Abstract
Assessing Habermas’ criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology, this paper aims to develop the concept of the critical rationality in a true sense. This paper will show that critical rationality has at least three components, namely communicative rationality, formal-logical rationality and intuitive rationality. Among these three components, communicative and formal-logical rationality are the formal components of critical rationality, whereas intuitive rationality that is developed by the author for the first time is its content. Intuitive rationality is the most important among the components of critical rationality. It is the core of the critical rationality. Critical rationality cannot be critical in a true sense and overcome the crisis of modern society if it does not have the component of intuitive rationality.
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Notes
- 1.
A passage reads as follows: “Thus the crisis of philosophy implies the crisis of all modern sciences as members of the philosophical universe; at first a latent, then a more and more prominent crisis of European humanity itself in respect to the total meaninglessness of its cultural life, its total ‘Existenz’” (E. Husserl, The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Philosophy, trans D. Carr, 12). In this paper, this work will be cited with the abbreviation Crisis.
- 2.
J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikative Handelns, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1988, Bd. II, 293. In this paper, this work will be referred to with the abbreviation TKH 2.
- 3.
In this sense, Husserl’s phenomenology could be defined as a practical philosophy. See Nam-In Lee, “Practical Intentionality and Transcendental Phenomenology as a Practical Philosophy,” in Husserl Studies 17(2000).
- 4.
J. Habermas, Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1986, 151 ff. In this paper, this work will be referred to with the abbreviation VE.
- 5.
Kant makes a distinction between subjective validity and objective validity in I. Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1976, 53 ff.
- 6.
See E. Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten 1918–1926, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.
- 7.
The German text runs as follows: “Jedenfalls also in mir, im Rahmen meines transzendental reduzierten reinen Bewusstseinslebens, erfahre ich die Welt mitsamt den Anderen und dem Erfahrungssinn gemäβ nicht als mein sozusagen privates synthetisches Gebilde, sondern als mir fremde, als intersubjektive, fűr jedermann daseiende[…].” (E. Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 123).
- 8.
I have shown that Husserl’s phenomenology is not solipsistic in the following works: Nam-In Lee, Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993 (Phaenomenologica vol. 128), 197 ff.; Nam-In Lee, “The Static-Phenomenological and Genetic-Phenomenological Concept of Primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation,” in Husserl Studies 18(2002); Nam-In Lee, “Problems of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Buber,” in Husserl Studies, 22(2006).
- 9.
One of Husserl’s later manuscripts from 1930’s carries the title: “Phänomenologie der Mitteilungsgesellschaft” (Phenomenology of Communicative Society) (E. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass, Dritter Teil 1929–1935, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 461).
- 10.
The German text runs as follows: “Die Sozialität konstituiert sich durch die spezifische sozialen, kommunikativen Akte, Akte, in denen sich das Ich an Andere wendet, und dem Ich diese Anderen auch bewusst sind als die, an welche es sich wendet, und welche ferner diese Wendung versteht[…]’’ (E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953, 194).
- 11.
J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikative Handelns, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1988, Bd. I, 70. In this paper, this work will be referred to with the abbreviation TKH 1.
- 12.
Analyzing the “intuitive foundation of rationality,” Rosemary R. P. Lerner also deals with the problem of intuitive rationality. See Rosemary R. P. Lerner, “Intuitive Foundations of Rationality,” in: C.-F. Cheung et al. (ed.), Essays in Celebration of the Founding of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations, webpublished at www.o-p-o.net, 2003, and Rosemary R. P. Lerner, “Husserl versus Neo-Kantianism Revisited: On Skepticism, Foundationalism, and Intuitionism,” in: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy IV-2004. With respect to the inseparable relationship between intuition and rationality, Lerner writes as follows: “Phenomenology’s revolutionary approach to the problem of reason consists in proposing a radical reform of the meaning of λóγος, which was traditionally reduced to the sphere of validating inferences, whether demonstrative, deductive, or argumentative. Husserl extends rationality to include the domain of phenomenological experiences wherein the formerly ‘rational’ procedures are themselves ‘validated’ – the ultimate source of which is ‘originally giving intuition’. Rational, indeed, is the subject’s life as a whole – whether perceptive, axiological, or normative.” (R. R. P. Lerner, “Husserl versus Neo-Kantianism Revisited: On Skepticism, Foundationalism, and Intuitionism,” 207).
- 13.
One should not confuse this kind of belief with the belief based on a mere subjective validity in the Kantian sense, since it is open to intersubjective connection with other persons.
- 14.
R. Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Oeuvres de Descartes VII, publiées par C. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1973.
- 15.
I have dealt with the phenomenological concept of evidence in Nam-In Lee, “Experience and Evidence,” in Husserl Studies (forthcoming). I have borrowed some passages below from this paper.
- 16.
In this context, Husserl writes as follows: “Every category of object […] is a universal essence which of necessity can be brought to adequate evidence in principle […]” (Hua III/1, 330; Ideas I, 341).
- 17.
R. Descartes, Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Oeuvres de Descartes X, publiées par C. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1974.
- 18.
H. Bergson, L’Evolutiom créatrice, in: Œuvres, Vendóme: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984, 645 ff.
- 19.
Plato, Politeia, 511d.
- 20.
For example, VE, 177.
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Nam-In, L. (2010). The Crisis of Modern Society and Critical Rationality. In: Nenon, T., Blosser, P. (eds) Advancing Phenomenology. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 62. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9286-1_15
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