Conclusion

Abstract

Husserl’s categories of referring backward are not predominant in major sections of LU vi, 1 in the way that the categories of universal names are in ch. 1, or categories of context in ch. 2 and ch. 4, or categories of perspectival ordering in ch. 3, or categories of limit in ch. 5. Yet the problematic of referring backward functions at every level of analysis in LU vi, in descriptions of associative histories, in the example from arithmetic, in general descriptions of the syntheses of epistemic fulfilment, and in descriptions of the methodology of phenomenology. On my reading, they provide the finishing touches and hence the grounding principle of every analysis in which they appear. In this concluding section of my treatment of the sixth Investigation and of LU as a whole, I will develop a rather speculative reading to show how the categories of referring backward structure Husserl’s solution to the problem of synthesis in general. I will begin by indicating how the categories of referring backward resolve the problems of synthesis raised by the categories of names, contexts, perspectives and limits, namely the problems of determinate inclusion, next-contents, gap-free ordering, and retention respectively. I will then indicate how they resolve the problems of synthesis in the first five Investigations, namely the problems of occasional expressions, grounded universals, part-whole structures, syncategorematic terms, and subject-predicate relations.