Abstract
In Wim Wenders’s 1987 film Himmel Über Berlin (Wings of Desire in the English subtitle version), an angel moves silently among mortals, listening to their thoughts as they read in the Berlin public library. In this spirit, assume that Husserl is listening to our readings today of his Logical Investigations (1900–01).1
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References
I shall quote from J. N. Findlay’s 1970 English translation, Logical Investigations (Volumes One and Two), of the German edition which combines the first edition of 1900–01 with revisions in the second edition of 1913 and revisions of the Sixth Investigation in the edition of 1920.
See in particular D. Willard, Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge: A Study of Husserl’s Early Philosophy, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1984; J.N. Mohanty, “The development of Husserl’s thought.” (In B. Smith and D. W. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and C. O. Hill and G. E Rosado Haddock (eds.), Husserl or Frege? Meaning, Objectivity, and Mathematics, Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, Cams Publishing Company, 2000.
J. Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962; Models and Modalities, Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1969.
However, see the line of argument in D. W. SMITH, “Intentionality Naturalized?” (In J. Petitot, F. J. Varela, B. Pachoud, and J.-M. Roy (eds.), Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science,Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) and other essays in the same volume.
B. Bolzano, Theory of Science: Attempt at a Detailed and in the main Novel Exposition of Logic With Constant Attention to Earlier Authors. Edited and translated (selections) by R. George,Berkeley: University ofCalifomia Press, 1972. German original, 1837. See also P. SlMOxs, “Bolzano, Tarski, and the limits of logic”, In P. Simons, Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski: Selected Essays. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.
B. Smith, “Logic and Formal Ontology”, in J. N. Mohanty and W. McKenna (eds.), Husserl’s Phenomenology: A Textbook,Lanham: University Press of America, 1989, 29–67, aptly discusses many of the issues to follow. However, I want to stress how three distinct disciplines are related: formal logic, formal ontology, and (if you will, formal) phenomenology.
I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Transi. and edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 1998. German original, 1781, revised 1787.
See W. v. O. QUINE, Methods of Logic, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1950, 1959; Philosophy of Logic, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970; Pursuit of Truth, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992, 1990; From Stimulus to Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.
E. Husserl, Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology,translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., and New York: Humanities Press, Inc., 1969. First English edition, 1931; German original, first published in 1913. Called Ideas I.
See E. Husserl, Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics. Translated by D. Willard, Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994. Original German texts here gathered, from 1890–1901; and the essays in C. O. Hill and G. E. Rosado Haddock, Husserl or Frege?,on the connections and differences between Husserl, Cantor, Frege, and others in late 19th century foundations of mathematics.
Extending Husserlian part/whole theory, P. Simons, Parts,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, pursues nonextensional mereology, which contrasts with set theory and with extensional mereology (where wholes are treated extensionally, rather like sets without braces). See also K. Fine, “Part-whole”, in B. Smith and D. W. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, reflecting on Husserl’s part-whole theory.
See D. W. Smith and R. Mcintyre, Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language, Dordrect: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982. Now from Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht and Boston, Chapter V on horizon. The horizon of an experience includes only “motivated” possibilities, those with appropriate probability given what is prescribed by the content or noema of the experience.
For an illuminating assessment of Husserl’s ideal of a theory of manifolds, see C. O. Hill, “Husserl’s Mannigfaltigkeitslehre”,in C. O. Hill and G.E. Rosado Haddock, Husserl or Frege?
Husserl later used ’Mannigfaltigkeit’ for a more special purpose when launching his notion of “horizon”. See D. W. Smith and R. Mcintyre, Husserl and Intentionality,Chapter V.
R. Tieszen and P. Martin-La have both made this observation to me in discussion.
See P. Simons, Parts,distinguishing Husserlian part theory from extensional mereology, the latter akin to extensional set theory.
For details see my reconstruction of Husserl’s ontology in D. W. Smith, “Mind and body”, in B. Smith and D. W. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl,Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995; and D.W. Smith, “`Pure’ Logic, Ontology, and Phenomenology”, in Revue internationale de philosophie,2001, issue edited by D. Fellesdal.
See A. Tarski, “The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages”, in A. Tarski, Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics,Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. Second edition. Indianapolis: Hacket, 1983. Essay originally published in Polish, 1933; in German translation, 1936; and “The Semantic Conception of Truth”, in L. Linsky (ed.), Semantics and the Philosophy of Language. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1952, 1964. Original, 1944, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4.
The details are reconstructed in D.W. Smith and R. Mcintyre, Husserl and Intentionality. What is new here is the way in which that analysis fits into the overall system of Husserl’s Logical Investigations.
This is especially clear in the case of indexical forms of awareness. See D.W. Smith, The Circle of Acquaintance: Perception, Consciousness, and Empathy, Boston and Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989.
See the Introduction to D. W. Smith, The Circle of Acquaintance.
Many of the issues here discussed come together in the logic, ontology, and phenomenology of self-awareness. See two complementary recent studies: D. W. Smith, The Circle of Acquaintance, and D. Zahavi, Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999. Where the former analyzes the formal structure of self-awareness (and other types of acquaintance, or “intuition”), the latter analyzes the material structures of the same intentional phenomena.
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Smith, D.W. (2002). What is “Logical” in Husserl’s Logical Investigations? The Copenhagen Interpretation. In: Zahavi, D., Stjernfelt, F. (eds) One Hundred Years of Phenomenology. Phaenomenologica, vol 164. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0093-1_4
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