On Value-Perception (“Endowing”) as Transcendental Functioning in Husserls Later Phenomenology

Abstract

Husserl’s theory of ethics developed over many phases, and there is a clear, inner connection of his epistemological, ontological and axiological perspective. But in general we may say that his ethical theory has two main periods: a) an “absolutistic” (1897–1914), and a “pragmatic”, stemming from 1914 onwards. From this we may already suspect that Husserls thinking on the topic changes with his genetic turn, as we also see in the movement from Ideas I and II. By this, he introduced a less static view regarding personality, and hence; a correlating phenomenological ethics. In the earlier period, he operated on basis of a strict axiom, that stated that all values may be established in a formal hierarchy, but this is, as Husserl him self noted in July 1909 – “doubtful” (HUA XXVIII, Ergänzende Texte, nr. 5, p., 419). So, to explore the theme, I will comment on Husserl’s ethical theory, to attempt an archaeological investigation of how the axiological must be understood in line with the constitutive functions of consciousness. Then, I ask how this may inform us in regard of a view of “transcendentalism” as less formal and more existential in essence – or rather; how these dimensions are equi-primordial. The immanent thematic shift in Ideas II, demonstrate how the earlier logic of consciousness may be materially “filled” so to speak, by the analyses of reciprocal empathic functions that founds the quality of personal identity. This schema was not completed by Husserl in Ideas II. But, he never stopped analysing the value-dimensions of intersubjectivity. The most comprehensive of these analyses are compiled in HUA XXVIII – Vorelesnungen über Ethik und Vertlehre – spanning from the period of 1897–1914, and are in fact even extended in HUA XIII – XV: the “large version” of CM; Towards the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity. Husserl’s project was to develop an ethical perspective which was to be integrated with the epistemological. If we contemplate this, we may understand how the phenomenological “seeing” (in the natural attitude, at least), never is neutral. Further, the ethical reflections were in line with his psychological critique of psychologism in logic, so that he could argue for a non-psychologistic ethics, also. To anticipate one major point; as Husserl attempted to base his ethics on a transcendental level – he distanced his position from a utilitarian approach.

As this paper attempts at an interpretation of Husserl’s principal argumentation, I do not apply an extensive use of textual references or quotations. A more comprehensive, “scientific” elaboration may be found in my doctoral thesis on the Phenomenological aspects of Psychiatry – an analysis of philosophical foundations for “evidence-based” psychiatry, University of Bergen, 2008.