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Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Routledge Classics) by Edmund Husserl
With a new foreword by Dermot Moran'the work here presented seeks to found a new science - though, indeed, the whole course of philosophical development since Descartes has been preparing the way for it - a science covering a new field of experience, exclusively its own, that of "Transcendental Subjectivity"' - Edmund Husserl, from the author's preface to the English EditionWidely regarded as the principal founder of phenomenology, one of the most important movements in twentieth century philosophy, Edmund Husserl's Ideas is one of his most important works and a classic of twentieth century thought. This Routledge Classics edition of the original translation by W.R. Boyce Gibson includes the introduction to the English edition written by Husserl himself in 1931.Husserl's early thought conceived of phenomenology - the general study of what appears to conscious experience - in a relatively narrow way, mainly in relation to problems in logic and the theory of knowledge. The publication of Ideas in 1913 witnessed a significant and controversial widening of Husserl's thought, changing the course of phenomenology decisively. Husserl argued that phenomenology was the study of the very nature of what it is to think, "the science of the essence of consciousness" itself.Husserl's arguments ignited a heated debate regarding the nature of consciousness and experience that has endured throughout the twentieth and continues in the present day. No understanding of twentieth century philosophy is complete without some understanding of Husserl, and his work influenced some of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.
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First published January 1, 1913
About the author
Edmund Husserl
448 books479 followersEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (Dr. phil. hab., University of Halle-Wittenberg, 1887; Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Vienna, 1883) was a philosopher who is deemed the founder of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, believing that experience is the source of all knowledge, while at the same time he elaborated critiques of psychologism and historicism.
Born into a Moravian Jewish family, he was baptized as a Lutheran in 1887. Husserl studied mathematics under Karl Weierstrass, completing a Ph.D. under Leo Königsberger, and studied philosophy under Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. Husserl taught philosophy, as a Privatdozent at Halle from 1887, then as professor, first at Göttingen from 1901, then at Freiburg im Breisgau from 1916 until his 1928 retirement.
Born into a Moravian Jewish family, he was baptized as a Lutheran in 1887. Husserl studied mathematics under Karl Weierstrass, completing a Ph.D. under Leo Königsberger, and studied philosophy under Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. Husserl taught philosophy, as a Privatdozent at Halle from 1887, then as professor, first at Göttingen from 1901, then at Freiburg im Breisgau from 1916 until his 1928 retirement.
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October 1, 2020
Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Or, in English: Ideas towards a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. This is the title of Husserl’s 1913 publication, in which he develops phenomenology as the study of essences and as the absolute foundation of all of the sciences. The work, which is really a handbook dealing with the methodology and problems in the field of study, would become the inspiration for a whole generation of students, including Martin Heidegger.
The work occupies a pivotal role in Husserl’s career, as it is in Ideas (1913) where he openly turns the method of phenomenology from descriptive psychology into transcendental idealism. Also, in no other work does Husserl go into depth about his methodology on a level that Ideas offers. Reading his Idea (1907) or Cartesian Meditations (1928) doesn’t offer as much insight into phenomenology as this book. The problem is, Ideas is absolutely horrifying both in terms of content and style.
Starting with the latter: it is a 300+ pages long work that lacks any significant structure. It is written in extremely incomprehensible language. The fact that this is subsequently translated into English – leaving a lot of room for interpretation and translation – makes the work even less accessible. In its original language, the work is able to relate much more layers of depth than English allows. For example, the German word Sinn is linguistically related to sinnlich and Sinn – emphasizing the deep relation between (in English) meaning, sense-experience and the senses. Another example is the difference between Erfahrung and Erlebnisse – both of which in English (sort of) mean experience. The differences in nuance – Erfahrung being rather a perceptual experience and Erlebnis a lived experience (of which perception is one mode) – are largely lost in English. In short, translating such a horribly work only increases the artificiality of its style and its consequence is a very incomprehensible work. Apart from this, Husserl simply was a terrible writer – period.
Next to the content of Ideas. The content is incomprehensible in its own terms. If I had to summarize Husserl’s project in my own words:
Phenomenology is the study of conscious acts as they appear to us as observers – that is, conscious acts as they are immanent. To reach this region of study, one has to put out order the natural world, subjectivity, the psychological Ego, other people, etc. – and this includes questions of existence.
Through this method one discovers the multiplicity in conscious acts – there are many, many species of acts, each appearing in its own particular instance to the observer. The observer has to grasp the acts in both their being a conscious act and their intended object (not the object in the real world!). The intention of a particular act is its meaning – it is what makes this act this act. In other words: it is its essence.
So each instance of a conscious act has an essential structure, but part of (for lack of a better word…) this essence is that it is an instance of something more general. A more general essence. This part of Husserl really reminds one of Aristotle’s hylomorphism – matter exists only as informed; its form is its essence, i.e. that what makes this, this. Each conscious act is what it is through its essence, yet this essence itself is ideal – adding a bit of Plato in the mix.
For example, when I see this tree here, I first have to bracket the physical tree. What remains in experience is my experiencing seeing this physical tree here. The seeing is the act. The seeing of this tree here is what makes this act (of seeing) what it is – yet it has nothing to do with the physical tree. (Note how this can be described without introducing the subject or psychological Ego.)
Now, reflecting on what I actually ‘see’ I will learn the essence of this act, and this essence itself shows me the generality of it in this type of act. That is, the seeing of this tree here (the meaning of the act) offers me intuitive insight into what it means to see trees in general, but also seeing in general.
Husserl applies this method (which is rather explained by me in terms that make it seem very one-sided and simplistic – I apologize for this lack of specificity) to all the different types of modes of consciousness, like judging, willing, acting, etc. Each mode of pure consciousness has its own unique essential structures, which in all particular instances are essentially unique as well. At the same time all of them share essential similarities, which allows the observer to discover some form of essential hierarchy. For example, the experience of seeing this tree here is a particular instance of (the more) general mode of seeing; seeing itself is a (relatively) more particular mode of perceiving; perceiving itself is one mode of thinking; etc.
As one follows Husserl’s expositions page after page, it becomes clear how far reaching this method is. Since the study of pure consciousness proceeds particular act after particular act; since each act is an instance of an infinite multiplicity of acts, essences, modes, etc.; this means phenomenology is, in principle, an infinite study. This would mean that it is never finished, that which each new pure observation the philosopher adds to the already existing body of essential knowledge. This is rather problematic for a science which proclaims to be the absolute groundwork of everything existing.
Husserl’s phenomenology is far reaching in yet another aspect: it uses lived experiences (Erlebnisse) as its data and this implies a self-givenness. That is, my experiences as they are given in themselves (the seeing of this tree here – independent of the material tree). It is easy to skip over this self-givenness of the data of phenomenology, but it is exactly this self-givenness which Husserl uses to stake his claim to absolute self-evident principles. Whereas the material tree is, ultimately, constituted out of consciousness, the conscious act as determined by its essential structure self-evident. All I can do is the grasp it in its immanent appearance.
The far reaching consequences will become clear when we further add the fact of our experience of an Ego in each experience of pure consciousness. That is, every immanent conscious act seems to contain a certain element to which it refers and which remains stable while conscious acts continuously come and go. That is, pure consciousness is an endless, continuously changing, flux of pure experiences (of conscious acts) – the ‘something’ which remains stable in this constant flux is what Husserl calls the pure Ego. (This pure Ego is not to be confused with the subject or psychological ego – both are part of the natural world which has been put out of order.)
The discovery of the pure Ego as the stable element in the constantly changing flux of experience called pure consciousness is problematic. The real world is transcendent to pure consciousness; or, phrased differently, pure consciousness is immanent. But if this pure Ego isn’t part of the region of pure consciousness yet is essentially related to it – What is it? According to Husserl the answer is ‘transcendence in immanence’, which seems to mean some different type of transcendence as the transcendence of the natural world (reality).
Now, adding all of the above together, we can understand the far reaching consequences of Husserl’s phenomenology in the second way (the first being the infinity of its subject matter). Husserl claims the region of pure consciousness is the primordial, essential structure on which the whole natural world is build. Another way of phrasing the (essentially) same claim is to say that pure consciousness constitutes the transcendent reality, the natural world of everyday life and science. Pure consciousness constitutes the objects and states of affairs in the physical world in which we live.
If Husserl’s phenomenological method (as outlined above) can be interpreted as a deepening of Descartes’ mind (cogito); then Husserl’s transcendental claims can be interpreted as a deepening of Kant’s Transcendental Ego as the basis of reality.
But whereas Kant claimed the Ego to be the transcendental world, Husserl attempts a Copernican turn and claims the constituted world is transcendent. And not just this, the Ego in Kant’s Transcendental Ego is transformed into transcendental in a different sense – it’s neither part of pure consciousness nor the natural world. The region of pure consciousness is purely ideal (or irreal, as opposed to the ‘real’ world) and essentially determines the real. The part that is unchanging, and thus infinite and neither material nor immaterial, is the pure Ego.
In the last section of the book Husserl applies this whole body of theory to reason and its relation to reality. This is basically a Kantian critical analysis of reason in Husserlian terminology, using all of the earlier developed methodology. I have to admit that I simply don’t understand this section of Ideas. It somehow makes clear how (among other things) objects are constituted, i.e. how reason constitutes reality. It is in this final section of Ideas that Husserl seems to radicalize his earlier theoretical claims into the Transcendental Idealism for which he was criticized by many contemporaries – students and colleagues alike. Of course, it is the only way out of Husserl’s problem of wanting to avoid realism and Platonism. In his earlier career Husserl viewed phenomenology as purely descriptive psychology and was criticized for being either a Platonist or a realist. He rejected both positions and wanted (or: had) to develop an alternative, which became the doctrine that immanent ideas and their relations form the primordial essential principles out of which reality – somehow – springs. This ‘somehow’ part is played by pure consciousness.
To finish this review, I’d like to quote two contemporary academics on Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. The first is his British colleague Bosanquet who, apart from being able to explain Husserl’s method much better than Husserl himself, adopted Husserl’s approach and realized its consequences:
“Phenomenology, then, if I have understood it right, is the science of essential connections of lived experiences, as rooted in their nature or character; not, for example, of their causal connections as events in time. An elementary example is the truism that sound, essentially, is not color.[…]”
“[…]The world, so construed, presupposes consciousness, as whose meaning alone it is – this I take to be the doctrine, and prima facie I have nothing against it. Of course, as the author insists, it is not Berkeleyan Idealism.”
A second contemporary academic, Norbert Wiener, was less enthusiastic about Husserl’s new science. Being a mathematician and working in the era when the foundations of mathematics were a pressing question, Wiener viewed Husserl’s claims that pure consciousness as the foundation of all other regions of existence (including mathematics and logic) as rather nonsensical as well as irrelevant. In a personal letter to Bertrand Russell, who occupied himself with the same questions, he wrote:
"I must confess that the intellectual contortions through which one must go before one finds oneself in the true Phenomenological attitude are utterly beyond me. The applications of Phenomenology to Mathematics, and the claims of Husserl that no adequate account can be given of the foundations of Mathematics without starting from Phenomenology seem to me absurd."
The whole debate revolves around the question: What is a number? One answer is Platonism: numbers are ideal existents. Another answer is logic: numbers are logical constructions (Bertrand Russell followed this line of thought). A third answer psychologism: numbers are mental constructs – which implies that each mathematician constructs, through his mental acts, his own numbers. Husserl, in his early career was accused of psychologism, which seems rather reasonable: he claimed consciousness is prior to everything else, and is essentially the ground of everything else – supposedly including numbers.
His Transcendental Idealism seems to circumvent this problem, since it puts the pure Ego out of order (as transcendent) yet in mysteriously escaping psychologism, he reverts to Platonic Ideas (he even takes over Plato’s Eidos for his essences) and, in effect, becomes a Platonist – the exact same thing which he vehemently opposed in his earlier career. Husserl’s student Martin Heidegger saw the impossibilities in Husserl’s excursion into pure consciousness and applied the Husserl’s method to the actual world – ending up with a much more insightful and functionally effective project.
Wiener’s correspondent, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, by the by, confessed that “reading Husserl is like swallowing a whale.” And on that note I end this review. I agree with Russell on the incomprehensibility of Husserl’s work and I agree with Wiener on the absurdity of Husserl’s whole project. To me it really seems to me much (way too much) ado about nothing.
The work occupies a pivotal role in Husserl’s career, as it is in Ideas (1913) where he openly turns the method of phenomenology from descriptive psychology into transcendental idealism. Also, in no other work does Husserl go into depth about his methodology on a level that Ideas offers. Reading his Idea (1907) or Cartesian Meditations (1928) doesn’t offer as much insight into phenomenology as this book. The problem is, Ideas is absolutely horrifying both in terms of content and style.
Starting with the latter: it is a 300+ pages long work that lacks any significant structure. It is written in extremely incomprehensible language. The fact that this is subsequently translated into English – leaving a lot of room for interpretation and translation – makes the work even less accessible. In its original language, the work is able to relate much more layers of depth than English allows. For example, the German word Sinn is linguistically related to sinnlich and Sinn – emphasizing the deep relation between (in English) meaning, sense-experience and the senses. Another example is the difference between Erfahrung and Erlebnisse – both of which in English (sort of) mean experience. The differences in nuance – Erfahrung being rather a perceptual experience and Erlebnis a lived experience (of which perception is one mode) – are largely lost in English. In short, translating such a horribly work only increases the artificiality of its style and its consequence is a very incomprehensible work. Apart from this, Husserl simply was a terrible writer – period.
Next to the content of Ideas. The content is incomprehensible in its own terms. If I had to summarize Husserl’s project in my own words:
Phenomenology is the study of conscious acts as they appear to us as observers – that is, conscious acts as they are immanent. To reach this region of study, one has to put out order the natural world, subjectivity, the psychological Ego, other people, etc. – and this includes questions of existence.
Through this method one discovers the multiplicity in conscious acts – there are many, many species of acts, each appearing in its own particular instance to the observer. The observer has to grasp the acts in both their being a conscious act and their intended object (not the object in the real world!). The intention of a particular act is its meaning – it is what makes this act this act. In other words: it is its essence.
So each instance of a conscious act has an essential structure, but part of (for lack of a better word…) this essence is that it is an instance of something more general. A more general essence. This part of Husserl really reminds one of Aristotle’s hylomorphism – matter exists only as informed; its form is its essence, i.e. that what makes this, this. Each conscious act is what it is through its essence, yet this essence itself is ideal – adding a bit of Plato in the mix.
For example, when I see this tree here, I first have to bracket the physical tree. What remains in experience is my experiencing seeing this physical tree here. The seeing is the act. The seeing of this tree here is what makes this act (of seeing) what it is – yet it has nothing to do with the physical tree. (Note how this can be described without introducing the subject or psychological Ego.)
Now, reflecting on what I actually ‘see’ I will learn the essence of this act, and this essence itself shows me the generality of it in this type of act. That is, the seeing of this tree here (the meaning of the act) offers me intuitive insight into what it means to see trees in general, but also seeing in general.
Husserl applies this method (which is rather explained by me in terms that make it seem very one-sided and simplistic – I apologize for this lack of specificity) to all the different types of modes of consciousness, like judging, willing, acting, etc. Each mode of pure consciousness has its own unique essential structures, which in all particular instances are essentially unique as well. At the same time all of them share essential similarities, which allows the observer to discover some form of essential hierarchy. For example, the experience of seeing this tree here is a particular instance of (the more) general mode of seeing; seeing itself is a (relatively) more particular mode of perceiving; perceiving itself is one mode of thinking; etc.
As one follows Husserl’s expositions page after page, it becomes clear how far reaching this method is. Since the study of pure consciousness proceeds particular act after particular act; since each act is an instance of an infinite multiplicity of acts, essences, modes, etc.; this means phenomenology is, in principle, an infinite study. This would mean that it is never finished, that which each new pure observation the philosopher adds to the already existing body of essential knowledge. This is rather problematic for a science which proclaims to be the absolute groundwork of everything existing.
Husserl’s phenomenology is far reaching in yet another aspect: it uses lived experiences (Erlebnisse) as its data and this implies a self-givenness. That is, my experiences as they are given in themselves (the seeing of this tree here – independent of the material tree). It is easy to skip over this self-givenness of the data of phenomenology, but it is exactly this self-givenness which Husserl uses to stake his claim to absolute self-evident principles. Whereas the material tree is, ultimately, constituted out of consciousness, the conscious act as determined by its essential structure self-evident. All I can do is the grasp it in its immanent appearance.
The far reaching consequences will become clear when we further add the fact of our experience of an Ego in each experience of pure consciousness. That is, every immanent conscious act seems to contain a certain element to which it refers and which remains stable while conscious acts continuously come and go. That is, pure consciousness is an endless, continuously changing, flux of pure experiences (of conscious acts) – the ‘something’ which remains stable in this constant flux is what Husserl calls the pure Ego. (This pure Ego is not to be confused with the subject or psychological ego – both are part of the natural world which has been put out of order.)
The discovery of the pure Ego as the stable element in the constantly changing flux of experience called pure consciousness is problematic. The real world is transcendent to pure consciousness; or, phrased differently, pure consciousness is immanent. But if this pure Ego isn’t part of the region of pure consciousness yet is essentially related to it – What is it? According to Husserl the answer is ‘transcendence in immanence’, which seems to mean some different type of transcendence as the transcendence of the natural world (reality).
Now, adding all of the above together, we can understand the far reaching consequences of Husserl’s phenomenology in the second way (the first being the infinity of its subject matter). Husserl claims the region of pure consciousness is the primordial, essential structure on which the whole natural world is build. Another way of phrasing the (essentially) same claim is to say that pure consciousness constitutes the transcendent reality, the natural world of everyday life and science. Pure consciousness constitutes the objects and states of affairs in the physical world in which we live.
If Husserl’s phenomenological method (as outlined above) can be interpreted as a deepening of Descartes’ mind (cogito); then Husserl’s transcendental claims can be interpreted as a deepening of Kant’s Transcendental Ego as the basis of reality.
But whereas Kant claimed the Ego to be the transcendental world, Husserl attempts a Copernican turn and claims the constituted world is transcendent. And not just this, the Ego in Kant’s Transcendental Ego is transformed into transcendental in a different sense – it’s neither part of pure consciousness nor the natural world. The region of pure consciousness is purely ideal (or irreal, as opposed to the ‘real’ world) and essentially determines the real. The part that is unchanging, and thus infinite and neither material nor immaterial, is the pure Ego.
In the last section of the book Husserl applies this whole body of theory to reason and its relation to reality. This is basically a Kantian critical analysis of reason in Husserlian terminology, using all of the earlier developed methodology. I have to admit that I simply don’t understand this section of Ideas. It somehow makes clear how (among other things) objects are constituted, i.e. how reason constitutes reality. It is in this final section of Ideas that Husserl seems to radicalize his earlier theoretical claims into the Transcendental Idealism for which he was criticized by many contemporaries – students and colleagues alike. Of course, it is the only way out of Husserl’s problem of wanting to avoid realism and Platonism. In his earlier career Husserl viewed phenomenology as purely descriptive psychology and was criticized for being either a Platonist or a realist. He rejected both positions and wanted (or: had) to develop an alternative, which became the doctrine that immanent ideas and their relations form the primordial essential principles out of which reality – somehow – springs. This ‘somehow’ part is played by pure consciousness.
To finish this review, I’d like to quote two contemporary academics on Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. The first is his British colleague Bosanquet who, apart from being able to explain Husserl’s method much better than Husserl himself, adopted Husserl’s approach and realized its consequences:
“Phenomenology, then, if I have understood it right, is the science of essential connections of lived experiences, as rooted in their nature or character; not, for example, of their causal connections as events in time. An elementary example is the truism that sound, essentially, is not color.[…]”
“[…]The world, so construed, presupposes consciousness, as whose meaning alone it is – this I take to be the doctrine, and prima facie I have nothing against it. Of course, as the author insists, it is not Berkeleyan Idealism.”
A second contemporary academic, Norbert Wiener, was less enthusiastic about Husserl’s new science. Being a mathematician and working in the era when the foundations of mathematics were a pressing question, Wiener viewed Husserl’s claims that pure consciousness as the foundation of all other regions of existence (including mathematics and logic) as rather nonsensical as well as irrelevant. In a personal letter to Bertrand Russell, who occupied himself with the same questions, he wrote:
"I must confess that the intellectual contortions through which one must go before one finds oneself in the true Phenomenological attitude are utterly beyond me. The applications of Phenomenology to Mathematics, and the claims of Husserl that no adequate account can be given of the foundations of Mathematics without starting from Phenomenology seem to me absurd."
The whole debate revolves around the question: What is a number? One answer is Platonism: numbers are ideal existents. Another answer is logic: numbers are logical constructions (Bertrand Russell followed this line of thought). A third answer psychologism: numbers are mental constructs – which implies that each mathematician constructs, through his mental acts, his own numbers. Husserl, in his early career was accused of psychologism, which seems rather reasonable: he claimed consciousness is prior to everything else, and is essentially the ground of everything else – supposedly including numbers.
His Transcendental Idealism seems to circumvent this problem, since it puts the pure Ego out of order (as transcendent) yet in mysteriously escaping psychologism, he reverts to Platonic Ideas (he even takes over Plato’s Eidos for his essences) and, in effect, becomes a Platonist – the exact same thing which he vehemently opposed in his earlier career. Husserl’s student Martin Heidegger saw the impossibilities in Husserl’s excursion into pure consciousness and applied the Husserl’s method to the actual world – ending up with a much more insightful and functionally effective project.
Wiener’s correspondent, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, by the by, confessed that “reading Husserl is like swallowing a whale.” And on that note I end this review. I agree with Russell on the incomprehensibility of Husserl’s work and I agree with Wiener on the absurdity of Husserl’s whole project. To me it really seems to me much (way too much) ado about nothing.
March 17, 2018
Bracket the world and look at it in pieces (atoms) and suspend judgment beyond the domain of interest and have everything we think be about something (hopes, feeling, wishes, desires, wants….) and give it intention for its meaning. That is at the heart of Phenomenology. If you have any interest at all about what Phenomenology is about this is the book you should read. For Phenomenology, every act and thing has an intention in and of itself and its functionality is not important. Husserl uses the word ‘hyletics’, (defn: The study of matter or raw impressions of an intentional act; the abstraction from the form) while building his system, or as he’ll argue our intentional actions and thoughts explain our world.
Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ is dedicated to Husserl. I think he was sincere in that dedication. Whenever I was reading this book (‘Ideas’) and got confused, I would just apply the complement of what Heidegger would say to figure out what Husserl was trying to get at. There’s no doubt Heidegger was inspired by the thoughts in this book and created a philosophical system that is a complement to Husserl’s system. It’s possible (I think) to have a coherent system derived from the complement (the set of all things not in the original set but each set together makes up the universe of things under consideration) of a coherent system as if a world was made of matter and another world could be made of anti-matter and as long as they don’t overlap they won’t annihilate each but the set that contains both subsets would include everything under consideration but in a coherent non-contradictory way for each subset.
At times Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothing’ would jump out at me as I was reading this book. Sartre credits Husserl so I’m not saying anything nefarious against Sartre. (Just to add some confusion, Sartre also loves Hegel (who he actually understands correctly) but Husserl sticks mostly to Kant since he always makes all things (essents) about something as Kant would make the ‘cogito’ into ‘I think about I think’. Hegel makes the thought about the ‘thing in of itself’ leading to a spirit that knows itself.
At times as I was reading this well written book I kept thinking about Ayn Rand and her childish Objectivist philosophy. Husserl uses an ‘A=A’ formulation which is Rand’s first principal (as well as selfishness as her primary directive as if humans need to be reminded to be selfish! Thankfully Husserl does not dwell on the ethical) and as I was ready to shout at the text, he gave a footnote from one of his critics for accusing him of using the ‘A=A’ formulation, but I thought his critic was right. Just in case it’s not obvious what I mean, let me rephrase the ‘A=A’ to be the thing is the thing meaning everything that appears to us is real or that the being is the thing or the essent is real or the appearance is the phenomenon or so on. Or to rephrase using Heidegger’s wonderful phrase, ‘the ontological difference’, Rand and Husserl would say ‘the ontological difference does not exist’. Let me be clear, Husserl is a real philosopher worth reading. Rand is not.
Sartre will take these concepts from this book and defend his core belief ‘existence precedes essence’, because mostly what Husserl is trying to set up is that reality is real (A=A, yes there is a giant overlap between the childish Ayn Rand, Sartre and Husserl, but don’t get me wrong, Husserl is an intelligent writer and can’t be blamed for how others misappropriate what he wrote). Husserl in this book will clearly argue that reality precedes metaphysics; the bracketing of the world will give the world by itself and for itself according to him.
Heidegger is abstruse to the point of incomprehension; Sartre is simplistic without intentional content. Husserl writes clearly, but expects his readers to understand their Aristotle and Kant. Husserl re-introduces the word ‘ontology’ back into philosophy in order to allow for existentiality to come back in (i.e. he wants to take the metaphysics out of philosophy). I do wish I had read this before having read Heidegger because Heidegger assumes his reader understood phenomenology. Just in case if you haven’t read ‘Being and Time’, Heidegger uses the word ontology and puts its meaning back into philosophy by creating an ontology that includes ‘present at hand’, ‘ready at hand’ and ‘dasein’. All of which are antithetical to Husserl’s bracketed world with intentions for our acts through hyletics.
I found this book an elucidating read while at times being erudite (who uses words like ‘hyletics’). It has relevance beyond itself. Gadamer in ‘Truth and Method’ written in 1960 and one of my favorite books deliberately appeals to Husserl and reworks Husserl overall, and the book “How Emotions are Made’ by Lisa Barrett non-deliberately overlaps with Gadamer and Husserl as she explains a philosophy of mind about our emotional construction of the self. Barrett knows that ‘emotions are not things’ and that our experiences form our emotions while our emotions shape how we experience (Hume understands this too and Husserl does mention Hume favorably in this book). Husserl tries to develop a psychology based on his Phenomenology that is about our intention (hopes, feeling, wishes, desires, wants….) that we thought we were experiencing because ‘being that can be understood is language’ (Gadamer will say that and he is often considered the last of the great Phenomenologist), and language is always about something.
Husserl and this book are worth reading even though I can say I disagree overall with his perspective for understanding the world. Husserl wants to atomize the world. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger don’t. Descartes with his cogito did too, and Husserl wants to do that too and does appeal to Descartes frequently in this book. I would say one can never understand a ‘Coke bottle’ without understanding commercials on the super bowl which tell people caramel colored sugar water is good because other people like you drink it while watching the super bowl and the thousand other experiences that go into making the significance of a Coke bottle. Without including the world as such an isolated Coke bottle would only mean ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ as in the movie with the same title will humorlessly illustrate. (BTW, I don’t drink Coke, watch the super bowl or care that other people like me drink caramel colored sugar water).
Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ is dedicated to Husserl. I think he was sincere in that dedication. Whenever I was reading this book (‘Ideas’) and got confused, I would just apply the complement of what Heidegger would say to figure out what Husserl was trying to get at. There’s no doubt Heidegger was inspired by the thoughts in this book and created a philosophical system that is a complement to Husserl’s system. It’s possible (I think) to have a coherent system derived from the complement (the set of all things not in the original set but each set together makes up the universe of things under consideration) of a coherent system as if a world was made of matter and another world could be made of anti-matter and as long as they don’t overlap they won’t annihilate each but the set that contains both subsets would include everything under consideration but in a coherent non-contradictory way for each subset.
At times Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothing’ would jump out at me as I was reading this book. Sartre credits Husserl so I’m not saying anything nefarious against Sartre. (Just to add some confusion, Sartre also loves Hegel (who he actually understands correctly) but Husserl sticks mostly to Kant since he always makes all things (essents) about something as Kant would make the ‘cogito’ into ‘I think about I think’. Hegel makes the thought about the ‘thing in of itself’ leading to a spirit that knows itself.
At times as I was reading this well written book I kept thinking about Ayn Rand and her childish Objectivist philosophy. Husserl uses an ‘A=A’ formulation which is Rand’s first principal (as well as selfishness as her primary directive as if humans need to be reminded to be selfish! Thankfully Husserl does not dwell on the ethical) and as I was ready to shout at the text, he gave a footnote from one of his critics for accusing him of using the ‘A=A’ formulation, but I thought his critic was right. Just in case it’s not obvious what I mean, let me rephrase the ‘A=A’ to be the thing is the thing meaning everything that appears to us is real or that the being is the thing or the essent is real or the appearance is the phenomenon or so on. Or to rephrase using Heidegger’s wonderful phrase, ‘the ontological difference’, Rand and Husserl would say ‘the ontological difference does not exist’. Let me be clear, Husserl is a real philosopher worth reading. Rand is not.
Sartre will take these concepts from this book and defend his core belief ‘existence precedes essence’, because mostly what Husserl is trying to set up is that reality is real (A=A, yes there is a giant overlap between the childish Ayn Rand, Sartre and Husserl, but don’t get me wrong, Husserl is an intelligent writer and can’t be blamed for how others misappropriate what he wrote). Husserl in this book will clearly argue that reality precedes metaphysics; the bracketing of the world will give the world by itself and for itself according to him.
Heidegger is abstruse to the point of incomprehension; Sartre is simplistic without intentional content. Husserl writes clearly, but expects his readers to understand their Aristotle and Kant. Husserl re-introduces the word ‘ontology’ back into philosophy in order to allow for existentiality to come back in (i.e. he wants to take the metaphysics out of philosophy). I do wish I had read this before having read Heidegger because Heidegger assumes his reader understood phenomenology. Just in case if you haven’t read ‘Being and Time’, Heidegger uses the word ontology and puts its meaning back into philosophy by creating an ontology that includes ‘present at hand’, ‘ready at hand’ and ‘dasein’. All of which are antithetical to Husserl’s bracketed world with intentions for our acts through hyletics.
I found this book an elucidating read while at times being erudite (who uses words like ‘hyletics’). It has relevance beyond itself. Gadamer in ‘Truth and Method’ written in 1960 and one of my favorite books deliberately appeals to Husserl and reworks Husserl overall, and the book “How Emotions are Made’ by Lisa Barrett non-deliberately overlaps with Gadamer and Husserl as she explains a philosophy of mind about our emotional construction of the self. Barrett knows that ‘emotions are not things’ and that our experiences form our emotions while our emotions shape how we experience (Hume understands this too and Husserl does mention Hume favorably in this book). Husserl tries to develop a psychology based on his Phenomenology that is about our intention (hopes, feeling, wishes, desires, wants….) that we thought we were experiencing because ‘being that can be understood is language’ (Gadamer will say that and he is often considered the last of the great Phenomenologist), and language is always about something.
Husserl and this book are worth reading even though I can say I disagree overall with his perspective for understanding the world. Husserl wants to atomize the world. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger don’t. Descartes with his cogito did too, and Husserl wants to do that too and does appeal to Descartes frequently in this book. I would say one can never understand a ‘Coke bottle’ without understanding commercials on the super bowl which tell people caramel colored sugar water is good because other people like you drink it while watching the super bowl and the thousand other experiences that go into making the significance of a Coke bottle. Without including the world as such an isolated Coke bottle would only mean ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ as in the movie with the same title will humorlessly illustrate. (BTW, I don’t drink Coke, watch the super bowl or care that other people like me drink caramel colored sugar water).
January 21, 2011
I read the Cartesian Meditations and some secondary sources before tackling this - and I was glad that I did. This is a very difficult text, though difficulty isn't really his intention (which is how I am prone to view Hegel). Ideas I is one of Husserl's greatest works. In terms of importance and influence, it is perhaps tied with his Logical Investigations, which he published more than a decade earlier.
It is interesting to note the differences between the Logical Investigations and Ideas I. On the one hand, Ideas I is devoted exclusively to phenomenology, while Husserl divides his attention in LI between phenomenology, refuting psychologism, the ideality of meaning, mereology, and other themes. In this respect, then, Ideas I may be more accessible (and interesting) for those interested strictly in phenomenology. On the other hand, Husserl's approach changes quite radically between these two works. In the earlier book, Husserl is, in many ways, a realist and anti-(Neo-)Kantian. In Ideas, however, Husserl offers the fruits of his so-called "transcendental turn" toward transcendental idealism. He makes use of several newer concepts, including the noema/noesis distinction, the phenomenological/transcendental reductions, and the epoché.
I can't really tell you whether you should read LI or Ideas I first. All I can say is that I read Ideas, followed by LI, and I found it went all right. However, I had to stop frequently and ask myself whether concepts that appeared similar here were the same as were employed there. After checking secondary sources, I discovered that, in some cases, there were subtle differences between the concepts. (For instance, Quality and Matter in LI are very similar to Noesis and Noema in Ideas, but with some differences - which I admit I don't fully understand.) Of course, you'd have to do this whichever order you read them in.
I find that one's choice of secondary sources is somewhat limited if you tackle Ideas I first. Many, if not most, English-language commentaries focus on his earlier works, particularly the Logical Investigations. Commentaries that come out of Continental Europe, however, tend to focus Ideas I and even later works, especially those that focus on the Lifeworld, time-consciousness, and so forth. Whichever route you take, "An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology" by Rudolf Bernet, et al, is absolutely essential. Less detailed, but still valuable, is Dan Zahavi's "Husserl's Phenomenology." I cite these not only because I have found them incredibly useful, but because they also appear on reading lists I've encountered at German and North American universities.
One more thing! I think it would be valuable if you understood some of the contemporary debates about consciousness and intentionality in philosophy of mind. It will help you to understand what Husserl is trying to do and evaluate his success.
It is interesting to note the differences between the Logical Investigations and Ideas I. On the one hand, Ideas I is devoted exclusively to phenomenology, while Husserl divides his attention in LI between phenomenology, refuting psychologism, the ideality of meaning, mereology, and other themes. In this respect, then, Ideas I may be more accessible (and interesting) for those interested strictly in phenomenology. On the other hand, Husserl's approach changes quite radically between these two works. In the earlier book, Husserl is, in many ways, a realist and anti-(Neo-)Kantian. In Ideas, however, Husserl offers the fruits of his so-called "transcendental turn" toward transcendental idealism. He makes use of several newer concepts, including the noema/noesis distinction, the phenomenological/transcendental reductions, and the epoché.
I can't really tell you whether you should read LI or Ideas I first. All I can say is that I read Ideas, followed by LI, and I found it went all right. However, I had to stop frequently and ask myself whether concepts that appeared similar here were the same as were employed there. After checking secondary sources, I discovered that, in some cases, there were subtle differences between the concepts. (For instance, Quality and Matter in LI are very similar to Noesis and Noema in Ideas, but with some differences - which I admit I don't fully understand.) Of course, you'd have to do this whichever order you read them in.
I find that one's choice of secondary sources is somewhat limited if you tackle Ideas I first. Many, if not most, English-language commentaries focus on his earlier works, particularly the Logical Investigations. Commentaries that come out of Continental Europe, however, tend to focus Ideas I and even later works, especially those that focus on the Lifeworld, time-consciousness, and so forth. Whichever route you take, "An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology" by Rudolf Bernet, et al, is absolutely essential. Less detailed, but still valuable, is Dan Zahavi's "Husserl's Phenomenology." I cite these not only because I have found them incredibly useful, but because they also appear on reading lists I've encountered at German and North American universities.
One more thing! I think it would be valuable if you understood some of the contemporary debates about consciousness and intentionality in philosophy of mind. It will help you to understand what Husserl is trying to do and evaluate his success.
January 2, 2021
The purpose of this book is the presentation and development of the new philosophical field and method: phenomenology. Bracket the real and only focus on the stream of conscience as it appears to the subject without any theoretical preconceptions. Avoid psychology and develop this new discipline into a scientific one. Intentionality, conditions of objectivity, intuitions, meanings, and clarity are fundamental concepts applied to this stream of conscience. Truth is no longer the agreement between our representations and some real objects; but just the clarity of our perceptions along with some transcendental formalism. In such self-sufficient domain of conscience and without any real reference, logic and ontology morph into the same. This phenomenological method explains the infinite manifold of our perceptions that translates into our finite ideas and concepts; ideas and concepts that however can be infinitely improved or changed. Memory, imaginations, reflections applied to this stream of consistence - change, clarify, and expand it.
Husserl takes Descartes and Kant insights further and developed phenomenology that in some new ways radically influenced philosophy, literature, existentialism, and other fields. On the other hand, Husserl was firmly rooted in the Cartesian, Kantian, and German idealism tradition - as far as subject, ego, substance, extension, conscience, representations, transcendentalism, and other aspects are concerned. Husserl's obsession to turn phenomenology into a “scientific” field - and thus to legitimize it - is both annoying and depressing. The book is not very well organized and jumps around a lot.
Husserl takes Descartes and Kant insights further and developed phenomenology that in some new ways radically influenced philosophy, literature, existentialism, and other fields. On the other hand, Husserl was firmly rooted in the Cartesian, Kantian, and German idealism tradition - as far as subject, ego, substance, extension, conscience, representations, transcendentalism, and other aspects are concerned. Husserl's obsession to turn phenomenology into a “scientific” field - and thus to legitimize it - is both annoying and depressing. The book is not very well organized and jumps around a lot.
December 5, 2015
Never underestimate the value of taking your time with a book. This one took me months to finish. I give it 4 stars because it was great but certainly a slog.
This book is a profound, rewarding thrashing about the specificity required to make assertions based on sensory input. Husserl offers an exploration of what it means when we imagine an experience after having it and how these realities are and are not more certain than the senses conveying them. MOST IMPORTANTLY (and why I read the book), he takes apart scientists and philosophers who constantly make total assertions about reality without recognizing that our path to that reality is mediated multiple times over and requires additional analysis. Few thinkers are willing to tackle this problem because it proves very thorny/inconvenient. I don't agree with all his points or his murky style, but I still feel deeply satisfied with his overall analysis.
This book is a profound, rewarding thrashing about the specificity required to make assertions based on sensory input. Husserl offers an exploration of what it means when we imagine an experience after having it and how these realities are and are not more certain than the senses conveying them. MOST IMPORTANTLY (and why I read the book), he takes apart scientists and philosophers who constantly make total assertions about reality without recognizing that our path to that reality is mediated multiple times over and requires additional analysis. Few thinkers are willing to tackle this problem because it proves very thorny/inconvenient. I don't agree with all his points or his murky style, but I still feel deeply satisfied with his overall analysis.
Read
July 28, 2013i remember reading somewhere that husserl is like moses.
he just leads you to the "promised land", but doesn't enter there with you.
i have the same feeling after reading him.
he describes (at a high level of generality) what is possible with phenomenology, clarifies some concepts, gives some tools - but i am somehow at a loss when it comes to apply them. that is, i would be unable to "do" phenomenology just after reading this - but able to "understand" what someone does when he does phenomenology.
with heidegger it is totally different - he leads you step by step, showing you what he does, but here, in Ideen I, husserl offers just an outline. almost 400 pages of outline. and it gets somehow boring and sad at the same time, to be shown what you can do and to realize you are, at the moment, unable to do it.
he just leads you to the "promised land", but doesn't enter there with you.
i have the same feeling after reading him.
he describes (at a high level of generality) what is possible with phenomenology, clarifies some concepts, gives some tools - but i am somehow at a loss when it comes to apply them. that is, i would be unable to "do" phenomenology just after reading this - but able to "understand" what someone does when he does phenomenology.
with heidegger it is totally different - he leads you step by step, showing you what he does, but here, in Ideen I, husserl offers just an outline. almost 400 pages of outline. and it gets somehow boring and sad at the same time, to be shown what you can do and to realize you are, at the moment, unable to do it.
September 10, 2009
This book is Husserl's historical breakthrough to transcendental phenomenology. It's kind of a work-in-progress, and it only scratches the surface of what the philosophy of transcendental constitution would become in H's later work. This is important, but I really, really, wish I had read Cartesian Meditations first, then back-tracked to Ideas I. It's so much easier to see what he was trying to do (and how he was doing it) from the hind-sight perspective of his much more fleshed-out transc. phenomenology of the late '20s.
January 4, 2023
I can't even attempt a summary of this entire volume. But my main takeaway is that the book is centrally concerned with our ability to observe and experience a "real" world, and more specifically with how we experience that "real" world both psychologically, materially, and empirically. An essential part of this investigation is in recognizing that our experience of the world takes places on three levels of Being: one where we experience an object as a thing in the world, one where we experience the object in terms of various frames of meaning (e.g., value, pleasure, utility, etc.) and another on which we experience the object as ‘Object’. The first two encounters are limited by spatial perspective and the availability of frames of reference respectively. As our spatial orientation to the object changes and as our available frames of reference change or improve or deepen, we add information and meaning to our stream of experience. In this sense, an object potentially holds limitless meaning except in so far as it is ultimately constrained by our shared, human faculties for engaging with it. The last aspect of experiential Being is one where we intuit the essence of that object as ‘Object’ -- that ideal holds the full potential and limits of meaning that can be experienced in reality. When we experience anything, we are experiencing that object through all modes of Being at once; they mingle and contribute to our stream of overall experience. It is through phenomenological methods that we can separate those layers of Being.
That's just scratching the surface. There is so much in this volume that is just going to take many more hours of reviewing my notes and reading some secondary sources. Also, some of the concepts in here (and there are oh so many!) are simply mindbogglingly complex. There are stretches of the book where I might as well have been reading with the lights off. But I got the gist and the Husserl references that I have run across elsewhere appear to make more (or just any sense) sense now that I have engaged with the source material.
I was a little skeptical of the mission of separating experience into the realm of direct/mediated experience and the Ideal, but I think there is some value in taking this position. If we assume that there is an ideal and that it is separate from our mediated understanding of the world, then this argues that no person or field or methodology can lay exclusive claim to a True understanding of the world (I'm looking at you Mathematics ... and Science!) However there is value in attempting to strive for an intuitive understanding of the Ideal if only to engage in the work of "bracketing" off our experiences that are, by necessity, limited and constrained by our spatial orientation and frames of reference. Because we inhabit reality in the form of corporeal bodies, we are always limited in our understanding. We cannot take another's point of view or inhabit their stream of experience. “Bracketing” is a process by which he attempt to isolate the sources of our understanding and remove or bracket those that are ultimately reducible to our particular frame of reference. The value I see in this perspective, even if the method itself is somewhat foggy to me, is in recognizing that no matter how sure we are that we are right or that someone else is wrong, all of our understandings are ultimately impoverished by our lack of access to the ideal. The best we can hope for is to expand our understanding of the object or concept or source of experience by incorporating the experiences of others into our own experiences. We become better knowers by listening to and empathizing with one another – and that feels like a valuable and timeless lesson.
That's just scratching the surface. There is so much in this volume that is just going to take many more hours of reviewing my notes and reading some secondary sources. Also, some of the concepts in here (and there are oh so many!) are simply mindbogglingly complex. There are stretches of the book where I might as well have been reading with the lights off. But I got the gist and the Husserl references that I have run across elsewhere appear to make more (or just any sense) sense now that I have engaged with the source material.
I was a little skeptical of the mission of separating experience into the realm of direct/mediated experience and the Ideal, but I think there is some value in taking this position. If we assume that there is an ideal and that it is separate from our mediated understanding of the world, then this argues that no person or field or methodology can lay exclusive claim to a True understanding of the world (I'm looking at you Mathematics ... and Science!) However there is value in attempting to strive for an intuitive understanding of the Ideal if only to engage in the work of "bracketing" off our experiences that are, by necessity, limited and constrained by our spatial orientation and frames of reference. Because we inhabit reality in the form of corporeal bodies, we are always limited in our understanding. We cannot take another's point of view or inhabit their stream of experience. “Bracketing” is a process by which he attempt to isolate the sources of our understanding and remove or bracket those that are ultimately reducible to our particular frame of reference. The value I see in this perspective, even if the method itself is somewhat foggy to me, is in recognizing that no matter how sure we are that we are right or that someone else is wrong, all of our understandings are ultimately impoverished by our lack of access to the ideal. The best we can hope for is to expand our understanding of the object or concept or source of experience by incorporating the experiences of others into our own experiences. We become better knowers by listening to and empathizing with one another – and that feels like a valuable and timeless lesson.
October 17, 2016
I found this book very difficult to get into - which is a great shame, because so many people would benefit from widening their methods they observe the world though and the (deliberately?) obtuse language severley impedes one's ability to gain a deep understanding of phenomenology. However, perseverence is key and the act of reading this book from start to finish provides a very sturdy foundation of how to think phenomenologically.
February 14, 2017
Husserl is the fucking man. His ideas of the noematic object-meaning and time-consciousness blew me away. This is the type of philosophy that I love reading. It's genius, exciting, almost impossible to comprehend, and even psychedelic in a sense. I definitely recommend Husserl if you want a fierce but rewarding challenge.
June 15, 2013
Difficult reading. One of the most infuriating texts I've dealt with, but rewarding in its own way. 'Ideas', dense analytic screed aside, is Husserl's attempt at a 'basic' account of Phenomenology and it various methodologies. Very much a groundwork for what would become Existentialism.
December 8, 2008
Husserl develops his theory of Phenomenology, an analysis of the components of consciousness.
August 3, 2023
I tried to like this but Husserl is so DRY. He founded Phenomenology so fair enough to him, though he unfortunately introduced it in the most bland way possible. At least Merleau-Ponty had an engaging writing style (and, I think, a more interesting take on phenomenology) in his works.
Honestly, I preferred reading Hegel to Husserl, but my take is based on the fact that I'm already familiar and convinced of phenomenology as a discipline when I began reading this. Because, in effect, Ideas is an appeal for his new philosophy of phenomenology to be taken seriously - Though, what Husserl fails to deliver on is to propose a consistent methodology in practicing the philosophy. Again, I think Merleau-Ponty is superior in every way.
Honestly, I preferred reading Hegel to Husserl, but my take is based on the fact that I'm already familiar and convinced of phenomenology as a discipline when I began reading this. Because, in effect, Ideas is an appeal for his new philosophy of phenomenology to be taken seriously - Though, what Husserl fails to deliver on is to propose a consistent methodology in practicing the philosophy. Again, I think Merleau-Ponty is superior in every way.
August 2, 2024
This reading is one of the most challenging I've encountered since Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Yet, it is as captivating as Spinoza’s Ethics and Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation. This book is a cornerstone of Husserl’s ideas, exploring difficult topics such as transcendental subjectivity, transcendental reduction (epoché), noema-noesis, and, most importantly, setting the stage for a discussion on the problem of constitution.
A Recapitulation: Husserl is a German phenomenologist whose ideas can be summarized as a call to “return to the things themselves (phenomena).” He sought to clarify the essential framework of consciousness to demonstrate its apodictic nature and its relationship with the physical world. Husserl refuted both the ontological schools of idealism and realism, criticizing their respective biases towards either consciousness or the physical world. He argued that both perspectives could lead to gross subjectivism and skepticism regarding the external world.
Husserl recognized that the basic phenomenological fact of each phenomenon is that they are all intentional in nature; we are always directing our consciousness toward something, whether it exists as a perceptually given object, a mere imagination, or simply occupies a symbolic existence. He argued that to prove the objectivity of both consciousness and the physical world, an essential connection must exist between them. However, necessary propositions cannot be found in the phenomenal world, where inductive rules apply. By their very nature, inductive rules can only approximate but never yield apodictic certainty. Thus, Husserl advocated for stripping away the layers of phenomena to elucidate the basic structure connecting consciousness and the physical world, avoiding the ready-made assumptions of natural, everyday life—a process explored in this volume.
This post is divided into two sections: (1) Husserl’s turn toward transcendental idealism, and (2) key ideas in Ideas I.
(Husserl’s Turn Toward Transcendental Idealism)
The publication of Logical Investigations (see the previous post) launched Husserl’s career, leading to his appointment as Professor Extraordinarius at Göttingen University in 1901. The volume’s fierce criticism of psychologism attracted many bright minds into his circle of influence, including Dilthey, the influential Neo-Kantian Natorp, and students like Daubert, Reinach, Stein, and, perhaps fatefully, Heidegger.
By 1905, intense discussions with Scheler, Dilthey, and Natorp led Husserl to completely rethink his sparse, almost Humean treatment of the Ego. He began to re-read Kant, this time taking it more seriously (with Natorp’s influence), and as a result, produced a synthesis between some of Kant’s general assumptions and Brentano’s novel view that psychic acts should be bracketed to reveal the nature of the acts themselves, their structure, and foundation.
In 1906-1907, Husserl introduced the notion of transcendental reduction in his lecture course “Logic and the Theory of Knowledge.” In 1907, he delivered the course “The Idea of Phenomenology,” where he entertained the idea that transcendental reduction could truly unfold the transcendental domain. His enthusiasm for these newfound ideas led him into intellectual crusades against unfortunate opponents; his Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (1910-1911) was directed against his colleague Dilthey, accusing him of relativism. By 1913, Husserl published Ideas I as the cornerstone of a new field he christened “transcendental phenomenology.”
His shift to transcendental idealism shocked his core followers and mentors. Brentano, still reeling from Husserl’s criticisms in Logical Investigations, accused him of Platonism and cut off contact with him until his death. Husserl’s students from the Logical Investigations period seceded and created the Munich school of phenomenology led by Pfänder, Reinach, and Scheler, and later the Göttingen school of phenomenology led by Conrad, Conrad-Martius, Héring, Ingarden, Koyré, and Stein. Husserl’s turn towards transcendental idealism marked the beginning of his isolation, ultimately leaving him a self-proclaimed “leader without followers.”
The significance of Husserl’s turn toward transcendental idealism is profound; it demonstrated that almost all idealistic thinkers—those not as extreme as adopting the Berkeleyan position—arrived at the conclusion of the irreducible relation between subject and object. As Schopenhauer mentioned, it is not just about the sun or the ground, but that there’s an eye to perceive the sun and a foot to stomp the ground. However, the realization of this eternal truth runs starkly against the Western Faustian drive—the cosmic terror of realizing that perhaps there’s no Newtonian objective space—causing many great thinkers to falter before the heavenly gate of Truth. Their perplexity is palpable, shown by Kant’s embarrassment despite his voluminous Critique, where the nature of the noumenon remains a mystical notion, and Wittgenstein’s epithet “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” stands as a testament to the Western daemonic refusal to perceive the truth.
(Key Ideas in Ideas I)
The Natural Attitude and the Transcendental Reduction
The world consists of positing acts of consciousness. Through perception, we are immediately presented with objects entering our consciousness, possessing colors, values, extension, and other qualities. This automatic, “ready-at-hand” world is what Husserl termed the natural attitude. However, just as a complete house was not always a complete structure, being constructed from foundational materials, so too can these automatic positing acts be suspended. They can be suspended to unfold the foundation of particular experiences through a process called transcendental reduction (epoché).
Transcendental reduction “puts out of action” or “parenthesizes” these positing acts, allowing us to see the phenomena before the bestowal of qualities (§31). Through this peculiar “eidetic seeing,” we observe that our acts of consciousness are always intending toward something. This intending toward something is absolute in that the intended object may not exist, and is thus contingent, but the intending act of consciousness cannot be said not to exist.
Further analysis reveals two components that yield the data of consciousness: the stream of consciousness (the intentional act) and the intended object.
In perception, the essence of the object remains the same, while the streams of consciousness that coincide with facets of the object change. For example, the table we perceive remains a table, despite changes in our position relative to it. We can also observe that surrounding the table is an “intuitional halo” that radiates outward, forming a horizon of indeterminateness yet with the possibility of fulfillment (§27). The ground on which the table stands lies at the periphery of our awareness, yet is necessarily connected to the table.
The Transcendental Subjectivity
We can also observe that the foundation of experience begins with the regard of the Ego. It is the emanation of the Ego’s regard towards the intended object that allows the concatenation of possible experiences to coincide with the Ego, giving rise to experience. And this Ego remains unchanged throughout the flux of perception, just as the ray of the Sun is not the Sun itself. The Ego, thus, is not merely Hume’s “bundle of acts”; it exists as something necessarily distinct from the many rays of its mental processes (§57). Husserl affirms the absoluteness of the Ego, termed transcendental subjectivity, stating that “against the ‘accidental’ nature of the fulfillment of our consciousness, our act of intending and positing by our Ego is ‘necessary’.” (§46)
But if reality is not an absolute thing in itself, what is the position of things not currently in our perception? While insisting on the indubitable relation between subject and object, Husserl also insisted that this does not mean that the rest of the world outside our consciousness does not exist. They exist as the background of our current perception, connected to it via anticipation, remaining in pure potentiality.
We also perceive objects in facets rather than in their entirety, yet we conceive the object as a unity of its facets. The fact that we only perceive a part of the thing means that while the thing is given adequately, it is only given as part of it, appearing to us in this way rather than being presented in totality. This failure to grasp the object in its entirety means that the object is transcendental to us. Transcendental in that the object is not immanent in our consciousness, for the ray of consciousness given to us is absolute and given in totality; when we desire something, our consciousness intends towards it absolutely. But the object as given in perception is only given in adumbration and one-sidedly, which is not characteristic of the immanent contents of our mind, which is the stream of consciousness.
The Noesis-Noema
The duality of structure of intending something-object intended after bracketed by the transcendental reduction, yields an eidetic relation termed the noesis-noema. The dualistic nature of experience between the immanent and transcendental only apply at the level of phenomenon. That the inside of my head differs from the space outside etc. But after we bracketed this relation between a subject and object, we found that what remains is the pure relation which knows no spatiality or compartmentalization as found in phenomena. Here both the subject and object stand at the same level of phenomena, termed as the noesis and noema.
The noesis at the phenomenal level refers to the intentional mental processes. It consists of primary contents such as color-data, touch-data, and the priming of objective contents (anticipation of physical color, physical body), which eventually lead to the axiom that every intentional mental process directs itself toward the formation of an intended object (§85). Noesis bestows sense so that the intended object can be anticipated for its potential fulfillment, whether it exists merely symbolically or is perceptually given (§88).
The noema, on the other hand, constitutes the other end of this pure relation, serving as the correlate of the noesis in terms of being fulfilled. While noesis provides the sense for anticipation, noema is the destination for the fulfillment of that anticipation.
The proof of the existence of the pure relation of noema-noesis can be illustrated through a simple example: the joy of seeing a beautiful garden. In the natural attitude, the garden belongs to the transcendental realm of spatial actuality, and the perception and liking of it belong to the psychical state. However, between consciousness and the garden exists a real relation that persists even if both consciousness and the garden were to be annihilated. This relation belongs to the sense of the perception rather than to its material aspect (§89). As the receptacle of consciousness and the garden is the immanent-transcendental distinction, even this receptacle is removed through the process of bracketing (§90). The eidetic nature of this pure relation is what we refer to as the noema-noesis.
As mentioned earlier, the natural attitude presents its object in plurality and differentiation. The conception of the immanent consciousness can be perceived as separate from the transcendental, and vice versa, similar to grasping the end of a stick. However, at the level of constituting a phenomenological field, the noema-noesis is grasped in its totality, as if one is holding an entire globe. It is inconceivable that the noetic content could exist without its noematic content, and vice versa. Only after successive bestowal of sense to this pure relation are qualities such as temporality, colors, and extension given to the relation, resulting in distinct entities. It thus makes no sense to appeal to a purely realistic or idealistic model of ontology, as the subject and object cannot be conceived separately. Instead, within the pure phenomenological field, there is a coincidence between the knower and the known.
The schema of an experience is as follows:
At the phenomenal level:
(1) The immanent rays of consciousness
(2) The transcendental object
At the pure phenomenological field:
(1) Noesis: The subjective eidetic pole of relation that bestows sense to the relation, anticipating its fulfillment.
(2) Noema: The objective eidetic correlate of the noesis, the pole of fulfillment of the noesis.
The Ego’s regard proceeds through the noetic-noematic levels until it arrives at the Objective level, beyond which it cannot further proceed, but instead fixes at that level (§101).
We have conceived the schema of experience in stasis, and now let us explore the schema of experience in dynamis (motion). Investigation of the noesis-noema allows us to conceive that the fruit of intention is to bring forth the transcendental object, X, into fulfillment, irrespective of the degrees of fulfillment. Now, the cube is in my hand; at the phenomenological level, it is merely an X with which I am constituting a relation. By virtue of the noema-noetic relation, X is being presented to me through eidetic axioms. Yet, only a facet of X is presented to me. However, its hidden facet is already anticipated by a priori laws in connection to the perceived facet, i.e., it is anticipated by the pure geometric law that a cube has four surfaces. I fulfill the empty laws as I turn my regard to the hidden profiles, and these hidden profiles become more and more determined while the prior facet recedes into indeterminateness.
It is not that there is an empty, objective, mind-independent space through which I advance my body, but rather that there is an anticipated extension to the current perception I am experiencing. When I turn my regard to it, and if it is fulfilled and thus being determined, I would then be able to advance myself forward, in a dynamic dance of positing and synthesis (§122).
***
This Copernican notion Husserl advanced is one of the most captivating models of reality. In many ways, it resembles the analogical gradation of Being, as Reality is being unfolded from mere indeterminateness to more determined forms.
Another issue Husserl addresses in Ideas I is the problem of intersubjectivity: how can other Egos perceive the same Object as other Egos? The answer Husserl offers is that what allows the perception of an Object is the eidetic framework that is universally shared by other Egos. The perception of a mere facet of the Object experienced by different Egos does not cancel the objectivity of the perception but only serves to further enrich the World that the Egos perceive and live in.
In Ideas II, Husserl would follow up on the preliminary discussion on constitution as mentioned above.
S.M.Y Kayseri
Written on 2nd of August 2024
References:
Husserl, E. (2012). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (W. R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1913)
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to phenomenology. Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl's phenomenology. Stanford University Press.
A Recapitulation: Husserl is a German phenomenologist whose ideas can be summarized as a call to “return to the things themselves (phenomena).” He sought to clarify the essential framework of consciousness to demonstrate its apodictic nature and its relationship with the physical world. Husserl refuted both the ontological schools of idealism and realism, criticizing their respective biases towards either consciousness or the physical world. He argued that both perspectives could lead to gross subjectivism and skepticism regarding the external world.
Husserl recognized that the basic phenomenological fact of each phenomenon is that they are all intentional in nature; we are always directing our consciousness toward something, whether it exists as a perceptually given object, a mere imagination, or simply occupies a symbolic existence. He argued that to prove the objectivity of both consciousness and the physical world, an essential connection must exist between them. However, necessary propositions cannot be found in the phenomenal world, where inductive rules apply. By their very nature, inductive rules can only approximate but never yield apodictic certainty. Thus, Husserl advocated for stripping away the layers of phenomena to elucidate the basic structure connecting consciousness and the physical world, avoiding the ready-made assumptions of natural, everyday life—a process explored in this volume.
This post is divided into two sections: (1) Husserl’s turn toward transcendental idealism, and (2) key ideas in Ideas I.
(Husserl’s Turn Toward Transcendental Idealism)
The publication of Logical Investigations (see the previous post) launched Husserl’s career, leading to his appointment as Professor Extraordinarius at Göttingen University in 1901. The volume’s fierce criticism of psychologism attracted many bright minds into his circle of influence, including Dilthey, the influential Neo-Kantian Natorp, and students like Daubert, Reinach, Stein, and, perhaps fatefully, Heidegger.
By 1905, intense discussions with Scheler, Dilthey, and Natorp led Husserl to completely rethink his sparse, almost Humean treatment of the Ego. He began to re-read Kant, this time taking it more seriously (with Natorp’s influence), and as a result, produced a synthesis between some of Kant’s general assumptions and Brentano’s novel view that psychic acts should be bracketed to reveal the nature of the acts themselves, their structure, and foundation.
In 1906-1907, Husserl introduced the notion of transcendental reduction in his lecture course “Logic and the Theory of Knowledge.” In 1907, he delivered the course “The Idea of Phenomenology,” where he entertained the idea that transcendental reduction could truly unfold the transcendental domain. His enthusiasm for these newfound ideas led him into intellectual crusades against unfortunate opponents; his Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (1910-1911) was directed against his colleague Dilthey, accusing him of relativism. By 1913, Husserl published Ideas I as the cornerstone of a new field he christened “transcendental phenomenology.”
His shift to transcendental idealism shocked his core followers and mentors. Brentano, still reeling from Husserl’s criticisms in Logical Investigations, accused him of Platonism and cut off contact with him until his death. Husserl’s students from the Logical Investigations period seceded and created the Munich school of phenomenology led by Pfänder, Reinach, and Scheler, and later the Göttingen school of phenomenology led by Conrad, Conrad-Martius, Héring, Ingarden, Koyré, and Stein. Husserl’s turn towards transcendental idealism marked the beginning of his isolation, ultimately leaving him a self-proclaimed “leader without followers.”
The significance of Husserl’s turn toward transcendental idealism is profound; it demonstrated that almost all idealistic thinkers—those not as extreme as adopting the Berkeleyan position—arrived at the conclusion of the irreducible relation between subject and object. As Schopenhauer mentioned, it is not just about the sun or the ground, but that there’s an eye to perceive the sun and a foot to stomp the ground. However, the realization of this eternal truth runs starkly against the Western Faustian drive—the cosmic terror of realizing that perhaps there’s no Newtonian objective space—causing many great thinkers to falter before the heavenly gate of Truth. Their perplexity is palpable, shown by Kant’s embarrassment despite his voluminous Critique, where the nature of the noumenon remains a mystical notion, and Wittgenstein’s epithet “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” stands as a testament to the Western daemonic refusal to perceive the truth.
(Key Ideas in Ideas I)
The Natural Attitude and the Transcendental Reduction
The world consists of positing acts of consciousness. Through perception, we are immediately presented with objects entering our consciousness, possessing colors, values, extension, and other qualities. This automatic, “ready-at-hand” world is what Husserl termed the natural attitude. However, just as a complete house was not always a complete structure, being constructed from foundational materials, so too can these automatic positing acts be suspended. They can be suspended to unfold the foundation of particular experiences through a process called transcendental reduction (epoché).
Transcendental reduction “puts out of action” or “parenthesizes” these positing acts, allowing us to see the phenomena before the bestowal of qualities (§31). Through this peculiar “eidetic seeing,” we observe that our acts of consciousness are always intending toward something. This intending toward something is absolute in that the intended object may not exist, and is thus contingent, but the intending act of consciousness cannot be said not to exist.
Further analysis reveals two components that yield the data of consciousness: the stream of consciousness (the intentional act) and the intended object.
In perception, the essence of the object remains the same, while the streams of consciousness that coincide with facets of the object change. For example, the table we perceive remains a table, despite changes in our position relative to it. We can also observe that surrounding the table is an “intuitional halo” that radiates outward, forming a horizon of indeterminateness yet with the possibility of fulfillment (§27). The ground on which the table stands lies at the periphery of our awareness, yet is necessarily connected to the table.
The Transcendental Subjectivity
We can also observe that the foundation of experience begins with the regard of the Ego. It is the emanation of the Ego’s regard towards the intended object that allows the concatenation of possible experiences to coincide with the Ego, giving rise to experience. And this Ego remains unchanged throughout the flux of perception, just as the ray of the Sun is not the Sun itself. The Ego, thus, is not merely Hume’s “bundle of acts”; it exists as something necessarily distinct from the many rays of its mental processes (§57). Husserl affirms the absoluteness of the Ego, termed transcendental subjectivity, stating that “against the ‘accidental’ nature of the fulfillment of our consciousness, our act of intending and positing by our Ego is ‘necessary’.” (§46)
But if reality is not an absolute thing in itself, what is the position of things not currently in our perception? While insisting on the indubitable relation between subject and object, Husserl also insisted that this does not mean that the rest of the world outside our consciousness does not exist. They exist as the background of our current perception, connected to it via anticipation, remaining in pure potentiality.
We also perceive objects in facets rather than in their entirety, yet we conceive the object as a unity of its facets. The fact that we only perceive a part of the thing means that while the thing is given adequately, it is only given as part of it, appearing to us in this way rather than being presented in totality. This failure to grasp the object in its entirety means that the object is transcendental to us. Transcendental in that the object is not immanent in our consciousness, for the ray of consciousness given to us is absolute and given in totality; when we desire something, our consciousness intends towards it absolutely. But the object as given in perception is only given in adumbration and one-sidedly, which is not characteristic of the immanent contents of our mind, which is the stream of consciousness.
The Noesis-Noema
The duality of structure of intending something-object intended after bracketed by the transcendental reduction, yields an eidetic relation termed the noesis-noema. The dualistic nature of experience between the immanent and transcendental only apply at the level of phenomenon. That the inside of my head differs from the space outside etc. But after we bracketed this relation between a subject and object, we found that what remains is the pure relation which knows no spatiality or compartmentalization as found in phenomena. Here both the subject and object stand at the same level of phenomena, termed as the noesis and noema.
The noesis at the phenomenal level refers to the intentional mental processes. It consists of primary contents such as color-data, touch-data, and the priming of objective contents (anticipation of physical color, physical body), which eventually lead to the axiom that every intentional mental process directs itself toward the formation of an intended object (§85). Noesis bestows sense so that the intended object can be anticipated for its potential fulfillment, whether it exists merely symbolically or is perceptually given (§88).
The noema, on the other hand, constitutes the other end of this pure relation, serving as the correlate of the noesis in terms of being fulfilled. While noesis provides the sense for anticipation, noema is the destination for the fulfillment of that anticipation.
The proof of the existence of the pure relation of noema-noesis can be illustrated through a simple example: the joy of seeing a beautiful garden. In the natural attitude, the garden belongs to the transcendental realm of spatial actuality, and the perception and liking of it belong to the psychical state. However, between consciousness and the garden exists a real relation that persists even if both consciousness and the garden were to be annihilated. This relation belongs to the sense of the perception rather than to its material aspect (§89). As the receptacle of consciousness and the garden is the immanent-transcendental distinction, even this receptacle is removed through the process of bracketing (§90). The eidetic nature of this pure relation is what we refer to as the noema-noesis.
As mentioned earlier, the natural attitude presents its object in plurality and differentiation. The conception of the immanent consciousness can be perceived as separate from the transcendental, and vice versa, similar to grasping the end of a stick. However, at the level of constituting a phenomenological field, the noema-noesis is grasped in its totality, as if one is holding an entire globe. It is inconceivable that the noetic content could exist without its noematic content, and vice versa. Only after successive bestowal of sense to this pure relation are qualities such as temporality, colors, and extension given to the relation, resulting in distinct entities. It thus makes no sense to appeal to a purely realistic or idealistic model of ontology, as the subject and object cannot be conceived separately. Instead, within the pure phenomenological field, there is a coincidence between the knower and the known.
The schema of an experience is as follows:
At the phenomenal level:
(1) The immanent rays of consciousness
(2) The transcendental object
At the pure phenomenological field:
(1) Noesis: The subjective eidetic pole of relation that bestows sense to the relation, anticipating its fulfillment.
(2) Noema: The objective eidetic correlate of the noesis, the pole of fulfillment of the noesis.
The Ego’s regard proceeds through the noetic-noematic levels until it arrives at the Objective level, beyond which it cannot further proceed, but instead fixes at that level (§101).
We have conceived the schema of experience in stasis, and now let us explore the schema of experience in dynamis (motion). Investigation of the noesis-noema allows us to conceive that the fruit of intention is to bring forth the transcendental object, X, into fulfillment, irrespective of the degrees of fulfillment. Now, the cube is in my hand; at the phenomenological level, it is merely an X with which I am constituting a relation. By virtue of the noema-noetic relation, X is being presented to me through eidetic axioms. Yet, only a facet of X is presented to me. However, its hidden facet is already anticipated by a priori laws in connection to the perceived facet, i.e., it is anticipated by the pure geometric law that a cube has four surfaces. I fulfill the empty laws as I turn my regard to the hidden profiles, and these hidden profiles become more and more determined while the prior facet recedes into indeterminateness.
It is not that there is an empty, objective, mind-independent space through which I advance my body, but rather that there is an anticipated extension to the current perception I am experiencing. When I turn my regard to it, and if it is fulfilled and thus being determined, I would then be able to advance myself forward, in a dynamic dance of positing and synthesis (§122).
***
This Copernican notion Husserl advanced is one of the most captivating models of reality. In many ways, it resembles the analogical gradation of Being, as Reality is being unfolded from mere indeterminateness to more determined forms.
Another issue Husserl addresses in Ideas I is the problem of intersubjectivity: how can other Egos perceive the same Object as other Egos? The answer Husserl offers is that what allows the perception of an Object is the eidetic framework that is universally shared by other Egos. The perception of a mere facet of the Object experienced by different Egos does not cancel the objectivity of the perception but only serves to further enrich the World that the Egos perceive and live in.
In Ideas II, Husserl would follow up on the preliminary discussion on constitution as mentioned above.
S.M.Y Kayseri
Written on 2nd of August 2024
References:
Husserl, E. (2012). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (W. R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1913)
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to phenomenology. Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl's phenomenology. Stanford University Press.
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December 17, 2019I've spent a significant part of the last four months in this book, and surrounding scholarship and commentaries. At first for class and later out of personal interest. Giving Ideas I a starred rating feels unfair to me, the way I engaged with it doesn't lend itself to such a rating. This book is difficult to read. It isn't the first, second or third text about phenomenology I would recommend to people, but it is foundational, innovative, and has changed how I read Heidegger, Gadamer, and writers writ large.
Husserl's insights about constitution and consciousness are his most insightful, yet are often found where Ideas I is most confusing. I suspect this is because nobody articulated before him what he was trying to say, at least in his world. I don't consider this as a perfect work, a complete development of Husserl's thought or phenomenology. But it lays a stunning groundwork from which I think philosophy and theology might turn inspired in a way worth yearning for. Definitely worth a read, at some point.
Husserl's insights about constitution and consciousness are his most insightful, yet are often found where Ideas I is most confusing. I suspect this is because nobody articulated before him what he was trying to say, at least in his world. I don't consider this as a perfect work, a complete development of Husserl's thought or phenomenology. But it lays a stunning groundwork from which I think philosophy and theology might turn inspired in a way worth yearning for. Definitely worth a read, at some point.
November 10, 2008
ARRRRRGHHHHHHH. So damn annoying.
Maybe one of the harder texts I've read (right up there with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and way harder than Kant's Critique), it unfortunately has no pay off, unless you enjoy ripping your hair out in frustration. I don't. I was so happy when the punishment was over.
Maybe one of the harder texts I've read (right up there with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and way harder than Kant's Critique), it unfortunately has no pay off, unless you enjoy ripping your hair out in frustration. I don't. I was so happy when the punishment was over.
February 28, 2013
The writing is terrible, inscrutable. Or maybe it's just the translation? Only read the assigned chapters. With the help of my wonderful professor, these inscrutable writings finally start to make sense. And it's fascinating!
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May 4, 2016Though Husserl is clearly not a writer of books, I stumble on, wading through his phenomenological bog; my boots squish and slip in his conceptual framework, his obscure prose flecks my pant leg. This place is somewhere deep.
December 11, 2019
In Husserl's hands, consciousness, a usually inscrutable topic, is woven into a rich and detailed tapestry. Consciousness is directness towards an object (be this object physical, an idea, a prior conscious act) together with a dense network of other objects towards which the directness may turn, and sets of modifications of the conscious act that the subject can freely take up and lay aside.
I am looking at a rich purple sky. Then something changes, and I become aware that I am dreaming. I am still looking at the sky, but my perception is now modified by the knowledge that I am dreaming. The next morning, I remember this conscious act; I again experience a directness towards the purple sky, but now with two modifications: this sky is a dream and this dream is a memory. That afternoon, I imagine telling my friend about how in the morning I remembered that I had a dream about a purple sky. Three modifications of the original perception. But in the midst of this act of imagining telling my friend, the image of the sky emerges fully before me, and I perceive it again in its original vividness, unbothered by the three modifications, that having previously taken up, I now lay aside.
Ideas really gets at what it's like to be a conscious being. You have to wrestle with some jargon. But when you do, you are rewarded with the macro-structure that I have tried to illustrate above, but also with micro-flashes of insight into diverse topics: probability theory, the sound of a violin, a mother's love for her children.
I am looking at a rich purple sky. Then something changes, and I become aware that I am dreaming. I am still looking at the sky, but my perception is now modified by the knowledge that I am dreaming. The next morning, I remember this conscious act; I again experience a directness towards the purple sky, but now with two modifications: this sky is a dream and this dream is a memory. That afternoon, I imagine telling my friend about how in the morning I remembered that I had a dream about a purple sky. Three modifications of the original perception. But in the midst of this act of imagining telling my friend, the image of the sky emerges fully before me, and I perceive it again in its original vividness, unbothered by the three modifications, that having previously taken up, I now lay aside.
Ideas really gets at what it's like to be a conscious being. You have to wrestle with some jargon. But when you do, you are rewarded with the macro-structure that I have tried to illustrate above, but also with micro-flashes of insight into diverse topics: probability theory, the sound of a violin, a mother's love for her children.
May 18, 2024
Husserl here attempts at an introduction to phenomenology. But here, very little phenomenology is actually done. Rather than providing actual analyses of conscious meaning-intent (noetic) and the object as intended (noema) the vast majority of the book is spent clarifying the various notions pertaining to a phenomenological analysis without actually doing it, besides very basic examples which are moreso meant to illustrate how what Husserl claims to be phenomenology is distanced from. And, honestly, I find some issues with his approach entirely. The stratification of formal ontologies into a rank of genera risks the biggest hypostasis that he himself claimed, at one point, of psychology for doing (and they have to do this, because they are a science and not a philosophy). It's also extremely atomizing, introducing an infinity of relations that have no hope of being exhausted. Also, his notion of the Ego as the starting point, and even positer of the categories in intuition, is such a viscious circle, particularly when you have intentions of desires. This is why Heidegger's puts the logos as a priori to the human being for it actually allows a circle to be traversed. Phenomenology needs to be enacted, something that Husserl's successors do a far better job of doing. Husserl's later works seem to critique the approach he presents here, but it was already done too late. Regardless, admittedly Husserl opened up a realm that was only hinted at in the philosophical traditions. Perhaps his other lesser known works are more fruitful.
June 28, 2024
Seria uma tolice tentar avaliar uma obra desse porte em um comentário de redes sociais. Mas dá para falar um pouco da edição, que tem tradução confiável (excelente, na verdade), mas peca em alguns detalhes editoriais, sendo o mais grave a remissão à paginação do original alemão (o qual, aliás, nem é a Husserliana...), o que torna difícil a consulta. De menor importância, mas perceptível, algumas notas de rodapé estão em páginas diferentes daquelas em que são indicadas (o número em uma página, a nota em outra...).
De todo modo, é muito bom que tenhamos este livro difícil publicado em português, com tradução excelente.
De todo modo, é muito bom que tenhamos este livro difícil publicado em português, com tradução excelente.
May 12, 2024
I am absolutely sure that there is a lot of value in this work, but it I could not get the through line of it properly or fully follow, and I dont feel any closer to understanding it after having read the whole thing.
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December 31, 2020After 4 months of struggle still can not do the bracketing of a simple hammer, which means I failed! Should have touched more intro reading before opening the book.
December 11, 2021
Needs more sex and explosions. The fellow should consider a rewrite and remove some 200-300 pages
May 9, 2022
ONLY HALF READ!!! To be finished
March 24, 2023
Recondite and full of jargon
September 12, 2023
There is a subtle beauty in complex writing — in terms of syntax and structure. Then there's this monstrosity by Husserl. As dense as Kant! Yet little — to no value add by the end of the read.
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December 12, 2023Favorite quote: “A new way of looking at things is necessary, one that contrasts at every point with the natural attitude of experience and thought.”
February 26, 2024
Absolutely brutal read, but its significance to modern thought can’t be ignored.
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