The Transcendental Phenomenological Reduction: Husserl’s Concept of the Idea of Philosophy

Abstract

A distinctive way to transcendental reduction is offered that successively refines belief into knowledge and knowledge into science, then the problem of knowledge of the world in which knowledge is in-the-world for psychology in the natural attitude is raised, and finally the solution offered whereby in addition to knowledge-in-the-world there is an apodictic philosophical knowledge that is of the world and is non-worldly or transcendental. The descriptions of awareness thereafter in the dissertation are conducted in the transcendental as opposed to the natural attitude. But this is not the only way to the transcendental reduction.

Appendix

The “motivation” for the phenomenological reduction which we have given in this chapter is only one of several possible motivations. We may mention, among others, a possible motivation through the consistent development of psychology.²⁰

Each individual subject in the world is aware of certain objects and he distinguishes—implicitly at least—among them some which he takes as valid (e.g., real) from others which he takes as invalid (e.g., unreal, false). As a psychologist, I observe another person and his beliefs, his positing as valid, rejecting as invalid, of objects of which he is conscious (which he “intends”). I distinguish between what the person merely holds to be valid, and what really is valid. But, as psychologist, I am, in this respect, on a par with the person whom I observe. I must distinguish, ideally, between what I myself merely hold to be valid (what I posit), and what is really valid. I must realize, furthermore, that, just as the observed person is confined to the sphere of objects as they “appear” to him (and intended by him), so I am restricted to the sphere of objects as they “appear” to me. (The observed other person is, for me, one of the objects that “appear” to me; he is an experienced object, which I take to be real.) The psychologist’s motivations, then, for taking some objects as valid, other objects as invalid, must lie within the sphere of objects as they are intended by the psychologist. The same is true not only of the psychologist but of every psychic subject. If a person takes an attitude toward objects, such that he regards their apparent validity and invalidity (apparent to himself) as determined by motivations of what he is conscious of, he has carried out what may be called the “psychological reduction.” “Validity” itself (existence, truth) he sees to be a concept whose meaning is established for him within the sphere of what he is conscious of, and—we have said this before but it bears repeating—all talk of reference to a “being-in-itself” in the sense of something not an object of consciousness, he sees either to be fundamentally meaningless or to have an inconsistent (absurd) meaning. All that he “intends,” all that he is conscious of, he takes as his “world-picture.”²¹

How is it, then, with the distinction between what one merely takes to be real and what really is real? This too is a distinction within the realm of intended objects. Valid positing is, in any case, a matter of the evidence, i.e.,—the manner of givenness—of the object posited. It is conceivable that on the basis of what is evident to me, I may posit something validly and that, nevertheless, that object, by reference to an eventual wider unity of evident objects, may be judged validly as invalid—in spite of its evidence to me. That which exists “in itself,” or is true “in itself,” is that which, on the basis of all relevant evidence, would be validly posited as true, as existent. The distinction between validity (truth, existence) as “in itself” and validity as “for me” is possible because I know my sphere of actual experience to be limited. But this limitedness is, as we have said, an actual (given, experienced) character of my actual experience. The intelligible “In Itself” is not an idea that transcends the limits of consciousness, the limits of my world-picture, taken with its horizons.

The relevant experience of a given object is, however, not merely my own experience, but that of all other persons in the world. That is valid (existent, true) which would be validly posited by anyone on the basis of all his own and all other actual possible persons’ experience. This is not an indirect characterization, but a direct explication of the essence of validity, inside my world-picture, which is all that I—qua human—have.

When I, as psychologist, examine the evidence of my belief that there are other persons with minds, my belief that they are conscious of objects, I see that it is founded in the evidence that certain bodies which I experience are fields of expression of minds, expression of the wills and emotions of minds. These minds are not directly presented to me but only indirectly appresented as manifested through experience of their presented bodies.

I have, however, presentational experience of my own mind, and it is by an extension²² of the sense “mind,” thus directly presented, that I can intend an other mind as “mind.”

For me, as psychologist, the first experienced subject-matter is my own mind. Here alone I have presentational original experience of what mind is. The diversity of other minds is intelligible only as the realization of other possible cases of the essential nature which I know directly as realized in the case of my own mind. “Mind totally heterogeneous from my own” is an absurd idea.

The original explication of the fundamental concepts of psychology must, then, be on the basis of the psychologist’s explication of his own observed mind, (as conscious of objects, of his world-picture).

Since the other mind is given on the basis of the givenness of the other body which “expresses” the other mind as my body expresses my mind, this is a higher level of the meaning of the world to me, as human. I can abstract from this meaning as posited in my psychologically reduced world, my world-picture, and find within it a foundation of objects as directly and originarily given to me, the basis of the positing of other mind. Furthermore, this involves abstraction, not only from the posited sense of bodies as expressions of their minds but also from any other senses which my originarily given objects have as tools, products, etc., of other persons. It also involves abstraction from the sense of my self as “there for others in their world-pictures.” What remains in force is no longer my full world-picture, containing the full sense “the world,” but only an abstract basis of my full world picture, containing the sense “primordial world.” My self, my mind, no longer has the posited sense of “in the world” but merely the sense in the egological quasi-world. But my mind in the egological world still intends, qua world-picture, the full world-sense, as something it means, intends. I have not abstracted from the fact that my mind intends the full world-picture, but only from the positing of a certain higher level of the sense in this world-picture. Roughly speaking, if I take myself to be in a private world all alone, I nevertheless find my solitary myself picturing myself as “in a public world with other people.”

The full world-sense is, for my primordially reduced ego, an intended object. Whatever evidence there is for positing the full world-sense is found in the primordial world-sense. Paradoxical as it seems, my abstraction has not impoverished my world at all. I have merely exercised epochē with respect to the thesis of the higher level of its sense.

I have, however, remained the psychologist—have not become the transcendental philosopher—since, for me my ego is still the ego in the primordial “world.”

I may now go further in my “abstraction” from the full sense of my world-picture, and exercise epochē with respect to my positing the sense of the egological world as “extending beyond the specious present.”²³ I then have left in force the positing of the world as “present,” and myself in the primordial “world as present.” I find that, as present, I still have posited my present world-picture, which contains, intentionally, a past and future primordial world and an intersubjective world as parenthesized intentional correlates of my present ego and its psychological intending: my ego as valid in the present primordial world. Still I am the psychologist not the transcendental philosopher, since the ego is for me “in” the egological present world. (This “present” no longer is posited as between a past and future. This meaning, like the past and future, is merely contained in the world-picture, as parts that are bracketed. The past, the future, and the sense of present as “between them,” are bracketed meanings, contained intentionally in the posited present picture.)

I have been exercising epochē on successive thetic levels, but none of them have been transcendental-phenomenological epochēs. To give them a transcendental sense, there must be a “springing” of the psychological motivation. The sense of the ego itself as “present ego in the present primordial world” must be bracketed, even though there be no possible further retreat—along the same line—into an inner core of posited “world”-sense. The new motive for this genuinely transcendental-phenomenological reduction might well be the ideal of criticism as we have outlined it in this chapter. The difference between the two processes is as follows²⁴: In the psychologically motivated process, the posited world-sense is, as it were, concentrated at one point, as “in” the present primordial “world,” and then transcendental reduction is exercised. In the otherwise motivated process, the transcendental reduction is exercised at the outset, and the “concentration” takes the form of further epochē “inside” the phenomenon. The psychologistic reductive process reveals the sphere of transcendental being first of all as the transcendental present ego with its present transcendental consciousness. (If the transcendental sphere is gained by the psychologistic reduction, the transcendental onlooker has still ahead of him the discovery that there is, for the present transcendental ego, a transcendental past and future as well as a mundane past and future.) The other process reveals transcendental being first of all as the transcendental ego and consciousness extended in transcendental time and it must reveal the present transcendental ego (“in” which the transcendental past-present, -future, and the world-phenomenon are “contained” intentionally) by further epochē within the already assumed phenomenological attitude.

Two other possible motivations may be mentioned here.

• 1. The motivation through the consistent development of logic as the science of science. As such, logic must first study the essential nature of knowledge, not only as something “there”—must make clear the objective structure of (consistent and inconsistent) propositions, conclusions, theories. This is (or includes) the field of logic in the sense generally accepted today. In the second place, it must study the essential nature of propositions, conclusions, theories, as being “about” their subject-matter, it must consider the general nature of truth. If it neglects this task, it is inadequate to the full sense of science, as not only (alleged) consistent theory, but also (alleged) true theory. In the third place, it must study the essential nature of science as known truth, since this too is an essential characteristic of science. This will necessarily involve consideration of the nature of validity, as something known. Logic is incomplete and fundamentally unintelligible, unless it deals not only with what is possibly valid but also with what validity is.

  How the attempt to carry out this program might motivate the transcendental reduction, we shall consider after we have taken up the nature of logic in greater detail.²⁵

• 2. The ethical motivation, through the attempt to satisfy the desire for a right life, for valid action. In a sense, action may be “instinctively” valid, instinctively ethical; but the highest ideal of practical activity is activity the rightness of which—when measured by evident standards—is known. This involves insight into the nature of the activity and the goal. It involves criticism, and therefore epochē, of what is already instinctively set as a valid goal. How, in detail, this would lead to the transcendental reduction we shall consider later—after we have more thoroughly analyzed the nature of value and of practical activity.²⁶