Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism

5/24/2018 Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism

1/132

B O S T O N S T U D I E S I N T H E P H I L O S O P H Y O F S C I EN C E

E D I T E D B Y R O B E R T S . C O H E N A N D M A R X W . W A R T O F S K Y

V O L U M E 49

PHENOMENOLOGYAND

DIALECTICALMATERIALISM

Translated yDaniel J Herman and Donald V. Morano

dited yRobert S Cohen

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANYA MEMBE R O FT HE KL.UU ER C A D E M I C PU B L I S H E R S G R O U P

D O R D R Fl C H T B O ST O N l , AN ( A ST t: K T O K Y O


2/132

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publ ication DataT r l n . D uc T ha o .

Phenomen ology and dialect ical mater ia l ism.

(Boston s tudies in t he ph i l o s ophy o f s c i e nce ; v . 49 )Translat ion of : Phenomknologie e t mat i r ia l i sme d ialect ique.Bibl iography: p.Includes index.1. Phenomenology. 2. Dialect icalmater ia l sm. 3. Husser l ,

Ed mu nd , 185 9-19 38. I. Cohe n, Robe rt Sonn k. 11. Title. 111. Series.Q 174 . 867 vo l. 49 [ B 829 . 5 ] 001 . 01 s [ 146 . 32 ] 85 - 35ISBN 90-277-0737-5

Publ i shed by D. Reidel Publ i shing Comp any,P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrech t , Hol land.

Sold and dis t r ibuted in the U.S.A. and Canadaby Kluwer Academic PubIishers,

160 Old Derby St reet , Hingham, MA 020 43, U.S.A.In all other count r ies , sold and dis t r ibutedby Kluwer Academic Publ i shers Group,

P . O. B ox 32 2 , 33 00 A H D or d r e c h t , H o l l a nd.

T r a ns la t e d f r om T r a n D u c T ha o s Pheitomertologie et mattrialismedialectique (Par is : Minh Tan, 195 e- issued New York: Gordon

Breach Science Pubs. , Inc. , 197 1) .

AU Rights Reserved.O 1986 by D. Reidel Publ i shing Compan y.No par t of the mater ia l protected by thi s copyr ight not ice may be reproduced or

ut i l ized in an y form or by any m eans , e lect ronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording or by any informat ion s torage andretr ieval sys tem, wi thou t wr i t t en permiss ion f rom t he copyr ight owner .

Pr inted in T he Nether lands .

P A R T O N E : T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L M E T H O D A N DI T S A C T U A L R E A L C O N T E N T

C H A P T E R O N E : T H E I N T U IT I O N O F E S S E N C E S1. The Technique of Variation2. Pure Id ealities and Empirical Idealities3 The True Significance of the Notion of Essence4 Difficulties with the Objectivism of Essences. The Return to

the SubjectC H A P T E R T W O : T H E T H E M A T IZ A T I O N O F C O N C R E T E C O N -S C I O U S N E S S

5 The Return to Lived Experience in the Logische Unter-suchutzgetz

6 The Discovery of the Reduction7. The Exposit ion of the Ideen8 The Crit ique of th e Kantians9 Fink s Reply. The Necessity of a More Radical Explanation10. The Notion of Consti tution. The Signification of Transcen-

dental Idealism11. The Consti tution of the World of the Spiri t12. The Notion of Object. Perception and Judgment

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

E D l T O R I A L P R E F A C ET R A N S L A T O R S F O R E W O R DA C K N O W L E D G M E N T SA U T H O R S P R E F A C E

viixiiixixxxi

C H A P T E R T H R E E : T H E P R O B L E M S O F R E A S O N13 Self-Evidence ~ v i d e t z c e )nd Truth 6914 The problem of Error 7 315. [Self-] Evidence as Intentio nal Perform ance Intetztiotzale

Leis tung ) 77


3/132

vi T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S16. The Possibili ty of Error as Contemporaneous with Tru th 8217. A Digression The Theory of Evidence According to

Descartes and the Problem of the Cartesian Circle 8718. Phenomenological Description as a Critique of Authenticity:

Static and Genetic Consti tution 9019. The Consti tution of the Formal Domain: Logic and Mathe-matics 991-0. The Genesis of Judgme nt 11 1

C H A P T E R F O U R : T H E R E S U L T O F P H E N O M E N O L O G Y21. The Genesis of Antepredicative Experience and Its Real

Content 11-1P A R T T W O : T H E D I A L E C TI C O F R E A L M O V E M E N T

I N T R O D U C T IO N T O P A R T T W O1. Consciousness and Matter

C H A P T E R O N E : T H E D I A L E C T I C O F A N I M A L B EH A V I O R A ST H E B E C O M I N G O F S E N S E C E R T A I N T Y

2. Phenomen ological Givens and Real Givens 1433 The Movement of the Internal Sense 1464. The Movement of the External Sense 1565. Remarks on the Preceding Development: Th e Passage to the

Dialectic of Hum an Societies 172C H A P T E R T W O : T H E D I A L E C T I C O F H U M A N S O C I E T I E S A ST H E B E C O M IN G O F R E A S O N

6. Use-Value and the Movement of Sacrifice 1797. The Movement of Wealth and the Becoming of the Gods 1898. Mercantile Econ omy and the Sacrifice of the Savior, God 1949. Monetary Economy, the Transcendence of the Idea, and theConcept of Salvation 201

10. Capitalist ic Econom y, the Pow er of Abstraction and theProletarian Revolution 2 12

A P P E N D I X 219N O T E S 22 1B I B LI O G R A PH Y O F W O R K S C I T E D 24 1I N D E X O N A M E S 243

E D I T O R I A L P R E F A C E

Triin D uc Thao, a bril l iant student of philosophy at the 6cole Normale Super-ieure within the post-1935 decade of political disaster, born in Vietnamshortly after the First World War. recipient of a scholarship in Paris in 1935-37. was early noted for his independent and original mind. While the 1930stwisted down to t he defeat of the Spanish Republic, the compromise withGerman Fascism at Munich, and the start of the Second World War, andwhile the 1940s began with hypocrit ical stabil i ty at the Western Fron t fol-lowed by the defeat of France, and the occupation of Paris by the Germanpower together with French collaborators, and then ended with l iberationand a search for a new understanding of human situations, the young Thaowas deeply immersed in the classical works of European philosophy. He wasalso the attentive but cri t ical student of a quite special generation of Frenchmetaphysicians and social philosophers: Gaston Berger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Emile Brehier, Henri Lefebvre, Rene le Senne, Jean-Paul S artre,perhaps the young Louis Althusser. They, in their several modes of response,had been meditating for more than a decade on the philosophy of E dmundHusserl, which came to France in the thirties as a new metaphysical enlighten-ment phenomenology. With Husserl s pheno menology. there also came thepowerful influences of a revived Hegel (of the Phenomenologl~ and ofMartin Heidegger s existentialism, and , in a tangle of variants, there came astart l ing renewed investigation of Marx. The young Tran Duc Thao joinedthe search for objective tr uth , worked to overcome both psychologism andevery weakening of knowledge by subjectivist limitation, investigated Hus-serl s writings in print and in the fine archives at Louvain (with the kindlyhelp of H. L. van Breda). His progress was dialectical, Socra tic and Hegelian,but also i t was a m aterial dialectic due b oth to his Marxist studies and to thegrim tasks of the greater liberatio n in his social life-world he liberation ofVietnam.

Thao s themes drove him to th e border of Husserl s th ought, just as Thaosaw Husserl himself driven toward the apparent relativism of the final risismanuscripts. The privileged, indeed most precious, phenomenological activityis that o f consti tution , for which there is the endless work of passing fromnaive certainty to th e developed no-longer-naive certainties of intention al

vii


4/132

xx A C K N O W L E D G M E N T SLastly, Daniel Herman wishes to heartily thank Anne who in her own

way made this work possible by keeping little Nicole busy with her toysrather than with her daddy s translation. A U T H O R S P R E F A C E

The work that we present to the public consists of research belonging todifferent times and inspirations. In the first part, written between 194 2 and1950, we set forth the essent ial features of phenomenology from a purelyhistorical point of view and in the perspective of Husserl s own tho ught.Our critical objections serve only to make evident internal contradictionsfoun d within the Husserlian corpus itself. In contr ast, the second part,comple ted in 195 1, is situated entirely within the position of dialecticalmaterialism. It is true that there we take up again certain technical resultsof lived analyses, but only in terms of pure positive data, completely freedfrom th e philosophical horizon th at do minated Husserl s descriptive meth od.However, it is not a question in any sense of a mere juxtaposition of twocontradictory points of view: Marxism appears to us as the only conceivablesolution to problems raised by phenomenology itself.

Our task in setting forth Husserl s thoug ht was a relatively easy o ne,since it was concerned only with the th ory of phenomenological analysisunder the three aspects that appeare d successively in its evolution: thedescription of essences, the static explication of lived experience [vecu] ,and finally a genetic explication. Its con cepts were simple enough , and, inaddition, amply developed in the published works. But, obviously, theoryis worthless without practice, and for a long time we believed that withinthe very presentation of the method should be included the achieved resultsof the m ethod; however, the most im portant part of this work has remainedunpub1ished.l It is here that we have encountered e xtraordina ry difficulties,which are responsible for the long delay in the completion of this work andhave radically reversed its orientation.

The examinat ion of unpublished manuscripts demonstrated, in fact ,that the concrete analyses took a direction that was incompatible with thetheoretical principles from which these concrete analyses were elaborated.From the beginning of our study of Husserl (in a work written in 19 42 ofwhich we present here only the first chapter), we had surmised the contradic-tion because of certain enigmatic developments within the published works.However, we thought that we would be able to resolve this contradictionby a simple broadening of our perspective, which would remain faithful to

xxi


5/132

xxii A U T H O R S P R E F A C Ethe essential phenomenological inspiration. But, af ter long hesitation wef ound that , on accoun t o f the ac tual descr ipt ions tha t abound in the m anu-scr ip t s , w e had to r enounce once and f o r a l l any hope o f r econci l ing theconcept of phenomenology with i ts actual achievement. Since then, therehas no longer been a ny question of remaining within the l imits of a histor icalstud y, even with all the l iber ties which are permitted to th e interpreter inthe f ield of the history o f philosophy. The enumeration o f concrete analyses(which we give in the last chapt er of Par t O ne) involves a total and def init ivebreak with the fund amen tal pr inciples of the doctr ine.

Since the Logical Investigations (1 900- 190 ) , every pred ication pre-supposes an antepredicative perception, not simply as an antecede nt of thef ac t , bu t as a cond i t ion o f t r u th . The Ideas ( 1913) adds tha t the sens ib lereality, so perceived, is the or iginal resting place on which are constitutedvalues and ends and , by the same token , a l l the cu l tu r a l f o r mat ions o f'objective spir it ' . The last works systematize this point of view in presentingthe l ife-world (Lebenswelt) as the or igin and fou ndation fo r every intell igiblesignif ication the world to which it is necessary to return constantly asthe l iving source of all truth. Th e life-world is revealed as the domain ofhuman history. The genetic method ind ica ted in Formal and TranscendentalLogic (1929) and Cartesian Meditations (brought out the same year) isdeveloped in Oisis o f European Sciences ( 1936) and the w or k on the Originof Geometly ( 1 939) unde r th e f o r m o f a historico-intentional analysis,where the universal is constitut ed in the real movement of t ime. Since then,phenomenological idealism fou nd itself superseded by t he m etho d of l ivedanalysis: The genesis of the world in absolute consciousness has becomeconfused with t he actual be coming of real history, and the doctirne of thetranscendental Ego has appeared only as a stylistic expression that concealsin philosophical terminology the creative value of human labor .

As evident as these conseque nces had ap peared to us since our study of194 2, we sti ll could not forget the fundam ental phenomenological them e ofthe cr it ique o f psychologism. Unless one would be will ing to fall back intothe c ontradictions of sceptical relativism, the histor icity o f the Ego wouldhave to be interpreted as the actuality of the eternal. But i t does not seemthat the notion of a constituent genesis of temporality can be acceptedexcept under the aegis of an essence of temporality that is i tself atemporal.The study o f the unpublished works permits us t o do away with every i l lusionin this regard. The Weltkonstitution is revealed here as resting totally onthe sensible data ( i .e. , the kinesthetic and sensible conf iguations) just as theyare con stitute d on a level proper to animals. There is such a visible acceptance

A U T H O R S P R E F A C E xxiiiof the pr imordial world with i ts elementary sensory-motor coordinatesthat ther e can be no doub t tha t the t r anscenden ta l sub jec t themat ized byphenomenology must not be identif ied, str ictly speaking, with the man off lesh and blood w ho is evolving in the real world.

Since that t ime one should take ser iously the exceptional importancethat Husserl has consistently granted in phenome nology t o the ' thing ' (Ding).The intersubjective communities and the spir i tual entit ies that are constitutedtherein are f irmly grounded in natural psychic reali t ies that, in their turn,are grounded in physical reali t ies. Finally, at the base of all other reali t iesone f inds the natural reali ty, and so the phenomenology of material nature,undoubtedly, occupies a privileged position. I f we remind ourselves thatpsychic reali t ies, def ined on the individual level pr ior to the perceptionof the othe r , correspond to th e exper ience of animal l ife, we see that the' transcendental co nstitution ' (as the very disposition of constitutive analysesin the manuscr ipt of Ideas I1 demonstrates) takes up again, only on theabstract plane of the l ived, the real changing of matter t o life and o f life t ospirit, understood as social existence. I t is true that at each stage an or iginalstructure ar ises: to consider these founded unities with no prejudices, ifw e b r ing them back by the phenomeno log ica l method to the i r sou rces , theyare precisely grounded and of a new type; he new elemen t tha t i s cons t i tu tedwith them can never be reduced (as the intuition of essences teaches us) t othe simple sum of other reali t ies. But the phenomenological relationof foundation implies precisely the intell igibil i ty of the passage f rom thefounding level to th e founded level. I t is not a question of a ' reduction ' ofthe super ior to the infer ior , but of a dialectical movement in w h ich therelations that develop at the inter ior of a given form, move in a mannernecessar y to the c ons t i tu t ion o f a r adical ly new f o r m. Fr om that t ime,materiality (Dinglichkeit) s not a simple substrate indif ferent to the signif ica-t ions w h ich t bears. I t def ines the or iginative resting place f rom which themovement engenders more elevated modes of being in the specif icity oftheir meanings, the real infrastructure which founds the ideal superstructuresin their histor ical emergence and in the ir trut h value.Thus, concrete phenomenological analyses can grasp all their meaningand be developed fully solely on the hor izon of dialectical mater ialism. I tgoes without saying that we are obliged under these conditions to rejectnot on ly the tota li ty of the Husser lian doctr ine but also the meth od itselfto t he ext ent tha t i t has become ossified in abstract formulas. In addition,the conc ept ' transcendental ' was superf luous f rom the outset, s ince i t main-tains a str ict identity of content between 'pure consciousness ' and natural


6/132

xxiv A U T H O R S P R E F A C Econsciousness. Be that as i t may, theory has meaning only in terms of prac-tice, and th e practical dem ands of working o ut a descr iption require theover turning of the theory of transcendental idealism. What semblance ofreason would there be in being obstinate in l imiting to the purely l ived thestudy of kinesthetic and sensible conf igurations, when one is concerned,obviously. with elementary sensor i-motor formations that are covered overat an adult age with an eno rmous cultural acquisit ion and are uncoveredin the pure stage in only an animal or an infant? Likewise, the hsto r ico -inten tiona l analyses of Husserl's last perio d. so rich in suggestiveness, areextraordinar ily deceptive in their uneven character and their lack of realcon tent . But i t is cer tainly no t a que stion of weaknesses of a personal order ,since we have seen the unequaled mastery of Husser l in this matter . Rather ,the very hor izon of phenomenology turns the gaze of the phenomenologistaw ay f r om the r ea l da ta tha t , on the o ther hand , def ine the t r ue con ten t o fhis ref lection. More precisely, the real data appear only under their negativeaspect in view of the fact that their signif ication has been suppressed. Butthe actu al movemen t of descr iption return s ineluctably to this mater ialreali ty, which is revealed consistently as the ult imate resting place of con-sti tute d formations. Thu s we f ind ourselves confront ed with an intolerablecontradiction that obliges us to pass to the point o f view of objectivity infreeing ourselves f rom the theoretical concepts of phenomenology in thename of the technical necessit ies of the descr iptive method .

But then, once more the ghost of psychologism rears i ts head. How wouldit be possible t o justify within th e f ramework of mater ial nature, ( i .e. , animaland social) the truth to which the in tention s of consciousness lay claimtruth that one can dispute in par ticular cases but that no-one would knowhow to deny in pr inciple without at the same time denying himself? I t isI, only a single being, an object among othe r objects, who carry the worldin the spir i tual inter ior ity of my lived acts, and the world is in me in thevery same operation by which perceive myself in it. I t is here that theexistentialist ic tempation is presented which seems to offer a convenientmeans of ratifying all the real data of existence in the world, all achievedby maintaining a metaphysical opposition be tween man and nature. Being-in-the-world, Heidegger assures us, is not an objective circumstance whichwould impose i tself because of the reali ty of things, but rather an ontologicalstructure th at belongs in i ts own r ight to the existing human being: manexists not because he is in the world and not by reason of his position in theworld, bu t his position in the world is possible precisely and only becausehe ex is t s as man , and by r eason o f h i s human essence . So , the f ac t tha t man

A U T H O R S P R E F A C E xxvis only one being existing among m any others presents no dif f iculty, sinceman carr ies the world in the project of his being, and it is by this very projectthat he is constituted as a being- in- the-world. To put i t another way, theactual p rob lem posed by the s t r uctur e o f in ten t ional i ty o know that theworld is ideally in my consciousness when I am really in i t inds i ts im-mediate solution in the magic of language which by a simple reorder ing ofwords, transforms the expression the world in which I am i n t o a m o m e n tof myself , inasmuch as am precisely being-in-the-world.T h e c o m m o n m a nwould be satisfied with saying: Man is in the world ; th e existentia listphilosopher exorcises such naivete and moves on to the level of 'existentialontology' in assur ing as the man is being-in-the-world . All that is lef t is todissect the expression in some way or other , or to detach the 'being within '(In-Sein)and to p r esen t i t as an o r ig inal moment , and ever yone sees w i thou tdif f iculty that the 'world ' is nothing more than an element of 'being- in- the-world , and thus o f man .

Mystif ication is a common procedure for philosophers. At least the class-ical tradition, of which phenomenology represents the ult imate fo rm, has hadthe elementary good sense of reproducing on the symbolic level of ideas orconsciousness the real operations by which man has transformed nature andrendered it assimilable to his though t. One such transposition permi tted an atleast formal justif ication of existence in this world by science and reason,in which the dignity of human labor is ref lected. With existentialism allrationality is abolished on behalf of a 'project ' which claims to appropriatethe reali ty of things f rom now on without providing itself with any founda-tion that legitimates i ts claims. More precisely, under the pretext o f reunitingthe concrete data of 'existence' . i t is the very absence o f justification t h a tis erected resolutely as the supreme justification, within the arbitrary absoluteof a liberty-unto-death . All the values acquired by t he long effor t o f thehu~ nan ist radition are discovered t o be suddenly denuded of real founda tionand ar e main ta ined now , on ly by c l ing ing to the resolute decision of de-fending even to death what one can n o longer justify in term s of reason andt r u th .I t would be of l i t t le use for us to delay in consider ing the innumerableinfer ior imitators that have proliferated on the Heidegger ian model. Thegreat problem of our t ime, in which is expressed the feeling that has becomeunanimous, that the ideal subject of traditional religious or philosophicalthough t be identif ied r igorously with the real man in this world, has for along time found its solution in the Marxist dialectic which def ines the onlyvalid process for a constitution of l ived signif ications on the foundation of


7/132

xxvi A U T H O R S P R E F A C Ematerial reality. The notion of production takes into full account the enigmaof consciousness inasmuch as the object th at is worked on takes its meaningfor man as human product. The realizing of meaning is precisely nothing butthe symbolic transposition of material operations of production in to a systemof intentional operations in which the subject appropriates the object ideally,in reproducing it in his own consciousness. Such is the true reason for whichI myself , who am in the world, constitute the world in the interiority ofmy lived acts. And the truth of any constitution of this sort obviously ismeasured by the actual power of the mode of production from which it takesits model. But the phdosopher remains ignorant of these origins. Inasmuch ashe is a mem ber o f an exploiting class, he does not have experience of the reallabor of exploited classes, which gives things their human meaning. Moreprecisely, he perceives this labor only under its ideal form, in the act o fcommanding, and asks himself with astonishmen t how these intentionalsignifications were able to be imposed o n the real world. The reflectioninvolved in self-consciousness, evidently, can only confirm these intentionsthemselves in their lived purity a nd place them outside the world as pureconstituting syntheses in the liberty of spirit .

Thus, the social relations of p roduction and the division of society intoclasses hinders the ruling classes from giving an account of the real foundationof ideal values, by which they claim t o demonstrate their human quality andto justify their dom ination. Exploiting the labor of the oppressed classes,they perceive the produced object in its human meaning, but this meaningappears to them only in its pure ideality, negated of all material reality, sincethey certainly mean t o take n o material part in its production. As a memberof a dominating class I accede to the tmtk of being only in denying beingtha t is effectively real, the real labor of the op pressed classes which I gobeyond in the intentions of my consciousness only from the very fact thatI appropriate its product. 7he form o f oppression is the key to the mysteryof transcendence, and the hatred of naturalism does nothing but expressthe natural repugnance o f the ruling classes to recognizing in the labor thatthey exploit the true source of meanings to which they lay claim.

The difficulty in understanding the real genesis of ideal significationsfound itself once again reinforced by the abstract manner in which mater-ialism was elaborated in bourgeois thou ght in th e course of its struggle againstfeudal power. D uring its revolutionary ascendency, when it represented thegeneral interests of human society, the bourgeoisie was already an exploitingclass, even though its position as oppressed did not ye t allow it to organizeitself apart from the laboring masses. Also, the materiality of productive

A U T H O R S P R E F A C E xxviilabor, whose memory it still kept alive for use in opposing the spiritualismof feudal exploitation, manifested itself only on the abstract horizon of itsown mode of exploitation. In the hands of r ising capitalism, the concreteproducts of the earth an d the w orkshop were reduced to the pure abstractuniversality of their exchange value, as simple calculable moments in themovement of mo ney. Fro m th at time the creative power of material laborcould not reveal itself in its real effective process as the very dialectic whereinall sense of truth is engendered, but could do so only under the abstractform of a pure mechanism in which it became available for new relations ofproduction. Moreover, when the bourgeoisie, having arrived at the decisivephase of its struggle for p ower, f inally ceased to conceal its naturalism underthe protective veil of natural theology, in order to be able to affirm theabsolute value of human labor through the concept of matter , it maintaineditself necessarily within the limits of mechanistic abstraction, viewing thissame labor only as it had exploited it on the level of the abstract rationalityof economic calculation. Very clearly, defending human interests solelyin terms of its own mode of exploitation, once having achieved politicaldomination, i t had no other concern than t o ally itself with the previousruling class in order to oppose the new humanism that was r ising up amongthe proletariat. This very same materialism that had carried it to powernow served it as a scapegoat, in order to depreciate the effective reality ofproductive labor. The interpretation of matter as pure mechanism permitteda facile condem nation that systematically confused the creative materialityof the laboring masses with the sordid materiality of capitalistic exploitation.The critique of psychologism obstinately set itself against a phanto m, whichreflected within the consciousness of the oppressor that hum an reality whichhe divested of all human meaning.

Nevertheless, in taking as a pretext the defense of the spirit in order todrive back th e effective movement of human progress, bourgeois thought c utitself off from the tru e sou rce of its own spiritual values and for this veryreason ended in its own internal dissolution. If Husserl still remained withinthe tradition of idealistic rationalism, showing signs of the late floweringof th e German bourgeoisie and its final radical whims, hls evolution borewitness to nothing less than an increasing uneasiness with regard to the realfoundation of meanings apprehended in consciousness. From the enjoymentof eternity to the intuition of essences to the anguished problematic of theOisis of the European Sciences. interpreted as the crisis of Western man, thefeeling that traditional values had become bankrup t grew stronger every day,and the famous rallying cry, Return to the things themselves , took on more


8/132

xxviii A U T H O R S P R E F A C Eand more openly th e meaning of a return to th e sensible reali ties of the life-world. But Husser l s class position did no t allow him to go back t o the socialrelations of production that def ined the real conte nt o f sensible l ife; and thetranscendental co nstitution , reduced t o seeking its ult imate founda tion in

the pure sensor ial datum, ended paradoxically in a complete scepticism. Inthe meantine, Heidegger had deliberately renounced the classical demandsfor rationality in order to l imit himself to the pure transcendence of theproject o f being, in which, by vir tue of philosophers, the absence of reason ist r ansmuted in to the supreme reason of existence. In the decomposition ofbourgeois society tha t had been caused by the ruthlessness of imperialistmonopo ly , the mot to liberty-unto-death was offered to the ruined petite-bourgeoisie as the f inal justif ication of their posit ion as petite-bourgeoisie.With the passage f rom phenome nology to existentialism, the disdainful themeof th e cr it ique of psychologism, the denial of human subjectivity in the nam eof objectivity and the universali ty of Truth evealed its own inconsistencyby giving way to the pure negation of the real conditions of existence inthe pure subjectivity of resolute decision , where individual arbitrar inesssystematically was erected as the ult imate foundation of all true value.

Abstract mater ialism became all the easier to refute as i t was reduced,in the f inal analysis , to a shameful idealism, with pure mechanism beingidentif ied, as well , with pure thought. Such discussions, evidently, did notin an y way a ffect dialectical mater ialism which takes i ts meaning f rom theproletar ian exper ience of creative labor . In the real process of productionman is homogeneous with matter, and it is in that mater ial relation itselfthat the or iginal relation of consciousness to the object that i t perceivesis constitute d as constituted meaning . But in the past the labor ing masseshad no t been able to raise their sights to an ideology that proper ly belongedto t hem and exactly expressed the structure of their productive activity.In fact, the weak level of productive forces involved a mul ti tude of conf lictsin which destruction appeared, and whose transposition on the symbolicplane of consciousness covered over the objects that were or iginally econo micwith a cloud of spir i tuality that def ined the meaning of sacrifice: Fr omthat t ime. effectively constituted signif ications in productive labor becamealienated in the transcendence of an ideal negation of that same reality:and thus, a cer tain number of people took th e opportunity to appropriatethe m eans of p roduction for themselves. Such a mystif ication in whichappropriation was accomplished in the form of an expropriation, resultedfrom the very movement of production and, in fact. included the totali tyof produ cers. More precisely, the perspectives of the exploited sti ll envisioned

A U T H O R S P R E F A C E xx ix

merely an eventual passage to t he position of exploiter , a nd, while the strugglecontinued between var ious types of exploiters, the oppressed masses couldonly give their support to those who seemed, at f irst glance, the most easilyaccessible. Thus, with out going explicitly into all the subtleties of ideologicalconflicts and all the details regarding the interests at s take, one can saythat their conception of the world was indistinguishable f rom that of theexploiting classes and altogether contr ibuted to perpetuation of the generalform of exploitation. Religion was the expression of this unanimous preten-sion to pr ivileged positions, idealized in a supreme transc endence in whicheach retained the hope o f some day prof it ing f rom the regime of oppression.I t is only with the development of mechanization and of major industr iesthat a new class of exploited ap peared which had the exper ien ce in i ts dailypractice of new relations of production in which the comm on exploi tationof natu r e by human socie ty r eplaced the exp lo i ta tion o f man by man . I n th i snew mo de of existence tha t necessar ily ha s been begotten in th e very wombof capitalist ic society as the form o f i ts suppression, the perceiving subjectis no longer the real or virtual exploiter who ex propriate s the prod ucerby denying the reali ty of his product, but rather the producer himself , whodefends the mater iali ty of his product ion against mystifying idealizations.Since the new productive forces had worked out the conditions for an ap-propriation of labor by the workers themselves, the proletar iat ( f reed bythe very brutali ty of capitalist ic exploitation f rom all hope of arr iving in theirturn at a position of exploiter) are able to see in the spir i tual values of theprevious society nothing other than bourgeois prejudices which dissimulatethe sordid mater ialism of bourgeois practice. To be sure, the proletar ianmovement has no t been l imi ted to the f ac to r y w or ker s w ho cons t i tu te i t sauthentic core and its permanent foundation: i t has consistently absorbedincreasing strata of previous exploiting classes that are crushed more andmore by the mechanism of capital and whose adherence to communismrealized the dialectic of bourgeois society in the truth of i ts becoming.In fact, we are reminded each day that communism defends the true con-tent of traditional values, by means of which its proponents can sti l l retainsome understanding of the permanent dissolution imposed on them by thebourgeois society. Ideal aspirations, reduced by capitalist ic exploitationto simple forms of hypocr isy that betray themselves through the evidenceof their futi l i ty, recapture a human meaning by being integrated with theconstructive tasks of the proletar ian revolution which, in the face of theprofundi ty of the bourgeois decomposition, takes charge of the generalinterests of mankind and pursues the construction of socialism in the very


9/132

xxx A U T H O R S P R E F A C Ecourse of the anti-imperialistic conflict. The truth of dialectical materialismis demonstrated in the re l historic l di lectic in which, under the pressureof continual proletarization, the former ruling classes become progressivelymore aware that their ideals are the simple results of their material conditionsof existence. From this it follows that materiality is the authentic origin ofall meaning and value.

Thus it is found that traditional problems are completely resolved withinthe framework of Marxism, and there is no longer any reason to hesitatein drawing from technic l difficulties that we have encountered in phe-nomenology their philosophic l consequences, in the proper s ns of theadjective. Once the real content of lived structures has been recognized, atechnical solution w ould have to be limited to the completion of intentionaldescriptions by means of objective analyses. But in their sense of reality,the real data are totally incompatible with the phenomenological absoluteof lived intentions, and such a mos ic would unfailingly have entrapped usin inextricable contradictions that would have revived, along with the terrorof psychologism and the myths of transcendence, practically insurmountableobstacles to positive research. The principal merit of phenomen ology was itsdefinitive destruct ion of formalism w ithin the very horizo n of idealismand its placing of all problems of value on the level of the concrete. Butthe concrete can be described correctly only in the actual movement ofits material determinations, a fact that implies a total liberation and thepassage to a radically new horizon. Nevertheless, we believed that it would beuseful t o present, in the f irst part of this work, studies which are str ictlyphenomenological and mostly outdated . These demonstrate, and do so betterthan any systematic critique. the internal necessity of the ground covered.From the eternity of essences to lived subjectivity, from the singular Ego tothe universal genesis, the evolution of Husserlian thought has borne testimonyto the constant aspiration of idealism tow ards that real conte nt whose au-thentic conception can be defined solely in terms of dialectical materialism.In Marxism, bourgeois philosop hy finds the fo rm of its suppression: Butsuppression includes the very movem ent of wha t it suppresses, insofar asit re lizes it in stlppressing i t .

P R T O N E

T H E P H E N O M E N O L O GI C A L M E T H O DA N DI T S A CT U A L R E A L C O N T E N T


10/132

Mankind poses only problem s that it can resolve.(Karl Marx)

C H A P T E R O N E

T H E I N T U I T I O N O F E S S E NC E S

1 T H E T E C H N I Q U E O V A R I A T I O Nphenomenology began as an ontology. It was a question of going beyondpsychologistic interpretations which transformed the real into a collectionof states of consciousness so as to return to the things themselves and torediscover the meaning of being in the fullness of its truth. The first effortof Husserlian analysis set its sights precisely o n the very notio n of truthwhich had been obscured by the reigning empiricism. It aimed at restoringthe concept of being in all its dignity, and the enthusiasm that welcomedthe first volume of the Logische Untersuchungen demonstrated that theauthent ici ty of hum an existence itself was also at stake.

While contemporary logicians viewed science as a product of subjectiveconsciousness and remanded logical laws to psychology, Husserl, with un-equaled precision, restored the very m eaning of knowledge as knowledgeof t ru th . When I affirm a proposition as true, it is clear that I take it in itsideal objectivity as valid for everyone and for all times. Therefore, logicalconditions, witho ut which there would be no possibility of any tru th, couldhardly depend on psychic states of the real subject. They define the essenceof truth such as it is in-itself and such as the skeptic himself would necessarilyrecognize, inasmuch as he up holds a th eory and affirms it as true. A nd, infact, when the logician declares that of tw o contr adicto ry propositions,one is necessarily false, he does no t base himself upon the observation ofacts of consciousness, but rather on an intellectual intuition in which non-contradiction imposes itself on him as belonging to the very essence of anyvalid statement. Thus the critique of psychologism, so brilliantly enunciatedin the first volume of the Logische Untersuchungen, succeeded in reestablish-ing the validity of the notion of essence by founding it on an 'evidence'of a special type (Einsicht in das Wesen, Ideation). From then, the verymovement of the demonstration implied the possibility of an indefinitekYneralization: since the radical failing of psychologism was to dissolve theobject into a succession of states of consciousness, its absurdity would bedemo nstrated f or every mode of being. Each existing thing would have to bedefined, at the outset, in terms of its own essence without which it would


11/132

C H A P T E R ONEhave no meaning to its listeners. However, this consequence was not yetmade explicit in the first volume which we have just cited. It lacked a me thodof them atization, which alone could give an actual signification to the theory .The precise definition of the intuition of essences in the second volume wasto allow for the elaboration of a doctrine of being, such as was imposedindependently of the contingent circumstances of its realization, inasmuchas it found in this doctrine the a priori possibility and, at the same time, thetruth of the subjective acts of the consciousness which grasps them.But, strange as it may seem, the technique of the Wesensschau appearedat times in a relation familiar to the empiricists: the relation of the wholeto i ts non-separable parts , such as color and extension in the visual o b j e ~ t . ~It is importa nt to rememb er that herein lies the basis for Berkeley s argume nt:there cannot be an abstract idea of color or of extension, precisely becauseeach of these canno t be posited apart . The originality of Husserl consistedin drawing out the meaniizg of this remark : if it is impossible to have a colorwithout a surface, the result is that it belongs to the essence of color toappear only on a surface. Husserl saw within this, which was the basis forBerkeley s belief that he had refu ted the possibility of escaping from theperceptible or sensible, the precise means of thematizing pure idealities.Each time that we establish an inseparability of the kind just described,we can make use of it to define an essence. No matter how much I wouldtry t o imagine all possible colors under whatever forms I choose, couldnever suppress the surface, since color would then disappear at that very sameinstant . The consciousness o f impossibility defines a conditiorl of possibility

an a priori law.We might wonder whether what we take for an essence is, in fact, only

a property of the imagination. The impossibility in question could belongto empirical circumstances. In fact, the author is less concerned with theintuition s being realized t han with th e possibility of the thing itself. Thusit is clear that concre te objects are no longer perceived apart : they alwaysstand out against a background, the nature of which is often imposed byforce of habit. But all the same, they could exist apa rt t is imaginable,that is to say, tlzinkable. In the case of color, we run up against an absoluteimpossibility that resides in the very nature of things. It is not a questionof a psychological cond ition for intuitive representation (e.g., that I cannotdescribe a head to myself without a body appearing at the very same time,more or less clearly, to complete it). Rather, it is an ontological conditionof being itself. There cann ot be color w ithout extension, because this isunthinkable.

THE INTUITION OF ESSEN ES

This text should not present any mystery to the reader familiar withthe notion of intentionality. Whereas the empiricists, viewing states of con-sciousness as things, could define the non-separability of color only in termsof the impossibility of realizing a separate sensation (in other words, thejmpossibility o f a cotzsciousr~ess),Husserlian analysis demonstrates that itis a question of a mnscioes~zessof at, impossibility. It is the nature of theobject itself which is perceived and thus known in such an experience. Theargumentation of empiricists is reversed by a thematizatio~z,~n which thesubject is revealed as the bearer of the meaning of being. The intervention ofintentional analysis gives rise to a dialectical reversal that allows us to reachan objectivity by subjective de scription.Thus we see the outline of a technique that perm its the systematic studyof the realm of essences. The essence as the condition of possibility will berevealed in a consciousness of impossibility. Whatever one cannot eliminatewithout at the same time destroying the object itself is an ontological law ofits being, belonging to its essence.

The procedure by which we methodically create this consciousness in our-selves is called variation. We start with any object whatsoever as model ;we vary it in a totally arbitrary manner. It then becomes apparent thatfreedom cannot be absolute, that there are conditions without which thesevariants could no longer be variants of this model, as examples of the samekind. This invariant facto r, identified through out all differences (Deckungim Widerstreit) defines precisely the essence of objects of the same specieswithout which they would be unimaginable, i.e., unthinkable.We should note that variation is not, strictly speaking, a game of theimagination. It is not a matter of disengaging the cotnmon element from allcases that we have actually imagined, since, in fac t, their num ber is necessarilylimited and the invariant has to impose itself on all possible cases. Whatis important is the form of the arbitrary (Beliebigkeitsgestalt)6 n whichthe movement unfolds itself and of which we become immediately aware inthe lived feeling of 1 can . Possibility and im possibility are pu t t o the proofof factua l evidence.In this manner the original intuition, the perception of essences, isr e a l i ~ e d . h e eidos itself is grasped as the beirzg of the object, such as it isnecessarily inasmuch as it is an object of such a nature . Thus the thing ,the object of sensible perception, is a spatio-temporal ensemble, providedwith secondary qualities, posited as a substance and a causal unity. Sucha definition constitutes its essence, inasmuch as it would no longer be athing if it lacked one of these el eme nts. We can pu t this to the test through


12/132

C H A P T E R O N Evariation. T he essence in this instanc e, is revealed in person as invariant. Itis here given to us, not, to be sure, as a thing but precisely as an essencein the mode o f ev idence tha t i s pr oper to i t . The no t ion o f a n e idet ic intu i t ionis nothing like a m etaphysical hypothesis: i t imposes i tself in i ts very actuali-za t ion . The ex is tence o f t he eidos is demonstrated b y its very presence whichw e can ob ta in th r ough var ia t ion.

2 . P U R E I D E A L I T I E S A N D E M P I R I C A L I D E A L I T I E SThe extens ion of the notion of intuit ion to universal objects generallyprovokes a hostile reaction: is this not realizing an idea or making it intoa thing, a datum , which one must receive passively f rom the outside? Thisobjection rests simply on a misun derstanding. The intution, as phenomenologyconceives it . is in itself neither active nor passive. It is defined in its actua lform solely in relation to th e kind of being which is in question. The intuitionof idealit ies will be prope r ly revealed as active and even creative Erzeugurzg,~ c h o ~ f u n ~ ) . ~he no t ion o f oper a t ion does no t con t r ad ic t tha t o f in tu i tion ,since the idea i tself can be given only in an operation . The intuition isnothing m ore th an t he very ac t of knowledg e, insofar as knowledge is seizedfrom being, in opposition t o the em pty intentionalit ies of simple discourse .Inasmuch as th e essence can be th e logical subject of legitimate predicationsit must b e able to be given , s ince what is true of i t is true of i tself andrefers necessarily to an or iginal intuit ion in which it i tself is grasped.

The doct r ine o f the p lu r a l i ty o f modes o f in tu i tion and , co rr e la tive ly , o fmodes o f ex is tence , co r r esponds to th e ver y s t r uctu r e o f the phenomeno log-ica l ev idence. Bu t the e idet ic method poses ano ther p rob lem of a much m or eser ious nature. The eidos is a pure ideal it^,^ radically independent of everyactual perception of real individuals. The Wescrzsscllau defines a systemof a priori laws which imposes i tself on factual science inasmuch as theymust always c onform to the essence of their object. We can then ask whatcan warrant their intrusion on exper ience , in the ordinar y sense of theter m.

Evidently, there could be n o question of confusing var iation with thecommon method of abstraction and generalization. We have pointed outalready tha t th e invar iant is not ob tained , str ictly speaking. by means of acomparison, since i t must be common to all possible variations, and one canin fact imagine only a small number o f them. I t is revealed in a consciousnessof in~ possibi li ty hat is brought abou t by the presence of the essence itse/f:Empir ical idealit ies, objects of ordinary concepts, are connected to their

T H E I N T U I T I O N O E S S E N C E Sactual realizations. Their extension whi ch is de jure infinite, is de facto l imitedby the individual cases upon which th ey have been established. Shouldexper ience give r ise to new data, we will be forced to revise them. Any suchdanger cou ld no t th r ea ten the eidoes w hich does no t depend in any w ay onexamples tha t w e have been ab le to g ive o f i t : they ar e , by def in i t ion, w hatis possible solely because of it.~ u tnother objec tion is offered. Variation is not confuse d with a n abstrac-tion based on a n empir ical comparison. But is i t anything other tha n a purelylogical analysis of concepts as such? The invariant i s tha t w i thou t w h ich thevar ian ts w ou ld no t longer be var ian ts o f the same model, ob ject s o f the samegenus. Thus, i t is only a que stion of def ining that genus in i tself . I ts essenceis on ly the co n ten t o f i t s concep t , w h ich , inasmuch as already constituted,is posited, evidently, in i ts intell igible being as independent of exper iencein th e o r d inar y sense o f th i s t e r m. Bu t w as no t tha t ver y con ten t o r ig inal lydisengaged from empir ical data? I f atte mpt t o obtain the essence of a swanby var iation, will f ind whiteness among its eidetic attr ibutes. swan, werei t no t w h i te , w ou ld no t be a sw an . But tha t w as t r ue on ly un t i l the d i scover yof black swans. Variation is a convenient process of explicating the meaningof our concep ts , and specif y ing w hat w e mea n w hen w e speak o f such andsuch an ob jec t . Bu t the concep t r efer s back to i t s origin. It is always permis-sible to analyze a notion that we already possess. But the whole question isto know how , in f ac t , i t has been cons t i tu ted .

The answer of the author is perfectly clear .4 We do not concern ourselvesin the least with the empir ical genesis of our representations. Every conceptcan be taken in i ts own content as pure possibili ty. There is , evidently, aninf inite plurali ty of essences of which only some are realized. But eachone exists in i tself , in i ts ideal being, independently of the conditions forits inser tion in the world: a ccordingly, i t can always be def ined as such. Theeidos is independent of exper ience n the ordinary sense because wedo not refer in var iation to any exper ience, real or possible. The examplesare tak en as p ure possibili t ies, solely with an intell igible conte nt, and withoutany relation to any situation whatever in the real world. The essence def inedin var iation is presented as absolute, in th e mod e of existence t hat is properto i t , namely pure possibility.

So, we no longer have to raise the problem of the distinction betweenthe empir ical and eidetic. Every concept ta ken by itself designates an essence.There will be an essence of tree, an essence of red, an essence of centa ur .Here, we rediscover a notion t hat is well known in t he philosophical tradition.But dif f iculties, equally as classical, are going to reappear immediately. We


13/132

C H A P T E R O N Eseem to eliminate the old problem of the relations of essence and existenceby taking refuge in the realm of pure possibility. However, can we remainthere indefinitely? In fa ct, the authe ntic motivation o f eidetic studies woulddemand a return to th e real .

3 T H E T R U E S I G N I F IC A N C E O F T H E N O T I ON O F E S S E N C EThe reduction of the eidos to the pure possible, protected it a priori fromevery encroachment of experience. In this way, the Friends of the Formshad shielded themselves from the attac ks of the C hildren of the Earthin the celebrated Gigantomachia w hich Plato tells of in the Sophist. But toset the intelligible apart is to render it useless. In fact, essence in its originalnotion did not concern itself with the pure possible, but rather with thepossibility of the real. It is placed above the actual object only in order todefine the meaning of its objectivity.

Already from the outset, we have pointed out the ontological significationof the theory. The first volume of the Logische Untersuchungen opposed toskepticism the necessity of respecting those conditions without which notheory would be possible, not even the skeptical theory itself. These condi-t ions const i tute the very essence of truth, that which assures that the truthis truth. Ve ry evidently, it is not a question of a possible tru th in the sensein which it would be posited absolutely apart from actual truths. The essenceof truth defines the conditions of all possible truth, understanding by thislast expression not som e ideal being that is simply possible , but truth itselfinasmuch as it is possible. This possibility is its very being, that which it isauthentically.

The intuition of essences in its original form deal directly with the verybeing of the things, the being of the existent. The eidetic investigations donot aim at the simple analysis of concepts but the constitution of a universalontology. Before studying the facts, it is expedient to define the essencewhich constitutes their being. Physics is possible on ly from the mome nt thatone already knows what a physical fact is as physical. And, actually, thescience of nature has existed as a science only from the day that Galileodiscovered that the being of the physical consisted in its being measured.The same condition is placed on all positive research in general, inasmuchas the conceptualizat ion of i ts facts must conform t o the meaning of theirbeing. Th us, we shall never have a valid psychology as long as we have not yetdefined the eidos of the psychic, that which makes the psychic be psychic,that which must be the object of our at tention if we want to take hold of

T H E I N T U I T I O N O F E S S E N C E S 9the psychic as such. Each kind of ex istent, inasmuch as it possesses an originalbeing, constitutes a particualr domain. Before engaging in experimentalresearch, it is expedient, then, to state precisely the region in which it willbe purs ued. It is clear that being does not have the same meaning for thephysicist as for the psychologist. What exists for the former is a certainspat io-te mp ~ral ni ty, posi ted as an in-itself, in causal relation with othersthat are in-themselves. The being of the psychic, on the contrary, is mergedwith its appearance: it is a monadic unity in the flow of the lived. The eideticphenomenologist assigns himself the task of describing diverse regions of beingin their own structure, in a manner that m akes precise the pure part of thepositive sciences which studies them in experience. The eidetic laws determinethe conditions for the possibility of empirical knowledge different for eachof its domains. They are independent of the real, not because they are outsideit, but because they precede it and give it the meaning of its being.Such is the original signification of the notion of essence. A more radicalelucidation would have led us to carry out a return to a constituting 1 .The essence, as meaning of being, obviously refers to the intentionalities ofthe transcen dental consciousness. But the eidetic meth od studie s it on thelevel of object a convenient attitud e and necessary to prepare the fieldfor more profound studies. Conceptua l analysis of the essence of diverseregions of being outlines for us the framework for the study of the actswhich constitute them.

But the method surpassed its object. Variation did not apply solely toconcepts that were strictly ontological, but also to all concepts in general.Thus, there will be an essence of house, an essence of centaur, as well as anessence of t ruth. The thematizat ion of the eidos as object left only one meansof preserving it from empiricism o define it as a pure possible. But thiswas to take away its very raison d etre, its relation to the real. The essenceis, authentically, the constitutive m eaning of being. In varia tion, it is mergedw i th s i mp le ~ i ~ n i f i c a t i o n s .~

4 . D I F F I C U L T I E S W I T H T H E O B J E C T IV I S M O F E S S E N C E S .T H E R E T U R N T O T H E S U B J E C TWe will not insist on the m ultiple problems which are raised, on the philo-sophical plane, by the description of essences. Its true role is simply prepara-tory. The convenience of the method was able to create enthusiasm among i tsfirst disciples. But the eidos, despite appearances, is still in the world; andphenomenology, properly speaking, begins only with the reduction.


14/132

1 CHAPTER ONEBut if it would be o ut of th e question for us to work out here a detailed

refutation of the wordly doctrine of essence1 (such as is elaborated at theheart of the natural attitudes), it is nevertheless expedient to indicate. atleast, the character of its diff iculties, necessary to the extent that they arederived from the 'essence' of logicist objectivism n the auth enti c senseof essence. As we have seen already, treating the cidos as an object involvescondemning oneself to confusing the possible irzus~nuclz s it founds the realwith the pure possible defined by the exclusion o f every relation with the real.Thus, 'ma thematic al ex istence' is characterized precisely by the eliminationin principle of every problem ofesis terzce.

This lapse of the ontological into the ontic is translated in still anothermann er. Just as every significa tion, considered in itself and abstracted fro mevery relation to its object, co nstitutes an essence, so the eidetic domainbecomes inordinately extended. Every existent, taken in its pure intelligiblecontent, will have its singular essence. As far as logic is concerned, it willnot be sufficient to study the meaning of the notion of theory in general:we have to constru ct all the form s of possible theories.' The eidetic ofspace will not be simply the philosophical study of the concept; it willencompass the whole of geometry. Both material and formal mathematics arequalified as sciences of essence: this assimilation, because of the confusionsthat it entailed, could only discredit the phenomenological meth od.

These faul ts belong t o objective idealism as such. The realization ofessences is the first step fo r philosoph y, and the diffic ulties that it raised arenothing but the exigency of a dialectical surpassing of them. The discoveryof that fundamental philosophical truth, that the existent presupposes themeaning of its being, is inevitably interpreted at the outset by positing thisrneaning as an existent of a special category. Thus, pllilosophy began byaffjrniing that beautiful things exist only through Beauty-in-itself . The Ideawas objectif ied by being placed in a world 'apart ' . From that time, authenticessences, defined by their ideal being, as pure significations, were confusedwith the content of ordinary concepts, and philosophy retained its meaningonly by means of th e feeling that th e philosopher had for his vocation.If things exist solely through their participation in the idea said old Parmenides toyoung Socrates what must we think of objects such as hair mud and dirt? Not atall said Socrates. In the se cases the things are just the things we see; it would surelybe to o absurd to suppose tha t they have a form. All the same I have sometimes beentroubled by a doubt whether what is true in one case may not be true in all. Then whenI have reached that point I am driven to retreat for fear of tumbling into a bottomlesspit of nonsense. Anyhow I get back t o the things which we were just now speaking of

THE INTUITION O F ESSENCES 1 1

as having forms the Beautiful and the Good and other things of the same kind andmy time with thinking about them.3This is the pllilosophical movement that Husserl reenacted at the beginning

the twentieth century. The astonishing freshness of his undertaking canb e c a k d a ricw creation. His originality was manifested in the profoundexpertise own in his meth od. Thanks to variation, concepts could beanalyzed with a precision until then unknown. They undoubtedly lacked aphilosophical found ation, but the metho d remained, nevertheless, perfectin itself a perfection that was due to the authenticity with which theauthor experienced the presence of the Idea.

The first them atization could t ake place only o n the level of the object.~t met with diff iculties that motivated its displacement. That the essencedetermines the being of the exis tent can find its true meaning only in areturn to the subject. That , i f we take the cidns simply as object, its inde-pendence in relation to experience can be guaranteed only by the eliminationof all reference to the real: bu t by the same token we have excluded the verygoal of our endeavor, to know the constitution of the world through theunveiling of the meaning of its being. In fact, rneaning refers to th e act . Thebeing of the world, that which it is authentically, is what we aim at when wespeak of it. The task of a universal ontology can be realized solely throu ghthe explication of the intentions o f the co nstituting conseiousrzess.The passage to subjective idealism does n ot, in fact, posit anyth ing reallynew. Eidetic analysis was an intentional analysis which was not aware ofitself. The invariant is imposed upon us, because, if we were to suppress it,the o bject would no longer have the same meaning: it would no longer bethe same for us. The consciousness of impossibility was nothing more thanthe translation of a consciousness of signification. Yet, signification is what athing is for a su bject, its being-for-me. Thus, the return t o the lived, was onlya clarification. The analysis of the essence of being discovers its true meaningby referring to the Ego, since the essence is only the meaning that beingpresents through it. But making this clear is realised by an absolute reversal.While in the Logisclze Untersuehungen being is posited as an in-i tsel f , t nowreveals itself only as being jbr 11s. The second phase of Husserlian thoughtbegins with a rnetabasis eis allo genos: the transcendental reduction.


15/132

C H A P T E R T W O

T H E T H E M A T I Z A T IO N O F C O N C R E T E C O N S C I O U S N E S S

5 . T H E R E T U R N T O L I V E D E X P E R I E N C E I N T H E L O G I S C H EU i li T E R S U C H U N G E N

The first volume of the Logisclle Ur~tersrrchrmger~.ublished in 190 0, hadapproached the problems of logic from a strictly objective point of view.The colossal project of a Munnigjaltigkeitslehre in which all form s of possibletheories would be deduced in a systematic manner, returned to the old dreamof a Muthesis Ut~iversulis.The mathematical education of the author, ' whoonce had been an assistant to Weierstrass, seemed to de stine him to a brilliantcareer as a logician. T he publica tion of the second volume, in 190 1, wasa surprise. The problem of the theory of knowledge, discreetly announcedin the first volume, was developed by a return to subjectivity.

However, the preface of the work marked rather clearly his break with thepsychologistic period. The Philosophj~ f Ari thmetic published in 1891, hadpresented as its task the f ounding of mathem atics on psychology,' accordingto the dominant tradition of th e period. But if the method seemed to givean account of the genesis of represe ntations, it was revealed as incomp atiblewith the objectivity of science. Consequently, a radically new foundationhad to b e found.4 T hus, the second volume of the Logische Untersuchungencould not be explained by a return to psychologistic methods. The apparentsimilarity in the formulas serves to conceal the originality of Hussarl'sinspiration.

A remarkable text of the unpublished part of the Krisis provides us withenlightenment here. The author tells how he discovered, during the writingof the Logische Utltersucl~unger~ round 1898, the universal correlat imbetween subject and object. Every existe nt, no matter to what domainof being it belongs, is an index for a system of th e lived in which it is 'given',in accordance with przori laws. This revelation, declares Husserl, affectedme so deeply that my whole subsequent life-work has been dominated by thetask of systematically elaborating on this priori of correlation.

So we see the radical newness of th e original intuition which inspiredphenomenology. The notion of intentionality in Brentano still designatedonly a characteristic of 'psychic phenom ena' and permitted the subsistence


16/132

4 C H P T E R T W O

of a reality existing in itself and beyond its reach. From the period of theL ~gisclze Ut~tersucllurzgerz,Husserl reaches the central point where subjectand object appear as inseparable. The hypothesis of an irz-itself becomes asabsurd as that of a consciousness that would n ot perceive the world itself.At the same time that psycliologism is rejected, abstract realism is rejectedfor a philoso phy which sets itself the task of describing the manner in whichbeing is for the self and the ma nner that the self know s being. At issue isnot the relation between two realities which could exist apart, but of anesserltial relation, defined by a priori laws, without which neither conscious-ness nor the world would be conceivable. The subject to which we returnedwas from then and thereafter a constituting subject:The fur ther cour se o the explana tions In th is tex t wil l show how, when human subjec-t iv i ty was brought i n to t he problems of cor re la t ion , a r ad ica l t r ans formation of th emeaning of these problems becam e necessa ry which f ina l ly led to th e phenomenologica lr e d u c t io n to a n a b s o lu t e , t ra n s c en d e n tal s ~ b je c t i v i t y .~

Thus, the co~ isciousness llematized in the second volume of the LogisclzeUntersucl~ur?genwas a 'neut ra l ' con s~i ous ness ,~hich will not be defined astranscendental until the problem of psychologism is posed. At the beginningof the investigation, the subject was constituting in-i tsel f .without being yetfbr-itself: I t is from this point of view that it is appropriate to comment onthe mot iva t ion tha t the au thor presents to us in h is in t roduc t ion .The return to lived experience is not occasioned by any curiosity of thepsychologist but b y t he dem ands of t he logician himself . At stake is makingspecif ic tlie meaning o f logical objects, and to accomplish that, abandonin grepresentations which are more or less obscure in order t o return to the self -same thitzg. But the thirzg, that which we intend when we speak of logicalobjects, is what is present to us when they are given to us without th e elli-derzce. When presented with the formula of a logical law, one should notbe satisf ied wi th a simple verbal understanding. The concept s have to berendered present in fully carrying out t he operation of ' idealizing abstraction'which makes them stand forth before consciousness, in order to verify thatthis 'given' is indeed wh at it is said t o be. Many times have logical laws beeninterpreted as psychological laws on the basis of a merely 'symbolic ' com-prehension. The return to evidence allows for elimination of these confusions.Thanks to the determination of the conditions for such evidence, we shalluse concepts which will make precise the meaning o f the object in question:such is the aun of plzerzo~~~er~ological~ i a l y s i s . ~

T H E T H E M T I Z T I O N O F C O N C R E T E C O N S C I O U S N E S S 1 5

~~~~d on this fun damental te xt, we can explicate the original signif icationsof the return to the subject. Logic is the science of concepts, propositions.relations, etc . Thes e 'logical objects', as all objec ts in general, are positedoutside of th e knowledge which i ntends them. Their properties are definedby the of logic . Thus the law tha t of tw o contradic tory propo-,itions, one alone is true expresses a property of a certain category of logicalobjects: propositions. Reflection can then take two opposite directions. Onthe level of the natural attitude, the logician, as every scientist in general,try to discover as many laws as possible and will try t o codify them ina coherent system. The ideal achievement of this work would give us the.general theory of formal domains' Ilu~zrzigfaltigkeitsleI~re)here all possiblestatements, taken in their f o rm, would be deduced in a r igorous manner. Allimaginable theories would be constructed, thus, a priori, and the re would benoth ing more le f t than choosing the one theory tha t would conform bes tthe data of experience. Realizing the ideal of Mathesis Urliversalis, t h eMan1zigfaltigkeitslehre would be. on the level of the object, the the ory oftheories, the science of sciences.That is the conclusion of the f irst volume of the Logische Ur~tersudzurzgetz.But the need for intelligibility can take a different course. The deductivescience of logical objects begins with fundam ental con cepts which t he logicianaccepts without cr iticism: the direction of his interest extends only to theiruse in the system that he constructs. From this purely objective point ofview, he possesses a suff icient knowledge of them. The scope of logic isprecisely only knowledge itself in its realization. The logician speaks ofconcepts, propositions, relations, truths. But what is a concept, and what isthe signif ication of conceptual knowledge? What is truth , and how can anobject (seeing that it is, as such, ' in- itself , outside the sphere of representa-tion) b e 'given' to a subject? T he evidence proper to tlie logician is suff icientfor the cons t i tu t ion of a 12.lanr1igfaltigkeitslehre. ut the profound meaningof concepts which he makes use of , remains obscure: this obscurity by itselfexplains the nearly universal confusion between logical and psychologicallaws which resulted when the Log i sc l~eUrltcrs~iclzurzget~ade its appearance.

Thus, the explication of the meaning of logical objects led necessarily toproblems regarding epistemology.g These problems require precisely a returnto the lived. As we have said, when con fronted by a logical law, we must no tbe satisf ied with a 'vague co n~preli ension' . his advice might seem astonishing.seeing that logical laws are rightl y reput ed as being the clearest of all. Butthe evidence can be sufficient for calculation; while . from a plzilosophicalpoint of view, concepts remain con fused. This confusion is prejudicial to logic


17/132

6 C H A P T E R T W Oitself, which becomes a simple technique without 'truth'. From this point,it is necessary to return 'to the things themselves', to effect in a fully con-scious manner the acts of idealizing abstraction which render logical objectspresent to us. In this oper ation, 'logical evidence' is realized where the objec tsare 'given' to us. The pl~enomenologicalanalysis of this evidence will allowus to specify the meaning of their being and to resolve the philosophicalproblems th at they arouse.

It is appropriate to specify these indications, which may seem somewhatformal, according to the descript ions o f the Sixth Investigation. The secondpart of it is devoted to the doctrine of 'categorial intuition', understoodas the intuition of non-sensible objects that are intended in predication(kategoreivr): predicates, relations, states of affairs (Sachverhal te), etc.'' Acategorial object can be given 'in person', when we form ulate the judgmentaccording to the evidence; it also can be 'presented simply', when we speakabou t it absen t-minded ly, witho ut thinking about wha t we are saying. It isclear that in the latter case error is possible. Thus, the truth of science, as asystem of propositions, is tied to the conditions of categorial evidence. Andthe description of this will be an essential task for the phenomenologicaltheory of knowledge.

We do n ot have to get into the details of this tex t, which is confused attimes and underwent many subsequent revisions, without ever succeeding insatisfying its author. It will suffice to retain its fundamental idea. In opposi-tion to th e sensible intuitio n, which as 'simple' int uition, needs nothing elsein order to exist, the categorial intuition is necessarily 'grounded'. It pre-supposes, precisely, the presence, in the background, of a sensible (simple)intuition . The 'categorial acts', which are effected a part, can give but a vagueand purely 'symbolic' com prehension . In other words, judgme nts formulatedwithout the presence of a corresponding sensible intuition remain on theverbal plane: they are confused thoughts, removed from the thing itselj: Itis impor tant t o be precise here. T he issue of a lapse into empiricism is not atall involved here: the 'thing' here is not the sensible object bu t, precisely, thecategorial object defined by predication. But this categorial object can bepresent 'in person' only o n the 'found ation' of the sensible object but never-theless without this condition taking anything away from the originality ofits being: for inasmuch as it is constituted 'on' t he sensible, it will be definedas supral-se~zsible.

We see from this example the meaning and scope of phenomenologicalanalysis. Traditional theories of knowledge struggled with inextricable diffi-culties regarding the problem of the relations between the sensible and the

T H E T H E M A T I Z A T I O N O F C O N C R E T E C O N S C I O U S N E S S 7

intelligible. This ended with Kant's declaring that a concept without anintui t ion is empty and an intui t ion without a concept is blind. The connec-tion was brought about through the mediation of the notion of 'possibleexperienc e1. With the c ategories defining the con ditions of object ivi ty, anyexperience which would not conform to them would not be the experienceo an object; consequently, i t would not be an experience at al l . Thus theintuitive synthesis which const i tutes the objects of perception, proceedsfrom the unity of the understanding, which presides over the conceptualsynthesis . In this m anner, the possibil i ty of a confo rmity between the objectsgiven in perception and judgments formulated by science was foundedin other words, the possibility of knowledge. We shall have the occasion,later, of examining the Kantian doctrine more carefully. Here it will sufficeto notice that the demonstrat ion rested entirely upon arbitrary defini t ions,notably that of the notion of object. We find here a mixture of irreconcilableconcepts. Is the object of possible experience a sensible or a categorial object?Does i t refer to the object that I perceive this moment, or does i t refer toan intelligible unity constituted in that network of necessary determinationsof w hich we have an idea when we speak of nature ? From t hen on , phe-

nomenological analysis made this confusion impossible. The perceived objecthas a unique place in spatio-temporality. The categorial object as such isoutside of space and t ime. That I am here at this moment, const i tutes a t rueproposition, and, inasmuch as it is true, it is valid for all times and places.Though it is true that th e subject is a particular being, yet the judgmen tintends a 'state of affairs' which as such coristitutes a 'suprasensible' idealobject.

But phen omeno logy does not allow merely a full elucidation of theopposit ion between the understanding and the sensibi l i ty by the defini t ionof their respective objects. Pze analysis o f correlative evidence resolves theproblem of their relations. The sensible and intelligible do not exist 'apart',since categorial evidence is always 'founded' on sensible evidence. But theconcept of 'foundation' precludes any confusion between the spheres. Itis not a m atter of deriving the intelligible from the sensible, in the manner ofthe emp iricists, since it belongs to the very essence of 'founded' acts to intendradically new objects. The intelligible is engendered by the sensible withoutbeing reduced to it.

In this way the value arid limits of science are justified. The possibilityan accord between intuition and concept does not refer to the simplistic

and arbitrary hypothesis of a construct ion of perception according to thecategories of judgment, but to the very essence of categorial evidence as


18/132

18 C H A P T E R T W Ofhlrrrded evidence. Predicative knowledge c an be realized only in the presenceof a sensible intuit ion, but i t bears upo n an object of a super ior degree .character ized by its ideality. The propositions of science are true ofexper i-ence . and ar e t r ue on ly ir7side of e xper ience. However , the result is obtainednot by a confusion o f spheres, but by an explication which implies theirdistinction. That the intell igible must be ver if ied in the sensible does notdiminish in any way th e or iginality of their respective modes of existe nce.

Through the notion of foundation. phenomenological descr iption allowsfor the correction of faults of eidetic analysis that could suggest a completeseparation of types. The f irst volume of the 1,ogische Ci7tersuchurlgen, anxiousto def ine the specif ic nature of logical objects, seemed to posit a worldapar t a world of Ideas and the autho r saw himself being reproachedfor Platonic realism . But logicism has been avoided precisely by the sub-jective investigation of the second volume, in which the analysis of categorialevidence demonstrates the necessity of a reference to the sensible never-theless without fall ing into the character istic confusion of the Kantian notionof possible exper ience . Thus. the re turn to l ived exper ience was not a lapsein to psycho log ism, bu t an ef f ec t o f the in f luence o f Br en tano on the au tho r .I t was necessary to resolve the problem of knowledge through the explicationof the very meaning of logical objects, inasmuch as they imply a relationt o reality.I2 But the task was correctly seen possible only by means of theanalysis of corresp onding evidence.

The method implied that the descr iption of l ived exper ience was not apsychologic~al ask. I t is clear that if the def init ion of categorial evidence

as founded evidence expressed only a peculiar ity of the human psyche.the r e lat ion cou ld no t have any value on th e p lane o f the ob jec t . w here theintelligible and the sensible would remain def initely apar t . The proposedsolution to the prob lem of knowledge had meaning only if the conditionso f the thing itselj corresponded to the conditions of evidence. In 19 1 a nunfor tu nate formula, st i l l well-known, def ined phenome nology as descr iptivepsychology l 3 However , the latter was forcefully distinguished f rom empir icalpsychology, which loo ks for causal explanation,14 and also f rom introspectivepsychology, based on the practice of internal perception. Here i t is not thepoint to formulate a theory of psychic phenomen a alongside one of physicalphenomen a . The object of the inte rnal exper ience of the psychologist istratzscendcrzt just as i t is for external exper ience: the intended transcendsthe given. and an error always remains possible. Phenomenological intuit iondeals with pure inznzanence as such: w e accep t i t in the exact measur e tha t i tis given w her e doub t w ou ld be meaningless. Only this absolute evidence of

T H E T H E M A T I Z A T I O N O F C O N C R E T E C O N S C I O U S N E S S 19

the pure 17llerzon7enon can satisfy th e exigencies of a theory of knowledge .The latter could not make use of ordinary evidence, which it puts intop s t i o n , and r igh t ly so : th i s does no t mean tha t i t mus t cas t of f a l l con ten tin o r der to be con ten t w i th a concep tual analys is in the manner o f K an t bu tsimply that whatever is not given in phcr~otnet~olog~call9iderlc.e must beexcluded.In this w ay, phenomenological analysis , led on by consid erations regardinga theory of knowledge was psychological in name only. I t is concerned withthe absolute evidence of the consciousness of the self , distinct f rom internalperception. Thus, one can already speak of a trat~sc~ndcrztalnalysis wh ichshou ld no t be conf used w i th the K an t ian p r o jec t . The s tudy o f the sub jec t .in K an t . passed th r ough the med ia t ion o f the ob jec t . The a priori f o r ms o fthe sensibili ty and the understanding had been abstracted by an analysis ofthe conditions for tlre possibility o f a n objec t: their transcendent signif icationwas immediately guarante ed, but i t would be dif f icult to say why one wouldinsist on attr i buting them to a subject . The Husser lian investigation takes adiametr ically opposite direction. Psychologis~n s not avoided by the refusalof a direct theniatizing of the subject and the detour of an analysis of theconditions of th e obje ct: th e transcende ntal dime nsion is reached preciselyby the deepening of the consciousness of self . inasmuch as i t reveals inabsolute evidence, as pure pl~cnornenon. he mean ing o f be ing and o f theself.

Thus the passage to transcendental idealism will be but an explication.The I,ogische Ut~tersudziingetz contained it , implicit ly. The f irst volumetook the objec t as an in- itself; the second gave analyses of the real con tento f the lived . Thus , the au thor seemed to adher e to an o r d inar y r ea li sm,pos i ting ( on the one hand) the ob jec t as ex ternal r ea li ty and ( on the o therhand) the consciousness w hich know s i t . Bu t examinat ion o f the ac tualanalyses reveals the meaning of the work. The aff irmation of the or iginalityof the logical object was founded upon an intentional analysis of the aimsof the logician. Logical laws are ir reducibly distinct f rom psychological laws,because one doe s not in tend t he same things in each case. Conversely, the~ h e n o m e n o l o ~ i c a lnalysis of the last two It~vestigations eerned to encloseitself in the real con ten t of consciousness. But the first character istic thatwe f ind there is def ined as a surpassing onsciousness is consciousness o tSomething; in i tself i t requires something oth er than itself : the obje ct that i t

Thus . the tw o vo lumes o f the Logische Utztersrtcl1~~t7g~~tz,f we takethem in their trzrth. cons t i tu te the tw o moments o f an au then t ic p l ienome-nological analysis in the classical noetic-noematic form. The f irst moment


19/132

20 C H A P T E R T W Odescribes the noenza. the ob ject intended by the logician inasmuch as it isdistinguished radically in its ideality from all psychological reality. Thesecond moment describes the tzocsiv which intends it. But this correlation wasonly 'in-itsel' or 'for us'. As a 'for-itself , it took on a form which con tra-dicted its real signification. To be sure, the intended object has no othermeaning th an thro ugh the ac t of consciousness. But in the naivett. of a directdescription, it is posited as an independent entity, since the logician intendsit precisely as such . Conversely, consciousness was, from tha t time on, aconstituting consciousness, inasmuch as it gives its meaning to the object.But the f irst look of the phenomenologist takes it only in its ' real ' content,as a thing enclosed within itself.

In this manner, the 'realism' of the L ogi sc he Un te r s t i c h~ ~ t~ ge n ,gnorant ofits own m eaning, was but th e contrad ictory form of an intentio nal analysis. I timplied the necessity of a dialectical reversal. But in the Hu sserlian languageof the last period, one would say that the profound intention of the workstrove Jbr an idealism, but that it was actual1,v expressed as a realism. But ifwe use Hegelian vocabulary, then we will have to reverse the terms and saythat the author irltended and believed that he had posited a realism, butthat he attained, irr fact, the relation of constitution. In that 'experience ' ,philosophical consciousn ess is going to take a new 'form' hat which willbe expressed in transcendental idealism.

6 . T H E D I S C O V E R Y O F T H E R E D U C T IO NHusserl taught the theory of the reduction for the f irst time in the f irst f ivelectures of a course entitled Fundamerztal Points o f P/zenon ~enolo gy rzd o fthe Cri t ique ofReason at Gottingen during the summer semester of 1907.Through that text we are going to try to clarify the original signification ofthe doctrine.

The author begins with a certain number of commonplace considerationsabou t the theory of knowledge. Natural thought develops on the plane of theobject; the existence of the world and the possibility of knowing it does notraise any diff iculty for it . But what is taken for granted by the ordinary manbecomes a mystery for the philosopher. Knowledge, indeed, is understood ,as a fact alongside of many other facts psychological event. How thencan it arrive at a truth? In the naturalistic interpretation, one that is inevitableon the plane of naive consciousness, every value would disappear. Psycholo-gism, which is adopted spontaneously by though t when it wants t o understand

T H E T H E M A T I Z A T I O N O F C O N C R E T E C O N S C IO U S N E S S 2 1itself , results in skepticism. Reflection o n the problem of knowledge requiressurpassing of the natural attitude.su ch is the conten t of the f irst lecture. We recognize well-known themes ini t . TO transform the subject in to objec t is to make it incomprehensible, andthis is precisely w hat one does when philosophizing with meth ods familiar tonatural though t. Everyone kn ows the classical solution: in order to avoid theperil of psychologism, it is necessary to proceed to the conceptual plane bya reflection on the 'conditions for the possibility of . But we will ask wh y,in this case, should one insist on speaking of a 'subjectivity' lbeit a 'tran-scendental' one. Husserl's merit was in maintaining the necessity of remainingon the concrete level. The exclusion of objects of nature does not condemnus to be enclosed in a system of form s. All that is needed to give philosophyits own conte nt is the discovery of a mode of superior knowledge.

Such is the goal of the second lecture. The problematic of knowledge hadtransformed the obviousness in th e natural atti tude into mysteries. Thephilosopher must not take into account any of the propositions which hehas admitted up u ntil now . He must f ind a new kind of knowledge whichis absolutely certain. For that. it will be enough for him to work his waythrough t

Documents

Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism