Evidence and the Aim of Cognitive Activity

Abstract

An analysis of Husserl’s opus makes it quite clear that the phenomenon of evidence preoccupied his mind. His continuous interest found its expression in the various explorations formulated along with his intellectual development. In the first place it can be said that the phenomenon of evidence was germane to Husserl’s trend of thought and the structure of his philosophical thinking and system. If we take, in general terms, evidence to connote that which is actually present and conspicuous in the mind, consciousness or subject, as well as that which by its presence provides immediately the ground for holding a view or a position formulated in a proposition in the consciousness, or, to put it differently, a content or a proposition whose very presence implies its justification — the affinity between that phenomenon at large and Husserl’s own concern with it is telling. For a philosopher so much engaged in the analyses of contents which are given by themselves to consciousness — Selbstgebung — or those originally given to consciousness and thus given by consciousness, the reference to the phenomenon of evidence and to the historical explorations of that phenomenon appear to be built-in in the structure of Husserl’s own thinking. Husserl was concerned with the issue of certainty and presence, and thus he was led to refer to the phenomenon of evidence and therefore to explore it.