continental origins of verificationism

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ANGELAKIjournal of the theoretical humanitiesvolume 10 number 1 april 2005

1 introduction

Verificationism, in the strictest sense, is the

doctrine that the truth or falsity of every

cognitively meaningful statement can be decided

by finitely many possible observations. The system

of Carnap’s Aufbau1 is verificationist. It is also

reductionist, and the two characteristics are con-

nected: verificationism implies that any meaning-ful statement could in principle be replaced with

a finite set of predictions about possible observa-

tions. What, in Carnap’s opinion, was the point of

this reductionist, verificationist system? A correct

interpretation of the Aufbau itself obviously

requires a satisfactory answer. But the question

also casts long historical shadows in both

directions.

To take the forward direction first: Carnap, as

we all know, was soon to give up on strictverificationism. But that was not the end of its

influence on his thought, and thus on the whole

development of analytic philosophy of science.

For one thing, even in much later works he

continues to impose a roughly verificationist

condition on the so-called observation language.2

Even more importantly, however: his verifica-

tionist beginnings defined for him the main

problem about scientific progress. If we begin by

realizing that finite data are not, in principle,

enough to decide the truth or falsehood of our

hypotheses, our attention naturally turns to the

problem of induction: namely, the question of how

finite data can support statements which they

fall short of deductively implying. That was indeed

the central problem for later Carnap. Might

other beginnings, however, have focused attention

elsewhere?

That last question leads from the forward

historical direction to the backward one. Under-

standing Carnap’s later reactions depends on

knowing what he thought he was doing in the

first place. And to understand that, we need to

understand the context in which he was at first

operating. If we get that wrong, thus placing

the Aufbau in the wrong historical context, we

will not understand the later works, either. On

Quine’s account, for example, Carnap is placed in

a (somewhat odd, and predominantly anglo-

phone) historical sequence which includes

Hume, Bentham, Frege, and Russell.3 Without

going into details: the upshot of this historical

contextualization is an interpretation in which

reductionism – replacing suspicious theoretical

concepts with ‘‘innocent’’ observational ones – is

understood to be the goal of the Aufbau, and

verificationism a means to that end (74–75).

But this leaves it incomprehensible why Carnap

abraham D. stone

THE CONTINENTAL

ORIGINS OF

VERIFICATIONISM

natorp, husserl and carnap

on the object as infinitelydeterminable x

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN1469- 2899 online/05/010129^15 ß 2005 Taylor & Francis and the Editors of Angelaki



is still interested in some form of verificationism

after the strict version fails (77), and moreover

makes Carnap’s later concern with ‘‘inductive

logic’’ look like the arbitrary, unmotivated sub-

stitution of an imaginary logical procedure for our

actual psychological process of learning aboutthe world (78).

Of course, Quine’s once-standard account has

now already been discredited in some circles. More

recent accounts of Carnap’s motivations in the

Aufbau place him against the very different

historical backdrop of Marburg neo-Kantianism.4

But such an account, whatever its advantages, is

worrying from our point of view because the

central problems about scientific progress, for the

Marburg neo-Kantians, were far removed fromthe problem of induction. I will say more about

that in a moment. For now, though, and again

without going into details: it is not surprising that

these accounts, while making the Aufbau period

look more interesting, have at the same time

tended both to de-emphasize the role of verifica-

tionism in that period and to emphasize the

discontinuity between it and what followed.

Perhaps there is such a radical discontinuity.

But we should be cautious, if only becauseCarnap himself maintained that the project of

the Aufbau and his later projects were essentially

the same – namely, that both were concerned with

‘‘rational reconstruction.’’5

All this suggests that, if we want to understand

both the Aufbau and Carnap’s later works, we

ought to take another look at the ‘‘Continental’’

background of his thought, and in particular to

look for an aspect of it which raises different issues

about scientific progress and provides its own

strong motives for verificationism. Here I will try

to identify such a background, in a preliminary

way, by exploring one particular question:

whether, and in what sense, the object of scientific

knowledge is an ‘‘infinitely determinable X.’’

This question is relevant because when Carnap,

in the Aufbau, presents verificationism as a

response to Marburg neo-Kantianism he does so

by presenting it, in particular, as a rejection of

Paul Natorp’s doctrine that the object of scientific

knowledge is ‘‘the eternal X,’’ i.e., that ‘‘its

determination is an unfinishable task’’ (x 179L,

be meant by this terminology in Carnap’s histor-

ical context. We will see that it can have quite

different implications in the mouths of different

thinkers. Thus although both Natorp and his

contemporary, Edmund Husserl, describe the

object of scientific knowledge in these terms,

their meaning and motivations are vastly different.

Not to be mysterious: my ultimate contention

will be that, despite Carnap’s explicit claim, in

the passage in question, that he is responding to

Natorp, his real target is Husserl. I will close,

therefore, with suggestions as to what it was in

Husserl’s system which prompted that attack,

thus giving rise to Carnap’s long flirtation with

verificationism in its various forms. But first, and

for the most part, I will focus on the doctrinesof Husserl and Natorp, respectively.6

II early twentieth-centuryquasi-kantian hierarchical systems of knowledge: two ways to proceed

German epistemology in the early twentieth

century – the milieu from which Carnap’s early

writings emerged – has in general two salient

characteristics.First, the dominance of Kant, or of self-styled

inheritors and interpreters of Kant. That charac-

terization applies, of course, to the thinkers

generally called ‘‘neo-Kantian,’’ including

Natorp and his fellow Marburgers (most impor-

tantly, Hermann Cohen and Ernst Cassirer), as

well as the so-called ‘‘Southwest School’’ (espec-

ially Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert).

But the dominance of Kantianism in this period

extends well beyond that. In particular, Husserl,

whose roots were in Franz Brentano’s openly

anti-Kantian thought and who initially felt closer

to British empiricism, was by this time also

portraying himself as a Kantian. This was clear

in Ideen I,7 with its frequent explicit mentions

of Kant and heavy use of Kantian terminology.

It became clearer still in 1924 – one of the years

during which, according to Ludwig Landgrebe,

Carnap participated in Husserl’s advanced

seminar.8 In that year Husserl delivered the

memorial address at the Kant-Feier of the

University of Freiburg, in honor of the 200th

origins of verificationism



prepared a version for publication in his Jahrbuch

fu r Philosophie und pha nomenologische

Forschung .9 The text opens with the statement

that an observation of Kant’s birth is appropriate

to a phenomenological yearbook because ‘‘in

the principled continuing development whichphenomenology has received in my life’s work

[. . .] there has emerged a manifest essential

affinity between that phenomenology and Kant’s

transcendental philosophy.’’

Second, the prevalence of open-ended, stepwise

hierarchical systems. Once again, this clearly

applies to the neo-Kantians, especially to the

later Marburgers.10 But, once again, it applies

also to Husserl’s systems of the Ideen period and

later, and, once again, it extends well beyondthat.11 Typically, moreover (including in Natorp

and Husserl), this second characteristic is

presented as a corollary of the first, in that the

repeated operation which generates the hierarchy

is identified with the Kantian operation of

synthesis: the act by which thought ‘‘unifies the

manifold of sense,’’ supplying a necessary connec-

tion where sense itself would yield only contin-

gently connected data. Thus these systems were

not just supposed to be Kantian and hierarchical;their hierarchies are themselves supposed to be

Kantian.

To maintain this required considerable inge-

nuity, however, because Kant himself doesn’t

envision any such hierarchy. There are many

important and familiar hierarchies in Kant:

understanding–judgment–reason, for example,

or apprehension–reproduction–recognition. But

those hierarchies are not stepwise – they do not

result from the repeated application of a single

operation – and are therefore also not open ended .

If one wanted to extend them further, there

would be no obvious next step. In many important

respects, moreover, Kant’s system is non-

hierarchical, as is particularly apparent from his

characteristic two-dimensional presentations, for

example of the table of judgments and the table of

categories. By spreading the elements out on the

page in that way, Kant expressly avoids arranging

them in any hierarchical order.

If stepwise hierarchical systems must be

imposed on Kant, however, rather than deriving

time and place? In the most general terms, it may

simply have been a matter of philosophical

fashion, though the increasingly complex hier-

archy of the modern sciences may also have played

a role. As for the more detailed content of

the systems in question, however, there wereapparently two distinct and independent sources.

First, and most obvious, is post-Kantian

idealism, especially Hegel. The well-known

formula ‘‘thesis–antithesis–synthesis,’’ which is

not Hegel’s own, and is in fact even rather

misleading, is nevertheless accurate in one respect:

every stage of Hegel’s method is understood

by Hegel to involve something like Kantian

synthesis.12 A second, less obvious, source,

however, is revived interest in ancient andmedieval doctrines of the orders or modes of

being. Such interest is perhaps most evident in

Brentano and those influenced by him (e.g.,

Husserl and Meinong).13 The original versions

of such systems were metaphysical hierarchies in

which the lower modes or orders of object

depended upon the higher ones as mere images

(phenomena). But after a certain inversion (an

interpretation of Kant’s ‘‘Copernican revolution

in philosophy’’), the ‘‘lower’’ sensibilia or sensiblerepresentations could reappear as the founda-

tions, on the basis of which higher orders might

be erected by thought – that is, by a repeated

process of synthesis.

These two sources are associated with different

understandings of the function of synthesis, and

hence with different types of epistemological

system and different interpretations of Kant.

In the first case, synthesis generates categories:

pure a priori concepts which make possible an

object, and an objective (knowing) consciousness,

as such. The object and the consciousness remain

at each stage the same: in Hegel’s system, they are

the absolute and spirit, respectively, and the

system as a whole is supposed to demonstrate

that the absolute is spirit, i.e., to overcome

(or ‘‘sublate’’) the subject–object dichotomy.

In the second type of system, on the other hand,

the pure a priori concepts at work in synthesis

remain the same as the process continues (at least

in an analogous sense). What synthesis achieves

at each stage is the knowledge or cognition of

stone



is no hierarchy of either type in Kant’s own work,

the two different understandings of synthesis do

each have their basis in Kant’s transcendental

deduction. Only, as we will see, the main basis

for each is not to be found in the same version of

Kant’s text. Thus we will find that Natorp, whose

system is of the first type, prefers the B-edition

version, whereas Husserl prefers the A edition.

III natorp’s b-edition ‘‘objectVx’’

To give an accurate account of either the A- or

B-edition transcendental deduction, let alone of

the differences between them, would be an

enormous task – far too large for me to attempt

here. Given that we are really interested in Kant’stext as an anchor or jumping-off point for

fundamentally un-Kantian ideas, a more super-

ficial reading may, in any case, actually be of more

use than a deeper and more comprehensive one.

And, at least on such a superficial reading, the main

difference between the two editions lies in the role

of the time series of conscious representations.

In the A edition, the deduction proper begins

with the observation that, since all our representa-

tions belong, as ‘‘modifications of the mind,’’ toinner sense, all our Erkentnisse – all our cognitions

or items of knowledge – ‘‘are ultimately subject to

the formal condition of inner sense, namely

time, as that in which they must all collectively

be ordered, connected, and brought into relation-

ships.’’14 There follows a description of the three

stages of synthesis mentioned above (apprehen-

sion, reproduction, and recognition), which

appear to be three stages in that ordering process.

Thus Kant’s problem of empirical synthesis seems

to flow in a natural way from a problem already

raised by Hume. Roughly speaking: to consider a

given time series of representations as representa-

tions of one single external object, I must suppose

necessary connections between them. Any true

experience (Erfahrung ) must therefore contain

such necessity. But – Kant and Hume agree – such

necessity is never to be found in the data of

sense themselves. Hence the synthetic function

of thought will be to supply the missing

necessity, thus building a new, external, spatio-

temporal object on the basis of the temporally

immediately given. To the would-be hierarchy

builder, the thought naturally suggests itself that

this operation could be repeated to yield further

types of object – ones which are, so to speak, even

more external (higher ‘‘above’’ the ultimate

foundation of sense).

In the B edition, in contrast, Kant takes

vigorous steps to displace the temporal order

from any fundamental role. The objective, neces-

sary ‘‘combination’’ (Verbindung ) which is to be

supplied by the understanding in synthesis is now

opposed not to the merely temporal order of

inner sense but to any form of sensible intuition

in general (B129–30). Such a combination is

needed by any being whose intuition is sensible

rather than intellectual, or in other words by any

finite (discursive) rational being, whether or not its

sensibility has the forms of time and space (B135);

the pure concepts of the understanding are thus

valid for any such being in general (B148, 150).

As a consequence we can no longer get a clear

picture of the uncombined manifold to which the

understanding brings its necessity: certainly we

are not entitled to assume that it has a serial order.

From a Hegelian point of view, however, this

absence of a picture is a sign that we have moved

from the level of representation (Vorstellung ) to

the higher or purer level of the concept (Begriff ).

Furthermore, the B edition contains another

hopeful sign for the would-be Hegelian system

builder. For, although the three stages of

synthesis have disappeared from the deduction,

synthesis now pops up in a different and more

interesting place: within the table of categories

itself. In that table, recall, the categories are

organized under four headings: quantity, quality,

relation, and modality. In the B edition, Kant

draws attention to the fact that there are three

categories in each of these ‘‘classes,’’ and adds that

the third is always a ‘‘combination’’ (again:

Verbindung ) of the first two (B110–11). Hence

we see, first, that there is indeed some hierarchy

within the categories, at least on a local scale, and,

second – given that all ‘‘combination’’ results

from synthesis as an act of the understanding

(B130) – that synthesis is or can be a transition

between pure concepts, rather than between




Interpreters of Kant (and of Hegel) might well

disagree about the significance of all this, but

Natorp understands matters as follows. It is,

he says, wrong to imagine a temporal order of

representations preceding the work of synthesis,

‘‘as if the external, spatial world left over an inner,nonspatial, merely temporal world of psychic

being.’’15 When we consider any ordered manifold

or series, we are already considering an object of

experience (Erfahrung ), and thus presupposing

synthesis, the contribution of thought without

which all experience is impossible. According to

Natorp, this was always Kant’s view: the priority

of time in the A deduction is not metaphysical/

epistemic, but merely logical, and it is ‘‘not

actually Kant’s fault’’ if people have gone astrayon this point (ibid.). Still, the B deduction is

superior, because it eliminates all ambiguity

about this and related matters (275–76).

If any order of representations is already the

result of synthesis, then the pure Urerlebnis – i.e.,

primordial ‘‘experience’’ considered as purely

passive and (therefore) as purely subjective, pure

sense without thought – is as such the purely

‘‘undetermined,’’ a pure ‘‘chaos.’’16 It is therefore

not a realm of objects of some fundamentaltype, which could serve as the foundation for a

hierarchical system of such types. One ought not

to think of inner and outer sense ‘‘as if we had to

do [here] with two realms of objects lying next to

one another’’ (70). The foundation of Natorp’s

system therefore lies not in the most immediate

objects but in the most immediate concepts:

in logic, ‘‘as ‘transcendental’ logic in Kant’s

sense.’’17 It begins with the ‘‘fundamental act of

knowing,’’ which Natorp identifies with Kant’s

supreme act of synthetic unity, i.e., with the

transcendental unity of apperception, but which

he also explains, in more Hegelian fashion, as ‘‘the

fundamental correlation of separation and

uniting’’ (44). This is the fundamental act of

determination, ‘‘in which there first comes to be

any determinateness whatsoever for thought’’

(39); as such it is the source both of all concepts

and of all judgments, since ‘‘every judgment is the

originary positing of a concept in relation to a

something which is to be conceived’’ (42). What

follows from it first – the system of ‘‘fundamental

from one point of view, with Kant’s table of

judgments, and, from another point of view, with

his table of categories.18

In developing this system of logical

Grundfunktionen, Natorp takes his cue from

Kant’s remark that the third category in eachclass is a combination or synthesis of the first two.

But he goes beyond his Kantian basis in three

respects. (1) Where Kant merely opposes the first

two categories of each class to the third, Natorp

puts all three into a single three-step order, and

moreover maintains, explicitly against Kant,

that the three steps within each class can be

matched up to the three steps of the others: such a

correspondence will appear as ‘‘indispensably

necessary’’ to anyone who understands the originof the categories in the ‘‘fundamental process of

synthetic unity.’’19 (2) Natorp sees the exact same

process at work in the transition from one class

to another. The class of relation, in particular, is

represented as resulting from the synthesis of the

two previous classes, which are quantity and

quality (in that order) (66). As for the fourth

class, Kant himself says that it is special: that

the categories of modality are determinations, not

of the object but of its relationship to our cognitivefaculties. Natorp takes this to mean that modality

is a third, synthetic step in a series whose first two

steps are the original Grundakt and the prior

three classes (quantity, quality, and relation) taken

as a whole.20 (3) The three-part series which is

established and repeated, on different levels,

within the system of categories is not confined to

that system; rather, a repeated application of the

same method leads, in the remainder of Natorp’s

book, to a further series of pure concepts: those of

pure arithmetic (including transfinite and complex

arithmetic), geometry, kinematics, dynamics, and

energetics.

That the spatial and temporal orders themselves

appear within this hierarchy of pure concepts

seems to put Natorp in opposition to Kant. Kant

does emphasize, in the B edition, that the temporal

order is not fundamental, but he does so by stres-

sing that the categories are valid even for rational

beings whose intuition does not, like ours, have the

form of time and space. This makes it seem, if

anything, even clearer that the pure form of our

stone



(via the Schematism) into an explanation of how

we can apply the categories to experience. Natorp

is well aware of this difficulty. He responds, first,

that he and his fellow neo-Kantians have been

forced to abandon this two-factor view by Kant

himself: the very principle of Kant’s transcen-dental philosophy demands that these supposedly

different factors be understood as a single unity,

which may as a whole be called ‘‘pure thought’’

(2–3). Second, he claims that Kant himself was

guilty more of misleading presentation than of real

confusion on this, and that, in particular, the

B-edition deduction makes it unambiguously

clear that all spatio-temporal order is a result of

synthesis, rather than an independent factor which

could co-determine it (275–76). This, however, isa very strained reading of Kant: there is every

reason to think of Natorp more as a neo-Hegelian

than a neo-Kantian.

There is, nevertheless, an important disagree-

ment between Natorp and Hegel – one which

clearly marks him, at least in his own mind, as a

Kantian. Hegel famously distinguishes between

two kinds of infinite: ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad.’’ The good

infinite is without limit because it closes in on itself.

The final stage of Hegel’s logic, for example, is theabsolute idea, whose moments are the absolute idea

as such, method, and system: Hegelian logic, in

other words, ‘‘concludes [. . .] by grasping the

concept of itself, as the pure idea for which the idea

is.’’21 The infinite series of pure a priori concepts in

Natorp’s stepwise and open-ended hierarchical

system, in contrast, is a prime example of the bad

infinite, in which ‘‘something becomes another,

but the other is itself something, and so equally

becomes another, and so on in infinitum.’’22

Natorp, in fact, explicitly associates the infinity

of his own method with Hegel’s bad infinite, and

identifies the latter with the infinity of Kantian

idea as merely regulative: as an infinite task or

‘‘ought’’ for the merely finite understanding.23

Thus Natorp’s Kantianism amounts, in his own

eyes, to a rejection of the Hegelian absolute idea in

favor of the Kantian regulative one, or of a closed

system of determinations in favor of an open-ended

series of them.

This one disagreement has far-reaching conse-

quences, as we might expect, given Hegel’s own

between good and bad infinities.24 Most funda-

mentally: if we ask what the series of pure logical

determinations are supposed to determine, then,

recall, Hegel can answer either ‘‘the absolute’’ or

‘‘spirit.’’ The good infinity of the system means

that, in its final moment, logic is the pure ideaboth in and for itself – the idea both of the

absolute object and of the absolute subject.

Natorp agrees that if ‘‘the work of knowledge’’

could be ‘‘closed off’’ then ‘‘the opposing relation-

ship of the subjective and the objective would be

entirely sublated’’;25 the characterization of the

ultimately concrete subject, ‘‘universal spirit,’’

would at the same time include the complete

characterization of its object.26 As it stands,

however, the tasks of subjectivization and objec-tivization are both open ended and uncompletable,

and logic has to do unambiguously with the

latter: not with thinking, but with ‘‘the thought’’

(das Gedachte).27

For Natorp, therefore, the hierarchy of pure

a priori concepts is a hierarchy of determinations

of the object. But the object so determined is not

some individual object – a tree, say, or a house.

Indeed, the determinations necessary to think

an individual as distinct from others (that it isone, of a certain kind, etc.) are only developed as

the process continues. Logic, according to Natorp,

is rather characterized by a turn away from

‘‘objects’’ to ‘‘the object’’ (34). As in Hegel, that

is, we are talking about the one object of the

one unified experience – ultimately, in the ideal

limit, about a single, absolutely necessary connect-

edness which embraces all experience and comple-

tely determines it (69, 277). But since, for Natorp,

this is merely an ideal limit, we are not entitled

to call it ‘‘the absolute’’ (if we want to use that term

for something, Natorp suggests, we could apply

it to the logical method itself (218)). If we call it

‘‘the object,’’ indeed, then we should understand

objectum here as equivalent to Greek problema

and hence to the German Vorwurf – a problem,

task, or project that is ‘‘thrown before’’ us – rather

than as a determinate something which stands over

against us (an antikeimenon or Gegenstand ).28

But, better still, we should let the infinite series of

determinations themselves tell us what is deter-

mined: in itself, before any determination, it is a29




that the object is an infinitely determinable X,

which corresponds – but always only

inadequately – to a Kantian idea.

But Natorp further associates his bad-infinite,

Kantian logical process with a view of scientific

progress as open ended: even though science at

every stage discovers a priori concepts, which are

secure against any future revolution,30 still there

are always further such concepts to be discovered,

and hence further such revolutions to come.

The series of determinations of the X are thus

not only the stages of Natorp’s stepwise system but

also the stages of scientific progress: a scientific

revolution is always a philosophical discovery, in

which further a priori determinations of the object

of experience come to light. All great scientificForscher , from Plato on, have been ‘‘philosophi-

cally disposed’’ (366).31 In this way of under-

standing our epistemic task, in other words – this

way of understanding our progressive determina-

tion of the object ¼ X – the main question will be

not how experience can build up support for our

hypotheses (judgments) but rather how it can lead

us to recognize more objective and determinate a

priori concepts. To find a historical background

against which Carnap’s motivations make sense,we will have to look elsewhere.

IV husserl’s a-edition ‘‘objectVx’’

We have seen, in Natorp, a certain diagnosis of

the relationship between the A- and B-edition

versions of the transcendental deduction. The A

edition, according to Natorp, gives the misleading

impression that there is a special realm of

temporally ordered psychic objects (the realm of

inner sense), presupposed before thought begins

its work of synthesis. But Kant could never have

meant that – after all, an inner, psychic object

would be an object of experience no less that an

external, physical one, and so already a result of

synthesis. Thus Natorp prefers the clearer

formulation of the B deduction.

Broadly speaking, Husserl agrees. He agrees,

that is, that Kant abandoned the A deduction

because it seemed to presuppose a special realm of

objects which, from Kant’s own point of view,

could only be understood as psychic objects of

Kant misunderstood his own discovery and made

a terrible mistake. ‘‘The transcendental deduction

of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason

actually already moves on phenomenological

ground’’ – which is to say on the correct ground

for philosophy – ‘‘but Kant misinterpreted thatground as psychological, and therefore himself

again relinquished it.’’32

It is not surprising that Husserl would say this

about Kant, considering the way he sees the

givenness of external objects. His picture in

Ideen I (and note that we are back with a structure

of which one could easily draw a picture) is

essentially the very one Natorp rejects as absurd.

The fundamental process is the ‘‘constitution’’ of

something external – in the most basic case,of a Ding , i.e., a sensible object in the realm

of nature – by means of time series of conscious

states, which Husserl calls Erlebnisse.33 Imagine,

for example, that the Ding being constituted is

a tree. Although there are various indirect ways

in which such an external object can be given

or ‘‘posited’’ (for example, one might guess or

deduce or remember that it is or was present),

these all rest, according to Husserl, on the

possibility of an ‘‘originary’’ or ‘‘in-person’’ kindof positing, which in the case of Dinge is

perception.34 So for the sake of simplicity we

may think of the series of positing Erlebnisse as

a series of tree-perceptions. The two most impor-

tant components of such a perceptual Erlebnis

are the noesis, which is, roughly speaking, an

act of consciousness – in this case, and an act

of tree-perception – and the noema, which is

a kind of proper object of the noesis: in this case,

the tree-percept as such.35 The noema, here,

can be thought of as the claim that a certain

object (this tree here) is present. Or that, rather,

describes the central component of the noema,

the noematic ‘‘core’’ or ‘‘sense’’:36 the noema as a

whole also makes further, ‘‘subjective’’ claims, for

example that the tree is at a certain distance, seen

from a certain point of view, etc. The noesis, on the

other hand, consists of sense data and something

like an interpretation of those data.37 In effect, the

noesis is an act of making the claim of the noema

by so interpreting the data. The positing is

rational if the data ‘‘fulfill’’ the noematic38

stone



I carry out such a rational, originary positing

that the tree is actually given: a ‘‘positing ray’’

then leaves my pure or transcendental ego and

travels through the noesis and the noematic sense

to reach the transcendent object (in our case,

the tree).39

The problem of empirical synthesis arises

because such perceptual positing is always ‘‘inade-

quate,’’ in two ways. First, the data never

completely fulfill the noema. When I see a tree,

for example, I see only the side facing me; there

are no data corresponding to the other side. What I

see, however – what the noema claimsis present – is

not merely a seen-tree-side, but a tree. Thus,

the noema always makes a claim beyond what the

data can support; the noesis is always an over-interpreting of the data. Second, the noema itself

never even makes a complete claim about the

object. Suppose, for example, that I have never

seen the other side and have no idea what it looks

like. The noema claims (i.e., I am certain, on the

basis of the data) that there is another side, but

makes no detailed claims about its appearance.

I might, moreover, turn out to be wrong about

the details of even the side I can see: when I get

closer, for example, I might realize that it looksdifferent than I thought. I will then say that I did

see this tree before – that is, that the central claim

of my old noema was correct, and was justified

by the data in my old noesis – but that that claim

was in detail incorrect. Even the claims which are

actually present in the noematic sense, and even

the justified or ‘‘fulfilled’’ ones, in other words,

are provisional, and require further observation

to back them up.

Positing on the ground of the in-person

appearance of a Ding is indeed rational, but

the appearance is nevertheless a one-sided,

‘‘imperfect’’ appearance; what stands there as

consciously known in-person is not only what

‘‘ properly [eigentlich]’’ appears, but rather

simply this Ding itself, the whole, according

to the entire, although only one-sidedly intui-

tive and moreover multiply undetermined,

noematic sense.

A Ding-reality, a being in such a sense, can

in principle appear only ‘‘inadequately’’ in a

Husserl calls the way a Ding like the tree is

given – in stages, each of which is

inadequate – ‘‘adumbration’’ (Abschattung ).

For objects so given, there is a Humean,

A-edition problem of synthesis. The determina-

tions contained in a perceptual Erlebnis, or in

a closed series of Erlebnisse, are never sufficient

to posit the transcendent object. In positing

that object, in other words, I must always posit

a further series of such determinations which is

necessarily coming. In positing the tree, for

example, I posit not only the presence of this

tree-side (what is ‘‘properly’’ seen), but also that,

if I walk around the tree, and all goes well, the

other side will necessarily appear. But, since

the determinations which attach to the tree inmy present Erlebnis are not sufficient to require

this series, I seem to have no grounds for positing

its necessity.

Husserl’s solution to this problem is at the

same time his version of the A-edition deduction.

What Kant noticed in the A edition, according to

Husserl, but himself failed to understand, is that

a certain kind of object is not given to us

inadequately: namely, the pure Erlebnisse

themselves. ‘‘We perceive the Ding by virtue of the fact that it is ‘adumbrated’ according to all

the determinations which ‘actually’ and properly

[eigentlich] ‘fall’ within the perception in a given

case,’’ but ‘‘an Erlebnis is not adumbrated ’’ (x 42,

77). Erlebnisse, that is, are given in intellectual

intuition. Kant rejected the A-edition approach as

psychologistic because he failed to appreciate

this point. Representations conceived as percep-

tible (objects of inner sense), would, as Natorp

says, already presuppose synthesis, and Kant wasconfused into believing that representations could

only be given in some kind of sensible intuition

because he blamed the inadequate givenness of

external objects on our defectiveness as knowers.

In fact, however, according to Husserl, the defect

lies in the mode of being of those objects

themselves. Dinge, and everything that depends

on them, are not fully true beings; there is no

complete adaequatio between them and their

cause of being – which, Husserl claims, is my

rational positing. ‘‘Therein is manifested




most cardinal such difference which there is at all,

that between consciousness and reality’’ (ibid.).

This version of Kant’s Copernican revolution,

in which the realm of my consciousness replaces

the intelligible realm (the realm of true beings, of

Dinge an sich), and my pure ego replaces God ascause of being of the world, suggests a solution

to the problem of empirical synthesis which is

both an interpretation of the A deduction and an

inverted Neoplatonism. The disunity of sensible

objects, on this view – their dispersal into stages,

none of which contains the necessity required

to connect it to the others – is a sign of their

dependency on a higher realm of being. For the

series of all my Erlebnisse is essentially and

necessarily unified: each Erlebnis containscomponents (outside its noesis and noema)

which serve as retrospective and anticipatory

‘‘halos’’ of those that precede and follow it.

Hence the ever-present possibility of pure

reflection: that any Erlebnis might, at any time,

become the object of a completely adequate

positing.40 But that necessary unity is itself a

consequence of Kant’s transcendental unity of

apperception: i.e., of the absolute unity of my ego,

and the fact that the Erlebnisse are all mine.41

From that absolute unity (the One Beyond Being)

emanates the essential and necessary unity of

the intelligible world, and the lesser unity and

being of sensible things depend, in turn, on that

essential unity of the Erlebnisstrom. The necessity

which is missing from the Ding -as-posited (from

the positing noeses and noemata as such) is to be

found in the full Erlebnisse of which those

positings are components, in their essential

relation to all future and past Erlebnisse. Thus

the necessity I posit in the future series of tree-

appearances, for example, is nothing that is

found in the tree-itself-as-appearing; it is, rather,

the necessary unity of my own consciousness.

Husserlian phenomenology is supposed to lead me

to recognize this: that my consciousness is a realm

of necessity and truth, compared to which every-

thing external is relative, contingent, and depen-

dent. Thus, unlike Kantian critique, it is

redemptive. It speaks with the voice of the

Gnostic paraclete: it ‘‘redeems us theoretically

from the absolutizing of this world and opens for

which alone is true in the higher sense, the world

of absolute spirit.’’42

Having, however, construed the relationship

between consciousness and its objects in this way,

as the ‘‘most cardinal’’ difference in mode of

being, it is natural to recognize other, lesserdifferences, and thus to erect something like a

classical Aristotelian/Neoplatonic metaphysical

hierarchy. In Husserl’s system, the device which

generates that hierarchy is ‘‘founded positing.’’43

Roughly speaking: while a direct interpretation

of sense data always yields Dinge, further inter-

pretations can be built on top of that one. Thus, for

example, a Ding in its changes can be taken as

standing for a psychological object (a soul).44

Further layers of interpretation (together with theincorporation of emotional and volitional data)

then yield ‘‘higher-order’’ objects in the realms

of culture or spirit (Geist). A hierarchy of found-

ing within the positing noeses thus gives rise to a

hierarchy of modes of being in the transcendent

world. This hierarchy, like Natorp’s, is stepwise

and, apparently, open ended: though Husserl

never, to my knowledge, actually says that it is

infinite, nothing in the system prevents its being

so. But the levels in this A-edition system arenot categories, not levels of a priori determination

of the object. They are, rather, different orders of

object: different modes of being, to each of which

the same logical categories (analogously) apply.

So when Husserl says that the object is an infinitely

determinable X, he is not referring to the

potential infinity of this constitutional hierarchy.

To see what he does mean, notice first that

the (‘‘immanent’’) time sequence of the pure

Erlebnisse is not to be identified with the

transcendent time of events in the external

world. When the tree turns out, on closer inspec-

tion, to look different than I originally thought,

Erlebnisse at earlier and later immanent times

each posit the same tree as having been different

throughout transcendent or cosmic time (the tree

always really looked different than it at first

seemed to look). Every Ding , and in general every

transcendent object – every object given by

adumbration – is constantly, with respect to

immanent time, in a state of flux: the determina-

tions with which it is posited (components of the

stone



principle changeable and replaceable. It follows

that that within the sense which claims the

existence of this object (for example, of this tree

here) is not to be identified with any of them.

Rather, it is something different from all determi-

nations, which always allows and indeed requiresfurther ones – in principle, an infinite series of

them. What is posited in it is a mere infinitely

determinable X:

We say that the intentional object is constantly

in conscious awareness in the continuous or

synthetic progress of consciousness, but is

always again ‘‘otherwise given’’ therein; it is

‘‘the same’’; it is merely given with other

predicates, with another determination-

content; ‘‘it’’ merely shows itself from differentsides, whereby the predicates which remain

undetermined have been further determined

[. . .] the identical intentional ‘‘object’’ is

evidently distinguished from the changing

and alterable ‘‘predicates.’’ It is distinguished

as the central noematic moment: the ‘‘object,’’

[. . .] the ‘‘identical,’’ – the pure X in abstrac-

tion from all predicates.45

This fits in with inverted Neoplatonism. It is,

in fact, a Neoplatonist version of the passage in

which Aristotle introduces matter: because a

physical substance receives opposite determina-

tions successively, there must be some third thing

(a tertium quid ) which receives them, and the

physical substance is essentially just this third

thing, prime matter, which is without any deter-

minations of its own.46 But it is also an interpreta-

tion of the passage where the ‘‘object ¼ X’’ first

turns up in the A deduction:

What, then, does one understand, if one speaksof an object which corresponds to knowledge,

and thus also is different from it? It is easy

to see that this object must be thought

merely as a something in general ¼ X, because

we have nothing outside our knowledge

against which we could set this knowledge as

corresponding.47

Kant, in the introduction to the A edition, seems

to make this connection himself. A synthetic

judgment, he says, in connecting a subject to

a predicate not contained in it (and possibly

even opposed to it), implicitly bases itself on

Under Husserl’s interpretation of Kant, moreover,

the connection is natural. That a Ding , or any

transcendent object, always allows and indeed

requires further determinations beyond what are

found in any positing of it is a consequence of the

fact that the object itself – the subject of all its

predicates – is a mere X: i.e., a consequence of

the object’s materiality. Material beings, which

are always in flux, which become and pass away,

are not fully true beings, but mere phenomena,

and such being and unity as they possess is due

the presence in the Erlebnisstrom of a necessary

law to which they inadequately correspond.

That law is itself something like a concept which

can never be exemplified in experience. Husserl

says: adequate Ding -givenness is ‘‘an idea inthe Kantian sense.’’48

Husserl thus uses the exact same Kantian

terminology as Natorp, and also intends to

interpret (and correct) Kant. But their Kants,

and therefore the meanings of their terms, are

different. If a hierarchy proceeds from bottom

to top, then Natorp’s infinite series of determina-

tions is vertical: it is identical to the series of

hierarchical levels, each of which involves a

further a priori concept to which the object mustconform. For Husserl, in contrast, the infinite

series of determinations is horizontal: what is

determined is a particular object at a particular

level in his hierarchy; it has nothing directly to

do with the generation of the hierarchy itself.

This lends itself to a rather different picture of

scientific progress, and of the problems involved

in its open-endedness. The problem of induction –

which in Natorp’s Grundlagen is nowhere to be

found – now takes on great significance: Husserlclaims, in fact, that it can be solved (non-

skeptically) only by a phenomenological idealism

like his own (x 20, 37; x 79, 159). If that solution

looks unattractive, however, then verificationism

might well present itself as an alternative.

V carnap’s response to husserl

The system of the Aufbau follows that of Husserl’s

Ideen. That is true on the level of terminology

(e.g., Erlebnis, Ding ) and of gross structure

(e.g., nature, soul, Geist). But we are now in a




The Aufbau hierarchy is, as Carnap explicitly

says, a hierarchy of ‘‘modes of being.’’49 It begins

with a temporal series of fundamental objects,

and the problem is, given objects of that kind,

how to get to further kinds at higher levels.

In other words, it is an A-edition system of thesame kind as Husserl’s, not a B-edition system

like Natorp’s.

Not that Carnap has been reading only Husserl,

of course: as the bibliography makes clear, he has

been reading many things, Natorp among them.

And, Carnap being who he is, there are attempts in

the Aufbau to treat Natorp tolerantly – to find an

interpretation of him according to which Carnap

can agree with much of what he says and disagree

politely with the rest. In particular, and as othershave noted, the attempt to show that scientific

statements are ‘‘structural’’ does bear some

relationship to neo-Kantian projects.50 Moreover,

Carnap maintains that his constitutional system

is neutral on the distinction between systems of

concepts and systems of objects (x 5, 5), which

sounds like (and is probably intended to sound

like) a declaration of neutrality on the A vs. B

dichotomy we have explored above. Nevertheless,

I think such nods towards neo-Kantianism aresuperficial. Without going into the details here,

we can at least see a good indication of that

from Carnap’s treatment of the issue at hand,

namely the infinitely determinable object ¼ X.

Recall that Carnap presents his view as a

rejection of Natorp’s. That is puzzling on two

accounts. First, if we were to take seriously the

idea that the Aufbau system is supposed to

parallel Natorp’s, we should understand the

constitutional levels of the system as progressive

determinations of the object. But there is no

indication that the series of such levels must come

to an end, and, indeed, there is good reason to

think that it does not. Michael Friedman, noticing

this, has remarked that, on the Aufbau system

carefully considered, ‘‘the Marburg doctrine of

the never completed ‘X’ turns out to be correct,

after all, at least so far as physical [. . .] objects

are concerned.’’51 Second, however, and more

fundamentally, this identification of the series

of constitutional levels with the series of deter-

minations of the X is incorrect, as is especially

that Carnap gives for rejecting the doctrine of

infinite determinability is that a finite number

of ‘‘indicators’’ (Kennzeichen) are always suffi-

cient, given a proper constitutional definition, to

determine whether an object is present. ‘‘If such

a designation [Kennzeichnung ] is in place, then

the object is no longer an X, but rather some-

thing univocally determined, whose complete

description then still remains, to be sure, an

unfulfillable task’’ (x 179L, 253). What is meant

by a Kennzeichen here is something like a mark

or feature by which a particular object can

be identified – for example, the identification

of a cobra (Brillenschlange) by the pattern of

broken eyeglasses (Brillen) on its head, or of the

Feldberg by its height and position (x 49, 69;x 13,16). But such identifying marks or features

have nothing in common with Natorp’s series

of a priori determinations of the absolute object.

They do, however, have everything in common

with Husserl’s ‘‘determinations,’’ which are

precisely marks or features of the posited object.

According to Husserl, a finite series of them is

never sufficient to establish that a given transcen-

dent object is present; what is ‘‘properly’’

(eigentlich) seen always falls short of what isposited. To this Carnap replies that, however

much beyond mere perception we may use in

identifying an object, it must be the case, if we are

using language scientifically and responsibly, that

we can go back and give a finite basis for our

identification. A botanist, like the rest of us, will

likely establish the presence of a certain tree – say,

a tree of a certain species – ‘‘intuitively,’’ which is

to say: the botanist’s actual psychological process

does not involve first recognizing the indicatorsof a certain species, then deducing that

(by definition) it must be present. But

the intuitive recognition [. . .] can be of use in

further scientific development [Verarbeitung ]

only because it also is possible to state the

indicators [. . .] explicitly, to compare them

with the perception, and thus to justify the

intuition rationally. (x 100, 139)52

In order to isolate such indicators,

The botanist must ask himself, in reconstruct-

stone



experienced [erlebte] recognition was the

properly [eigentlich] seen, and what in it

was apperceptive processing [Verarbeitung ]?

(Ibid.)

The constitutional system is supposed to accom-plish this same task on a grander scale: it is

‘‘a rational reconstruction of the entire, for the

most part intuitively performed, construction

[Aufbau] of science’’ (ibid.). Hence the fiction

involved in rational reconstruction is not supposed

to be an arbitrary one – not, as Quine puts it, mere

‘‘make-believe.’’53 The system does not, of course,

aim ‘‘to reproduce the cognitive process in all its

parts’’: just as the botanist would not include every

mark by which a species can be recognized, it

includes only so many of the relationships among

experiences ‘‘as are required for one to be able, in

principle, to constitute actuality from them.’’54

That selection is indeed arbitrary (it makes no

sense to ask whether the right indicators have been

chosen, out of the many possibilities). But that

much, also, is mere selectiveness, not fiction. The

fiction – the deviation of the reconstructed story

from the actual psychological process – is not

arbitrary at all: it is precisely the fiction that,

in recognizing the object, we begin with what we

really, actually, ‘‘properly’’ see: with a closed finite

series of the eigentlich Gesehene. The rational

reconstruction is supposed to show that, under

that fictional assumption, it would still be possible

to erect the whole structure of actuality, and to do

so rationally: in the constitutional system, in

other words, ‘‘intuitive knowledge is replaced by

discursive reasoning’’ (x 54, 74).

But what is the point of showing this, given

that, as is clear even in the Aufbau, we do not

normally have the whole series of indicators in

hand to make some identification with absolute

certainty?55 To explain the full significance of

this would take us too far afield into Carnap’s

motivations, but it is easy enough to see the

immediate point: namely, that if a finite series

of determinations – one I can in principle expect

to check for during my finite future – is sufficient,

in principle, to establish the presence of some

external object, then I am entitled now to claim

(or ‘‘posit’’) the presence of that object without

found in the data. The point, in other words, is

to show that the object is not, in Husserl’s sense,

a mere infinitely determinable X, which is in

principle only ever posited inadequately and

provisionally, i.e., as in inadequate correspon-

dence with a Kantian idea found in the realm

of pure consciousness.

Given the details of Husserl’s system, it is

relatively easy to see why Carnap would want

to refute his view on this particular point.

If objects of any level can in principle be

adequately given, then the difference in mode of

being between pure consciousness and external

objects is no longer particularly fundamental.56

If the verificationist principle is correct, however,

then it must be the case that every object can beadequately given, because we cannot even

meaningfully refer to something for which we

are in principle unwilling to produce finite

indicators. But note that the strict form of

verificationism – the form which is tied to strict

reductionism – is not central to this motivation.

The key is ‘‘rational reconstruction’’: that is, the

demonstration that finite, discursive knowers,

who – in a context of justification, at least –

ought in principle to begin with a finite seriesof data, with a finite stretch of the eigentlich

Gesehene, can nevertheless have a right to all

our scientific positings, without recourse to

any supersensible idea of necessity. Thus when

Carnap comes, later, to feel that the strict

verificationist principle has failed, he turns natu-

rally to a consideration of less strict ways in which

such a discursive knower might

gain a right to posit determinate

objects of experience: he turns,that is, to a consideration of

inductive logic.

notes

1 Rudolf Carnap, Der logische Aufbau der Welt, 4th

ed. (Hamburg: Meiner, 1974) x 179L, 253.

(This edition is identical to the original one of

1928 except for a new foreword added in 1961

and a new note and supplemental bibliography

added in1966.)

2 See the conditions on LO in‘‘The Methodological




Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1 (1956): 41^42:

observability of primitives, explicit definability of

other terms, existence of a finitemodel, construc-

tivism, extensionality.

3 ‘‘Epistemology Naturalized’’ in Ontological

Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia

UP,1969) 71^72.

4 See Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways:

Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (Chicago and La

Salle, IL: Open Court, 2000); ‘‘Carnap’s Aufbau

Reconsidered’’ in Reconsidering Logical Positivism

(New York: Cambridge UP, 1999) 89^113;

‘‘Epistemology in the Aufbau’’ in idem 114 ^ 62;

Alan Richardson, Carnap’s Construction of the World:

The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism

(New York: Cambridge UP, 1998); Werner Sauer,‘‘Carnaps Aufbau in kantianischer Sicht,’’ Grazerphi-

losophische Studien 23 (1985):19^35.

5 See Aufbau, Foreword to 2nd ed., x.

6 For more discussion of Carnap’s response to

Husserl, see also, in addition to my own

‘‘Heidegger and Carnap on the Overcoming of

Metaphysics’’ (forthcoming), Verena Mayer,

‘‘Carnap und Husserl’’ in Science and Subjectivity:

The Vienna Circle and Twentieth Century Philosophy,

eds. David Bell and Wilhelm Vossenkuhl (Berlin:Akademie, 1992) 185^201; Alan Richardson, ‘‘The

Geometry of Knowledge: Lewis, Becker, Carnap

and the Formalization of Philosophy in the 1920s,’’

Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 34

(2003): 175; and ‘‘Conceiving, Experiencing, and

Conceiving Experiencing: Neo-Kantianism and

the History of the Concept of Experience,’’ Topoi

22 (2003): 66, n. 5; Sahorta Sarkar,‘‘Husserl’s Role

in Carnap’s Der Raum’’ in Language, Truth and

Knowledge: Contributions to the Philosophy of Rudolf

Carnap, ed. Thomas Bonk (Boston: Kluwer, 2003); Jean-Michel Roy, ‘‘Carnap’s Husserlian Reading of

the Aufbau’’ in Carnap Brought Home, eds.

Steve Awodey and Carsten Klein (Chicago: Open

Court, 2004) 41^62.

7 Ideenzueinerreinen Pha«nomenologie und pha«nome-

nologischen Philosophie [1922], 2nd ed. (reprint,

Tu «bingen: Niemeyer,1993).

8 See Karl Schuhmann, Husserl Chronik

(The Hague: Nijhoff,1977) 281.

9 The intended publication never took place.

The text has since appeared as ‘‘Kant und die Idee

Philosophie: Erster Teil: Kritische Ideengeschichte,

Husserliana 7, ed. Rudolf Boehm (The Hague:

Nijhoff,1956) 230 ^ 87.

10 Cf. Friedman, Parting of theWays 72, where the

‘‘serial or stepwise methodological sequence’’ of

the Aufbau is taken as evidence of its Marburg

roots.

11 Including to many lesser known figures who get

mentioned in the Aufbau öe.g., Theodor Ziehen

and Hans Driesch (see x 3, 3). Cf. C. Ulises

Moulines, ‘‘Hintergru « nde der Erkenntnistheorie

des fru «hen Carnap,’’ Grazer philosophische Studien

23 (1985):10.

12 See, for example, Enzyklopa«die der philoso-

phischen Wissenschaften (1830) (Hamburg: Meiner,1991) x 239A,195.

13 See especially Brentano’s Von der mannigfachen

Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (Freiburg:

Herder,1862).

14 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. Raymund Schmidt,

3rd ed., Philosophische Bibliothek, vol. 37a

(Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1990) (henceforth KrV).

A99.

15 Natorp, Die logischen Grundlagen der exaktenWissenschaften (Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner,

1910) 292.

16 Natorp, Allgemeine Psychologie nach kritischer

Methode, Erstes Buch: Objekt und Methode der

Psychologie (Tu «bingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1912) 78, 80.

Both Erfahrung and Erlebnis are normally

translated as ‘‘experience.’’ But Kant exclusively

uses the first term (and in fact the noun Erlebnis is

apparently not attested until after Kant: for some

discussion of its history, see Hans-Georg

Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzu «ge einer

philosophischen Hermeneutik, 3rd ed. (Tu «bingen:

Mohr-Siebeck, 1975) 60^ 66). Natorp uses

Erlebnis in approximately the way indicated in the

text; Husserl, as we will see, uses it in a

different sense.

17 Grundlagen iv.

18 For the systemof logical Grundfunktionen as the

‘‘development’’ (Entwicklung) of the primordial

Grundakt, see 49^52. (Entwicklung is a characteris-

tically Hegelian term in this context.)

Kant’s procedure in the metaphysical deduction

stone



judgments for granted and derives the categories

from it) is criticized, but dismissed as inessential

to his method, on 43^ 44.

19 Grundlagen 63^ 64.The three-step process sup-

posedly at work here is to all intents and

purposes the three-step method of Hegelianlogic.The first demand of thought is, in each case,

‘‘thatone mustin any case say A,’’ but the second is

that ‘‘because one says A, one must then also

say B’’ ^ a B which is not simply other to the A,

but rather ‘‘its other’’ (55). There then follows

a third demand, for a ‘‘continuity of thought, in

which the cases formerly distinguished as A and

non-A again unite under a higher point of view

[Betrachtung]’’ (218). But the ‘‘appearance of a

closed connected whole’’ (Schein des geschlossenen

Zusammenhanges) which arises in this way‘‘is always again sublated’’ (hebt sich immer wieder

auf ) (93). Thus the process of thought itself is

superordinate to its ‘‘individual stations’’; ‘‘every

posited endpoint becomes again the starting

point of a new [. . .] step along the way of thought’’

(50). The primordial law of logic is the law of

this ‘‘process’’or ‘‘method’’ (14 ^15).

20 See especially Grundlagen 86 ^ 87. For Kant’s

statement in this respect, see KrV A219/B266

(to which Natorp alludes at Grundlagen 84).

21 Enzyklopa«die x 243,196.

22 Ibid. x93,112.

23 Grundlagen 166, 168, 51, 69.

24 ‘‘The fundamental concept of philosophy [. . .]

depends on it’’ (Enzyklopa«die x 95A,114).

25 Allgemeine Psychologie 62.

26 Ibid. 227.

27 Ibid.; Grundlagen 40 ^ 42, 36.

28 Grundlagen 32^33; Allgemeine Psychologie 1, 66.

29 See especially Grundlagen 41; see also

Grundlagen 15, 33, 47, 96; Allgemeine Psychologie, loc.

cit.

30 See Grundlagen v.

31 See especially Natorp’s description of Galileo’s

work (358^ 60); also, what he says about the

‘‘a priori character’’ of the principle that ‘‘every

event in nature must be represented as a mere transfer [Wanderung] of ‘energy’’’ (354).

33 I will leave both of these terms untranslated.

The English word ‘‘thing’’ is unsuited to such a

limited technical role: it sounds incoherent to say

‘‘not everything is a thing.’’ (Cf. the confusion

caused by this in Russell, Our Knowledge of the

External World as a Field for Scientific Method inPhilosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 1915) 89, 213.)

On Erlebnis, see above, n.16.

34 See Ideen I, x136, 282^ 85.

35 See Ideen I, x 88, 213^16; x 96, 199^200. For a

somewhat more detailed discussion of the

components of the Erlebnisse and their role in

empirical synthesis, see my ‘‘On Husserl and

Cavellian Scepticism,’’ Philosophical Quarterly

50 (2000): 11 18. A much more detailed discussion

is to be found in my dissertation, ‘‘On Husserland Cavellian Skepticism, With Reference to the

Thomistic Theory of Creation’’ (Harvard, 2000):

see especially x 3.3, 63^ 81.

36 For ‘‘sense’’ and ‘‘core’’ (which are technically

not quite the same) see Ideen I, x130, 269^70;

x 132, 273; and cf. x91,189.

37 Often (e.g., x 85, 171^75), Husserl uses ‘‘noesis’’

more narrowly, to refer specifically to the second,

interpretative subcomponent. See also Husserl’s

marginal note to x 88, published as Appendix 51 to the Husserliana edition of Ideen I, ed. Karl

Schuhmann, and (in English) in Ideas Pertaining to a

Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological

Philosophy: First Book, trans. F. Kersten (Boston:

Kluwer,1982) 213, n. 2.

38 See again Ideen I, x136, 282^ 85.

39 For the correlation of rationality and actuality

or being, see x135, 280 ^ 81; x 142, 295^97; for the

positingray, see x 92,192.

40 See x 38, 68^ 69; x 45, 83; x 83,167; x 144, 298.

41 See x 78,150.

42 ‘‘Kant und die Idee der

Transzendentalphilosophie’’ 283.

43 There are actually various kinds of founded

positing, only one of which is directly relevant

here. This is not the place to go into all the

details of Husserl’s very complex system.

See Ideen I, x93, 193^94; x x 116^19, 238 ^ 49 (note

the reference to the Logische Untersuchungen 248,

n. 1); x 148, 308; also, Ideen zu einer reinen




zweites Buch: Pha«nomenologische Untersuchungen zur

Konstitution, ed. Marly Biemel, Husserliana 4

(The Hague: Nijhoff,1952) x x 4 ^9, 4 ^21.

44 Ideen I, x17, 32; Ideen II, x14, 32.

45 Ideen I, x131, 271.

46 See Aristotle, Ph. 1.6.189a21 26; Plotinus,

Enn. 6.8.3.12^20.

47 KrVA104.

48 Ideen I, x143, 297^98.

49 Aufbau x 42, 57.

50 See especially x16, 20^21 and x x153^55,

204^09.

51 Parting oftheWays 84.

52 The sense of Verarbeitung here is difficult to

reproduce in English. Carnap uses the same term,

in the following quotation, for the ‘‘processing’’

of the given into objects by the synthetic

components of consciousness. Carnap is suggest-

ing, or rather taking for granted, that the use

of observations about plants, say, in the develop-

ment of higher level scientific classifications

and theories is similar to, or is a continuation of,

that ‘‘processing.’’

53 ‘‘Epistemology Naturalized’’ 75.

54 Aufbau x101,140.

55 This is clear because the constitutional defini-

tions of the Aufbau are all based on the fiction of

‘‘temporal separation of the given from its proces-

sing [Verarbeitung]’’ (x101, 139), i.e., on the fiction

that all of the data (the entire finite series corres-

ponding to the subject’s finite lifetime) are already

in. (Eigentlichkeit requires being-towards-death.)

56 In fact, from a certain technical point of

view there is then really only one realm of objects.

See Aufbau x 4, 4, and see my dissertation,

‘‘On Husserl and Cavellian Skepticism’’ 191, n. 272;

also my ‘‘Heidegger and Carnap’’ (forthcoming).

Abraham D. Stone

Department of Philosophy

University of California Santa Cruz

1156 High Street

Santa Cruz, CA 95064USA

stone



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continental origins of verificationism