. Haller et al., Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt. Marty, Anton (1884): “Über subjectlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie” I–III, Vierteljahresschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 8, pp. 56–94, pp. 161–92, pp. 292–340; repr. in Marty 1916–1920, vol. II/1, pp. 1–35, pp. 36–62, pp. 62–101. Marty, Anton (1892): [Review of:] “William James, The Principles of Psychology”, in: Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 3, pp. 297–333, repr. in Marty 1916–1920, vol. I/1, pp. 107–156;

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cited according to Marty 1916–1920. Marty, Anton (1901): “Two letters from Marty to Husserl”, ed. by K. Mulligan and K. Schuhmann, in: Mulligan 1990, pp. 225–236. Marty, Anton (1903/4): “Elemente der deskriptiven Psychologie. Zwei Auszüge aus Vorlesungen Anton Martys”, ed. by J. C. Marek and B. Smith, in: Conceptus, 21 (1987), pp. 49–66. Marty, Anton (1908): Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, Halle: Niemeyer. Marty, Anton (1916–20): Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil und O. Kraus, vol. I/II, Halle: Niemeyer. Mulligan, Kevin (ed.) (1990): Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Putnam, Hilary (1995): Pragmatism. An Open Question, Oxford: Blackwell. Srzednicki, Jan (1965): Franz Brentano’s Analysis of Truth, The Hague: Nijhoff.

How is the Pair of Contraries “Activity and Passivity” Envisaged in Husserlian Phenomenology? MARIA VILLELA-PETIT

“Without contraries, thought is impossible. This book is based on this constraint.” This assertion is placed at the beginning of a work written for young adolescents with the aim of introducing them to philosophy (Brenifier, 2007, p. 6f). Among the twelve contraries taken into account it is not surprising to find the one that interests us here, but in the adjectival form of ‘active and passive’. A work of this kind reminds us of the fact that when we are trying to grasp the thought of a great philosopher we are often faced with the contrary pairs he or she works with. How does one tackle them? And if we push the questioning process still further we will not be surprised to find that some philosophers, even the best, make uncritical use of certain contraries that appear self-evident, as for instance that of form and matter. Isn’t there something a little rigid and simplistic, even a little aberrant in the use made of this pair? We will get back to this later. For the moment let us concentrate on the opposition between passivity and activity as understood by Husserl. Passivity and Activity from the Point of View of Knowledge As a way of labelling my approach I would like to refer to a phrase in § 23 of Experience and Judgment: … a passivity which belongs to the act, not as a base but as act, a kind of ‘passivity in activity’, shows that the distinction between passivity and activity is not inflex-

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 191–211.

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ible, that it is not a matter of terms which can be established definitively for all time, but only a means of description and contrast, the sense of which must be recreated originally in each case with reference to the concrete situation of the analysis – an observation which holds true for every description of intentional phenomena. (Husserl, 1973a, p. 108 [119])

This remark tells us a great deal, for it requires us to take note of the procedure employed in Husserlian phenomenology, where analyses always seek to get as close as possible to the truth of experience even if this truth calls into question what seemed already established. At the same time it warns us against interpretations of Husserl’s philosophy that try to confine it within doctrinal boundaries. Interpretations of this kind are insufficiently attentive either to the critical dimension of Husserlian phenomenology or to actual descriptive procedure with its recognition of the complexity and variety of what is to be described. As we all know, what matters for Husserl is to elucidate the life of consciousness under its different aspects, both as the foundation (ground) and at a higher level the telos of a genuinely transcendental theory of knowledge with its double dimension, both cognitive and practical. On this question of the double and indissociable dimension of theory and practice in philosophy, which is inspired as much by a concern for truth as by the desire for the good, we find Husserl writing something that has a significant bearing on the activity of judging: … the judicative life, even the rational judicative life, is a medium for a peculiar wishing, striving, willing, acting, whose goals are precisely judgments, and judgments of a special form. All reason is at the same time practical reason, and this also holds for logical reason. (Husserl, 2001, pp. 102f [62])

For the sake of brevity let us say that Husserl, in strong contrast to Kant, sees no gap or rift (Kluft) between practical and theoretical reason. In fact Husserl is concerned with the elucidation of the life of consciousness as constitutive both of itself and of the world as it is for us. And we cannot overemphasise the sense in which the notion of life is decisive here. According to Husserl this elucidation of the life of consciousness is a philosophical imperative required by the transcendental genealogy of the Logic, a genealogy he sought to establish throughout the whole course of

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his life, for tracing this genealogy is the condition sine qua non for understanding reason. In support of my claim that Husserl’s project is concerned with the elucidation of the life of consciousness, I shall dwell on the way he insists on the term ‘life’ in a text published as a complement to Formale und transzendentale Logik, but which was initially designed to serve as an Introduction to Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (1918–1926). It should be noted that the French translators had no doubts about re-establishing this text as the Introduction to their edition of this work, which appeared in French under the title De la synthèse passive. (Anthony J. Steinbock did the same thing in his English translation.) In this “Introduction” one of Husserl’s statements makes quite clear the ultimate aim of his project, a project he reformulated over and over again and which was conceived with great clarity: Thus only a transcendental science – that is, a science directed into the hidden depths of accomplishing cognitive life, and thereby a science that is clarified and justified – only this science can be the ultimate science; only a transcendental-phenomenologically clarified world can be a world that is ultimately intelligible, … (Husserl, 2001, p. 6 [355])1

In the expression “hidden depths” we can hear resonating – and what is to be understood here by ‘resonance’ was the object of many of Husserl’s reflections in his Analysen zur passiven Synthesis – an expression taken from the Gospel of St Mathew: “things hidden since the foundation of the world”, an expression which René Girard placed at the beginning of his work La violence et le sacré; with the difference that the “hidden depths” that interest Husserl bear not on creation or human history on the world scale, but first and foremost on the very life of consciousness in its inalien1

The German original of this text was published as ‘Ergänzender Text IV’ in Formale und transzendentale Logik, Husserliana, vol. XVII, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1974. In the French edition of De la synthèse passive, trans. by Bruce Bégout et Jean Kessler in collaboration with Natalie Depraz and Marc Richir, Grenoble, and Jerôme Million, 1998, it was published as the “Introduction”, as it is in the English edition of 2001, of which we quote the page numbers, followed in square brackets by the German text taken from Formale und transzendentale Logik.

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ably intersubjective and communitarian aspect, on the basis of which the meaning of the world is constituted.2 Now although the elucidation of this life is inscribed within the horizon of a theory of knowledge, it also carries an indisputably ethical connotation as noted. Thus after underlining the dissatisfied state of mind into which the positive sciences, and even the exact sciences, can plunge human beings, Husserl adds in the same paragraph: … provided that he wants to be more than a professional and a specialist, provided that he wants to understand himself as a human being in the full and highest sense and wants to understand the world, and wants to pose to himself and to the world questions of ultimate knowledge and conscience. (Husserl, 2001, p. 6 [355])

These quotations are aimed at calling attention to what Husserl takes as the task of phenomenology – that is, to elucidate and clarify the life of consciousness by a regressive questioning (Rückfrage), and to do this in a transcendental style by identifying the structures or ultimate laws of this life of consciousness where the ego would be, as it were, the centre – at the centre of what is lived, and not simply “thought”. In the same text Husserl goes on to say: “Rather, here the ego is identified in reflection as the centre of life and lived-experiencing, the centre to which are related perceiving, judging, feeling, willing.” (Husserl, 2001, p. 17 [362f]). All of this does not preclude the possibility of this ego sometimes remaining in a state of latency, asleep or half awake, even in a state of unconsciousness, as Husserl emphasizes in connection with association. It would therefore be a gross mistake to think that in designating the ego as “centre” – centre of experience – Husserl could be taking it to be a solipsistic ego, whereas it could not exist without the relation to the alterity of an alter-ego in the cultural context of a community, or even several communities. Now that we have marked out the main lines of Husserl’s position we can concentrate on what is implied when one talks of the “life of con2

Cf., for example, how this same phenomenological truth is formulated in Krisis: “Transcendentalism, on the other hand, says: the ontic meaning (Seinssin) of the pregiven life-world is a subjective structure (Gebilde), it is the achievement of experiencing, pre-scientific life. In this life the meaning and the ontic validity (Seinsgeltung) of the world are built up – of that particular world, that is, which is actually valid for the individual experiencer”. (Husserl, 1970, p. 69 [70]).

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sciousness” in a transcendental philosophy. Once the “suspension” of the natural attitude has been carried through, the phenomenologist’s task is to turn towards this life with a view to grasping its most hidden layers, all of which in the final analysis presuppose the originality of the temporal flux. It is this living flux that underlies all further constitution of meaning. However the life of consciousness in its original temporality is always given in the present, but in a present whose immanent structure includes a retention and a “protention”, the former extending beyond what consciousness is in a position to be fully conscious of. This original constitution of time, immanent to consciousness, does not presuppose any activity properly speaking, and thus is rooted in passivity. But this passivity has nothing of the character of the “wax impression”. It is indeed a “living” passivity that unifies the flux of experiences by relating them to each other. Thus it underlies and sustains the synthesis of lived experiences insofar as they belong to one and the same consciousness. At first sight, employing the expression “synthesis” might seem paradoxical. We recall that it was in order to resolve the paradox of the necessary and unavoidable character of subjective time, no matter what its “impressional” content, that Kant gave it the status of an a priori form of sensibility. On this point Husserl praises Kant for having recognized the subjective truth of time, even while he distances himself from him. The principal difference between the two philosophers hinges on the absence of any genuine analysis of the immanent experience of time in the Critique of Pure Reason. But how could such an analysis have ever been attempted in the Critique, given that sensibility is presented as a faculty, so that the sensible itself is never really taken into consideration as “lived”, that is, in its immanence to consciousness? Thus in Experience and Judgment the author of The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness notes that: Time-consciousness is the original seat of the constitution of the unity of identity in general. But it is a consciousness producing only a general form. The result of temporal order is only a universal form of order of succession and a form of co-existence of all immanent data. But form is nothing without content. What is immanentally given only endures as the given of its content. Thus the syntheses which produce the unity of a field of sense are already, so to speak, at a higher level of constitutive activity. (Husserl, 1973a, p. 16 [75f])

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In this passage from § 16 of Experience and Judgement, a paragraph entitled “The field of passive pre-givenness and its associative structure”, one finds important indications that need to be retained and which agree with the analyses of the passive syntheses that Husserl develops elsewhere. Let us at least hold onto three points: 1) form is nothing without content. This has to be distinguished from Kant’s claim that “thoughts without content are empty”. Here it is form (at the level of sensibility) that cannot be given as empty of content. A claim of this kind is phenomenological in character. It is this same claim that in First Philosophy led Husserl to admit that: “Kant’s notion of the a priori is a constant embarrassment for us” (Husserl, 1956, pp. 198f), and this despite the fact that he recognizes the importance, even the “inner truth of the Kantian thesis: time is the form of sensibility, and thus the form of every possible world of objective experience” (Husserl, 1973a, p. 164). But note that here in this sentence where he designates time as form, Husserl also suppresses the qualification “a priori”. Now this impossibility of an appearing of time without content, that is, without hyletic data, will be reiterated by Husserl in his reflections on passive synthesis. As he writes in the chapter on association: “Mere form is admittedly an abstraction and thus, from the very beginning, the analysis of the intentionality of time-consciousness and its accomplishment is an analysis that works on [the level of] abstractions.” (Husserl, 2001, p. 173 [128]). This declaration throws light on the way The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness needs to be read, especially as we know how important this work was for Heidegger, even if we are entitled to ask whether he really came to terms with the abstract character of the analysis. A few pages later, after having considered the role played by the structure of the living immanent present in a phenomenology of association, Husserl says about the living present: “We find in every such present essentially a hyletic core …” (Husserl, 2001, p. 184 [137]). These considerations also have a bearing on the way in which the pair form and matter is normally understood. And this is all the more important in that such a question can not be disjoined from that concerning passivity and activity. Another indication of the importance Husserl attributes to the appearing of time, to its phenomenalization, is to be seen in the large number of examples taken from the auditory field (sound, melody). It is thanks to the example of the auditory field that the triadic form of the living pres-

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ent is apprehended most clearly. (It should be said in passing that the use and variation of examples is fundamental to Husserl’s procedure). The second point to bear in mind is that it is impossible for temporal data to be given without a spatial dimension implied. Certainly succession has to be distinguished from coexistence, but one cannot obliterate the other, even though we can abstract from one in order to better distinguish the formal features of the other. Finally, in the extract from Experience and Judgment reproduced above as the point of departure for asking about a present empty of any hyletic content, except by abstraction, Husserl employs the word “synthesis” in the plural when referring to sensibility or, in more phenomenologically appropriate terms, to the sensible field. In other words, for him these syntheses take their start in sensible experience itself, and not just in understanding, as Kant thought, due to his not having carried out a genuinely phenomenological analysis of experience. Let us pause on this first point and take up again the question of the pair matter-form. It was in reading a remarkable work by Gilbert Simondon, (1924–1989), L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Simondon, 1995)3, a work that deserves to be better known, that I became more aware of the deficiencies of the frequent and unavoidable use philosophers make of the matter-form opposition. These deficiencies are due to the fact that one frequently uses this pair of contraries in terms of the paradigm of a crafted product, conceived from the first as transposable to the pair mindbody, and without trying to think about how form and matter operate depending on the different cases one considers. Gilbert Simondon, who did not think of himself as a phenomenologist but as someone trying to take up Kant’s critical project again, on a new basis more in agreement with post-Newtonian physics, addressed this question by taking as his guide the problem of individuation at all the levels at which it applies. Starting with the production of artisanal objects, he went on from there to the individuation of living beings. His work begins with a chapter on “Form and Matter”. This chapter opens the first part of the book dealing with “Physical Individuation”. Here Simondon shows that 3

G. Simondon first became known through a groundbreaking work Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (Paris, Aubier, réédité en 2002).

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“neither form nor matter are enough to account for the form” of the technical object: a brick, for example, whose matter, clay, has its own potentialities (beginning with its plasticity) and whose perpendicular form can only be imparted on the basis of a mould that has already been produced. Nor does the author neglect the hylomorphic schema insofar as it applies to living beings, in accordance with the duality of mind and body, for in the final analysis it is perhaps here that the hylomorphic schema finds its origin, to which it returns and “applies itself, but with a deficit” (Simondon, 1995, p. 48). Further on, along the same lines though now with regard to a manufactured object, he takes account of inter-individual communication, including the social dimension of the technical operation. All this is highly instructive and deserves more attention, but we have to go forward and consider – even if only briefly – the second part bearing on the “Individuation of living beings”. This includes a decisive section on the internal and external genesis of the individual as well as on information and individuation, in the context of which relations between individuals have to be considered (as is the case of inter-subjectivity for the constitution of the ego for Husserl). In addition, Simondon emphasizes the genesis of individuality or, as he writes, “The true principle of individuation is genesis as it actually takes place…” He also distinguishes psychic from any purely vital individuation. And this view of things, he writes, “leads one to represent the existence of living beings as playing the role of a stock or basis for psychic individuation, but not as some ‘matter’ in relation to which psychic reality would play the role of form.” (Simondon, 1995, p. 164). It is worth noting that an entire group of manuscripts from Husserl’s Nachlass deals also with individuation, which seems to confirm the relevance of our attempt to bring these two philosophers together. Thus, despite everything that separates Simondon’s approach from that of phenomenology, his work elucidates and confirms the reservations expressed by Husserl vis à vis any simplistic conception of the pair form-matter, as well as the simple opposition between activity and passivity. Simondon has reinforced my conviction that is was precisely because Husserl intended to surpass the limits of an architectonic of knowledge and turned resolutely towards the life of consciousness to which any experience and any knowledge refer, that Husserl was able to resolve the question of

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sensibility, and more specifically of sensible receptivity, in a way different from Kant. One great merit of Husserlian phenomenology is to have moved, in a way that is both original and profound, beyond the two opposing aspects of modern philosophy set out by Descartes: on one side the empiricism of Locke or Hume, and Kantian transcendentalism on the other. He achieved this because he remained true to living experience without giving up the transcendental dimension, the only dimension fully compatible with the logos of philosophy. It is in fact in First Philosophy that we get a clear idea of the position assumed by Husserl vis-à-vis this dual tradition. Another good way of grasping concretely how Husserl came to terms with this two-sided assessment of modernity in order to go beyond it is to consider what he did with his analyses of association, the decisive chapter in what he calls a “genetic” phenomenology. For here we also get a good idea of his point of view on receptivity. It presupposes a pre-given passivity and concentrates on the emergence of the “I” on the basis of what is pre-given. Here is what he has to say in Experience and Judgment § 17: Insofar as in this turning-toward the ego receives what is pre-given to it through the affecting stimuli, we can speak here of the ‘receptivity of the ego.

And he goes on: This phenomenologically necessary concept of receptivity is in no way exclusively opposed to that of activity of the ego, under which all acts proceeding in a specific way from the ego-pole are to be included. On the contrary, receptivity must be regarded as the lowest level of activity. (Husserl, 1973a, p. 79 [83])

So receptivity arises out of sensible experience unfolding passively, when some aspect of the latter acquires an affective strength, a stimulation, an attraction capable of arousing the I. Hence the perceptual apprehension (Erfassung) or the act of perceiving something, which arises so to speak on the basis of a sensible field pre-given to consciousness. Husserl formulates this in terms that show how the receptive activity presupposes the passivity that precedes it:

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And what we designate as the perceptual field, as the field of passive pre-givenness, toward which perceptive apprehension turns in order to grasp from it a particular element as an object of perception, is already a ‘field’- to be sure, one having a much more complicated structure, being already constituted by a unifying synthesis and the concurrent action of several fields of sense. (Husserl, 1973a, pp. 75f [79])

In other words, the sensible given to us in advance is already an organized field and not a chaos of sensations that has to be organized later by understanding. If this were the case it would be impossible to understand the psyche of an animal, and how an animal organizes its surrounding world with those salient features it possesses, given the corporeal structure of the species in question. In an earlier work (Villela-Petit, 1999), I had occasion to insist on the fact that for Husserl transcendental problems concern all living creatures. Or as he puts it: “This naturally extends into the realm of the transcendental problems which finally encompass all living beings insofar as they have, even indirectly but still verifiably, something like a ‘life’, and even a communal life in the spiritual (geistige) sense.” (Husserl, 1970, p. 187 [191]). What is clear is that with Husserl one recovers a more original sense of the word “anima” as linked intrinsically to the living body. In this way one gets away from a mechanical conception of nature or of the living body, a conception that has dominated modernity. It should also be borne in mind that another great thinker of the first half of the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead, noted that “the effect of this sharp division between nature and life has poisoned all subsequent philosophy” (Whitehead, 1968, p. 150). It is hardly necessary to insist that the withdrawing of animal life from the spectrum of issues discussed in modern philosophy (with the exception of the vitalist stream, which is open to serious criticism due to its inadequate rationality), or the assimilation of the animal body to a res extensa, a machine, have made it difficult for many philosophers to appreciate the psycho-physical dimension of human life. This does not mean that despite all the overlaps and analogies that ethology and animal psychology have made it possible for us to establish, human life should not be examined from the standpoint of what is really proper to it, and indeed at a higher level than the psycho-physiological. Let us be clear about this. Husserl never fails to recognize the empirical dependence of consciousness vis-à-

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vis the psycho-physical dimension, as is shown for example, by this remark from Ideas II: It does not have to be discussed here how far the dependency extends with regard to the manifold phenomena of consciousness, over and beyond this mediation; at any rate , with regard to the life of the soul (Seele) there exist “physiological” dependencies that are very far-reaching, indeed in a certain way penetrating all conscious processes. (Husserl, 1989b, §32, p. 143 [135])

But what has to be rejected above all is the reduction of the consciousness of a person to the psycho-physiological dimension and to that alone, a dimension where one takes oneself (and also others) to be “nothing but” objects, and this without being aware of the incoherence of such a position. Reducing consciousness to the status of an object was precisely, in Husserl’s words, the tragic failure (tragisches Versagen) of psychological science. This is why it is absurd for philosophy to fall into the trap of positivism, as do those who allow themselves to become locked into the naturalistic attitude, and who in other words remain prisoners of the scientist illusion. The assimilation of the living body to a machine is now undergoing a disturbing development that does not spare even the engendering of human beings, which some consider to be suitable as objects of industrial production, starting with living cells. Let us return to the relation between the first part of Experience and Judgment and Husserl’s analyses of passive syntheses. We have noted that he takes the receptivity inherent in sensibility not just as purely passive, but as the lowest or basic level of conscious activity. Hence the language he employs in the first part of Experience and Judgment when he addresses receptive experience from the angle of its prepredicative character (vorprädikative Erfahrung). We are talking here about an ‘apprehension’ (Erfassung) – either simple apprehension (schlichte Erfassung)4, or the apprehension of relations (Beziehungserfassung). In both cases, this activity of apprehending (of perceiving) takes place on the basis of a passivity – that is, of everything that is already there as pre-given to consciousness. It is on the basis of what is pre-given that

4

Cf. my (1996).

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consciousness stops – either at something, or at a relation of similarity, of contrast between things etc. It is precisely this passive foundation of any perceptual act that will be thematised in greater detail by Husserl’s analyses of passive synthesis. From the fact that consciousness is alive and opens on to an external world, which is both its horizon and that with respect to which it gets its bearings, what is pre-given assumes form and obeys associative laws. Husserl’s aim is to grasp the regularities of these associative links, immanent in consciousness quite independently of the subject’s will, and to show that they are presupposed by the subject’s acts when, aroused and stimulated into activity by something pre-given, it turns towards what appears to it either in the present or in memory. If we reflect on the way in which the world is sensibly present to us, we realize that unless we are plunged in sleep, in which case everything remains obscure at least for the time being, the world is otherwise always there: for each one of us there is something to be perceived – that is, to be seen, touched, heard – all around us. But across the horizon of sensory fields, something can also exert a stronger attraction, attract our attention. The things I have in front of me or that envelop me auditively are not all there for me with the same intensity. Some are simply there in my field of vision, others detach themselves and I concentrate upon them. In his attempt to clarify the genetic unity of subjective life Husserl has recourse to analyses of repression, of fading: analyses capable of offering an alternative and more phenomenologically appropriate understanding of the unconscious or unawareness (cf. p. 221). However I do not want to get into the field of profound forgetting subject to the forces of repression, like those that concern the work of psychoanalysts. Here I shall limit myself to evoking one simple but pertinent example, one proposed by Husserl himself, namely how through association a word that we hear can bring a memory back to consciousness and fill the field of the present. For instance, the thought of a magnificent seascape occurs to us during a talk. If we reflect upon how it comes to us, we will find for instance that a turn of phrase immediately reminded us of something similar that was uttered during a conversation last summer at the sea. The beautiful image of the seascape, however, completely monopolized our interest. (Husserl, 2001, p. 167 [122])

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Further on and with regard to facts with which we are all familiar – and about which, we can add with Monica Jaramillo-Mahut (1997) that they supplied Marcel Proust’s literary work with the phenomena he needed – that every memory is open to question concerning how we arrived at it, a question that arrives even in everyday discourse already shows that it concerns matters of fact that must have arisen in everyone’s experience. For phenomenology, it forms a point of departure for a treatment and description in the reduction, and, then above all, for the method of eidetic research into essential necessities. (Husserl, 2001, p. 168 [123])

Reflecting on the role played by resemblance, Husserl insists on the need to bring to light the requisite essential laws, with a view to better grasping how an image becomes prominent. Here is his commentary on the subject. … now it a question of first making comprehensible in a more precise manner how certain awakenings come about, namely, how a similarity among a variety of similarities becomes privileged to build a bridge, and how each present can ultimately enter into a relation with all pasts, how – extending beyond the living retention – it can enter into relation with the entire realm of things forgotten. (Husserl, 2001, p. 169 [123])

Only through an approach of this kind, that is, through a work of phenomenological clarification, does it become possible to solve the problem concerning how the pure ego is able to become conscious of the fact that it has behind itself an endless field of past lived experiences as its own, a unity of past life in the form of time, as a life that is in principle everywhere accessible to it through rememberings or, what amounts to the same thing, is capable of being reawakened in the core of its being. (Husserl, 2001, p. 169 [123f])

What is at issue is the clarification of “essential conditions of the possibility of subjectivity itself” that is to say, of the unity of the subject, and this independent of what might be called its “psychology” where a subjective split is always possible.5 Husserl is certainly fully aware that in our remembering we can be a prey to illusions or, to use ordinary language, that we are often confused with regard to this or that past situation. In the fourth section of his Ana5

Cf. my (1996b).

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lyses concerning passive Synthesis he shows how associations operate upon memories stemming from different moments in our life, but whose partial moments resonate among themselves. These associations can mislead us by confronting us with false doors regarding what was actually experienced in a particular past situation. And we also have to take account not only of memory but of anticipation, of awaiting what is to come; all of which also belongs to the original life of consciousness. All through Husserl’s reflections upon association, and more extensively still through the flux of consciousness (cf. Fourth Section), passivity and activity intervene and turn out to be intricately interwoven. Without passivity the very stream of consciousness could not be constituted, without activity the subject could not enter into relation with one’s world, act in this or that way towards it, still less think about what one is doing with one’s life and about how to become oneself. One would be incapable of passing judgment, incapable even of attending to what is going on in oneself, that is, assessing one’s own activities. Passivity and activity are therefore inseparable and inalienable dimensions of the life of consciousness, and therefore of human subjectivity insofar as it is apprehended phenomenologically. The Activity of the Self upon Itself and its Own Passivity We have pointed out what is proper to man as a rational animal, that is, our capacity for self-reflection, or in other words to look back on our actions, feelings, wishes, and as a result to be able to assess oneself and, as far as possible, to transform oneself in such a ways as to lead a truer, that is a better, life. It is not just a matter of asking whether our actions are in conformity with the moral law, but of examining the motives that carry us in that direction, or away from it, and which, in the first case, are rarely pure, as Kant himself already brought out. It’s only when Husserl takes up this ethical dimension of phenomenology more explicitly that he lets us understand what was already noted at the beginning of this study, namely that for him, as opposed to Kant, theoretical and practical reason do not have to be disassociated.

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But how are the contraries “activity and passivity” taken account of when Husserl seeks to thematise the ethical dimension of phenomenology? To try to answer this question we shall turn especially to the five articles he wrote in 1922–1923 for the Japanese Review The Kaizo, of which only the first three have been published and which have remained largely ignored by the Western public. Just a few years after the First World War, and a dozen years before writing the texts that constitute Krisis, Husserl took the view that our culture was vitiated by a lethal un-truth. However for him this is not from some fatality, some unavoidable destiny as one might think by reading The Decline of the West, a title he mentions in passing though without naming the author (Oswald Spengler). The philosopher’s role is precisely not to be carried away by intellectual scepticism or to allow himself to be taken over by political sophistry, let alone by a “completely degenerate nationalism”. On the contrary, what one has reason to expect of a philosopher is that he should commit all his rational powers to the diagnosis of the problem: on the one hand the origins of the evil, the evils that compromise the future of our society, of our world, and on the other, to contribute to restoring this culture, to its renewal in depth. Hence the title of his articles, “Fünf Aufsätze über Erneuerung”. The renewal in question here is an ethical imperative, even “the ultimate theme of any ethics” (Husserl, 1989a, p. 20), which can be posited at a twofold level: the individual level, that is to say, the level of the person in the singular, and the communitarian level – these two levels being, for Husserl, inseparable. But this solidarity between the personal and the communitarian can only acquire an authentic significance in the light of a genuine knowledge of the essence of man. That is the task to which the philosopher Husserl committed himself to in his transcendental phenomenology, which thus has an ethical significance in the context of his own theoretical research. The ethical significance of this transcendental procedure is not simply an object of speculation, it has to be lived from within by the philosopher, as it does by any person seeking to realize as far as possible the essence of one’s rational – that is, spiritual – potential. It is in view of just such a realization that we are called on to examine ourselves with a view to identifying what threatens to draw us downward. For as each of us knows in terms

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of our capacity for self-reflection, one is constantly subjected to the weight of one’s tendencies, one’s habits, which are an obstacle to freer action, and as a result to a life more enlightened by reason as its ultimate telos. Or as Husserl puts it in his third article on renewal: We take as our point of departure an ability belonging to the essence of being human, of self consciousness in the pregnant sense of a personal taking account of oneself [der personalen Selbstbetrachtung] (inspectio sui), and an ability founded upon this of relating oneself reflectively to all that one has done in the course of one’s past life, and towards one’s own personal acts: those of self-knowledge, of self-evaluation and of the practical determination of one’s self (self-will, self-assessment). (Husserl, 1989a, p. 23)

It is when Husserl explains a few lines later what he means by this personal self-consideration, by this reflective return to one’s own self, that we see the activity-passivity pair appearing, and this time as a function of the renewal required of any man as an unavoidable ethical obligation. Husserl invites us “to pay attention to the feature of those acts which are specifically personal.” Through this particular kind of act, man shows his essential capability of acting freely by himself, out of his ego-centre, instead of being handed over in a passive and un-free way to his impulses (inclinations, affects). He is able to engage himself in activities or experiences like the one of thinking, of evaluating, or of producing effects in his own world, which are really personal. So acting by taking conscious decisions after reflection, he prevents himself from doing things stemming out of the panel of his own passive motivations. (Husserl, 1989a, p. 24) It is only through just such a consciousness of self that one can become a true acting [handelndes] subject, the genuine personal author [Täter] of one’s acts. Otherwise expressed, by virtue of his rational essence man can be returned back to what in him pushes him to do this or that thing with a view to changing, to transforming his ways of doing and so acting out of a greater self-determination, a freer choice. Which also comes down to saying that man can act on himself, on his own nature or on what by force of habit has become second nature for him. But this movement of return to self does not guarantee any definitive acquisition, the personal renewal has to begin again all the time, given our imperfection. Moreover, to the extent

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that these new habits (even virtues) are developed, a new passivity threatens, a passivity that can impede even our most authentic aspirations, even the very purity of our élan for the Good. And if this is true from the point of view of the singular individual, it is all the more valid at the level of the community, which latter is always vulnerable to egoistic motives and to the negative leanings of those who constitute it. There is nothing arbitrary about the introduction of the notion of the ‘good’ in connection with Husserl’s reflections on renewal. It is required on the one hand by the very way in which he conceives of ethics as nonreducible to morality, and on the other by his refusal to admit any gap between theoretical and practical reason. As he remarks on the subject of man as subject of auto-reflection: … he must in every instance decide to do what is best in the light of his knowledge and conscience. He must not allow himself to be carried passively by any inclination; his will must remain free and committed to deciding for the best, for what he knows to be the best (even if he can also be mistaken). (Husserl, 1989a, p. 44)

It follows that for Husserl the true man is the one who aspires with all his heart to the good and exerts his capacity for auto-reflection in view of the good that is beyond all relative goods which naturally or culturally attract us, even entrap us. It is in this same sense that, in the article on “Renewal as an Ethico-individual Problem”, he states: “If we now move on to the ideal frontier, in mathematical language to the ‘limit’, an absolute ideal of perfection begins to separate itself off from any relative ideal”; adding a few lines later: “… the absolute limit, the pole which extends beyond all finitude and towards which all authentic human striving is directed, is the idea of God.” (Husserl, 1989a, pp. 33f.) It is not from any theological, or even in the first instance religious, angle that the problem of God arises here. It arises as intrinsic to the properly transcendental dimension of philosophy, just as was the case with the representatives of the post-Kantian stream of French philosophy and in particular with Jules Lagneau (1851–1894)6 and Jean Nabert (1881–1960)7. 6

Cf J. Lagneau, “Cours sur Dieu”, in: Celèbres Leçons et Fragments, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1964.

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One should then not underestimate the powerful Christian inspiration animating Husserl’s thinking in the renewal of self and of humanity. This becomes only too obvious both when he mentions “the new man” or again the new humanity, and when he makes explicit reference to Christ, as is the case in appendix IV. Christ is seen there as the one who confers a supraempirical dimension upon the idea of God (a dimension which, as Husserl writes, fills him with an infinite love) as the “incarnation of the pure goodness of man”, or again as realising “the archetypal idea of the man-God” (Husserl, 1989a, pp.100f). Already, in a paragraph on ethical love from a text of 1921, Husserl had evoked the infinite love of Christ for all men and the universal love that the Christian has to awaken in himself, by stressing the need for all men to let this vocation, this “core (Keim) drawn towards the Good”, emerge in himself (Husserl, 1973b, p. 174). How could we overlook the essential role of the renewal of man, of the new man, in the New Testament, and also in the work of Kierkegaard, a religious thinker whom Husserl admired, as we know from Lev Shestov (1962) among others? However, compared with Kierkegaard, Husserl’s Christian inspiration cannot be distinguished from his faith in reason as he conceives it. According to him, the worst egoisms, individual as well as national, are nourished by a deficiency of reason in its ethical dimension. As noted by other interpreters and in particular by Ullrich Melle (2004, pp. 330–355), ethical reflection for Husserl reaches its high point with the recognition of love. According to him, ethical love of one’s neighbour and of humanity ought to be our highest goal, even the crown of practical reason. Appendix IV addresses in a particularly eloquent way the importance of this place accorded to love in the ethical life and our need to have examples of good people (including literary examples) in order for each of us to become in our turn a new person. Husserl declares: What would man be if he did not have the intuition of men who deserve to be honoured, purely good men? He can only become good if he sees good men, if he can start again by leaning on such models, and rise up thanks to them. He can only be7

Cf J. Nabert, Le Désir de Dieu, avec Préface de Paul Ricœur, Paris, Cerf, coll. La nuit surveillée, 1996.

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come good through a love that glorifies, that transforms the loved one into an ideal and wants to see nothing in him but the good. To consider others from the standpoint of the good, to see the good that emanates from them as far as possible, it is this that makes people better and solicits love between humans which, in turn, becomes a means for them to become better. Through the pure joy that arises out of love. (Husserl, 1989a, p. 102)

If we have thought it worth bringing out these reflections of Husserl’s, it is because they underline that here in the field of practical reason and its completion in love we need intuitions, or even idealising intuitions which transcend the simple empirical experience both of ourselves and of others. But what meaning does this necessity signify with regard to the pair of contraries passivity and activity? Have we lost sight of it? Certainly not, but it needs to be seen in a different light. Here the activity in question no longer refers simply to the effort that has to be made in the struggle against the passive, un-free dimensions of our being, that is, against whatever prevents us from leading an authentic life, a good life in conformity with the imperative of our practical reason. On the contrary, it carries us towards what is given and which has to be received by us in an idealising intuition or a spiritual experience. A spiritual experience of this kind transcends the opposition between passivity and activity, and in a non-dialectical way (if one takes this word in the Hegelian sense). For in it the activity becomes reception, opening to what is given to intuition by inscribing itself in the depths of our spiritual life. Bibliography Brenifier, Oscar (2007): Le livre des grands contraires philosophiques, with illustrations by Jacques Després, Paris: Éd. Nathan. This work obtained the “Prix de la Presse des Jeunes” in 2008. Husserl, Edmund (1956): Erste Philosophie I, ed. by Rudolf Boehm, Husserliana Bd. VII, The Hague: Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund (1970): The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. by David Carr, Evanston: Northwestern University Press [German original: Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die

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Transzendentale Phänomenologie (1954), ed. by Walter Biemel, Husserliana VI, The Hague: M. Nijhoff.] Husserl, Edmund (1973a): Experience and Judgment, ed. by Ludwig Landgrebe, trans. by James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. [German original: Erfahrung und Urteil (1964), Hamburg: Claassen Verlag.] Husserl, Edmund (1973b): Zur Phänomenologie der Intersujektivität (Zweiter Teil), ed. by Iso Kern, The Hague: Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund (1989a): “Aufsätze über Erneuerung”, in: Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922-1937), ed. by Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, Husserliana vol. XXVII, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, Edmund (1989b): Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Book II, trans. by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, Edmund (2001): Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, trans. by Anthony J. Steinbeck, Husserl, Collective Works, Dordrecht : Kluwer Academic Publishers. [German original: Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (1918-1926), (1966), ed. by Margot Fleischer, Husserliana, Bd XI.] Jaramillo-Mahut, Mónica M. (1997): E. Husserl et M. Proust- A la recherche du moi perdu, Paris: l’Harmattan. Melle, Ullrich (2004): “Husserls Personalitische Ethik”, in: Beatrice Centi and Gianna Gigliotti (eds), Fenomenologia della Ragion Pratica. L’Etica di Edmund Husserl, Napoli: Bibliopolis, pp. 330–356. Shestov, Lev (1962): “In Memory of a Great Philosopher: Edmund Husserl” (1938), trans. by George L. Kline, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22, pp. 449–471. Simondon, Gilbert (1995): L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (1964), re-published with a Preface by Jacques Garelli, Grenoble: Jerôme Million. Villela-Petit, Maria (1996a): “L’expérience anté-prédicative”, in: Phénoménologie & Logique. Etudes réunies et publiées sous la direction de J.F. Courtine, Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure, pp. 239–260. Villela-Petit, Maria (1996b): “Le sujet multiple et le soi – Le ‘je suis plusieurs’ de Fernando Pessoa”, in: Raphaël Célis and Maurice Sierro

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(eds), Autour de la Poétique de Paul Ricœur, Lausanne, Etudes de Lettres, 1996, n° 3–4. Villela-Petit, Maria (1999): “Cognitive Psychology and the Transcendental Theory of Knowledge”, in: J. Petitot, F.J. Varela, B. Pachoud, and J.-M. Roy (eds), Naturalizing Phenomenology. Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 657–678. Whitehead, Alfred N. (1968): “Nature alive” (lecture held in 1934), in: Modes of Thought, New York: First Free Press, 1968.

Ethical and Ontological Dimensions of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception MARA MELETTI BERTOLINI

Although recent critical works1 have drawn attention to certain implicit ethical questions in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, it certainly cannot be said that in this field the philosopher has aroused as much interest as that reserved for him by scholars of aesthetics. Certainly references to art take pride of place in his research, but this does not necessarily mean that it is not connected to references to equally significant moral and metaethical problems. The aim of this essay in particular is to draw attention to the most stimulating and current ethical questions raised within the field of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. With this aim in mind we shall limit our analysis to the first two works by the philosopher La structure du comportement (1942) and La Phénoménologie de la Perception (1945). Both works combine an extremely complex research framework, therefore we felt it was necessary to make their results come together and rather than separating the analysis of perception from the inquiries conducted in the first and often forgotten piece of work, because it was our firm belief that the former would provide us with a framework of reference essential for a better understanding of the ethical implications of the latter. Science, art, and philosophy can greatly benefit from the specific sense of the real which only the experience of perception can provide. From the very beginning the philosopher continues to question the statute of such fundamental experience, which is common to all living beings, and to find in it the incentive to reformulate epistemological, ontological, and ethical 1

Carbone, Levin 2003; Bonan 2003; Dillon 2003; De Saint Aubert 2004, 2005, 2006.

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 213–266.

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problems on a new basis. Because it is the object of different approaches through biology, physiology and psychology, perception provides the philosopher with stimulating questions about the configuration of the real and the birth of meanings, offering him an occasion to re-examine corporeity in the sense of a perceptual openness to the world, to inter-subjective communication, and to nature. As we shall see, his critical revision of perceptual dynamics is able to intercept problem lines which are extremely topical in the contemporary ethical debate such as the sense of experience, the plurality of perceptual styles, the criticism of subjectivist relativism and objectivism, the dynamics of moral conflicts, the possibility of an understanding between different perceptual configurations, and the collapse of the fact/value dichotomy. 1. Behaviour: From the Description of the Phenomena to the Structure of the Living La structure du comportement opens with a statement indicating the lifelong direction the philosopher’s research will take: “our goal is to understand the relations of consciousness and nature.”2 I do not think we can understand the problems of perception and corporeity in all their dimensions without having first considered the fact that their analysis implies an articulated inquiry into the structures of behaviour in different living organisms, starting from the simplest of reflexes to human behaviour. It is important to emphasize the peculiarity of this approach, to have an awareness of the expression of the most complex conscious activities, without losing sight of their connections to (and differences from) the simplest manifestations of the living. Consciousness cannot be considered a stranger to the behaviour of the living, indeed it develops from the latter, integrating them into more complex structures. In the light of this continuity and differentiation among diverse life forms, Merleau-Ponty investigated the idea of an incarnate consciousness, which cannot be isolated in its own supposed autonomy without betraying the phenomenon. Before tackling the theme of perception, it is important in this context to stress the fertile ground for new theories which the philosopher attributes 2

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 3.

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to the use of the concept of behaviour, above all in those aspects that are clearly more significant to have a renewed understand ing of human behaviour, no longer limited to the dialectic of thought and choice alone. Together with criticism of American behaviourism, the importance of this concept is first of all indicated in its applicability to every living being, both animal and human alike, whereas we can only use metaphors to describe the behaviour of an acid or an electron. Its theoretical significance lies in the ability to throw into disarray the traditional conflicts between the physiological and the psychic, between interior and exterior, between the body and the soul, placing them in a wider, more vital perspective, thereby opening the way for a new definition of these notions. In other words, it presents itself as an alternative concept, capable of uniting consciousness and life. Thus the philosopher called into question Cartesian dualism and he re-elaborated as one the concepts of consciousness, the body and the world without losing their internal unity. The emergence of behaviour in the simplest of organisms signals a detachment from the in-itself, without necessarily meaning that it will produce a conscious process: neither thing nor consciousness, it makes it possible to observe mechanisms in every living being which go beyond alternatives to subjectivity and objectivity. Contributing to undermining traditional dualisms, it gives us the right perspective for redefining consciousness from the biological point of view and understanding those relations between consciousness and nature indicated as his main objective.3 All behaviour patterns have a specific form showing the structure of the living being to which it belongs. But what type of “order” manifests itself in an organism? How can we understand these forms and structures? It is not a question of an order obtained by the juxtaposition of elements according to the theories of scientific naturalism. This one explains what is complicated in a simplified manner and the activity of the organism as a linking together and an adding up of stimuli and responses in nervous systems. It is not even about order introduced through thought as the French criticism by L. Brunschvicg states. All activity by an organism, even in the most basic forms, is led by its own internal norms, and no behaviour could 3

For a more in-depth study on this theme in relation to an articulated analysis of La Structure du comportement cf. Bimbenet 2004.

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be comprehensible without reference to those norms, that is to say without reference to the specific structure of that organism in its relation to world around it. Observation of behaviour reveals an organism’s way of being, thus acquiring importance for ontology. Therefore such order does not come from the outside, but rather it distinguishes its own distinct patterns of behaviour; they have to be considered as integrated into a whole, whose development can only be included as part of that whole, drawing attention to the specific organisation. They present a structural unity, often assimilated to a melody which, even though it is played on different instruments with different arrangements, presents a theme which is recognisable in its diversity and where single notes are no longer distinguishable. For example, what decides an animal’s reaction is not a single stimulus since it is a physical occurence, but the complexity of the situation as it presents itself for that organism; therefore every species has its a priori, its own means of selecting and processing the environment which best suits the organisation of its own body. The stimuli are not purely physical-chemical events, but they have their own value and meaning, in relation to the organism’s specific activity to which they manifest themselves. Situations and reactions are intimately connected from inside, thanks to references to a common structure which helps them both get their bearings. Setting one against the other as stimulus and receptor is an error of naturalism, which thus tries to explain behaviour through complicating casual connections, losing that harmonious connection of the interior with the exterior which remains “opaque” for thought. On the basis of this, every single organism seems capable of selecting certain aspects of the world which surrounds it, in some way guessing the meaning and value they have for that particular organism. Therefore, for the observer all types of behaviour give rise to problems of order, of value, and of meaning and not necessarily of stimulae and mechanical reactions, these types of behaviour have a structural unity with the environment which is recognisable and can be described within the diversity of phenomena. And it is exactly that significant and orientated character that we wish to draw attention to. It is a question of an extremely significant aspect which also takes into account its implicit ethic implications. Many exponents of phenomenology (Scheler, Hartmann, Sartre) found deep connections between the problem of the constitution of sense (Sinngebung) and the onto-

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logical statute of values, examining the dynamics of evaluation, of the perception of value and the influence of subjectivity in the perception of value. From Merleau-Ponty’s point of view, the developments in biological and psychological sciences converge with phenomenology to make a problem of the confines between ethics, anthropology and logics. His thinking is constantly crossed by a coherent comparison with these disciplines. On the one hand, he exposes ingenuous naturalism, while on the other he draws from them significant stimuli for a renewed ontology. Critical of both scientistic naturalism, which tries to explain the relation between the organism and consciousness in causal terms, and Kantian criticism, which frees itself from ontology, grasping in the world only relations introduced through consciousness, in the conclusion of La structure du comportement Merleau-Ponty wonders if naturalism, duly understood and transposed, does not hide some glimmers of truth that could be fruitfully inserted within the confines of a transcendental philosophy. Is there no truth in naturalism? Or criticism? Is a reappraisal of naturalism possible, which would re-establish a connection between phenomenology and biological and psychological sciences and which could study the relation between transcendental subject matter and empirical subject matter in a new light? Is naturalism capable of picking up the threads between thought and existence, between logical forms and organic structures? Could an essence of thought be included independently of its inherence to an organism and to a context? A suitable place for putting these problems to the test might be indicated in the questioning of perception, while the intellectual consciousness signals the dangerous temptation to enter into the lucid dream of a logical reconstruction of the real rather than a patient penetration, which also welcomes the ambiguities and darker side inaccessible to thought. Nevertheless, we can confirm that the heart of this renewed naturalism remains the notion of structure: “Structure is the philosophical truth of naturalism and realism.”4 Summarising what Merleau-Ponty plainly states in his conclusion, the fundamental philosophical problem which substitutes the classical dualisms of substance-form, body-soul is the desire to complicate the relation between structure and meaning, or rather between the structure of the liv4

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 224.

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ing and the structure of conscious behaviour and the world of logical thought. Renewed philosophical attention is reserved for intimate connections between physical order, vital order, and human order. The same subjectivity cannot be reduced to the functions of an epistemological subject which masters meanings and relates to objects by putting together judgements and concepts. Consciousness has its own complexity of life which goes beyond such cognitive dialectics traditionally favoured by intellectualist philosophers. The transcendental cannot only be restricted to logical forms of thought, since they give form to organic and behavioural structuring implied by them. The first work by Merleau-Ponty ends with an invitation not to separate the logical forms of thought from their connections to other functioning life forms (the forms of perception) which suggests greater caution to philosophers when stating the constituent role of consciousness. If one looks at consciousness not as a universal essence, but as being inserted into a dynamic network of vital structures which are continuously articulated in more or less integrated ways, we need to recognise that it is incarnate in these structures and indistinguishable from them, and question ourselves about the relations between this naturalized consciousness and consciousness itself. We need to stop and reflect on the fact that our knowledge depends to a certain extent on what we are, with all the consequences that this will have on the philosophical, moral and epistemological fields.5 Therefore we should expect different possible configurations of the conscious life to distinguish consciousness as the passage of the lived experiences of consciousness, because it is the place of meaning and ask ourselves how perceptual consciousness can be at the same time and inseparably the flow of individual events and the gateway to a world of inter-subjective signification. 2. Natural and Normative: The End of a Dichotomy We have seen that the concept of structure (together with that of form) allows the philosopher to put himself in a position to take a critical stand5

Merleau-Ponty 1942, p. 303: “ Si …on reconnaît, fût-ce à titre de phénomène, une existence de la conscience et de ses structures résistantes, notre connaissance dépend de ce que nous sommes”.

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point with regard to both critical philosophy and scientistic naturalism. Among the many traditional dualisms that this approach allows us to destroy, the most significant which appears in our context is the critical review of the natural/normative conflict. Against Sartre’s subjectivism, but without sharing the ontologicalization of values used by Scheler, MerleauPonty wants to safeguard ethics both against the absurd and the insignificance of the world as well as against the dangers of historicism and subjective relativism. He pursues an ontological radication of normativity, not necessarily in an ideal built from reason, but in corporeal common behaviour; structures which operate before any individual or historical differentiation. The work of the phenomenologist is orientated towards exploring normativity of the body, demonstrating how evaluative and selective aspects of the real are by no means unconnected to an anti-predicative life. Subsequently, as we shall see more clearly, the phenomenology of perception points out a constant connection between perceiving and evaluating, as well as a persistent placing of man in the category of corporeal sensory perception which goes beyond all individual and historical differentiation. Recognising that already the most basic nervous phenomena (reflexes) have their own structure means simultaneously recognising that even the simplest type of behaviour cannot be understood through a succession of causes and effects. What avoids a similar way of proceeding (defined as “topographique”) is the world order to which everything seems to conform. All kinds of behaviour have their own orientation, and every activity of an organism is an orientated activity, it answers to certain specific norms which regulate everything. Biological research was able to demonstrate a very interesting result for the philosopher, meaning that “a directed activity between blind mechanism and intelligent behaviour” was brought to light, which is not accounted for by classical mechanism and intellectualism.6 The notion of form is the only one which provides an explanation of how much is orientated in inferior behaviour and how many blind spots there are in superior behaviour. So this is where biology would seem to suggest paying particular attention to this type of activity which is neglected in philosophical inquiry, all too often preoccupied with setting mechanical automatisms against intentional activity, leaving in obscurity what 6

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 40.

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is not clear in such a dichotomy. In this way philosophy is urged to rethink, through the concepts of structure and form, the idea of totality and the relation of the parts to the whole. Moreover, it is invited not to isolate within itself voluntary and rational behaviour, as if they were a world apart controlled by subjective choices and regulated by ideal norms. Instead, this isolation would seem to be an illusory outcome brought to us both by traditional criticism and Sartre’s idealism. What changes if we look at human activity as being self-regulated by an interior order which has integrated the physical and the vital order, without removing those threads which reconnect it to the orientation which characterises all living organisms? What would happen if instead of digging a chasm between natural norms and norms of reason, we placed the one in the horizon of the other? MerleauPonty’s phenomenology is in fact characterized by his main preoccupation with asking questions which open up new directions for research rather than searching for the exact solutions. In La structure du comportement the differentiation between law and norms is highlighted. Law – the subject of scientific research – connects casual relationships with external events; the intention is to explain phenomena, but there are too many it cannot address and the philosopher puts back into perspective the ontological significance of the idealization of the thought process. Norms – the subject of reflection in philosophy – are the internal order which presides over the life of an organism in its entirety, they are not created from thought but manifest themselves in perceived phenomena. On the one hand order created through thought, on the other ontological order which manifests itself in perception: philosophy called upon to query their statute and their relationship. Many years later Merleau-Ponty stated that “L’idée de norme a été fondée par mon corps.”7 Already in his first work the philosopher does not abandon the idea of simultaneously understanding how it is possible for us to be members of the realm of freedom (as Sartre had emphasized ) as well as members of the realm of nature (as biology would suggest); together they are inventors of norms and natural beings, constituents of meanings and at the same time constituted by specific structures. From the beginning

7

Merleau-Ponty 1994, p. 108.

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the philosopher indicates a primitive normativity of the body and questions its relationship with the normativity of thought. The philosopher clearly feels the need to take a closer look at the dynamics of acting in the light of the inquiry into behaviour, the only one which allows him to salvage the intimate perception-action connection which Bergson was able to indicate but not fully investigate. By means of the dynamics of structuring and restructuring behaviour, the possibility of finding an effective “internal communication” between perceptual consciousness and action is indicated. French philosophy has always fallen short of this objective, since it has always used an inadequate concept for both ideas leaving them as strangers to one another. If we think about it, between consciousness as self-consciousness and action as movement and changes in world order there will only be a superficial casual relationship. In order to undermine this formulation, Merleau-Ponty uses his concept of behaviour, which in this context displays its fruitfulness. It “expresses a certain manner of existing before signifying a certain manner of thinking”8 and therefore allows forms of experience that take place outside reflection to be made visible and to give consistency to the life of consciousness which remains unrelated to the consciousness of self. It is important to break the circle of idealistic speculation – in which Merleau-Ponty includes Descartes, Kant, the first Husserl and Sartre – it helps to bring to light the fact that the life of consciousness does not coincide reductively with the practice of Knowledge. Infantile perception, for instance, picks up on an object such as a face perceived as a whole – the mother’s face, without the colour of the eyes or the hair9 – and we refer to a reality lived in a joint way as a pole of action and nucleus of consciousness. Behaviour operates in this context as a unifier of opposing categories (life-thought; perceptionaction; interior-exterior, knowledge-evaluation) and it allows a recovery of that internal connection between perception and action which philosophy has always missed. For Merleau-Ponty, to explain the action means to place it in priority relation to a renewed concept of perception and not explain it through a given subject’s choices or desires. This also challenges the intellectualist model that turns the description of the aim into the cen8 9

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 222. This and other examples used by Merleau-Ponty are taken up by Scheler 1980.

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tral moment of the action, translated as external movement, bringing causal relationships between consciousness, body, and the world into effect. As can be seen more clearly later on, the phenomenal field of perception operates as a whole capable of directing intentions, gestures and significance, coordinating them into a neat melodic unit where things do not appear as neutral objects. Instead they manifest meaning and values to which gestures and actions were originally tuned in. For Merleau-Ponty explaining perception means recognizing within it the intrinsic evaluative orientation previously indicated by Scheler and puzzling over this complex node which coordinates knowledge, values and action in a unitary network of meaning. In conclusion, on the one hand the attention reserved for the normativity of the body allows us to bring to light ways of being which happen without our reflecting on them, if anything they widen the field of research around human behaviour which is no longer confined by rational and voluntary dynamics, but which is open to a perspective where nature and thought remain intimately connected without limiting each other. Nature is our “Boden”10, which always slips through our fingers, if we fail to recognise this ground which supports conscious activities it will have hypertrophic subjectivity and the disclaimer of the framework of relationships within which it is inserted as a deviating effect. 3. The Perspective Multiplicity of the Perception of a Thing The inquiry into behavioural structures is indicated as the main route to updating the philosophy of action. In order to be able to clearly understand 10

Merleau-Ponty goes back several times to reflect on this concept of Boden formulated by Husserl in an unpublished manuscript kept in Leuven entitled Umsturz der Kopernikanischen Lehre in der gewöhnlichen weltanschaulichen Interpretation. The philosopher read this manuscript during his first stay in Leuven in 1939, when he was already working on Phénoménologie, and it had a profound influence on the development of his thought, as is shown by repeated references to it in Phénoménologie (where it is cited both in the text and in the bibliography), up until his last courses on Le concept de Nature at the Collége de France from 1956 to 1960. For the manuscript cf. Husserl 1940. On the use of this text in Merleau-Ponty cf. Carbone 1990, pp. 143– 148 and Neri 1991.

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this objective it is necessary to bear in mind the essential characteristics of human behaviour, those which indicate the differences compared to animal behaviour patterns, no matter how intelligent they may seem. In other words perspective multiplicity. Referring to Köhler’s experiments with chimpanzees, the philosopher observes that an animal may use a box to lean on or as a means to climb on in order to reach something, but for him the box to lean on and the box to climb on remain two separate entities and not two different functions of one and the same thing. In other words, an animal is not capable of adopting varying viewpoints regarding objects, as far as he is concerned they have a certain functional value depending on the field. A chimpanzee is not able to recognise the same thing other than the two different perspectives of leaning and instrument. A chimpanzee is lacking in what is known as “symbolic behaviour”, that is the ability to move from one meaning to another. As far as animal behaviour is concerned, the external object is never a “thing”, or rather a concrete unit capable of becoming part of a multiplicity of relationships while always staying the same. Only with human behaviour the structure “thing” is possible: a branch can be a branch of a tree, a stick for leaning on, or a weapon for defending oneself with, all aspects which can be taken to be different properties of the same object. This ability to understand a multiplicity of expressions within a stimulus and not only a stereotyped sign, indicates the specific nature of a new behavioural structure; it is not about a difference of degree, but of form implying another style of existence ruling out animal perception. This ability to understand different expressions of the same theme, constitutes the “multiplicity of perspective” which is lacking in animal behaviour. It makes the multiplication of points of view possible, as well as the substitution of one perspective for another and their comparison. While animal perception is deprived of depth and cross-references, perspective multiplicity introduces us to complex cognitive behaviour patterns and a free conduct. Thanks to this it becomes behaviour “which is open to truth and to the proper value of things”.11 This power to change points of view is what is so distinctive of human activity, which allows cognitive and practical reshaping, the creation of instruments, orientation in relation to what is possible. Merleau-Ponty refers to all of this as “cate11

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 122.

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gorial attitude” (a term previously used by Goldstein), and in it he sees what allows us to break away from a stereotyped relationship in a limited environment.12 Here the wealth of ambiguity which the philosopher often refers to becomes deep-rooted. It is the prolific ambiguity of meanings which can be multiple while referring to the same thing, defined as prolific ambiguity that looks towards the ambiguity which points to the plurality of different perspectives and the reserves of meaning of the perceived. 4. In Praise of Perspectivism and Perceptual Remodulation It is no accident that such perspectivism which acquaints us in general terms with symbolic behaviour patterns should reappear and be especially emphasized in the preliminary inquiry into perceptual consciousness which concludes La structure du comportement, thus linking the first work to the second. All the most profound philosophical problems, Merleau-Ponty observed, may find enlightenment from a renewed consideration of perception; from our perspective it is important to observe how it is precisely from the inclusion of acting in the perspective of perceptual fullness that the philosopher also suggests a renewed course of inquiry for moral philosophy. Perception is always perspective, as the lesson of Husserl teaches us, but this essential property certainly cannot be interpreted as a subjective deformation of things. The philosopher disagrees with the ambiguity which often emerges when speaking about perspectivism. The term is not incompatible with the opening up to truth and values. Instead, perceptual experience is characterized by a specific and intrinsic “coefficient of reality”.13 In the final part of his first book, the philosopher sings the praises of perspectivism and the epistemological richness which it brings to perception. Perspectivism is an indication of an assurance of a reserve of meaning of the real world which is richer than what we know of it. It grants the per12

Merleau-Ponty 1942, p. 238: “ Ces actes de la dialectique humaine révèlent tous la même essence: la capacitè de s’orienter par rapport au possibile, au médiat, et non par rapport à un milieu limitè,- ce que nous appelions plus haut avec Goldstein l’attitude catégoriale”. 13 Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 174.

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ceived not a fleeting glimpse of a subjective appearance, but continual cross-references to “a hidden and inexhaustible richness”14 This constantly reminds all arrogant intellectualism of the surplus of the real compared to the descriptive capacity of any categorical system. Above all, it is emphasized that perception offers us a “concordant multiplicity”, not therefore a disorganised multiplicity of juxtaposed elements, but a multiplicity which has its own form. It is this concordance which becomes an object of reflection for the philosopher. The profiles of my desk are not as appearances without value, but “manifestations” of the desk (Erscheinungen). Here it is not the paradoxical relation between the thing and its appearance that interests Merleau-Ponty, but the observation that these perspective appearances correspond, that they are representative of each other and they produce a configuration: “their concordant multiplicity is organized of itself”.15 This unity is not of the order of judgement nor of will-power, meaning that it is not a representation of the subject, rather how much is brought into being through an encounter of corporeal sensoriality with the world around it. Between the body and the perceived thing a problematic mutual correspondence comes to light, a strange Einfühlung which neither critical philosophy nor naturalism are able to explain and which the philosopher will investigate in his second work. This order “which is organized of itself”, which has neither reference to a succession of external events nor a form of thought, which suggests a kind of melodic harmony of concordant forms, can be found in both structures of behaviour and in the form of the perceived. Perceptual behaviour and situations communicate with each other, they break each other down into a common form. Perception is an ambiguous configuration of in-itselffor-me, which represents a singular challenge for philosophy. We need to know how to think at the same level as this order which form refers to, and which is both different from physical form and the one introduced by thought. It is necessary to create a “philosophy of form” capable of building a bridge between the perceiver and the perceived, between interior and exterior, and between the various fields of experience, replacing “philosophy of substance”, the originator of various forms of dualisms. In this way 14 15

Ibid., p. 186. Ibid., p. 187.

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the epistemological subject’s synthetic activity loses centrality with its constituent function and the attention is then focused on the manifestation of unitary meanings which are situated at a precategorical level. For Merleau-Ponty all this comes together in Scheler’s lesson of material a prioris. But if we admit material a prioris, consciousness can no longer be understood as a “universal function for the organisation of experience”16, we need to abandon the idea of mental activity as the principle of all coordinations and explore the different acts of consciousness in connection with the different regions of experience.17 Perception, which makes use of processes of the senses, emotions, and desires – which are therefore different from representation and judgement – provides the example of how an incarnate consciousness proceeds, which can be tuned in to global configurations of meaning where form and content are inseparable. Neither psychology nor critical philosophy have been able to find reasons for this mysterious matching of body, mind, and world and neither have they been able to explain the underlying integration between consciousness and nature. This promises interesting stimuli for a revision of the philosophy of action: if an order of the real manifests itself, without being imposed by thought (contrary to the Kantian doctrine) and without being a projection of human projectuality (contrary to Sartre’s thought), neither reflection nor will-power will be enough to give reasons for the perception of value. Values emerge in the perceptual field in relation to an order of the real which manifests itself in correspondence to a specific structure of behaviour. Both the choices of one’s own will and logical thought have connections with this ground that need to be investigated. It is important to stress that Merleau-Ponty sees the structure of behaviour as an open form which can be reshaped and not as the static structure 16

Ibid., p. 172. Merleau-Ponty 1942, pp. 232f: “ puisqu’il existe des «apriori matériels», l’idée que nous devons nous faire de la conscience est profondément modifié. Il n’est plus possible de la définir comme une fonction universelle d’organisation de l’expérience qui imposerait à tous ses objets les conditions de l’existence logique et de l’existence physique qui sont celles d’un univers d’objets articulés, et ne devrait ses spécifications qu’à la varieté de ses contenus. Il y aura des secteur d’expérience irréductibles les unes aux autres”.

17

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of a species. Behaviour produces a configuration of relationships between interior and exterior, between parts and the whole, which are variable and reshapable and which respond to an interior stability. Therefore we cannot talk in terms of substance, but in terms of networks of relationships that are never conceivable as being fixed and absolute, the expression of stability which may change and be reshaped in a different way. It would not be correct to simply identify the human race with symbolic behaviour, MerleauPonty mainly refers to behaviour that can be structured in different ways and not to the fixity of the species. Behaviour present in animals which is less integrated and repetitive can also reappear in man. Referring to chimpanzees, Merleau-Ponty speaks about “a short and heavy manner of existing”, that is of a limited perceptual opening to the world, but even as a sick man Schneider demonstrated “a lack of density and vital amplitude”18; on the contrary the artist and the generous man reach more integrated ways of perception and therefore they are capable of a deeper relationship with the real and a wider sense of alterity. This allows the philosopher to look at more complex spiritual and cognitive activity (and therefore also at art and moral) as if it were a possible conquest for individuals capable of articulating new forms of integration but also subject to relocation in regressive and repetitive dynamics. Therefore it would be reasonably simplistic to interpret behavioural development in a naturalistic way according to physical growth, but equally over-ambitious to consider it exclusively the fruit of free choice and individual creativity. He is thinking of an erratic model of development which can be open to new integrated dynamics, but which can regress and destroy itself as illnesses and psychoanalysis have shown. In this way, even the highly exalted freedom which our friend Sartre talks about, cannot be described according to ontology of not being and nothingness, but it must appear to be a conquest generated by a successful linking of activity and passiveness. These internal norms which self-regulate human behaviour are certainly not absolutes. The philosopher tends to consider them in Hegel’s way as dialectics which can be reshaped, which can integrate into something else and give shape to the acquisition of new behaviour patterns which correspond to the opening up to new areas of phenomena. Merleau-Ponty totally 18

Merleau-Ponty 2006, p. 126.

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rejects a dogmatic interpretation of the concepts of law and structure. On the other hand, he believes that biology, as well as certain areas of physics, make the effort to go beyond positivistic dogmatism and they go beyond helping scientific consciousness to rediscover “the vital meaning of the notions of structure and law”.19 Form refers to the dynamic unity of all things, in which separate parts lose their individuality in a series of complex relationships. Therefore the property of an isolated point is never the absolute property of this point, but only of this point since it is part of a certain structure. Form takes precedence over law: “Each form constitutes a field of forces characterized by a law which has no meaning outside the limits of the dynamic structure considered”.20 Instead structure and law should be thought of as “dialectical moments” and not substantial reality. The order which is perceived in living organisms is everywhere and nowhere in particular, everything seems to take place as if each part of a form dynamically knows the other parts (Köhler’s expression). Every organism is characterized by a form and it cannot be explained merely through physical laws and since an organic system functions in a different way compared to a physical system, there exists a correspondence among living organisms which no physical explanation can grasp. An internal coordination of behaviour is observed that cannot be defined according to the environment. The laws of science leave a large amount of surplus residue which is not understood and the philosopher is called upon to reflect on this residue by moving from the universe of science to that of perception. From intelligibility based on scientific laws, which connects external events to each other by means of causal coincidences, he directs his thought towards an intelligibility that knows how to refer to self-regulated forms according to internal laws, which manifest themselves in the universe of perception. In conclusion, therefore, it is about knowing how to look in a different direction in order to gain admittance to different regions of phenomena. Even this could be considered a particular example of the fertility of perspectivism. After all, the philosopher is invited to develop as much as possible that typically human ability to hold together different lines of perspective 19 20

Ibid., p. 140. Ibid., pp. 137f.

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without losing sight of the uniqueness of the object under observation and articulating perception in such a way as to obtain a reasonably complex and dynamic vision of reality. 5. The Phenomenology of Perception The first work concludes with an invitation to return to perception without preconceived ideas. It should be considered an experience that provides us with an original access to reality. Allowing ourselves to be led by it instead of reconstructing it calls into question the ontology and at the same time problematizes the role of the perceiver. Reading La Phénoménologie de la perception as the continuation of La structure du comportement gives us a deeper understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s statement according to which perception essentially cannot be intended as an act of consciousness, but rather as a form of existence. Thanks to such a perspective variation, it is enrolled in those dynamics of the living which we share with animals, instead of limiting the conscious act of representation. The second work deals with the problem of perception in a more articulate and extensive manner, and this allows us to highlight the epistemological values and to articulate them with ontological and ethical values. It is well-known that perception is not presented as a neutral cognitive act carried out by a subject without ties to the world, or by a disinterested spectator with a fleeting glance. To this end, the philosopher takes the greatest care to distinguish the perceived from the conceived through a harsh criticism of the Cartesian intellectualist model according to which we perceive only with the mind (mens), without significant sensory contribution. On the contrary, from Merleau-Ponty’s point of view, perception is just the way of being of a certain living organism, whose body has a definite form with behaviour patterns rooted in specific senses and kinetics. In the beginning it perceives on the basis of its own global body, as a living being it leans towards the world, familiarising with it and participating in its configuration. The philosopher’s inquiry takes the reader by the hand and leads him as he reveals, chapter by chapter, the complex weft of perceptual experience. It is not enough to recognise typicalness or an essence in it, but it is neces-

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sary to know how to intercept significant aspects such as possibilities for reshaping, temporal dynamism, and a will to accept differential changes. The power to transform already highlighted as belonging to all living beings, resurfaces (amplified) in the phenomenology of perception, where philosophy, biology, and psychology do not exclude each other. The philosopher proceeds to a problemization within a wide range of perception, considered as an incarnate emblematic experience, in other words with those characteristics of living corporeal openness to the world which is perspective, limited and reshapable, as previously come to light in the first work. Continuing the investigation it became clear that it did not have anything to do with a subjective and private vision of the world or even an arbitrary one, but a structured vision. A vision with reference to an organisation which in its origins has almost nothing to do with our conscious and voluntary choices, since the internal laws of such a structure are general, impersonal and shared with many other living beings that are similar to us. Being part of the same living nature, our bodies are not a source of openness to the world of a solipsistic type, but a shared openness and participated at least in its basic orientation. Therefore, perception on the one hand looks towards operating structures which configure a common “natural world”, and on the other hand highlights processes of differentiation and characterization involving the individual subject with its capacity for reflection and choice, which can only act within the horizon of this framework of structured relationships. Even when he looks at the reflective and conscious subject, MerleauPonty does not consider it within its statute of an individual that is mainly characterized by its singularity, but he sees that singularity as the result of an ongoing process of individualization, which can only be carried out by starting from the general structure of a living being and then continuing to function beyond every differentiation and which function long before the development of conscious behaviour. Therefore, conscious and voluntary subjectivity continues to be pervaded by a general nature, which is its presupposition. On the basis of his theory of perception he cannot give an individual “landscape” if it does not maintain its connection to a common “geographical world”. Instead the isolation of the individual landscape is considered a pathological phenomenon – as his reading of hallucination

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demonstrates – and it is accompanied by a global impoverishment in the ability to perceive, live and act. A perception which is unable to transcend and cross subjectivity in order to “marry” a genuine sense of reality is basically a failed perception. It is as if that wonderful inquiring sensory power that is the manifestation of life itself gets stuck, thus interrupting the virtuous circle between the perceiver and the world that leads to their reciprocal growth. All that remains is an impoverished subject connected to a poor and stereotyped world (as the Schneider case demonstrates). So one has a better understanding of the supremacy of perception that Merleau-Ponty often alludes to: it is not the action of a subject, but in a more meaningful way it is the basic process through which, in a dialectic correlation, world and subjectivity acquire their configuration together. The explanation of perception tends to rediscover and bring to light those forgotten links between subjectivity and objectivity which the opposing prejudices of subjectivism and objectivism had severed. In this perspective between generality and individualization, between the natural world and the historical world, between passiveness and activeness, the dichotomy is only apparent and it is fed by an objectivist attitude paying attention only to the perceived, setting it free from all those relationships that unite the thing to the incarnate subject. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of perception wants to invert this direction of the gaze to bring the weaving (foyer) of nature and history to the surface in the complex weft of the phenomenal field. 6. The Thing and the Natural World Now I would like to concentrate on chapter III of the second part of Phénoménologie entitled La chose et le monde naturel. I consider this chapter to contain quite a significant point within the perspective of this essay, since it allows us to bring into focus certain aspects relevant for the moral implications they entail and which rightfully permit the voice of Merleau-Ponty to be included in the contemporary ethical debate. It will not only help us to understand more fully the peculiarities of MerleauPonty’s naturalism, it also allows us to bring into focus with greater clarity how much it spreads more or less openly through the previous chapters.

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Merleau-Ponty raises the question of the perspective truth of perceiving and above all I believe it is the problemization of the crux of the matter which makes the actuality of his thought emerge in an ethical direction. How can we reconcile perspectivism and real perception? If the real is open to more than one meaning, the investigation of the perceptual experience leads us towards sceptical and relativistic results? Or is there still enough space to wonder about the problem of sense and its origin, combining it with the awareness of being a point of view embodied in the world? What theoretical and practical freedom remains in the possibility of a subject embodied in the world and in history? Perhaps communication between different interpretations of experience? The raising of issues concerning the perspectivism of human experience, the wondering about the ties which exist between the perceiver and the perceived, those threads which mainstream philosophy has often hidden or not appreciated, seem to me to be Merleau-Ponty’s own personal contribution to French phenomenology. I will try to describe this interpretive hypothesis by elaborating two characteristic traits: A) recognition of the perceiving thread and the perceived world in the direction of their reciprocal growth; B) protection of a reference to the universal through the concept of “the natural world”. A-The thing defined as the correlative of our body and our life. Perception refers back to a “system of experience” in which body and phenomena are strictly connected. Therefore, the body is part of this system and on more than one occasion we can emphasize the important normative role it plays. Merleau-Ponty uses strong terms to indicate this correlation: perception takes shape thanks to a “pact” between the perceiver and the perceived and is described as “communication”, “communion” and “coition” between the body and things.21 Thus the philosopher proposes dynamics of participation, continually differentiating it from the scientific process of objectification. The organisation of the field, the complexity of this system, and the continuous interlacing and interaction of different threads that work together to produce the spectacle are highlighted. It is not by chance that the 21

Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 370: “…toute perception est une communication ou une communion, la reprise ou l’achèvement par nous d’une intention étrangère ou inversement l’accomplissement au dehors de nos puissances perceptives et comme un accouplement de notre corps avec les choses” (italics mine).

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philosopher often goes back to the example of vision, in a polemical contraposition to the analysis of the gaze carried out by Sartre. Visual perception is described as allowing oneself to be led, placing one’s trust in another, similar to a guest who arrives in a strange house and allows himself to be taken to the owner of the house by those who are already familiar with the place.22 Merleau-Ponty directs our attention towards what leads our gaze instead of arresting it, that is, he invites us to reveal not necessarily the object perceived (the owner of the house; the thing itself) but rather to broaden our visual field and include what remains in the background as discreet intermediaries, “It is not seen itself, but causes us to see the rest”, meaning what is familiar (what is transcendental), even though it stays in the background compared to the perceived, equally carries out an essential function of orientation towards the owner of the house. Independent of the metaphor, to whom is this unknown, discreet guide who helps to shape the perceptual scene sent back? In the first place it refers to the body with its sense organs and kinetic apparatus, the particular exploratory and orienteering abilities of which are highlighted; but we shall soon see that the same function can be performed, at different levels of experience, by other factors such as emotions, the past or imagination, or even by the moral attitude of the perceiver. All these factors are capable of leading us in the direction of the owner of the house. Perception appears as a complex process of “synchronisation” in which the body takes part with its selective sensory abilities and with its exploratory movements, thus it contributes to making the miracle of the expression of the thing happen. The philosopher wishes to bring to light the “total logic” of the spectacle, the global organisation of the field in which sensory perception and the world form a single system and from this thread the configuration of meaning takes shape. Reflection and conscious dynamics are part of this “complete logic”, even though in this context more importance is given to prereflexive activities. Perception can be assimilated to an ongoing process of bringing the thing into focus, which can have different results according to the organisation of the field. Perceptual experiences multiply, they become involved, they connect temporarily, and they can either provide an extremely rich and ar22

Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 361.

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ticulate spectacle or an extremely poor one. Certain variations of perspective can produce an “expansion” of its field of presence which permits a harmonizing with the real in a way that is qualitatively better. Objectification is just one means among other possible ones of bringing into focus: there are many alternative ways of making a pact with the thing and varying the perspectives and the network of relationships which ties us to it offer us different landscapes. There are optimal ways of perception, namely perspectives that are not all equal: some of them allow us to see more discriminately and succeed in bringing to light aspects that did not appear beforehand. Exactly as if we were standing in front of a painting, these perspectives point us into the right direction at the right distance from which the richness of colours and lines stand out better. Likewise, we create a “culminating point of my perception” where the thing manifests itself more discriminately. This will be the “true” perception: this perceived configuration that “reaches its maximum richness”23 deserves that adjective. The process of harmonizing with the real, passing through the organisation of the phenomenal fields, always stays open and infinite: we are not shut within subjective appearances and not even scientific objectivity exhausts the richness of meanings of the real. It is necessary to put oneself into the best conditions in order to know how to see and to bring into focus the thing in the most focused way possible. The phenomenological ideal of a return to the things themselves goes together with the knowledge that such a return can only take place after having explored this difficult problem of multiple correlations that exist between the perceiver and the perceived, only after having explained this exchange which is established on a natural and spontaneous level before intentional and conscious acts take place. This is one of the main tasks reserved for the philosophy of incarnation, which in this way is described as research interested predominantly in a modulation and reshaping of perspectivism. Since one needs to find oneself in the best situation possible in order to know how to see, since such positioning partly depends on conditions that cannot be directly controlled, but are rather experienced through participation in a certain system of experiences, we will not at all be surprised by the particular attention Merleau-Ponty pays to the attitudes of the per23

Ibid., p. 371.

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ceiver. Not only does the philosopher refer to the attitudes of the body which can encourage or limit the breaking forth into things – he repeatedly speaks about the attitude de mon corps – but he also focuses his attention on mental, cultural and social attitudes because they are also considered to be the source of ample broad-mindedness with regard to the real. “Each attitude of my body is for me, immediately, the power of achieving a certain spectacle”.24 “Perceptual attitudes” embody our point of view, exemplifying our perspective, giving concrete form to our inherency in the world, denying us the illusion of being spectators so that we become conscious of taking part in the spectacle. In one word they indicate our condition of the incarnate gaze in a system of experience the dynamics of which we participate in as part of a whole, many aspects of which escape our control. Although experience of the thing always takes place within the framework of a certain natural and cultural “setting” (montages), nevertheless it transcends itself in the thing, it is actual experience of the sense of the real, even though limited and open: “my experience breaks forth into things and transcends itself in them.”25 Perceptual attitudes are described as “stages” towards putting the thing into focus, perspective stages of moving closer to its optimal configuration. It is worth pausing and taking a closer look at this “setting” of experience, whether it is corporeal, psychological, cultural, or social. In the interpretation supplied by the philosopher, it indicates the incarnate and perspective aspect of our experience, but it does not cause problems for our perceptual ability. The philosopher continues to repeat that “I am at grips with the world”.26 This “perceptual faith” cannot be dented by any systematic doubt. Such an assembly is not synonymous with subjectivism or shutting oneself in a world of appearances. When perception turns out to be illusory, it means that it has failed and that it has lost that movement of exploration-configuration of the world which already characterizes it at a vital level. It is necessary to multiply the course of experience, widen the field, reshape the perspective, convert the gaze in order to regain some 24

Ibid., p. 352. Ibid., p. 353. 26 Ibid., p. 353. 25

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measure of familiarity with phenomena, instead of giving into the temptation of scepticism or relativism. The therapy of illusion, unlike Sartre, does not rely on the imperious and subjective gesture of choice versus bad faith, but on the patient job of tuning in to phenomena, on the willingness to take into consideration new aspects, varying perceptual attitudes.27 One is orientated towards renewed realism, which recognises the correspondence between the perceiver and the perceived world, which are configured together in reciprocal growth. Originally the thing is the correlative of our body; the majority of the inquiries of Phénoménologie lead to the revelation that it is not a neuter in itself, but it takes shape at the end of a gaze, movements, or sensory exploration, in short instead it is a speaker in perpetual dialogue with the body and open to its inspection. This assertion by the philosopher does not stop there and he adds, moving towards a more personal point of view, that the thing is related to our lives, meaning towards what our whole existence is focused on.28 Therefore perception is not a science where one moves away from things in order to observe them, rather one familiarizes oneself with it and interacts with our existence. Perception is a “taking up” with the body and the mind, leading to an “completion” of the thing itself; Merleau-Ponty speaks about reprise and achèvement of the thing in a process of expression, the meaning of which is established in a continuous dialogue with the incarnate subject. The separation of the object from the perceiver is an artificial operation produced by objectivism, which makes us forget that the perceived is always given in a global experience where the existence of the perceiver is involved. For this aspect Merleau-Ponty declares that he is indebted to Der Formalismus in der Ethik by Max Scheler – in fact this is a work which is often quoted – and he sums up Scheler’s views by stating that the perceived is not an intentional object as a term of knowledge, but in practice it is present as a “unity of value”. If the thing can be indicated as a “unity of value”, it means that its taking root in the body is not enough for it to take shape. The examples chosen bear witness to the fact that in perception other factors such as love, “the 27

Meletti Bertolini 2007. Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 369: “Ainsi la chose est le corrélatif de mon corps et plus généralement de mon existence dont mon corps n’est que la structure stabilisée”. 28

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respect of other men” and “that loyal friendship” are implicated as co-determinants. In other words, the affectivity and the moral attitude of the perceiver rightfully become part of the perception of the thing: the respect of other men and loyal friendship orientate the sense of my perception as much as corporeal sensoriality. Scheler had previously highlighted the importance of a person’s moral orientation (Gesinnung), which remains constant as will power, desires and refection change, and especially it manifests itself in phenomena of the sphere of expression (mime and gestures) more clearly than in actions and speech.29 As for Merleau-Ponty, he confirms that in the “total logic” of perceptual configuration one should also take into consideration moral orientation. This forms part of his project to pay attention to the horizons which co-determine the perceptual field: respect and friendship are part of what leads our gaze without being the object, what is normally neglected and removed in favour of the perceived but plays a fundamental role in selecting and bringing to the fore that particular perceived, rather than others. All this brings us even closer to the ethical values of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception; while the philosopher habitually takes his examples from the field of aesthetics (and also in this case the example of the exploratory function of illumination in the art of painting confirms his inclination), in this context he cannot resist referring explicitly to ethics, highlighting the profound influence of moral attitude in the organisation of perceptual fields. In the last chapter dedicated to freedom, where he makes considerable criticism of Sartre’s philosophy of choice, Merleau-Ponty confirms the “the presence within us of spontaneous evaluation”.30 The philosopher goes back to perception, presenting it as animated by an implicit process of “tacit evaluation”, which at its origins leaves aside our judgement and our voluntary choices. Referring to the birth of class consciousness as an example, the philosopher emphasises how the latter matures in interhuman relationships, in the experience of coexistence, in the formation of a form of common sensitivity and shared system of values; it takes its nourishment from the lifeworld much more than from individual choices and the subjective engagement that Sartre refers to. 29 30

Scheler 1980, pp. 128ff. Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 512.

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Later on we will come back to the critical aspects. For the time being we only need to find in all this the confirmation that our perceiving is saturated with implicit orientation not commonly felt, not only of a corporeal and sensory, but also of a moral, social, and cultural nature. It would be wrong to try and interpret the philosopher’s insistence on rendering the connecting lines between perceiver and perceived visible as leading in a subjective or emotive direction. On the contrary, he explicitly states that he has not exhausted the meaning of the thing by defining it as the correlative of our body and our life.31 The real “problem of the thing” which perception gives meaning to, concerns its being an in-itself-for-us: it is experienced by us, picked up by our sensory organs and brought closer through our personal orientation, but it also “remains self-sufficient”, exhibiting its own configuration. This is the paradox of perception: it is not shut within psychologistic parameters which would turn it into a human projection, but instead it flows onto “the core of reality”. Neither subjectivism nor objectivism manage to understand the reason for phenomena, and both directions reduce the complexity of perception unilaterally concealing significant aspects. Above all, neither of the two positions have managed to pick up on what for Merleau-Ponty is the main problem which comes to light from perceptual experience: it becomes emblematic in that it is capable of getting us to question ourselves about the ties between the natural world and the human world. B – Perception is not a private spectacle: The natural world. Perception cannot be reduced to “a system of invariable relations”, which are transparent to thought like a crystal cube. Thinking of it in this way would mean forgetting that characteristic “opacity” of the perceived thing, in virtue of which it always promises “something else to see”.32 It is essential for the philosopher to draw attention to the example of an open and remodulable organisation within the perceptual process. The perceived can never be determined in an absolute way and it stays in the background of the horizon which is open to further exploration, none of which can claim to be exhaustive. Perceptual experience turns out to be subject to developments 31 32

Ibid., p. 375. Ibid., p. 388.

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as well as interruptions and involution, but it always demonstrates its own internal unity, a typicalness comparable to the one we find in different works by one and the same author, all of which characterized by the same style of thought. Neither the inherence to a point of view, nor the variety of perceptual modulations or even the possibility of looking at the thing as a unity of value in which both the perceiver and the perceived are involved, none of these aspects gesture towards an alleged subjectivity of experience. Even in the plurality of perceptual styles, Merleau-Ponty tends to reaffirm that perception is not “only a private spectacle”; it remains animated by a movement that goes beyond the confines of subjectivity and it activates a genuine contact with the real, welcoming its alterity.33 The plurality of perceptual styles certainly does not induce Merleau-Ponty to consider the single individual as the leading protagonist of perceptual activity, and neither does he make it the cornerstone of different and immeasurable experiences. On the contrary, conscious subjectivity emerges and develops from a network of essentially anonymous interrelationships, with perception being the axis around which subjectivity can either develop or fail in its own individuation.34 Despite individual differences, general conditions of experience remain, structural strengths that have something in common because they are alive and they make sure that perception stays an experience where certain “universal settings” are shared. Therefore let us take another look at these corporeal and organic “settings” which the philosopher makes continuous reference to. In his first work as well as in the second, he has already emphasized on more than one occasion his consideration for a natural order which does not come from thought, but operates in the lives of organisms and in perceptual processes. It is a question of structures which have the singular characteristic of “functioning by themselves”: natural time functions by itself beneath historical and personal time. Coordination and the matching of sensitive data is a language which is self-taught, an organism is a melody which is sung 33

Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 376: “Il faut que le sujet percevant, sans quitter sa place et son point de vue, dans l’opacité du sentir, se tende vers des choses dont il n’a pas d’avance la clé et dont cependant il porte en lui-même le projet, s’ouvre à un Autre absolu qu’il prépare du plus profond de lui-même”. 34 Vanzago 2004.

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by itself. So far the philosopher has made use of all this to highlight perspectivism and the body-world interlacement. Now it is the anonymous generality and the universality of these settings that come to the fore “to have a body is to possess a universal setting”.35 To have sight, for example, means to possess an original setting that makes us sensitive to visual constellations. This means that all perceptions stand out in a natural backdrop which is now brought into evidence “I am thrown into a nature”.36 This is a statement to critically set against Sartre’s Pour soi thrown into freedom, and the basic wedge for throwing existential humanism into crisis. Perception cannot be outlined in a Kantian manner and reduced to a rigid system of invariable relations since, as we have seen, it is subject to development and withdrawal, reshaping and reorientation. Neither can it be reduced to private experience in correlation to projects and individual choices as in Sartre’s philosophy. Merleau-Ponty rejects the radicalization of the subjective-objective dichotomy since it does not correspond to phenomena and loses sight of the fundamental unity of living beings. General and anonymous structures continue their silent, unobserved action within every process of differentiation, and there is no difference that is not the divergent development of a primitive unit. The description of the differences in style does not have to blind us to the persistence of common internal norms shared by other living beings. Within us there exists a constantly operative nature intended not as nature-object which is studied by science, but as an anonymous and unreflective life, which is the permanent background of personal existence. The philosopher does not limit himself to noting the unshakeable pluralism of perceptual styles; this plurality is the very condition that allows to remain in a shared “natural world”. Previously Scheler observed that the apparently casual variety of colours does not make us lose sight of the unitary sense of the framework/picture, instead it is exactly in relation to such entirety that colours fully release their significance. The natural world already stands out in correlation to the living body, and our experience does not need a syntheses of the intellect to reach its own configuration. It exhibits “a given, not a willed, unity” in correlation to general and pre-personal existence of bodily and intersensory 35 36

Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 381. Ibid., p. 403.

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functions.37 The sensory settings, the passing of natural time, the attention to orientation which works by itself are equally indications that point the philosopher in the direction of the natural, in other words towards the anonymous life which does not depend on rationality and free will, towards time which I do not establish, towards what is more original than my subjectivity and my choices, but which equally introduces us to personal existence. In this way, ontological and cognitive fecundity of an antepredicative and impersonal life is explained, a life that becomes the “ground” (Boden) for personal differentiation and at the same time the prerequisite for intersubjective communication. Deep down inside we prepare for the acceptance of otherness and communication with strangers, sharing a living and unreflective nature. If we think back to the opening lines of La structure du comportement where it is stated that the aim of such a study was to understand the relationship between consciousness and nature, then in Phénoménologie we can see that this intention has been taken and elaborated to an even greater degree. In particular, while working towards a renewed theory of action, a revision of which was hoped for even at the time, where the ideas that came to fruition in the two works were put to good use, and which found expression in the criticism of Sartre’s concept of freedom. We are now able to understand more fully how in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of action the attention cannot be catalyzed by a single protagonist, in that it is an individual separated from the complex process of individuation which caused it to emerge as such from a background of anonymous interrelated processes. Free choice is repositioned within a process of individuation always evolving, within a differentiating development which is characterized as a reshaping of being and not as a dynamic abstract of annulment. At this point I would like to draw attention to the reversal produced in the relations between subjectivity and perception. While Sartre presented perceptual dynamics as the expression of the subject’s ability to plan, for Merleau-Ponty perception becomes the cornerstone around which subjec37

Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 381: “Le monde naturel est l’horizon de tous les horizons, le style de tous les styles, qui garantit à mes expériences une unité donnée et non voulue par dessous toutes les ruptures de ma vie personnelle et historique, et dont le corrélatif est en moi l’existence donnée, générale et prépersonnelle de mes fonctions sensorielles où nous avons trouvé la définition du corps”.

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tivity is shaped. In this way the supremacy of the process of development asserts itself, correlated to the organization of the field and the process of remodulation compared with the desire of Sartre’s subject to be the centre of attention. Between the course of perceptual experiences and the development of free individual activities a circular relationship of reciprocal growth or reciprocal impoverishment is established. The philosopher indicates perception as the focal point around which the subject can create himself fail to do so. According to Merleau-Ponty we need to keep connected the perspective point of view of the agent on the one hand, and what is general and what is shared (or natural) when relating to the world, on the other. In this way one comes to insist on a dimension of perception that is not private, but intersubjective. A dimension that is retrieved by looking towards living nature. Phenomenology is invited to look in this direction, to alter the point of view of the philosophy of consciousness by integrating it within the philosophy of nature. It is necessary to be aware that in the beginning the perceiver is not consciousness, but a living body (Leib), that the sensory settings are not opposed to freedom, but what makes it possible. The main philosophical problem which the study of perception leads to is precisely the clarification of this link between life and subjective individuation.38 Compared to the complexities and difficulty of this task, Merleau-Ponty felt that Sartre’s transcendence-facticity was restrictive and deviant, an expression of hypertrophied subjectivity which in general tends to charaterise modern philosophy. In this context where the perspectivism of points of view becomes a problem without sacrificing its propensity for the real, the role and tasks of reflection are also reformulated. One must not think that Merleau-Ponty’s contribution stops at the discovery of an intercorporeity that ties us to others solely on the basis of bodily settings. Although this aspect is almost certainly emphasized, we must not forget that his basic intention remains to reconnect the interrupted threads between rationality, sensoriality, and life. From this point of view, Merleau-Ponty describes reflection as “a change in structure of our existence”.39 This means that it rightly enters into the dynamics of the perceptual field with its own transforming force capable of 38 39

Chiasmi International 2005. Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 72.

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reorientating the organization. The most significant example is philosophical reflection, which by distancing itself from life alters the perspective within which phenomena manifest themselves, allowing us to see them in a different light: “…not merely practise philosophy, but realize the transformation which it brings with it in the spectacle of the world and in our existence”.40 A reflection which is finally aware that the cogito which installs itself on a natural anti-predicative ground, will be capable of questioning itself and casting doubt upon its own presumed transparency. It is not just about gaining self-awareness of perspective limitations and the passiveness which characterizes the incarnate subject, we are also invited to acknowledge the active and transforming force inherent within the practice of reflection. The true strength of perspective reflection lies in the ability to see differently, in the possibility of being able to modify the gaze without losing reference to the thing (categorial attitude). This aspect, already indicated in the first work as peculiar to human behaviour, is held responsible for the productiveness of reflection, which in fact should be interpreted as an activity in natural connection with life. An absolute gesture of the epoché is never made, and every time the direction of the gaze changes one discovers aspects that were not perceived before. For example, I can suspend my objectivistic attitude and discover different aspects of the perceptual process which help me recognize my inherence to living nature, to a Leib: “true philosophy consists in relearning to look at the world”.41 I believe that one of the most interesting and topical contributions of MerleauPonty’s philosophy consists in explaining what the fact of being an incarnate point of view implies at an epistemological, ontological and moral level, by exploring its limits and opportunities. All this calls into question the problem of objectivity; reality is not something to be taken for granted once and for all, but it is configured in a complex fabric of organic, sentimental and cognitive relationships. By deconstructing the logical and epistemological subject, the philosopher gives back depth to sensoriality, to the attitudes which preorientate, to sexuality, in other words to existence. Perception is full of interruptions, of organic settings furrowed by contributions from the past, by imagination, by sensitivity, by culture, a complex 40 41

Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. XXIII.

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system of bringing into focus where reflection also intervenes encouraging certain orientation, varying the backgrounds and the foreground, making some horizons more explicit than others. The phenomenology of perception requires the philosopher to recognize the possibility of different configurations of the real and to directly assume responsibility for the demobilization of meanings that takes us towards an open recognition of their pluralism. But deep down even the philosopher feels the danger of this disbandment. It lends itself to a drift of a subjectivistic type, which makes an individual incommunicable world of a single subject and radicalizes the decisive role of its choices. Sartre embodies this danger perfectly and it is precisely with a criticism of Sartre’s conception of freedom that La Phénoménologie ends. If perception already transmits evaluative aspects, if it is the fruit of a selection which configures the scene, and if the perceiver is an active protagonist in this configuration, all these aspects open up the risk of the subjectivisation of perception and of values. This exposes perception to multiple interpretations, all equally plausible, and the loss of a genuine sense of the real means that the only criteria for validity remaining for the action is the subject’s choice. Scheler reacted to this relativism by proposing an ontologization of values. Although Merleau-Ponty had made use of many of Scheler’s suggestions, he is unable to follow him in this direction, which in his eyes further results in objectivistic prejudice, a specular defect of subjectivism. The philosopher would like to safeguard the ability of perceptual experience to give us a genuine contact with the real world, in spite of the partiality of subjective attitudes. Neither the recourse to the subject’s choices, nor the ontologization of values are accountable to phenomena; he sees a possible way out of the shallows of relativism by exploring the way of a renewed naturalism, which does not isolate nor does it set ideal normativity elaborated by reason, against a natural normativity which the living body reveals, when appropriately examined. Such spontaneous normativity in no way justifies closure within solipsistic consciousness, instead it testifies on the behalf of ontological communication among human beings. If the recogniton of the pluralism of meanings confirmed by perception were simply to be taken as a consequence of the multiplicity of subjective worlds, for the philosopher this would translate into a dangerous misunderstanding of human perspectivism. The risk of closure within subjectivity

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was also fuelled by the developments of some introspective psychology, which had identified their own object in the description of the realm of the inner life. But Merleau-Ponty definitely did not want to substitute the philosopher’s “rationalistic cogito”, which alludes to a constituting universal consciousness, with a “cogito of psychology”, which remains closed within the incommunicable experience of its own life. There is a constant use of materials offered by psychological description, but it is accompanied by a condemnation of how insufficient it is: the research into perception starts from psychological descriptions, but it cannot stop there. The philosopher must aim for an elucidated experience (expérience elucidée), freeing himself from associating with the phenomenal field in the transcendental. From this point of view, the transcendental refers us to what permeates us, what orientates us from within, to an ambiguous life of the unreflected, in other words to the world of living beings and not constituent operations of consciousness. All this causes reflection to have a new awareness of its own dependence on a life without reflection, on the structures which innervate it, on the relationships into which it is integrated: from this moment on, the description of phenomena is no longer enough for the phenomenologist, it has to be connected to the explanation from the perceiver’s point of view. But not only does such a thorough explanation refer to individual subjective differences, it also shows signs of moving towards general modes of experience. In other words, it refers to a common nature. Since it uses the sensory organs, a body made in a certain way with certain impersonal functions, my experience cannot be presented as something totally unique and accessible only to me, as would be required by Sartre’s Pour soi. There is a continuous coming and going between organic and personal which Sartre completely ignored. The body contributes to bringing us into focus as it is a singular personality, but always starts from general and anonymous processes. It is necessary to look at nature to avoid the risk of shutting ourselves within a self-centred consciousness where communication becomes an impossible undertaking.

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7. Original Communication and Intersubjectivity I will turn to the significance of naturalism as re-examined by MerleauPonty, focusing on the role of moral values, through his critique of Sartre’s individualism. First of all, we need to clear up a possible misunderstanding: certainly gestures, mime and emotions can be defined as having natural origins, but in Merleau-Ponty’s vocabulary this term definitely does not mean that they are physiologically explicable. It is not enough to have the same organs in order to have the same gestures and the same meanings. The philosopher wants to make the point that “there is no more here than in the realm of instinct a human nature finally and immutably given”.42 The psycho-physiological makeup leaves a great many possibilities open and the use a man makes of his body is transcendent in relation to his biological constitution and to his anatomical apparatus. Therefore it is impossible to separate the natural from the cultural as if they were two superimposed layers: there is no human behaviour which does not owe something to biology, but at the same time it does not escape the simplicity of animal mechanisms. As we have already noted several times, the naturalness of living organisms and behaviour refers to reshapable and differentiable structures, as substitutions and the changes to the body schema in case of trauma or pathology show. This power of échappement, which brings about the reshaping of an established structure and has already been observed in living organisms, becomes evident especially in human behaviour and more specifically where language is concerned, where this restructuring power reaches its peak. In order to understand the philosopher’s naturalism more effectively, it is necessary to add another important component: the body can be put at the basis of the plastic possibility of reshaping the human world, not only where the power of expression is concerned but also the power of comunication, to which it is closely connected. This allows us to emphasize how its resort to the natural has as a constant thread the safeguard of the communicative relationship first with the world and with the thing and finally with the other. In the end, perception in its multiple form is revealed as a precious general and immediate power to enter into contact with, fa42

Ibid., p. 220.

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miliarize with, and feel the real in its alterity, in other words to relate to it in a form of experienced participation different from the objectifying idealizations of thought. All this is valid, all the more so when applied to the perception of the other. Coming face to face with this classic part of phenomenology, the philosopher makes every effort to show that communication among incarnate subjects is certainly not an illusion, but a primitive phenomenon: “We witness every minute the miracle of related experience, and yet nobody knows better than we do how this miracle is worked, for we are ourselves this network of relationships”.43 The relationship with the other is immediate and corporeal: every mime, every gesture, every word acquires an immediate intersubjective resonance, thanks to which all behaviour can be institutionalized and become the property of many. It is all about relational dynamics which preside over the development of social life, history, and culture. How should we consider this relationship between the natural world and the human world? In this problematic context Merleau-Ponty uses an implicit concept of nature, re-read as the weft of communicating relationships into which we are inserted. Communication is the structural bond that connects the living to each other within this structure, in this sense it is primitive; it has always been innate in our nature, in the name of a “primeval contract” which is similar to a gift of nature rather than a conquest of willpower. Philosophy only has to recognize this familiarity among all living beings and avail itself of this resource which intellectualism is normally lacking in. Thus it will be able to spare itself the unnecessary effort of creating the perception of the other through reasoning by analogy or the process of objectification. It will always be about the reconstruction of theories, which always imply what they want to explain. Phenomenology has often missed the profound significance of communication, thus missing the opportunity to reveal the epistemological and moral fecundity inherent in the primitive exchange of experience among perceivers. The main target of criticism in this context is the phenomenology elaborated by Sartre in L’Etre et le Néant. In particular, Merleau-Ponty puts to the test his analysis of perception as a primitive form of communication by concentrating on criticism of two fundamental theoretical nuclei of this 43

Ibid., p. XXIII (italics mine).

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work: perception of others and choice. It is no accident that a chapter of Phénoménologie is dedicated to each of them, respectively, where the philosopher articulates an elaborate strategy in order to demonstrate how subjectivism and objectivism are two sides of the same coin, the fruit of the same attitude that loses sight of loyalty to phenomena. Also in this case, the main critical move will consist in altering perspective, and in altering the gaze: bringing consciousness back within the dynamics of the living means setting the conditions in order to be able to see things differently and to reorganize the field of moral and intersubjective problems. The existence of other minds represents a scandal for objective thought, which origins in false problems that, thus, is unable to account for intersubjective perception. When Descartes looked out of the window all he saw were hats and capes and it would be up to the intervention of judgement to rectify this confused distracting vision. Similarly, Sartre’s gaze will always end up by turning the other to stone and reducing it to an object. How to undo this unsolvable paradox of a consciousness accessed from without? It proves to be unsolvable when placed within the dualistic context of Descartes or Sartre, which does not take the perceptual dynamics into account. Merleau-Ponty suggests that his phenomenology of perception can contribute to untying this knot: with this aim in mind, it is necessary to start from the perceptual consciousness incarnate in a Leib and not from a purely constituent consciousness. This change of perspective allows us to define the problem of the other in a different way: communication is once more possible among incarnate subjects. Sartre’s analysis of the gaze highlighted how problematic understanding between pure minds can be: if I consider consciousness to be intimacy which is mine and mine alone, the cogito becomes a private inner nature and the multitude of consciousness immediately converts to a “plurality of exclusion” ready to trigger a conflict. Merleau-Ponty argues to the contrary that, starting from perception intended as being intrinsic to the Leib of the things, it is possible to conceive a plurality of sharing, that is a communicating co-perception. The other does not appear as an utterly alien object, but rather as an articulation of expressive behaviour offered to the sensitivity of other incarnate subjects who can relate to each other since they are subject to the same dynamics. Sartre’s gaze which objectifies the other is an “inhuman gaze” that

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functions “only if both of us withdraw into the core of our thinking nature”44, an abstract cognitive experience which in no way takes into consideration our shared nature of living beings: the other appears as a stranger whose actions I observe as if I were observing an insect. But this absolute extraneousness turns out to be impossible among incarnate subjects, among whom communication can be suspended but not destroyed. Perception per se is, already by the way it develops, a form of experience that denies solipsism. Life is not closure within static structures, but capable of creating relationships among different structures thanks to common codes. In this context Merleau-Ponty makes good use of the destabilization of the interior-exterior dichotomy: the body, as the Leib-Körper reversability of the touching-touched hand shows, appears as a fluctuating and reversible boundary that causes the distinction between inside and outside to be reinterpreted. It does not only see, but at the same time it is visible, it does not only touch, but it can feel itself being touched. Attributing value to sensory perception brings us to value their common traits. The fact that the other is like me not does not depend on reasoning by analogy, nor does it depend on empathic and psychological simulation, it goes much deeper than that because it is inhabited by the same organic and functional apparatus. This constitutes an “internal relationship” among bodies, common harmony resounds in all of them, familiar ways of feeling and treating the world. They can be seen as connected nodes in common articulation, inhabited by the same anonymous existence. It is a question of a structural kinship, which puts them on a par beyond all individual, cultural, and historical differentiation. Nature, grasped through the analysis of perceptual experience, does not appear to be an object that can be known, it rather appears as a set of general orientations which acts in us long before thought. The transition from the psychological to the transcendental means that the philosopher has to pass from a level where the differences between individuals can be described to a level where a joint articulation of this kind of multiplicity appears. This is why, according to Merleau-Ponty’s, perception cannot be considered the private operation of an individual, guided by his choices and plans. In fact, it exaggerates subjectivity on all sides, since it refers to relationships within which it has always been collocated. Per44

Ibid., p. 420.

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ception shows we are consortes and in its own procedure it manifests the artificiality of solipsism. Considering perceptual experiences, the philosopher sees in it an act which violently tears us away from our private lives and manifests a primitive dimension of intersubjective communication. With this the philosopher indicates a basic limit of Sartre’s philosophy: the latter described perception of the other as a typical cognitive process of objectification, supplying a vast collection of examples where the failure or illusoriness of communication between minds is demonstrated. In order to get round this difficulty, the possibility of communication can only be entrusted to a process of construction where choice, moral conversion and engagement are the individual tools used as levers for breaking away from bad faith. In L’Etre et le Néant Sartre explored the cognitive and objective way in order to reach the other and he declared it was a failure. He was not able to recognize the epistemological fecundity different from the objectifying gaze, losing sight of the complexity of experience. In this way, in the eyes of Merleau-Ponty, his friend had not left the limits of constituent consciousness, he had deprived himself of the possibility of grasping the current of primitive communication which remains the hidden essence of every individual differentiation, and inscrutable subjective freedom became the real apriori of his philosophy. His incapacity to imagine articulation of consciousness with nature radicalized his humanism, deflecting it towards a dead-end individualistic perspectivism. Sartre’s emphasis on choice gives us further confirmation of his attitude. One always starts from the assumption of a multiplicity of incomparable unrelated minds and this prejudice orientates his philosophy of perception towards one of action. Choice is the gesture of annulment of a situation on the part of freedom which affirms itself, just a centrifugal Sinngebung gesture which unfolds its procession of motivation and evaluation. On the other side of Scheler’s objectification of values, Sartre, like Weber before him, leaves the management of the plurality of values to personal choice arriving at a plurality of exclusion. For Merleau-Ponty, transferring to the transcendental definitely does not involve locking oneself within an isolating consciousness, indeed it implies recognizing that we are structured in a certain way, permeated by certain orientations, articulated by a common nature. In other words, recognition of one’s own incarnation, recovery of repressed corporeity – which in his way even Sartre attempted – is

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hardly compatible with a mind that is a singular incomparable annihilation. If anything, it would be necessary to re-read subjectivity as an “intersubjective field”, as a network of universality and individuality and development as a process of differentiation starting from shared functions. The incarnate subject can no longer “feign to be an annihilation”45, or to have to come into being with the same freedom with which an artist creates a work of art: if a mind defines itself in terms of absolute freedom, this freedom must remind blind to its own presuppositions, a “freedom without a field”.46 Sartre’s philosophy of choice, which greatly emphasizes the subject’s power of initiative with its capacity for annulment, totally ignores the set of internal orientation which acts within us long before thought and which for Merleau-Ponty constitutes the best suggestion for reflection to renew the philosophy of action. In other words, Sartre’s subject ignores its real incarnation in a nature as well as in a society, in a past, in history; it forgets the naturalized consciousness in order to radically praise a creative consciousness, with its autonomous power to configure the real. In his criticism of Sartre’s notion of freedom Merleau-Ponty explicitly sets out certain ethical implications of his analysis of perception. In opposition to the existentialist dramatization of choice, he invites us to consider those phenomena which indicate “the presence within us of spontaneous evaluation”.47 Evaluation, Merleau-Ponty suggests, is not found only in judgement, nor does it initially imply the creation of aims by the subject, and it depends even less on its unilateral choice. Stating this means making evaluation an operation assigned exclusively to logical acts, isolating it from those sensory, emotional and vital structures that stimulate it. As we have seen, perception itself already functions in every living being as a form of spontaneous evaluation of its surroundings due to the workings of the sensory systems. Once again to ignore this spontaneity means isolating the subjectivity of living beings in general, thus laying grounds for a false 45

Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 515: “Je ne peux plus feindre d’être un nèant et de me choisir continuellement à partir de rien”, (italics mine). 46 On the limits and the excessive simplification of this interpretation of Sartre’s views, see Meletti Bertolini 2000. 47 Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 512.

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conception of it. Merleau-Ponty invites us to recognize “tacit evaluation”48 which fills all perception; without it we would not have a world which offers us meaning, i.e., things that come into the foreground from the background, offering themselves to our bodies as something we can touch, take and avoid. Therefore our living corporeity is the site of primitive evaluation of the world which is linked to the normative function brought about by the body itself, and intended as a sort of universal code which is shared by all living beings. A moi naturel continues operating in the thinking subject and it continues, by impregnation, to orientate our conscious dynamics from within. Without its silent role the world would appear to us as an amorphous, unmentionable mass, a neutral unspecified in-itself, waiting for consciousness to give it meaning. This is exactly how Sartre sees the relationship between Pour soi and En soi. In a final analysis Sartre’s exhaltation of the choice is seen by Merleau-Ponty as one of many deviant effects of having previously caused an unhealable split between consciousness and nature. Restoring the ties that continue to operate between individuality and naturalness leads to important philosophical consequences, and there is one in particular which the philosopher highlights: the world regains its autochthonous significance and choice no longer confers meaning: “There is an autochthonous significance of the world which is constituted in the dealings which our incarnate existence has with it, and which provides the ground of every deliberate Sinngebung”.49 It is not the freedom of the subject that unilaterally gives the world its particular configuration, or rather there are not only interpretations, the world offers an “autochthonous significance” which is the same for all perceivers possessing a common structure. A mountain cannot be high or low according to the plans or the surrender of every single mountain climber. It is high for every man in that it will always be taller than his body. Merleau-Ponty resorts to the body as the carrier of a general normativity, to remind Sartre that evaluation cannot just be anchored to singular individuality. Loyalty to phenomena also requires taking into account general, anonymous and shared structures always operating in the body. 48 49

Ibid., p. 516. Ibid., p. 512.

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Is it possible to imagine freedom which is not the opposite of scientific naturalism, but set in connection with our natural and universal structure? Freedom which is not blind to its assumptions and which does not fall into the temptation of absolutizing itself? Is it possible to reassess naturalism? The natural – together with other unreflected forms such as the past, society, unconsciousness – are to be considered as “an ambiguous presence” operating within the perceptual processes, structuring them and orientating them towards certain privileged positions long before they can become the object of thought. It is not a question of sinking, neither is it one of determinism, nor the turning of subjective choices into a legend. Since every perceptual contact is already impregnated with structures and orientation, the analysis of perception concludes by highlighting the growing complexity of the processes of experience and requires a renewed effort on the part of the philosopher to understand the dynamics of action and thought: Whether it is a question of things or of historical situations, philosophy has no other function than to teach us to see them clearly once more, and it is true to say that it comes into being by destroying itself as separate philosophy.50

The description of what is perceived can no longer be resolved in a face-toface encounter between subject and object, it must take into consideration the complexity of the field of experience, of implicit horizons, of unreflected orientation which structures the field and which brings out the meaning as well as the conscious and voluntary intentions of the subjects, who also intervene in this complicated network of relationships but who no longer demand to be the sole protagonists. No description can cherish the illusion that it is absolute and that it can exhaust the meanings of the real. If anything, the philosopher must have more awareness when looking into this perspectivism of experience and those internal norms of how things are structured in order to arrive at differentiated configurations of the real. 8. Conclusion In our opinion the most interesting and topical result of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking, due to their implications in the field of ethics, can be found in his 50

Ibid., p. 530 (italics mine).

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discussion of perception as a process of configuration of the real. It is precisely the meaning of “configuration” that causes the problem. The philosopher is critical of both an emotivistic configuration, the projection of the perceiver’s plans and desires, as well as scientific objectivism, which assumes a reality in itself, independent from the subject, reduced to the spectator’s neutral gaze. The philosopher relativizes the view from nowhere and puts the ideal of objectivity implied by it back into perspective. The disinterested neutral agent is actually an agent that has already taken on a certain attitude. His neutrality, therefore, is artificially presumed. The acosmic gaze is only one of many possible gazes on the world and to conceive of it as the only access to truth means depriving ourselves of the cognitive fecundity of other forms of experience capable of making different phenomena appear to us. The philosopher even criticises Sartre’s philosophy of choice and exposes its underlying solipsism, caused by undue absolutizing of a self-centred consciousness which forgets it was born and remains blind to its natural presupposition. As we can see, his inquiries into behaviour and perception converge to create difficulties for this absolute dichotomy between neutral knowledge and subjectively connoted knowledge, between facts and values, and they show his intention to find an alternative to the false dichotomy between relativistic subjectivism and scientific objectivism. It is a question of reformulating a new ideal of perceptual realism, which nevertheless does not ignore the ties between the perceiver and the perceived. The investigation of perception is privileged in that it allows our condition as incarnate beings to become visible in the most illuminating way. No exploration of the world can be said to be independent of our perceptual nature, but this does not mean that we are building a screen to avoid genuine contact with the real. The point of view is simply access to the world of a corporeal being: “my point of view is for me not so much a limitation of my experience as a way I have of infiltrating into the world in its entirety”.51 In other words, genuine ontology must take a good look at the ways and perspectives with which we approach the world. This is also the reason why Merleau-Ponty remains critical towards Bergson’s intuition which he reads as a failed attempt at coincidence with the real. On the other hand, communion with the 51

Ibid., p. 384.

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perceived which he speaks about, even though it preserves its spontaneous and immediate nature, never loses its perspective statute and its connections with the structure of the perceiver. Instead of dissembling this web which characterizes perception as in-itself-for-me, the philosopher aims at bringing it to consciousness, explaining it with the help of biology and human sciences and pointing it in the direction of research for philosophy. It is not a question of searching for objectivity free of all perspectivity, but of exploring the possibility of perspective and partial contact with the real, where the vital roots of subjectivity are not the obstacle blocking the cognitive way to it, instead they can be the positive resources capable of converging with rationality and making his gaze more penetrating. Two topics of the current ethical debate seem to us to have particularly strong connections with the issues raised. First, attention to perspectivism of experience and, related to that, the possibility of a revision and a reconfiguration of the real based on possible perceptual progress obtained thanks to changes in perceptual attitude and the organization of the field. We obtain both theoretical antidogmatism (there are no absolute configurations which can aspire to and exhaust the wealth of the real) and practical antidogmatism (behaviour can be reshaped according to context and situations). Second, there is constant reference to legality of the perceived, which manifests itself in connection with a persistent and binding order of the living which is subject to differentiated development. Even “human nature” is presented as an example of an organization whose meaning is open, not an absolute code, but a reshapable organization which can generate new codes as it develops. Perceptual experience places itself within this context: as experience open to individual modulation and variation on the one hand, and as the sharing of impersonal forms and functions that allow for the formation of comparable knowledge that aims at utmost syntony with the real on the other. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology intends to look at human behaviour by integrating structure and existence, without relinquishing either the organic functions we have in common or the range of individual sensitivity. What emerges is a general picture where perception is not intended as a neutral natural process, as psychology would allow it to be intended, but concretely permeated and orientated by what we are, both at an organic and a historical-cultural level. In this way the clear dichotomy between

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facts and values dissolves with the resulting indication to question this perceptual perspectivism where universal and individual, nature and history are bound together. A new theory of perception must take into consideration both the activity of the perceiver on known data (due to the structure of the body, the selective activity carried out by the sensory organs, moral and cultural tendencies etc) as well as the legality which the data manifests. The articulation of phenomena always manifests itself within a perspective vision, which also happens for certain ambiguous figures indicated by Gestaltpsychologie, which assume different meanings according to how background and foreground are organized. In this way “the data” is never totally just that, but rather it is “picked up again” by the perceiver, since he also cooperates in its manifestation. It is on this ground that Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, even though it only marginally touches on actual moral questions, moves on courses that are quite interesting from an ethical point of view and it causes us to reflect on the complex plot of experience, intercepting the extremely topical problematical lines debated by neuroscience and neurophenomenology.52 It states a concept of experience as limited access to the real connected to the perspective gaze of the perceiver, partial experience which can be compared, reshaped, and increased thanks to communication. This opens up the possibility of plural access to the world, which results from a complex network of relationships where the subjects themselves are involved. For ethics from this moment on relevant questions are raised concerning the pluralism of perspectives and the normative implications for the statute of moral conflicts. Are differences of perception synonymous with differences of evaluation? If various possible descriptions of the real exist is it also necessary to presume that the work of conceptualization converts different perceptual configurations? How do sensitivity and affectivity intervene to configure different visions? Do differences in vocabulary hide deeper differences in the perceptual structure of the real? Should moral philosophy take an interest in those “attitudes” which predetermine the cognitive route? Is it possible to assume that there are different styles of experience; and what would the consequences for the universality of prin52

Cappuccio 2006; Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2006; Iacoboni 2008; Boella 2006, 2008; Cleret 2006.

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ciples be? Which phenomena are ignored by ethical theories that refer exclusively to formal subjectivity? Moral philosophy cannot continue to ignore the many questions posed by the recognition of the differences of perception, and be content with interpreting them as differences of choice or as irrelevant multiplicity to which they can oppose the universality of reason. This is what the writer Iris Murdoch stated some years later, by clearly and openly tackling those problems which Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology had already drawn attention to. I believe that the essays included in Existentialists and Mystics (and in particular Vision and Choice53 published in 1956) make very stimulating and appropriate suggestions regarding Merleau-Ponty’s Phénoménologie de la Perception. The parallel reading of the two texts encourages mutual in-depth analysis, it causes the meta-ethical implications implicit in the theory of perception to emerge more clearly and helps to bring the problems into focus. In open contrast with analytical philosophy and Ryle’s behaviourism, Murdoch’s intention was to outline the field of study of ethics in a way that was quite different from the generally accepted approach in English metaethics. She draws the attention of the philosopher to the need to explore the differences in perceptual configuration and the opportunity to place moral progress in correlation with a possible reshaping of his perception of the world. Should the centre of moral activity be placed in choice or in an adequate capacity of a “vision” of the real? Vision and choice are two possible places of evaluation and Murdoch has no hesitation in giving priority to “personal vision” in ethical inquiry, in open contrast with behaviourism of the act which favours choice and denies any significance for “general visions” that make up the background of choice. This should not be interpreted as a return to introspective psychology; when she speaks of “personal vision”, Murdoch intends to draw attention to an assortment of the subject’s attitudes, behaviour, and global orientation that are more primitive than the choices and arguments with which they are justified. It is a question of attitudes that elude knowledge of an objective type and for this reason they are rarely considered significant or worth investigating. And yet they are expressed in all our activities, in our speech and in our si53

Murdoch 1999 and 1956.

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lences, they permeate conversation, stories and imagination and they reveal an important part of what a person is, namely a person’s particular “moral nature” and their “global vision of life”. Normally these attitudes are considered irrelevant since they are too fleeting and subjective to be taken into consideration by ethics which on the contrary prefers to concentrate on public observable acts, capable of introducing predictable changes in the status of the world and governed by universal rules that are not marked by the individuality of the person that brought them about. Against this consideration impoverished by behaviour, Murdoch forcefully puts into effect the need for a more complex explanation of moral behaviour, which cannot be separated from the consideration of the different perceptual styles at our disposal for understanding a situation. At the same time this contributes to judging insufficient a formal or logical characterization of ethics, since the significance of perceptual attitudes ends up by doubting precisely that neutrality of logical features which meta-ethics appeals to. As we see, Murdoch develops with an ethical slant and in a different cultural environment the same criticism that Merleau-Ponty made of behaviourism and the lucid logical dream which claims to reduce the world to the laws of thought; both authors adopt a philosophical attitude that has greater respect for the complexity of experience and a certain amount of diffidence for theoretical simplification. If we recognize the ethical significance of perceptual differences, the real sore spot moral philosophy cannot avoid facing concerns the plurality of meaning which experience refers to. Cognitive activity and evaluative activity are linked together and it is deviant to suppose that the philosopher must on the one hand tackle the world of “facts” cut out for everyone in the same way, and on the other hand the field of evaluation reserved for single choices. Moral differences are cognitively significant and they should be considered as being much more incisive on the same perceptual configuration than on the differences of choice. In fact, it is taken for granted that the latter will leave intact a common and neutral capacity for thinking and understanding each other where facts are concerned. On the contrary, the differences of moral orientation become genuine perceptual differences, which Murdoch assimilates to Gestalt differences. In this way moral attitudes take on an important role in the structurization of so-called “facts” and in the relative conceptualization: they translate into ways of selecting

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that lead to favouring certain aspects of the real and omitting others, introducing us to various modalities of understanding and conceptualization. Murdoch, encouraged by moral philosophy to explore the alarming wealth of plurality rather than construct a unitary theory, raises the question of why we should force the differences into one unifying model. In this perspective, ethical theories are challenged to renew their own routes, also making use of imaginative forms of exploration of the moral life. In particular, literary narration allows to grasp more adequately the manifestation of those general attitudes that elude objectifying thought: deep down all successful characters in a novel allow us to see unreflected, cognitive, and evaluative global orientation at work together, where normally they would remain out of sight.54 For the philosopher it becomes a priority to make use of all the instruments available in order to keep in touch with the complexity of moral experience, rather than limiting her field to the justification and foundation of logic. Every perspective has its own internal limits and in order to face the problems and ethical conflicts it is probably more productive to use the variations of the perspectives themselves, in order to be able to grasp the different and previously unobserved phenomena. To renew one’s gaze and to succeed in thinking differently, as a first step it is necessary to purify it, in other words we have to become aware of how much the unreflected evaluative orientation that guides our descriptions is possible. Instead of relying on a hypothetical neutral gaze, ethical theories are called upon first and foremost to tackle the structurization and the limits of perceptual horizons, by comparing and exploring the differences rather than standardizing them in a single universal system. In this perspective it exercises a kind of thought therapy, which can also lead to an adjustment of one’s attitudes and the way in which one sees situations. Philosophy becomes an exercise to explain the very activity thinking, which, in the first place, aims at making explicit what already works in silence, thereby not falling into the illusion to be able to adopt a pure inward-looking transparent gaze, but rather anticipating a critical exercise that is responsible and aware of its own limits. At this point we could also observe that Merleau-Ponty, above all in the further developments of his philosophy, pays close attention to the contri54

Diamond, 2006 and 1996.

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bution of imagination in the perceptual configuration of the real55, but although stimulating, it is not this aspect on which we want to insist for now. We would rather like to draw the attention to a contrast between Murdoch’s views and a specific trait of Merleau-Ponty’s perspectivism, that will allow us to describe it as an form of pluralism that does not adopt relativism. Murdoch talks about “individual” the perspective, referring to the specific lifestyle of a single person, to his personal perceptual style, which distinguishes him from others. Indeed, Murdoch radicalizes this aspect, above all when she deals with the theme of moral conflict. An individual’s moral attitude is not only expressed through actions, but also through his way of observing and describing facts and situations. People with different moral beliefs “see” different worlds, in fact they specifically select what is relevant for them and they leave the rest aside; among themselves they have differences of “vision” which function as true differences of Gestalt, which translate into conceptualization and different ways of behaving. If multiple moral attitudes become synonymous with multiple configurations of the facts, that is of different perceptions, what emerges is that it is deceptive and pointless to expect to settle the moral discord by referring to neutral facts that are indicated as the starting point for moral reasoning. Murdoch’s reference to the comprehension of the differences leads to extreme consequences: believing that this is the most important duty of moral reflection, she invites the philosopher to take seriously the hypothesis that certain profound discords, just because they are supported by different perceptual configurations, turn out to be unsolvable by resorting to logical argumentation. Therefore one should not assume too readily that communication is always possible on the basis of a common language; if the facts are always already saturated with evaluations, it could cause disagreement where there is only an apparent reference to the same things because in reality one witnesses a clash of different sensitivities which represent the real in a different way. In these cases to assume that conflicts are always rationally modular constitutes an optimistic simplification that ends up hiding the actual difficulties. It would be better if the philosopher deployed all the available instruments – including imagination – in order to explore 55

Chiasmi International 2003; Merleau-Ponty 2003, pp. 157ff.

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these differences and to closely examine their statute, rather than hasten in the attempt to reconcile them, thereby ignoring their complexity. Murdoch’s observations undoubtedly have the merit of causing moral theories to openly tackle the weft of perceptual activity and evaluative activity with all the prickly problems attached to them, which means absolute havoc both at an epistemic level as well as a moral one. Nevertheless they run the risk of shutting the differences of vision within a mutual unintelligibility, even questioning the very possibility of inter-subjective communication, since comprehension only appears possible within a shared vision. The collocation in different perspectives ends up with implying a profound non-involvement that is almost insurmountable, except through cognitive and evaluative remodulations similar to a conversion of one’s own way of being, rather than by resort to logical argumentation. As we have seen, Merleau-Ponty deals with the key question of individual perceptual differences in quite a different way from Murdoch, by inserting them into a natural picture of the development of the living being. The attention to what distinguishes individually, historically, or socially, the attention to what can be attributed to the freedom of the individual and his personal vision is never distinguishable by law from a natural shared normativity. The same criticism of Sartre’s absoluteness of the subject refers to a common corporeal organization to which we are never complete strangers. The concept of the “natural world” moves in the same direction, where constant relationships emerge all of which make reference to our body, the norm of this rigid system of correspondence with phenomena. It seems to us that what is particularly significant about this subject are the various uses of the aesthetic metaphor of “style”. According to Murdoch, who converges with Sartre’s existentialism on this point, the perceptual style refers to what characterizes the individual, and what is not extendable to the universal and can only be understood in the singular. The individual is the expression of his own existential style, which cannot be deducted from any rules, the bringer of change. The opening up of meaning is entrusted to individual initiative, which can become inter-subjective thanks to communication and converge towards construction of a universel singulier which fulfils itself in history. In this perspective the mutual inter-subjective understanding cannot be guaranteed a priori, given the indomitable plurality of perceptual visions; hence one must work much harder (think of

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Sartre’s engagement) to build mutual understanding since we do not have a pre-arranged system of convergence of multiplicity at our disposal. In quite a different way, Merleau-Ponty talks about style in relation to the unity of the natural world itself; far from indicating something unshakeably individual, refers to the body’s universal settings and to the perceptual typicalness that transpires in the variability of unfolding: “to have a body is to possess a universal setting, a schema of all types of perceptual unfolding and of all those inter-sensory correspondences”.56 Here it is the turn of the natural world to exhibit its typicalness, and experience is the proof of constant structural relationships that are always recognizable even in the variability of unfolding. We are confronted by constant structural factors that innervate the body-world correlation, not by a philosophy whose the style centers on subjectivity.57 Merleau-Ponty does not refrain from connecting the plurality of perceptual styles, through their variability, to constant profound structural foundations; he speaks about the world’s unitary style exhibiting its own typicalness, which successful perceptual experience “restores” to us even though filtered through the sensitivity of different individuals who are themselves different. With its dynamics, the Leib establishes spontaneous communication, a “perceptual faith” where there are no doubts, methods and perspectives. Even Schneider, in spite of his poverty, managed to improvise some basic experiences of the world and to be intrinsic to it through a minimum form of openness. The world already stands out in the experience of every living being, even without a synthesis of the intellect: its unity is correlated to the physical body and it does not need to be constructed from thought. From the body-world correlation we can say that it is a question of “a given not a willed unity”. Merleau-Ponty provides us with a naturalistic interpretation of the style metaphor, he alludes to typicalness and constancy which repeat themselves, rather than individual changes. When he writes that the natural world has its own style, he means that it has its own jurisdiction, connecting harmoniously to the body’s normativity. The world is a whole equipped with its own internal coherence, not a set of profiles held together by thought, or an idea held together by reason. Its appearance shows an 56 57

Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 381. Frank 1992.

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order which is in tune with the order expressed by the corporeal organism. Neither of them has their own place on an individual level, on the contrary, it is a question of anonymous legality which orientates us towards a vital general and pre-individual order. The opening up of meaning is not entrusted to individual initiative: the latter remains in debt to the natural ground that precedes it. A living being explores the world long before the thinker, the body spontaneously opens up to the world: the unreflected experience becomes the place where nature manifests itself within us and outside of us. Stating the existence of a natural style of perception and of a primitive understanding of the world means first of all emphasizing that the birth of meaning and evaluation cannot be reduced to an individual creation. Our attention is drawn to an order that given, not desired, and which precedes the normativity of thought and the development of individuality. It is precisely this natural layer of experience that gives it its universality and makes it the ground for individual differentiation and inter-subjective communication. No matter how different individual styles of perception may be, conditioned by different historical and cultural backgrounds, they assume a common natural style, without which no interpretative opening could be given. For Merleau-Ponty “all perception stands out on a background of nature” and the human world cannot be isolated from this background without considering phenomena. Merleau-Ponty disputes Sartre’s statement that man is thrown into freedom by saying that first and foremost we are thrown into nature, thus changing the goal of philosophical research, which becomes the one of thinking about the dynamics of individual consciousness without detaching them from the general order of a living being whose own consciousness is expression. The philosophy of existence beckons towards a renewed philosophy of nature. In direct conflict with Sartre’s humanism and his emphasis on freedom and choice, MerleauPonty underlines the hidden risks in anthropology which loses the basic unity of the living being and exposes the distorting effects on such a loss. Isolating human freedom in itself and forgetting its ties with the natural order means placing oneself in a distorting perspective, with a perverse effect that impedes understanding of man and his historical authenticity as much as it concentrates on it exclusively.

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References Bimbenet, Etienne (2004): Nature et Humanité. Le problème anthropologique dans l’oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty, Paris: Vrin. Boella, Laura (2008): Neuroetica. La morale prima della morale, Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore. Boella, Laura (2006): Sentire l’altro. Conoscere e praticare l’empatia, Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore. Bonan, Ronald (2003): “Le souci de l’autre. Ya-t-il une éthique merleaupontienne?”, in: Chiasmi International 5, pp. 311–330. Carbone, Mauro (1990): Ai confini dell’esprimibile. Merleau-Ponty a partire da Cézanne e da Proust, Milano: Guerini e Associati. Carbone, Mauro and David Michael Levin (2003): La carne e la voce. In dialogo tra estetica ed etica, Milano: Mimesis. Cappuccio, Massimiliano (ed.) (2006): Neurofenomenologia. Le scienze della mente e la sfida dell’esperienza cosciente, Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Cleret, Alexandre (2006): “Varela lecteur de Merleau-Ponty: l’impossible naturalisation de la phenomenologie”, in: Chiasmi International, 8, pp. 85–123. Chiasmi International 2003, 5. Merleau-Ponty. Le reél et l’l’imaginaire, Milano-Paris-Memphis-Manchester: Mimesis, Vrin, University of Memphis, Clinamen Press. Chiasmi International 2005, 7. Merleau-Ponty. Vie et individuation, avec des inédits de Merleau-Ponty et Simondon. De Saint Aubert, Emmanuel (2004): Du lien des êtres aux éléments de l’être. Merleau-Ponty au tournant des années 1945-1955, Paris: Vrin. De Saint Aubert, Emmanuel (2005): Le scénario cartésien. Recherches sur la formation et la cohérence de l’intention philosophique de MerleauPonty, Paris: Vrin. De Saint Aubert, Emmanuel (2006): Vers une ontologie indirecte. Sources et enjeux critiques de l’appel à l’ontologie chez Merleau-Ponty, Paris: Vrin. Diamond, Cora (2006): L’immaginazione e la vita morale, ed. by Piergiorgio Donatelli, Roma: Carocci.

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Diamond, Cora (1996): “We are perpetually Moralists: Iris Murdoch, Fact and Value”, in: M. Antonaccio and W. Schweiker (eds), Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 79–109. Dillon, Martin C. (2003): “Conscience and authenticity”, in: Chiasmi international 5, pp. 15–28. Frank, Manfred (1992): Stil in der Philosophie, Stuttgart: Reclam. Husserl, Edmund (1940): “Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Räumlichkeit der Natur”, in: Marvin Farber (ed.), Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. Iacoboni, Marco (2008): Mirroring People. The New Science of How We Connect with Others, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Meletti Bertolini, Mara (2000): La conversione all’autenticità. Saggio sulla morale di J.P.Sartre, Milano: FrancoAngeli (2°ed.2006). Meletti Bertolini, Mara (2007): “Tra Sartre e Merleau-Ponty. La vita irriflessa ed i suoi significati etici”, in: Meletti Bertolini (ed.), Percorsi etici. Studi in onore di A.Lambertino, Milano: FrancoAngeli. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1942): La structure du comportement, Paris: Puf. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1945): Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris: Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1994): La Nature, Notes. Cours de Collège de France, ed. by D. Séglard, Paris: Seuil. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002): Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. by Colin Smith, London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2003): L’institution dans l’histoire personnelle et publique. Le problème de la passivité. Le sommeil, l’inconscient, la mèmoire. Notes du Cours au Collège de France (1954-1955), Paris: Editions Belin. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2006): The Structure of Behavior, trans. by Alden L. Fischer. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Murdoch, Iris (1999): Existentialists and Mystics. Writings on Philosophy and Literature, ed. by Peter Conrad, London: Penguin Books. Murdoch, Iris (1956): “Vision and Choice in Morality”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Dreams and Self-Knowledge 30, pp. 32–58.

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Neri, Guido Davide (1991): “Terra e Cielo in un manoscritto husserliano del 1934”, in: Aut Aut 245, pp. 19–44. Rizzolatti, Giacomo, and Corrado Sinigaglia (2006): So quel che fai. Il cervello che agisce e i neuroni a specchio, Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore. Scheler, Max (1980): Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, Bern-München: Francke Verlag. Vanzago, Luca (2004): “Ontologia della percezione”, in: Aut-Aut 324 (Percezione e Fenomenologia), pp. 49–61.

Experiencing Art Austrian Aesthetics between Psychology and Psychologism WOLFGANG HUEMER

It is notoriously difficult to define art and there is hardly any agreement concerning the question of what properties should be considered to be aesthetic ones – even the idea to use “beautiful” as shorthand for aesthetic properties1 seems to have become obsolete in the twentieth century. It seems obvious, however, that we can call only those objects works of art that we can experience as instantiating aesthetic properties or as realizing aesthetic ideals (however these properties or ideals may be characterized and independent of the question of whether or not these experiences are reliable). In order to be a work of art, in other words, an object has to be perceptible.2 Some theories even suggest that like secondary qualities aesthetic properties depend essentially on the interaction between the object that has the relevant properties and the perceiver, as the old saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” seems to confirm. This suggests that our capacity to experience aesthetic properties should be accounted for by every aesthetic theory that aims at being comprehensive. Psychological and phenomenological approaches even go one step further and argue that the notion of aesthetic experience should be considered 1

As, for example, Stephan Witasek suggests, cf. his (1904, p. 11). There might be some works of art that are so small, distant, or in some way essentially hidden so that they can never be directly perceived by the naked eye, as it is the case, for example, in some works of conceptual art like Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit. Even these works of art, however, contain perceptible parts – in minimal cases it might only be their description by which we get to know about their very existence – and it can be argued that it is actually these perceptible parts that constitute the actual work of art.

2

Values and Ontology, Beatrice Centi and Wolfgang Huemer (eds), Frankfurt: ontos, 2009, pp. 267–288.

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a basic notion in aesthetics. They typically start their studies with a careful description and analysis of the mental phenomena we have when perceiving a work of art; the ontological status of aesthetic values and properties are considered relevant only insofar as they become intentional objects of our aesthetic experiences. With this strategy to found aesthetics on experience, there is a prima facie risk of adopting a form of psychologism, i.e. a position that reduces the principles and truths of aesthetics to psychological truths or theories and/or explains the nature of aesthetic values and properties by referring to psychological mechanisms of human beings. In what follows I will discuss the question of whether the aesthetic theory of Franz Brentano is guilty of psychologism. In the second part I will focus on the views of one of the prominent aestheticians of the Graz school of object theory, Stephan Witasek, who was (indirectly) strongly influenced by Brentano, but is at the same time aware of the thin line between psychology and psychologism in aesthetics. In the concluding section of this paper I will argue that with their psychological approaches to aesthetics both Franz Brentano and Stephan Witasek offer a theory of beauty rather than a theory of art. 1. Aesthetics as a Practical Discipline Based on Psychology: The Aesthetics of Franz Brentano With his work in psychology Brentano not only aimed at contributing to the development of a new and independent scientific discipline; he also wanted to lay the foundations for a scientific approach to philosophy. In Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich3 he explicitly notes that, like all other philosophical disciplines, aesthetics too is rooted in psychology:

3

Brentano published this text on the occasion of his leaving Vienna in 1894 as a series of articles in the newspaper Die neue freie Presse and shortly later as a self-standing book. In this text he takes stock of his time in Vienna; he outlines the philosophical position of himself and his school, argues for the importance of founding a psychological laboratory in Austria, and harshly criticizes the fact that as a former catholic priest he was legally denied the right to marry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

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And similarly one could show most easily for aesthetics and every other philosophical discipline that separated from psychology it would have to wither like a branch that is detached from the trunk. (Brentano 1895, p. 39)4

Psychology, according to Brentano, is a “theoretical science”, i.e. a science that consists of “a set of truths that are internally related” (Brentano 1988, p. 3)5 and has a clearly defined and homogeneous subject matter. Aesthetics, on the other hand, is not a theoretical science, but rather a practical discipline, for “the complex of truths it delineates is not held together by theoretical kinship, but rather by a goal external to its field of knowledge” (Brentano 1988, p. 4).6 Thus for Brentano aesthetics is not a science7, it is rather an instrument that serves practical purposes. In his lectures on aesthetics, he proposes a definition of aesthetics as … the practical discipline that teaches us to experience with correct taste the beautiful and the not-beautiful, to prefer what is more beautiful over what is less beautiful, and that gives us instructions to create it [the beautiful] and make it suggestive and significant for everyone. (Brentano 1988, p. 5)8

According to Brentano, not only aesthetics, but also logic and ethics are practical disciplines that depend on the theoretical science of psychology: while the goal of aesthetics is to teach us to recognize beauty and to develop a “correct” taste, that of logic is to teach us to judge and infer correctly and that of ethics to choose and act correctly. These three practical disci4

My translation: “Und ähnlich ließe sich für die Aesthetik und jede andere Disciplin der Philosophie aufs leichteste nachweisen, daß sie, losgetrennt von der Psychologie, wie ein vom Stamm losgetrennter Zweig verdorren müßte.“ 5 My translation: “eine Gruppe von Wahrheiten, die innerlich verwandt sind.” 6 My translation: “der Komplex von Wahrheiten, den sie abgrenzt, ist nicht durch theoretische Verwandtschaft, sondern durch einen außerhalb des Wissensgebietes liegenden Zweck zusammengehalten.” 7 It is not even a “Wissenschaft” – the meaning of the German term is wider than the English “science”, it refers not only to the natural sciences, but also to the disciplines that constitute the humanities. 8 My translation: “sie ist jene praktische Disziplin, welche uns lehrt, mit richtigem Geschmack Schönes und Unschönes zu empfinden, das Schönere vor dem minder Schönen zu bevorzugen, und uns Anweisungen gibt, um es hervorzubringen und für die Gesamtheit eindrucksvoll und wirksam zu machen.”

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plines depend on psychology as their theoretical foundation, which is shown also by the fact that the triad of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good … [is] related to three aspects of our mental life; not, however, to knowledge, feeling, and will [as Kant suggested], but to the triad that we have distinguished in the three basic classes of mental phenomena. (Brentano 1995, p. 261)

Brentano, as is well known, distinguishes three classes of mental phenomena: presentations, judgments, and phenomena of love and hate, i.e., phenomena in which we take an emotional stance towards an object. The first of these classes is the most basic. When in his Psychology Brentano defines the subject matter of psychology by distinguishing mental from physical phenomena, one of the criteria he proposes for telling them apart is that all and only mental phenomena are presentations or based on presentations. “Nothing can be judged, desired, hoped, or feared, unless one has a presentation of that thing” (Brentano 1995, p. 80). Logic, according to Brentano, is the practical discipline that is concerned with judgments; i.e. with that class of mental phenomena in which we take a positive or a negative stance towards the (existence of the) object by affirming or denying it. In addition, judgments are correct or incorrect; they have a truth-value. According to Brentano, a judgment is true when it is evident, i.e., when one perceives (in inner perception that is directed towards the judgment) that one judges with evidence. More generally, according to Brentano “a person judges truly, if and only if, his judgment agrees with the judgment he would make if we were to judge with evidence” (Chisholm 1986, p. 38). Notwithstanding this dependence on the notion of judgment, however, truth, for Brentano, is not a subjective notion: if one person affirms an object and another person denies the same object, only one of them judges correctly. Ethics, on the other hand, is concerned with phenomena of love and hate. When experiencing a phenomenon of this class, we take an emotional stance towards an object, i.e., a stance that can be positive or negative; one can have, as Chisholm puts it, a “pro-emotion” or an “anti-emotion” towards the object.9 Moreover, phenomena of this class can be correct or in9

Cf. Chisholm (1982, p. 68).

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correct. In these two aspects we have a formal analogy between judgments and emotions. An emotion is correct, according to Brentano, “when one’s feelings are adequate to their object – adequate in the sense of being appropriate, suitable, or fitting” (Brentano 1902, p. 70). If it is correct to love an object, we can say that it is good; if it is correct to hate it, it is bad. The question of whether or not it is correct to have a positive emotion towards an object is not a subjective one; according to Brentano it is impossible that one person correctly loves an object and another person correctly hates it. Aesthetics, finally, is based on the most basic class of mental phenomena: on presentations. According to Brentano, every presentation is in itself of value; this holds even for those that become the basis of a correct, negative judgment or a correct anti-emotion: Every presentation, taken by itself, is a good and recognizable as such, since an emotion that is manifested as being correct can be directed towards it. It is out of question that everyone, if they had to choose between a state of unconsciousness and the having of any presentation whatsoever, would welcome even the poorest presentation and would not envy lifeless objects. Every presentation appears of value in that it constitutes an enrichment of life. (Brentano 1988, p. 144)10

While judgments and emotions consist in taking either a positive or a negative stance, the value of a presentation is always positive, but comes in degrees: some presentations are of higher value than others. But, one might ask, if all presentations are valuable, how can we distinguish between presentations in which we experience objects that are of high aesthetic value from those in which we experience objects of a lower aesthetic value or even such that have a negative aesthetic value, i.e., objects that are disgusting, repellent, or simply ugly? Moreover, how can we distinguish presentations that are relevant for aesthetics from those that are not? 10

My translation: “Jedes Vorstellen ist aber, an und für sich betrachtet, ein Gut und als solches erkennbar, weil sich eine als richtig charakterisierte Gemütstätigkeit darauf richten kann. Ohne Frage würde jedermann, wenn er zwischen dem Zustande der Bewußtlosigkeit und dem Besitz irgendwelcher Vorstellungen zu wählen hätte, auch die ärmlichste begrüßen und die leblosen Dinge nicht beneiden. Jede Vorstellung erscheint als eine Bereicherung des Lebens von Wert.”

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Brentano distinguishes between the value a presentation has per se and the particular aesthetic value it might have. A presentation is aesthetically valuable only if it becomes the object of a second mental phenomenon, in particular an emotion, in which one correctly takes a positive stance towards it: The point is not merely that a presentation is valuable, but that its value is grasped in an actually experienced pleasure that is manifested as being correct. (Brentano 1988, p. 32)11

For Brentano, thus, not every presentation can be considered an aesthetic experience; he does distinguish between the value of a presentation and aesthetic value: But it was not my intention to identify the concepts beauty and value of the presentation. Not only beautiful presentations please correctly. Beauty is the narrower concept. We tend to call beautiful only those presentations that are of such immense value that they justify a particularly high degree of pleasure. It does not suffice, however, that they merit a high degree of pleasure, in order to be beautiful, they must be presented to us in such a way that this pleasure is actually aroused. (Brentano 1988, p. 152)12

Thus, according to Brentano, an object is beautiful if a presentation that is directed at it arouses a correct, positive emotion: “its [beauty’s] goal is pleasure” (Brentano 1988, p. 135).13 An object is ugly, on the other hand, if a presentation that is directed at it arouses a correct, negative emotion, a form of displeasure.14 11

My translation: “Es kommt nicht bloß darauf an, daß eine Vorstellung wertvoll ist, sondern daß ihr Wert in einer als richtig charakterisierten, wirklich erlebten Freude erfasst wird.” 12 My translation: “Aber es war durchaus nicht meine Absicht, die Begriffe Schönheit und Wert der Vorstellung zu identifizieren. Nicht nur schöne Vorstellungen gefallen mit Recht. Schönheit ist der engere Begriff. Schön pflegen wir nur Vorstellungen von so erheblichem Werte zu nennen, daß sie ein besonders hohes Maß von Wohlgefallen rechtfertigen. Es genügt aber nicht, daß sie ein hohes Wohlgefallen verdienen, sie müssen, um schön zu sein, uns in solcher Weise dargeboten werden, daß dieses Wohlgefallen auch tatsächlich erweckt wird.” 13 My translation: “Es hat Freude zum Ziele.” 14 Cf. Brentano 1988, pp. 147f.

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This does not imply, however, that Brentano advocates a subjectivist aesthetics. Since the pleasure that is aroused by a presentation of a work of art must be a correct emotion, it is impossible that one person correctly experiences an object as beautiful that another person correctly experiences as ugly. This still allows for the possibility, however, that the second person incorrectly experiences the object as ugly – after all, his taste might not be well trained – or that an object arouses an aesthetic experience in one person and does not in another; in that case, the latter person will remain indifferent towards the object, while the former appreciates it. This clearly shows that “Brentano’s theory of value places mental states as primary in analyzing aesthetic and ethical value” (Baumgartner et al. 2004, p. 229). Based on his theory of evidence and correct emotion, Brentano can argue, however, that aesthetic judgments are objective without having to acknowledge the existence of values at an ontological level. Hence we can call in a higher (narrower) sense that as beautiful the presentation of which has excellent value (and of course by itself, not in the sense of higher utility). In this sense the beautiful is obviously free of subjectivity. It is something that is universally valid, and it pays to investigate its laws. (Brentano 1988, p. 127)15

The discussion so far has shown that psychology plays a central role in Brentano’s aesthetics. In the next section I will turn to the question of whether this justifies calling Brentano’s aesthetics a form of psychologism in a sense analogous to that of logical psychologism that became the target of Husserl’s critique. 2. Brentano’s Aesthetics and Husserl’s Critique of Psychologism Husserl’s attack on psychologism has been a delicate issue in his relation to his former academic teacher Franz Brentano.16 The latter was well aware 15

My translation: “Dementsprechend können wird dann in einem höheren (engeren) Sinne das schön nennen, dessen Vorstellung vorzüglichen Wert hat (und natürlich in sich selbst, nicht im Sinne größerer Nützlichkeit). In diesem Sinne ist das Schöne offenbar von Subjektivität frei. Es ist etwas, was allgemeingültig ist, und es verlohnt sich wohl, seine Gesetze aufzusuchen.” 16 For a more detailed discussion of this aspect, cf. Huemer (2004).

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that the Prolegomena to the Logical Investigations had gained Husserl a good deal of attention and respect in the German philosophical community.17 In 1904, when, after a few years of silence, they took up their correspondence again, Brentano asked Husserl “to name one single important point in which you think you have deviated from and gone beyond me” (Brentano in Husserl 1994, p. 24)18, Husserl answered with an outline of his critique of logical psychologism and a sketch of his distinction between pure and normative logic. Brentano did not hide that he was not impressed by this critique which he interpreted to consist in a charge of subjectivism or anthropocentrism – a charge that he rejected as absurd. When, during a friendly encounter, I sought an explanation from Husserl, and then, as the opportunity arose, from others, who use the newly introduced term, I was told that it means a theory which contests the general validity of knowledge, a theory according to which beings other than men could have insights which are precisely the opposite of our own. Understood in this sense, I am not only not an opponent of psychologism, but I have always very firmly rejected and opposed such absurd subjectivism. (Brentano 1995, p. 306)

Brentano’s hostility towards Husserl’s antipsychologism is also nourished by the fact that it entails an ontological commitment to ideal logical objects, which he does not share: “But the realm of thought objects, which even a respectable thinker as Bolzano has had the presumption to accept, cannot be accepted. It rather could also be shown to be absurd” (Brentano in Husserl 1994, p. 34).19 When in a text on Brentano’s theory of judgment, Roderick Chisholm argues that Brentano does not adopt a form of psychologism, he also interprets, like Brentano, Husserl’s critique as a charge of subjectivism: 17

In fact, Husserl reacts quite strongly when he gets the impression that Brentano suggests that with his investigations Husserl was driven by his ambition to make an academic career rather than to make a substantial contribution to the philosophical debate (Husserl 1994, pp. 25f). 18 My translation: “Recht dankbar wäre ich Ihnen, wenn Sie mir einen einzelnen wichtigen Punkt namhaft machten, in welchem Sie von mir ab- und über mich hinaus gegangen zu sein glauben.” 19 My translation: “Aber das Reich der Gedankendinge, in welches leider auch ein so respectabler Denker wie Bolzano sich verstiegen hat, ist darum noch nicht zuzulassen. Es dürfte vielmehr ebenfalls als absurd erwiesen werden können.“

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Brentano has sometimes been accused of what Frege and Husserl called “psychologism”; but the fact that he recognizes the universality and objectivity of such principles as the above [i.e., the principle that “for any persons S and S’, it is impossible for there to be anything which is such that it may be correctly affirmed by S and correctly denied by S’.”] indicates that the charge is unjustified. (Chisholm 1982, p. 76)

This interpretation of psychologism, however, does not really do justice to Husserl’s point. While anthropocentrism and subjectivism can be forms of psychologism, Husserl uses the later term in a much larger sense. As is well known, at the beginning of his philosophical career Husserl worked on the psychological foundations of mathematics. His Philosophy of Arithmetics was harshly criticized by Frege for being psychologistic.20 When Husserl presents his critique of logical psychologism in the Prolegomena to the Logical Investigations, he presents it as if it constituted a fundamental shift in his philosophical position.21 In this text, he defines logical psychologism as a position according to which the essential theoretical foundations of logic lie in psychology, in whose field those propositions belong – as far as their theoretical content is concerned – which give logic its characteristic pattern. Logic is related to psychology just as any branch of chemical technology is related to chemistry, as land-surveying is to geometry etc. … Often people talk as if psychology provided the sole, sufficient, theoretical foundation for logical technology. (Husserl 2001, p. 40)

20

Cf. Frege 1894. I am not suggesting that Husserl actually did subscribe to psychologism (at least not to the problematic form of psychologism he criticized in Logical Investigations) in his early work, but rather remain neutral on this exegetical question. The widespread view that Husserl was a psychologist has been challenged by a number of scholars; for a discussion cf. Mohanty (1982, pp. 18–42) and (1997). I do find it relevant, however, that in some passages of his Logical Investigations, Husserl clearly indicates that he did change his views on the significance of psychology for logic in the 1890s. In the foreword to the Prolegomena, Husserl mentions that the part that deals with psychologism goes back to a series of lectures given at Halle in 1896, i.e., two years after Frege’s review. Alluding to his alleged psychologism in Philosophy of Arithmetic he remarks, quoting Goethe: “There is nothing to which one is more severe than the errors that one has just abandoned” (Husserl 2001, p. 3). 21

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Husserl’s critique, thus, aims at the attempt to reduce the laws of logic to that of psychology and to take psychology to be the basic discipline, the theoretical foundation, and, in consequence, to explain logical facts with psychological means. While Husserl does not explicitly mention Brentano in his definition of psychologism22, the very wording does recall Brentano’s formulation of his views on the relation between logic, ethics and aesthetics, on the one hand, and psychology, on the other, in his lectures on aesthetics.23 In a letter to Brentano, he insists that the essential laws [Wesensgesetze] of logic hold a priori and cannot possibly be explained on the basis of an empirical science. He not only insists that the realm of the a priori has to be sharply distinguished from the empirical realm, he also suggests that logic deals with entities that belong “not to the realm of nature, but to that of ideas” (Husserl 1994, p. 37).24 Husserl’s position, thus can be seen as the result, among other factors, of his taking seriously Twardowski’s distinction between content and object of presentations25; he regards logic as a study of entities that can – but do not essentially have to – become objects of mental acts. In his reply Brentano admits that the laws of logic cannot be inductively derived from the psychological behaviour of human beings, but adds the cynical remark that he believes “today as little as always in the a priorifictions which Kant has given as a present to philosophy” (Brentano in Husserl 1994, p. 40).26 Thus, if overcoming psychologism entails the acceptance of abstract entities (such as ideal logical objects or values), or that of a priori truths, Brentano is clearly not an anti-psychologist.

22

In fact, Husserl does not mention Brentano at all in the context of psychologism in his Prolegomena. 23 Cf. the quotes I have discussed above. Husserl had heard Brentano’s lecture on aesthetics in 1885/86 in Vienna; moreover, in a letter from March 1905 (i.e., in the time when Brentano and Husserl exchanged letters on psychologism) he notes that recently he had used his notes from this very lecture to read passages to his students (cf. Husserl 1994, p. 36). 24 My translation: “nicht im Reich der Natur, sondern in dem der Ideen”. 25 Cf. Twardowski (1977). 26 My translation: “Auch glaube ich heute so wenig als jemals an die apriorischen Fiktionen, mit welchen Kant die Philosophie beschenkt hat.”

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This shows that, while Chisholm (and Brentano) are right to insist that Brentano does not advocate a subjectivist position – neither in logic, nor in aesthetics or ethics – we can state that Brentano was, according to the definition Husserl presents in his Logical Investigations, not only a logical psychologist, he also adopts a form of psychologism in ethics and aesthetics: Brentano explicitly states, as we have seen above, that psychology is the theoretical science on which practical disciplines such as logic, ethics, and aesthetics are based. The concept [of beauty], even if it is conceived, in analogy to that of truth, as universally valid for all rational beings, originates in any case, like all its various subspecies, from the realm of psychology. The same holds for the concept of truth and the kinds of true and evident judgment; for I conceive logics to stand in a very similar relation to psychology as aesthetics does. (Brentano 1988, p. 17)27

As a consequence, a Brentanian aesthetics will focus not in the first place on the characteristics of works of art, but rather on the characteristics of our aesthetic experiences in which they become the intentional object. It will, as Brentano’s definition of aesthetics has it, “teach us to experience with correct taste the beautiful” (Brentano 1988, p. 5) – just like normative logic (in Husserl’s sense) can teach us to judge correctly, but not aim at describing aesthetic truths and values. 3. Psychology and Psychologism in Aesthetics: A Thin Line The tension between arguing that psychology ought to play a central role in aesthetics and avoiding the charge of psychologism is strongly felt by some other members of the so-called Austrian tradition of philosophy, mainly by proponents of the Graz school of object theory, founded by Alexius Meinong, a direct student of Brentano. Meinong’s philosophical position is strongly characterized by its roots in Brentano’s philosophy, 27

My translation: “Der Begriff, selbst wenn er analog dem der Wahrheit als allgemeingültig für alle vernünftigen Wesen genommen wird, stammt so wie seine verschiedenen Unterarten jedenfalls aus psychischem Gebiet. Das gilt ja auch vom Begriff der Wahrheit und den Arten des wahren und evidenten Urteils; ich denke mir denn auch die Logik in ganz ähnlichem Verhältnis zur Psychologie wie die Ästhetik.“

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which, however, he further develops in significant ways.28 For Meinong too the notion of intentionality plays a central role; he takes up and further develops Brentano’s distinction of three classes of mental phenomena, adding a fourth class of assumptions that he characterises as ‘judgments without belief’; and he follows Brentano also in his theory of values where he argues that we can experience moral values in feelings, i.e. phenomena of love and hate that presuppose a judgment, whereas aesthetic objects are experienced in presentations or assumptions that do not.29 Like Husserl, Meinong received Twardowski’s distinction between object and content of presentations, which strongly influenced him in his elaborating the theory of objects; a development that also brings him to gradually modify his theory of values: while in his early writings he argued that our experiences of values, i.e., our value-feelings, are constitutive for values, he later held that values exist independently of our experiences as properties of higher order, but are represented in those.30 Meinong, thus, makes an antipsychologistic move in his theory of values, but continues to insist on the importance of psychology for this field of studies. The tension between the importance of psychology and the dangers of psychologism in aesthetics can be seen most explicitly in the work of Stephan Witasek31, a student of Meinong whose work focused on aesthetics and psychology. Witasek published a series of texts on aesthetics in the first years of the last century, culminating in his Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik. After a break of more than a decade, he turns back to publish on aesthetics shortly before his early death, in 1915, i.e. three years after Meinong’s text against psychlogism in value theory. The notion of aesthetic experience plays a central role also in Witasek’s aesthetics. Like Brentano and Meinong, he argues that these experiences are presentations that become objects of an emotion or feeling. The rationale he offers is that to appreciate the beauty of an object one does not need to judge that it exists; one might vividly imagine a non-existing mountain – 28

For a discussion of the relation between Brentano and Meinong, cf. Rollinger (2008). 29 Cf. Meinong 1917, pp. 86. 30 Cf. Meinong 1912, p. 12. 31 For a more detailed overview of Witasek’s aesthetics and his position in the socalled Austrian tradition of philosophy, cf. Smith (1994) and Reicher (2006).

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or a fictional character – and be delighted by the beauty of the imagined object, even though one is well aware of its non-existence.32 When, in his Aesthetics, he defines the subject matter of this discipline he speaks about real objects and experiences thereof and argues that it is to be shown by empirical studies, in an inductive manner, what these objects have in common.33 According to Witasek, aesthetic objects are characterized by what he calls aesthetic properties.34 These properties are ideal properties, for they are not perceptible. Moreover, they are not objectual, but extra-objectual (außergegenständlich) since they are relational characteristics of the object. When it comes to defining aesthetic properties, Witasek characterizes them as those properties that can bring about aesthetic feelings in a subject: “The aesthetic property of an object is the fact that it can stand in a causal and teleological relation to the aesthetic behaviour of a subject” (Witasek 1904, p. 22)35, where aesthetic behaviour refers to a form of psychological behaviour. The aesthetic property, thus, is the fact that the aesthetic object can bring about a series of specific mental phenomena in the subject. The aesthetic condition of the subject is essentially a feeling (of pleasure or displeasure), together with a vivid presentation, where the presentation is the psychological prerequisite for the feeling. Aesthetic feelings are presentation-feelings.36

An object is beautiful, if it arouses pleasure, it is ugly, if it arouses displeasure in the subject; the degree of beauty depends on the intensity of the presentation. Thus, while Witasek starts out with defining the subject matter of aesthetics by citing the entities that can be called beautiful – as one 32

Cf. Witasek 1902, pp. 175ff. Cf. Witasek 1904, pp. 7f. 34 Witasek uses the shorthand “beautiful” for all aesthetic properties, because “what is common to them comes to light most clearly in beauty” (Witasek 1904, p. 11). 35 My translation: “Die ästhetische Eigenschaft eines Gegenstandes ist die Tatsache, daß er in Kausal- und Zielrelation zu ästhetischem Verhalten eines Subjektes stehen kann.” 36 My translation: “Der ästhetische Zustand des Subjektes ist wesentlichen ein (Lustoder Unlust-)Fühlen zusammen mit einem anschaulichen Vorstellen, und zwar so, daß das Vorstellen die psychische Voraussetzung des Fühlens bildet. Die ästhetischen Gefühle sind Vorstellungsgefühle.” 33

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might expect from one of the main proponents of the theory of objects – he defines as their common characteristic their power to bring about a certain kind of mental phenomenon. The main part of Witasek’s book focuses on a psychological analysis of these experiences, which clearly shows that his aesthetics does attribute a central role to psychology. Like Brentano, Witasek succeeds in avoiding a form of subjectivism. Whether the presentation of an object arouses a positive or a negative emotion, he states, depends essentially on characteristics of the object. “In general it is due to the object itself, the way it looks, its constitution, whether it pleases or displeases” (Witasek, 1904, p. 342).37 Unlike Brentano, however, Witasek discusses in detail the psychological factors (not related to aesthetics) that are responsible for the fact that, in a specific moment, the aesthetic experience of an individual spectator might be different, weaker, or even completely missing. The psychologism in Witasek’s theory becomes quite explicit in his discussion of the nature of aesthetic norms, though: The existence of the norm, i.e., the existence of the fact that one and the same object arouses in general the same aesthetic behaviour, has, in accordance with the principle “same causes, same effects” its grounds in the similarity of the psychological organization of different subjects. (Witasek, 1904, p. 306)38

Even though we should not put too much weight on this quote – after all, Witasek explicitly states that aesthetics is a discipline about aesthetic objects and experiences, and not about norms or values39 – it shows clearly that in his Aesthetics he does adopt a form of psychologism with regards to the ontological question concerning the existence of aesthetic norms. More generally we can state that even though in his Aesthetics Witasek respects the distinction between content and object of a mental phenomenon, his aesthetics does attribute a central role to the notion of experience and a 37

My translation: “Es liegt im allgemeinen am Dinge selbst, an seinem Aussehen, seiner Beschaffenheit, ob es gefällt oder mißfällt.” 38 My translation: “Das Bestehen der Norm, d.h. also, das Bestehen der Tatsache, daß ein und derselbe Gegenstand im allgemeinen gleiches ästhetisches Verhalten hervorruft, hat nach dem Satze ‘gleiche Ursachen, gleiche Wirkungen’ seinen Grund ersichtlich in der Gleichartigkeit der psychischen Organisation verschiedener Subjekte.” 39 Cf. Witasek (1904, pp. 5f) and (1902).

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study of the psychological mechanisms of the spectators, i.e., of human beings. In the years that follow, Witasek does modify his position, though. In his article “Über ästhetische Objektivität” he explicitly discusses the role of psychologism in aesthetics. He begins with stating that recent mainstream in philosophy has emphasized the role of psychology, which has brought about a setback for what he calls autonomous aesthetics, i.e., theories that argue for the “transcendence of the (realm of the) aesthetic” and the objectivity of aesthetic values40, and favoured psychological and empirical approaches to aesthetics, “the mere subjectivity of the (realm of the) aesthetic seemed beyond question” (Witasek 1915, p. 87).41 In this article he aims to show, however, that the view that beauty is an objective notion and that the realm of the aesthetic does have (some) autonomy with respect to the mental live of an individual human subject are Kronprinzenwahrheiten, i.e. truths that a crown prince, before assuming power, might challenge, but which, after having mounted the throne, he comes to give in – even though they might play a different role in his new regime. Witasek, thus, comes to reflect – and put into a new perspective – the importance of psychology for aesthetics. His point of departure is the distinction between the act of judgment as a piece of psychological reality and the object that is judged. When it comes to the question of which of the two is of interest for aesthetics, he clearly opts for the latter – for it is the object that distinguishes the aesthetic judgment from other judgments. Moreover, Witasek suggests that the term “is beautiful” in the judgment “A is beautiful” does not mean that A arouses pleasure42, but rather refers to a property of an object A, which is completely in A and not relative to (the experiences of) a subject, and which can be grasped (it is anschaulich erfaßbar).43 Witasek, thus, gives up his view that beauty is a relative property; he rather compares the judgment “A is beautiful” to judgments concerning secondary qualities, like “this meadow is green”. 40

Cf. Witasek 1915, p. 87. My translation: “und die bloße Subjektivität des Ästhetischen schien außer Frage.” 42 Cf. Witasek 1915, p. 91. 43 Cf. Witasek 1915, p. 93. 41

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According to Witasek, the bearers of aesthetic properties are – like those of secondary qualities – immanent objects, i.e., mental representations of real objects; they do not exist, but quasi-exist. He discusses various ways of how this thesis should be interpreted and which ontological consequences it implies and concludes that aesthetic properties are not – as one might suggest with secondary qualities – a sign for a different kind of property that might be inherent to the object and the cause for its appearing in this way. Witasek rather concludes: The aesthetic quality is in the first place only immanent object and does not in and by itself imply any kind of transcendence. … The aesthetic object is, therefore, merely immanent object, the thesis concerning aesthetic appearance gains in a completely unrestricted sense scientific justification. (Witasek, 1915, p. 198)44

In sum, we see that Witasek struggles with finding a reinterpretation of his psychological aesthetics that avoids the pitfalls of psychologism – insofar as it does not conceive of aesthetic properties as relational to aesthetic experiences – but, at the same time, continues to attribute to psychology a fundamental role in aesthetics. … we can say that the (realm of the) aesthetic is of exclusively subjective nature, it roots merely in the subject. It has often been shown by psychological aesthetics that this does not imply that the (realm of the) aesthetic is prone to fall into arbitrariness and individual disorder [Regellosigkeit]. If the (realm of the) aesthetic is based on psychological laws, there is an aesthetic norm in the same way as there are psychological laws. And the possibility of differences of aesthetic values is guaranteed by the fact of the development of the psychological subject. (Witasek, 1915, pp. 199)45

44

My translation: “Das ästhetische Merkmal ist eben zunächst bloß immanenter Gegenstand und bedingt an und für sich in keinem Sinne irgendwelche Transzendenz. ... Der ästhetische Gegenstand ist also ausschließlich immanenter Gegenstand, die Lehre vom ästhetischen Schein erhält damit in völlig uneingeschränktem Sinne wissenschaftliche Fundierung.” 45 My translation: “In diesem Sinne kann man sagen, das Ästhetische ist ausschließlich subjektiver Natur, es wurzelt lediglich im Subjekt. Daß das Ästhetische damit nicht subjektiver Willkür und individueller Regellosigkeit verfällt, ist von der psychologischen Ästhetik oft schon gezeigt worden. Beruht das Ästhetische auf psychologischen Gesetzen, so gibt es ästhetische Norm in eben demselben Maße, in dem es allgemeingiltige psychologische Gesetze gibt. Und die Möglichkeit ästhetischer Wertunter-

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4. Aesthetics, the Science of Beauty? In the preceding sections I have argued that psychology plays a central role in the aesthetic theories of both Brentano and Witasek and that both adopt a position that is very close to psychologism. In the concluding section of this paper I will discuss a tacit assumption that both philosophers seem to share, namely that the central notion of aesthetics is that of beauty. While the centrality of this notion might raise the plausibility of a psychological approach to aesthetics – after all, beauty can be grasped in perception – it also contains the danger that one focuses too strongly on this notion and ends up with developing a theory of beauty, rather than a theory of art. Both philosophers seem to – or, in the case of Witasek, explicitly do – take “beauty” to be shorthand for all aesthetically relevant properties. Rather than defining works of art or providing criteria that allow us to distinguish them from ordinary objects, they focus on describing psychological mechanisms that allow us to experience beauty and at best show what objects are beautiful – independent of whether these objects are artefacts or not. This seems unsatisfactory, because there are many works of art – especially of contemporary art – that can hardly be considered “beautiful” and do not even aim at arousing pleasure in the spectator. Quite often we value works of art because they seek “to challenge, to disorient, to disrupt, to explore” (Elgin 2002, p. 12) to comment on the human condition, to offer new perspectives, or to invite us to reflect on our prejudices, etc. Brentano does not seem to be aware that his conception of art might be too narrow. While he does not go so far as to reduce art to beauty, he explicitly states that it would be a mistake if an artist would not aim at producing beautiful objects. In a lecture in Vienna in 1892 he states: In France there is a school of painters that reportedly takes it to be the purpose of art to show how ugly the world is. With some examples of modern poetry one comes to think that it rests on a similar conception. This would be a regrettable confusion. (Brentano 1988, p. 193)46 schiede ist durch die Tatsache der Höherentwicklung des psychischen Subjektes verbürgt.” 46 My translation: “In Frankreich gibt es eine Malerschule, von der man sagt, sie halte es für die Aufgabe der Kunst, zu zeigen, wie häßlich die Welt sei. Bei manchem Stück

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While the experience of paintings that show how ugly the world is might not (directly) arouse pleasure in the spectator, however, these paintings might still be of high artistic value. With this I do not want to suggest that beauty is not an important aesthetic property; I merely aim to challenge the view that being beautiful is the only or the most important aesthetic property and that it is not the only, and not even a necessary goal of art to arouse pleasure in the spectator. In his article “The Artworld” Arthur Danto argues that not every predicate can be meaningfully attributed or denied to an artwork; there is only a limited list of predicates that can. Even if we were to follow Brentano and Witasek in using “beautiful” as a shorthand for all properties that can be meaningfully attributed or denied to works of art, we could not account for the fact that this list is continuously undergoing modifications and enrichments: as Danto suggests, the important moments in the history of art, the moments of breakthrough, consist in adding a property to the list of those that are considered artistically relevant.47 Doing so, however, the artist enriches the whole artworld, for the new property can be meaningfully attributed or denied to all works of art there are: … suppose an artist determines that H shall henceforth be artistically relevant for his paintings. Then, in fact, both H and non-H become artistically relevant for all painting, and if his is the first and only painting that is H, every other painting in existence becomes non-H, and the community of paintings is enriched, together with the doubling of the available style opportunities. It is this retroactive enrichment of the entities in the artworld that makes it possible to discuss Raphael and De Kooning together, or Liechtenstein and Michelangelo. The greater the variety of artistically relevant predicates, the more complex the individual members of the artworld become, and the more one knows of the entire population of the artworld, the richer one’s experience with any of its members. (Danto 1964, pp. 583f)

This shows that Brentano’s strategy of focusing exclusively on beauty makes it difficult for him to account for artistic progress; moreover, he cannot account for the fact that the very notion of art has evolved over the century. Brentano’s notion of art, thus, is a static notion that does not allow moderner Poesie möchte man glauben, es läge ihm eine ähnliche Auffassung zugrunde. Das wäre eine beklagenswerte Verirrung.” 47 Cf. Danto (1964, p. 584).

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him to account for the dynamics that have characterized the artistic progress in all the history of art. I doubt that Brentano would be moved by this critique. He could reply that every person who has developed a correct taste – even a person from the 15th century who, by some mysterious ways, gets to see the masterpieces of the twentieth century, but is completely ignorant about the developments that have taken place in the centuries in between – would experience all works of art as aesthetically valuable. One might even accuse the position that I am sketching of adopting a form of relativism or as giving in into the dictates of fashion and insist that aesthetic standards must be eternal; but this would, in my point of view, overlook the fact that like other forms of human endeavour, also art is evolving, and that today’s artists do not start from zero, but are building on the achievements of their predecessors. Moreover, the problem that not all works of art aim at arousing pleasure in the spectators is not only related to artistic development or in our dealing with (for Brentano’s time) progressive artists that have the “purpose to show how ugly the world is”. We find it also in the context of a form of art that since ancient time was considered one of the most important and most sublime: tragedy. When watching Antigone or Hamlet, we witness (the representation of) events that do not (directly) arouse pleasure in us. Brentano is aware of this problem, which he discusses in his lecture “Das Schlechte als Gegenstand dichterischer Darstellung”.48 He argues that we might find the topic to be of particular value, appreciate the artistic form, or like to be moved by the misfortunes of others. Alas, Brentano does not carefully analyze the psychological processes that are involved, but rather declares the phenomenon to be too complex for aesthetics.49 This is regrettable not only 48

Reprinted in his 1988, pp.170–195. Cf. Brentano 1988, p. 192: “In the same way as the single, ingenious work of art cannot possibly be explained in all its power by scientific analysis, also, and in particular, the specific life of a whole artistic genre cannot be elucidated in all its wealth by aesthetic analysis” (My translation: “Wie das einzelne geniale Kunstwerk durch keine wissenschaftliche Zergliederung jemals in seiner vollen lebendigen Kraft verständlich gemacht werden kann, so wird eben und noch weit weniger, das eigentümliche Leben einer ganzen Kunstgattung durch die ästhetische Analyse in dem Reichtum seiner Beziehungen klargelegt werden können.” 49

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because the psychological processes that allow us to appreciate tragedy are quite complex and at the same time quite enlightening50, but also because further analysis might have brought Brentano to reflect on some of the cornerstones of his aesthetic theory. References Baumgartner, Wilhelm and Lynn Pasquerella (2004): “Brentano’s Value Theory: Beauty, Goodness, and the Concept of Correct Emotion”, in: Dale Jacquette (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Brentano, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 220–236. Brentano, Franz (1895): Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich. Stuttgart: Cotta. Brentano, Franz (1902): The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. Brentano, Franz (1988): Grundzüge der Ästhetik, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Hamburg: Meiner. Brentano, Franz (1995): Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, ed. by L. McAlister, trans. by A.C. Rancurello, D.B. Terrel, and L. McAlister, 2 nd ed., intr. by Peter Simons, London: Routledge. Chisholm, Roderick (1982): Brentano and Meinong Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Chisholm, Roderick (1986): Brentano and Intrinsic Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Danto, Arthur (1964): “The Artworld”, in: Journal of Philosophy 61, pp. 571–584. Elgin, Catherine (2002): “Art in the Advancement of Understanding”, in: American Philosophical Quarterly 39, pp. 1–12. Feagin, Susan (1983): “The Pleasure of Tragedy”, in: American Philosophical Quarterly 20, pp. 95–104. Frege, Gottlob (1894): “Dr. E.G. Husserl: Philosophie der Arithmetik. Psychologische Untersuchungen. Erster Band. Leipzig 1891. C.E. Pfeffer”, in: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik N.F. 103, pp. 313–332. 50

For an interesting analysis cf., for example, Feagin (1983).

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Huemer, Wolfgang (2004): “Husserl’s Critique of Psychologism and his Relation to the Brentano School”, in: A. Chrudzimski and W. Huemer (eds), Phenomenology and Analysis: Essays on Central European Philosophy, Frankfurt: ontos, pp. 199–214. Husserl, Edmund (1994): Briefwechsel, vol. 1: Die Brentanoschule, E. and K. Schuhmann (eds), Dordrecht: Kluwer. Husserl, Edmund (2001): Logical Investigations, trad. by J.N. Findlay, ed. by D. Moran, London: Routledge. Meinong, Alexius (1912): “Für die Psychologie und gegen den Psychologismus in der allgemeinen Werttheorie”, in: Logos: Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie der Kultur 3, pp. 1–14. [Reprinted in: Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3, ed. by R. Haller and R. Kindinger, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, pp. 267–282.] Meinong, Alexius (1917): “Über emotionale Präsentation”, in: Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 183, vol. 2. [Reprinted in: Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe, vol. 3, ed. by R. Haller and R. Kindinger, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968, pp. 283–467.] Mohanty, John N. (1982) Husserl and Frege. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mohanty, John N. (1997) “The Concept of Psychologism in Frege and Husserl” in: Philosophy and Rhetoric 30, pp. 271–90. Reicher, Maria (2006): “Austrian Aesthetics”, in: Mark Textor (ed.), The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy, London: Routledge, pp. 293–323. Rollinger, Robin (2008): “Brentano and Meinong”, in: Austrian Phenomenology: Brentano, Husserl, Meinong and Others on Mind and Object, Frankfurt: ontos, pp. 157–188. Smith, Barry (1994): Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court. Twardowski, Kasimir (1977): On the Content and Object of Presentations: a Psychological Investigation. Trans. by R. Grossmann. The Hague: Nijhoff. Witasek, Stephan (1901): “Psychologische Analyse der ästhetischen Erfahrung”, in: Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 25, pp. 1–49.

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Witasek, Stephan (1902): “Wert und Schönheit”, in: Archiv für systematische Philosophie 8, pp. 164–93. Witasek, Stephan (1904): Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik. Leipzig: Verlag von Ambrosius Barth. Witasek, Stephan (1915): “Über ästhetische Objektivität”, in: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 157, pp. 87–114 and 179–199.

The Contributors to this Volume

Carla Bagnoli is Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches ethical theory since 1998. She has written three monographs on moral dilemmas and the authority of morality) and articles on constructivism, humanitarian intervention, recognitionrespect, and agential autonomy. Her current research project concerns ethical objectivity and the subjective aspects of practical reason. She is editing a volume on “Morality and the Emotions” for Oxford University Press. Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (University of Salzburg and University of Szczecin) is co-editor of the new edition of Franz Brentano’s works: Franz Brentano, Sämtliche veröffentlichte Schriften and the philosophical series: Phenomenology and Mind (both in ontos-verlag, Frankfurt a.M.). Main publications: Die Erkenntnistheorie von Roman Ingarden (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1999), Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano (Dordrecht: Kluwer 2001) and Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos (Dordrecht: Kluwer 2004), Intentionalität, Zeitbewusstsein und Intersubjektivität. Studien zur Phänomenologie von Brentano bis Ingarden (Frankfurt a.M.: ontos 2005), Gegenstandstheorie und Theorie der Intentionalität bei Alexius Meinong (Dordrecht: Springer 2007). Current research: Ontology, Epistemology, Theory of Intentionality, Austrian, German, and Polish Philosophy, especially Meinong, Brentano, Ingarden, Husserl. 2008 he was awarded with the Scientific Prize of Polish Prime Minister. Beatrice Centi, formerly a researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, is currently Professor of the History of Philosophy at Parma University. Her main areas of research are the philosophy of Kant, philosophy and psychology and the theory of values in German thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among her publications: L’armonia impossibile. Alle origini del concetto di valore in R. H. Lotze (Milan 1993), Coscienza, etica e architettonica in Kant. Uno studio attraverso le Critiche (Pisa-

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Rome 2002), Fenomenologia della ragion pratica. L’etica di Husserl (with Gianna Gigliotti, Naples 2004) and articles on history and issues of phenomenology Wolfgang Huemer has studied Philosophy and German literature at the universities of Salzburg, Fribourg, Berne, and Toronto. He was wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the University of Erfurt and is currently ricercatore at the University of Parma. He is author of The Constitution of Consciousness. A Study in Analytic Phenomenology (Routledge, 2005) and of various articles on philosophy of mind and philosophy of literature, and editor (among others) of Phenomenology and Analysis (with A. Chrudzimski, ontos), A Sense of the World (with J. Gibson and L. Pocci, Routledge), and Kunst denken (with Alex Burri, mentis). Mara Meletti Bertolini is Associated Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Parma. Her research interests are in the areas of ethics, phenomenology, phenomenological psychology, history of moral philosophy in the French and German philosophical tradition. Among her publications: Bergson e la psicologia (Milan 1984), Il pensiero e la memoria. Filosofia e psicologia nella Revue Philosophique di Th. Ribot (Milan 1991), La conversione all’autenticità. Saggio sulla morale di J.P. Sartre (Milan 2000), Etica e Politica (ed., Milan 2004), Percorsi etici (ed., Milan 2007). Roberto Poli (www.robertopoli.it) teaches ethics at the Faculty of Sociology, Trento. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Axiomathes (Springer), and the series Categories (Ontos Verlag). Poli is member of the Academic Board of Directors of the Metanexus Institute, Philadelphia. He is working on three main topics, seen as different sides of a unique categorical framework: (1) The category of person and the theory of values; (2) Ontology, and (3) The category of the future and in particular the theory of anticipatory systems. Maria E. Reicher, born 1966, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Aachen. PhD 1998 (University of Graz), Habilitation 2004 (University of Graz). Selected books: Zur Metaphysik der Kunst. Eine logisch-ontologi-

Contributors

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sche Untersuchung des Werkbegriffs (Graz 1998); Einführung in die philosophische Ästhetik (Darmstadt 2005); Referenz, Quantifikation und ontologische Festlegung (Heusenstamm 2005); (ed.) States of Affairs (Heusenstamm bei Frankfurt 2009). Maria Reicher is coeditor of the journal Grazer Philosophische Studien. Fiorenza Toccafondi is researcher in History of Philosophy at the Philosophy Department of Parma University. Her area of study has been neokantismus, phenomenology, the work of Karl Bühler, and ontological questions. Actually, she is interested in the philosophical background in which Gestaltpsychologie arose. Main publications: I linguaggi della psiche (1995), L’essere e i suoi significati (2000), Il tutto e le parti (2000), Oswald Külpe: Aspects of a Qualitative Science (editor, with J. Skilters, and G. Stemberger, 2007). Maria Villela-Petit is Emeritus Researcher at ENS-CNRS (Paris). Her main areas of research are aesthetics, ethics, phenomenology, hermeneutics. Among her numerous publications: Cognitive Psychology and the Transcendental Theory of Knowledge, in Naturalizing Phenomenology. Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Stanford 1999).

Name Index Albertazzi, Liliana 45, 155 Allison, Henry 34, 36 Ameriks, Karl 30–32, 34f Angelelli, Ignacio 156 Anscombe, G.E.M. 25 Armstrong, David 156 Ayer, Alfred J. 138f Baldwin, Thomas 36 Baumgartner, Wilhelm 49, 55, 63, 273 Beck, Lewis 32, 35 Bégout, Bruce 193 Benoist, Jocelyn 100 Bergson, Henri 221, 254 Bimbenet, Etienne 215 Boella, Laura 256 Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen v. 166 Bolzano, Bernard 53, 274 Bonan, Ronald 213 Brenifier, Oscar 191 Brentano, Franz 45–104, 106–114, 118, 122, 125, 132, 144, 166, 171– 189, 268–288 Brown, Donald E. 167 Brunschvicg, Léon 215 Bühler, Karl 83 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 284 Calhoun, Cheshire 149 Calì, Carmelo 66 Campbell, Keath 156 Cappuccio, Massimiliano 256 Carbone, Mauro 213, 222 Carnap, Rudolf 138 Centi, Beatrice 23 Chisholm, Roderick 49, 55, 63, 67, 270, 274f, 277 Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz 66

Cleret, Alexandre 256 Carbone, Mauro 213, 222 D’Arms, Justin 106 Danto, Arthur 284 Darwall, Stephen 24, 28, 37 De Kooning, Willem 284 De Sade, Donatien Alphonse François 171 De Saint Aubert, Emmanuel 213 De Sousa, Ronald 148, 150 Depraz, Natalie 193 Descartes, René 108, 199, 221, 248 Diamond, Cora 259 Dillon, Martin C. 213 Dilthey, Wilhelm 77 Donagan, Alan 37 Dummett, Michael 176 Duncker, Karl 137, 143, 151 Eaton, Howard 115 Edgerton, Robert 167 Ehrenfels, Christian v. 65f, 74, 106f, 123–132, 166 Elgin, Catherine 283 Elie, Hubert 157 Engstrom, Stephen 29, 38 Erdmann, Benno 65 Feagin, Susan 286 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 156 Findlay, John N. 159, 165 Fodor, Jerry A. 148 Foot, Philippa 24f Frank, Manfred 262 Frege, Gottlob 275 Gibbard, Allen 26, 28

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Gigliotti, Gianna 90 Girard, René 193 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang v. 275 Goldstein, Kurt 224 Gozzano, Simone 54 Gregory of Rimini 157 Grossmann, Reinhardt 45, 67 Guyer, Paul 36 Haller, Rudolf 67 Hartmann, Nicolai 106, 159, 162f, 216 Heanue, James 68 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 156, 227 Heidegger, Martin 196 Hills, Alison 28, 31 Hoffman, Joshua 156 Höfler, Alois 88 Hume, David 100, 108, 118, 148, 171f, 181, 183, 186f, 199 Husserl, Edmund 45–104, 106, 151f, 156, 160, 180, 191–211, 221f, 224, 273–278 Iacoboni, Marco 256 Ingarden, Roman 130, 160 Jacobson, Daniel 106 Jacquette, Dale 45 James, William 137 Jaramillo-Mahut, Monica 203 Johnson, Robert N. 31, 37 Kain, Patrick 28, 31 Kant, Immanuel 23–42, 46, 85, 89, 100, 155, 192, 195–199, 205, 221, 270, 276 Kessler, Jean 193 Kierkegaard, Søren 208 Kitcher, Patricia 39 Koffka, Kurt 142–144, 146, 152

Köhler, Wolfgang 137–154, 223, 228 Korsgaard, Christine M. 27, 31f, 34 Krasnoff, Larry 31 Kraus, Oskar 54, 100, 106 La Mettrie, Julien Offray 144 Laertius 157 Lagneau, Jules 207 Landmann-Kalischer, Edith 106, 116, 124 Larmore, Charles 31 Levin, David M. 213 Lewin, Kurt 140 Liechtenstein, Roy 284 Locke, John 108, 116, 199 Lotze, Rudolf H. 53, 89, 144 Lowe, Jonathan 156 Mac Lane, Saunders 160 Mackie, John Leslie 24f Manzoni, Piero 267 Martin, Charles B. 156 Marty, Anton 47, 69, 100, 106, 171– 189 Mayer-Hillebrand, Franziska 47, 178 McDowell, John 116, 144 Meinong, Alexius 45–104, 106f, 114– 128, 132, 157, 166, 171–189, 277f Melandri, Enzo 157 Melle, Ullrich 90, 208 Menger, Carl 166 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 213–266 Metzger, Wolfgang 143–147, 152 Michotte, Albert 147 Million, Jerôme 193 Mohanty, John N. 275 Moore, George Edward 181 Müller-Lyer, Franz 148 Mulligan, Kevin 94, 106, 140 Murdoch, Iris 28, 257–261 Nabert, Jean 207f

Name Index Neri, Guido Davide 222 Nietzsche, Friedrich 171 Nussbaum, Martha 106 O’Neill, Onora 27, 31f, 34, 38 Paton, Herbert James 32 Perry, Ralph Barton 144 Piana, Giovanni 100 Poli, Roberto 45 Proust, Marcel 203 Putnam, Hilary 89, 93, 99, 176 Quine, W.V.O. 138 Railton, Peter 26, 28 Rauscher, Frederick 31 Rawls, John 27f, 30, 36, 38 Reath, Andrews 31, 34 Reichenbach, Hans 138 Reicher, Maria 278 Richir, Marc 193 Rickert, Heinrich 85, 89 Ricoeur, Paul 208 Rizzolatti, Giacomo 256 Rollinger, Robin 67, 171, 178, 278 Rosenkrantz, Gary S. 156 Russell, Bertrand 100 Ryle, Gilbert 257 Sanzio, Raffaello 284 Sartre, Jean-Paul 216, 219–221, 226f, 233, 236f, 240–242, 244–248, 250– 252, 254, 261–263 Saxinger, Robert 77 Scanlon, Thomas M. 26 Scheler, Max 85, 106, 144, 151, 180, 216, 219, 221f, 226, 236f, 240, 244, 250 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 156 Schiller, Friedrich 68

295

Schneewind, Jerome B. 29f, 32f Schubert Kalsi, Marie Luise 67f Schwarz, Ernst 77 Shestov, Lev 208 Siebeck, Hermann 77 Simondon, Gilbert 197f Simons, Peter 172 Sinigaglia, Corrado 256 Smith, Barry 278 Spengler, Oswald 205 Srzednicki, Jan 176 Steinbock, Anthony J. 193 Stern, Robert 23 Stevenson, Charles L. 138f Stumpf, Carl 65, 106, 178, 180 Tappolet, Christine 106 Tiffany, Evan 31 Topitsch, Ernst 110 Twardowski, Kasimir 276, 278 Vanzago, Luca 239 Varzi, Achille 91 Vorländer, Karl 85 Weber, Max 85, 95, 250 Wertheimer, Max 137 Whitehead, Alfred North 200 Wieser, Friedrich v. 166 Wiggins, David 144 Williams, Bernard 24f, 143 Windelband, Wilfhelm 85 Witasek, Stephan 75, 77, 129, 267f, 278–284 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 175 Wolf, Susan 25 Wood, Allen 28, 30f, 36

PHENOMENOLOGY & MIND

Edited by Arkadiusz Chrudzimski • Wolfgang Huemer Vol. 1 Arkadiusz Chrudzimski Wolfgang Huemer (Hrsg.) Phenomenology and Analysis Essays on Central European Philosophy ISBN 3-937202-36-6 Paperback, 381 Seiten, EUR 32,00 Vol. 2 Wolfgang Huemer / Marc-Oliver Schuster Writing the Austrian Tradition Relations between Philosophy and Literature ISBN 3-937202-44-7 Paperback, 213 pages, EUR 29,00 Vol. 3 Arkadiusz Chrudzimski Intentionalität, Zeitbewusstsein und Intersubjektivität Studien zur Phänomenologie von Brentano bis Ingarden ISBN 3-937202-63-3 Hardcover, 211 Seiten, EUR 78,00 Vol. 4 Ralf Busse Wahrnehmung, Indexikalität und Reflexion. Hector-Neri Castañedas Ontologie und Wahrnehmungstheorie und die Möglichkeit einer phänomenologischen Reflexion ISBN 3-937202-76-5 Hardcover, 447 Seiten, EUR 98,00 Vol. 5 Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (Ed.) Existence, Culture, and Persons The Ontology of Roman Ingarden ISBN 3-937202-84-6 Hardcover, ca. 226 pp, EUR 78,00

Vol. 6 Anna Sierszulska Meinong on Meaning and Truth ISBN 3-937202-94-3 Hardcover, 262 pp., EUR 78,00 Vol. 7 Alexander Batthyany, Avshalom Elitzur Mind and its Place in the World Non-Reductionist Approaches to the Ontology of Consciousness ISBN 3-937202-98-6 Hardcover, 323 pp., EUR 94,00 Vol. 8 Arkadiusz Chrudzimski / Dariusz Łukasiewicz (Eds.) Actions, Products, and Things Brentano and Polish Philosophy ISBN 3-938793-06-6 Hardcover, 237pp., EUR 79,00 Vol. 9 Marvin Farber Foundations of Phenomenology Edmund Husserl and the Quest for a Rigorous Science of Philosoph ISBN 978-3-938793-30-5 Paperback, 595pp., EUR 59,00 Vol. 10 Tommaso Piazza A Priori Knowledge Toward a Phenomenological Explanation 978-3-938793-92-1 Hardcover, 193pp., EUR 84,00 Vol. 11 Kazimierz Rynkiewicz Zwischen Realismus und Idealismus Ingardens Überwindung des transzendentalen Idealismus Husserls ISBN 978-3-86838-006-4 Hardcover, 669 Seiten, EUR 149,00