Aron Gurwitsch and the Transcendence of the Physical

McKenna, William R.

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_12

William R. McKenna³

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 66))

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Abstract

The first part of the essay explains the influence that Ideen I had on Aron Gurwitsch, outlining how Gurwitsch appropriated the method of phenomenological reduction and the concept of intentionality as noeto-noematic correlation to provide a context within which to develop ideas that he derived from his work in Gestalt Psychology to advance phenomenological philosophy. The second part gives an original account of the transcendence of physical things by developing a line of inquiry that Husserl opened up in Ideen I in his analysis of “secondary objectivation.” By further developing some insights of Merleau-Ponty, the account describes how physical things are other than appearances.

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Notes

1.
Aron Gurwitsch, Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1966), xv-xvi, hereafter Studies; The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973), vol. II, Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, Phaenomenologica 193, ed. F. Kersten, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010).
2.
Ibid., xvi.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Ibid.
5.
For some recent accounts of Gurwitsch’s impact on Husserlian phenomenology, see “Editorial Introduction,” The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973), Vol. 3, ed. Richard M. Zaner and Lester Embree (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), hereafter CW III; Peter M. Chukwu, Competing Interpretations of Husserl’s Noema, Gurwitsch versus Smith and MacIntyre (New York: Peter Lang, 2009); and Lester Embree, “Aron Gurwitsch’s Theory of Cultural-Scientific Phenomenological Psychology,” Husserl Studies 19 (2003): 43–70.
6.
In addition to Gestalt psychology, Gurwitsch brought his background in the work of people in other areas to bear on phenomenology. See Studies, xx–xxii.
7.
Aron Gurwitsch, “Critical Study of Husserl’s Nachwort,” Studies, 113–14.
8.
Studies, xxi.
9.
Ibid.
10.
Aron Gurwitsch, The Field of Consciousness (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1964), 168, hereafter Field; CW III, 162. This work has been reprinted in Volume III of The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973), Vol. 3, ed. Richard M. Zaner and Lester Embree (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010). To use the “constancy hypothesis” is to think that “sense-data depend entirely upon, and are determined exclusively by, the corresponding physical stimuli” so that “whenever the same physical events stimulate the same elements of the nervous system, the same sensation cannot fail to appear” (Field, 90; CW III, 88).
11.
For instance, what Husserl called the “phantom,” an abstract dimension of the appearance of a material thing. See my “The ‘Inadequacy’ of Perceptual Experience,” The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 12/2 (1981) and John Drummond, “Objects’ Optimal Appearances and the Immediate Awareness of Space in Vision,” Man and World 16 (1983): 177–205. Most, if not all, of Husserl’s work on this is contained in posthumously published work in Husserliana, for instance in Ding und Raum, Husserliana XVI, ed. Ulrich Claesges (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).
12.
See especially Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), §38, 78–80 and §42, 89–90.
13.
Ibid., §46, 100–104.
14.
Ibid., §44, 94.
15.
Ibid., §44, 97.
16.
Ibid., §44, 96.
17.
Ibid.
18.
Ibid. This example shows that Husserl is thinking of perspectivity in a broad sense, that includes environmental conditions of perception.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Ibid., fn. 204.
22.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), 302. Cf. Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris, Gallimard, 1945), 348. In the English translation, “perception privilégiée” is rendered “crucial perception.”
23.
Merleau-Ponty, 302.
24.
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 299.
25.
Ibid., 300.
26.
Ibid., 300–301.
27.
Ibid., 299.
28.
Ibid., 301.
29.
Ibid., 302–303.
30.
Ibid., 302.
31.
Ibid., 320.
32.
Ibid., 322.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Ibid.
35.
Ibid.
36.
Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 119.

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Department of Philosophy, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA
William R. McKenna

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Correspondence to William R. McKenna .

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, Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton, 33431, Florida, USA
Lester Embree
Dept. Philosophy, University of Memphis, Clement Hall 316, Memphis, 38152, Indiana, USA
Thomas Nenon

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McKenna, W.R. (2013). Aron Gurwitsch and the Transcendence of the Physical. In: Embree, L., Nenon, T. (eds) Husserl’s Ideen. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_12

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_12
Published: 12 September 2012
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