We are now once again taking a new step. The idea of a theory of science has not yet satisfactorily come about in every way through the thoughts so far, whether we were abiding by the standpoint of a science of reality, or that of science in general. In defining formal logic, our attention was directed toward the composition of sciences and theories. And, theories were systems of propositions in which the characteristics of things (Sachen) came to meaningful expression in terms of being and state, in terms of arguments and conclusions. The theories rested on individual propositions, and every proposition expressed a state of affairs within the respective domain. For this reason, the theory of forms and theory of laws of propositions and of relations of inference among propositions had at the same time, in a correlative conception, the character of a theory of forms and laws of states of affairs, therefore, of a formal ontology. And, likewise, the real categories and the accompanying laws stated something about the things, not in terms of mere form, but of content.
We quickly notice, though, that in scientific discourse, and even in that finding expression in scientific treatises, not all concepts and propositions have reference to things in this manner—expressing their formal or real nature. Subjectivity also finds expression in the sciences and determines the meaning of many propositions. Only were we to restrict ourselves to the purely mathematical disciplines, and even to the formal ones, could we fail to see this. In these disciplines, only exceptionally does it happen that anything other than objective theoretical concepts and propositions is expressed. It is different in the natural sciences. There, subjectivity enters into the sphere of scientific discourse on a broad scale.
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Attention is again to be drawn to historical research (historical science) that brings subjectivity along with its occasional concepts. In general, there is a difference with respect to the role of subjectivity in the historical sciences and in the nomological sciences and the concrete natural sciences as well.
That is naturally false. We have noetic and noematic theories of judgment in precisely the same way we have noetic and noematic theories of possibilities, probabilities, etc. The noetic and the noematic are likewise to be distinguished in the theory of experience and induction.
The remainder is not correctly seen either.
All that is to be completely transformed in accordance with my later insights, say, from 1909 on.
The theory of probability is really a mathematical theory and a correlate of the theory of legitimate assumptions, which is a noetic theory.
We must, of course, separate universal theory of knowledge parallel to formal logic from special theories of knowledge that run parallel to the regions of knowledge.
Problems of meanings in themselves.
Proposition in itself.
Ideal in itself as meaning.
That is all rather generally expressed. To be distinguished within the problem, though, then is: (1) the ideality of the mathematical, the purely logical, the geometrical, the purely conceptual proposition; hence, corresponding classes of judgments and their ideal contents; (2) the suprasubjectivity of empirical, occasional propositions having temporary validity. The bird is flying: now, just as long as it is flying. The paper is white: now, as long as it is not colored, not burned, etc. Scientific judgments of selenology, botany, geography, even physics. Meanings of occasional judgments! In contrast to the meanings of non-occasional judgments.
Compare Appendix A VI (Editor’s note).
It is to be noted that in the rest of the exposition the problem of objectivity constituting itself in subjectivity is nowhere interpreted as if the genuine problem were in the reference to empirical and, say, human subjectivity.
But, is not knowledge of something immanent to consciousness also problematical? On the one hand, that of the kind that ascertains “something immanent” that is not “self-given” in the act concerned, and then <on the other> that is the knowledge of something that is “self-given”? What characterizes it? Is nothing at all to be investigated there?.
And even if we are not used to distinguishing in the same way in the case of perceptions, memories, etc., is not every perception, for example, in itself also characterized by something in some way analogous to the thought meaning, a content immanent to it that makes up its objective reference? And, is this content not to be distinguished from the object as phenomenon as such and the real one?.
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(2008). Noetics as Theory of Justification of Knowledge. In: Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge. Husserliana: Edmund Husserl – Collected Works, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6727-3_4
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