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From institution to critique

Husserl’s concept of teleology

Timo Miettinen

Abstract: In the context of Husserlian phenomenology, the concept of teleology is best known

from Husserl’s late works. The concept itself, however, was already introduced as a part of his

early analyses of consciousness in which it referred to the synthetic or associative structure of

our conscious life. This chapter traces the development of the concept of teleology from

Husserl’s early static analyses to his later, genetic (or generative) analyses. I argue that the basic

sense of the concept of teleology remained the same; what changed was a new awareness of the

implications of teleology for philosophy itself. Husserl began to acknowledge the historical

situatedness of all thinking, and the concept that teleology played a key role in the rearticulation

of phenomenology as historical critique. To say that our present is teleological means that it

depends on a number of conceptual and normative choices that we have inherited as part of our

historical situation. By doing so, Husserl’s concept of teleology differed quite radically from the

historical teleology of German idealism. Instead of a deterministic concept signifying the

inevitable progress of historical development, the phenomenological concept of teleology was to

be understood as a fundamentally critical tool of philosophical reflection.

Introduction

Teleology is a philosophical concept denoting goal-directedness and purposefulness. Although

the concept itself originated in the course of the eighteenth century, teleological explanations

already played a central role in Greek philosophy (Ariew 2002). Particularly in Aristotle’s works,

teleological structures and ideas extended from physics and cosmology to theology, from biology

to politics and ethics. The idea that both nature and human action can be understood with regard

to their internal purpose was a lasting legacy of Aristotelian thought. In the field of medicine, for

instance, teleological explanations of the roles and purposes of different organs stemming from

Aristotle dominated until the seventeenth century (French 1994).

The emergence of modern science, however, entailed a radical challenge to the

Aristotelian doctrine. In the works of Galileo and Newton, physical nature was stripped of its

teleological character and explained with the help of a more limited notion of cause and effect. In

the work of physiologist William Harvey (1578–1657), mechanistic and functional explanations

concerning the functioning of the heart, for instance, were seen as primary with regard to classic

Aristotelian-Galenic explanations on its final cause (Distelzweig 2014). According to a standard

view in the history of science, Darwin’s work on adaptability and natural selection denoted the

death blow for teleological explanations in biology (e.g., Ghiselin 1969). Darwin did not,

however, destroy teleological language altogether (Lennox 2010). In the field of natural sciences,

however, it is used primarily in a descriptive rather than in an explanatory sense (Ayala 1977).

In the course of the nineteenth century, the concept of teleology found a new home in

human history (Nisbet 1980). As purpose could no longer be attributed to nature-as-mechanism,

teleological explanations began to dominate what Immanuel Kant called “history a priori,” that

is, those general laws that govern the development of universal history. Kant himself spoke of a

hidden teleology behind worldly events that are often chaotic by nature (Kant 2007, 109). For

Hegel, the whole of human history was to be interpreted as the gradual unfolding of the

substance of reality, i.e., spirit (Geist). History was to be conceived as a teleological process with

regard to the goal of history, i.e., freedom, ultimately reaching its high point in republican

societies and the French Revolution (Hegel 1975). For these thinkers, concepts of providence

and theodicy demonstrated why the course of history had been just and righteous.

Husserl inherited the notion of teleology particularly from the most influential

philosophical schools of his time, i.e., neo-Kantianism. For the neo-Kantians, teleology had

become a central analytic concept, not only for historical explanations but for a theory of

science, particularly logic (see Beiser 2014). As Wilhelm Windelband, a key representative of

the so-called Baden School, argued in his programmatic essay “Critical or Genetic Method?”

logical axioms contain a teleological function as they govern the purposeful action of knowing

(Windelband 2015a). Logic, the science of norms of thinking, is what must be followed in order

to attain knowledge in the scientific sense. In distinction to the “genetic method” that is focused

on the factual history of different norms—for instance, the development of norms in different

cultures—it is only the “critical method” that can attain true knowledge on the universal validity

of our concepts, ideas, and norms.

In the Prolegomena to his early work Logical Investigations, Husserl broadened this

understanding of teleology to cover the whole development of science. Instead of a simple

accumulation of knowledge, science was to be understood in terms of a “unity of foundational

connections” (Husserl 2001a, 18) that point towards the idea of truth in its full sense. In this

regard, science has a “teleological sense” in the attainment of knowledge (Husserl 2001a, 24), a

goal that is fundamentally ideal. What Husserl later analyzed as the foundational “crisis of

science” (e.g., Husserl 1970, 3) was exactly the loss of such an ideal in a situation where

individual sciences could no longer be unified under such a task.[1]

The role of teleology, however, was not restricted to sciences only. For Husserl, the

concept of teleology played a key role in his attempt to broaden the scope of transcendental

phenomenology from the 1920s onwards to also cover the temporal development of being,

thinking, and sense. What Husserl analyzed under the heading of “genetic phenomenology”

(Steinbock 1998) concerned not only different forms of cognition (e.g., thinking, acting, willing)

or meaning, but the process of their becoming in accordance with a teleological structure. In

addition to the theory of the transcendental subject, Husserl was able to open up a whole new

domain of the transcendental person as a temporally developing being. More importantly,

phenomenology itself was to be rethought with regard to an idea of philosophical reflection that

develops in history and that is passed on to us. This is what Husserl, particularly in his late work

The Crisis, called the method or the “way” of “teleological-historical reflection” (Husserl 1970,

3).

This chapter focuses on the concept of teleology in Husserl’s work. I trace the concept of

teleology particularly through three different phases: (1) static phenomenology; (2) genetic

phenomenology; and (3) the teleological-historical reflections of Husserl’s late writings. In my

view, teleology emerged first in the context of Husserl’s static analyses of consciousness in

which it related to the unified structure of our conscious life. Experience is teleological, because

it aims at the constitution of unified objects and a coherent reality. Husserl’s genetic analyses

broadened this perspective by discussing the development of consciousness itself in teleological

terms. At the same time, Husserl introduced the vocabulary of “institutions” to describe and

analyze the temporal continuity of different acts and the permanence of experience itself. Lastly,

Husserl began to discuss the very idea of philosophy in teleological terms, as relying on the

“original institution” of philosophical reason in Greek thought. The principle of

self-responsibility characteristic of the phenomenological method necessitated a renewed relation

to historical presuppositions. This meant that, unlike for German idealism, teleology was to be

understood as a fundamentally critical tool of philosophical reflection.

Teleologies of experience

One of the central features of Husserl’s concept of teleology was the inherent formality of this

notion. Unlike for many naturalist philosophers, teleology was not to be conceived as a material

principle of organization and development as in the case of biological ontogenesis (e.g., from

fertilization to full organism). Instead, teleology played a central role as an ideal category of

organization that characterizes both ideal meanings as well as the formation of consciousness.

Both cognition as well as knowledge itself can be understood according to a teleological

structure whereby they point towards an idea of full realization, containing within themselves a

history of development. To use a simple example, my individual perceptions of different sides of

an object have their teleological goal in the constitution of a full object (Husserl 1983, 208).

Already in Ideas I, Husserl rejected the interpretation, according to which teleology

should be seen as a transcendent principle of organization in the manner of German idealism,

particularly Kant and Hegel (Husserl 1983, 116). Instead of a providential force, teleology was to

be seen as an internal principle of rationality—the “form of all forms” (Husserl 1973, 380, my

translation)—on the basis of which we constitute the common world. This entails, however, that

my consciousness is able to combine these individual perceptions and link them with one

another. Teleology has a close link to what Husserl called “synthesis,” that is, our ability to

associate things in a systematic fashion.

Teleology was not restricted solely to cognitive capacities, but it was also something that

plays a role in the spheres of action and valuing. Ethics, for instance, was to be conceived as a

science of the individual and its social possibilities (Husserl 2012, 177). In acting ethically, we

do not pursue only things, but a better version of ourselves: we want to act according to better

justifications, better evidence, stronger responsibility, and greater transparency. This idea of

perfect knowledge, Husserl writes, is in essential connection with the ideas of perfect

consciousness and the perfect world (Husserl 1988, 276–277).

The concept of teleology gained a new, heightened relevance after the introduction of the

so-called genetic method at the end of the 1910s (see Steinbock 1998; Husserl 2001b, 624–645;

Miettinen 2014). Prior to this, Husserl had understood transcendental philosophy in a Kantian

manner, as a study of the a priori, necessary structures of conscious life that are constitutive for

any possible experience of transcendence, simply the world. Instead of Kantian deduction,

however, these ideal structures were to be understood and discovered on the basis of intuition or

eidetic variation: from experience rather than reason. This still entailed, however, that Husserl

approached these transcendental structures as unchangeable or static.

With the help of the genetic method—complementary to “static phenomenology”

(Husserl 2001a, 629)—Husserl was able to broaden the scope of this research by investigating

the dynamic relations of these structures and the forms of experience. “The continuity of the

mind is a continuity of influences, a connection of development,” Husserl wrote, “and it is

dominated by an analytically demonstrable immanent teleology” (Husserl 1977, 6, my

translation). Even transcendental structures are defined by relations of foundation and

succession, and they can be approached on the basis of a genetic analysis.

The teleological structure of experience had its foundation in what Husserl called

“passive synthesis” (Husserl 2001b, 106–120). With this notion, Husserl was referring to the

associative structure of our consciousness that orders the “flow” of experience without our active

participation. Passive synthesis was to be understood as a foundational mechanism for active

synthesis in which the ego consciously directs its attention to particular objects, a particular

activity, and so on. Husserl spoke of an “affective allure” (e.g., Husserl 2001b, 210) that forms

the basis for our attentive relation to the world. Instead of raw data, the sphere of passivity was to

be understood as dominated by associative or synthetic structures such as similarity, uniformity,

contrast, and gradation. Before we turn our attention, for instance, to a particular melody, our

consciousness has been captivated by the affective experience of hearing sounds, associating,

and separating them. The constitution of unity has its foundation in the associative character of

consciousness.

This entailed a radical distention of the Kantian concept of the transcendental (Heinämaa,

Hartimo, and Miettinen 2014, 8–15). To say that constitutive structures and categories are “born”

in a particular moment of time seemed to compromise the Kantian definition according to which

transcendental structures are a priori valid and necessary. For Husserl, however, the idea of

apriority did not entail strict necessity in a logical or material sense. It meant that a particular

structure is the same in the case of all possible forms of consciousness and it can be grasped

regardless of its particular instantiation. As contemporary studies of affective dysfunctions have

shown, the constitution of objective unities on the basis of affective stimuli is by no means a

natural necessity (Giersch and Mishara 2017[KW1] ). Schizophrenic patients, for instance, are

sometimes completely unable to constitute temporal continuums. Genetic investigation on the

teleology of experience can help us to provide a richer picture of those conditions on the basis of

which we constitute the common world.

Teleology, however, is not only a process that would characterize transcendental

conditions and their development. Even more importantly, the way we give meaning to reality is

itself characterized by teleological structures such as anticipation and expectation, recollection

and remembrance. Husserl employed the term “institution” (Stiftung, sometimes translated as

“instauration” or “establishment”) to characterize this process of meaning-giving that takes place

in a horizon of expectation and recollection (e.g., Husserl 1968, 462–463). Although the concept

of “institution” does not perhaps carry within itself an explicit temporal horizon, the verb stiften

certainly does, and Husserl begins to employ it only from the late 1910s onwards parallel to the

development of the genetic method. Accordingly, the concept of Stiftung was actually introduced

in parallel with a family of notions from “original institution” (Urstiftung) to “re-institution”

(Nachstiftung), “new institution” (Neustiftung) and “transformatory institution” (Umstiftung), all

of which refer to the transformation of sense in temporal context (Husserl 1977, 162–165;

Husserl 1992, 3–5). Hence, with the concept of “institution,” Husserl was thus able to open up a

new domain of temporal genesis of sense.

As Husserl writes in Ideas II, every original “act” of giving meaning is thus an

“institution” (Husserl 1989, 324). As I familiarize myself for the first time with an object or a

thing—for instance, as I learn to identify a particular mushroom—I perform what Husserl calls

an “original institution.” By doing so, I create a lasting validity (Geltung) or a meaning that stays

with me and serves as a reference for future experience. When encountering a similar mushroom,

I do not create the meaning anew, but the original institution stays with me as a “permanent

possession.” To put it in more simple terms, “every ‘judgment’ [Meinung] is an institution”

(Husserl 1989, 120), something that gives my experience a sense of directedness.

Of course, our judgments and convictions do not always stay the same. I may learn that

what I thought to be a delicious mushroom is poisonous after all. I may learn that they are used

not only for food but for medical purposes. I might learn about their role in a particular religion,

etc. In all of these cases, the original institution undergoes a transformation, but not in the sense

that I would simply do away with all the previous judgments I have made. Rather, all of these

transformations of the original institution are actually understandable with regard to a particular

teleological structure. They are all iterations of meaning within a particular horizon of

expectations (“I can use x for the purpose of y”).

In many of his later writings, Husserl called this process “sedimentation”

(Sedimentierung) (see Husserl 1970, 361–362). As a category of genetic phenomenology, the

concept referred to the dynamic development and transformation of sense that takes place

through the accumulation of different acts or institutions. The living body (Leib), for instance, is

essentially a sedimented collection of institutions that manifest themselves in the form of habits,

conventions, and attitudes (Husserl 2006, 345). Here, passivity is an important element: the

ability to read, the craving to smoke, and the fear of heights are all examples of sedimented or

“habituated” institutions whose validity does not rest on active confirmation.

Through sedimentation, our institutions can also lose their intuitive content. There is

often a feeling that I have had good reasons for doing things in a certain way, but these reasons

are no longer evident to me. This phenomenon of mannerism is particularly striking in the case

of language. We normally resort to certain words, expressions, ways of formulating sentences,

etc., without really reflecting on why we do so. We use phrases and clichés unintentionally. This

is because language is not only an active instrument of communicating meaning based on

evidence, but a sedimented history of symbolic intentions defined by convention and repetition.

Despite the original act of institution—we have all learned the language and used it for

expressing our needs—we often use it in an empty sense. This is what Husserl called the

“seduction of language” (Verführung der Sprache), our tendency of falling “into a kind of talking

and reading that is dominated purely by association” (Husserl 1970, 361). We simply go with the

flow.

I am emphasizing this point because the ideas of sedimentation and forgetting played a

central role in Husserl’s understanding of the teleology of reason and science. On the one hand,

Husserl understood the teleology of human reason as a universal task of humankind in its desire

to know more, discover new things, function according to better evidence (Husserl 1973,

593–597). At the same time, the concrete shape this striving took in the form of (European)

science was defined by a series of oblivions. Modern Galilean science, in particular, was defined

by a fundamental forgetting of the concrete experiential origin of its basic concepts such as

space, movement, and time (Husserl 1970, 49). This was not to say that the modern sciences

would not progress; they do, only at the cost of losing their unity and ultimate source of evidence

in experience.

Teleology and generativity

Husserl’s late works such as the The Crisis were defined by an increased interest in the problem

of history. This interest manifested itself in at least two regards: experience and method. With the

introduction of genetic phenomenology, Husserl began to analyze those structures of experience

that constitute our sense of belonging to history. Under the title of “generativity” (Generativität),

Husserl broadened the scope of his understanding of transcendental subjectivity to include the

“experiences” of birth and death as liminal phenomena (Husserl 1960, 142; see also Husserl

1970, 188–189). This meant that Husserl was able to discuss a conception of subjectivity that is

also defined by a sense of inheritance or “appropriation” (übernehmen) of culture: I am born into

a world and a historical community that has existed before myself. Being historical is essentially

about realizing this dependence on the “immanent teleology” of transcendental intersubjectivity

(Husserl 1973, 380).

Second, the concept and idea of history also played a central part in Husserl’s

re-articulation of the phenomenological method. Against his earlier understanding of

phenomenology as a fundamentally ahistorical, Cartesian type of self-reflection into the essential

structures of experience, Husserl began to emphasize the role of history as a necessary starting

point for phenomenological research. Nobody begins to philosophize from a clean slate, but our

ways of understanding and articulating phenomena are deeply rooted in historical

presuppositions (Husserl 1970, 372). Thus, in order to understand ourselves and our prejudices

more concretely, we need a better grasp of our historical situation. This is what Husserl, in his

introductory remarks to the The Crisis, called “teleological-historical reflection upon the origins

of our critical scientific and philosophical situation” (Husserl 1970, 3).

It is important to note that this so-called “historic way” (Husserl 1992, 425–426) that

Husserl introduced in his late works was to be understood as complementary to rather than

substitutive of his earlier, Cartesian approach. At the heart of this transition was the increased

importance of the idea of the lifeworld as a historically developing “horizon” of experience

(Husserl 1989, 384–386). Husserl understood the role of the lifeworld in a double sense, both as

a correlate and as a condition of experience. We constitute ourselves a lifeworld that is historical,

cultural, and communal—while, at the same time, ourselves being a part of that world. This

paradox of subjectivity, as Husserl called it, opened up a series of new topics of investigation and

a new type of reorientation with regard to the concept of teleology (Husserl 1970, 178–181). In

addition to the teleology of experience characteristic of genetic phenomenology, Husserl began

to investigate the teleological development of a lifeworld in the course of history: How is the

lifeworld demarcated? How does it acquire for itself a normative specificity?

Husserl’s increased interest in the idea of Europe was a result of this transition. Although

Husserl’s starting point was the topical crisis of European culture—the total degradation of

European morality and politics after the First World War—he insisted that this crisis was a result

of a more fundamental decline of European humanity and its characteristic rationality (Miettinen

2020). Scientific reason in particular had lost its critical and ethical functions, and it was

completely unable to serve as a source of moral and political renewal. This development,

however, could only be understood on the basis of teleological inspection:

The “crisis of European existence”, which manifests itself in countless symptoms of a corrupted

life, is not an obscure fate nor an impenetrable destiny. Instead, it becomes manifestly

understandable against the background of the philosophically discoverable teleology of European

history […]

Husserl 1970, 299

For Husserl, Europe was a culture of scientific reason. Its “original institution” (Urstiftung),

however, was not to be located in the establishment of the scientific method in modern times but

in the emergence of Greek philosophy in the Classical era (Husserl 1970, 12). This event,

Husserl argued, constituted the birth of “spiritual Europe” and its particular “spiritual form”

(Husserl 1970, 273). Despite the fact that the history of Europe was not one of steady

progression of reason of science, Husserl insisted that there is an “entelechy [that] is inborn in

our European civilization which holds sway throughout all the changing shapes of Europe”

(Husserl 1970, 275), thus giving this culture a sense of development and direction.

What was the philosophical Urstiftung all about? To put it briefly, philosophy entailed a

radical transformation in the ideas of individual rationality, culture, and communality. With

regard to the individual, philosophy gave way to a completely new type of self-responsibility

defined by a radical critique of the tradition, a “life in reason” guided by the demand for best

possible evidence. A philosopher must, in all circumstances, be fully responsible for his

convictions, actions, and values. To secure this principle of constant self-critique, philosophy

gave way to a completely new class of objects, the ideas (Husserl 1970, 277–279). A key

principle of this domain was its fundamental inexhaustibility with regard to all particular

articulations. Concepts such as truth, good, or justice were now defined in terms of unattainable

ideals that serve as points of reference for our actions but that can never be fully exhausted in

concrete action. For this reason, philosophy was to be understood in terms of an “infinite task”

(Husserl 1970, 279).

Husserl called this principle “teleological idealism” (Husserl 2012, 36). Not only did it

create a completely new type of perspective for knowledge but a radically new horizon for

cultural and communal development. This horizon is perhaps best understood with the help of

the concept of universalism. Through its inexhaustible teleological horizon, philosophy was able

to formulate a conception of culture that was not based on ethnic demarcations nor the authority

of a tradition, but on the idea of a shared task. Philosophy emerged as a critique of traditional

limits of culture and community (family, state, etc.), and it invited everyone to join its

realization. At the same time, it was able to create such a horizon of infinite goals that are only

partially achieved in concrete action.[2]

Here, it is important to pay attention to the peculiarity of Husserl’s concept of historical

teleology. We can pay attention to at least two competitive models of historical development that

dominated academic debate on the course and direction of history in Husserl’s time (see Kidambi

2012). The first, stemming from the eschatological tradition of Augustine and others, was based

on the idea of teleology as a goal-oriented, linear process of fulfillment of a particular force of

history. In the modern times, this understanding was most clearly articulated by Hegel, for whom

the history of humankind unfolded itself as a gradual realization of spirit (Geist) and its internal

principle, freedom. For Hegel, history was conceived as a teleological process through which the

idea of freedom is realized in different societal and political institutions. Without the idea of a

clear end, however, this teleology would be simply inconceivable; for this reason, Hegel hinted

at the groundbreaking role of the French Revolution in the fulfillment of the purpose of history.

The second model of teleology, represented by figures such as Giambattista Vico, Nikolai

Danilevsky, and Oswald Spengler, was based on a different understanding of historical

development. For them, the history of humankind could be understood as a purposeful,

goal-oriented process. Instead of a linear development, however, this process was essentially

circular in nature. Spengler, for one, treated the development of all world-historical cultures as

following the same pattern of growth and decay from original, creative culture to one of

imitation and empty meanings. It was by no means a coincidence that the representatives of this

tradition relied on natural-scientific or organic metaphors in their attempts to analyze the

teleology of human history.

Husserl’s approach to the idea of teleology differed from both of these stances. For him,

the organic metaphors completely neglected the idea that the development of culture rests on the

passing forward of meanings and accomplishments that are fundamentally ideal. The material

processes of growth and decay do not concern accomplishments such as the Pythagorean

Theorem, Shakespeare’s sonnets, or the Federalist Papers. Of course, their meaning can be

emptied in the sense that we are no longer able to see their validity or relevance in a particular

moment of time. This process, however, differs radically from the kind of material decay of

organic bodies. Similarly, Husserl insisted that the existence of teleology did not mean that it

would have to be located in a particular historical moment as in the case of Hegel and the French

Revolution. As Husserl argued:

The spiritual telos of European humanity, in which the particular telos of particular nations and of

individual men is contained, lies in the infinite, is an infinite idea toward which, in concealment,

the whole spiritual becoming aims, so to speak.

Husserl 1970, 275

There are, however, points where Husserl seems to contradict his basic principle of

inexhaustibility. In delineating the history of philosophical reason, Husserl invoked the

teleological vocabulary of “institutions” to describe its concrete articulations and transformations

in history. The introduction of the transcendental motif in early modernity, for instance, was to be

understood as a radical “new institution” or re-establishment (Neustiftung) of philosophical

reason in humanity’s struggle to understand itself (Husserl 1970, 14). The hidden unity of this

process, Husserl argued, can only be understood and verified in the “final establishment”

(Endstiftung) of philosophy, which reveals the “hidden unity of intentional inwardness which

alone constitutes the unity of history” (Husserl 1970, 73). This final establishment, Husserl

hinted, was to be founded in phenomenological philosophy, which had brought within itself a

“total reorientation of the task of knowledge” (Husserl 1970, 298).

As Husserl was keen to emphasize, this finality was not to be taken in a strict sense as

denoting the end of philosophy. With phenomenology, Husserl argued, the transcendental motif

of modern philosophy had been given a firm methodological grounding in a way that was able to

close the door on naturalism and psychologism. It did not mean that the possibilities of

philosophical thinking would have been exhausted as such.

Teleology as critique

Still, according to an influential view proposed by Derrida, Husserl’s historical reflections

represented what he called an “arche-teleological” approach to the problem of European

humanity (Derrida 1992, 28; Derrida 2003). According to Derrida, Husserl fell victim to the

similar logic of inevitability that he was trying to overcome his ideas of openness and

inexhaustibility. With the concept of teleology, the history of Europe in particular was treated

from the “imminence of its end,” from modernist prejudices relating to its “exemplary” role in

world history (Derrida 1992, 33). It was Europe that had given birth to philosophy, and it was the

European history that was going to consummate it. In The Crisis, Husserl even seemed to

distinguish between Europe as defined by an “immanent teleology” (Derrida 2003, 157) and the

merely “empirical anthropological types” of China and India.

Derrida’s interpretation, however, was based on a significant misreading on the basis of

Paul Ricoeur’s 1949 article “Husserl et le sens de l’histoire” (Husserl and the Sense of History).

Husserl did not speak about Europe being the only culture defined by an “immanent teleology,”

as Derrida interpreted him. Rather, Husserl’s original formulation nur unserem Europa gleichsam

eingeborene Teleologie denoted literally a “teleology that is born only within our Europe”

(Husserl 1970, 273). In his view, the uniqueness of Europe’s historical development relied on the

specific pursuit of infinite ideas on the basis of a constant overturning of the tradition. Only in

Europe had the principle of universalism become a cultural force that defines its key

accomplishments from politics and religion to science and art. This is not to say that other

cultures would not contain an “immanent teleology”—rather, the idea of “infinite” teleology is

unique to Europe.

In consequence, Husserl’s reference to “empirical anthropological types” (Husserl 1970,

16) was not to be taken as a classification of a non-teleological culture. Instead, what Husserl

was describing was a difference in approach. From a phenomenological standpoint,

understanding the teleological structure of a particular person or a historical community means

that we need to somehow empathize with this person or community, to have a clear sense of its

historical development. If we lack this insight into institutions of meaning and how they have

come about in an ideal sense, we have nothing but empirical types or classifications. Teleology,

like other phenomenological concepts, require a first-person perspective.

It should also be emphasized that the privileged position Husserl gave to European

teleology did not depend on its seeming superiority with regard to other cultures. Rather,

Husserl’s interest in this idea was a result of a long intellectual struggle for a more

comprehensive understanding of the historical situatedness of philosophy itself (Husserl 1970,

392–395). It should be emphasized that in comparison to his earlier, rather personalistic approach

to the phenomenological method, Husserl’s later works (1970; 1992) seemed to be defined by the

first-person plural: “we, humans of the present” (Wir Menschen der Gegenwart) or

“contemporary philosophers” (heutige Philosophen). There was an explicit insistence to address

such as “the actual state of the present” (die faktische Gegenwartslage) and “our present

situation” (unsere Gegenwartssituation). Teleological investigation played a crucial role in

articulating a broader understanding of the various historical “presuppositions”

(Voraussetzungen) that belong to this present situation (Husserl 1970, 372). In one of his late

manuscripts, Husserl wrote:

We shall see that this lifeworld is nothing but the historical world. From here, it becomes

conceivable that a complete systematic introduction into phenomenology begins and is to be

carried through as a universal historical problem. If one introduces the epoché without the historic

framing, then the problem of the lifeworld, of universal history, remains unsolved. The

introduction in Ideas does in fact retain its right, but I now consider the historical way to be more

principal and systematic.

Husserl 1992, 426, my translation

Understanding phenomenology from the viewpoint of “teleological-historical” approach entailed

a significant challenge to the principle of “presuppositionlessness” that Husserl had introduced

already in his Logical Investigations. Unlike in Husserl’s early works (such as Ideas),

phenomenology could no longer execute itself by simply bracketing these presuppositions but

uncovering them through rigorous historical analysis. Through the teleological viewpoint, the

history of philosophy became not just an obstacle but a necessary introduction to

phenomenology itself (Husserl 1992, 415). But unlike for Kant and Hegel, for whom the concept

of teleology served the function of legitimation of the present, Husserl understood teleology as a

fundamentally critical instrument of philosophical reflection (Miettinen 2014; Aldea 2016). It is

only the teleological approach that can reveal our dependence on history, and at the same time, it

is only with the help of the concept of teleology that philosophy can become more than just a

historicist expression of a particular worldview or Zeitgeist (Carr 2016).

This demands, however, that we do not approach historical teleology in terms of a

ready-made narrative. Instead of a Kantian or Hegelian “novel” (Roman), teleology must be

understood in terms of a creative expression, a “poetic” construction (Dichtung) that we perform

anew in each historical situation (Husserl 1970, 394–396). In Husserl’s own time—and in his

own view—the crisis of European humanity was dependent on the all-embracing naturalization

of the spirit that was destroying the idea of self-responsibility and self-guidance as central parts

of our essence. In our own time, naturalism may still be a threat to radical philosophy. At the

same time, there is also a growing consciousness that traditional philosophy has been inadequate

in formulating a concept of responsibility that concerns not only ourselves and our fellow human

beings, but nature itself as a fundamental condition for the continuation of life itself. And it is

only through a teleological investigation that is rooted in the present moment that we are able to

unravel how our fundamental categories of humanity, world, and nature have come about

(Husserl 1970, 372–378; 1992, 399–403). “For a genuine history of philosophy,” Husserl writes,

“[…] is nothing other than the tracing of the historical structures of meaning given in the present,

or their self-evidences which underlie them” (Husserl 1970, 372, translation modified). This idea

of a critique of the present on the basis of the past, I believe, is a lasting legacy of Husserl’s late

“teleological-historical” approach.

Conclusion

As I have shown, Husserl’s concept of teleology played a central role in the different stages of

his phenomenological project. First, in the context of the early Logical Investigations, the

problem of teleology was discussed primarily in accordance with the neo-Kantian tradition and

its understanding of science as a teleological process. Husserl emphasized the need to combine

this understanding of the teleology of judgment with a more comprehensive analysis of the

teleology of experience itself. Accordingly, the problem of teleology was framed in terms of

constitutive capabilities of the experiencing subject. Second, with the introduction of genetic

phenomenology, Husserl was able to give a more comprehensive picture of this fundamental

teleology of experience. From passive synthesis to active institution of meaning, the genetic

analyses introduced a new temporal dimension of meaning-constitution (types of “institutions”)

and radically broadened the scope of classical transcendental philosophy.

Third, and in connection with Husserl’s late phenomenology of generativity, teleology

acquired for itself yet another dimension. In the context of Husserl’s “teleological-historical”

reflections in The Crisis, teleology became a central analytical category in understanding the

historical development or “transmittance” of philosophy and science. Husserl understood

philosophy in essentially teleological terms as the “primal institution” of the principles of

self-responsibility and critique in Greek philosophy and as the emergence of a completely new

horizon of teleological development under the guidance of ideas. Unlike for German idealism,

however, Husserl’s idea of historical teleology was to be understood as a fundamentally critical

tool of philosophical reflection, something that reveals our dependency on the past and its

presuppositions.

There is, however, yet another context that is relevant for Husserl’s way of using the

concept of teleology. This is the metaphysical context of his philosophy of monadology that is

central also to Husserl’s understanding of divinity. Already in Ideas I, Husserl spoke of a

“marvelous teleology” (Husserl 1983, 134) on the basis of which reason actualizes its essential

capacities in the world. The idea that reason has essential possibilities (such as philosophy and

self-critique) does not yet explain why these possibilities are realized in the first place. Why are

humans driven by curiosity? What is the source of this “absolute teleology”? Here, Husserl’s

answer was fundamentally metaphysical. “God is not himself the monadic universe,” Husserl

writes, “but the entelechy which is immanent to it as the idea of a telos of an infinite evolution,

of a humanity supported by absolute reason which necessarily governs monadic being and

governs it thanks to its own free decision” (Husserl 1973, 610).

Whether this idea still falls into the scope of transcendental phenomenology is of course a

controversial issue. What is certain is that the concept of teleology had important consequences

for Husserl’s realignment of his philosophical project, and it was an idea that took him to the

limits of his phenomenological method.[3]

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[1] As for some neo-Kantians, the natural and the human sciences were seen as moving in

two directions not only methodologically but also in regard to their goal.

Windelband, for one, made a distinction between the law-oriented, nomothetic

explanations in contrast to fact-oriented, ideographic sciences (Windelband

2015b). It seemed as if physics and history operated in parallel universes. For

Husserl, a teleological understanding of sciences—united by a common

task—was to be of central importance in overcoming this rift.

[2] On universalism in this context, see Marín-Ávila in this volume.

[3] This chapter has been written with the support of Academy of Finland funded Centre

of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives, funding decision

number 312430.