Abstract
All of Husserl’s arguments thus far summarized have been confined to showing that the theory of psychologism leads to a certain relativism and scepticism. But if an opponent accepts this as a consequence of his theory, then Husserl’s demonstrations do not per se constitute a refutation of psychologism. Only a refutation of scepticism and relativism would serve this purpose. Only then could Husserl consider his guiding motivation as established. We can put this more formally by saying that a denial of objective knowledge implies relativism, but only a proof that this consequence is false shows that the premise — the actual denial — cannot be valid. The same holds for the three identifications which went into the psychologistic denial of objective knowledge. Insofar as they involve this denial, they too will be proved invalid; but only insofar as the consequences of this denial — i.e., relativism and scepticism — are shown to be invalid. The ultimate result of the present argumentation is, then, to establish the motivation for actually searching for the conditions of objectively valid knowledge. As we shall see, the corollary of this result is the establishment of the priority of the epistemological standpoint.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
Cf. Heidegger’s description of the “abyss” presented by Kant’s transcendental imagination in the 1st edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. Heidegger describes “Kant’s recoil” from this abyss in his Kant and das Problem der Metaphysik,§31.
It is also not the case, as E. Levinas asserts, that “Volume II of the Logische Untersuchungen builds a new ontology of consciousness to replace naturalistic ontology...” (The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology, trans. A. Orianne, Evanston, 1973, p. 13). This new ontology first appears some years after the publication of the 1st edition of the Untersuchungen.
See also Husserl’s equation of real being with temporal being, LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 123; F., p. 351. According to this, what is “in our thinking” — which is a temporal process — “… pertains to the sphere of real being, the sphere of temporality” (LU, Tüb. ed., II/ 1, 101; F., p. 330). The equation also leads Husserl to identify the mental content, understood temporally “in the subjective sense” with the content understood “in the phenomenological sense, the descriptive psychological sense and in the empirically real sense” (LU, Halle ed., II, 52). See also LU, Halle ed., II, 332, 356 for the assertion that this temporal reality must involve causality. Some, but not all of the passages stressing the natural reality of consciousness were suppressed or altered when Husserl partially rewrote the 2nd ed. under the influence of Ideen I.
See also LU, Tüb. ed., I, 177; F., pp. 184–85;Ibid., I, 68; F., p. 104.
See LU,Tüb. ed., I, 69; F., p. 104; Ibid., 1, 159; F., p. 171; Ibid.,I, 171–72; F., pp. 180–81.
Thus, Husserl writes of the objects of the arithmetical laws — e.g., the number Five: “In no case can it be comprehended without absurdity as a part or side of a mental experience and in this way as something real (LU, Tüb. ed., I, 171; F., p. 180). Similar assertions are made with respect to the propositional meanings which logic considers. See Ibid., Tüb. ed., I, 175–76; F., pp. 183–84.
The question, here, is put by De Boer in terms of the acts of consciousness: “On the one hand, these are empirically necessary and determined; on the other, an idea is realized in them according to which they claim apodictic validity. How can both of these points of view be combined?” (“Zusammenfassung,” op. cit., p. 589).
This characterization, which is one of being one-in-many, is applied both to propositonal truths and to individual meanings considered as “ideal units.” See LU, Tüb. ed., I, 99; F., p. 329; Ibid., 1, 128–30; F., pp. 149–50; Ibid., II/1, 96–97; F., p. 327; Ibid., II/1, 100–101; F., p. 330.
Husserl, in fact, doubts whether the empirical limits of language could ever allow of a completely definite description. See LU, Tüb. ed., I1/1, 91; F., p. 322.
Without such a distinction and corresponding movement, a word is either a fixed expression or, qua occasional, it has no power to refer by acting as a mere indicator. The test for whether or not a word is fixed is made by observing whether we can form a definite presentation of its referent without regard to the circumstances of its use. Thus, to assert that a word like lion is essentially occasional is to assert that, independent of the particular circumstance of its use, it allows of no more definite presentation of its referent than a word like you. According to this test, not all words are essentially occasional. These last, rather, constitute an exceptional case. See LU,Tüb. ed., II/1, 83; F., p. 316.
We may note that if being is without an available objective sense, then all expressions have only an operative indicating function, but in a different sense than that described above. What they indicate is not specified by referring to the objective sense of the circumstances in which they are used. It is rather to follow a current view — to be found in the conventions of the use of a particular language. In Strawsons’s words, “… the meaning of an expression is not the set of things or single thing it may be correctly used to refer to: The meaning is the set of rules, habits, conventions for its use in referring” (“On Referring,” Contemporary Readings in Logical Theory, ed. cit., p. 113). If these rules for its use are described as contingent, if, for example, we say with Wittgenstein that it is an “empirical fact” that a certain word is used in a certain way (On Certainty, §305-§306), then in Husserl’s view we slip into relativism. The relativism is of the basic form of making logic dependent on facts. Logic, which deals with propositional meanings, becomes contingent — i.e., empirically grounded if these meanings are themselves contingent. So stated, the thesis, in Husserl’s view, would lead to absurdity. Regarded as beyond the horizon of logic, the thesis would be unintelligible. Presented within the horizon of logic, the thesis would be inconsistent.
Wittgenstein writes, “It would be as if someone were looking for an object in a room. He opens a drawer and does not see it there. Then he closes it, waits and opens it again to see whether, perhaps, it may not now be there, and he continues in this manner” (On Certainty, §315, ed. cit., p. 40). The above point about reperformance seems implicit in this passage; through Wittgenstein’s subsequent references to learning the linguistic game of seeking shows that he has a different way out of this impasse than either Kant’s or Husserl’s. Kant, it should be noted, differs from Husserl insofar as he does not assume that validity is established by an eidetic act. Denying the existence of such an act, he refers universal validity to subjective necessity — i.e., to “the universal and necessary connections of the given perceptions” by which we grasp what for us is the objective sense of an entity. As Kant makes clear, these subjective necessities can be considered quite apart from the inherent content of the entity; the last, in fact, “remains always unknown in itself” (“Prolegomena,” §19, Kants ges. Sehr., IV, 298–99). This conclusion is probably responsible for Husserl’s most sweeping criticism of Kant: “All the principal unclarities of the Kantian critique of reason are ultimately bound together by the fact that Kant never makes clear to himself the peculiar character of ideation…” (LU, Tüb. ed., I1/2, 203; F., p. 833). According to Husserl, if we recognize ideation as a unique act that can grasp necessary universality, then an examination of subjective necessities of experience need not involve any abstraction from the question of the inherent sense of the object. In fact, as we shall see, the two must be correlated.
The claim that perception, by following its own inherent standard, can reach the object itself is made a number of times. See LU, Tüb. ed., 11/2, 57; F., p. 713; Ibid., II/2, 202, no. 3; F., p. 832. It is to be noted that adequate perception, which is defined as reaching the “full selfhood” of the object, is not equated with inner perception. Inner perception can lack evidence and outer perception can be evident. See LU, Halle ed., II, 704–705, 710–12, see also above, p. 80. One may compare this doctrine with the very different position of the Ideen, where there is ascribed an inherent “inadequcy” to the outer perception of things. See Ideen I, §44; Biemel ed., p. 100; also Ibid., Beilagen XII, XV; Biemel ed., pp. 398–99, 402–403.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1981 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mensch, J.R. (1981). Establishing the Guiding Motivation: The Refutation of Scepticism and Relativism. In: The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations . Phaenomenologica, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3446-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3446-2_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8264-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3446-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive