Teorías de la violencia

In the present essay I outline and defend Husserl’s characterization of transcendental phenomenology as metaphysically neutral. I have argued that, for Husserl, metaphysical neutrality is an intrinsic limit on the legitimate scope of transcendental phenomenology. This does not mean that transcendental phenomenology has no metaphysical implications, but that it refrains from making any speculative metaphysical claims. According to Husserl, transcendental phenomenology is, “nothing more than scientific self-examination on the part of transcendental subjectivity,”104 which aims to clarify the conditions and essence of all possible cognition in general, or how all possible and actual phenomena are constituted in and by consciousness. The only metaphysical claim that Husserl seems committed to is that the transcendental ego exists in-itself and for-itself. However, this is not a presupposition of his theory but a critical result which Husserl believes is sufficiently demonstrated not only by the phenomenological reduction and the unity of apperception. It seems that, aside from the absolute existence of the transcendental ego, all other metaphysical claims can be discarded from our readings of Husserl. If we attempt to interpret Husserl’s phenomenology along metaphysical rather than transcendental-epistemological lines, then we cannot make good on

103 _{Husserl, CM, p.140 <167>} 104 _{Husserl, FTL, p.273 <241-242>}

the claim that, “Phenomenology is the first rigorous scientific form of philosophical idealism.”105

As a scientific self-examination on the part of the transcendental subject, transcendental phenomenology may be characterized as a monadology. Yet the results of Husserl’s monadology differ greatly from the ones we find in the work of Leibniz. Using metaphysical neutrality as an interpretive tool, I have argued that Husserl’s intersubjective monadology, which he presents as a response to the threat of solipsism, should not be read as an attempt to demonstrate either the existence of other subjects in-themselves or the existence in-itself of the external world. Such a reading is incompatible with the way in which Husserl frames the question, and with the entire project of transcendental phenomenology as it is presented throughout Husserl’s mature writings. As Zahavi notes, Husserl’s transcendental idealism “shows that both metaphysical realism and idealism, together with a lot of traditional metaphysical heritage, are strictly speaking nonsensical.”106 If phenomenology is able to shed additional light on traditional metaphysical problems, it does so by showing that such problems are the result of equivocations and paralogisms.

Equally important is the fact that Husserl wants to show that such proofs are not necessary for thwarting the challenge of solipsism that is typically used by realists to disarm transcendental idealism. I have also attempted to explain Husserl’s novel conception of monads, although I have not given a complete account of this. The take home point is that Husserl is not a Leibnizian, at least not in any ordinary sense. Most importantly, Husserl neither presupposes nor defends a Leibnizian metaphysics.

The present essay certainly suggests more than it brings to completion, especially by way of providing an interpretation and defense of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. However, giving a complete interpretation and defense of Husserl was not my goal. Nor is this essay meant to be an attempt at the arduous task of giving a line-by-line interpretation of the ‘Fifth Meditation.’ The task here was a more modest one, but one which I take to be extremely important. My ambition was to argue for and sketch a tenable interpretive framework for reading Husserl within which more detailed analyses of his texts can be

105 _{„Phänomenologie [ist] die erste streng wissenschaftliche Gestalt des philosophischen Idealismus.“ (Husserl,} Hua VIII, p.310)

accomplished. This requires that we understand the spirit of Husserl’s transcendental idealism and his monadology. The virtue of my interpretive framework is that it makes the ‘Fifth Meditation’ consistent with Husserl’s overall project of transcendental idealism, with his other writing on intersubjectivity, empathy, and the problem of solipsism (with the view that the ‘Fifth Meditation’ is the culmination of Husserl’s evolving thought on these issues). A.D. Smith’s attempt at interpreting the ‘Fourth’ and ‘Fifth Meditation’ flounders insofar as it forces a metaphysical reading of Husserl that we need not and ought not accept.

Husserl’s argument regarding the constitution of the Objective world and of other subjects can be summarized as follows. Possible other subjects are necessary for the experience of an Objective world in general. All possible Objects are constituted not just as being for me, but as being for everyone, that is, they are intersubjective.107 Actual other subjects are necessary for the constitution of the actual Objective, shared world. Empathy is the condition of the possibility of the experience of actual other subjects, that is, of constituting certain things as having Seelenlebens distinct from my own. However, empathy does not allow me to directly experience the mental-lives of others. Nowhere here does Husserl attempt to demonstrate the existence in-itself of the world, or of other transcendental egos. As Kevin Hermberg writes:

The task Husserl sought to accomplish in the Fifth Meditation, then, is an investigation and explication of our experiences of Others, not the metaphysical problem of proving their existence. The problem is “a special one, namely that of the ‘thereness-for-me’ of others, [a] theory of experiencing someone else” (CM 92), but there is much more at stake than merely making sense of the way in which Others are experienced. A theory like the one Husserl offers as a solution to the problem of experiencing Others “contributes to the founding of a transcendental theory of the Objective world” (CM 92). Although the problem is, at base, the special problem of experiencing someone else, it leads to the possibility of an Objective world.108

107

Similarly, Moran writes that: “Adopting the Kantian critical position, Husserl understood transcendental idealism to mean that there is no such thing as ‘being-in-itself’ or ‘objectivity as such’; every form of objectivity, the constitution of everything, from the natural world to the world of spirit, culture and history is constituted, is given its ‘being and meaning’ (Sein und Sinn) by a constituting subjectivity or subjectivities acting in consort...The notion of an ‘object’ is precisely the notion of something publicly accessible, something there ‘for everyone’ (für Jedermann).” (Moran, Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology, p.56-57)

There may well be passages in Husserl, even in the ‘Fifth Meditation,’ which are problematic for this reading. I do not want to simply hide behind the fact that the Cartesian Meditations are an unfinished work to account for this. But even in the face of such challenges, I maintain that the reading I have pushed should be utilized for interpreting Husserl. The principle of charity requires no more and no less than this. From there, the goal of the commentator can be either one of criticism or apologetics, but neither of these should influence our initial reading of the text.

Works Cited

Allison, Henry E. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, Revised and Enlarged edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Cairns, Dorion. Conversations with Husserl and Fink. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. Carr, David. Interpreting Husserl: Critical and Comparative Studies. Dordrecht: Springer,

1987.

Gurwitsch, Aron. The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973),Volume II: Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Fred Kersten. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. Hermberg, Kevin. Husserl’s Phenomenology: Knowledge, Objectivity and Others. New

York: Continuum, 2007

Husserl, Edmund. Briefwechsel, Bd. 3: Die Göttinger Schule, ed. Elisabeth Schuhmann and Karl Schuhmann. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994.

Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999.

Husserl, Edmund. “Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity,” trans. James Hart, Husserl Studies 12 (1995), pp.111-133.

Husserl, Edmund. Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.

Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana VII: Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil: Kritische Ideengeschichte, ed. Rudolf Boehm. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1956.

Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana VIII: Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. Rudolf Boehm. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1959.

Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana XIII: Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjectivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil: (1905-1920), ed. Iso Kern. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1973.

Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana XIV: Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjectivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil: (1921-1928), ed. Iso Kern. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1973. Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana XV: Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjectivität. Texte aus

dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: (1929-1935), ed. Iso Kern. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1973.

Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana XXXVI: Transzendentaler Idealismus, Texte aus dem Nachlass (1909-1921), ed. Robin Rollinger and Rochus Sowa. Dordrecht: Springer, 2003.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, trans. Fred Kersten. Dordrecht: Springer, 1982.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, trans. Rojcewicz and Schuwer. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989. Husserl, Edmund. “Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy,” trans. Ted Kersten and

William Pohl, Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 5:3 (1974), pp. 9-56.

Husserl, Edmund. The Idea of Phenomenology, trans. Lee Hardy. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994. Hutcheson, Peter. “(Review) James Richard Mensch, Intersubjectivity and Transcendental

Idealism,” Husserl Studies 8 (1991), pp.161-167.

Hutcheson, Peter. “Husserl’s Fifth Meditation,” Man and World 15 (1982), pp.265-284. Hutcheson, Peter. “Solipsistic and Intersubjective Phenomenology,” Human Studies, Vol.4,

No.1 (1979), pp.165-178.

Kern, Iso. Husserl und Kant. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964.

Lee, Nam-In. “Husserl’s View of Metaphysics: The Role of Genuine Metaphysics in Phenomenological Philosophy,” in Phenomenology 2005, Vol.1, Selected Essays from Asia, ed. Chan-Fai Cheung and Chung-Chi Yu. Bucharest: Zetabooks, 2007.

Luft, Sebastian. “From Being to Givenness and Back: Some Remarks on the Meaning of Transcendental Idealism in Kant and Husserl,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 15:3, (2007) pp.367-394

Mahnke, Dietrich. Eine neue Monadologie. Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1917.

Mancosu, Paolo. The Adventure of Reason: Interplay between Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Logic, 1900-1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Mensch, James. Intersubjectivity and Transcendental Idealism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

Nenon, Thomas and Lester Embree, eds. Issues in Husserl’s Ideas II. Dordrecht: Springer, 1996.

Richter, Raoul. Skeptizismus in der Philosophie und siene Ueberwindung, Bd.1. Leipzig: Dürrschen Buchhandlung, 1904.

Schulting, Dennis. “Kant’s Idealism: The Current Debate,” in Kant’s Idealism: New Interpretations of a Controversial Doctrine, ed. Dennis Schulting and Dordrecht: Springer, 2011.

Smith, Arthur David. Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations. New York: Routledge, 2003. Tilitzki, Christian. Die deutsche Universitätsphilosophie in der Weimarer Republik und im

Zahavi, Dan. “Internalism, externalism, and transcendental idealism,” Synthese 160 (2008), pp.355-374.

Zahavi, Dan. “Phenomenology and Metaphysics,” in Metaphysics, Facticity, Interpretation, ed. Dan Zahavi, Sara Heinämaa and Hans Ruin. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003.

2

The World “for me” and the World “for everyone”: the

Problem of Solipsism in Husserl’s Formal and

Transcendental Logic

Research into the problems of intersubjectivity, Objectivity, and solipsism in Husserl’s philosophy has traditionally focused on his Cartesian Meditations.1 _{In the ‘Fifth Meditation,’} Husserl outlines his intersubjective monadology, and attempts to show the connection between a transcendental theory of experiencing someone else, and a transcendental theory of the Objective world.2 _{The purpose of this is to refute the claim that transcendental} phenomenology leads to solipsism. However, the analyses laid out in the ‘Fifth Meditation’ are incomplete and notoriously difficult to interpret.3 _{Strangely, commentators have} overlooked a set of related passages from the Formal and Transcendental Logic,4 _namely §§94-99 and §§102-104, which deal with the same set of problems. In what follows, I will show that these passages on intersubjectivity, Objectivity, and solipsism from the FTL provide an important interpretive framework that ought to be utilized when assessing the content of the ‘Fifth Meditation.’ Not only are the arguments in the FTL much easier to navigate, they supplement the analyses of the ‘Fifth Meditation’ and they justify adopting an “epistemological” interpretation of transcendental phenomenology. That is to say, in FTL Husserl’s phenomenology is not presented as a metaphysical or psychological theory, but a transcendental theory concerning the conditions of the possibility of cognition or the “constitutional apriori.”5

I contend that reading the CM in light of the FTL (rather than the other way around) helps to deflate the metaphysical language of the ‘Fifth Meditation,’ and that the “epistemological” interpretation of Husserl is to be preferred.

1 _{Hereafter abbreviated as CM.}

2 _{Edmund Husserl, CM, p.90-92 <123-124>.} 3

Dissatisfied with the CM, Husserl began work on the so-called “German Meditations” and his “System of Phenomenological Philosophy” – the outline for which can be found in Bob Sandmeyer’s Husserl’s Constitutive Phenomenology (2009), p.178-186. His assistant Eugen Fink was left with the task of revamping the CM, a task which included reworking the ‘Fifth Meditation’ and the writing of two entirely new meditations to be added to the end of the work. None of these projects were ever completed.

4 _{Hereafter abbreviated as FTL. Peter Hutcheson makes use of some of these passages in his essay “Husserl’s} Fifth Meditation,” Man and World 15, pp.265-284(1982).

Parts of the ‘Fifth Meditation’ appear, at least at first glance, to frustrate the “epistemological” reading of transcendental phenomenology. For instance, there is Husserl’s uncharacteristic remark that “the experienced world exists in itself,”6 _{along with the so-called} “metaphysical results” outlined in CM §60 which scholars such as AD Smith and Dermot Moran have pointed to as supporting the notion of a Husserlian metaphysics.7 _However, notwithstanding the clarifications of these claims that can be found in the CM itself, the FTL gives us valuable insight into Husserl’s special sense of Objectivity, which is at the heart of all his “metaphysical” conclusions. Husserl defines Objectivity as being not only for me but “for everyone” or as existing for “everyone capable of cognition.”8 _{The problem Husserl} then faces is explaining what he means by “everyone” if everything that exists is constituted in my own monad. In other words, by separating mind-independence from Objectivity, Husserl must address the problem of solipsism. In what follows I will first examine Husserl’s theory of the Objective as presented in FTL §§94-96. I will then discuss how Husserl frames the related problem of solipsismthat seems to result from his commitment to transcendental idealism, and why he identifies solipsism as a “transcendental illusion

[transzendentalen Schein].”I conclude that while Husserl is willing to admit that the monadic

ego is a solus ipse, he may still, paradoxically, avoid the threat of solipsism. In doing so, I hope to supplement the commentaries of Suzanne Bachelard’s A Study of Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic (1957/1968), and Dieter Lohmar’s Edmund Husserls ‘Formale und Transzendentale Logik’ (2000).9