Handout Essence 1

7/30/2019 Handout Essence 1

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The phenomenological notion of “essence” – 13/03/2013

1. « At first “essence” designated what is to be found in the very own being of an individuum as the

What of an individuum. Any sich What can, however, be “put into an idea”. Experiencing, or intuition

of something individual can become transmuted into eidetic seeing (ideation) – a possibility which is itself

to be understood not as empirical, but as eidetic. What is seen when that occurs is the corresponding

pure essence, or Eidos, wheter it be the highest category or a particularization thereof – down to full

concretion» [Ideas I, §3, p. 8, it. tr. vol. 1, p. 20].

2. «This general essence is the eidos, the idea in the Platonic sense, but apprehended in its purity and

free from all metaphysical interpretations, therefore taken exactly as it is given to us immediately and

intuitively in the vision of the idea which arises in this way. Initially, this givenness was conceived as a

givenness of experience. Obviously, a mere imagining, or rather, what is intuitively and objectively

present in it, can serve our purpose just as well» [Experience and Judgement, §87a, p. 341, it. tr. p. 314].

3. «The concept eidos is also given a maximally broad sense. At the same time, this sense defines the

only concept belonging to the multisignificant expression “a priori”, that I recognize philosophically»[Formal and transcendental Logic, footnote at §98].

4. «If we produce in free phantasy spatial formations, melodies, social practices, and the like, or if we phantasy

acts of experiencing of liking or disliking, of willing, etc., the on that basis by “ideation” we can see various pure

essences originarly and perhaps even adequately: either the essence of any spatial shape whatever, any melody

whatever, any social practice whatever , etc., or the essence of a shape, a melody, etc., of the particular

type exemplified. In this connection, it does not matter whether anything of the sort has ever been

given in actual experience or not. If, by some psychological miracle or other, free phantasy should

lead to the imagination of data (sensuous data, for example) of an essentially novel sort such as never

have occurred and never will occur in any experience, that would in no respect alter the originary givennes of the corresponding essences: though imagined Data are never actual Data» [Ideas I, §4, p.

11, it. tr. vol. 1, p. 19].

5. «Objects can be related to one another as Wholes to Parts, they can also be related to one another

as coordinated parts of a whole. These sorts of relations have an a priori foundation in the Idea of an

object. Every object is either actually or possibly a part, i.e. there are actual or possible wholes that

include it. Not every object, on the other hand, need perhaps have parts, and we have therefore the

ideal division of objects into the simple and the complex. The terms 'complex' and 'simple' are

therefore defined by the qualification of having parts or not having parts» [Third Logical Investigation,

§1, p. 4, it. tr., vol. 2, p. 19].

6. «Let us now consider some instances of inseparable contents, e.g. the relation of visual quality to

extension, or the relation of both to the figure which bounds them. It is doubtless true in a certain

sense that these moments can be independently varied. Extension can stay the same while colour

varies indefinitely, colour stays the same while extent and figure vary indefinitely. But, strictly

speaking, such independent variability affects only the kinds of the 'moments' in their various genera.

While the moment of colour remains constant in respect of its specific shade, extension and shape

may vary indefinitely in their sub-species, and vice versa» [Ibidem, §4, p. 7, it. tr. p. 23].

7. «What we here express by the word 'present', could be better expressed by the word 'think'. An

attribute, a form of association and the like, cannot be thought of as self-existent, as isolated from allelse, as being all that exists: this only can happen with 'thinglike' contents. Wherever the word 'think'

occurs in this peculiar sense, we detect one of those subjective slantings of an objective, nay of an a



priori state of affairs […]. Differences such as this, that one object […] can be 'in and for itself', while

another can only have being in, or attached to some other object - are no mere contingencies of our

subjective thinking. They are real differences, grounded in the pure essence of things, which, since

they obtain, and since we know of them, prompt us to say that a thought which oversteps them is

impossible, i.e. a judgement deviating from them is wrong. What cannot be thought, cannot be, what

cannot be, cannot be thought - this equivalence fixes the differences between the pregnant notion of

thinking and the ordinary subjective sense of presentation and thought». [Ibidem, §6, p.11, it. tr. p.30].

8. « a).The necessities or laws which serve to define given types of non-independent contents rest […]

on the specific essence of the contents, on their peculiar nature. More precisely, they rest on the pure

Genera, Species, differentiae under which, as contingent singulars, non-independent contents as well

as their supplementing contents, fall. If we conceive of the totality of such ideal objects, we have with

them the totality of pure essences, the essences of all ideally possible individual objects (existences).

b). To these essences correspond the concepts or propositions, which have content, which we sharply

distinguish from purely formal concepts and propositions, which lack all 'matter' or 'content'

[sachhaltigen Materie]. To the latter belong the categories of formal logic and the formal ontologicalcategories […] as well as to all syntactical formations they engender. Concepts like Something, One,

Object, Quality, Relation, Association, Plurality, Number, Order, Ordinal Number, Whole, Part,

Magnitude etc., have a basically different character from concepts like House, Tree, Colour, Tone,

Space, Sensation, Feeling etc., which for their part express genuine content [Sachhaltiges]. Whereas the

former group themselves round the empty notion of Something or Object as such, and are associated

with this through formal ontological axioms, the latter are disposed about various highest material

Genera or Categories, in which material ontologies have their root.

c). This cardinal division between the 'formal' and the 'material' spheres of Essence gives us the true

distinction between the analytically a priori and the synthetically a priori disciplines (or laws and

necessities). The next section will make systematic pronouncements on these matters. It is now

immediately plain, that all the laws or necessities governing different sorts of non-independent items

fall into the spheres of the synthetic a priori: one grasps completely what divides them from merely

formal, contentless items. Laws of the type of the law of causation, which lay down the non-

independence of changes in what is thinglike and real, or the laws - generally imperfectly formulated -

which assert the non-independence of mere qualities, intensities, extensions, boundaries, relational

forms etc. - would not be put on a level with a purely 'analytic' generalization such as 'A whole cannot

exist without parts' or with analytic necessities such as 'There cannot be a king (master, father)

without subjects (servants, children) etc.'. We may say in general: correlatives mutually entail one

another, they cannot be thought of, or cannot be, without each other. If we set beside these any

definite propositions of the opposite sort, e.g., 'A colour cannot exist without something coloured' or

'A colour cannot exist without some space that it covers' etc. - the difference leaps into view. 'Colour'is not a relative expression, whose meaning includes the idea of a relation to something else. Though

colour is 'unthinkable' without something coloured, the existence of the latter, and more definitely

that of a space, is not 'analytically' founded on the notion of colour» [ Ibidem, §11, pp. 19-20, it. tr. p.

42-43].

9. « a). We may define analytically necessary propositions as propositions whose truth is completely

independent of the peculiar content of their objects (whether thought of with definite or indefinite

universality) and of any possible existential assertions. They are propositions, which permit of a

complete 'formalization' and can be regarded as special cases or empirical applications of the formal,

analytic laws whose validity appears in such formalization. In an analytic proposition it must bepossible, without altering the proposition's logical form, to replace all material which has content,



with an empty formal Something, and to eliminate every assertion of existence by giving all one's

judgements the form of universal, unconditional laws.

b). It is, e.g., an analytic proposition that the existence of this house includes that of its roof, its walls

and its other parts. For the analytic formula holds that the existence of a whole W (A, B, C ... )

generally includes that of its parts A, B, C… This law contains no meaning which gives expression to a

material Genus or Species. The assertion of individual existence, implied by the this of our

illustration, is seen to fall away by our passage into the pure law. This is an analytic law: it is built upexclusively out of formal-logical categories and categorial forms.

Having formed the concept of an analytic law and of an analytic necessity, we also have eo ipso formed

the concept of a synthetic a priori law, and of a synthetic a priori necessity. Each pure law, which

includes material concepts, so as not to permit of a formalization of these concepts salva veritate -

each such law, i.e., that is not analytically necessary - is a synthetic a priori law. Specifications of such

laws are synthetic necessities: empirical specifications of course are so also, e.g. This red is different

from this green» [Ibidem, §12, p. 21, tr. it. p. 45].

10. «One must not confound the senseless (or nonsensical [das Unsinnige]) with the absurd (or

‘counter-sensical’ [dem Widersinnigen]), though we tend to exaggerate and call the latter ‘senseless’, when it is rather a subspecies of the significant. The combination ‘a round square’ really yields a

unified meaning, having its mode of ‘existence’ or being in the realm of ideal meaning, but it is

apodictically evident that no existent object can correspond to such an existent meaning. But if we say

‘a round or’, ‘a man and is’ etc, there exist no meanings which correspond to such verbal

combinations as their expressed sense. The coordinated words give us the indirect idea of some

unitary meaning they express, but it is apodictilly clear that no such meaning can exist, that

significant parts of these sorts, thus combined, cannot consist with each other in a unified meaning».

[Fourth Logical Investigation, §13, p. 67, it. tr. vol. 2, pp. 115-116]

11. « a). Let us start with examples. […] “This color plus one makes three”. Nevertheless we say that

the sentence “makes no proper sense”: It is impossible, in actual thinking […] to acquire the judgement

as a possible one – not, however, because it contains an analytic or extra-analytic contradiction, but

because it is, so to speak, exalted above harmoniousness and contradiction in its “senselessness”. The single

propositional elements are not senseless; they are good honest senses. But the whole presents no

unitarily concordant sense. It is not a whole that is itself sense

b). […] Now contradictory judgements have harmony, in the unity of a “sense”; but contradiction and

harmony, according to the concepts belonging to consequence-logic, are mutually exclusive opposites,

and it is obvious that they already presuppose a unity of this “sense”. […] As the sense of a statement, one

can understand: firstly, the corresponding judgement. […] Secondly, as the judgement-sense, the

“ judgement-content” as something common, which remains identical throughout the changes in the mode of

being (certainty, possibility, probability, questionability, “actuality”, nullity) […].c). […] The unitary effectibility of the judgement-conten is prior to, and a condition for, the effectibility of the

judgement itself. Or: the ideal “existence” of the judgement-content is a presupposition for, and enters into, the

ideal “existence” of the judgement » [Formal and transcendental Logic, §89a, p. 216-217, it. tr. p. 268-270].

12. «a). Any concrete empirical objectivity finds its place within a highest material genus, a “region”, of

empirical objects. To the pure regional essence, then, there corresponds a regional eidetic science or, as

we can also say, a regional ontology.

b). […] e.g., to all disciplines comprised in natural science, the eidetic science of any physical Nature

whatever (the ontology of Nature), since there corresponds to de facto Nature and Eidos that can be

apprehend purely, the “essence” of any Nature Whatever, with an infinite abundance of predicatively formed eidetic affair – complexes included in the latter. If we fashion the idea of a perfectly rationalized

experiential science of Nature, i.e., one so far advanced in its theorization that every particular included



in it has been traced back to that particular’s most universal and essential grounds, then it is clear

that the realization of that idea essentially depends on the elaboration of the corresponding eidetic sciences; that

is to say, it depends not only on the elaboration of formal mathesis, which is related in one and the

same manner to all sciences taken universally, but especiallu in the elaboration of those discipline od

material ontology, which explicate with rational purity, i.e., eidetically, the essence of Nature and

therefore the essences of all essential sorts of natural objectivities as such. And obviously that holds

for any other region» [Ideas I, §9, p. 19, it. tr., vol. 1, p. 26].

13. «[…] But on the other side there stands something that is indeed eidetic but which, nevertheless,

differs in its fundamental essence: a mere essence-form, which is indeed an essence but completely

“empty”, an essence that, in the manner pertaining to an empty form, fits all possible essences; it is an essence

which, with its formal universality, has all material universalities, even the highest of them, under it

and prescribes laws for them by virtue of the formal truths pertaining to its formal universality.

Therefore the so-called “ formal region” is, after all, not something co-ordinate with the material regions

(the regions simpliciter); properly it is not a region but the empty form of any region whatever ; all the regions,

with all their materially filled eidetic particularizations stand, not alongside it, but under it – though

only formally. This subordination of the material to the formal is shown by the circumstance that formal ontology contains the forms of all ontologies (scil. all ontologies “proper”, all “material” ontologies)

and prescribes for material ontologies a formal structure common to them all. […]» [Ibidem, §10, p. 21, it tr.

pp. 28-29].

14. «One must sharply distinguish the relationships belonging to generalization and specialization

from the essentially heterogeneous relationships belonging, on the one hand, to the universalization of

something materially filled into the formal in the sense of pure logic and, on the other hand, to the converse:

the materialization of something logically formal. In other words: generalization is something totally

different from that formalization which plays such a large role in, e.g., mathematical analysis; and

specialization is something totally different from de-formalization, from “filling out” an empty logico-

mathematical form or a formal truth» [Ibidem, §13, p. 26, it. tr. pp. 33-34].

15. « a). Therefore it might now be asked whether this analytic-formal theory of science completely

fills out the idea of a universal theory of science, or whether the analytico-formal theory must be

supplemented by a material theory. The peculiarity of analytics that determines its concept of form

lies, as we know, in the circumstance that it takes the “cores” (the “cognition-materials”) present in

possible judgements and cognitions (and restricting these to definite object-sphere) and makes them

into optional cores, thought of only as cores that are to be kept identical: modes of anything whatever.

If we let fullness flow back into these cores, which have been kept emptily universal, can we not

perhaps gain a material Apriori that has universal significance for the theory of science?

b). If we determine the concept of the analutic Apriori by means of pure formal analytics, taken in its fullbreadth, then our question concerns a new Apriori, a “synthetic” or, more descriptively, a “nuclear”

Apriori (an Apriori of the cores): a material Apriori and more particularly, a universal material

Apriori, one that ties together all separate material-apriori provinces in one totality. In other words, we are

asking: Is not every existent – thought of concretely as materially determined and determinable –

essentially an existent in a universe of being , a “world”? […] accordingly, is not every material Apriori

something that belongs to a universal Apriori, namely the Apriori that predelineates the apriori

material form [die apriorische sachhaltige Form] for a possible universe of the existent? It seems therefore

that we must now steer toward a material ontology, an ontology proper, which would supplement the

merely analytic-formal ontology» [Formal and transcendental Logic, §55, pp. 149-150, it. tr. pp. 186-187].

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Handout Essence 1