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This dissertation presents an historical investigation of the reception of phenomenology in France from 1889-1939. It examines anticipation of phenomenology in French thought as well as early encounters of French academic philosophers and religious thinkers with the phenomenological philosophies of Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger.
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RECEPTIONS OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRENCH
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1889-1939
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate School
of the University of Notre Dame
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
of the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Christian Yves Dupont, B.A., M.A.
____________________________________ Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., Director
Department of Theology
Notre Dame, Indiana
July 1997
© Copyright byCHRISTIAN YVES DUPONT
1997All rights reserved
RECEPTIONS OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRENCH
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1889-1939
Abstract
by
Christian Yves Dupont
This dissertation presents an historical investigation of the reception of the phe-
nomenology in France from 1889-1939. It examines anticipations of phenomenology in
French thought as well early encounters of French academic philosophers and religious
thinkers with the phenomenological philosophies of Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler and
Martin Heidegger.
Chapter 1 argues that a gradual phenomenological turn in French thought was pre-
ceded by aspects of the positivist, idealist and spiritualist currents which defined French
philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century. The first impetus came from Henri
Bergson’s insights into lived duration and intuition and Maurice Blondel’s genetic descrip-
tion of action. These were precursors to the interest in Husserlian phenomenology in
French philosophical and religious circles which emerged in the mid-1920s.
Chapter 2 details four phases in the reception of phenomenology among academic
philosophers in France. The phases correspond to four successive pairs of interpreters:
Léon Noël and Victor Delbos (awareness of Husserl’s critique of psychologism), Lev
Shestov and Jean Héring (polemics over Husserl’s Ideas and Logical Investigations),
Bernard Groethuysen and Georges Gurvitch (popularization of phenomenology), and
Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre (original appropriations of phenomenology).
Chapters 3 and 4 turn to theology, and outline two stages in the reception of phe-
nomenology in French religious thought. Chapter 3 addresses the appropriation of
Christian Yves Dupont
Bergsonian and Blondelian phenomenological insights by Édouard Le Roy and Pierre
Rousselot respectively, and their application of these themes to theological topics such as
the nature of dogma and the act of faith. Chapter 4 examines interpretations of pheno-
menology by Jean Héring, Gaston Rabeau, Joseph Maréchal and members of the Société
Thomiste, including Jacques Maritain. Reasons for the rise and fall of interest in phe-
nomenology among French neo-Thomists are explored.
The principal finding of this dissertation is that the philosophical and theological re-
ceptions of phenomenology in France prior to 1939 proceeded relatively independently of
each other due to the different ways Bergson and Blondel influenced these respective
spheres and to the different orientations of French philosophers and religious thinkers to
the Cartesian and Aristotelian/Thomist intellectual traditions.
ii
À mon père
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.........................................................................vii
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................1
I. The Occasion of the Dissertation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
II. The Contribution of the Dissertation.........................................................4
III. Methodology and Terminology...............................................................7A. Definition of Reception ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9B. Definition of Phenomenology..........................................................12C. Definition of Religious Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
IV. The Plan of the Dissertation.................................................................21
CHAPTER 1 PRECURSORS TO THE RECEPTION OFPHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE, 1889-1909 ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
I. Three Major Currents in French Philosophyat the End of the Nineteenth Century .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26A. Positivism ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28B. Idealism...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
1. Charles Renouvier .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .322. Léon Brunschvicg...................................................................35
C Spiritualism...............................................................................381. Felix Ravaisson .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402. Jules Lachelier.......................................................................423. Émile Boutroux......................................................................45
D. Conclusion: Anticipations of Phenomenology inFrench Positivism, Idealism and Spiritualism........................................47
II. Henri Bergson: Lived Duration and Intuition.............................................48A. Bergson’s Original Insight .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50B. Bergson’s Principal Themes: Duration and Intuition................................53
1. Duration..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .532. Intuition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
C. Bergson as a Precursor to Husserlian Phenomenology.............................621. Similarities...........................................................................632. Differences...........................................................................673. Conclusions..........................................................................72
D. Bergson’s Influence on French Theologians.........................................75
iv
III. Maurice Blondel: A Phenomenology of Action...........................................81A. Blondel’s Original Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83B. Blondel’s Principal Theme: Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90C. Blondel as a Precursor to Husserlian Phenomenology..............................98
1. Critique of Positivist Approaches to Science ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1022. Phenomenological Themes: Intentionality, Intuition and
Intersubjectivity ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1083. Conclusions.........................................................................116
D. Blondel’s Influence on French Theologians.........................................119
IV. Conclusion: Bergson and Blondel as Precursors to theReception of Husserlian Phenomenology in France....................................128
CHAPTER 2 FOUR PHASES IN THE RECEPTION OFPHENOMENOLOGY IN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY,1910-1939....................................................................134
I. Léon Noël and Victor Delbos..............................................................135A. Léon Noël .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135B. Victor Delbos............................................................................137C. Noël and Delbos as Interpreters of Phenomenology ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139
II. Lev Shestov and Jean Héring..............................................................142A. Lev Shestov .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143B. Jean Héring..............................................................................146C. Shestov’s Reply to Héring ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150D. Héring’s Rebuttal to Shestov..........................................................151E. Shestov and Héring as Interpreters of Phenomenology............................152
III. Bernard Groethuysen and Georges Gurvitch............................................154A. Bernard Groethuysen ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154B. Interlude: German Phenomenologists in France....................................161C. Georges Gurvitch.......................................................................164
1. Gurvitch on Husserl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1652. Gurvitch on Scheler................................................................1713. Gurvitch on Lask and Hartmann ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1744. Gurvitch on Heidegger .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179
D. Groethuysen and Gurvitch as Interpreters of Phenomenology....................183
IV. Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre.................................................185A. Emmanuel Levinas ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186
1. On Husserl’s Ideas.................................................................1892. Husserl’s Theory of Intuition.....................................................1973. Martin Heidegger’s Ontology.....................................................205
B. Jean-Paul Sartre.........................................................................2111. The Transcendence of the Ego....................................................2162. Sartre’s Assessment of Husserl..................................................2283. Sartre’s Assessment of Heidegger...............................................234
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C. Levinas and Sartre as Interpreters of Phenomenology.............................236
V. Conclusion: Four Phases in the Reception ofPhenomenology in French Philosophy, 1910-1939....................................240A. Phase One: Awareness of Husserl as a Critic of Psychologism ..................240B. Phase Two: Polemics over Ideas and the Logos Essay............................241C. Phase Three: Popularization of Phenomenology....................................242D. Phase Four: Original French Appropriations of Phenomenology.................244E. Other Figures, Further Aspects.......................................................246
CHAPTER 3 RECEPTIONS OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL INSIGHTSIN FRENCH RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1901-1929 ......................250
I. Édouard Le Roy.............................................................................251A. His Life and Works ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251B. Le Roy and Bergson ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257C. Le Roy’s Application of Bergsonian Insights to Religious Thought.............266D. Le Roy’s Contribution to the Theological Reception of Phenomenology........277
II. Pierre Rousselot.............................................................................280A. His Life and Works ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .280B. Rousselot and Blondel.................................................................283C. Rousselot’s Application of Blondelian Insights to Religious Thought...........298D. Rousselot’s Contribution to the Theological Reception of Phenomenology.....308
CHAPTER 4 RECEPTIONS OF HUSSERLIAN PHENOMENOLOGYIN FRENCH RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1926-1939.......................314
I. Jean Héring .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .314A. His Life and Works ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315B. Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Religion...................................317C. Héring’s Application of Phenomenology to Religious Thought..................331
II. Gaston Rabeau ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .334A. His Life and Works ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .334B. Phenomenology and Theological Epistemology....................................336
1. Early articles........................................................................3382. Dieu, son existence et sa providence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3463. Le Jugement d’existence and Species. Verbum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .351
C. Rabeau’s Application of Phenomenology to Religious Thought..................358
III. Joseph Maréchal.............................................................................363A. His Life and Works ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364B. Phenomenology and the Critical Justification of Metaphysics ....................375
1. “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et lesmystiques”..........................................................................376
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2. Le point de départ de la métaphysique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3803. “Le Problème de Dieu d’après M. Édouard Le Roy”..........................3844. “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?”...........................386
C. Maréchal’s Application of Phenomenology to Religious Thought................396
IV. Neo-Thomist Encounters with Phenomenology.........................................400A. The Société Thomiste and the Journée d’Études. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402
a. Presentation by Daniel Feuling...................................................404c. Presentation by René Kremer.....................................................415
B. Neo-Thomist Appraisals of Phenomenology........................................425a. Appraisals of the Journée d’Études . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .425b. Two Neo-Thomist Appraisals of Phenomenology: Pedro Descoqs
and Jacques Maritain...............................................................431
V. Conclusion: Two Stages in the Reception of Phenomenologyin French Religious Thought Prior to 1939..............................................443A. Stage 1: Integration of Bergsonian and Blondelian Insights, 1901-1929........444B. Stage 2: Applications and Appraisals of Phenomenology, 1926-1939...........447
CONCLUSION....................................................................................453
I. Receptions of Phenomenology in FrenchAcademic Circles prior to 1939............................................................453
II. Appropriations of Phenomenology by French Philosophers ..........................456
III. Appropriations of Phenomenology by French Religious Thinkers ...................457
IV. French Receptions of Phenomenology since 1939......................................462
WORKS CITED...................................................................................471
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgement is due first and foremost to my dissertation director, Thomas F.
O’Meara, O.P., for his guidance in organizing the project and his patience in seeing it
through its many stages of development. I also wish to thank the members of my commit-
tee for their support: David Burrell, C.S.C., and Lawrence Cunningham of the Department
of Theology, and Stephen Watson of the Department of Philosophy. Several other faculty
at Notre Dame provided valuable suggestions and encouragement at various points in my
research. Among these I note especially Frederick Crosson, Fred Dallmayr, Ralph
McInerny, Paul Philibert, O.P., and Michael Signer.
Funding for a five-week research visit to Paris in November-December, 1993 was
provided by a seed money grant from the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies
and the Zahm Research Travel Fund at the University of Notre Dame. My stay at the
Couvent St. Jacques and the Institut Catholique de Paris was graciously hosted by Claude
Geffré, O.P., who also gave me access to the Bibliothèque Saulchoir. I am also grateful to
Jean Greisch and Jean-Luc Marion, with whom I discussed my project while in Paris and
during their respective visits to the University of Loyola, Chicago in 1993 and 1994 for
seminars organized by Adriaan Peperzak. A grant from the Robert Gordon Travel Fund at
the University of Notre Dame enabled me to participate in a semester-long seminar on phe-
nomenology led by Jean-Luc Marion in the fall of 1994 at the University of Chicago. I am
deeply indebted to professors Geffré, Greisch and Marion for my perspectives on the land-
scape of French theology and phenomenology, and I feel privileged to have had that
knowledge periodically broadened through subsequent correspondence and occasional
encounters here and abroad.
viii
In addition to formal guidance and funding, I wish to acknowledge the personal
support I received from my family and friends. Monthly group meetings with fellow
dissertationists in the History of Christianity Area of the Department of Theology helped
me to formulate the methodology employed in this study. Tom Ryan read drafts of the
Introduction and Chapter 1, clarifying the structure and articulation of my arguments.
Louis Jordan and the staff of the Department of Special Collections in the
University Libraries of Notre Dame, where I have been employed since the beginning of
my graduate studies, have been an ongoing source of inspiration.
The friendship of Simone and Ilaria Marchesi sustained me through many difficult
periods and renewed my strength, confidence and enthusiasm.
This dissertation is dedicated to my father, Felix Y. Dupont, for having awakened
within me at an early age the pleasure of learning and an interest in our French cultural
heritage.
Finally, I wish to thank Silvia Cortesi, whose love brought to conclusion this
chapter of my life by opening a new one.
1
INTRODUCTION
I. The Occasion of the Dissertation
In 1992, a collection of seminar papers by Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Louis Chrétien,
Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry was published under the title Phénoménologie et
théologie.1 These essays represented the fruit of two years of collective study and discus-
sion at the Laboratoire de recherches phénoménologiques et herméneutiques/Archives
Husserl de Paris of the theme “Phénoménologie et herméneutique de la religion.” The idea
for this topic, however, reflected more than three decades of activity in French phenomeno-
logical and theological circles.
In 1960, Paul Ricoeur, founder of the Laboratoire de recherches
phé–noménologiques et herméneutiques,2 published a study of classical mythologies of
evil.3 The Symbolism of Evil marked a clear departure in methodology from Ricoeur’s two
previous studies of human fallibility, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the
Involuntary4 and Fallible Man.5 For the first time he approached the problem from a textual
or hermeneutical standpoint as opposed to an existential or structural perspective. Historical
1Jean-Louis Chrétien et al., Phénoménologie et théologie (Paris: Criterion, 1992).2Together with Jean Hyppolite, Ricoeur was instrumental in establishing this re-
search center for phenomenology and hermeneutics (UA 106) under the auspices of theCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in 1967. For a history of the founda-tion of the Husserl Archives in Paris, see the dossier presented by its present director,Jean-François Courtine, “Fondation et proto-fondation des Archives Husserl à Paris,” inHusserl, ed. Eliane Escoubas and Marc Richir (Paris: Million, 1989).
3Paul Ricoeur, La Symbolique du mal, vol. 2, book 2, of Philosophie de la volonté(Paris: Aubier, 1960); available in English as The Symbolism of Evil, trans. EmersonBuchanan (Boston: Beacon 1967).
4Paul Ricoeur, Le Volontaire et l’involontaire, vol. 1 of Philosophie de la volonté(Paris: Aubier, 1950); available in English as Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and theInvoluntary, trans. with an introduction by E. V. Kohák (Evanston: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1966).
5Paul Ricoeur, L’Homme fallible, vol. 2, book 1 of Philosophie de la volonté(Paris: Aubier, 1960); available in English as Fallible Man, trans. Charles L. Kelbley, rev.ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1965).
2
religious texts displaced eidetic descriptions and dialectical anthropological schemas. In this
move away from structural phenomenology the beginnings of a new hermeneutic phe-
nomenology may be clearly discerned.6 In more recent essays, Ricoeur has expanded the
employment of hermeneutic phenomenology for biblical interpretation, narrative theology
and religious imagination.7 His explorations in these fields have been furthered by the
contemporary generation of hermeneutical theologians in France, most notably Claude
Geffré.8
The application of hermeneutic phenomenology to biblical exegesis and hermeneuti-
cal theology represents one approach for integrating phenomenology and theology. Another
form of rapprochement between the two disciplines can be seen in the evolution of so-
called “radical” phenomenologies.9 Most typical in this regard is the work of Jean-Luc
Marion. In L’Idole et la distance, Marion reinterprets the significance of the concepts of
6Don Ihde, Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 95ff.
7See the collection of essays by Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion,Narrative and Imagination, trans. David Pellauer, edited with an introduction by Mark I.Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995).
8See especially, Claude Geffré, Le Christianisme au risque de l’interprétation(Paris: Cerf, 1983); available in English as Claude Geffré, The Risk of Interpretation. OnBeing Faithful to the Christian Tradition in a Non-Christian Age, trans. by David Smith(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987).
9The phrase “radical phenomenology” has gained currency in post-modern classifi-cations of philosophy; see for example, John Sallis, ed., Radical Phenomenology. Essaysin Honor of Martin Heidegger (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1978). Husserl,however, was responsible for applying the term to phenomenology. For instance, inPhilosophy as Rigorous Science, he says of phenomenology: “The science concerned withwhat is radical must from every point of view be radical in its procedure. Above all it mustnot rest until it has attained its own absolutely clear beginnings” (Edmund Husserl,“Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” in Husserl, Shorter Works, ed. Peter McCormick andFrederick A. Elliston, trans. Quentin Lauer (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,1981), 196). Again, in Crisis of the European Sciences, Husserl observes that “humanity,struggling to understand itself . . . feels called to initiate a new age, completely sure of itsidea of philosophy and its true method, and also certain of having overcome all previousnaïvetés, and thus all skepticism, through the radicalism of its new beginning.” (EdmundHusserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. AnIntroduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr, (Evanston: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1970), 14). Husserl asserts that phenomenology is essentially radical be-cause it assumes the most extreme beginning point, absolute subjectivity. A radical phe-nomenology, then, is one that takes absolute subjectivity as its point of departure and at-tempts to draw out its full implications. By contrast, a non-radical approach (e.g.,Ricoeur’s) would regard phenomenology as a limited method whose value lies in its poten-tial to be used in conjunction with other philosophical approaches and critiques.
3
ontological difference (Martin Heidegger), alterity (Emmanuel Levinas) and différance
(Jacques Derrida) in light of his own concept of distance, a pre-ontological and theological
horizon which Marion uses to distinguish idolatrous concepts of being from the iconic
kenosis and donation of the Trinitarian God.10 Marion’s thesis that being is not the ultimate
phenomenological horizon receives further elaboration in a subsequent book, Dieu sans
l’être.11 Here Marion argues against the classical link between metaphysics and theology,
claiming “Only love does not have to be. And God loves without being.”12 Whereas
Ricoeur and hermeneutical theologians focus on the interpretation of texts and the trans-
mission of theological traditions, Marion and like-minded radical phenomenologists con-
centrate on the primordial givenness of God, or in more theological terms, the fact of divine
revelation and our response to it in faith and love.13 These rapprochements of phe-
nomenology and theology have not passed without criticism, however. For example,
Dominique Janicaud, in a polemical essay whose title, Le Tournant théologique de la
phénoménologie française, pronounces an indictment upon Marion, Levinas and other radi-
cal phenomenologists, argues that Husserl and Heidegger on the one hand, and Sartre and
Merleau-Ponty on the other, established firm precedents for keeping phenomenology and
theology separate enterprises.14
These recent rapprochements and critiques point toward a strong, continuing
French interest in determining the value of phenomenological approaches for theology.
Meanwhile, American interest in this question has also evolved. Ricoeur has been well-
known in this country since the early 1970s, Derrida and Levinas became popular here
10Jean-Luc Marion, L’Idole et la distance (Paris: Grasset, 1977); see especially, “La
Distance et son icône,” 255-315.11Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être (Paris: Fayard, 1982).12Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson, with a fore-
word by David Tracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 138.13See Jean-Yves Lacoste, “Penser à Dieu en l’aimant. Philosophie et théologie de
Jean-Luc Marion,” Archives de philosophie 50 (1987): 245-70, and also Jean-YvesLacoste, Note sur le temps. Essai sur les raisons de la mémoire et de l’espérance (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).
14Dominique Janicaud, Le Tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française(Combas: l’Eclat, 1991).
4
during the 1980s, and since the appearance in 1991 of a translation of God without Being,
Marion, too, has gained an American following. In light of the current American interest in
rapprochements of phenomenology and theology, it would be interesting to trace the histor-
ical evolution of hermeneutic and radical phenomenology, to investigate the philosophical
and theological aspects of their respective methodologies, and to offer a comparative cri-
tique of their respective positions. Yet in order to give an adequate account of the more re-
cent development of hermeneutical and radical phenomenologies, one needs first of all a
sense of the overall history of the reception of phenomenology in France. How did Husserl
and his followers become known in France? Why did the French become so interested in
his thought in the first place? How did the reception of Husserl’s thought proceed in philo-
sophical and theological circles? Answers to these questions are essential to understanding
the role phenomenology continues to play in French intellectual life, and constitute the
focus of this dissertation.
II. The Contribution of the Dissertation
It is generally known that phenomenology along with its founder, Edmund
Husserl, made its way from Germany to France in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and that
by 1940, phenomenology in France was evolving into something quite distinct from the
original German movement. Nonetheless, the initial reception of phenomenology in France
has never been closely analyzed, nor have the contributions of French religious thinkers to
the interpretation of Husserl received adequate appreciation.
The first attempt to provide a comprehensive history of the phenomenological
movement was undertaken by Herbert Spiegelberg in the mid-1950s, culminating in the
publication of The Phenomenological Movement in 1960.15 The original purpose of the
book, now in its third edition, was to introduce phenomenology to Anglo-American audi-
ences as a diverse, widespread philosophical movement who whose original inspiration
15Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement. A HistoricalIntroduction, ed. H. L. Van Breda, 2 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960; 3rd re-vised and enlarged edition, 1982).
5
could be traced to Edmund Husserl but whose scope had broadened into so many different
areas that it could hardly be called a system or a school. In a 20-page chapter on “The
Beginnings of French Phenomenology,” which documents many of the significant names
and publications that influenced the growth of the phenomenological movement in France,
Spiegelberg distinguishes an initial “receptive phase” in the French assimilation of
Husserl’s ideas from a subsequent “productive phase,” which he dates to the publication
Sartre’s essay The Transcendence of the Ego in 1936.16 In describing the receptive phase,
Spiegelberg elaborates on facts furnished in a brief article by Jean Héring,17 but he does
not examine the various interpretations of Husserl that circulated during this period.
Instead, he focuses on the protagonists of the productive phase in the French reception of
phenomenology, devoting a chapter each to phenomenological aspects of the works of
Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.18 Bernhard Waldenfel’s
1983 volume, Phänomenologie in Frankreich, concentrates on the same figures.19 The
opening chapter introduces the theme of the reception of phenomenology in France, but
does not add any new information or interpretations. Waldenfels simply adopts
Spiegelberg’s distinction between the receptive and productive phases to describe the early
French phenomenological experience, adding that after the mid-1960s a third phase began
16Cf. Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement. A Historical
Introduction, 3rd revised and enlarged ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), 426-27:“The development of French phenomenology can be divided into two overlapping phases: amainly receptive period, during which phenomenology remained almost completely anexotic plant, represented by German-trained scholars, of interest primarily to those con-cerned about promoting international relations in philosophy; and a predominantly produc-tive phase, when phenomenology became an active tool in the hands of native Frenchmen.The dividing line may be placed in 1936. The first landmark of the new period was the firstindependent phenomenological publication of Jean-Paul Sartre.”
17Jean Héring, “Phenomenology in France,” in Philosophic Thought in France andthe United States. Essays Representing Major Trends in Contemporary French andAmerican Philosophy, ed. Marvin Farber, trans. anonymous (Buffalo: University ofBuffalo Publications in Philosophy, 1950), 67-85.
18The third revised and enlarged edition of The Phenomenological Movement alsoincludes the English translation of an article on Emmanuel Levinas by Stephen Strasser.
19Bernhard Waldenfels, Phänomenologie in Frankreich (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,1983). An indication of the similarity between Waldenfels’s volume and Spiegelberg’s isthat the former includes the same essay on Levinas by Stephen Strasser in its originalGerman form.
6
which he refers to as an Umbruchphase, or period of upheaval, when phenomenology was
challenged by the advent of structuralism, linguistics and other emerging critical stances in
the human sciences.20 Meanwhile, French publications on the history of the phenomeno-
logical movement in France have been scarce and offer no additional insights. For instance,
a recent collection of fourteen essays on the reception of German philosophy in France
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries includes three essays pertaining to the recep-
tion of phenomenology, but again these lack details and analysis of the reception prior to
1940.21 In general, the French have been and remain more concerned with doing phe-
nomenology than with chronicling its development.
Hence, in light of the fact that there have been few attempts to study the history of
phenomenology and none which adequately treat the reception of phenomenology in France
prior to 1940, one contribution of this dissertation is its analysis of the earlier phases of the
French reception of phenomenology. Moreover, it offers a new perspective on this period.
Whereas Spiegelberg and Waldenfels simply distinguish the receptive and productive
phases in the growth of the phenomenological movement in France, this study argues that
there were two distinct receptions during the receptive phase, namely the receptions of phe-
nomenology in French philosophy and French religious thought. Knowledge of phe-
nomenology and its subsequent interpretation in fact proceeded along different lines in
these two circles. The interest of philosophers and religious thinkers in Husserlian phe-
nomenology was inspired in common by the transformative insights and influences of
Henri Bergson and Maurice Blondel on French intellectual currents but was sustained by
different motivations. In the case of French philosophers, their interest in phenomenology
was encouraged by the interpretation of phenomenology as a continuation of the Cartesian
20Waldenfels, Phänomenologie in Frankreich, 16.21Jean Quillien, ed., La Réception de la philosophie allemande en France aux XIXe
et XXe siècles (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1994). The three essays pertaining tothe reception of phenomenology are: “Sartre et Heidegger” by Alain Renaut, “La Réceptionde Heidegger: Jean Beaufret entre Sartre et Merleau-Ponty” by Dominique Janicaud, and“Réflexion, dialectique, existence: P. Ricoeur et la phénoménologie” by AndréStanguennec.
7
tradition, that is, as an attempt to secure the foundations of science and logic through re-
flection upon consciousness. The interest of French religious thinkers, on the other hand,
was abetted largely by the desire to break from the strict rationalism that Cartesianism rep-
resented among French academic philosophers. The descriptive methods of phenomenol-
ogy appealed to philosophers of religion while the emphasis on intuition aided theologians
seeking to affirm the role played by the intellect in the act of faith. Thus, not only were the
receptions of phenomenology in French philosophy and French religious thought different,
but to a certain extent they emphasized conflicting values. The discovery of this conflict
makes the present study of the early stages in the French reception of phenomenology all
the more significant given the recent attempts of French philosophers who, like Jean-Luc
Marion, work from a decidedly Cartesian standpoint and interpretation of phenomenology
and yet seek rapprochements between phenomenology and theology. It is hoped that this
dissertation will prove useful to future researchers who would evaluate the proposals of
Marion and other contemporary phenomenologists from a theological perspective.
III. Methodology and Terminology
The methodology of this dissertation a chiefly historical. Its main object is to pre-
sent a comprehensive account of how phenomenology gradually took root in French
thought, from the preparatory phases through its creative appropriation by French philoso-
phers and religious thinkers. In the first place, it proposes to discern the origin of phe-
nomenological themes in French thought and to compare the interpretations of phe-
nomenology advanced by French philosophers and religious thinkers with Husserl’s own
conceptions of phenomenology. Next, it undertakes to evaluate those interpretations with
respect to the traditions and aims of their respective disciplines. In other words, this disser-
tation endeavors first to establish whether or not a given interpretation of phenomenology
adequately and accurately expresses Husserl’s intentions and then to consider whether that
interpretation contributes toward the solution of a particular philosophical or theological
problem, such as elucidating the role of intution in the process of knowledge or promoting
8
a better understanding of the psychology of the act of faith. In preparation for these tasks, it
is incumbent at the outset to define the terms reception, phenomenology and religious
thought.
Before moving ahead to an explanation of these terms, however, an additional point
must be clarified. This dissertation deals primarily with philosophers and religious thinkers
who based their careers in France. In a few cases, however, exceptions are made to include
French-speaking professors from the neighboring intellectual centers of Strasbourg and
Louvain because their contributions proved essential to the reception of phenomenology in
France. Strasbourg, of course, is now politically part of France, but from the conclusion of
the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the end of World War I in 1918, Alsace-Lorraine be-
longed to Germany. As a result, the intellectual climate of the University of Strasbourg re-
flected strong German influences, even after Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France. This
fact, coupled with its proximity to Freiburg, where Husserl taught after 1916, permitted
Alsatian philosopher Jean Héring, and later Emmanuel Levinas, greater access to the origi-
nal sources of the phenomenological movement. The Catholic University at Louvain, too,
served as a bridge over which knowledge of Husserl and the German phenomenological
movement passed into France, even before it became the repository of Husserl’s unpub-
lised manuscripts after his death in 1938. In fact, the earliest mention of Husserl in a
French-language publication came from Lucien Noël, director of the Institut Supérieur de
Philosophie.22 This is not surprising, for the Institut featured a broad curriculum in history
and the sciences, including experimental psychology. Moreover, unlike other pontifical
institutions, the faculties at Louvain were permitted to conduct courses in the vernacular,
which included German as well as French. Jesuit philosopher Joseph Maréchal pursued his
doctorate in this milieu and went on to formulate an original and influential neo-Thomist
epistemology in dialogue with post-Kantian critical philosophies, including Husserl’s.
22Léon Noël, “Les Frontières de la logique,” Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie
17 (1910): 211-33. Noël’s article is discussed in Chapter 2 as in instance of the philosophi-cal reception of Husserl’s early writings.
9
Although a study of the influence of the phenomenological movement at Louvain lies be-
yond the scope of this dissertation, Maréchal’s contribution to the reception of phe-
nomenology in French religious thought is too large to be ignored, and so is discussed in
Chapter 3.
A. Definition of Reception
This dissertation is concerned with the early stages in the French reception of phe-
nomenology, that is, how the German philosophical movement inspired by Edmund
Husserl came to be known and regarded in French intellectual circles prior to 1939. Over
the past 25 years, studying the reception of various ideas and intellectual movements has
become quite popular, especially in Germany where Rezeptionsgeschichte has almost be-
come a sub-discipline of the historical sciences. Meanwhile in the area of theological stud-
ies, the reception of the Second Vatican Council has been a frequent topic of discussion and
debate.23 In some instances reception studies have drawn upon the resources of one or
more of the recent hermeneutical theories, such as reader-response theory.24 In the present
investigation, however, no special critical perspective or theory of reception is employed.
Instead, three basic assumptions guided the research and helped to organize further re-
search and writing (these assumptions were not settled a priori but came to light only grad-
ually during the course of the investigation as a result of increasing familiarity with the
documents and historical periods in question). They may be outlined briefly as follows.
The first assumption is that there can be no reception without receptivity. In other
words, unless French intellectuals were prepared or predisposed in some way to receive
Husserl’s phenomenology when presented with the opportunity, it seems unlikely that
phenomenology would have ever taken root France. Yet phenomenology did take root, and
so it will be the purpose of the first part of this dissertation to uncover the historical and
23Cf. Giuseppe Alberigo, Jean-Pierre Jossua, and Joseph A. Komonchak, eds.,The Reception of Vatican II, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Washington, D.C.: CatholicUniversity of America Press, 1987).
24Cf. Graham McGregor and R. S. White, eds., Reception and Response: HearerCreativity and the Analysis of Spoken and Written Texts (London: Routledge, 1990).
10
philosophical circumstances that served, to use Kantian language, as the conditions for the
possibility of its favorable reception. The second assumption is that new ideas are received
more favorably when they reinforce already existing trends of thought. Hence, the fact that
Husserlian phenomenology did receive a favorable reception in France during the late
1920s and early 1930s suggests that phenomenological themes were already present in
some form in French philosophy, and that Husserlian phenomenology was welcomed as
means of supporting and validating their development. Accordingly, the major currents and
figures in French philosophy around the turn of the century will be surveyed for the pur-
pose of discovering whether any of their specific insights or approaches corresponded to
the characteristic themes of Husserlian phenomenology. Related to this notion of reinforc-
ing existing trends of thought, the third assumption is that ideas are appropriated when
there is reason to believe that they might help resolve a problem that stands in the way of
further intellectual progress. Stated differently, a new philosophical theory or perspective
might be adopted precisely because it seems to hold out the promise of a breakthrough to a
new epistemological or metaphysical understanding. Therefore, in addition to noting the
similarities between Husserlian phenomenology and certain trends in French philosophical
thought, the differences will also be highlighted so as to call attention to the ways in which
Husserl and his followers would have appeared to have offered the French something new
and useful.
Along with these general assumptions regarding the reception of intellectual move-
ments ideas, an additional historical observation guided the organization of the dissertation.
Simply stated, it is the observation that during the modern period theological shifts have
often followed shifts in philosophy. From the time of Descartes philosophy in the West has
evolved toward greater independence from theology. The principal point of departure, for
example, shifted from speculation on the nature of the Trinity to the subject’s reflection
upon the activities of his own consciousness. The ever-increasing autonomy of modern
philosophical systems led Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical of 1879 on Christian philosophy,
11
Aeterni Patris, to criticize “certain Catholic philosophers who, throwing aside the patri-
mony of ancient wisdom, chose rather to build up a new edifice than to strengthen and
complete the old by aid of the new.”25 Leo’s successor, Pius X, went even further, disal-
lowing much use of modern philosophies by Catholic theologians. In his 1907 encyclical,
Pascendi dominici gregis, he claimed that modernist doctrines insisted upon “the mutual
separation of science and faith.”26 He laid out provisions to censure theologians who in-
corporated modernist assumptions in their work and enforced his predecessor’s guidelines
for making Aquinas the canon of theological instruction in Catholic seminaries and uni-
versities. Pius X never cited phenomenology explicitly, but it is obvious that phenomenol-
ogy would have been counted among the separated philosophies he condemned.27
Although the phenomenological doctrine of intentionality had it is origin in scholastic epis-
temology,28 phenomenology was neither Thomist nor theological. This is not to say that
Husserl did not foresee any theological value in his work, but only that he believed theolo-
gians should make that determination for themselves.29
In light of the foregoing observation, it was assumed that any reception of phe-
nomenology by French religious thinkers would have followed chronologically and de-
pended substantially upon the reception of phenomenology by French philosophers.
Because the employment of purely secular philosophical viewpoints had been condemned
by the Church during the first decade of this century, it was expected that theologians
25Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, §24 in Claudia Carlsen, ed., The Papal
Encyclicals, 5 vols. (Wilmington, NC: McGrath Publishing Co., 1981), 2: 24.26Pope Pius X, Pascendi dominici gregis, §18; Carlsen, 3: 78. Cf. §§16-17, 39;
Carlsen, 3: 77-78, 84.27For further discussion of the encyclicals cited here and the rise of modern sepa-
rated philosophies, see Gerald A. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism. The InternalEvolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 7-8.
28See Herbert Spiegelberg, “Scholastic Intention and Intentionality According toBrentano and Husserl,” trans. Linda L. McAlister, in The Philosophy of Franz Brentano,ed. Linda L. McAlister (London: Duckworth, 1976), 108-27.
29See for example Husserl’s clarifying note following Ideas §51 where he states,“Our immediate aim concerns not theology but phenomenology, however important thebearing of the latter on the former may indirectly be” (Edmund Husserl, Ideas. GeneralIntroduction to Pure Phenomenology, ed. H. D. Lewis, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson(London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1931), 157).
12
would have ventured into forbidden territory only after the foreign perspectives they
wished to explore had attained a measure of general cultural acceptance. Hence, a decision
was made to distinguish what may be called the theological reception of phenomenology
from its philosophical reception, and to give methodological priority to the latter. For the
purposes of this dissertation, a philosophical reception was defined as an attempt to under-
stand phenomenology as a varied movement emerging within the history of philosophy and
engaged by its central themes, such as essence and existence or epistemology and ontol-
ogy. A theological reception, on the other hand, was distinguished as an attempt to apply
phenomenological insights to recurring topics in the history of theology, such as the act of
faith and the meaning of dogma, or to issues pertaining to philosophical theology, philoso-
phy of religion and religious philosophy.30
B. Definition of Phenomenology
In addition to the distinction between the receptions of phenomenology in French
philosophy and religious thought, it was necessary to make another methodological deci-
sion with respect to the meaning of the term phenomenology. As Spiegelberg and others
have made clear, the phenomenological movement was diverse from the beginning; one
need only consider the difference in ambiance between the Göttingen and Munich circles to
understand that phenomenology cannot be given any univocal meaning.31 That being the
case, however, on what basis could it be claimed that a given intellectual current in France
functioned as a precursor to the reception of phenomenology, or that it was phenomenolog-
ical in its own right? What criteria could be invoked to evaluate whether a given instance of
reception adequately interpreted the aims and methods of phenomenology? These and simi-
lar questions made apparent the need to settle on some working definition of phenomenol-
ogy to be used as a frame of reference in discussing the early history of the reception of
phenomenology in France.
30For definitions of these latter terms see the section “Religious Thought,” below.31Cf. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 166-69ff.
13
Phenomenology in this dissertation refers primarily to Edmund Husserl’s pure or
transcendental phenomenology and only secondarily to the phenomenological philosophies
of his associates and students. There are good reasons and precedents for adopting this
practice. Though other philosophers, notably Hegel, employed the term phenomenology
before Husserl, Husserl was the first to use it to denote a unique, precisely delimited philo-
sophical domain and method.32 Furthermore, even philosophers who, like Martin
Heidegger, passed beyond Husserl’s way of defining phenomenology, still credited
Husserl with having founded the phenomenological movement. Yet it is not enough to
point broadly to Husserl as the inspiration, if not the norm, for all subsequent phe-
nomenology. Husserl’s way of presenting the aims and methods of phenomenology
evolved over time. Following Husserl’s student and collaborator Eugen Fink, scholars
generally divide Husserl’s activity into three periods, corresponding roughly to the three
geographical stations of his career: Halle (1887-1901), Göttingen (1901-1916), and
Freiburg (1916-1938).33 Fink observes that the works Husserl published during these re-
spective periods evidence certain characteristic styles and themes. In the first phase,
Husserl published his reworked habilitation thesis on the philosophy of mathematics34 and
his epoch-making Logical Investigations.35 He was concerned with refuting the presup-
positions of the psychologistic viewpoint that was prevalent at that time and from which he
32While it is true that the early French Hegelian scholars, such as AlexandreKojève, frequently conflated the phenomenologies of Hegel and Husserl, (cf. Spiegelberg,Phenomenological Movement, 440-42) these misinterpretations will not be addressed in thepresent dissertation, which is concerned only with the French reception of phenomenologi-cal movements that can be traced directly or indirectly to Husserl.
33The periodization of Husserl’s philosophical development in this paragraph isdrawn from Eugen Fink, “Vorbemerkung des Herausgebers,” in Edmund Husserl,“Entwurf einer ‘Vorrede’ zu den Logische Untersuchungen (1913),” Tijdschrift voorPhilosophie 1 (1939): 107-108. Cf. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 70, whoprefers a somewhat earlier dating for the three major periods: 1) the “pre-phenomenologicalperiod,” 1887-1896; 2) the period of “phenomenology as a limited enterprise,” 1897-1905;3) and the period of “pure phenomenology,” 1906-1938. In my opinion, Fink’s periodiza-tion does more justice to Husserl’s shift toward transcendental idealism following the pub-lication of the first volume of Ideas in 1913.
34Edmund Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik, ed. Lothar Eley, vol. XII,Husserliana (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970).
35Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations trans. J. N. Findlay, 2 vols. (NewYork: Humanities Press, 1970).
14
struggled to free himself. In the second phase, Husserl lectured on the Phenomenology of
Internal Time Consciousness36 and published his famous essay on “Philosophy as
Rigorous Science” as well as the first volume of his Ideas.37 In these works Husserl char-
acterized phenomenology as a theory of knowledge aimed at the “philosophical reform of
the positive sciences.”38 As means towards this end, he developed the investigative tech-
niques known as Wesensschau (“intuition of essences” or “essential intuition”) and phe-
nomenological reduction. The third stage of Husserl’s work included a long period of ges-
tation during which he published very little. Following his retirement from teaching in
1928, several important works appeared, including the Cartesian Meditations,39 first deliv-
ered as a series of lectures in Paris, and the Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology,40 which was based on his final public address at the
International Congress of Philosophy in Prague in 1935. Husserl’s suggestive notion of
the “life-world” (Lebenswelt), the immediately present world of daily living—a concept
which he elaborated only in unpublished manuscripts for the Crisis—became significant for
the transformations of phenomenology after his death by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-
Paul Sartre. According to Fink, however, the third and final phase of Husserl’s work is
best characterized by Formal and Transcendental Logic,41 published in 1929 after a decade
of maturation. Fink regards it as Husserl’s attempt to reevaluate his earlier work in the
Logical Investigations because it addresses the same fundamental problem, namely the es-
36Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, ed.
Martin Heidegger, trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1964).
37Edmund Husserl, Ideas. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, ed. H. D.Lewis, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1931). Thesecond and third volumes of Ideas, although written around 1912, were not published until1952, and have not yet been translated into English.
38Fink, “Vorbemerkung des Herausgebers,” 107.39Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology,
trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960).40Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970).
41Edmund Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Dorion Cairns (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969).
15
tablishment of an “all-embracing apriori theory of science,” although in a more radicalized
form as the “explication of the existing transcendental ego.”42
Inspired by Fink’s analysis, Spiegelberg suggests the analogy of a spiral for pictur-
ing Husserl’s development: the first phase concerns the formulation of an objective logic
free from psychology, the second phase attempts to show the essential correlation that ex-
ists between objective and subjective aspects of experience, while in the third phase “the
development of pure phenomenology leads again to a preponderance of the subjective as
the source of all objectivities, only that the subjective is now conceived as on a higher,
‘transcendental’ level above empirical psychology.”43 Thus, while Husserl’s continuously
evolving conception of phenomenology displays a high degree of internal integrity, it mili-
tates against a univocal definition; such would be both arbitrary and artificial. Nevertheless,
a working definition or criteriology of phenomenology may be drawn up from the principal
features of the aims and methods of pure or transcendental phenomenology as Husserl out-
lined them in publications from his second and third periods, which, as this dissertation
demonstrates, were the most significant during the early phases of the reception of phe-
nomenology in French philosophy and religious thought.44 Hence, the characteristic meth-
ods and themes from Husserl’s years at Göttingen and Freiburg—essential intuition, phe-
nomenological reduction, reformation of the positive sciences through an epistemological
renewal grounded in the phenomenological description of the structures of pure conscious-
ness, transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity—serve as the measure for identifying
phenomenological currents in French thought and for evaluating French interpretations of
phenomenology. In a short article comparing Husserl’s phenomenology with Sartre’s exis-
tentialism, Spiegelberg takes a similar approach by showing how Sartre’s notions conform
42Ibid., 149; Fink, “Vorbemerkung des Herausgebers,” 107.43Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 70.44Following the emergence of phenomenological existentialism after 1940, French
philosophers concentrated almost exclusively on writings from the third phase of Husserl’scareer, but the current generation of French phenomenologists has been reviving interest inworks from his earlier periods, including the Logical Invesigations. Cf. Jean-Luc Marion,Réduction et donation. Recherches sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phénoménologie (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), especially 7-63.
16
or depart from the principal themes of Husserlian phenomenology, which he recapitulates
in five theses:
1. Phenomenology is a rigorous science in the sense of a coherent systemof propositions; it goes beyond positive science by aiming at absolute cer-tainty for its foundations and at freedom from presuppositions that have notpassed phenomenological scrutiny.
2. Its subject-matter is the general essences of the phenomena of con-sciousness; among these phenomena, the phenomenologist distinguishesbetween the intending acts and the intended objects in strict correlation; hepays special attention to the modes of appearance in which the intended ref-erents present themselves; he does not impose any limitations as to the con-tent of these phenomena.
3. Phenomenology is based on the intuitive inspection and faithful descrip-tion of the phenomena within the context of the world of our lived experi-ence (Lebenswelt), anxious to avoid reductionist oversimplifications andovercomplications by preconceived theoretical patterns.
4. In order to secure the fullest possible range of phenomena and at thesame time doubt-proof foundations it uses a special method of reductionswhich suspends the beliefs associated with our naive or natural attitude andshared even by science; it also traces back the phenomena to the constitutingacts in a pure subject, which itself proves to be irreducible.
5. Its ultimate objective is the examination and justification of all our be-liefs, both ordinary and scientific, by the test of intuitive verification.45
In addition to the foregoing positive approaches to defining the essential compo-
nents of Husserl’s philosophy, it is also helpful to recognize the emergence of phe-
nomenology as a reaction to prevailing philosophical currents at the end of the nineteenth
century. The first school of thought that Husserl struggled with, and eventually against,
was psychologism. Psychologism denotes the view that rules of logic are not timeless,
universal truths but simply empirical generalizations about mental processes, and may
therefore be determined by psychological experimentation. Wilhelm Wundt was the fore-
most exponent of the psychologistic viewpoint in Germany, and Husserl, as noted earlier,
was persuaded by Wundt and others of its validity until his own investigation into the pre-
cise manner in which logical structures were intuited by and appeared to consciousness
45Herbert Spiegelberg, The Context of the Phenomenological Movement (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), 51-52. Spiegelberg’s chapter on Husserl and Sartre inthis volume is an abridged version of “Husserl’s Phenomenology and Existentialism,” firstpublished in The Journal of Philosophy 57 (1960): 762-74.
17
convinced him that these structures presented themselves to consciousness quite apart from
any concomitant psychological manifestations.46 Husserl later generalized his critique of
psychologism to encompass what he called naturalism. In his 1911 essay “Philosophy as
Rigorous Science,” Husserl describes naturalism as the tendency to regard nature “as a
unity of spatio-temporal being subject to exact laws.”47 Psychologism, which essentially
proposes a naturalization of consciousness and the laws governing logic, is now presented
as a particular instance of naturalism. While Husserl praises the rigorously scientific reform
of philosophy proposed by natural scientists, he criticizes their reductionist tendencies.
According to Husserl, naturalism, like other forms of positivism, is naïve with respect to
its point of departure. It assumes that things are simply and univocally “there,” equally
open to observation and investigation. Yet consciousness cannot be an object like any
other: the reflection which consciousness performs upon itself must be qualitatively differ-
ent than its reflection upon its objects.48
In “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” Husserl also criticizes the historicist point of
view represented by Wilhelm Dilthey. Whereas the natural scientist sees everything as a
product of nature, understood in a physical sense, the practitioner of the new historical sci-
ences tends to regard everything as a production of the human spirit.49 The historicist
posits the empirical life of the spirit absolutely, although he does not go so far as to pre-
suppose that spirit is governed by unchanging laws. Instead, the historicist assumes that
the development and life of the human spirit is analogous to other organic life, hence sub-
ject to change and impermanent. Because spirit cannot be articulated by a set of deductive
laws, to be understood it must be entered into intuitively; in technical terms it can be
“explained” but not “comprehended.”50 Husserl commends this intuitive approach as con-
46Edmund Husserl, The Paris Lectures, trans. Peter Koestenbaum, 2nd ed. (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), x.
47Edmund Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” in Husserl, Shorter Works,ed. Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston, trans. Quentin Lauer (Notre Dame:University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 167.
48Ibid., 172.49Ibid., 169.50Ibid., 186.
18
sonant with the ideal of scientific description, but he takes issue with historical sciences
when they lay claim objective validity and purport to offer a metaphysics. Lacking a stable
axis, philosophical truth slides into relativism and eventually into skeptical subjectivism,
thereby resulting in a world-view or Weltanschauung having no scientific basis or justifica-
tion. Consequently historicism, like naturalism, fails to attain the ideal of a rigorously
scientific philosophy.
If philosophy would aspire to that goal which is its destiny, it must therefore begin
radically anew and build carefully upon the most certain foundations. For Husserl, consis-
tent with the historicist viewpoint, this work involves an intuitive investigation of subjec-
tivity, understood not as an historically conditioned Weltanschauung but rather as absolute
consciousness, a spiritual entity embodying a system of laws—laws open to empirical in-
vestigation in a manner reminiscent of the way naturalism would pretend to categorize
physical reality. Husserl concludes his programmatic essay “Philosophy as Rigorous
Science”:
[T]he greatest step our age has to make is to recognize that with the philo-sophical intuition in the correct sense, the phenomenological grasp ofessences, a limitless field of work opens out, a science that without all indi-rectly symbolical and mathematical methods, without the apparatus ofpremises and conclusions, stills attains the plenitude of the most rigorousand, for all further philosophy, decisive cognitions.51
Thus, by understanding the viewpoints which Husserl struggled against, we can appreciate
all the more his motivations and the value of his insights. Equipped with this knowledge
we are better prepared to evaluate the reception of his ideas by French philosophers and
religious thinkers.
C. Definition of Religious Thought
The term religious thought in this dissertation refers to a number of related but dis-
tinct disciplines: first of all to theology as a multifaceted discipline which addresses the
content of divine revelation, but also to philosophical theology, philosophy of religion and
51Ibid., 196.
19
religious philosophy. The latter terms may be distinguished as follows.52 Philosophical
theology refers to the application of reason alone to questions about the deity, for example
proofs of God’s existence, or in more contemporary parlance, how God “comes to the
idea.”53 Philosophy of religion, by contrast, does not focus on concepts of God as such,
but rather on the various forms of religious experience and practice manifested in human
history. In order to interpret the significance of religion for the historical development of
cultures and civilizations, the philosopher of religion endeavors to maintain a neutral, criti-
cal standpoint. The religious philosopher, on the other hand, stands avowedly within his or
her tradition and reflects philosophically upon its meaning. Husserl, as noted earlier, was
neither a theologian nor a philosopher of religion. Yet, contrary to the opinion of some in-
terpreters,54 he did not oppose the idea of a theological science in principle. Several re-
marks in the course of his published writings and even more in his personal manuscripts
and correspondence suggest, in fact, that Husserl believed a phenomenologically based
theology could occupy a legitimate place in the scope of human wisdom.55 Husserl him-
self, however, never outlined such a theology; much less did he consider his own work
theological. Rather, he envisioned his effort to establish a transcendental phenomenology
52The distinction of terms which follows is based on Jean Greisch, “La Philosophie
de la religion devant le fait chrétien,” in Introduction à l’étude de la théologie, ed. JosephDoré (Paris: Desclée, 1991), 244-251. Greisch credits Henri Duméry with having formu-lated the distinction between religious philosophy and philosophy of religion. Jean Héring,Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Étude sur la théorie de la connaissance religieuse(Paris: Alcan, 1926), 6-8, employs a similar set of distinctions which will be examined inChapter 3.
53See Emmanuel Levinas, De Dieu qui vient à l’idée (Paris: Vrin, 1982).54See Janicaud, Le Tournant théologique, especially 75-89. Jean-Paul Sartre also
fundamentally opposed the rapprochement of theology and phenomenology, as Chapter 2will make clear. Not only does Sartre exclude the transcendence of God from phenomeno-logical consideration, but he even rejects Husserl’s postulate concerning the existence ofthe transcendental ego. Significant supporting texts for an atheistic interpretation of phe-nomenology may be found in Ideas §58 and the note which follows §51. Interestingly,Jean Héring interprets these passages in the positive sense of establishing theology as anindependent science, as we shall also have occasion to discuss in Chapter 3.
55See Stephen Strasser, “Das Gottesproblem in der Spätphilosophie Husserls,”Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft 67 (1959): 130-42, cited by Spiegelberg,Phenomenological Movement, 79-80.
20
of pure consciousness to be what Descartes had called “first philosophy.”56 Transcendental
phenomenology was intended to serve as the philosophical foundation upon which all other
sciences, presumably theology as well, would be built. Some of Husserl’s students in
Germany took phenomenology into the sphere of religion, especially Max Scheler, as well
as certain philosophers of religion in France like Jean Héring. Maurice Blondel and Jacques
Maritain, meanwhile, adopted the engaged and committed persepctive of religious philoso-
phy, whereas Pierre Rousselot and Joseph Maréchal, at least in their principal writings, of-
fer examples of philosophical theology.
While these various philosophical aspects are important, the third chapter of this
dissertation focuses primarily on theological concerns. Trinity, creation, the problem of
sin, the need for grace and the sanctification of the individual and the community are central
topics in Christian theology, whether Catholic or Protestant. During the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, treatment of these topics typically was divided into apologetic or
fundamental theology and dogmatic theology. The latter comprised the doctrinal teachings
of Christianity while the former encompassed all those aspects of human reason and voli-
tion considered preparatory to the act of faith. It was mainly in the interests of fundamental
theology that French theologians first sought to employ phenomenological methods. Since
philosophical theology, religious philosophy and the philosophy of religion each con-
tributed to the development of fundamental theology during the period in question, the term
theology in this dissertation sometimes refers inclusively to these philosophical sub-disci-
56Edmund Husserl, Introduction to the Logical Investigations . A Draft of a Preface
to the Logical Investigations (1913)., ed. Eugen Fink, trans. with introductions by PhilipJ. Bossert and Curtis H. Peters (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), 40: “Only a sciencethat is grounded from the very beginning upon ‘transcendental phenomenology’ and thatflows from it to the principal original sources can correspond to the full idea of an abso-lutely justified knowledge. The stage we call positive science may be an historical fact, butthis stage must be surmounted in a universal reform of science which cancels [aufhebt] anydistinction between positive science and a philosophy to be opposed to it or which trans-forms all sciences at once into philosophical sciences and gives pure phenomenology thevalue of a universal fundamental-science—of a first philosophy.” Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §63;Gibson, 188.
21
plines as well, functioning as a convenient shorthand for what elsewhere is more broadly
called religious thought; the actual contexts will make this last point clearer.
IV. The Plan of the Dissertation
The methodology outlined above suggests the following plan for the dissertation.
The first assumption concerning reception is that there can be no reception without recep-
tivity, and so the first chapter examines the precursors to phenomenology in French
thought. Because Husserl conceived of phenomenology as a foundational science that pro-
ceeds by a rigorous method of intellectual intuition toward a descriptive inventory of the
contents of consciousness, this chapter accordingly investigates the extent to which French
thinkers held similar notions prior to their encounters with Husserlian phenomenology.
First, an overview of the French philosophy during the latter part of the nineteenth century
is presented in order to establish the philosophical context into which phenomenology was
eventually received. The major currents of thought that characterized this period are dis-
cussed in light of phenomenological viewpoints and methodologies. Special attention is de-
voted to comparing the philosophical approaches of some of the principal representatives of
these currents to Husserl’s phenomenological strategies in order to ascertain whether they
may have contributed to directly to later receptions of Husserl. The absence of strong paral-
lels between these thinkers and Husserl leads to the consideration of the new styles of
philosophical thought that emerged in France just prior to the turn of the century, namely
those of Henri Bergson and Maurice Blondel. The remainder of the chapter shows how the
original philosophical insights of Bergson and Blondel functioned as immediate precursors
to the receptions of phenomenology in both French philosophy and French religious
thought. After briefly sketching the development of these insights in the contexts of their
own works, specific comparisons with Husserl’s works are made. The resulting positive
correlations are used to support the judgment that both Bergson and Blondel anticipated as-
pects of Husserl’s phenomenology in ways that encouraged their later followers, including
22
both philosophers and religious thinkers, to take an interest in Husserl and other German
phenomenologists.
The second chapter focuses on the receptions of Husserlian phenomenology among
academic philosophers in France because it was assumed that their interpretations helped to
stimulate interest and knowledge of phenomenology in theological circles. Its analysis of
the French philosophical reception of phenomenology prior to 1939 serves as a reference
for tracing the sources and progress of the theological reception. In fact, receptions of phe-
nomenology among French religious thinkers depended on more than the academic recep-
tions. Nevertheless, Chapter 2 confirms that new ideas are received more favorably when
they reinforce already existing trends of thought. Following Husserl’s own lead, phe-
nomenology was interpreted by French academic philosophers to be a continuation of the
Cartesian tradition. This trend is shown through the discussion of essays published by the
eight thinkers who did the most introduce Husserlian phenomenology to French philosoph-
ical circles between 1910 and 1939. These scholars include native Frenchmen, such as the
historian of philosophy Victor Delbos, as well as immigrants from eastern Europe, like
Georges Gurvitch, who learned about phenomenology while passing through Germany. In
order to organize and highlight their variously nuanced interpretations of phenomenology,
the eight thinkers are grouped into contemporaneous pairs. This strategy, moreover, calls
attention to four distinct phases in the awareness and appreciation of Husserlian phe-
nomenology among French philosophers. Between 1910 and 1939, French philosophers
evolved from a state of general ignorance of and disregard for Husserl and his followers
through increasingly complete and accurate understandings of their philosophical ap-
proaches to critical engagement with those approaches. Especially significant in the latter
regard is Jean-Paul Sartre’s attempted rapprochement of phenomenology and Cartesianism.
Where appropriate in the overall chronological framework of the chapter, other relevant
events are introduced, such as the publication of Husserl’s own works, visits by Husserl
and Scheler to France, and translations of essays by German phenomenologists, including
23
Heidegger. The concluding section recapitulates the principal stages and figures in the
French philosophical reception of phenomenology from 1910 through 1939 and calls atten-
tion to the contributions of a few other scholars not mentioned elsewhere in the chapter.
Chapters 3 and 4 treat the reception of phenomenology among French religious
thinkers, including theologians, philosophers of religion and religious philosophers.
Chapter 3 focuses on two religious philosophers, Édouard Le Roy and Pierre Rousselot,
who were influenced by the phenomenological insights of Bergson and Blondel respec-
tively. Their appropriations of Bergsonian and Blondelian insights in a theological context
helped to encourage certain members of the subsequent generation of French-speaking
theologians to take a direct interest in Husserlian phenomenology. To be sure, French the-
ologians became aware of phenomenology through the fame that Husserl was gaining in
philosophical circles in France and in Germany, but more importantly they studied
Husserl’s writings for themselves, arriving at their own opinions apart from the interpreta-
tion of Husserl offered by French academic philosophers. These encounters between
French religious thinkers and Husserlian phenomenology constitute the second phase in the
French theological reception of phenomenology prior to 1939, which is addressed in
Chapter 4. Each of the figures studied in Chapter 4 represents a different kind of applica-
tion of Husserlian phenomenology to religious thought. Jean Héring, for instance, em-
ployed phenomenological methods to resolve problems in the philosophy of religion and
Protestant religious philosophy,57 while Catholic apologist Gaston Rabeau used phe-
nomenology along with other contemporary philosophical methods to bolster traditional ar-
guments for the existence of God.58 The reception of Husserl among French neo-Thomists
is also considered, beginning with the influential theories of the Belgian Jesuit Joseph
Maréchal for a Post-Kantian critical approach to Thomist epistemology, including his sug-
gestion that it might profit from a fusion with Husserlian phenomenology with Blondelian
57See Jean Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Étude sur la théoriede la connaissance religieuse (Paris: Alcan, 1926).
58See Gaston Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence (Paris: Bloud & Gay,1933).
24
dynamism.59 The first annual Journée d’Études organized by the Société Thomiste in 1932,
which took for its theme Thomism and contemporary German phenomenology,60 will also
be discussed in detail, as well as the appraisals of phenomenology by other French neo-
Thomists, notably Jacques Maritain.61 The final section of the chapter summarizes the two
principal stages in the theological reception of phenomenology and attempts to explain why
interest in phenomenology among religious thinkers gradually increased during the late
1920s and early 1930s but declined sharply in the mid-1930s.
The conclusion to the dissertation comprises two parts. The first part highlights and
explains the differences between the receptions of phenomenology among French philoso-
phers and religious thinkers prior to 1939 on the basis of their respective Cartesian and
Aristotelian foundations and the static versus dynamic orientations of their respective epis-
temologies. The second part briefly surveys the subsequent history of the reception of phe-
nomenology in France, focusing especially on the two principal phenomenological currents
which have had an impact upon contemporary French religious thought, namely the
hermeneutical style of phenomenology developed by Paul Ricoeur and the radical strain ad-
vanced by Jean-Luc Marion. Their respective approaches mark the displacement of the con-
cerns shared by earlier religious thinkers in France who were influenced by phenomenol-
ogy. Thus new questions are opened for consideration: Has the present generation of
French phenomenologists and theologians learned all it can from its predecessors and gone
beyond them? Or have important lessons been forgotten over time? While the scope of this
present dissertation does not permit extensive reflection upon these questions, it does pro-
59See Joseph Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?” in
Philosophia Perennis. Abhandlungen zu ihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. Fritz-Joachim Von Rintelen (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1930), 377-400.
60See Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie (Juvisy, France: Cerf, 1932).61See for example Jacques Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, ou Les Degrés du savoir,
2nd ed. (Paris: 1934), available in English as Jacques Maritain, The Degrees ofKnowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959); and alsoJacques Maritain, Le Paysan de la Garonne (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), available inEnglish as Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman QuestionsHimself About the Present Time, trans. Michael Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968).
25
vide a thorough investigation of their essential historical background, to which we are at
last ready to turn. Now, as Husserl was fond of saying, “Zu den Sachen selbst!”—“To the
things themselves!”62
62See Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 679-80, 81.
26
CHAPTER 1
PRECURSORS TO THE RECEPTION OF
PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE, 1889-1909
Husserlian phenomenology became well-known in France during the late 1920s,
and by the mid-1930s original French appropriations of phenomenology had begun to
emerge. During this initial period, phenomenology established firm roots in the French
philosophical soil. They were so firm and so deep in fact, that the Hegelian scholar Jean
Hyppolite was led to observe that by the 1950s, one could no longer do philosophy in
France without making reference to phenomenology.1 What, it may be asked, made
Husserlian phenomenology so attractive to the French during the second quarter of this
century? The present chapter lays the groundwork for answering this question by identify-
ing the precursors to the actual receptions of Husserlian phenomenology in French philos-
ophy and theology which began after 1909.
I . Three Major Currents in French Philosophyat the End of the Nineteenth Century
Where should we begin to look for precursors to the French reception of phe-
nomenology? What facts must be taken into account in our investigation? As noted in the
introduction, Husserl developed his phenomenology as a response to psychologism, natu-
ralism and historicism—all of which were major currents in German philosophy during the
latter half of the nineteenth century. Thus we may begin by asking, What was the general
situation of French philosophy during this same period? What were its major currents?
Who were the principal figures? In answering these questions we may reflect on how cer-
1Jean Hyppolite, Figures de la pensée philosophique (Paris: Presses Universitairesde France, 1971), 1: 499. Hyppolite’s previously unpublished manuscript on Husserl isundated, but bibliographic citations within the article suggest authorship in the mid-1950s.
27
tain currents or philosophers may have anticipated Husserl, thereby preparing the way for
eventual receptions of his ideas. Briefly stated, the goal of the present section is to identify
as precisely as possible the origins of a phenomenological turn in French thought.
In Medieval France, philosophy prospered as an academic discipline within the
emerging universities; indeed, scholastic philosophy made possible the very concept of a
university and structured its development. Yet with the Renaissance and the birth of mod-
ern science, the most vibrant currents of French philosophy flourished outside the univer-
sity, among independent thinkers and researchers like Descartes and Pascal, and later
among essayists like Montaigne and Rousseau. After the collapse of the Second Empire
and the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, however, philosophy in France
underwent a revival as a university discipline. Spurred on by an impressive century of
German academic philosophy, philosophy at the Sorbonne burgeoned in the anti-clerical,
and hence anti-scholastic, atmosphere of the Third Republic.2 Because it was generally be-
lieved that the new currents of philosophy, predominantly positivist, would support the
new republic, a rigorous system for training secondary school teachers in philosophy was
instituted, the pinnacle of which was the École Normale Supérieur. Students were only
admitted to the classe de philosophie if they ranked high enough in the difficult placement
exam, the concours d’agrégation. The superior quality of instruction offered by graduates
of the program, known as agrégé(e)s, stimulated popular interest and knowledge of philos-
ophy among the educated classes, for whom philosophy became a required subject in the
secondary-level lycées. A vital interchange between French philosophy and French culture
was thus established, and it has continued ever since.3
No doubt the academic and social contexts of French philosophy contributed to
creating a favorable environment for the reception of Husserlian phenomenology, which,
2See Jean Theau, La Philosophie française dans la première moitié du XXe siècle,ed. Guy Lafrance (Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1977), 12.
3See Jean Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 1870-1940. Leçons de captiv-ité. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1968), 58-59. Cf. Émile Bréhier, Transformation de la philosophiefrançaise, ed. Paul Gaultier (Paris: Flammarion, 1950), 5-6 and André Lalande,“Philosophy in France,” trans. anonymous, Philosophical Review 14 (1905): 429-432.
28
itself being a product of the German university system, bears all the hallmarks of academic
philosophy. At the end of the nineteenth century, when phenomenology was coming into
being, three major currents dominated French philosophy, namely positivism, idealism and
spiritualism. The general characteristics of each will be compared to Husserl’s approach in
order to determine whether they might have contributed to the reception of his thought in
France.4 Because there is no direct historical or philosophical correspondence between
these currents and the problems of psychologism, naturalism and historicism addressed by
Husserl, no attempt will made to correlate them directly. Instead, this section will consider
how particular features of French positivism, idealism and spiritualism relate to the princi-
pal themes of Husserlian phenomenology and also how they differ.
A. Positivism
The first major current, positivism, represented a veritable dynasty among French
thinkers, its genealogy extending back into the eighteenth century. Saint-Simon (1760-
1825) was the first to apply the term to scientific method and, by extension, to philosophy.
Saint-Simon’s ideas inspired Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who transformed positivism
into a social movement, becoming in many respects the philosophy of the industrial revolu-
tion. Comte’s famous loi des trois états maintained that civilization passed through three
successive stages: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive, the last being the do-
main of science and the ultimate goal of humanity. Consequently he sought to devise a
system that would bring all knowledge into scientific order. Scientific order, he believed,
would lead to technological and industrial order, industrial order would transform political
order, and political order would effectuate moral order—the goal of republican govern-
4Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 63ff. Cf. Isaac Benrubi, Les Sources et
les courants de la philosophie contemporaine en France, 2 vols. (Paris: Alcan, 1933).Benrubi categorizes his articles on more than 100 French philosophers under the same threeheadings. A still earlier instance of this tri-partite classification of philosophical currentsmay be found in Paul Janet, Principes de métaphysique et de psychologie, 2 vols. (Paris:Delagrave, 1897), 1: 185-92. Janet, in fact, orders them hierarchically while introducingintermediate levels: materialism, positivism, phenomenism, criticism, idealism, and finallyspiritualism.
29
ment. Comte’s social positivism was popularized by many during the latter half of the
nineteenth century, for example, Émile Littré (1801-1881), who produced a four-volume
dictionary of the French language, and Ernst Renan, whose Vie de Jésus and Les Origines
du Christianisme criticized the anti-scientific spirit of dogmatic religion. More important for
establishing social positivism as a dominant current in the French university system, how-
ever, was Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). It would not be an exaggeration to say that be-
tween 1897, when he founded L’Année sociologique, and 1917, when he died, Durkheim
had transformed the Sorbonne, where he held a chair, into an well-organized workshop
geared toward completing and spreading his philosophy.5 In general terms, Durkheim and
his school, as his followers deserved to be called, exalted science and aimed at the same
time not only to dethrone dogmatic religious beliefs but also metaphysical systems. Are
there any similarities in this regard to the spirit of Husserl’s research?
With respect to religion, Husserl was born a Jew but he requested baptism in the
Lutheran church while a student in Vienna during the 1880s. His mentor, Franz Brentano,
had recently left the Catholic priesthood amid controversy surrounding the dogma of papal
infallibility. Brentano believed in the excellence of the philosophical vocation and its inde-
pendence from theology.6 Husserl, too, came to regard his philosophical career as a secular
mission. Husserl kept his religious practices and beliefs private and otherwise seems to
have shared the general views of liberal Protestantism.7 He certainly never ridiculed or
sought to eradicate the Christian church as did some of the more radical French positivists;
he maintained too much respect for traditional Christianity to partake of their revolutionary
5André Lalande, “Philosophy in France,” trans. anonymous, Philosophical Review
14 (1905): 433-34.6For details on Brentano’s departure from the priesthood and religious views see
Edmund Husserl, “Reminiscences of Franz Brentano,” in The Philosophy of FranzBrentano, ed. Linda L. McAlister, trans. Linda L. McAlister and Margarete Schättle(London: Duckworth, 1976), 47-55; see also Thomas F. O’Meara, Church and Culture:German Catholic Theology, 1860-1914 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,1991), 103ff.
7John M. Oesterreicher, Walls are Crumbling. Seven Jewish PhilosophersDiscover Christ (New York: Devin-Adair, 1952), 51-55. Cf. Spiegelberg,Phenomenological Movement, 72, 79-80.
30
zeal. With respect to metaphysics, Husserl was opposed to the systems that survived in his
day because in his opinion they were not sufficiently critical of their ontological presuppo-
sitions. Nevertheless, his most severe charges were levied not against Hegel or other sys-
tem builders whose apogee at any rate had long since passed, but against the theorists of
the natural sciences. Husserl faulted their reduction of all psychical activity to the physical
level and their assumption that the latter is simply and unambiguously open to sensible in-
vestigation.8 These same charges, of course, could have been directed against French posi-
tivists and psychologists, such as Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893), who, in his work On
Intelligence, described human intelligence as a mechanism, as simply an interconnected
system of sensations.9 Consequently, one might infer that Husserl would have regarded
the French positivists as enemies, and vice versa. This is not necessarily true, however.
Critics are often harshest toward those opinions nearest their own. In his own work,
Husserl valued above all the commitment to scientific rigor professed by the positivists.
He, too, insisted upon the need to attend only to what is immediately given with evidence.
Nevertheless, he criticized naturalistic or positivist viewpoints for restricting the field of
data without warrant, and for allowing their theories to determine beforehand what could
and could not be given adequately to intuition. Phenomenology opened the transcendental
field and revealed its a priori givens, the categorial essences that comprise the structure of
consciousness. Thus, it would be correct to say that Husserl sought a more genuine ex-
pression of positivism; in fact as the next chapter will demonstrate, several of the earliest
interpreters of Husserl in France associated his methods with positivism precisely for these
8Cf. Edmund Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” in Phenomenology and
the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. and edited by Quentin Lauer (New York: Harper & Row,1965), 79ff.
9Hippolyte Taine, De l’Intelligence, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1870), available inEnglish as On Intelligence, ed. Daniel N. Robinson, trans. T. D. Haye (1875; reprint,Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1977). Taine was certainly influ-enced by positivism, but he was also an avid reader of Hegel, which has led some of hisinterpreters to dissociate him from the positivist movement in France (see for example, D.D. Rosca, L’Influence de Hegel sur Taine, théoricien de la connaissance et de l’art (Paris:J. Gamber, 1928).
31
reasons.10 For example, Jean Héring, one of Husserl’s Göttingen students, reports that
Husserl used to say with serious irony, “We are the true positivists.”11 The positivist cur-
rent that ran through nineteenth-century French philosophy thus helped in a general way to
prepare for later receptions of Husserlian phenomenology, although no positivist philoso-
phers in particular anticipated Husserl’s critique of their approach.
B. Idealism
Idealism, the second major philosophical current in France, derived from the
philosophies of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. It spread westward from its German
centers during the first half of the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century
in France, idealists were almost exclusively concerned with epistemological problems and
the criticism of science. Due to the strong influence of positivism, French idealists shied
away from the constructive metaphysics typical of their counterparts in Germany. Instead,
they endeavored to show that the natural laws discovered by positivist science relied upon a
priori concepts. Determinism was still regarded as true for nature, but human freedom was
defended. With idealism, the subject took precedence over the object. Jules Lagneau (1854-
1894), for instance, studied perception not to learn more about the scientific laws govern-
ing the appearances of objects, but in order to understand better how objects are constituted
by the subjective faculties. Like Husserl and Brentano, he recognized that it was impossible
for three-dimensional objects to be given all at once to perception; the remainder at any
moment, he reasoned, must be constructed in the mind by active synthesis.12 Idealists be-
lieved that such epistemological critiques would yield the bases for deducing other tran-
scendental structures pertaining to human existence, including the structures of history and
society. Consequently idealism, like positivism, was generally seen as supporting republi-
10See the exposition of essays by Delbos, Shestov and Groethuysen in Chapter 2.11Jean Héring, “La Phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans. Souvenirs
et réflexions d’un étudiant de 1909,” Revue internationale de philosophie 1 (1939): 370.Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §20; Gibson, 86: “If by ‘Positivism’ we are to mean the absolute unbi-ased grounding of all science on what is ‘positive’, i.e., on what can be primordially ap-prehended, then it is we who are the genuine positivists” (emphasis Husserl’s).
12Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 66.
32
can government and hence it found a place in the university curriculum. It also received ac-
ceptance because it was purely secular. French idealists, unlike the German Romantics,
either denounced traditional religion or transformed it into a cult of the Absolute.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, idealism was represented across a range
of French thinkers. At one end were scientists and mathematicians like Antoine-Augustin
Cournot (1801-1877), Claude Bernard (1813-1878) and Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), who
criticized the reductive methods of empirical science; at the other end were philosophers
concerned with the interpretation of Kant, paralleling neo-Kantianism in Germany after
1880. From the latter group, two figures deserve closer consideration for their contribu-
tions to the reception of phenomenology in France: Charles Renouvier and Léon
Brunschvicg—the former for his doctrine of phenomenalism and the latter for connecting
phenomenalism with phenomenology.
1. Charles Renouvier
One of the first self-avowed French neo-Kantians was Charles Renouvier (1815-
1903). “I frankly confess that I am continuing Kant,” he declares in the preface to his
Essais de Critique Générale.13 Actually, Renouvier’s career as a self-educated philosopher
may be divided into three periods, of which his Kantian period was the second. The first
period may be characterized as an eclectic positivism, influenced on the one hand by
Comte, whom he had as a professor at the École Polytechnique, and on the other by his
participation in Saint-Simonian groups, a popular quasi-religious movement inspired by the
teachings of Saint-Simon. The second and longest stage of Renouvier’s career was born of
an intellectual and spiritual crisis prompted by the collapse of the Second Republic in 1851.
Confronted by the need for a stronger foundation upon which to build his libertarian con-
victions, he turned to Kant. He immediately began writing his Essais, and in 1872 he
founded the journal Critique philosophique. Renouvier called his philosophy during these
13Charles Renouvier, Essais de critique générale, 4 vols. (Paris: Ladrange, 1854-
64), 1: x.
33
years néo-criticisme. Nevertheless, by the turn of the century, Renouvier broke with Kant,
renounced neo-criticism, and began thinking within the framework of Leibniz. His last
major works, titled La Nouvelle monadologie (1899) and Le Personnalisme (1903), antici-
pated the philosophical direction taken by Emmanuel Mounier and other Christian personal-
ists during the 1930s.14 His most influential works, however, and those which most rec-
ommend comparison with Husserlian phenomenology date from his second period.
Renouvier called his philosophy after 1851 neo-criticism because he took Kant’s
critique of reason as his starting point and then pushed its principles further. Renouvier in-
sisted that phenomena are not appearances of something other than themselves. Phenomena
are things simply as they appear, pure representations. There are no things in themselves,
no noumena, and hence no basis for Kant’s antimonies. In this respect, Renouvier’s neo-
criticism did not mark a complete rupture from his past; on the contrary, it cleverly inserted
Kantian philosophy into positivism. If Kant’s viewpoint was appropriately termed tran-
scendental idealism, Renouvier’s was aptly dubbed rational phenomenalism, or simply
phenomenalism [phénoménisme rationnel ou phénoménisme].15 “In Renouvier’s hands
idealism became, in the final analysis, a higher empiricism,” Roger Verneaux observed in
1945, adding that “it would not be improper to consider neo-criticism as a precursor of the
phenomenological movement. At least certain viewpoints of Renouvier suggest this com-
parison.”16 What are some of these viewpoints?
In the first part of his first Essai, Renouvier explains that he will make an “analysis
of knowledge as it is given.”17 He continues: “In this enterprise, naive in appearance, I will
14Theau, La Philosophie française, 23.15Phénoménisme is most appropriately translated by phenomenalism, the view that
we know only phenomena and that nothing stands behind them causing their appearance.In British philosophy this doctrine was advanced in various forms by Berkeley, Hume andJ. S. Mill. On the continent, Mach and Avenarius were the chief representatives. Cf.“Phenomenalism” in William L. Reese, ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion,Eastern and Western Thought, rev. ed. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996),569-70, who also cites Renouvier as an exponent.
16Roger Verneaux, L’Idéalisme de Renouvier (Paris: Vrin, 1945), 3 (emphasisVerneaux’s).
17Renouvier, Essais de critique générale, 1: 2.
34
accept simply and naturally, although with an uncustomary rigor, the givens [données] of
reason, which always pass for essentials and almost always as infallible.”18 Although
writing almost half a century before Husserl, one already finds a similar emphasis on
givenness and rigor that Husserl claimed as hallmarks of his own approach. Furthermore,
Renouvier’s methodology involves reducing all phenomena to the status of appearances
and distinguishing the representative [représentatif] from the represented [représenté].19
Yet, although there is a kind of suspension of the natural attitude involved in Renouvier’s
phenomenal reduction, Renouvier’s notion of reduction does not entail leading back repre-
sentations to their original state as conscious intentionalities, but merely to their status as
phenomena, as appearing things.
Renouvier’s phenomenalism differs from phenomenology in other important re-
spects as well. Renouvier, for instance, does not speak about the grasping of phenomena
as an act of intuition, and with good reason. Because he denies the existence of the noume-
nal world, he can only conceive of categories as laws which govern the relations of phe-
nomena and which are attained through abstraction, an act of psychological reflection.
Hence, Renouvier cannot admit the possibility of categorial intuition, nor can he grant the
categories themselves any transcendental reality.20 In addition, Renouvier regards laws and
even consciousness itself as composite phenomena, the latter being “produced or repro-
duced in a constant manner and represented as the common relationship of phenomena in
the human being.”21 Renouvier thus reduces consciousness to phenomena, whereas
Husserl would reduce phenomena to consciousness.
18Ibid., 1: 4.19Ibid., 1: 6-7; cf. 1: 42.20Verneaux, L’Idéalisme de Renouvier, 209, notes that Renouvier neglected to
clarify the limitations of intuition in his Essais. In Renouvier. Disciple et critique de Kant(Paris: Vrin, 1945), 56, Verneaux explains that in his Critique de la Doctrine de Kant (a lateessay posthumously published in 1906), Renouvier for the first time explicitly dismissedintellectual intuition as an “arbitrary fiction,” his reasoning being that for Kant an intellec-tual intuition would mean grasping the thing in itself, the noumenon, but since there is nonoumenon, there can be no intellectual intuition.
21Renouvier, Essais de critique générale, 1: 55.
35
Finally, the aim of neo-criticism is to dispel metaphysical illusions and thereby ef-
fect the genuine liberation of the mind.22 Husserl, too, sought to overthrow metaphysical
illusions, but one of the supposed illusions attacked by Renouvier is the hypothetical or
transcendental ego, which Husserl accepted as a permanent feature of consciousness on ac-
count of its being given through the phenomenological reduction. For Renouvier, on the
other hand, it is improper to speak of ‘my’ representations because the expression presup-
poses a substantial ‘me’ that does not exist.23 He only recognizes the existence of the em-
pirical ego, which he regards as a synthesis of representations.24
2. Léon Brunschvicg
Renouvier’s revision of Kantian criticism prompted another leading French rational-
ist and idealist, Léon Brunschvicg (1869-1944), to offer this comparison between neo-
criticism and phenomenology in his preface to Georges Gurvitch’s Les Tendances actuelles
de la philosophie allemande:
The link between phenomenology and Renouvier’s phenomenalism greatlyexceeds the similarity in doctrinal vocabulary: it was the same reactionagainst Kantian criticism, the same movement to rejoin, beyond Hume,Aristotle, in order to find in his “exigencies of pure logic” support for resist-ing psychologism and its attempts or threats on subjectivity. The relation-ship is accentuated with Eléments principaux de la Représentation: Hamelinclings to an ontology of the phenomenon and, despite a Hegelian manner ofpresentation, the Wesensschau of categories constitutes the eminent merit ofthe work.25
Yet, how much weight should be given to Brunschvicg’s statements? After all, Brun-
schvicg never discusses phenomenology in any of his many works on logic and epistemol-
ogy, nor is there evidence that he devoted any significant time to reading Husserl.26
22Verneaux, L’Idéalisme de Renouvier, 85.23Renouvier, Essais de critique générale, 1: 42.24Ibid., 1: 15. Renouvier’s critique of Kant on this matter is very similar to Sartre’s
rejection of the transcendental ego as espoused by Husserl; see below, Chapter 2.25Léon Brunschvicg, “Préface” to Georges Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles de la
philosophie allemande (Paris: Vrin, 1930), 3. This collection of essays on contemporaryGerman thought will be examined in detail in the next chapter for its contribution to theFrench awareness of Husserl, Scheler and Heidegger.
26While philosophies of both Brunschvicg and Husserl contain elements of ideal-ism, their epistemological approaches are actually quite different. Jean Cavaillès, a studentof both, offers an amusing reflection: “I continue to read his [Husserl’s] logic. Yet unfor-
36
In the passage above, Brunschvicg suggests that Renouvier’s phenomenalism
functioned as a precursor to the French reception of phenomenology. While it is true that
phenomenalism represented a reaction to Kantian criticism insofar as it rejected the notion
of things in themselves, it is not the case that Renouvier sought to rejoin the tradition of
Aristotle; neither did Husserl, for that matter, though he did attempt to secure the founda-
tions for a logic purified of psychological presuppositions. Brunschvicg credits Renouvier
with having effectively combatted psychologism, but unfortunately, Renouvier’s investiga-
tions into the conditions of certitude show that he succumbed to the psychologistic ten-
dency to equate certitude with a psychological state rather than objective truth. “Strictly
speaking,” he observes in his second Essai, “there is no certainty [certitude], only men
who are certain [certains].”27 Renouvier’s epistemological relativism surely cannot be
squared with Husserl’s quest for the apodictic foundations of knowledge.
Brunschvicg also claims that the relationship between phenomenalism and phe-
nomenology was accentuated by Octave Hamelin (1856-1907). Hamelin was Renouvier’s
most distinguished successor. He dedicated his Essai sur les éléments principaux de la
représentation28 to Renouvier, and also published a year-long course of lectures on his
philosophical system.29 Hamelin did not merely follow Renouvier, however, but sought to
improve upon his teachings. He tried to correct the empiricism and positivism that lingered
in Renouvier’s assumptions by adopting a Hegelian methodology of cumulative synthesis.
tunately, if his general method of philosophy is perhaps useful, the system which he de-rives from it is so distant from everything Brunschvicg et al. impregnated in me that I’mafraid that unless I were converted, I could only look at it from afar as a foreign thing”(Gabrielle Ferrières, Jean Cavaillès. Philosophe et Combattant, 1903-1944 (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1950), 88). Perhaps the distance between their philosophies ac-counts for Brunschvicg’s relative neglect of phenomenology.
27Renouvier, Essais de critique générale, 2: 390. Quoted in William Logue, CharlesRenouvier, Philosopher of Liberty (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1993), 89,n. 15.
28Octave Hamelin, Essai sur les éléments principaux de la représentation (Paris:Alcan, 1907). Hamelin defended his thesis in 1897. The title intentionally responds toBergson’s 1889 thesis, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (see DominiqueParodi, La Philosophie contemporaine en France. Essai de classification des doctrines(Paris: Alcan, 1919), 432).
29Octave Hamelin, Le Système de Renouvier (Paris: Vrin, 1927).
37
In this manner he hoped to construct a critical metaphysics that would take him beyond the
purely negative approach of neo-criticism.30 Despite these revisions of Renouvier’s philos-
ophy, it is difficult to discern why Brunschvicg would attribute Husserl’s technique of
Wesensschau, essential intuition, to Hamelin. For Hamelin, the categories—what he means
by the “principal elements of representation”— are attained through an a priori deductive
synthesis; in no place does he treat them as essences that can be intuited directly. Given
these contradictions, one can only conclude that Brunschvicg must either have forgotten the
argument of Hamelin’s work (it had been published more than twenty years earlier upon
the latter’s death) and Renouvier’s psychologistic tendencies, or that he simply didn’t un-
derstand what Husserl meant by Wesensschau, or perhaps that he erred on both accounts.
In any case, Brunschvicg’s attempt to link phenomenology to his own tradition of French
neo-Kantianism must be regarded as unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, Brunschvicg’s mistaken interpretation probably did contribute in
some way to the positive reception of phenomenology in French philosophical circles dur-
ing the early 1930s. Brunschvicg was, after all, the most powerful philosopher in France
during the first decades of the twentieth century. Elected Professor at the Sorbonne in
1909, he presided for many years over the jury d’agrégation, the board which determines
the questions for the final exams in philosophy, a selection which in turn drives the whole
curriculum.31 Thus, Brunschvicg’s word carried great authority and his endorsement of
Husserl probably helped the latter win a favorable audience in France. Furthermore, his
preface to Gurvitch’s volume did contain a significant—and accurate—observation on the
relation of phenomenology to French philosophy: Brunschvicg praised Husserl for study-
ing Descartes as a philosopher in his own right, and not simply as a precursor to Leibniz
and Kant, the way most Germans treated him.32 This link between Descartes and Husserl,
30Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 1: 471-72.31See Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, trans. of Le Même et
l’autre by L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1980), 6.
32Brunschvicg, Preface to Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 4ff.
38
which echoed the theme of Husserl’s lectures at the Sorbonne the previous year, would
prove essential to the original French appropriations of phenomenology that emerged after
1930.
C. Spiritualism
A third major current in French philosophy around the turn of the last century was
spiritualism, the usual translation of the French spiritualisme. It should neither be confused
with mediums nor ghosts, nor with any particular religious movement (though it often
tended towards religious experience in general), nor with Hegel’s meaning of the word
Geist. Spiritualism refers to philosophies centered upon the interior life of the individual
subject understood as spontaneous, active and creative. Like the neo-critical idealists, spiri-
tualists struggled against scientific positivism. Yet, while the former took a negative ap-
proach to the problem, safeguarding human autonomy by setting limits on determinism, the
latter proceeded by positive and constructive means to transcend determinism. Spiritualists
sought to go beyond the fragmentary and relative views of reality arising from positivist
and empiricist standpoints by uniting their elements in a synthetic totality. Hence, spiritual-
ism differed fundamentally from both positivism and idealism though it shared certain ele-
ments in common with each. Like the idealists, spiritualists employed synthetic method-
ologies. Like the positivists, spiritualists took the givens of experience, including the
results of scientific experiments, for their starting point.
The current of French spiritualism which ran throughout the nineteenth century and
well into the twentieth was initiated by Maine de Biran (1766-1824). Biran deserves to be
regarded as the founder of the new movement because he contested the dominance of sen-
sationalism. Sensationalism, represented by Condillac (1715-1780), “reduced psychology
to physiology, every activity of the soul to mechanical passivity.”33 Biran argued that psy-
chological life was active and dynamic, not passive. Rejecting the methods of the French
moralists and mystical writers as too imprecise to capture the exact nature of psychological
33Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2: 551.
39
phenomena, he devised his own method of descriptive analysis which he applied in his
studies of effort and habit.34 Referring to Brian’s Journal intime, Jean Theau has remarked
that,
Maine de Biran discovered in effect that the proper field of psychology wasnot the subject isolated in itself, but the living relationship of this subject tothe whole of corporeal and objective reality, in other words, the concreterelation between an active interiority, known from within, and an exterioritywhich is revealed to the extent that it resists. . . . Psychology thus under-stood is therefore a reflection on the life of consciousness while at the sametime a propadeutic to the science of things.35
Theau did not have Husserl in mind in making this observation, but the similarities between
the way he explains Biran’s approach and Husserl’s early conceptions of phenomenology
as a descriptive psychology are nonetheless evident. Like Husserl, Biran affirmed the pri-
ority of the events of consciousness and discerned that a correlational, if not intentional,
relationship existed between subjective interiority and the exteriority of the objective world,
and furthermore that reflection on these fundamental facts could serve as a foundation for
the empirical sciences.36
Biran, however, did not promote himself as the initiator of a new current of
thought; that recognition only came later. In a report demanded in 1867 by the imperial
government on the progress of philosophy, Felix Ravaisson called attention to the emer-
gence of “a philosophical era whose general character will consist in the predominance of
what could be called a spiritualist positivism or realism [réalisme ou positivisme spiritual-
iste], having for its generating principle the internal awareness of the mind of an existence
from which it recognizes that all other existences derive and depend, and which is none
other than its action.”37 Henri Gouhier has commented that,
34Cf. Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 68-69.35Theau, La Philosophie française, 18.36Another interesting figure whose descriptive phenomenological philosophy bears
certain similarities to Husserl’s own was Henri-Fréderic Amiel (1821-1881). See HerbertSpiegelberg, “Amiel’s ‘New Phenomenology’,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 49(1967): 201-14, reprinted in Herbert Spiegelberg, The Context of the PhenomenologicalMovement (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), 93-104.
37Felix Ravaisson, La Philosophie en France au XIXe siècle, 2nd ed. (Paris:Hachette, 1885), 275: “ayant pour principe générateur la conscience que l’esprit prend en
40
at the time when these lines were published, the most apparent manifestationof this new state of mind was the work of Ravaisson himself; but the[doctoral] theses of [Jules] Lachelier in 1871, of Émile Boutroux in 1874,of [Henri] Bergson in 188[9], of Maurice Blondel in 1893 would showhow far and how correctly Ravaisson saw.38
Dominique Janicaud, too, has traced this genealogy of French spiritualism through the end
of the nineteenth century.39 At what point, if at all, can one speak of direct precursors to the
French reception of phenomenology? Did the generation of spiritualists led by Ravaisson,
Lachelier and Boutroux directly anticipate positions later defended by Husserl, or did such
anticipations only come with the subsequent generation, namely with Bergson and
Blondel?
1. Felix Ravaisson
A chief representative of spiritualism in nineteenth-century French philosophy,
Felix Ravaisson (1813-1900) was a man of many talents and vocations. As a youth, he
took art lessons from students of David. At nineteen he wrote an essay on Aristotle’s meta-
physics that won a prize from the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. In his early
twenties he went to Munich for a time to study with Schelling. In 1838, he submitted his
thesis on the nature of habits, in which he argued that habit rejoins intellect to matter and
demonstrates the continuity between nature and spirit. He showed, furthermore, how
habits pose the problem of action—a problem that would be taken up again by Lachelier,
Boutroux, Bergson and Blondel.40 Despite his original contribution to the discipline,
Ravaisson never became a professor of philosophy. Instead, he broadened the scope of his
creative influence through a variety of important administrative positions, including chief of
libraries, director of higher education, and curator of antiquities at the Louvre, all of which lui-même d’une existence dont il reconnaît que toute autre existence derive et dépend, et quin’est autre que son action.”
38Henri Gouhier, ed., Maine de Biran. Oeuvres choisies (Paris: Aubier Montaigne,1942), 22; note: a typographical error incorrectly dates Bergson’s thesis to 1881. Alsoquoted in Dominique Janicaud, Une Généalogie du spiritualisme français. Aux Sources dubergsonisme: Ravaisson et la métaphysique (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), 4-5.
39Janicaud, Généalogie du spiritualisme français (see preceding note for completecitation).
40Cf. Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 81-2.
41
furnished him with opportunities to write. In addition to his aesthetic and philosophical
works, Ravaisson published essays on education and ethics, contributing the lead article to
the first issue of the Revue de métaphysique et de morale in 1893.
Like Biran, Ravaisson opposed materialism and empiricism in all its forms. Against
theories which regard the mind as essentially passive, his studies of the moral life and aes-
thetic judgment portray consciousness as active and synthetic. Furthermore, he advanced a
metaphysics that combined the Aristotelian notions of concreteness and finality with the
dynamism characteristic of the German Romantics.41 Perhaps Ravaisson’s most important
and enduring contribution to the evolution of spiritualism, however, was his influence
upon Bergson. The affinities between the two thinkers are complex but unquestionable. In
recognition of this fact, Bergson was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et
Politiques as Ravaisson’s successor in 1904. In his inaugural speech, Bergson alluded
many times to the influence Ravaisson had on his own thought. A particularly strong allu-
sion occurs in the context of his comments on Ravaisson’s distinction of the analytical
method of abstraction and decomposition from “another method” which “not only takes ac-
count of the elements, but also their order, the relationship between them and their common
orientation,” and which “does not explain the living by the dead, but, seeing life every-
where, defines the more elementary forms in terms of their aspiration to a higher form of
life.”42 This latter method Bergson identifies with spiritualism, and to the extent that he at-
tributes it to Ravaisson, he claims it for himself. Nevertheless, the notions of duration and
intuition that would mark Bergson’s role as a precursor to phenomenology in France were
not derived from Ravaisson. Neither was Bergson’s understanding of consciousness.
Ravaisson, adopted the classical view that consciousness is a center of reflection, whereas
Bergson displaced consciousness onto the élan vital, the impersonal vital impetus inherent
41Cf. Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2: 581-94.42Henri Bergson, La Pensée et le Mouvant. Essais et conférences (Paris: Alcan,
1934), 273; Henri Bergson, Oeuvres, 5th ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1991), 1466.
42
in all living beings.43 If Bergson’s displacement bears any similarities to the exteriorization
of consciousness that Sartre would later discern in Husserl’s view, then Ravaisson stands
that much farther from the latter’s phenomenology. Ravaisson’s role in the eventual recep-
tion of phenomenology in France was at most only indirect, through his influence on
Bergson.
2. Jules Lachelier
Jules Lachelier (1832-1918), the celebrated philosopher of Fontainebleau, com-
pleted his two doctoral theses in 1871 under the guidance of Ravaisson, from whom he ab-
sorbed the principles of spiritualism.44 In the notes he prepared for André Lalande’s
Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, Lachelier credits his mentor with having
founded a “deeper and more complete” form of spiritualism than his predecessors. He ex-
plains that Ravaisson’s spiritualism, “consists in seeking in the spirit the explication of na-
ture itself, in believing that the unconscious thought that works in nature is the same that
becomes conscious in us.”45 Lachelier’s own thought proceeds along these general lines
while at the same time incorporating elements of idealism. For example, in his thesis on the
foundation of induction he argued, like Leibniz, that in order for the world to be intelligible
to us it must have an aesthetic order. He showed furthermore, like Kant, that that order is
imposed upon the world by our reason.46 In turn, Lachelier’s idealism formed the basis of
his critique of empirical science, especially the doctrines of Victor Cousin, which he saw
leading only to philosophical and moral skepticism. By critical reflection on science,
43Cf. Janicaud, Généalogie du spiritualisme français, 186-87.44Cf. Célestin Bouglé, Les Maîtres de la Philosophie Universitaire en France (Paris:
Maloine, 1938), 8-9.45André Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, 16th ed.
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988), 1020.46Jules Lachelier, Du Fondement de l’induction suivi de “Psychologie et
Métaphysique” et de “Notes sur le pari de Pascal,” 4th ed. (Paris: Alcan, 1902), availablein English as The Philosophy of Jules Lachelier, trans. with an introduction by Edward G.Ballard (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960). See also Guitton, Regards sur la penséefrançaise, 90.
43
Lachelier hoped to arrive at a metaphysics that would justify the primacy of Christian
morality.47
Lachelier exercised a profound influence on his generation through his teaching at
the École Normale Supérieur, his many years as president of the jury d’agrégation, and es-
pecially through his remarkable personality. This taciturn, grandfatherly figure had perhaps
as much impact on the course of French university philosophy after the Franco-Prussian
war as Brunschvicg would have after World War I. Among his many notable protégés can
be counted Boutroux, Bergson and Blondel. Bergson, in fact, dedicated his doctoral thesis,
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, to Lachelier. Surprisingly, however,
Lachelier published rather little on account of his timidity and perfectionism, and he even
left the classroom after 1875 fearing that his teaching might lead some of his students into
unbelief.48 A devoted Catholic, Lachelier struggled in his philosophy to proceed from the
idea of God to the living God. He concluded that reason strives for an ideal it cannot de-
duce but whose reality it can affirm by faith. Faith, for Lachelier, is a matter of Pascal’s
wager, not ontological argument.49 The fact that Lachelier maintained both his rigor as a
philosopher and his faith as a Catholic doubtlessly inspired Blondel and others in his gen-
eration. But what precise role did he play as a precursor to the French reception of
phenomenology?
One approach to answering this question is to turn again to his notes for Lalande’s
Vocabulaire. After outlining a few other definitions of a phenomenon [phénomène],
Lachelier proposes his own definition, based, he claims, upon the teachings of Maine de
Biran. Distinguishing a phenomenon from a fact he states, “I would say that a phenomenon
is the material element of a fact, the pure sensible given [pure donnée sensible] antecedent
to any intervention of an ego [moi], and that a fact is a phenomenon adopted and posited by
the ego, and elevated by this position to existence and objectivity.”50 Husserl, too, discrim-
47Theau, La Philosophie française, 24.48Ibid., 86.49Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2: 604.50Lalande, Vocabulaire, 765.
44
inates between the hyletic data of a phenomenon and its noetic content.51 Yet for Husserl,
the structure of all phenomena is inherently intentional, hence it would be impossible to
speak about a phenomenon antecedent to or apart from an ego, as does Lachelier.52 In his
essay “Psychology and Metaphysics,” Lachelier distinguishes sensible consciousness from
an underlying intellectual consciousness consisting in an a priori idea of truth.53 Lachelier’s
distinction hints at Husserl’s doctrine concerning the transcendental ego. Nevertheless, for
Lachelier, both levels of consciousness are fundamentally involved with the will and the
latter implies a metaphysics—neither of which is central to Husserl’s scheme. Thus, de-
spite some apparent similarities, there is little reason to regard Lachelier as a precursor to
Husserl’s reception in France.
3. Émile Boutroux
Émile Boutroux (1845-1921) wrote: “Whoever applies himself to maintaining the
originality of philosophy while reestablishing and strengthening its ties to the sciences and
religion, is, in some measure, a disciple of Lachelier.”54 These words perhaps describe no
one better than their author. Boutroux taught philosophy at the École Normale from 1877-
88, during which time he had Bergson and Blondel as students. He was subsequently ap-
pointed to the Sorbonne chair for the history of modern philosophy. By his marriage in
1876, Boutroux became the brother-in-law of Henri Poincaré. The profound respect and
admiration he developed for the great mathematician encouraged his own interest in the
51Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §85; Gibson, 246-51. For more on the distinction between
sensile hulé and intentional morphé, see also Husserl, Ideas, §§97-98; Gibson, 282-90.52It is said that for many years Lachelier left the Critique of Pure Reason open on
his desk to the page where Kant writes, “The ‘I think’ must be able to accompany all of myrepresentations” (see Émile Boutroux, Nouvelles études d’histoire de la philosophie (Paris:Alcan, 1927), 11). By comparison to Husserl, however, Lachelier interprets Kant’s thesisin a weaker sense. For Lachelier, it would seem that while it is always possible to considera phenomenon in relation to a cogito, it is not strictly necessary. For Husserl, on the otherhand, the cogito furnishes the essential structure of all phenomenal experience. Its role isalways actual even if it often goes unperceived—in the background, as it were (cf. Husserl,Ideas, §57; Gibson, 172-73).
53Lachelier, Du Fondement de l’induction suivi de “Psychologie et Métaphysique”et de “Notes sur le pari de Pascal,” 147-57; Ballard, 81-87.
54Boutroux, Nouvelles études, 31.
45
philosophy of science.55 And finally, taking some inspiration from Lachelier, Boutroux
devoted much of his research to questions relating to religion and ethics.
In his thesis, De la contingence des lois de la nature, Boutroux asks whether the
category of necessary relation inherent in the understanding is actually to be found in things
themselves.56 In other words, are the causes of which science speaks actually laws govern-
ing being? Boutroux finds that only analytic necessity is absolute; synthetic necessity,
whether a priori or a posteriori, is always relative. Therefore the notion of causality which
positivist science upholds as proof of determinism in nature is merely contingent: concrete
existence cannot be deduced from syllogisms. “There is no equivalence, no relation of
causality, pure and simple, between a man and the elements that gave him birth, between
the developed being and the being in process of formation.”57 Looking down the chain of
being one sees that each order of reality is contingent with respect to the lower orders
which precede it. Nevertheless, looking up the ladder, one sees necessity expressed by the
ideal of the higher form. “The idea of necessity is, at bottom, the translation, into as ab-
stract logical language as possible, of the activity exercised by the ideal upon things, by
God upon his creatures.”58 A strongly Catholic thinker, Boutroux envisioned God as the
summit of the hierarchy of being and the absolute instance of freedom. Human beings re-
spond to divine freedom as moral necessity, a call which they answer from their own con-
tingent freedom. Boutroux was thus a critic of both natural science and sociological theo-
ries of religion. He faulted positivist approaches to natural science for failing to recognize
creative contingency in nature. On the other hand, he faulted sociological theories of reli-
gion for reducing religion to its external rituals and institutions, disregarding entirely its
55Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 92-93.56Émile Boutroux, De la contingence des lois de la nature (Paris: Baillière, 1874),
available in English as The Contingency of the Laws of Nature, trans. Fred Rothwell(Chicago: Open Court, 1920). For discussions of Boutroux’s thesis see Parodi, LaPhilosophie contemporaine en France, 169-77 and Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2:699-713. Benrubi, 696, n. 1, cites Boutroux’s dedication of his French thesis to Ravaissonand his Latin thesis to Lachelier as evidence of his ties to spiritualism.
57Boutroux, De la contingence des lois de la nature, 28; Rothwell, 32.58Ibid., 169; Rothwell, 194.
46
foundation in the interior life and moral freedom. Perhaps even more than Lachelier or
Renouvier, Boutroux was a philosopher of freedom.
While Boutroux certainly opposed psychologism, his approach to the problem was
different than Husserl’s. The insight that led Husserl to become a critic of psychologism
was his discovery of logical essences. For Boutroux, the discovery of contingency in natu-
ral laws provided the basis for affirming freedom in higher levels of being. Although both
Husserl and Boutroux clearly demonstrate affinities with the spiritualist current in French
thought, they exhibit different methodological orientations. Husserl’s method, like Maine
de Biran’s, consists in the exacting description of subjective phenomena. On the other
hand, Boutroux’s approach, like Lachelier’s, proceeds by induction and synthesis. In the
conclusion to one of his last books, Science et religion, Boutroux tries to harmonize what
he calls the “scientific spirit” and the “religious spirit,” while claiming that both are neces-
sary in different ways to human life.59 As was the case with Lachelier, Boutroux’s effort to
reconcile science and religion served as a model to thinkers like Blondel. In addition, his
notion of reality as a product of creative and dynamic synthesis anticipated Bergson.
Nevertheless, there is no compelling reason to link Boutroux directly to French interest in
phenomenology. Like other spiritualists, Boutroux believed in first establishing a meta-
physics in order to ground his epistemology.60 For Husserl, it was always the reverse:
epistemology must precede metaphysics.
D. Conclusion: Anticipations of Phenomenology in French Positivism, Idealism and Spiritualism
The foregoing survey of French philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century has
shown that certain traits of each of the three predominant currents—positivism, idealism
and spiritualism—anticipated phenomenological themes. To summarize briefly, Husserl
committed himself to the scientific rigor characteristic of positivism, and he incorporated
59Émile Boutroux, Science et Religion dans la philosophie contemporaine (Paris:
Flammarion, 1908), 341-400.60Cf. Janicaud, Généalogie du spiritualisme français, 1.
47
into the methodological foundations of phenomenology the positivist principle of attending
only to data that are given immediately and with evidence. The reception of Kant in France
resulted in a form of idealism that was conditioned by positivism and yet critical of it at the
same time. In common with Husserl’s attack on psychologism, French idealists insisted
that the empirical sciences depended upon a priori concepts for their foundations.
Furthermore, like Husserl, they studied the subjective constitution of objects. According to
Brunschvicg, Renouvier’s phenomenalism directly anticipated Husserlian phenomenology,
but he proved to be only partially right: phenomenology, like phenomenalism, was a reac-
tion to Kant, but it was not the same reaction. Renouvier interpreted Kant in a positivist di-
rection by denying the noumenal world altogether. Husserl, on the other hand, interpreted
Kant more idealistically, expanding the limits of intuition to embrace not only sensible ob-
jects but intellectual objects as well. Finally, philosophers who participated in the spiritual-
ist current of French philosophy focused attention on the lived experiences of conscious-
ness and employed descriptive methodologies much like those used by Husserl. There was
a lack of evidence, however, to suggest that the principal representatives of spiritualism in
France during the mid-nineteenth century—Ravaisson, Lachelier and Boutroux—con-
tributed significantly to the formation of the specific concepts or methodologies that would
eventually link the latter with the phenomenological movement in France.
Thus, despite the fact that certain similarities existed between phenomenology and
the major currents in French philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century, none of the
individual philosophers discussed so far can be considered direct precursors to the recep-
tion of phenomenology in France. It is necessary to turn then, to the subsequent generation
of French philosophers, the generation of dominated by the “three B’s.”61 Like Bach,
Beethoven and Brahms, so Bergson, Blondel and Brunschvicg exercised in their respective
61Vincent Descombes, among others, has pointed out that twentieth-century philos-ophy has been characterized by successive triads of authorities: the philosophical regencyof Bergson, Blondel and Brunschvicg passed to the German dynasty of Hegel, Husserland Heidegger after the war, who in turn yielded the throne to the three masters of suspi-cion, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, during the 1960s (cf. Descombes, Modern FrenchPhilosophy, 3).
48
spheres a tremendous influence upon French thought and culture during the early decades
of the twentieth century. Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian idealism, however, had little in com-
mon with Husserl’s transcendental idealism let alone the latter’s phenomenology, so there
is no reason to search his oeuvre for clues to the French reception of the German move-
ment. Yet with Bergson and Blondel the case is different. Their philosophies derive from
insights that exhibit strong affinities to the fundamental themes of Husserlian phenomenol-
ogy.
II. Henri Bergson: Lived Duration and Intuition
The philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) cannot be neatly classified accord-
ing to the tri-partite schema of positivism, idealism or spiritualism. “Bergson occupies a
special place in French philosophy,” writes philosopher and historian Jean Guitton.
“Bergsonism was a novelty, the appearance of a comet, an unforeseeable event. Indeed,
Bergson’s thought, like his person, was a new standard, a hitherto unpublished miscel-
lany, a sort of absolute beginning. Like the thought of Descartes, it can be considered a
progeny without a master.”62 Bergson opposed positivist science; his Matter and Memory,
for example, has been called the antipode to Taine’s On Intelligence.63 On the other hand,
his 1889 doctoral thesis, Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, is, as the title
states, a study of what is immediately and positively given to consciousness. Bergson re-
jected Kantianism in all it varieties, yet he was concerned with free will, the spontaneity of
consciousness and the renewal of metaphysics. He was identified with spiritualism because
he opposed the vitality of consciousness to the determinism and reductionism of the empiri-
cal sciences. Bergson’s spiritualism, however, was not derived from Biran, Ravaisson or
Boutroux, much as he respected these sages. Rather, he offered a new kind of spiritualism
62Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 96-7.63Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 1: 31.
49
founded on the premise that the mind or spirit is “a reality which is capable of drawing
more from itself than it contains.”64
The novelty of Bergsonism cannot be adequately explained by merely contrasting it
against the background of the predominant currents in French philosophy at the end of the
last century. Its freshness stemmed from a simple and original insight whose wide-ranging
implications were gradually unfolded in Bergson’s major works. The following sections on
duration and intuition present that original insight and discuss a few of its metaphysical and
epistemological implications. They explain how Bergson distinguished metaphysics from
the natural sciences both in terms of content and methodology, and how his recovery of
intuition helped to overcome the impasse between positivist and idealist theories of knowl-
edge that plagued nineteenth century French philosophies. Their aim is to show that
Bergson offered the French an entirely new conception of philosophy which directly antici-
pated and prepared for the reception of Husserlian phenomenology, such that if there had
there been no Bergson, it would be difficult to conceive how Husserl’s ideas could have
taken root in France.
A. Bergson’s Original Insight
Bergson was born in 1859, the same year as Husserl and the same year that Darwin
inaugurated evolutionary biology with the publication of On the Origin of the Species—an
event that would prove to be significant for the former in ways that it would not for the lat-
ter. Like Husserl, Bergson was of Jewish descent, a fact which only became important to
both men towards the end of their lives during the Nazi era: anti-semitism would drive a
wedge between Husserl and the administration at the University of Freiburg, including his
successor, Heidegger; anti-semitism would also drive a wedge between Bergson and the
Catholic Church.65
64“Allocution à une conférence du Pasteur Hollard, 14 mai 1911,” in Henri
Bergson, Mélanges, ed. André Robinet (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972),887; Henri Bergson, Écrits et Paroles, ed. R.-M. Mossé-Bastide, 3 vols. (Paris: Alcan,1957-59), 2: 359. Quoted by Henri Gouhier, “Preface” to Henri Bergson, Oeuvres, xxvii.
65See the section below on “Bergson’s Influence on French Theologians.”
50
Bergson attended the École Normale Supérieur, completing the agrégation in phi-
losophy in 1881 and the doctorate in 1889. Between 1881 and 1898 he taught at several of
the provincial and Parisian secondary lycées followed by two years of lecturing at the École
Normale. In 1900 he became a professor at the Collège de France after two unsuccessful
applications to join the faculty of philosophy at the Sorbonne. Although there is nothing
remarkable about the early course of his academic career, Bergson himself points to an in-
ternal breakthrough which gave decisive shape to all of his subsequent writings. In a letter
to William James, whom he greatly admired, dated May 9, 1908, Bergson reflects on the
course of his intellectual formation:
I cannot help but to attribute great importance to the change I underwent inmy manner of thinking during the two years which followed my departurefrom the École Normale, 1881-1883. Until that time I was completely im-bued with the mechanistic theories to which I had been led early on by myreading of Herbert Spencer, the philosopher to whom I adhered almostwithout reservation. My intention was to dedicate myself to what was thencalled “the philosophy of sciences” and toward that end I undertook, aftermy departure from the École Normale, to study some of the fundamentalscientific notions. It was the analysis of the notion of time, such as it inter-venes in mechanics or physics, that toppled my ideas. I perceived, to mygreat astonishment, that scientific time does not endure, that there would beno change in our scientific knowledge of things if the totality of the realwere deployed all of the sudden in an instant, and that positive science con-sists essentially in the elimination of duration. This was the point of depar-ture for a series of reflections which led me little by little to reject almost ev-erything I had accepted up to that time and to completely change my point ofview.66
The discovery of duration in opposition to objective, scientific time was thus the original
insight that revolutionized Bergson’s thought. Ideally, in order to grasp this insight for
ourselves and to appreciate its transforming effect on the whole of philosophy as Bergson
saw it, we should trace its unfolding in his four principal works. We would then see, for
instance, how in the second chapter of the Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness
Bergson reveals the error of conceiving time through analogy with space as an indefinite
and homogenous extension, thereby clearing the way for his own notion of pure duration
66Bergson, Mélanges, 765-766; Écrits et Paroles, 2: 294-95.
51
as a lived succession of heterogeneous states of consciousness.67 Subsequently, we would
notice that in the detailed psycho-physiological investigations of Matter and Memory, An
Essay on the Relation of the Body to the Mind, published in 1896, duration retreats into the
background while memory, the vital mediating link between mind and body, comes to the
fore.68 Yet in turning to Creative Evolution, which appeared a decade later in 1907, we
would discover in the opening pages that duration and memory go hand in hand, that mem-
ory is “the prolongation of the present into the past . . . a duration, acting and irre-
versible.”69 At the end of the book we would also find an explicit refutation of Spencer,
whose “evolutionism without evolution” first sparked Bergson’s insights into movement
and change.70 Finally, in his last book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, pub-
lished some 25 years later in 1932, we would again hear the same themes echoing in his
criticism of philosophies that try to grasp the spirit without searching for it in real duration,
which he now refers to as “the essential attribute of life.”71 Our examination of Bergson’s
major works would be sufficient, for in the opinion of his followers as well as his own,
Bergson’s whole philosophy is contained in these four books, the shorter essays, lectures
and correspondence being simply appendices.72
67Henri Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1889), 56-104; Oeuvres, 51-92. Available in English as Timeand Free Will. An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, ed. J. H. Muirhead,trans. F. L. Pogson (New York: Macmillan, 1910), 75-139.
68Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1896); Oeuvres, 161-378. Available in English as Matter and Memory, ed. J. H.Muirhead, authorized trans. by Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer (London:George Allen & Unwin, 1911), hereafter referred to as Paul and Palmer.
69Henri Bergson, L’Evolution créatrice (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1907), 16, cf. 19; Oeuvres, 508, cf. 510. Available in English as Creative Evolution, au-thorized trans. by Arthur Mitchell (New York: Henry Holt, 1911), 17, cf. 19, hereafter re-ferred to as Mitchell.
70Cf. Gouhier, “Preface” to Bergson, Oeuvres, xx.71Henri Bergson, Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1932), 119, cf. 334; Oeuvres, 1072, cf. 1242. Available inEnglish as The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trans. R. Ashley Audra andCloudesley Brereton with the assistance of W. Horsfall Carter (New York: Henry Holt,1935), 105, cf. 302, hereafter referred to as Audra et al..
72Cf. Gouhier, “Preface” to Bergson, Oeuvres, vii; Floris Delattre, “Note,” LesÉtudes Bergsoniennes 3 (1952): 198; Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 99.
52
Nevertheless, such an examination would require too much space, for each of
Bergson’s books addresses a different topic: geometry, memory, evolution and religion. In
order to gain more direct access to his central insights, therefore, we will risk turning to a
selection of his shorter works. Here again the choices and topics are many. Bergson’s
1922 essay concerning temporality and Einstein’s theory of relativity, Duration and
Simultaneity, is certainly direct, but it is too technical. Instead, we will rely primarily upon
three introductory pieces that are included in the second and last volume of collected essays
which Bergson published during his lifetime, La Pensée et le Mouvant.73 The first of these
is the first introduction to the collection which Bergson wrote for its publication in 1934.74
Next is an article which he drafted in 1922 but which had not appeared in print prior its in-
clusion as the second introduction to La Pensée et le Mouvant.75 A disclosive essay, his
followers have compared its place in the Bergsonian corpus to Descartes’s Discourse on
Method.76 The third piece is the 1903 lecture “Introduction to Metaphysics” in which
Bergson effectively summarizes the significance of his notion of duration for the renewal of
metaphysics.77
B. Bergson’s Principal Themes: Duration and Intuition
Bergson’s insight into duration was the point of departure for all of his subsequent
philosophical investigations. But what exactly did Bergson mean by duration, and what
role did it play in his critique of science and his renewal of metaphysics? Furthermore, how
73Henri Bergson, La Pensée et le Mouvant. Essais et conférences (Paris: Alcan,
1934), available in English as The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison (New York:The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1946) hereafter referred to as Andison.
74Cited hereafter as “Introduction I,” in Bergson, La Pensée et le Mouvant, 1-23;Andison, 9-32; Oeuvres, 1253-70.
75Cited hereafter as “Introduction II,” in Bergson, La Pensée et le Mouvant, 25-98;Andison, 33-106; Oeuvres, 1271-1330.
76J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, “Bergson, Henri,” in André Jacob, ed., Encyclopédiephilosophique universelle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), t. 3, pt. 2:2251. Cf. Jacques Havet, “La Tradition philosophique française entre les deux guerres,” inL’Activité philosophique en France et aux Etats-Unis, ed. Marvin Farber (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1950), 6.
77Cited hereafter as “Introduction à la métaphysique,” in Bergson, La Pensée et leMouvant, 177-227; Andison, 187-237; Oeuvres, 1392-1432.
53
was Bergson’s notion of duration related to his reaffrimation of intuition as an epistemolog-
ical foundation?
1. Duration
In the first of the two introductory essays to La Pensée et le Mouvant, Bergson re-
counts how his study of Herbert Spencer confronted him with the problem of time. He ex-
plains that he was struck by the fact that “real time, which plays the leading part in any
philosophy of evolution, eludes mathematical treatment.”78 Mathematics treats all times as
equal and obtains its results by superimposing one moment of time upon another. Yet, the
essence of time, Bergson observes, is to flow and change through every moment. A math-
ematical approach represents the flow of time by a line and quantifies it as a measured seg-
ment of point along that line. Bergson remarks, however, that the line is immobile but time
is not, and neither is the flow of time homogeneous. Because mathematics is concerned
only with measurable points or intervals along a supposed continuum, it ignores duration
as such. If time flowed faster or slower, or even if all events occurred simultaneously, it
would make no difference in mathematical calculations. The flow or duration of time that
mathematics and science eliminates from consideration, however, is precisely what we feel
and live. Hence, Bergson arrives at the following formulation of the problem of time con-
ceived in terms of real duration:
How would it [duration] appear to a consciousness which desired only tosee it without measuring it, which would then grasp it without stopping it,which in short, would take itself as object, and which, spectator and actoralike, spontaneous and reflective, would bring ever closer together—to thepoint where they would coincide—the attention which is fixed and the timewhich passes?79
This question, Bergson goes on to say, led him away from his former interest in
fundamental scientific laws to ponder the nature of the interior life. As he sought for a
direct manner of perceiving duration, the inadequacy of understanding time through
78Bergson, “Introduction I,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 2; Andison, 10; Oeuvres,
1254.79Ibid, 4; Andison, 12; Oeuvres, 1255.
54
analogy with space became all the more evident. While acknowledging the efficacy of a
systematic exclusion of real duration for the purposes of mathematical calculation, Bergson
found himself at a loss to justify the same move in metaphysics. Metaphysics, after all, is
the science of being, and for Bergson being means mobility and development, things in the
making—not an immutable substrate supporting accidental changes, nor a pure Heraclitean
flux.80 The latter conceptions of being stem from mistaken approaches to metaphysics. The
common failure of both metaphysics and scientific inquiry to grasp being, Bergson argues,
can be traced to the same rationalistic and analytic strategies. The problem lies not with
mathematics or science or the possibility of metaphysics per se but in the nature of human
understanding and the illusion of reality that it tends to create. “It seemed to me,” Bergson
writes, “that one of its functions was precisely to mask duration, either in movement or in
change.”81 In the perception of former, the understanding breaks up movement into a
sequence of moments; in the latter case, it decomposes change into a series of states. These
considerations recall for Bergson the Stoic philosopher Zeno, whose famous paradoxes
depend upon the fallacy of reconstructing movement from immobility.82 In Bergson’s
view, classical metaphysics followed Zeno down that unfortunate path whereby it would
forever approach but never reach its end. Yet, if false reasoning is set aside and the
analytical tendency of the understanding is kept at bay, “metaphysics will then become
experience itself; and duration will be revealed as it really is—unceasing creation, the
uninterrupted up-surge of novelty.”83
At least four implications may drawn from this revolution in thought, according to
Bergson. First, the chain of determinism that characterizes evolutionary and other scientific
80Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 211;Andison, 222; Oeuvres, 1420.
81Bergson, “Introduction I,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 5-6; Andison, 14; Oeuvres,1256-7.
82Besides the brief mention of Zeno in this context and many others, Bergson of-fers two extended treatments of the Stoic’s four paradoxes. The first may be found inMatière et Mémoire, 213-15; Paul and Palmer, 250-253; Oeuvres, 326-29, and the secondin L’Evolution créatrice, 308-313; Mitchell, 308-14; Oeuvres, 755-60.
83Bergson, “Introduction I,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 9; Andison, 17; Oeuvres,1259.
55
theories of life is broken. Analysis may be employed to describe a form of life during a dis-
crete instant, however it cannot be used to define causal connections to other forms. This is
so because life is not a series of events strung together in linear fashion by external laws;
rather, life is an interior development. “Radical indeed is the difference between an evolu-
tion whose continuous phases penetrate one another by a kind of internal growth,” Bergson
observes, “and an unfurling whose distinct parts are placed in juxtaposition to one an-
other.”84 The content of evolution is an internal modification which can only be grasped as
duration. Bergson thus arrives at a formulation of the notion of duration that furnishes the
title for his third book and serves as its fundamental theme: “creative evolution” [évolution
créatrice]. As this formulation is unpacked, a second implication comes to light. Creative
evolution entails a “perpetual creation of possibility and not only of reality.”85 This affir-
mation contributes to Bergson’s ongoing argument against determinism. Each phase of life
engenders many possibilities for being, not just one. Hence there is an ontological basis for
affirming the reality of freedom. This should not be taken to mean that everything that is
existed beforehand as a concept or an idea in some real or virtual intelligence. Possibility
must be thought of as a potency, not a plan.
A third implication of Bergson’s criticism of the habitual errors of discursive intelli-
gence is that the individual must always precede the universal. Bergson notes for example,
“if there had not been a Rousseau, a Chateaubriand, a Vigny and a Victor Hugo, not only
should we never have perceived, but also there would never really have existed any roman-
ticism in the earlier classical writers.”86 Universals have no existence until they are ab-
stracted from concrete instances of duration. Hence, history cannot be a science like math-
ematics. It is always, in Bergson’s words, “imprévisible”—unforeseeable.87
Finally, epistemology, metaphysics and even philosophy itself is transformed under
Bergson’s critique. Associationism, the doctrine that ideas in the mind are not intrinsically
84Ibid., 11; Andison, 20; Oeuvres, 1261.85Ibid., 13; Andison, 21; Oeuvres, 1262.86Ibid., 16; Andison, 24; Oeuvres, 1265 (my translation, emphasis Bergson’s).87Ibid., 18; Andison, 26; Oeuvres, 1266.
56
linked but only associated by habit, was a prevalent assumption of psychological theories at
the end of the nineteenth century. It derived from atomistic views of reality and resulted in
deterministic theories of life and intelligence that denied free will and the spirituality of rea-
son. Bergson’s organic notion of duration as a creative interpenetration of existential pos-
sibilities marks a complete rejection of associationist presuppositions. Bergson goes even
further than his idealist and spiritualist predecessors, who likewise contested association-
ism, by challenging Kantian assumptions concerning the relativism of knowledge. Far
from accepting that a direct apprehension of things-in-themselves is impossible for lack of
an intuitive faculty, he argues that “at least a part of reality, our person, can be grasped in
its natural purity. . . . Our person appears to us just as it is ‘in itself,’ as soon as we free
ourselves of the habits contracted for our greater convenience.”88 Instead of having to settle
for a speculative or subjective metaphysics, such as a Kantian metaphysics of the mental
faculties and their interrelations, Bergson claims to have recovered in concrete, lived dura-
tion the foundation for a realist metaphysics. Once the mind is freed from its habit of reduc-
ing time to space, mobility to immobility, duration to simultaneity, philosophy can truly
begin.
2. Intuition
Analytical intelligence suppresses the perception of real duration, yet Bergson af-
firms that human beings do have the capacity to grasp duration as such. How is this possi-
ble? What faculty enables an immediate apprehension of duration? If not it is not attained
through inference, then some kind of intuition must fulfill this need. Taking up these ques-
tions, which were left open at the end of the first introduction to La Pensée et le Mouvant,
Bergson’s second introductory essay begins as follows:
These conclusions on the subject of duration were, as it seemed to me, de-cisive. Step by step they led me to raise intuition to the level of a philosoph-ical method. “Intuition,” however, is a word whose use caused me somedegree of hesitation. Of all of the terms which designate a mode of know-ing, it is still the most appropriate; and yet it leads to a certain confusion.
88Ibid., 22; Andison, 30; Oeuvres, 1269.
57
Because a Schelling, a Schopenhauer and others have already called uponintuition, because they have more or less set up intuition in opposition tointelligence, one might think that I was using the same method. But ofcourse, their intuition was an immediate search for the eternal! Whereas, onthe contrary, for me it was a question, above all, of finding true duration.89
Bergson here acknowledges his reluctance to describe the grasping of duration an act of
intuition because other philosophers had used the term to designate essentially different
acts. For Bergson, the intuitive act does not consist in the abstraction of essential qualities
from an object for intellectual consideration in a universal, timeless state. On the contrary, it
is a manner of apprehending the object in the very temporality of its being, in its real dura-
tion. It is important to observe that the affirmation of intuition follows the affirmation of
duration in Bergson’s philosophy, and not vice versa. The reality of duration is affirmed
experientially. Zeno’s paradoxes do not prevent objects from hitting the ground, Achilles
from overtaking the turtle, arrows from flying, etc.. Because we live these experiences ev-
eryday, it is evident that we possess the capacity to grasp the real duration that describes
their nature. Now if intelligence is shown to be incapable of performing this function, then
we can only conclude that another means must exist. Despite its history and conflicting
connotations, Bergson designates this other means intuition [intuition]. The reality of dura-
tion establishes the reality of intuition as an intellectual faculty distinct from reasoning.
Bergson states, moreover, that intuition fulfills the role of a method in his philoso-
phy.90 What exactly does he mean by this? Bergson himself betrays the difficulty of an-
swering this question in recognizing that he uses the term intuition in several different
senses.91 Nevertheless, there are two principal ways in which Bergson appeals to intuition
89Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 25; Andison, 33-34;
Oeuvres, 1271.90For significant discussions of intuition as a method in Bergson see Léon Husson,
L’Intellectualisme de Bergson. Genèse et développement de la notion bergsonienne d’intu-ition, ed. Émile Bréhier (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1947), and GillesDeleuze, Le Bergsonisme, ed. Jean Lacroix, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1968). The latter is available in English under the title Bergsonism, trans. HughTomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (New York: Zone Books, 1988).
91Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 29; Andison, 37-38;Oeuvres, 1274 and note p. 1574; Bergson here makes reference to Harald Höffding, LaPhilosophie de Bergson, trans. with a preface by Jacques de Coussange (Paris: Alcan,
58
not simply as a mental faculty but as a philosophical method. In a footnote to his essay
“Introduction to Metaphysics,” referring to his hesitation over the appropriateness of using
the term intuition, Bergson reports: “when I finally decided to do so I designated by this
word the metaphysical function of thought: principally the intimate knowledge of the mind
by the mind, secondarily the knowledge by the mind of what there is essential in matter.”92
In others words, intuition is a method because it involves a process of reflection. In his
second introductory essay to La Pensée et le Mouvant, Bergson contends that intuition
“bears above all upon internal duration.”93 It is, in his words, “the direct vision of the mind
by the mind.”94 Intuition is a reflexive act whereby the mind grasps its own nature as pure
duration. Hence Bergson’s point of departure may be compared to Descartes’s insofar as
both thinkers privilege the act of reflection. What differs is the content of the act. For
Descartes, the formal deduction, “I think, therefore I am” leads to the affirmation of con-
sciousness as a thinking substance. For Bergson, on the other hand, the fundamental in-
sight of intuitive reflection may be expressed as, “I endure, therefore I am.”95 Bergsonian
consciousness is pure duration, not hypostasized thought. Because intuition is able to grasp
consciousness in its essential nature, it holds first place among the mental faculties.
According to Bergson, it is through intuition that we participate in spirituality, and even
divinity.96
“Intuition, then, signifies first of all consciousness,” he continues.97 By bringing
us into contact with our own consciousness, intuition introduces us to consciousness in
1916), who discerns four distinct meanings of intuition in his philosophy: concrete, practi-cal, analytical and synthetic.
92Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 216, n. 2;Andison, 306, n. 26; Oeuvres, 1423-24.
93Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 27; Andison, 35; Oeuvres,1272.
94Ibid., 27; Andison, 35; Oeuvres, 1273.95Cf. Jean Hyppolite, Figures de la pensée philosophique, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1971), 1: 468.96Cf. Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 29;
Andison, 37; Oeuvres, 1274.97Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 28; Andison, 35-36;
Oeuvres, 1273.
59
general. Moreover, the consciousness unveiled by reflection is an “immediate conscious-
ness, a vision which is scarcely distinguishable from the object seen, a knowledge which is
contact and even coincidence.”98 Thus, a second methodological meaning of intuition
emerges, which may be defined as “the immediate apprehension of the existence of an in-
dividual reality.”99 Intuition is a restoration of our relationship to things. It is not an inven-
tion. Things abide in their own manner of duration, just as consciousness abides in its
own. In everyday life, however, the primal grasp of things by means of intuition is
usurped by the analytical tendency of the mind. Hence for Bergson, intuition becomes a
technique for moving beyond metaphysical abstractions toward a recovery of the absolute
presence of an object. In “Introduction to Metaphysics,” Bergson calls intuition, “the sym-
pathy by which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with
what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it.”100
Beginning with his third major work, Creative Evolution, Bergson clarifies his
concept of intuition and its methodological import by comparing it to the functions of intel-
ligence and instinct. By intelligence Bergson always means analytical reasoning.
Intelligence decomposes concrete duration for the purposes of mathematical calculations
which are ultimately used to manufacture products or solve problems in the physical world.
Intelligence is eminently pragmatic on Bergson’s view, and may be regarded as an exten-
sion of faculties of sensation. “If the intellect has been made in order to utilize matter,” he
argues, “its structure has no doubt been modeled upon that of matter.”101 Intelligence in
human beings fulfills the function of instinct in animals, namely directing practical behav-
98Ibid., 27; Andison, 36; Oeuvres, 1273. Cf. “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La
Pensée et le Mouvant, 182; Andison, 191; Oeuvres, 1396: “There is at least one realitywhich we all sieze from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own per-son in its flowing through time, the self which endures.”
99J. de Marneffe, “Bergson’s and Husserl’s Concepts of Intuition,” ThePhilosophical Quarterly (India) 33 (1960): 173.
100Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 181;Andison, 190; Oeuvres, 1395 (emphasis Bergson’s).
101Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 35; Andison, 43; Oeuvres,1279.
60
ior.102 Intuition, on the other hand, is qualitatively different than intelligence and instinct.
“To think intuitively is to think in duration,” he claims.103 Intuition grasps its object in its
unity and spirituality. In contrast to intelligence, intuition does not serve an immediately
practical purpose. Its function may be designated as contemplative for it leads the mind to
reflect on its own interior life or upon exterior objects in their own unique moments of du-
ration. “Intuition gives us the thing whereas intelligence only grasps its transposition into
spatial terms, its metaphorical translation.”104 Thus intuition, being of a higher nature than
intelligence, is also higher than instinct and should not be confused with it or with feeling.
“Not one line of what I have written could lend itself to such an interpretation,” he contests,
adding that “ in everything I have written there is assurance to the contrary: my intuition is
reflection.”105
Intelligence and intuition represent distinct species of knowing oriented toward dif-
ferent ends.106 Intelligence serves the needs of practical science. What about intuition? For
which science or domain of knowledge does it function as a method? The answer is
straightforward: metaphysics. Metaphysics distinguishes itself from other sciences because
it goes beyond analytical concepts.107 It depends upon the concepts generated by the other
sciences, but it does not truly come into its own until it is liberated from their illusion.
Metaphysics, for Bergson, must be grounded upon the insights gained through intuition,
specifically the metaphysical intuition of concrete, lived duration. Because this intuition is
so basic, metaphysics tends to become philosophy itself.
Bergson once said that any philosopher worthy of the name only has one thing to
say because he can only see one thing.108 The whole of philosophy, in other words,
102Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 84; Andison, 91; Oeuvres,1319.
103Ibid., 30; Andison, 38; Oeuvres, 1275.104Ibid., 76; Andison, 83-84; Oeuvres, 1312 (my translation).105Ibid., 95; Andison, 103; Oeuvres, 1328.106Cf. Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 177,
217; Andison, 187, 227; Oeuvres, 1393, 1424.107Ibid., 188; Andison, 198; Oeuvres, 1401..108Bergson, “L’Intuition philosophique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 122-23;
Andison, 132; Oeuvres, 1350. Quoted in Guitton, Regards sur la pensée française, 100.
61
springs from a simple intuition, and Bergson’s philosophy, in this regard, may be epito-
mized as an intuition about intuition. In Bergson’s case, the unfolding of his simple insight
was not a matter of repetition. His methodological employment of intuition in the two
senses outlined above yielded cumulative results when applied afresh to each new problem
he investigated. Had he used his method otherwise he observes,
“I should never have been able to extract from my book Matter andMemory, which preceded Creative Evolution, a true doctrine of evolution,. . . nor could I have extracted from my Essay on the Immediate Data ofConsciousness a theory of the relations of the soul and the body like the oneI set forth later in Matter and Memory, . . . nor from the pseudo-philoso-phy to which I was devoted before the Immediate Data . . . could I haveextracted the conclusion on duration and the inner life which I presented inthis first work. My initiation into the true philosophical method began themoment I threw overboard verbal solutions, having found in the inner lifean important field of experiment. After that, all progress was an enlarging ofthis field.”109
Bergson’s oeuvre demonstrates his conviction that intuition into concrete duration can lead
to conceptual clarity in other disciplines, but it also proves the inverse: one cannot begin
with conceptual analysis and hope to arrive at intuitive insight.110
C. Bergson as a Precursor to Husserlian Phenomenology
In what ways did Bergson’s philosophy function as a precursor to the French re-
ception of Husserlian phenomenology? What follows notes, first of all, several similarities
in the content and methods of Bergson and Husserl, and secondly, important points of dif-
ference. Insofar as Bergson turned French thought in a new direction, he oriented and pre-
disposed it toward receiving phenomenological insights. The similarities between Bergson
and Husserl would help the French to understand Husserl while the dissimilarities between
their approaches probably contributed to the reevaluation of Bergson’s regency by younger
generations of French philosophers during the late 1920s and 30s, the period when
109Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 97-98; Andison, 105-6;
Oeuvres, 1329-30.110Cf. Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 202;
Andison, 213; Oeuvres, 1413.
62
Husserl’s mature thought became known in France.111 The emergence of Husserl pro-
voked questions that Bergson left unasked or unresolved. Thus, by anticipating phe-
nomenological strategies on the one hand, and by creating an appetite for more satisfying
explorations of his problems on the other, Bergson served as a direct precursor to
Husserl’s reception in France.
1. Similarities
In comparing the philosophies of Bergson and Husserl, one must bear in mind that
despite their similarities they arrived at their positions independently. Bergson developed
his insights into duration and intuition prior to Husserl, but Husserl never read or heard
anything about Bergson’s work until after he had drafted the bulk of his manuscripts on in-
ner time-consciousness. It appears, in fact, that Husserl first learned about Bergson’s phi-
losophy through a report presented by one of his students, a Russian emigrant named
Alexandre Koyré, to the Göttingen philosophical circle in 1911. During the discussion
which followed the paper Husserl reputedly exclaimed, “We are the true Bergsonians!”112
Two years later, upon the publication of Ideas, Husserl sent Bergson a copy. Bergson
replied briefly to express his thanks, but admitted that he had not yet read it.113 He proba-
bly never did. Bergson and Husserl never corresponded beyond this initial exchange, and
even when Husserl visited Paris in 1929, the two philosophers did not meet. It would be-
come the task of their respective students to bring the philosophies of the two masters of
intuition into conversation. The most significant early attempt in this regard is the disserta-
111Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, 9, notes that the decline of
Bergsonism and revolt against Neo-Kantianism in the early 1930’s coincided with Frenchinterest in Hegel. With respect to the reevaluation of Bergsonism during these years, it issignificant that Maritain released the second edition of his critical La Philosophie bergsoni-enne in 1929. Thus, Bergson’s popularity and influence over French philosophy waschallenged in the 1930s on several fronts: by Thomism, Hegelianism, and I would add,Husserlianism.
112Jean Héring, “La phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans.Souvenirs et réflexions d’un étudiant de 1909,” Revue internationale de Philosophie 1(1939): 368, n. 1; also cited in Spiegelberg, 428.
113André Robinet, “Documentation bergsonienne,” Études Bergsonienne 11 (1976):8.
63
tion Roman Ingarden prepared under Husserl’s direction in 1918 titled “Intellekt und
Intuition bei Henri Bergson,” and which subsequently appeared in Husserl’s Jahrbuch für
Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung.114
What, then, are the principal similarities between Bergson and Husserl? Bergson’s
initiative to restore the primacy of intuitive insight in philosophy by dethroning conceptual
analysis may be regarded as his version of the Husserlian dictum “to the things them-
selves.” For Husserl, it is never enough to speculate about the appearance of states of af-
fairs to consciousness; one must grasp the matters and the cognitive acts themselves, di-
rectly and immediately through an act of what Husserl calls essential intuition, or
Wesensschau. There is simply no other justifiable basis for cognition or knowledge accord-
ing to Husserl. Likewise for Bergson, our penchant for spatializing time creates an illusion
of understanding, but fails to bring us into the presence of lived duration. But if duration is
the basis of metaphysics, and metaphysics the basis of philosophy, then one must be able
to attain duration in order to do philosophy. Bergson’s solution: through intuition one is
enabled to grasp the fact of duration itself in the perception of enduring things.
In addition, both Husserl and Bergson insist upon raising intuition to the level of a
philosophical method. The method for both consists in the immediate apprehension of
“lived experiences” to employ Husserl’s vocabulary, or “duration” to use Bergson’s. Gilles
Deleuze has commented that, “If a certain intuition is always at the heart of a philosophical
doctrine, one of the originalities of Bergson is, in his own teaching, to have organized in-
tuition itself as a genuine method, a method for eliminating false problems, for posing
problems with truth.”115 Likewise Husserl believes that a correct understanding of the role
of intuition in epistemology undercuts the limiting assumptions of empiricism and posi-
114Roman Ingarden, “Intuition und Intellekt bei Henri Bergson,” Jahrbuch für
Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 5 (1922): 285-461. See also RomanIngarden, “L’Intuition bergsonienne et le problème phénoménologique de la constitution,”in Actes du Xe Congrès des Sociétés de Philosophie de Langue Française (CongrèsBergson) (Paris: Colin, 1959), 163-66.
115Gilles Deleuze, “Bergson,” in Les Philosophes célèbres, ed. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Paris: Éditions d’art, 1956), 292.
64
tivism. Yet, whereas Bergson first discovered concrete duration and subsequently the cor-
responding faculty of metaphysical intuition, for Husserl the discoveries occurred in re-
verse. Husserl first became convinced of the reality extra-sensible intuition through his in-
vestigations into the knowledge of arithmetical objects. Not until the full power of
Brentano’s teaching regarding the intentionality of all consciousness began to sink into his
mind did Husserl examine the problem of the constitution of objects, especially temporal
objects. His earliest investigations in this area led him to realize that each now “has its per-
ceptible extension.”116 In other words, Husserl recognized that the now is only ideally
speaking a mathematical point; in actual lived experience the now is perceived as enduring.
A primary memory of the just-past is combined in the now with a primary expectation of
the about-to-come, and all three phases are perceived together in an actually present and
extended ‘now.’117 The perception of any temporal object necessarily involves an intuition
of its duration. Bergson and Husserl stand in agreement on this point: what is essential,
philosophically speaking, is grasping things themselves, and this can only be done through
a direct and immediate intuition of their temporal duration.
For Bergson, the privileging of intuition entailed a break with what Husserl would
call “the natural attitude.”118 In “Introduction to Metaphysics,” Bergson refers to the at-
tempt to embrace reality through concepts as an “original sin,” by which he means a ten-
116Edmund Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time
(1893-1917), ed. Rudolf Bernet, trans. John Barnett Brough (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991),172; cf. Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstsein (1893-1917),ed. Rudolf Boehm, Husserliana X (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), Ms. 12, p. 168.
117In later reflections on the phenomenology of time-consciousness, Husserl calledthe phases of primary memory and primary anticipation “retention” and “protention” re-spectively. “But these are no longer taken to be names for moments belonging to a percep-tual act,” notes John Brough, “they are rather moments of the ultimate level of conscious-ness through which one is aware of the perceptual act—and of any other act or content—asan immanent temporal object” (John Brough, “Introduction” to Husserl, On thePhenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, xlix (emphasis Brough’s)). Aswill be noted below, Husserl’s interest shifted from an analysis of perception in his earlystudies to what he later considered to be the more fundamental act of temporal constitution.
118Cf. Leszek Kolakowski, The Alienation of Reason. A History of PositivistThought, trans. Norbert Guterman (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Inc., 1968), 131.
65
dency deeply rooted in our nature that contradicts its purpose.119 He goes on to state, “to
philosophize means to reverse the normal direction of the workings of thought.”120 Hence,
it is not surprising that their calls for a renunciation of the natural attitude distanced Bergson
and Husserl from the philosophical positivism so prevalent in their day. Neither of the two
thinkers wanted to abandon the positivist tradition altogether, but only to avoid the limita-
tions of empiricism and determinism that were typically associated with positivism.
Because Bergson and Husserl both affirmed that the power and range of intuition extended
beyond the physical senses, they could demand, like the positivists, that all evidence be
given immediately and directly while not following their restriction of the cognitive field to
sensible objects. By rejecting the empiricist restriction, they likewise escaped the determin-
istic presupposition that material causality was the exclusive category governing relation.
Both Bergson and Husserl could affirm that subjectivity entailed genuine freedom in con-
trast to standard interpretations of positivism.
While maintaining the ideals of positivism, Bergson and Husserl sharply criticized
the prevalent manifestations of positivism in the natural and human sciences. A good ex-
ample may be found in their attitudes toward empirical psychology. Bergson, like Husserl,
contested associationist theories of cognition. Such theories demanded that states of con-
sciousness be quantifiable for purposes of arithmetical comparison, a presupposition which
Bergson argues against in the first part of his Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness. He likewise argues against mechanist theories of evolution in Creative
Evolution. The content of evolution must not be regarded as a series of discrete states
linked together by an external chain of causality, but rather as a process of internal modifi-
cation inseparable from the concrete duration of the subject. Bergson’s stress on internal
modification calls to mind Husserl’s descriptions of the modifications of consciousness in
Ideas. For Husserl, the possibility and basis for such modifications lies in the spontaneity
119Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 213;
Andison, 223; Oeuvres, 1421.120Ibid., 214; Andison, 224; Oeuvres, 1422 (emphasis Bergson’s).
66
and freedom of consciousness in all of its various modalities, not in any mechanistic or as-
sociationist accounts of mental activities. Bergson’s and Husserl’s criticisms of psycholo-
gistic theories and empiricism did not prevent them from drawing upon the data provided
by the empirical sciences in their own investigations, nor did it prevent them from regard-
ing philosophy as a special kind of science in its own right. Nevertheless, when one con-
siders their attitudes towards science and philosophy more closely, differences begin to
emerge.
2. Differences
In order to arrive at the theory of mind set forth in Matter and Memory, Bergson
spent almost a decade researching recent experimental data on memory and observing pa-
tients suffering from specific memory disorders such as aphasia. His investigations con-
vinced him that the purpose of philosophy is not merely to complete the empirical sciences
by uniting their disjointed findings.121 Such a view would be injurious to science, and es-
pecially to philosophy. Philosophical truth cannot be a synthesis of scientific truth for phi-
losophy and science represent different kinds of knowing, the former metaphysical, the
latter analytical. Nevertheless, Bergson did insist that a truly intuitionist philosophy could
effect a union between science and metaphysics because intuition is capable of supplying
both the concrete data required by the natural sciences and the necessary insight into lived
duration.122 For Bergson, science and philosophy should ideally interpenetrate one another
in a dialectical relation. Husserl, it may be argued, envisioned a similar relation, though he
shied from expressing his ambitions for metaphysics as explicitly as Bergson. In addition,
Husserl adopted a different model for science. In league with the Cartesian tradition,
Husserl mapped scientific understanding onto mathematics and geometry, whereas for
Bergson, biology—the study of life, not abstract forms—represented the ideal science.
Unlike Husserl, Bergson seized the leading of edge of scientific inquiry. “Bergsonianism
121Ibid., 226; Andison, 236; Oeuvres, 1432.122Ibid., 216-17; Andison, 227; Oeuvres, 1424.
67
presents itself as a prise de conscience of a new situation in the history of science,”
Gouhier has remarked.123 Bergson’s philosophy is oriented to the future whereas Husserl
demonstrates more concern for the present or the immediate past, as is evident from the ex-
amples he employs in his investigations of inner-time consciousness. In his later writings,
Husserl addresses the future of the European sciences in passionate terms, but even then he
fails to take adequate account of the tremendous advances in scientific understanding that
emerged in the early twentieth century, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity. Bergson kept
pace with progress,which may help to explain why his philosophy exhibits a more opti-
mistic tone than Husserl’s.124
Bergson also differs from Husserl in his understanding of the range of intuition.
According to Bergson, there are two distinct ways of knowing a thing, two opposing
mental acts: intelligence and intuition. Bergson relates intelligence to the ordinary mode by
which he claims objects are conceived. Intelligence makes the circuit of the object, observ-
ing its various facets and relating them to one another through a more or less conscious ge-
ometry. Intuition, he says on the other hand, takes us inside the object, into its interior re-
ality; it moves us beyond the opposition of thesis and antithesis characteristic of the Kantian
antimonies.125 In this respect we might say that Bergson’s notion of intuition is quasi-
mystical. Indeed, in his last book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Bergson
takes the bold step of defining the goal of intuition as mystical experience. “But we cannot
reiterate too often that philosophic certainty admits of degrees,” he writes, “that it calls for
intuition as well as for reason, and that if intuition, backed up by science, is to be extended,
such extension can be made only by mystical intuition.”126 Elsewhere he equates mystical
123Cf. Gouhier, “Preface” to Bergson, Oeuvres, xi-xii.124For an example of Bergson’s reflections on Einstein’s theory of relativity, see
Henri Bergson, Durée et Simultanéité (Paris: Alcan, 1922); Mélanges, 57-244. Available inEnglish as Duration and Simultaneity, trans. Leon Jacobson with an introduction byHerbert Dingle (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).
125Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 224;Andison, 234; Oeuvres, 1430.
126Bergson, Deux Sources, 272; Audra et al., 244-45; Oeuvres, 1193.
68
intuition with participation in the divine essence.127 Clearly, Bergson makes broader and
more extravagant claims for intuition than Husserl, for whom the Wesensschau pretends to
achieve no more than an immediate grasp of logical categories. Neither does Husserl op-
pose intuition to intelligence. Yet, both Bergson and Husserl sharply distinguish their
views from Platonism insofar as neither recognizes the existence of self-subsisting imma-
terial ideas. Intuition grasps the interior reality of the thing as it exists; it does not reach be-
yond this reality to some ideal form of its existence. Such ideas are empty, Bergson says,
because they represent nothing more than the formal negation of the materialist thesis.
“How much better,” he protests, “to turn back to the vague suggestions of consciousness
from which we started, to delve into them and follow them up till we reach clear intuition!
Such is the method we recommend.”128 Bergson and Husserl both insist upon beginning
with the immediate data of consciousness, however vague they may appear, and resolving
these data into ever clearer intuitions. The main difference lies in Bergson’s willingness and
Husserl’s reluctance to accord metaphysical significance to intuitive acts.
A more serious disagreement between Bergson and Husserl exists in the matter of
the constitution of objects and of time. Bergson’s claim that intuition grasps the interior
reality of its object seems to bypass any consideration of the role of consciousness in its
constitution. Indeed, constitution only becomes an issue for Bergson when he considers
analytical intelligence. It is the function of intelligence, he often repeats, to decompose and
reconstruct its objects.129 Yet, to perceive a constructed object is to have precisely missed a
direct intuition of its concrete duration. Thus, constitution and intuition appear to be mutu-
ally exclusive in Bergson’s philosophy. For Husserl, on the other hand, intuition and
constitution go hand in hand. Constitution, most simply, is the act by which an object is
built up in consciousness. According to Husserl, it is a function of the irreducible inten-
tionality of consciousness, which is why his phenomenological method of intentional anal-
127Ibid., 281; Audra and Brereton, 252; Oeuvres, 1200.128Bergson, Deux Sources, 282; Audra et al., 253-54; Oeuvres, 1201.129Cf. Bergson, Essai , 84; Pogson, 113; Oeuvres, 76.
69
ysis has as its goal to uncover the distinct intentional layering that makes objects appear to
consciousness as they do through their own unique modes of givenness. Husserl is also
concerned on a higher level with the constitution and unity of consciousness itself in its
continual temporal flow. In the Cartesian Meditations he asserts that, “the fundamental
form of this universal synthesis, the form that makes all other syntheses of consciousness
possible, is the all-embracing consciousness of internal time.”130 Husserl alludes here to
his discovery in the last of his investigations into the phenomenon of internal time-con-
sciousness that time not only plays a role in the constitution of all immanent objects of con-
sciousness but that time itself is self-constituting.131 Thus what Husserl and Bergson alike
refer to as duration is, according to Husserl, an intentionally constituted experience,
whereas for Bergson it would seem that only our ordinary conception of time is constituted
while concrete, lived duration is simply what it is. On this last point Bergson displays a
commitment to metaphysical realism while Husserl exhibits the critical reserve characteristic
of idealism.
The different concepts of constitution held by Bergson and Husserl issue from their
different understandings of consciousness. On Bergson’s view, consciousness appears as
something other than the world while remaining dependent upon it. Consciousness tran-
scends the continuous stream of events and experiences insofar as it gathers them sponta-
neously into unified moments of pure duration. On the other hand, the content of con-
sciousness appears to be wholly derived from what transpires outside of it. The passive
spontaneity of consciousness serves a practical, not theoretical, function by providing a
firm basis for action. Bergson does not specify the meaning of action in this context, but
from his other writings one may infer that it should be understood in terms of creative
evolution rather than mechanical repetition. Action brings something new into the world,
and it would seem that this newness is a product of the concentration of time effected by
130Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §18; Cairns, 43 (emphasis Husserl’s).131Cf. Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time,
Husserliana, vol. 10, Ms. no. 54; Brough, 392-93; and also John Brough, “Introduction”to above, pp. LIV-LV.
70
consciousness, or in Bergsonian terms, the tension between the duration of consciousness
and the duration of things. Bergsonian consciousness represents something like a nodal
point in the ongoing, dynamic evolution of being. Toward the end of his second introduc-
tion to La Pensée et le Mouvant Bergson reflects,
Action generally requires a solid foothold, and living beings are essentiallyoriented toward efficacious action. That is why I saw in a certain stabiliza-tion of things the primordial function of consciousness. Founded upon uni-versal mobility, I said, consciousness contracts into a quasi-instantaneousvision an immensely long history which is unfolding outside of it. Thehigher the consciousness, the stronger the tension between its duration andthe duration of things.132
Bergson’s view is thus rather different from the French Cartesian tradition and from
Husserl, for whom the subject-object relation continued to define the nature and forms of
consciousness. Jean-Paul Sartre once remarked that “Bergson was not of the opinion that
consciousness must have a correlate, or, to speak like Husserl, that a consciousness is al-
ways consciousness of something. Consciousness, for Bergson, seems to be a kind of
quality, a character simply given; very nearly a sort of substantial form of reality.”133
Sartre’s criticism has been more or less repeated by Jacques Taminiaux, who writes,
“Bergson well understood the need to restore to consciousness its originality, but in reduc-
ing it to pure duration he made it a natural phenomenon and did not avoid the confusion
which he denounces.”134 Taminiaux continues: “But it was Husserl’s part to recover the
fundamental essence of consciousness. The ‘principle of principles’ of German phe-
nomenology is that all consciousness is consciousness of something. . . . It is in this in-
tentionality that the sole genuine foundation of freedom resides, the sole radical critique of
psychological determinism.”135 Sartre and Taminiaux represent a generation of philoso-
phers, who, after the 1930s, came to regard Bergson’s theory of consciousness as deficient
132Bergson, “Introduction II,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 97; Andison, 105;
Oeuvres, 1329 (my translation).133Jean-Paul Sartre, Imagination: A Psychological Critique, trans. with an intro-
duction by Forrest Williams (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1962), 39.134Jacques Taminiaux, “De Bergson à la phénoménologie existentielle,” Revue
philosophique de Louvain 54 (1956): 61.135Ibid., 61.
71
by comparison with Husserl’s. Nevertheless, although Bergson does not characterize con-
sciousness as intentional, his concern for the role duration plays in consciousness runs
parallel in some respects to Husserl’s notion of time consciousness. At least in this latter
respect Bergson’s notion of consciousness would have helped French philosophers to un-
derstand and appreciate Husserl’s position.
3. Conclusions
The foregoing summary of the similarities and differences between Bergson and
Husserl offers much evidence to suggest that Bergson served as a precursor to the French
reception of Husserlian phenomenology in the positive sense of having anticipated more
nearly than any of his predecessors Husserl’s philosophical goals and direction.
Furthermore, even on those points where Bergson advanced a different view than Husserl,
such as the range of intuition and the constitution of time, his positions were nonetheless
relevant to issues addressed by Husserl and probably stimulated French interest in them.
Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that Bergson’s thought helped to stimulate French inter-
est in Husserlian phenomenology both directly and indirectly.
Yet it is one thing to offer a retrospective analysis and another to write a history
faithful to the facts. It is important to ask whether the generation of scholars who witnessed
the initial reception of phenomenology in France found Bergson’s philosophy influential
upon this process. Curiously, perhaps, one finds relatively little discussion or comparison
of Bergson and Husserl during the late 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless the coincidences
did not go entirely unnoticed. Indeed, Jean Héring began his contribution to a collection of
essays on philosophical thought in France and the United States published in 1950 by re-
marking that, “If we were allowed to give on these pages a historical sketch of the an-
tecedents of phenomenology in France, we evidently would have to speak of the influence
of Bergson’s intuitionism which has prepared the ground for a philosophy hostile to any
72
abstract construction and to purely rational deductions.”136 Héring takes it practically for
granted that Bergson marks the point of departure for French interest in phenomenology.
Hence the affinities between Bergsonian philosophy and phenomenology may not have
been discussed more widely in the literature precisely because they were so obvious to ev-
eryone at the time. In his 1926 thesis, however, which was written when Husserl was still
relatively unknown in France, Héring embarks on a more detailed comparison of the
philosophies of Bergson and Husserl:
[W]hen two contemporary and independent movements like Bergsonismand phenomenology both affirm with the greatest clarity the primacy of in-tuitive vision over discursive thought; when both declare themselves to be anew kind of positivism, anxious to be founded upon sensible and super-sensible data; when both grant a primordial role in their epistemologies tothe Cartesian cogito (appropriately broadened) and even a paradigmatic roleto the foundation of ethics; [when both] strive with equal vigor to bring intorelief the originality of the psychic life and the flux of consciousness whichcannot be grasped by spatial, temporal and causal categories borrowed fromthe ontology of material nature . . . we may ask whether this conspiracymight not be the prelude to a final accord.137
Despite these many similarities, Héring does not envision a convergence of Bergsonian and
Husserlian philosophy. For one, Husserl’s notion of intuiting ideally given essences is
unthinkable from the Bergsonian standpoint. So too are Husserl’s concerns for the consti-
tution of objects in consciousness.138 In a similar vein, another of Husserl’s students,
Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, observes, “The notion of the Wesensschau in the form given by
Husserl is much closer to Descartes’s notion of intuition than Bergson’s. Yet, the two
contemporary thinkers had despite everything else a similar efficacy and each in his own
way renewed the meaning of the données immédiates de la conscience and of a philosophy
136Jean Héring, “Phenomenology in France,” in Philosophic Thought in France and
the United States. Essays Representing Major Trends in Contemporary French andAmerican Philosophy, ed. Marvin Farber, trans. anonymous (Buffalo, NY: Univ. ofBuffalo Publications in Philosophy, 1950), 67. On the latter point see also RomanIngarden, “Intuition und Intellekt bei Henri Bergson,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie undphänomenologische Forschung 5 (1922): 285-461.
137Jean Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Étude sur la théorie de laconnaissance religieuse (Paris: Alcan, 1926), 79. See also Chapter 2, below.
138Ibid., 82.
73
of experience.”139 The accounts of Héring and Landsberg confirm the results of our own
comparison of Bergson and Husserl above.
To conclude: Bergson and Husserl, while working in isolation from one another,
were both trying to turn the philosophy of their day away from deductive systematization
toward direct experience of the givens of consciousness. In their efforts, both developed
and relied upon a philosophy of intuition. The popularity and widespread influence of
Bergson therefore certainly prepared French to understand Husserl. Indeed, it would be
hard to imagine how Husserlian phenomenology with all its Teutonic complexity and ob-
scurity could have taken such deep root in France had not Bergson and his followers tilled
the soil in advance.
This section has focused on Bergson as a precursor to the French reception of
Husserl, but it is important to remember that Husserl was not the only philosopher associ-
ated with phenomenological movement to have been introduced to the French during the
1920s and 30s. Max Scheler was actually the first phenomenologist to visit France and to
have his works translated. Scheler had read and admired Bergson. He especially appreci-
ated the latter’s critique of intellectualism, which he drew upon as a foundation for his own
emotionalism.140 The chain of influence extended in the other direction as well. Bergson,
for instance, would sometimes define intuition as “the sympathy whereby one is trans-
ported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and con-
sequently inexpressible in it.”141 Sympathy constituted a major theme in Scheler’s philoso-
phy, and the book he devoted to an investigation of the subject was the first German phe-
139Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, “Husserl et l’idée de la philosophie,” Revue interna-
tionale de philosophie 1 (1939): 321-22.140See for example the comments of Georges Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles de
la philosophie allemande (Paris: Vrin, 1930), 74: “In sum, what Scheler appreciates mostin Bergson is his theory of philosophical knowledge opposed to the knowledge of the sci-ences and founded on the participation by love in the blossoming of the world. Bergsoniananti-intellectualism is for Scheler, as we will see, uniquely an emotionalism and not at all adoctrine of action, a voluntarism to which Scheler is absolutely hostile.”
141Bergson, “Introduction à la métaphysique,” La Pensée et le Mouvant, 181;Andison, 190; Oeuvres, 1395 (emphasis Bergson’s).
74
nomenological work to appear in French translation.142 On the other hand, Bergson’s no-
tion of intuition as a quasi-mystical insight in the interior being of an object suggests an
affinity with what Martin Heidegger referred to in his essay “On the Essence of Truth” as
“disclosive letting beings be.”143 Unlike Scheler, however, Heidegger did not draw any
inspiration from Bergson; in fact, he criticized the latter’s conception of time.144 Likewise
there is no evidence that Bergson studied Heidegger’s attempts to retrieve metaphysics. Yet
the point is simply this: Bergson’s philosophy not only served as a direct precursor to the
French reception of Husserlian phenomenology, but it also encouraged interest in the
German phenomenological movement as a whole insofar as it touched upon themes com-
mon to its leading proponents.
D. Bergson’s Influence on French Theologians
Because this dissertation is primarily concerned with the reception of phenomeno-
logical philosophy in French theology, it is appropriate to examine how Bergson’s philos-
ophy, especially those aspects which anticipated Husserlian phenomenology, influenced
contemporary theologians. From the beginning of his university career, Bergson attracted a
number of prominent religious thinkers into his orbit. Yet it many cases it was not so much
his writings that attracted them as his scintillating lectures at the Collège de France, which,
excepting a few periods of absence and term breaks, he offered every week between 1900
and 1914. At the Collège all lectures were open to the public, with the result that large
142Max Scheler, Nature et formes de la sympathie. Contribution à l’étude des lois
de la vie émotionnelle, trans. M. Lefebvre (Paris: Payot, 1928). See also Chapter 2, below,for a more detailed discussion of Scheler’s reception in France.
143Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Truth,” a translation of Vom Wesen derWahrheit by John Sallis, in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell(San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1977), 130.
144See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and EdwardRobinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 500-501, n. xxx. Heidegger partially re-cants his criticism of Bergson for having an Aristotelian notion of time in The BasicProblems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstader (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press,1982), 320-21. Joachim H. Seyppel, “A Criticism of Heidegger’s Time Concept withReference to Bergson’s Durée,” Revue internationale de philosophie 10 (1956): 503-508,argues that Heidegger’s notion of temporaneity/temporality [Zeitlichkeit] is a kind of ab-stract version of Bergson’s concept of duration [durée].
75
crowds gathered, often overflowing the available space, in order to hear Bergson expound
his philosophical insights in his extemporaneous and immensely captivating style. His au-
diences were diverse, including not only students of philosophy but art critics like Henri
Focillon and the poetess Anna de Noailles. Some came to be seen, but many came seeking
the seeds of a cultural renaissance, having been exhausted by the spiritual decadence of the
fin-de-siècle. They came because Bergson not only fed their penchant for mysticism but
also because he held out the principles of a higher morality. Catholic intellectuals also
constituted a regular constituency. Charles Péguy, the poet and publisher of the socialist
Cahiers de la Quinzaine began attending Bergson’s lectures early on and became one of his
most devoted disciples.145 In turn Péguy invited Jacques Maritain, his editorial assistant at
the time, and his wife Raïssa to go with him to hear Bergson.146 In Bergson the Maritains
found the first glimmers of light which led them from disconcerted skepticism to their con-
versions in 1906. Péguy himself entered the Catholic church two years later with his friend
Joseph Lotte, largely due to the spirituality they discovered in Creative Evolution. These
intellectual converts, as well as others like Ernest Psichari and Henri Massis, helped to dif-
fuse Bergson’s ideas among the generation of thinkers that would bring to fruition the fur-
ther Catholic revival in France after 1945.
The Collège de France came to be known as the “House of Bergson” as his influ-
ence extended not only to his auditors but also to his fellow professors. Some of them dealt
with religious questions in their own work. Bergson supported the appointment of Alfred
Loisy to the faculty in 1908, just a few months after the latter’s excommunication. It
seems, in fact, that Loisy had been soliciting his support, sending him books and publicly
voicing admiration for his intuitionist philosophy and its potential for restoring spirituality
to religion. Over time, however, Loisy’s historical critical methods led him to an under-
145In 1910, Péguy asked Bergson to write a preface to his Oeuvres Choisies, but
Bergson refused, apparently to avoid compromising himself over the controversial writer.As a matter of principle, Bergson seldom endorsed the work of his followers.
146Raïssa Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, trans. Julie Kernan (NewYork: Longmans, 1942), 79ff., recounts the story.
76
standing of mysticism and the Judeo-Christian tradition which diverged ever more sharply
from Bergson’s.147
Close to Bergson’s letter and spirit was Édouard Le Roy, who assumed Bergson’s
teaching duties at the Collège in 1914 when the latter entered diplomatic service upon the
outbreak of the war. Le Roy eventually inherited Bergson’s chair in philosophy in 1921
and was elected as his successor to the Académie française in 1945. Even early on in his
career when he worked principally in mathematics, Le Roy envisioned a new philosophy
that would draw together the intuitionism of Bergson and the scientific relativism of Henri
Poincaré.148 From Poincaré Le Roy acquired a powerful critique of positivist science while
from Bergson he learned a means for subverting intellectualism. Poincaré argued that sci-
entific laws and theories are pragmatic constructions having no metaphysical reality.
Bergson, meanwhile, maintained that intuition reaches beyond the grasp of the intellect.
According to Le Roy, the two lines of critique find their point of convergence in the practi-
cal sphere, in the moral life. Applying this insight to the contemporary debate over the sta-
tus of religious dogmas, Le Roy contended that it is wrong to search for a speculative
meaning in dogmas because they represent truths that can only be known through experi-
ence. Though he was certainly aware of Blondel’s work, Le Roy called his new philoso-
phy a philosophy of action quite independently of any reference to Blondel. There are, nev-
ertheless, many similarities between the two thinkers.149
During the Modernist crisis, Bergson fell under the suspicion of the Vatican be-
cause of his association with Le Roy, Loisy, and others whose works were censured. Was
Bergson’s shadow behind the doctrinal errors of “vital immanence” and “evolution” against
147Jean Guitton, “Bergson et Loisy,” in Bergson et Nous, ed. Gérald Mignot,
Actes du Xe Congrès des Sociétés de Philosophie de langue Française (Congrès Bergson)(Paris: Colin, 1959), 137. Shortly after Bergson’s last book appeared, Loisy published apointed critique entitled, Y a-t-il deux sources de la religion et de la morale? (Paris: ÉmileNourry, 1933).
148Cf. Édouard Le Roy, “Sur quelques objections adressées à la nouvelle philoso-phie,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 9 (1901): 293.
149For further discussion of the similarities between Le Roy and Blondel, seeChapter 3 and also René Virgoulay, Blondel et le modernisme (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 139-40.
77
which Pius X directed his attacks in Pascendi dominici gregis in 1907?150 Shortly there-
after, Bergson was banned from seminary reading lists.151 In 1914, in response to the ex-
treme attacks on Bergson by integralist Catholics who were committed to stamping out ev-
ery flicker of Modernism in France, the Vatican placed all three of Bergson’s books on the
Index. All the while, Bergson lent his philosophical acumen to supporting essentially
Christian beliefs, such as the immorality of the soul.152 But these gestures were not enough
to slacken the tide of criticism from the Vatican and conservative Catholic quarters.
Before long the neo-Thomists, who initially had looked to Bergson as an ally in
their philosophical battles against positivism and empiricism, turned against him. Even
Jacques Maritain, whom Bergson regarded as the student most capable of understanding
and interpreting his thought,153 began to criticize him openly after 1908. Maritain drafted a
critique of Bergson’s evolutionism for the Revue de philosophie and presented a series of
lectures at the Institut Catholique de Paris on Bergson and Christian philosophy. In 1914,
these writings with some others were published as a collection under the title La
Philosophie bergsonienne.154 Maritain focused his attack on Bergson’s reputed anti-intel-
lectualism: intelligence must not be separated from intuition, he argued, to do so would
mean ignoring the fundamental insight of Aquinas and despising one of the greatest gifts of
God.155 And while Maritain distinguished what he called the “Bergsonism of Fact” from
150Pius X, Pascendi dominici gregis, §§7, 26.151Robert C. Grogin, The Bergsonian Controversy in France, 1900-1914 (Calgary:
University of Calgary Press, 1988), 166.152In a lecture titled “L’Ame et le Corps” given under the auspices of the Catholic
journal Foi et Vie on 28 April 1912 (Bergson, Oeuvres, 836-60), Bergson argued thatcommon sense has it right: the soul is distinct from body and brain. The immortality of themind or soul cannot be proven but can be argued from a scientific perspective that the mindsurvives the body for a limited time. The soul depends upon the body for its manifestation,but not for its existence; memory is spiritual, not material.
153Raïssa Maritain, We Have Been Friends, 95.154Jacques Maritain, La Philosophie bergsonienne (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1914).155Cf. Jacques Maritain, La Philosophie bergsonienne, 2nd ed. (Paris: Marcel
Rivière, 1930), 64-93, 123-46; Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism,trans. Mabelle L. Andison and J. Gordon Andison (New York: Philosophical Library,1955), 102-116, 132-145. Incidentally, Maritain’s critique was echoed by others, and soonBergson found himself blamed for all the current anti-intellectual tendencies in France andthus he became as much an enemy of the Sorbonne as of the Church.
78
the “Bergsonism of Intention”156—the latter indicating the tentative ways in which
Bergsonian philosophy approached Thomism—he nevertheless in helped to draw a line in
the sand. The result was that by the time Bergson left the lecture hall in 1914, the Vatican
and conservative Catholic intellectuals stood firmly on one side, opposed to Bergson and
his dwindling liberal supporters on the other.
Despite this rejection by the Vatican and some intellectuals, Bergson felt himself in-
creasingly drawn to Christianity as a religious movement and especially to Catholicism,
which he eventually came to regard as the “absolute completion of Judaism.”157 Indeed, in
another passage from his will from which the preceding phrase is cited, Bergson explained
that he held a “moral adherence” to Catholicism and would have converted had he not wit-
nessed a growing tide of anti-semitism and wished to maintain solidarity with the race into
which he was born. In 1940, Bergson resigned from all of his official positions and sub-
mitted himself to the humiliating ritual of registering himself as a Jew with the Vichy au-
thorities, never having requested baptism. Still, by the time of his death a year later, a new
generation of Catholics was ready to receive him. The Dominican neo-Thomist Antonin-
Dalmace Sertillanges published a eulogy titled Henri Bergson et le catholicisme, in which
he called Bergson an apologist “du dehors”—from outside.158 While Sertillanges tried to
show that Bergson’s doctrines were quite compatible with Christian belief, he contended
156Maritain’s essay “Les Deux bergsonismes” first appeared in the Revue Thomiste
(July-August, 1912) and was subsequently republished in La Philosophie bergsonienne(La Philosophie bergsonienne, 2nd ed., 383-407; Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism,285-300).
157 In a now famous extract from his will, dated 8 February 1937, Bergson states:“My reflections have led me nearer and nearer to Catholicism, in which I find the absolutecompletion of Judaism. I would have become a convert if I had not seen in preparation forso many years this formidable wave of anti-Semitism which will soon overflow the world.I wanted to remain among those who tomorrow will be the persecuted ones. But I hope thata Catholic priest will be willing, if the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris gives him the autho-rization, to come and say the prayers at my burial. If this authorization is not given, a rabbishould be asked, but without hiding from him, or from anyone, my moral adherence toCatholicism, as well as the desire, before stated, of having the prayers of a Catholic priest.”Cited by Jean Wahl, “Concerning Bergson’s Relation to the Catholic Church,” Review ofReligion 9 (1944): 45-50.
158Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges, Henri Bergson et le catholicisme (Paris:Flammarion, 1941), 146.
79
that Bergson’s most essential contributions to Catholicism lay in his refutations of the sci-
entism of Berthelot and Taine, the false intellectualism of Renan, the semi-skepticism of
Kant and the various forms of materialist monism and pantheism.159 At least in this nega-
tive sense, Sertillanges was willing to grant that Bergson had contributed decisively to the
Catholic revival of the late 1920s and 30s.
Bergson’s gradual evolution toward Catholicism is reflected in his later writings.
Following the publication of Creative Evolution, the religiously inquisitive among his fol-
lowers wondered whether the élan vital should be taken as a metaphor for God. Le Roy
wanted to interpret Bergson in this way while others preferred to keep Bergson within the
realm of pure naturalism and resisted seeing theological allusions in his speculations.160
For many years Bergson refused his own help in settling their questions. When asked once
whether he would write something more specific about God, he replied, “I’m not sure that
I will never publish anything on this subject, but I will not do so until I arrive at results that
appear to me to be as demonstrable or provable as those in my other works.”161 That time
finally came in 1932 with the publication of Two Sources of Morality and Religion.
Bergson begins this essay, which comprises both a philosophy of religion and a religious
philosophy, with an examination of how morality arises from a sense of obligation to one’s
social group. He then shows how this obligation comes to be represented, though the un-
conscious impulse of the élan vital, by mythical and cultural symbols. The result is what
Bergson calls a closed morality and a static religion. What these lack, on his view, is a
moral aspiration that transcends the individual’s social context toward the good of humanity
as a whole. Complementing this moral transcendence, Bergson contends, there should
arise a spiritual transcendence which grasps the universal love of God through a mystical
intuition. The result in this case Bergson labels an open morality and a dynamic religion.
159Sertillanges, Bergson et le catholicisme, 146-47.160Cf. Jacques Havet, “La Tradition philosophique française entre les deux guer-
res,” in L’Activité philosophique en France et aux Etats-Unis, ed. Marvin Farber (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), 4-5.
161Letter to Fr. Tonquédec, February 20, 1912, in Bergson, Mélanges, 964 (mytranslation). Also quoted by Gouhier, “Preface” to Bergson, Oeuvres, x.
80
For Bergson, the great Christian mystics, like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, rep-
resent the culmination of the mystical intuition inherent in all forms of dynamic religion.162
In the later sections of the essay, Bergson offers a lengthy treatment of the affinities be-
tween Christian mystical theology and his own intuitionist philosophy.163 Reflecting back
on Creative Evolution from the perspective of Two Sources, Bergson notes that it was “by
following as closely as possible the evidence of biology” that he claimed to have attained
his “conception of the vital impetus and creative evolution.”164 Likewise, in Two Sources
he argues that examining closely the descriptive insights of the great mystics “must furnish
us with the means of approaching, as it were experimentally, the problem of the existence
and the nature of God,” going so far as to add that, “we fail to see how philosophy could
approach the problem in any other way.”165 By adhering to the practical experience of the
mystics philosophy can venture an affirmation of the divine. Indeed, he asserts that, “it is
to this very conclusion that the philosopher who holds to the mystical experience must
come,” namely: “Creation will appear to him as God undertaking to create creators, that He
may have, besides Himself, beings worthy of His love.”166
The orientation of Two Sources to the practical and moral sphere and its dynamic
metaphysic of creation prepare us for an examination of the philosophical enterprise of
Maurice Blondel, who developed his notion of Christian philosophy independently of
Bergson. Blondel’s independence as well as his significance for the transformation of
French philosophy and theology in the twentieth century are sufficient reasons for address-
ing his work separately. As the next section will make clear, Blondel also deserves to be
recognized as a direct precursor to the reception of phenomenology in France.
162 Bergson, Deux Sources, 240ff.; Audra et al., 216ff.; Oeuvres, 1168ff.163It is interesting to note that in the second introductory essay to La Pensée et le
Mouvant which Bergson drafted in 1922, he was willing to equate the goal of intuition withthe truth of the mystics (p. 51; Andison, 57; Oeuvres, 1292).
164Bergson, Deux Sources, 264; Audra et al, 237; Oeuvres, 1186.165Ibid., 255; Audra et al., 229; Oeuvres, 1179.166Ibid., 270; Audra et al., 243; Oeuvres, 1192.
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III. Maurice Blondel: A Phenomenology of Action
Just as Bergson was concerned with the dichotomy between knowing the world
through mathematical intelligence and spiritual intuition, Maurice Blondel (1861-1949) was
preoccupied with the tension between modern science and traditional faith. Blondel per-
ceived that modern science encouraged an external form of knowledge and was thereby
threatening the foundations of the moral life which he argued are internal. Nothing was
more essential nor more urgent in his opinion than resolving this problem and reintegrating
the poles of faith and science. To accomplish this reintegration, Blondel turned to an exam-
ination of the moral life in its most fundamental manifestation, as it appears, so to speak, in
action. Briefly outlining the plan and intention of his 1893 thesis L’Action, he wrote to the
director of the École Normale later that same year:
It seemed to me that there was a perpetual conjunction between faith andscience: action. In action, the two orders which had been superimposedjuxtaposed and opposed, are composed by a mutual co-penetration. Byshowing how the most positive truths are drawn from action, I prepare theway for eliciting from it truths which appear to be transcendent but whichare already immanent. On the one hand, in fact, I show that through its en-tire range, knowledge is a derivative of action and that it obtains its justifi-cation and its reality from it. On the other hand, I show that our human ac-tion involves all of the religious needs which are presented to us as if theywere external or imaginary.167
In Blondel’s usage, “the word action, which is more concrete than act, expresses what is at
once the beginning, middle and end of an operation that can remain immanent to itself.”168
He explains further that it comprises the three traditional notions of ποιεν, πραττειν and
θεορειν—making, doing and contemplating. Blondel’s method is at once genetic and de-
scriptive; his philosophy proceeds by unfolding his original insight into action through
analysis of the practical, moral life.
The following pages examine the development and import of Blondel’s insight into
action. The first section traces the various phases of Blondel’s career, showing how action
167Letter of Maurice Blondel to Georges Perrot, 20 October 1893, Lettresphilosophiques (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1961), 36.
168Note by Maurice Blondel s.v. “Action” in André Lalande, ed., Vocabulairetechnique et critique de la philosophie 16th ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1988), 20 (emphasis Blondel’s).
82
remained its central theme and explaining the rationale for focusing on his early works. The
second section directs more attention to explaining the precise nature of Blondel’s insight
into action through a recapitulation of the argument of his 1893 thesis. The third section
ventures comparisons between the philosophies of Blondel and Husserl and suggests how
Blondel anticipated and prepared for the reception of phenomenology in France. A final
section discusses Blondel’s relationship to theology and his influence on French theolo-
gians.
A. Blondel’s Original Insight
As with Bergson, Blondel’s entire philosophy flows from a single original insight
which came to him early on—in Blondel’s case, during his second year at the École
Normale.169 Already then, as he noted in his diary, he had chosen the title for the famous
thesis which he would bring to fruition a decade later: “Have I not already registered the ti-
tle that I dream of for my French thesis: L’Action?”170 In a later entry he offers the follow-
ing rationale for his choice: “I propose to study action because it seems that in the Gospel
only action is attributed the power to manifest love and to attain God. . . . I want to show
that the highest way of being is to act, that the most complete way of acting is to suffer and
to love, that the true way of loving is to cling to Christ.”171 Reflection on action was thus a
path of devotion for Blondel as well as means of integrating the domains of faith and sci-
ence, typically regarded as antithetical by his contemporaries.172
Despite his personal conviction regarding the value of his insight into action,
Blondel had difficulty getting the proposal for his thesis accepted by the faculty of the École
Normale. At the time, as Blondel himself remarked, the word action did not even appear in
the philosophical dictionaries;173 it simply was not a category which his professors deemed
169Blondel entered the École Normale in 1881, the same year Bergson graduated.170Maurice Blondel, Carnets Intimes (1883-1894) (Paris: Cerf, 1961), 39.171Blondel, Carnets Intimes, 85; entry dated October 10, 1886.172On this point see Raymond Saint-Jean, Genèse de l’Action. Blondel 1882-1893
(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1965), 43-49.173Maurice Blondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel. Propos re-
cueillis par Frédéric Lefèvre (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1966), 34.
83
worthy of philosophical study. In addition, Blondel’s religious orientation to his subject
was received with skepticism in the rationalist environment which characterized the École
Normale. Nevertheless, his ideas gained the sympathies of Léon Ollé-Laprune and Émile
Boutroux, two faculty members who were devoted Catholics and who would become im-
portant mentors for Blondel. In fact, if it had not been for the interventions and advice of
Boutroux, Blondel might never have defended his thesis. The defense, which was held on
7 June 1893 drew a large crowd because the controversial treatment of its subject had al-
ready created strong prejudices. Boutroux had advised Blondel to meet with the individual
examiners ahead of time to try to diffuse their criticisms. Notwithstanding his efforts, the
questioning lasted more than fours. In the end, however, the thesis was approved.
Yet Blondel’s difficulties in gaining acceptance were only beginning. He decided to
include in the published version of his thesis a chapter which he had been encouraged to
remove for the purpose of his defense. It was the final chapter where he treats, in his
words, “the bond of knowledge and action in being,” and where he makes explicit the reli-
gious option which the whole work is geared toward affirming.174 As a result of what the
minister of higher education regarded as the improperly religious and philosophical charac-
ter of his thought, Blondel was initially denied the permanent teaching position to which his
diploma entitled him.175 Only after a year of waiting and an intervention at the highest level
by Boutroux did Blondel receive a regular appointment to the University of Aix-en-
Provence where he would remain the rest of his life. Beset by opposition and stationed far
from Paris, the intellectual hub of the nation, Blondel never enjoyed the widespread popu-
larity of Bergson. Nevertheless, Blondel’s isolation was not entirely negative, for it freed
174See Maurice Blondel, L’Action (1893). Essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une
science de la pratique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950) 424-65, available inEnglish as Action (1893), trans. Oliva Blanchette (Notre Dame, IN: University of NotreDame Press, 1984), 389-424, hereafter cited as Blanchette.
175See Alexander Dru, Introduction to Maurice Blondel, The Letter on Apologeticsand History and Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (New York: Holt,Rinehard and Winston, 1964), 42-3. See also Blondel, Carnets Intimes, 487, n. 1.
84
him from excessive distraction, thereby enabling him to nurture his unique philosophical
style.
What were the intellectual influences that shaped Blondel’s thought during this first
phase of his career?176 At first glance one is struck by the fact that apart from a few scat-
tered citations of Leibniz, L’Action contains practically no direct references to other
thinkers. The paucity of references reflects perhaps not only the originality of Blondel’s
topic but also his intellectual audacity. Blondel himself liked to recall the advice he received
from Lucien Herr, the librarian at the École Normale: “‘My dear Blondel, you should not
cite a single proper name in this thesis of yours which deserves to be cut from whole cloth;
it’s brand new.’”177
Yet it was not the case that Blondel conceived of the plan of L’Action completely on
his own, apart from any intellectual traditions or mentors. Leibniz furnished the material for
the Latin thesis he was required to submit at the same time. The latter’s Vinculum substan-
tiale was doubtless the inspiration for Blondel’s conception of action as the mediator be-
tween thought and being.178 Likewise his notion of immanence was nourished by his
reading of Spinoza.179 Besides these German influences on his thought, which he owed to
Boutroux and his classmate and close friend Victor Delbos, Blondel drew upon the current
of spiritualism that had been channeled into his generation through Ravaisson and his fol-
lowers. For example, Lachelier’s Cartesian interpretation of Kant was formative, as was
176Following Henri Gouhier, Jean Lacroix divides Blondel’s career into three
phases: 1) prior to the “Letter on Apologetics” of 1896; 2) from 1896 to the publication ofthe first volume of his trilogy in 1934; and 3) from 1934 to his death in 1944 (see JeanLacroix, Maurice Blondel. An Introduction to the Man and his Philosophy, trans. John C.Guinness (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), 11-24. I prefer a four-stage periodizationfor reasons explained below.
177Blondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique, 35.178Maurice Blondel, De vinculo substantiali et de substantia composita apud
Leibnitium (Lutetiae Parisiorum: Alcan, 1893); for a brief discussion of Blondel’s Latinthesis see James M. Somerville, Total Commitment: Blondel’s L’Action (Washington,D.C.: Corpus Books, 1968), 315.
179See Blondel’s compte rendu of Victor Delbos, Le Problème moral dans laphilosophie de Spinoza et l’histoire du spinozisme (Paris: Alcan, 1893): Maurice Blondel[Bernard Aimant, pseud.], “Une des sources de la pensée moderne: l’evolution duSpinozisme,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne 128 (1894): 260-75; 324-41.
85
the notion of existential choice which came at the summit of his ontology.180 In addition,
the psychological problematic which constitutes a major portion of L’Action was patterned
upon the descriptive approach of Maine de Biran in response to the kind of experimental
psychology being conducted by Wilhelm Wundt in Germany and by Paul Janet in France
(the latter, not surprisingly, was Blondel’s harshest critic at his dissertation defense).181
Yet behind these contemporary influences upon Blondel’s thought stood another and more
ancient inspiration. Aristotle, as the subsequent section will show, helped to direct Blondel
to the phenomenon of action in the first place, and also provided him with a naturalistic ori-
entation toward science which would enable him to think outside the Cartesian tradition.
A second phase in Blondel’s career began once he had established himself academi-
cally with the publication of his thesis and his appointment to the faculty at Aix-en-
Provence. All the while maintaining his stance as a philosopher, Blondel entered into the
fray of contemporary religious and theological debates—a topic to which we will return at
the end of this chapter when we examine Blondel’s influence on French theologians. In
1895-96, Blondel published the lengthy Letter on the Exigencies of Contemporary Thought
in the Matter of Apologetics (commonly referred to as the Letter on Apologetics or simply
the Letter) in six installments in the Annales de la Philosophie Chrétienne, a long-standing
journal in the field which Blondel purchased a decade later in order to preserve its mission
of promoting Christian philosophical reflection.182 In 1904 Blondel addressed the crisis in
180Peter Henrici, “Les Structures de L’Action et la pensée française,” in MauriceBlondel: Une Dramatique de la modernité. Actes du colloque Maurice Blondel, Aix-en-Provence, mars 1989, ed. Dominique Folscheid (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1990), 41-43. For additional background on Blondel’s intellectual formation see Saint-Jean, Genèsede l’Action.
181See Johannes Wehrlé, “Une Soutenance de thèse,” Études Blondéliennes 1(1951): 87-90.
182Maurice Blondel, “Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matièred’apologétique,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne 131-32 (1895-96), 131: 337-47, 467-82, 599-616; 132: 131-47, 225-67, 337-50. Reprinted in Maurice Blondel, Les Premiersécrits de Maurice Blondel. Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matièred’apologétique (1896). Histoire et Dogme. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956).This volume has also been published in English as The Letter on Apologetics and Historyand Dogma, trans. with an introduction by Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (NewYork: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1964); unless otherwise, noted all translations of thesetwo essays follow Trethowan (for the Letter) and Dru (for History and Dogma).
86
neo-scholastic theology that had been provoked by modern biblical studies in an essay on
“History and Dogma” which appeared in La Quinzaine.183 In addition to these major con-
tributions, Blondel regularly published his opinions on related theological issues under
various pseudonyms in the Annales, one of the more influential being his 1910 essay “La
Semaine Sociale de Bordeaux et le monophorisme” in which he defended contemporary
Catholic social movements.184
Although never directly implicated in the Modernist controversy, Blondel returned
to more purely philosophical concerns during its aftermath. He devoted more time to draft-
ing contributions to Lalande’s Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie,185 in
fulfillment of a collaboration which had begun a decade previously. He also brought out a
volume on the life and work of his mentor Ollé-Laprune186 and some shorter essays, in-
cluding one in which he sides with Aquinas against Bergson on the distinction between no-
tional and real knowledge187 and another in which he shows how philosophy can make a
contribution to the study of mysticism.188 But for the most part, Blondel spent the post-war
years quietly pulling together his notes and ideas for the final oeuvre which he had
projected from the time of his thesis. It would be a new L’Action, revised and expanded
into a trilogy on thought, being and action with a fourth part on the philosophical founda-
tions of the Christian faith.189 Blondel’s progress was hampered, however, by the onset of
183Maurice Blondel, “Histoire et Dogme. Les Lacunes philosophique de l’exégèsemoderne,” La Quinzaine 56 (1904): 145-67, 349-73, 433-58.
184Maurice Blondel [Testis, pseud.], “La Semaine Sociale de Bordeaux et lemonophorisme,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne 159-60 (1909-10): 159: 5-22, 162-84,245-78, 372-92, 449-72, 561-92; 160: 127-62.
185Lalande’s Vocabulaire originally appeared in fascicles; the latest edition is AndréLalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, 16th ed. (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1988).
186Maurice Blondel, Léon Ollé-Laprune: L’Achèvement et l’avenir de son oeuvre(Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1923).
187Maurice Blondel, Le Procès de l’intelligence (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1922).188Maurice Blondel, “Le Problème de la mystique,” in Qu’est-ce que la mystique?
(Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1925), 1-63.189The volumes of Blondel’s trilogy on thought, being and action appeared as fol-
lows: Maurice Blondel, La Pensée. I: La genèse de la pensée et les paliers de son ascensionspontanée. II: Les responsabilités de la pensée et la possibilité de son achèvement, 2 vols.(Paris: Alcan, 1934); Maurice Blondel, L’Être et les êtres. Essai d'ontologie concrète et in-tégrale (Paris: Alcan, 1935); Maurice Blondel, L’Action. I: Le problème des causes secon-
87
functional blindness following an illness in 1926. After this time Blondel was forced to
dictate all of his thoughts to a secretary. This circumstance was a mixed blessing: while on
one hand it kept Blondel from poring endlessly over his notes and constantly revising his
manuscripts, on the other it diminished the lively literary quality that had attracted readers to
his earlier works, especially the first L’Action.
To announce his intention to publish the trilogy Blondel took advantage of the op-
portunity to be interviewed by Frédéric Lefèvre, a journalist who at the time was writing a
series for the weekly Nouvelles littéraires documenting “An hour with . . . ” great con-
temporary writers and thinkers. Instead of adhering to the proposed format, Blondel him-
self edited the entire text of his interviews with Lefèvre and had them published under the
title L’Itinéraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel.190 Consequently, the volume must be
regarded as a self-conscious self-presentation whose value lies in showing us how Blondel
wished to be interpreted as he entered the third and final phase of his long career. At one
point, after disclaiming any apologetic intentions in his prior works, he explains:
I have always principally wanted to engage in the technical and autonomouswork of philosophy, in continuity with the collective effort and in the tradi-tional sense, with no other ambition than to patiently explore the entire fieldaccessible to reason in questions which include it, to define philosophicalcompetency and to extend it within in its limits, to remind all critical mindsor to bring to their attention certain fundamental or ultimate problems fromwhich they have turned away, or for which, lacking an appropriate method,they have not expressly set up on rational grounds. [And to do this] suchthat the undertaking thus conceived cannot succeed unless it leads to an in-tegral doctrine of Thought, Being and Action, to a philosophy which isneither ‘separated’ from nor ‘dependent’ upon science any more than posi-tive religion, and which—essentially religious, not accidentally, partially orsuperficially—cohabits spontaneously, in our knowledge as in our life, withthe most intrepid criticism and the most authentic Catholicism.”191
des et le pur agir. II: L’Action humaine et les conditions de son aboutissement, 2 vols.(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1936-37). The companion volume on theChristian faith was published posthumously: Maurice Blondel, La Philosophie et l’Espritchrétien, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1944-46).
190L’Itinéraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel was first published in 1928 inParis by Éditions Spes, but all subsequent citations are to the second edition: MauriceBlondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel. Propos recueillis par FrédéricLefèvre (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1966). For Blondel’s account of how the one hour be-came four hundred and finally a book, see the “Avertissement,” 7.
191Blondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique, 21-22.
88
The question of Blondel’s relation to theology and theological apologetics will be dealt with
in a later section, but it is important to note here the comprehensive vision of his project: a
complete philosophy directed at satisfying the critical demands of neo-Kantian and other
post-Cartesian philosophies as well as the tenets of Catholicism. Blondel was essentially
proposing to do for modern Catholicism what Scholasticism had done for the medieval
church, to offer a grand synthesis of secular and religious philosophies. In fact, insofar as
scholasticism was typically categorized as a realist philosophy, Blondel branded his own
philosophy an “integral realism”—despite the political resonance with the integralism which
had been condemned with the Action française movement in 1926. At any rate, the scale of
the undertaking was massive: the trilogy itself would require eight years, and the final vol-
ume another eight years after that to appear. In Blondel’s mind, however, they were meant
to supplant his earlier efforts and so merited all the care and time he could devote to them.
In fact, elsewhere in L’Itinéraire philosophique, Blondel claims that he only pursued the
publication of his 1893 thesis for the purpose of securing an academic post, and that he
never authorized a reprinting despite pressure to do so because he could only regard it as a
rough and incomplete fragment of this thought.192 This retrospective reappraisal, however,
appears inconsistent with his initial regard for his own work and his desire for recognition
by the philosophical community. There can be no doubt that Blondel believed that he had
discovered a method that would revolutionize the philosophy of his day and that he there-
fore considered his thesis important enough to be published and discussed. Thus, there is
no reason to make it appear trivial beside the works of his later years, especially since many
of Blondel’s closest intellectual companions preferred the freshness and vitality of the
original L’Action.
We raise these issues here because the discussion that follows will rely almost ex-
clusively on Blondel’s earlier works to explain the precise nature of his insight into action
and its correspondence to certain phenomenological themes. The justification for this deci-
192Blondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique, 62-63.
89
sion, despite Blondel’s own privileging of his later works, rests on three points. First, as
shown above, Blondel’s later works derive from the insights set forth in the original
L’Action. Second, the later works are complicated by the fact that Blondel endeavored to
incorporate the viewpoints and findings of new sciences which had developed since the
turn of the century, notably linguistics,193 with the result that numerous digressions and
expansions of his arguments obscure the essential élan of this method. Thirdly, the main
reason for focusing on L’Action and other significant early essays, especially the Letter, is
that these works were much more influential on contemporary philosophers and theolo-
gians than the volumes of his trilogy. Furthermore, only they appeared early to enough to
produce the particular kind of influence that we are interested in studying, namely
Blondel’s role as a precursor to the French reception of Husserlian phenomenology.194
Thus far we have seen how Blondel’s insight into action and its relation to thought
and being remained the constant and principal theme of his long philosophical career. But
in what exactly did this insight consist? And why did Blondel believe it would revolutionize
philosophy itself? These questions are best answered by reviewing the argument of
Blondel’s 1893 thesis.
B. Blondel’s Principal Theme: Action
“Yes or no, does human life make sense, and does man have a destiny?”195 With
this dramatic question Blondel launches his inquiry into the meaning of action. But why
cast the investigation in the frame of moral and religious life? Why not simply speculate
193Cf. Introduction to Blondel, La Pensée, 1: 5-19.194Those familiar with the sides taken in the mid-century debates over the interpre-
tation of Blondel will recognize that my reasoning here and below follows Henri Bouillard.Justifying his privileging of action Bouillard writes: “In fact, this is the work that consti-tuted a breakthrough and has exerted the greatest influence. The works that follow aremarked by the controversies that L’Action gave rise to and they would be incomprehensibleto anyone who did not enter through this door. Finally, we shall have the opportunity toshow that this book, despite its imperfections, remains Blondel’s masterpiece; it is thework in which his original contribution appears most vigorously.” (Henri Bouillard,Blondel et le Christianisme (Paris: Seuil, 1961), 18; available in English as Blondel andChristianity, trans. James M. Somerville (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Books, 1969), 5,hereafter cited as Somerville.
195Blondel, L’Action (1893), vii; Blanchette, 3.
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upon the idea of action, as his thesis examiners doubtlessly would have preferred? For
Blondel, such an alternative would be unthinkable, for it would violate the subject under
consideration. “Action is that synthesis of willing, knowing and being, that bond of the
human composite that cannot be cut without destroying what has been torn apart,” he as-
serts.196 The world of thought, the moral world, and the world of science all converge in
action; action cannot be studied apart from the other essential facets of human life because
its function is to constitute their integration. Blondel’s stated aim is to establish “a science
of action.”197 He must therefore employ the methodology demanded by the nature of his
object. Blondel never cites Aristotle directly in his thesis, but it is clear by the way he sets
up the problem, and even by the selection of the problem itself, that his inspiration derives
from Aristotelian theories of the natural sciences.198
Yet the organization of L’Action, especially the third part with its dialectical unfold-
ing of the phenomenon of action, is more reminiscent of Hegel than of Aristotle. Gaston
Fessard, in the preface to his study of the dialectic of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, recalls
that when he first read Hegel’s Phenomenology he was “won over by the resemblance
between its plan and that of Blondel’s,” adding in a footnote that, “When I told Maurice
Blondel of my impression a few years before his death, he replied: ‘That is exactly what
my friend Victor Delbos said to me. When he read my thesis for the first time he said: “You
have rewritten the Phenomenology of Spirit.”’”199 Nevertheless, caution is advised against
196Blondel, L’Action (1893), 28; Blanchette, 40.197Cf. Blondel, L’Action (1893), xxii, xxi, xxv, 99; Blanchette, 9, 12, 15, 105.198Cf. Saint-Jean, Genèse de l’Action. Blondel 1882-1893 (Paris: Desclée de
Brouwer, 1965), 52-55. St. Jean cites an important passage from Blondel, L’Action(1936), 1: 239, to which we will return in the following chapter: “Dès la première fiche, oùse précisait, le 5 novembre 1882, le project d’une thèse intitulée l’Action, se trouvaientréunies diverses citations tirées de la Métaphysique ou des diverses Éthiques d’Aristote. Et,dans tous ces textes, le thème dominant qui était recuelli, c’était bien celui de caractère uni-tif, supra-discursif et gros d’infinitude, comme aussi de précision et de perfection, qu’in-clut l’action d’après le Stagirite.” A. Hayen, “Le Testament d’un maître,” Étudesphilosophiques n.s. 7 (1952): 354, reproduces this page of Blondel’s notes, actually dated3 November 1882.
199Gaston Fessard, La Dialectique des Exercises spirituels de Saint Ignace deLoyola, 2 vols. (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1956), 1: 6, n. 1; cited by Peter Henrici, Hegelund Blondel (Pullach bei München: Verlag Berchmannskolleg, 1958), 23, n. 21.
91
carrying such generalizations too far.200 Thanks to Delbos and Boutroux, Blondel was
certainly aware of Hegel when he wrote his thesis, but he never studied the German
philosopher well enough to draw upon his work in a direct or formal manner. Despite
prima facie similarities, the outline of Blondel’s work is unique and must be studied for it-
self. The pages which follow recapitulate the argument of L’Action by summarizing in turn
each of its five parts.
The first part of L’Action makes clear that Blondel does not intend to follow anyone
in pursuing the meaning of human destiny. All, he claims, have in one way or another ob-
scured the practical import of the question. Through a web of clever allusions to contempo-
rary philosophers, essayists and even poets, including Schopenhauer, Barrès and
Baudelaire, Blondel justifies the need for a scientific study of action by showing the in-
evitable contradictions involved in trying to deny or suppress the reality of the moral prob-
lem.
The second part is devoted to demonstrating that the moral problem cannot be an-
swered negatively. The very nature of the will demands a positive solution, Blondel con-
tends. The will cannot will nothingness. In trying to will nothingness, the aesthete only
succeeds in revealing the infinite value he places upon his own will. Blondel guides his
reader toward accepting his statement of the moral problem through a species of negative
dialectics. He provisionally accepts his opponents arguments, becoming, as he says, “the
intimate accomplice of all,” and then traces their logic to its ultimate conclusion. In this
manner Blondel attempts to uncover the fundamental inconsistencies in their reasoning.201
200Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 26; Somerville, 13: “The idea of phe-
nomenology is not exactly the same for the two authors. Hegel devotes much of his atten-tion to the consideration of history and historical categories; but his plays a minor role inBlondel. The purpose of philosophy for Hegel, the ideal of the wise man, is absoluteknowledge; for Blondel it is the religious option which philosophy shows to be necessary.”Furthermore, while both Peter Henrici, cited in the previous note, and Edward J. Sponga,“Process and Spirit: The Dialectic of Universal Dynamism in Hegel and Blondel” (PhDthesis, Fordham University, 1955), have written monographs comparing the Hegelian andBlondelian dialectics, neither concludes that Blondel was in any way mimicking Hegel’sstyle.
201Blondel, L’Action (1893), xxi; Blanchette, 12: “We must, on the contrary, takein all the negations that destroy one another, as if it were possible to admit them altogether.
92
Blondel introduces his own approach to the moral question in the last section of the
second part of L’Action. Here Blondel sets his interlocutors aside and initiates a positive
dialectics of what he calls the willing will [volonté voulante] and the willed will [volonté
voulue]. The willing will represents the conscious selection of desired ends that involves
the human subject in the chain of events which, from the perspective of the natural sci-
ences, appears to be the product of causal necessity. The willed will, on the other hand,
represents the subject’s unconscious desire for freedom. In a manner suggestive of
Schelling, whose system of transcendental idealism Blondel read in 1890,202 these two as-
pects of the will implicate the subject in a ceaseless and unavoidable struggle between de-
terminism and freedom. The willing will attempts to satisfy its desire for being by driving
the subject toward finite ends; the willed will cooperates in these attempts but remains insa-
tiate. The surplus of the willed will for freedom in turn prompts the willing will to seek
higher ends, expanding its universe from material and sentient being, through individual
and social action to religious consciousness. Each moment in the dialectic is thus a product
of both aspects of the will. For Blondel, this peculiar synthesis of freedom and determin-
ism defines the essence of action and constitutes the originality of his insight. “If there is
anything new in the method of this investigation,” he would comment later in the Letter,
“this, it seems, is what it is: from the first awakening of sensible life all the way to the
highest forms of social activity, there is unfolded in us a continuous movement whose rig-
orous concatenation and fundamentally voluntary character it is possible to manifest at one
and the same time.”203 Having sketched out the stages of his dialectic, Blondel is in a posi-
tion at the end of the second part of L’Action to restate his opening question in more precise
philosophical terms: We must enter into all prejudices, as if they were legitimate, into all errors, as if they weresincere, into all passions, as if they had the generosity they boast of, into all philosophicalsystems, as if each one held in his grip the infinite truth it thinks it has cornered. We must,taking within ourselves all consciousnesses, become the intimate accomplice of all, in orderto see if they bear within themselves their justification or condemnation.”
202Letter of Maurice Blondel to Maurice Lena, 23 March 1890, in Maurice Blondel,Lettres philosophiques (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1961), 20.
203Blondel, L’Action (1893), 41; Blanchette, 52.
93
Yes or no, for one who limits himself to the natural order, is there any con-cordance between the willing will and the willed will; and does action,which is the synthesis of this double willing, finally find in itself thewherewithal to be self-sufficient and to define itself? Yes or no, will man’slife be restricted to what is from man and from nature, without recourse toanything transcendental?204
The inevitable surplus of the willed will in every act of willing, Blondel believes, is suffi-
cient to eliminate any negative solution to the moral problem. It will also prove sufficient to
eliminate any naturalistic solution. The transcendental field has been reopened.
It is not necessary to examine Blondel’s elaboration of each of the stages of the di-
alectic in the third part of L’Action. It is sufficient to recognize that Blondel’s problematic
revives the Kantian dilemma of practical freedom. Like Kant, Blondel casts his problematic
in terms of the need to overcome the antinomy between freedom and determinism. Again
like Kant, Blondel recognizes the need for a synthetic a priori, but whereas Kant believed it
was necessary to postulate the existence of noumenal things-in-themselves, Blondel dis-
covers a transcendental synthesis in the directly and immediately intuitable phenomenon of
action. The desire to ground his argument upon an immediately intuitable phenomenon
furthermore reflects his engagement not only with Kant, but especially with Descartes. In
fact, it is possible to express his basic argument in the form of the Cartesian cogito: “I act,
therefore there must be something.”205 Blondel is just as critical of Descartes as he is of
Kant, however, and for essentially the same reason. For Blondel, satisfactory solutions to
the problems of reason and morality cannot lie in the abstract or ideal or speculative realms
but rather in the practical sphere, in everyday life—in other words, in action. Yet in order
to show his engagement with the dominant Cartesian philosophies of his day, Blondel
refers to his method in the Letter not as a phenomenology of action but rather as a method
of immanence. He explains that it consists “in nothing else than in trying to equate, in our
own consciousness, what we appear to think and to will and to do with what we do and
will and think in actual fact—so that behind factitious negations and ends which are not
204Blondel, L’Action (1893), 42; Blanchette, 53.205See Somerville, Total Commitment, 73.
94
genuinely willed may be discovered our innermost affirmations and the implacable needs
which they imply.”206 Blondel’s method of immanence does not embrace a set of self-evi-
dent axioms from which may be deduced all necessary knowledge. It is a means for gain-
ing insight into the motive force of the will. According to Blondel, this insight cannot be
gained directly through a sort of Cartesian introspection or intuition. It can only be discov-
ered indirectly, through careful observation of the displacement between what we have al-
ready attained through our conscious willing and what we are yet striving to become
through the exercise of our deeper will.
The fact of this displacement points toward the reality of our destiny as human be-
ings. Because we are not yet what we in fact will to be, Blondel states that we live in a re-
lation of dependence with respect to our destiny.207 Although Blondel’s concern for scien-
tific and philosophical rigor prevents him from citing theological sources, he certainly could
exclaim with the Augustine, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless
until they find rest in Thee.”208 Our destiny, which is to say the longing of our willed will,
surpasses and commands us. We experience it as an end to which our willing will must be-
come equal. Only when we have attained our destiny will it be true for us to say both that
we will who we are and we are who we will. In Part Four of “L’Action, Blondel names
this destiny the “one thing necessary” [l’unique nécessaire] for it appears as that transcen-
206Blondel, Lettre, 39; Trethowan, 157.207Blondel, L’Action (1893), 134; Blanchette, 136.208Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. J. G. Pilkington (New
York: Heritage Press, 1963), 1. The Augustinianism of Blondel would make an interestingstudy. Although Blondel seldom refers to the Bishop of Hippo, the main lines of theirthought are similar: the privileging of the will over the intellect, the expansive dynamism ofthe former and its dialectical relationship to the latter, etc.. In one of his rare discussions ofAugustine, a commemorative essay on the fifteen hundredth anniversary of his death,Blondel tries to draw out the unity of his thought with the result that his philosophy appearsremarkably similar to Blondel’s own: “Augustin . . . implique constamment notre étatconcret, qui n’est ni nature pure et se suffisant intrinsèquement ni surnature naturlisable,mais état transnaturel, état qui, même initialement, posait une crise à résoudre avec les di-verses répercussions justement possibles d’une libre option humaine et des libéralités de lacondescendance divine.” Maurice Blondel, “Le Quinzième centenaire de la mort de SaintAugustin (28 août 430). L’Unité originale et la vie permanente de sa doctrinephilosophique,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 37 (1930): 468-69.
95
dent something toward which the double movement of the will inevitably tends.209 He
furthermore identifies the one thing necessary with supernatural reality, namely God, since
God is by metaphysical definition the necessary being.210 It is important to note, however,
that Blondel does not attempt to prove the existence of God directly. On the contrary, his
proofs are always negative: he endeavors to show that it is impossible that God could not
not exist. This kind of proof, which revives an Anselmian interpretation of the cosmologi-
cal, teleological and ontological arguments, is more in keeping with the evidential demands
of scientific demonstration according to Blondel, which is why he prefers it.211 Blondel’s
aim is neither to articulate theological dogma nor offer an apologetic of the Christian faith,
but instead to provide the foundation for a rigorously scientific Christian religious philoso-
phy.
The discovery of the one thing necessary thrusts upon the human subject a neces-
sary option. “It is impossible that the development of voluntary action not come to an alter-
native,” Blondel reasons, “for option is the necessary form under which a will, imposed on
itself, takes possession of itself, in order to will what it is by being what it wills.”212 The
option, as Blondel presents it in the second half of the fourth part of L’Action, is clearly
existential in nature, with the result that some have seen in Blondel an anticipation of exis-
tentialism.213 Furthermore, the option is essentially religious because it refers to the super-
natural destiny of the human subject. It presents two alternatives. The first alternative is to
refuse to will all that we in fact will—a paradoxical situation, but one which experience and
209Blondel, L’Action (1893), 339ff.; Blanchette, 314ff.210Blondel, L’Action (1893), 350; Blanchette, 324. Here again I side with the in-
terpretation of Henri Bouillard, who understands Blondel to be arguing for recognition ofan indeterminate supernatural as a philosophical necessity, as against Henri Duméry, whounderstands Blondel to be asserting the supernatural as a philosophical possibility (seeHenry Duméry, Blondel et la religion. Essai critique sur la “Lettre” de 1896, ed. René LeSenne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954)).
211For a discussion of how Blondel’s argument compares to traditional proofs forthe existence of God, see Somerville, Total Commitment, 215.
212Blondel, L’Action (1893), 357; Blanchette, 330213See especially Albert Cartier, Existence et vérité. Philosophie blondélienne de
l’Action et problématique existentielle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955). Fora different perspective see R. Jolivet, “Maurice Blondel et la pensée existenielle,” Étudesphilosophiques n.s. 7 (1952): 330-42.
96
St. Paul testify happens often.214 In order to do this, the willing will must convince the
deeper willed will that it can be satisfied with merely finite ends which in themselves are
empty. Because this suppression of the deeper will involves the destruction of the authentic
dynamism of human life, Blondel contends that willing this alternative leads to the death of
action. Conversely, willing the supernatural end which is our destiny leads to the genuine
life of action, which is characterized by moral disinterestedness and self renunciation. It is
crucial to observe that up to this point, to the willing of either of these two alternatives, the
supernatural has only arisen as a notion and God only as an idea. Philosophy is incapable
of pronouncing the reality of God, even if a dialectical chain of argument can establish the
necessity of the idea. Only through an act of faith can one existentially affirm supernatural
being. As Bouillard remarks, “It is only with the acceptance of our destiny that our knowl-
edge becomes a real possession of being. The science of action establishes the fact that
there is no substitute for action. The religious option is the true solution of the problem of
being.”215
The fifth and last part of L’Action focuses on the completion of action in the super-
natural order. In the first two chapters, Blondel develops some of the implications of his
insight into action for understanding revealed precepts and religious dogmas. The last
chapter, which Blondel added subsequent to the defense of his thesis, explores the bond of
knowledge and action in being. Here Blondel proposes a reversal of his methodology.
Instead of extending the regressive analysis whereby he traces the empirical aspects of the
human will back to their conditions of possibility,216 he proposes a direct approach to the
problem of being and action. “What had been posited before thought only as means imma-
nent to willing will be posited, outside the will, as ends immanent to thought,” Blondel
214The reference to St. Paul here is not without precedent: Blondel himself stated
explicitly that he patterned his dialectic upon the apostle’s (see Letter of Blondel to Delbos,6 May 1889, in Maurice Blondel, Lettres philosophiques (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1961),18.
215Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme , 22; Somerville, 9.216Blondel, L’Action (1893), 424-25; Blanchette, 389-90. Cf. Bouillard, Blondel et
le Christianisme , 224-28; Somerville, 176-180.
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explains, continuing: “And whereas action had appeared first, and being, derived, it is truth
and being which will appear first, but without their substance and their nature ceasing to be
determined by action.”217 Blondel’s attempt to renew traditional ontology was more than he
could manage in an appendix. His mature reflections on this problem would find ex-
pression only in the volumes of his trilogy. The pages that follow, however, are not con-
cerned with Blondel’s final ontology, but rather with correlations between his method of
immanence and the principal themes of Husserlian phenomenology.
C. Blondel as a Precursor to Husserlian Phen omenology
In what sense can Blondel be considered a precursor to the French reception of
Husserlian phenomenology? Some of Blondel chief interpreters have already recognized
his contribution in this area. For instance Henri Duméry remarks:
Like Husserl, he distinguishes the essential, necessary and invariable ele-ment in everything from the accidental, contingent and changing. Like him,he does not pose the question of being until after having drawn out themeaning of being. Like him, he identifies subjectivity with freedom. Likehim, he struggles against psychologism (the primacy of the psychologicalEgo) and objectivism (the primacy of the object through a lack of apprecia-tion for spiritual activity). Like him again, he aspires to combine the ideal ofa universalist philosophy with the precise meaning of the specificities of thedifferent regions of reality, and to have it served by an unimpeachabledemonstrative logic. Like him finally, but before him, he evokes the inten-tional character of the processes in the human subject, he sketches a philos-ophy of the body, of the relation to the other, of the interpersonal reciprocityleading to the promotion of a cultural universe.218
Duméry’s generalizations give us the assurance that we are asking the right question, but in
order to provide a more detailed answer we must engage in a more thorough comparison of
the philosophical perspectives and methods of Blondel and Husserl. First, however, let us
see how Blondel used the word phenomenology and similar terms in his own works.
L’Action itself does not contain the word phénoménologie, though phénoménisme
appears three times in two different contexts. In each case, Blondel employs the latter term
to refer to the viewpoints of Renouvier or possibly Taine, which he then contrasts to his
217Blondel, L’Action (1893), 425; Blanchette, 390.218Henry Duméry, “Maurice Blondel,” in Les Philosophes célèbres, ed. Maurice
Merleau-Ponty (Paris: Éditions d’art, 1956), 300-301.
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own.219 In the Letter, Blondel insists upon the importance of distinguishing the immanent
affirmation of the transcendent from any presupposition of its existence, a distinction which
he believes will enable “the scientific construction of the integral phenomenalism of thought
and action [phénoménisme intégral de la pensée de l’action]”220 —thus apparently reval-
orizing a term he formerly rejected. However, Blondel later implies a contrast between this
type of integral phenomenalism and what he calls a “pure phenomenalism” [phénoménisme
pur] which would presume to explain “the manifold interdependent and heterogeneous as-
pects of thought by one another, and to reintegrate all forms of life into the unity of a single
determinism.”221 Evidently a reference to Taine, Blondel criticizes the relativism of the lat-
ter approach and its lack of an ontological foundation. In “History and Dogma,” phenome-
nalism is also given a negative connotation. Blondel reproaches historicism saying, “it tries
to make the historical given play the role of a deeper reality; it tries to derive an ontology
from a methodology and a phenomenology, but the result is only a phenomenalism.”222 In
this context the term phenomenology refers to a process of empirical scientific description
which makes no ontological assumptions. Thus phenomenology itself is not necessarily
disparaged, but only the attempt to substitute it for an ontology, and it is precisely this kind
of empty replacement for metaphysics that Blondel identifies with phenomenalism.
An additional instance where both terms appear together further clarifies the situa-
tion. Johannes Wehrlé reports that during the public defense of his thesis, Blondel made
the following statement:
219Blondel, L’Action (1893), 41, 481; Blanchette, 52, 437. In the latter context,
Blondel refers jointly to phenomenalism, criticism and positivism, making it difficult todetermine precisely whose doctrine of phenomenalism he has in mind, although hisqualifying description of rigorous restriction to empirical phenomena suggests Renouvier.With respect to the possibility of Blondel’s making reference to Taine, see ClaudeTroisfontaines, “Maurice Blondel et Victor Delbos: A propos de Spinoza,” Revuephilosophique de la France et de l’étranger 176 (1986): 471, n.7.
220Blondel, Lettre, 40; my translation. Trethowan, 157, misleadingly translates“phénoménisme intégral” as “entire phenomenology.”
221Blondel, Lettre, 62; Trethowan, 179.222Blondel, Lettre, 171; Trethowan 240 misleadingly translates “qui ne sera qu’un
phénoménisme” as “purely phenomenological in character.”
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I have never opposed determinism and freedom as if they were things, as ifthey were prematurely realized entities. I have carefully deferred any onto-logical affirmation in order to restrict myself to considering the phenomena,the states of consciousness and the notions in their relations of interdepen-dence. In this phenomenology [phénoménologie] (which one must be care-ful not to confuse with a phenomenalist doctrine [doctrine phénoméniste]), Ilimit myself to showing that where one believed only incompatible beingscould be seen, there are just heteronomous and interdependent phenomena.Taken for what they are, neither more nor less, these phenomena whichcompose the unity of thinking and of the world do not sustain any applica-tion of the principle of contradiction. There are no contradictions exceptwhere one has read into the facts preoccupations and affirmations foreign toscience.223
In this passage, Blondel is responding to an objection raised by Boutroux. Boutroux had
suggested that Blondel was mistakenly reasoning from the necessity of recognizing the role
of subjectivity in the constitution of the positive sciences to the conclusion that such activity
depends on the hypothesis of a powerful, conquering will. In his reply, Blondel asserts
that he never introduces any ontological claims about the nature of the will, nor does he hy-
postasize freedom and determinism. Far from venturing into the presumption of a subjec-
tive idealism, Blondel insists that he limits himself to offering an empirical description of
subjective phenomena, and it is precisely this scientific manner of investigation that he dis-
tinguishes as phenomenological. In other words for Blondel, “at the heart of ontology,
philosophy remains a phenomenology,” as Bouillard has put it.224 Phenomenological
method must never be confused with phenomenalist doctrine.
Commenting on Blondel’s use of the term phenomenology to refer to his own
method in his early essays, Claude Troisfontaines has observed:
223Johannes Wehrlé, “Une Soutenance de thèse,” Études Blondéliennes 1 (1951):
86. Wehrlé’s account was first published a decade after Blondel’s defense, so it is unlikelythat it presents a faithful transcription of the dialog; nevertheless, Blondel approved thepublication, so we can trust that what is said here about phenomenology and phenomenismrepresents Blondel’s actual opinion. This passage is also cited by René Virgoulay,L’Action de Maurice Blondel, 1893. Relecture pour un centenaire (Paris: Beauchesne,1992), 84, n. 8. In addition, Virgoulay makes reference to a letter of Blondel addressed toAlbert Lamy dated 16 December 1896, where Blondel likewise distinguishes“phénoménisme” from a “phénoménologie scientifique de l’esprit,” preferring the latter todescribe his own approach (Blondel, Lettres philosophiques, 119-20) See also Bouillard,Blondel et le Christianisme, 169; Somerville, 131, for a discussion of other instances ofBlondel’s use of “phenomenology” and “phénoménisme” during the late 1890s.
224Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme , 169; Somerville, 132.
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In the texts which immediately followed his thesis, the author firmly justi-fied the necessity of adopting a preliminary phenomenological approach toall ontology. But progressively the terms phénomènes and phénoménologiedisappeared. Especially after the war of 1914-18, Blondel showed reticencewith respect to the label philosophy of action which had been applied tohim, preferring instead to speak of an integral realism [réalisme intégral]bearing upon the triple problem of thought, being and action.225
This terminological shift becomes apparent when one considers Blondel’s criticism of phe-
nomenology in his later works, especially L’Être et les êtres, which includes a brief excur-
sus on phenomenology and ontology.226 Although he never cites Husserl directly nor
mentions him by name, the language of Blondel’s allusions in these passages make it clear
that he now has Husserl’s doctrine in mind when he speaks of phenomenology. Prior to
the early 1930s, when phenomenology became widely known in France, Blondel used the
term phenomenology to refer generically to the process of criticizing phenomena, which is
why he had felt free to use the term at times to describe his own method. However, once he
learned about Husserl (he never says how or when exactly) this practice stops; phe-
nomenology, like phenomenalism before, is presented as a doctrine that fails to establish its
ontological sufficiency. In the context of his excursus on phenomenology in L’Être et les
êtres, Blondel writes:
If there is an ontological illusion in the simplicity which canonizes the im-mediate givens [les données immédiates], the operations of abstraction orthe supposed intellectual intuitions, the critical and idealist illusion, in per-suading itself that it escapes credulity, is no less a victim of a contrary de-viation. As soon as it isolates the phenomenon and posits something behindit completely other than itself, or when it hopes to bring everything togetherinto a pure phenomenology, no sooner does it fall into the error which itthought it was avoiding.227
This passage reveals that Blondel misunderstood or was misinformed about certain aspects
of Husserl’s teaching, otherwise he never could have charged him with creating a Kantian
225Claude Troisfontaines, “L’Approche phénoménologique de l’être selon Maurice
Blondel,” in Maurice Blondel: Une Dramatique de la modernité. Actes du colloque MauriceBlondel, Aix-en-Provence, mars 1989, ed. Dominique Folscheid (Paris: ÉditionsUniversitaires, 1990), 75.
226Blondel, L’Être et les êtres, 368-80. See also Jean École, La Métaphysique del’être dans la philosophie de Maurice Blondel (Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1959), 27-28, for a discussion of these pages.
227Blondel, L’Être et les êtres, 370.
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dualism between the phenomenon and its supposed substratum. Consequently, it would be
premature to conclude that Blondel and Husserl were poles apart in their thinking without
moving beyond terminological matters to a comparison of their viewpoints and methods.
1. Critique of Positivist Approaches to Science
Like Husserl, Blondel is oriented toward seeking a renewal of philosophy through
a criticism of the limits of positivist science. In the conclusion to L’Action Blondel argues
that positivism is inconsistent with its own principles because it excludes from considera-
tion segments of knowledge which are no less positive and determined than empirical ob-
jects.228 Positivism addresses static empirical data but fails to appreciate the dynamic pro-
cess that generates them. In Blondel’s lexicon, it excludes the aliquid superest, the leftover
something that exceeds the willing will but whose reality is confirmed by every act of will-
ing.229 Blondel’s purpose in unfolding the logic of action in the third part of his thesis is
not simply to make the point that something appears, but to delve into the nature of that ap-
pearing. This motivation is in keeping with Husserl’s own aim to discover the eidetic
structures of phenomenal appearance. Positivist science tries to suppress the ontological
question of appearance by claiming that the allegedly subjective processes involved in per-
ceiving a phenomenon can be reduced to the properties of the phenomenon itself. Blondel,
on the other hand, tries to show that in the “primitive given” [donnée primitive] of the phe-
nomenon “there are three elements to be taken into account: (1) what the exact or a priori
sciences determine; (2) what the observational sciences describe; (3) and something inde-
terminate which will be the object of a new science, one properly subjective or philosophi-
cal.”230 From Blondel’s perspective, the attempt to resolve the problem of life through
applications of the various positive sciences is futile, for the latter are only subalternate
manifestations of a higher level subjective activity that constitutes their very existence and
228Blondel, L’Action (1893), 481-2; Blanchette, 437.229Cf. Blondel, L’Action (1893), 305; Blanchette, 285.230Blondel, L’Action (1893), 51; Blanchette, 62. For fuller, point by point critiques
of the positive sciences see L’Action (1893), 61ff.; Blanchette, 70ff., and L’Action (1893),82ff.; Blanchette, 89ff.
102
function. The constitutive processes of subjetivity must themselves become the object of
scientific study, and Blondel believes this can be accomplished without sacrificing the rigor
of positivism. One must proceed, he contends, “from the positive science of the object to
the otherwise but equally positive science of the subject.”231 The ultimate goal, as with
Husserl, is a “science of consciousness.”232
This new science of consciousness, however, must not be confused with psychol-
ogism. In its approach to subjective phenomena, the latter falls into the same error as posi-
tivism insofar it reduces “action to fact.”233 To avoid this error, Blondel asserts that con-
sciousness must be examined from the perspective of the will, not the understanding. If
this is done, then related but static facts will appear as elements in a dynamic system. “For
the fact is only by the act,” Blondel observes, “and without the subjective phenomenon
there would be no other. Whoever posits something, therefore, requires a subject. The
positive sciences converge in a science of action.”234 According to Blondel, “the true sci-
ence of the subject is one which, considering the act of consciousness from the beginning
as an act, discovers through a continuous progress its inevitable expansion.”235 Despite
these arguments, Blondel often had to defend himself against charges of psychologism, es-
pecially from theologians who thought that he was trying to reduce the Christian religion to
a set of subjective desires. In fact, his Letter was occasioned by the criticism of Charles
Denis, then editor of the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, who claimed that Blondel’s
primary intention in L’Action was “‘to put Christian apologetics on a psychological ba-
sis.’”236
231Blondel, L’Action (1893), 86; Blanchette, 93.232Ibid., 86; Blanchette, 93.233Ibid., 99; Blanchette, 105.234Ibid., 102; Blanchette, 107.235Ibid., 100; Blanchette, 106.236Blondel, Lettre, 5; Trethowan, 127. According to Bouillard, Blondel et le
Christianisme , 31; Somerville, 17, Denis meant to commend Blondel’s Letter: “Denis’sintention was to praise the work, but Blondel saw in this appreciation a double misunder-standing: He had intended to work as a philosopher, not as an apologist in the currentmeaning of the term, and to approach the religious problem not through psychologicalanalysis but through philosophical reflection.”
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Blondel’s criticism of positivism and psychologism are meant to show that there is
no direct continuity between the empirical sciences and philosophy. The presumption that
mathematics, physics or biology could have any direct bearing on philosophy must be
abandoned according to Blondel. The destiny of the empirical sciences is not to subsume
philosophy as the experimental psychologists had hoped. “There is no more continuity
between scientific symbols and philosophical ideas than there is between the qualities per-
ceived by the senses and the calculation based on these same data of intuition,” Blondel ar-
gues in the opening paragraph of the Letter.237 Science can and will continue to develop
ever more sophisticated quantitative methods of analysis, but these will never reach the
qualities that constitute the ground of things. The task of philosophy is to develop the
proper methodology to attain the latter, and it is in that spirit that Blondel offers his method
of immanence, whose principle he claims “has become and will become more and more the
soul of philosophy.”238
The term method of immanence has a certain Cartesian ring, as noted earlier. The
resemblance is deceptive, however, because it appears that Blondel is making concessions
to Cartesianism while in fact he is trying to overthrow it. For instance, in another place in
the Letter Blondel observes that “philosophy . . . consists not in the heteronomous appli-
cation of reason to some material or to some object, but in the autonomous application of
reason to itself.”239 Such a reflexive notion of philosophy would accord well enough with
Cartesian rationalism were it not for the fact that Blondel intended by it to distinguish the
legitimate domain of philosophy from an illegitimate form of theological rationalism that
had been born of Cartesianism. A second example of this subversive strategy is Blondel’s
endorsement of the Cartesian premise that science is founded upon knowledge of the nec-
essary. “Strictly speaking, nothing is scientifically demonstrated unless its necessity has
been established,” he explains, adding that, “to ground a real truth, it is not enough to sup-
237Ibid., 10; Trethowan, 131-32.238Ibid., 39; Trethowan, 157.239Ibid., 71; Trethowan, 186.
104
pose that it is, while showing that there is nothing to keep it from being. We have to sup-
pose that it is not, while showing that it is impossible for it not to be. Once we have closed
off all exits, the conclusion imposes itself.”240 Here Blondel even appears to adopt a
species of methodical doubt in order to isolate necessary knowledge, but one must be care-
ful not to exaggerate any apparent similarities between the Blondelian dialectic and the
Cartesian criticism of first principles. Blondel had already cautioned in L’Action: “Let us
not pretend, like Descartes through an artifice that smacks of the schools with all its seri-
ousness, to extract from doubt and illusion the very reality of being.”241 From Blondel’s
perspective any such attempt would be vain given the gap between mind and matter that
Cartesianism is content to leave unbridged. Blondel’s thesis, by contrast, is that thought
and being are necessarily linked through the mediating function of action.
Blondelian science is not Cartesian science, even if an initial glance reveals certain
similarities. This is because Blondelian philosophy is not a speculative philosophy but
rather a natural philosophy in the traditional, Aristotelian sense. Blondel is focused on the
observable, the practical—not abstractions or concepts. Also like Aristotle, Blondel adopts
a hierarchical model of the sciences. The empirical sciences and philosophy represent dis-
tinct disciplines since their formal objects and methods are heterogeneous. Their relation is
established by philosophy, which defines the genus science under which can be located the
subalternate forms according to their specific differences. Blondel does not use an inductive
method to systematize the sciences like the Cartesians, nor a deductive method like the neo-
Platonists. Instead, he prefers the empirical and dialectical approach of Aristotle, discover-
ing in it the essential principles of his eventual metaphysics. Blondel’s Aristotelianism is
overlooked by the majority of his interpreters, but as Claude Tresmontant remarks in the
opening to Introduction à la métaphysique de Maurice Blondel:
240Blondel, L’Action (1893), 341; Blanchette, 316. Cf. Blondel, L’Action (1893),
388; Blanchette, 357, where Blondel states that science speaks, “in the name of determin-ism.”
241Ibid., xxi; Blanchette, 12.
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Blondel is resolutely opposed to the Cartesian point of departure for philos-ophy. For Blondel, the point of departure for metaphysics is neitherCartesian, nor Platonic but Aristotelian. Blondel proceeds, like Bergson,from the scientific exploration of empirical experience, and he constitutes aphilosophy of nature which is but the point of departure for a metaphysicsof creation as a whole, visible and invisible.242
One might expect that Blondel’s revival Aristotelian notions of science and his reac-
tion against Cartesianism created an unfavorable climate for the reception of Husserlian
phenomenology in France. Husserl, after all, delighted in comparing his methodology to
Descartes’s. Yet, Blondel’s philosophical ambitions were actually mirror images of
Husserl’s; they appeared to be opposite, but in fact they were reflections of the same moti-
vations. For example, in 1931 a vigorous debate concerning the existence of a distinct
Christian philosophy erupted in France when a series of lectures by Émile Bréhier were
published in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale under the title, “Y a-t-il une philoso-
phie chrétienne?”243 Bréhier stirred the waters by contending that it makes no more sense to
speak of a Christian philosophy than of a Christian mathematics or a Christian physics.
Jacques Maritain agreed with Bréhier that philosophy was a purely rational undertaking,
but added that a Christian had certain advantages in exercising reason due to the knowledge
and certainty supplied by faith. Conversely, Etienne Gilson argued on historical grounds
that a unique Christian philosophy had evolved during the Middle Ages and that its content
and fundamental principles were decidedly different than those of the ancient Greek philos-
ophy which Bréhier and other thoroughgoing rationalists took as their model. Against all of
these positions, Blondel defended his own more radical thesis, already outlined in the
Letter of 1896, which combines the problem of a specifically Christian philosophy with the
problem of philosophy conceived generally:
On the one hand, philosophy has never been exactly delineated so far and,therefore, never scientifically constituted: the difference between what it hasbeen and what it is in process of becoming will appear, perhaps in the near
242Tresmontant, Introduction à la métaphysique de Blondel, 9.243Émile Brehier, “Y a-t-il une philosophie chrétienne?,” Revue de métaphysique et
de morale 36 (1931): 131-62. The history of this important has been thoroughly analyzedby A. Renard, “La Querrelle sur la possibilité de la philosophie chrétienne” (PhD thesis,Université de Lille, 1941).
106
future, as great as or greater than (mutatis mutandis) that between physicsbefore and after the sixteenth century, or that between chemistry before andafter the eighteenth century. On the other hand, and with all the more rea-son, there has never been yet, strictly speaking, a Christian philosophy;what goes under that name does not deserve it at all, either from the philo-sophical or the Christian point of view; if there can be one which fully de-serves it, then it is still to be constituted. And the two problems are boundup with one another or are even one problem.244
As Henri de Lubac has commented, whereas “Christian philosophy according to Gilson is
no longer Christian . . . according to Blondel, it is not yet Christian.”245 The rhetoric of
de Lubac’s formulation and Blondel’s own precisely mirror Husserl’s contention in
Philosophy as Rigorous Science that philosophy has always strived toward, but not yet be-
come a science.246 Both philosophers insist upon the scientific ideal for philosophy; the
main difference between them is that Blondel sees the realization of this ideal in Christian
thought whereas Husserl conceives of it in non-religious terms. A similar pattern of echoes
may also be discerned by comparing Blondel’s perspectives with other phenomenological
themes, especially intentionality, intuition and intersubjectivity.
2. Phenomenological Themes: Intentionality, Intuition and Intersubjectivity
According to Husserl, it is a basic fact of consciousness that all consciousness is
consciousness of something. This essential relatedness of consciousness to a transcendent
object of some kind is what Husserl calls intentionality. Likewise for Blondel, it is a basic
fact of the will that all willing expresses a desire for something. Blondel never uses the
term intentionality to describe this phenomenon, although he frequently uses intention with
the ordinary meaning of a preconceived ambition which governs a practical action.
Consequently, one might expect that the notion of essential relatedness insofar as it exists
for Blondel will arise in moral contexts, whereas for Husserl intentionality will emerge
244Blondel, Lettre, 54; Trethowan, 171. See also See Maurice Blondel, Le
Problème de la philosophie catholique (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1932).245Henri de Lubac, “Sur la Philosophie chrétienne. Réflexions à la suite d’un dé-
bat,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 63 (1936), 244-45 (emphasis de Lubac’s).246Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” 73: “I do not say that philosophy is
an imperfect science; I say simply that it is not yet a science at all, that as science it has notyet begun.”
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primarily in conjunction with non-moral or extra-practical concerns. Yet, as in the case of
the scientific ideal of philosophy, the concepts of intention and intentionality in Blondel and
Husserl are more parallel than divergent.
Husserl adapted his notion of intentionality from Brentano, who had in turn revived
the concept from the medieval Scholastics. Among the Scholastics, the term intentio re-
ferred to the likeness or image of an object in the mind as opposed to its real existence.247
Some Scholastics modified the definition to refer to the relation between the mental image
and the real object in the act of knowing rather than the mental content itself. Both ac-
counts, however, presumed that the mental existence of the object or the relational act was
not a real one, and so the Scholastics and later Brentano typically referred to the doctrine as
intentional (or even mental) inexistence. Brentano himself used the term intentional to de-
scribe the fact that all mental phenomena refer to (i.e., intend) objects and moreover that
these objects are included (i.e., are present intentionally) in the mental phenomena them-
selves. Hence for Brentano, “the word intentional is synonymous with immanent and
stands in contrast to transcendent.”248 In borrowing Brentano’s terminology, Husserl pre-
served the basic meaning of relatedness or directedness of mental acts, however he sepa-
rated it from the idea of immanent objectivity. Regarding the intentional object as imma-
nent, according to Husserl, risks confusion on two counts: first, confusion with copy the-
ories of knowledge which view the mind as a box into which objects are put; and secondly,
confusion with properly immanent elements of knowledge, namely sensory data.249
Consequently, Husserl defines an intentional object as a stable meaning content as opposed
to a series or set of phenomenal appearances. Thus for Husserl, intentional objects must be
247For a treatment of the evolution of the notion of intentionality from Scholasticismto Husserl, see Herbert Spiegelberg, “Scholastic Intention and Intentionality According toBrentano and Husserl,” in The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, ed. Linda L. McAlister,trans. Linda L. McAlister and Margarete Schättle (London: Duckworth, 1976), 108-27.
248Spiegelberg, “Scholastic Intention and Intentionality,” 120.249See Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation V, §11; Findlay, 2: 557-60,
and Husserl, Ideas, §88; Gibson, 257-60. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl distin-guishes between the real [real] existence of the object outside consciousness and the real[reell] content of the experience of the object within consciousness. In Ideas, Husserl refersto the reell content as the noema, or nucleus, of experienced meaning.
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seen as transcendent in a special sense. Husserl’s reinterpretation of the notion of inten-
tionality in the Logical Investigations becomes the foundation for his doctrine of
Wesensschauung, or essential intuition in Ideas.
In L’Action, Blondel describes the directedness of the will in terms of Aristotelian
causality. He recognizes the intention [intention] as both the efficient cause of action and its
final cause, in other words as the act of intending as well as the intended object which elic-
its the act.250 Blondel thus incorporates both aspects of the medieval doctrine, although in a
moral rather than epistemological context. He furthermore analyzes how the intention con-
tributes to the constitution of the milieu toward which it directs itself. As with Husserl, this
directedness signifies the exteriorization of what otherwise would remain an immanent in-
tellectual or moral entity. As Blondel explains in his own dialectical terms:
Henceforth the outlook seems reversed; and the movement, which up tonow appeared centripetal, becomes in a way centrifugal. After having ab-sorbed and dominated the entire object of knowledge and all the dynamismof nature, the subject finds himself obliged to go out of himself and tosubmit to a law of detachment, precisely in order not to keep himselfchained to an imperfect form of his own development. It is, it seems, out-side of ourselves that we must seek the perfection of the interior life.251
Is there not a parallel here to Husserl’s special notion of transcendence as a unified meaning
content distinct from the interior flux of sensation? Is it not the same move to break from
the immanence which characterized Brentano’s theory of consciousness, or for that matter
all other forms of psychologism?
While the property of directedness for Blondel pertains to the will and not to the in-
tellect, two observations deserve to be made. First, Blondel’s concept of the will already
incorporates intelligence to a certain degree: the will knows what it wants, it knows how to
pursue it and it knows when it has attained it. The something that it seeks is defined analyt-
ically by Blondel as the equation of the willing will and the willed will. Blondel’s conceives
of the will as rational, not irrational; it would not be even going too far to say that he re-
250Blondel, L’Action (1893), 135; Blanchette, 137.251Ibid., 137; Blanchette, 139.
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gards the will as endowed with intellect.252 This observation aids the interpretation of oth-
erwise arresting passages in L’Action, for instance: “before we can give any content to the
intention, all of nature will be reintergrated into morality.”253 Whereas Husserl would give
morality meaning by founding it on a theory of the intrinsic relatedness of mental acts,
Blondel would give meaning to mental acts and their contents by founding them on a theory
of moral action. Again, the structure of the argument is similar, only the terms are reversed.
The second observation concerns the fact that for Husserl intentionality is a feature not only
of objectifying mental acts but also the full range of non-objectifying experiences, including
emotions like joy and love, hatred and grief, all of which are rooted in volition. Just as
Blondel’s concept of the will incorporates rationality, so Husserl’s concept of rational ac-
tivity also incorporates the functions of the will. In this case, the parallel lines of their re-
spective doctrines display a certain tendency to converge.
In Husserl’s phenomenology, intentionality is linked to intuition. Husserl defines
the intentional object as a unified meaning content that is transcendent to consciousness in
the sense that it is distinguished from immanent sensory data. The intentional object is more
than the sum of its appearances. Husserl calls it an essence or eidos, or following the later
sections of Ideas, a noema. In order to grasp this essence as opposed to mere sensations,
he contends that empirical intuition must be transformed into essential insight
[Wesensschauung]. Nevertheless, “Essential insight is still intuition, just as the eidetic ob-
ject is still an object.”254 In ordinary life these two kinds of intuition, empirical and essen-
tial, are not distinguished. We assume that we grasp the meaning of an object just by taking
a look, but the process is much more involved. In order to isolate and analyze this process,
Husserl developed the phenomenological epoché as a reductive technique in order to sys-
tematically bracket the empirical elements of mental and sensory acts. When Husserl first
introduced the epoché in his 1907 Lectures on the Idea of Phenomenology, he explained
252Pierre Rousselot makes this same observation; see Chapter 3, below.253Blondel, L’Action (1893), 137; Blanchette, 139.254Husserl, Ideas, §3; Gibson, 55 (emphasis Husserl’s).
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that “to each psychic lived process there corresponds through the device of phenomenolog-
ical reduction a pure phenomenon, which exhibits its intrinsic [ immanent] essence (taken
individually) as an absolute datum.”255 In other words, the basic purpose of the epoché is
to bring into focus the intentional essences which are given to consciousness purely and
absolutely through an act of essential insight or intuition. Thus, the phenomenological
epoché and essential intuition go hand in hand for Husserl, the first being a method of clari-
fying what is given through the second.
Is there anything in Blondel’s philosophy which corresponds to the Husserlian no-
tions of essential intuition and the phenomenological epoché? Blondel does not develop a
doctrine of intuition like Husserl. He typically uses the term intuition in the traditional
Kantian sense to refer to sensible intuition, although in some cases he seems committed to
extending the concept. For example, at the beginning of the third part of L’Action where
Blondel analyzes the motives which gave rise to the scientific criticism of sensory experi-
ence, he makes the following remark concerning the range of intuition:
Sensible quality is not the only immediate given of intuition; if it were, itwould vanish, because, being discontinuous, self-sufficient, incomparable,always perfect and always disappeared, it would never be anything morethan a dream without remembrance, without past, present, or future. . . .At issue then here is what in the sensible phenomenon makes it a phe-nomenon, at the same time as it is sensible. Now between these two termsthere is a fundamental opposition that has not been sufficiently taken intoaccount although it is the point of departure for all scientific or philosophicalinvestigation.256
Blondel implies that intuition not only furnishes with sensory data but also something like a
stable meaning content, perhaps even a kind of essential insight. Unfortunately, Blondel
never returns to the problem outlined in the above passage. Yet, in a subsequent section he
makes the following statements which support the extrapolation of his thought in a
Husserlian direction:
255Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen, ed. Walter
Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), 45; available in English as The Idea ofPhenomenology, trans. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: MartinusNijhoff, 1964), 35 (emphasis Husserl’s).
256Blondel, L’Action (1893), 46; Blanchette, 56-57.
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[T]he unity of a synthesis does not consist only of an internal relation of theparts; it is the ideal projection of the whole into a center of perception.257
[W]hat is given as a multiple unity, what is everything at once, could not beperceived except by an internal intuition. And it is even to define the subjec-tive fact to call it the perception of the indivisible unity in irreducible multi-plicity.258
While Blondel never developed an explicit doctrine of intuition like Husserl’s, there is evi-
dence here to suggest that he anticipated his line of reasoning, particularly as it applies to
the constitution of objectivity, a problem which occupied Husserl increasingly during the
later stages of his career.
Blondel ventures on to metaphysical claims which Husserl would never dare articu-
late. He is careful, however, not to affirm metaphysical absolutes prematurely. In order to
maintain rigor in his discourse and to give his demonstrations the character of scientific ne-
cessity, Blondel, like Husserl, practices a kind of methodological epoché with respect to
the being of phenomena. In the Letter, Blondel states that “the method of immanence is
confined to determining the dynamism of our experience,” adding that it must refrain from
making pronouncements on its “subjective or objective significance.”259 This reserve must
be exercised in the interest of science. As Bouillard explains, “by provisionally remaining
neutral regarding the being of the datum, every possibility of contradiction interior to this
datum is eliminated. From now on phenomena are to be taken for what they are: heteroge-
neous and solidary. Philosophy thus assumes the character of scientific description.”260
Yet, whereas Husserl strives for purity in his descriptive methodology, Blondel combines
dialectic with description. For Blondel, the dialectical elimination of contradictory explana-
tions for the appearance of phenomena fulfills the practical function of imaginative variation
or conscious modification in the descriptive approach of Husserl. Blondel’s decision to
follow a dialectical path is not arbitrary. He employs it because he believes it more closely
mirrors the nature of the phenomena themselves. In his words,
257Ibid., 89; Blanchette, 95.258Ibid., 98; Blanchette, 104 (emphasis Blondel’s).259Blondel, Lettre, 41; Trethowan, 159.260Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme , 168; Somerville, 131.
112
To consider the phenomenon as a first given, from which we would onlyhave to draw the notion of a subjective element, would be to reverse themost certain relations. In truth the phenomenon is what it is only in functionof an activity that contributes in engendering it; we perceive only accordingto the very order of its production; and the constituting action of the subjectis essential to it.261
In order to properly describe a phenomenon, an account of its subjective constitution must
be given. Corresponding to the structure of phenomena, this account is necessarily dialecti-
cal and synthetic. Objectivity is founded on the basis of subjectivity, and more specifically,
intersubjectivity.
Following the thread of Blondel’s analyses in the third part of L’Action, a critical
node is reached in the discovery and affirmation of what Blondel calls coaction [coaction].
Coaction refers to the necessary co-involvement of multiple agents in producing a given
solidary action. It stems from the recognition that in order to act, a subject requires the co-
operation of whatever it wishes to act upon, whether an inanimate object or a fellow con-
scious being. Coaction derives on the one hand from the desire of the subject to express it-
self, to expand its volition into another, and on the other hand to recognize the other as
other. “Such are the apparent contradictions of human desires,” Blondel observes: “we will
that others be ourselves and we will that they remain themselves.”262 In our actions we so-
licit the cooperation of other agents while respecting their initiative and independence; nev-
ertheless, we strive toward as intimate a union as possible.263 The fact of coaction points
toward the reality of an intersubjective community, according to Blondel. That community
appears as a living organism, not a dead work. “It is a real society,” Blondel remarks, “and
a single existence in its very multiplicity.”264 Blondel resolves the problem of intersubjec-
tivity on the basis of the dialectical dynamism he discerns in action. From one point of
view, it is possible to examine action on the individual or monadic level, but from a higher
perspective action appears as fundamentally intersubjective. Due to Blondel’s methodologi-
261Blondel, L’Action (1893), 91; Blanchette, 97.262Ibid., 241; Blanchette, 229.263Ibid., 226; Blanchette, 217.264Ibid., 246; Blanchette, 234.
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cal epoché, the individual level is seen first, but at the end of the investigation the higher
levels of synthesis emerge as primary. They prove to be the preconditions for the lower
ones, and not vice versa.
Blondel suggests that his theory of coaction may be read as a gloss on Kant’s
Critique of Practical Reason because it argues that in each of our acts we act as though we
act for all and in all, and whether we realize it or not, all our actions are founded upon the
criterion of universalizability.265 Blondel’s ambition, however, is to go beyond Kant by
way of Leibniz. As Claude Troisfontaines explains in the introduction to Blondel’s Latin
dissertation on Leibniz’s Vinculum substantiale, “The criticism of sensible appearances
leads modern philosophy to idealize reality by transforming the substances into a network
of mental relations.”266 Leibniz accomplishes this transformation by developing a physics
based on the dynamic harmony of non-substantial monads.267 Blondel’s dissertation in-
vestigates action as the substantial, synthetic bond between composed phenomena and their
monadic principles. Yet, while Leibniz was inclined to regard the substantial bond as set of
monadic relations contemplated by the divine intellect, Blondel tries to link his notion of
action directly to the Incarnation. At one point he concludes: “The objective reality of be-
ings is therefore tied to the action of a being who, in seeing, makes what he sees be, and
who, in willing, becomes himself what he knows.”268 For Blondel, the highest level of
intersubjective synthesis, and hence the ground of genuine objectivity, is not simply a har-
monious community of monads, but the Word become Flesh.
Like Blondel, Husserl also takes Leibniz as the point of departure for his investiga-
tion of intersubjectivity. For instance, in the fifth of his Cartesian Meditations, Husserl re-
marks that to “an open plurality of men . . . there naturally corresponds, in transcendental
265Ibid., 230; Blanchette, 220.266Claude Troisfontaines, “Introduction” to Maurice Blondel, Le lien substantiel et
la substance composée d’après Leibniz. Texte Latin (1893), trans. with an introduction byClaude Troisfontaines (Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1972), 141.
267Ibid., 7.268Blondel, L’Action (1893), 459; Blanchette, 419; quoted in Troisfontaines,
“Introduction” to Maurice Blondel, Le Lien substantiel, 137.
114
concreteness, a similarly open community of monads, which we designate as transcenden-
tal intersubjectivity.”269 Husserl attempts to demonstrate the notion of transcendental inter-
subjectivity by considering the constitution of another self within one’s own. In order to
isolate scientifically the sphere of one’s owness, Husserl performs what he terms a tran-
scendental reduction. He then examines how others are constructed within the transcenden-
tally reduced sphere of consciousness through our perceptions of them, meaning princi-
pally the perceptions of their bodies. The pairing of the other’s body with my own and the
distinction of my being here from his being there become the foundation for affirming the
experience of another ego like my own, an alter ego. In this experience I realize that “none
of the appropriated sense specific to an animate organism can become actualized originarily
in my primordial sphere.”270 In this manner the other becomes my first object. Objectivity
is shown to be founded upon intersubjectivity, or more precisely, the interobjectivity of
monads in community. The intermonadic community, in turn, becomes the foundation for
the development of still higher levels of social organization, including the natural and cul-
tural worlds.271 Recapitulating the argument of his fifth Cartesian meditation Husserl ob-
serves:
phenomenological transcendental idealism has presented itself as a mon-adology, which, despite all our deliberate suggestions of Leibniz’s meta-physics, draw its content purely from phenomenological explication of thetranscendental experience laid open by transcendental reduction, accordinglyfrom the most originary evidence, wherein all conceivable evidences mustbe grounded.272
Here Husserl maintains his characteristic reserve with respect to metaphysical affirmations,
but he does not exclude metaphysics as such. In the conclusion to the fifth meditation,
where transcendental phenomenology is fully and systematically developed, Husserl claims
that his philosophy “would be ipso facto the true and genuine universal ontology.”273 This
269Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §56, 158; Cairns, 130 (emphasis Husserl’s).270Ibid., §51, 143; Cairns, 113 (emphasis Husserl’s).271Ibid., §58, 160; Cairns, 132-33.272Ibid., §62, 176-77; Cairns, 150 (emphasis Husserl’s).273Ibid., §64, 181; Cairns, 155 (emphasis Husserl’s).
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universal ontology, in turn, would become “the intrinsically first universe of science
grounded on an absolute foundation”—in other words, a metaphysics.274
Whereas for Blondel reflection upon the problem of intersubjectivity leads to the
foundation of religious truth, for Husserl it leads to the foundation of scientific truth. The
respective goals of the two philosophers are not irreconcilable or incompatible, however.
Both stand for the ideal of necessary knowledge, although intersubjectivity as such does
not emerge as a priori and necessary in Husserl’s view as it does in Blondel’s.
3. Conclusions
The similarities between the critiques of positivist approaches to science mounted
by Blondel and Husserl, as well as the parallels between their respective notions of inten-
tionality, intuition and intersubjectivity, support the hypothesis that Blondel functioned as a
precursor to the French reception of phenomenology. Moreover, the preceding comparison
of their methods and doctrines demonstrates that Blondel’s incipient phenomenology de-
rived largely from Aristoleian inspirations, in contrast to Husserl who consciously pre-
sented the development of his thought as an extension of Cartesianism. This should not be
taken as a sign of incompatibility, however, because one of the fundamental themes of
phenomenology, intentionality, derives from scholastic, and hence Aristotelian, sources.
Bringing together strands of Aristotelianism and Cartesianism and standing between
Blondel and Husserl is the critical philosophy of Kant. Whereas Husserl’s phenomenology
of consciousness may be compared to a critique of cognition like the Critique of Pure
Reason, Blondel’s phenomenology of action is more like the Critique of Practical Reason.
Blondel tries to establish a science of action in order to resolve the foundations of morality,
while Husserl tries to establish a science of consciousness in order to resolve the problem
of knowledge.
For both Blondel and Husserl, philosophy represents a mode of being. In the
words of Jacques Havet, Blondel holds a special place in French philosophy because, “in
274Ibid., §64, 181; Cairns, 155 (emphasis Husserl’s).
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denouncing the insufficiency of purely speculative philosophy, in making philosophy a
way of life and not just a way of seeing, a praxis and not just a theory of the practical, he
renewed the meaning of philosophical activity itself.”275 Meanwhile Husserl renewed the
meaning of philosophical activity through his technique of transcendental reduction. His
later interpreters in France, Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre, especially emphasized
its existential import, due perhaps to the influence of Blondel, who had certainly con-
tributed to the existential tendencies of French thought which began to flourish in the early
1930s. Apropos of Sartre and Blondel, Virgoulay offers the following comparison of their
respective phenomenological ontologies:
The most striking parallels between the two ontologies, otherwise so dis-similar, stems from the conception of the relation between being [l’être] andthe phenomenon [phénomène]. It is remarkable that, without recourse to hiscontemporary Husserl, Blondel had proposed a phenomenology of actionwith a view toward constituting an ontology, what we can call an ontologi-cal phenomenology. The comparison with Sartre is based on a certain num-ber of common points that are absolutely fundamental: the refusal to distin-guish the phenomenon as an appearance and being as a reality in itself; therefusal to situate being beyond the phenomenon (L’Action specifies: beingis inseparable from the integral series of phenomena); the refusal of an ideal-ist conception which reduces being to the phenomenon, to the percipi; andthe affirmation of a transphenomenality which consists in what in the phe-nomenon of being [phénomène d’être] is ontological.276
Virgoulay does not mention, however, that Blondel worked to overcome the Cartesian
tradition from which Sartre and Husserl drew their inspiration. As if addressing Husserl di-
rectly, Blondel once remarked: “Consciousness is not the whole of science, no more than it
is the whole person. And what we must try to do now is to study, no longer phenomena
perceived as objects nor as realities that are quite subjective, but action properly speaking
inasmuch as it sums up the object in the life of the subject and makes the subject live in the
object itself.”277 On the basis of his critique of the Cartesian prioritizing of consciousness
275Jacques Havet, “La Tradition philosophique française entre les deux guerres,” in
L’Activité philosophique en France et aux Etats-Unis, ed. Marvin Farber (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1950), 7.
276René Virgoulay, L’Action de Maurice Blondel, 1893. Relecture pour un cente-naire (Paris: Beauchesne, 1992), 89-90.
277Blondel, L’Action (1893), 141-42; Blanchette, 142-43.
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and reflection upon its acts, and his corresponding elevation of action and coaction,
Blondel stands closer to Levinas than any other of Husserl’s early followers in France.
It is possible that the channels of influence also flowed in the other direction as
well. Certain shifts in Blondel’s thought suggest the influence of thinkers who were in-
spired by Husserlian phenomenology. In the early stages of its development, Blondel’s
conception of his new approach to philosophy remained purely formal. His phenomenol-
ogy was meant to disclose the immanent “logic of action,” as he refers to it in the conclu-
sion to L’Action.278 It was only much later, during the latter half of the 1920s, that Blondel
announced his intention to establish a “science of the concrete”—perhaps under the influ-
ence of phenomenological impulses from Albert Spaïer and Maurice Pradines which were
circulating at the time.279 Although Blondel denied any connection between his thought and
Husserl’s, aspects of his own itinerary betray him.
D. Blondel’s Influence on French Theologians
The influence of Blondel on French theologians is tied to the question of his identity
as a religious thinker: should Blondel be regarded as a theologian or as a philosopher? Did
he mean to speak to theologians as an equal or as an outsider? Did theologians accept him
as one of their own, or was he claimed by philosophers as one of theirs? Exploring these
questions will help to shed light on the manner in which Blondel’s nascent phenomenology
made its way into the French theological milieu.
The Catholic values which Blondel’s Burgundian family instilled in him flourished
in the protected environment of the provinces. A pious child, throughout his adolescence
and young adulthood he struggled over the decision of whether or not to become a priest or
join a religious order—a question which was eventually settled by his appointment to the
278Blondel, L’Action (1893), 470ff.; Blanchette, 427ff. Cf. Bouillard, Blondel et leChristianisme 22; Somerville, 9 (emphasis Bouillard’s).
279Blondel, L’Itinéraire, 45ff., describes his progress “vers une science du concret,science à la fois de l’être et de la pensée, par la méditation de l’action où convergent l’uni-versel et le singulier.” See also the studies by Albert Spaïer, La Pensée concrète. Essai surle symbolisme intellectuel (Paris, 1927) and Maurice Pradines, Le Problème de la sensation(Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1928).
118
University of Lille and his marriage in 1895. Reading through the personal diary he kept
during his university years in Paris, one is struck by the fact that nearly every entry is a
prayer addressed to God. His notes record his spiritual reading, which in addition to the
Bible covered many of the great Christian mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Francis de
Sales and Ignatius of Loyola.280 The language of the Church and her saints became the
language in which Blondel most naturally expressed his thoughts. Even in the midst of his
philosophical works, one frequently encounters passages containing theological vocabulary
or analogies. For example, in defending the value of his method of immanence in the
Letter, Blondel contends,
[I]t is legitimate to show that the development of the will constrains us to theavowal of our insufficiency, leads us to recognize the need of a further gift,gives us the aptitude not to produce or to define but to recognize and to re-ceive it, offers us, in a word, by a sort of prevenient grace, that baptism ofdesire which, presupposing God’s secret touch, is always accessible andnecessary apart from any explicit revelation, and which, even when revela-tion is known, is, as it were, the human sacrament immanent in the divineoperation.281
Blondel’s oeuvre is nothing if not a product of his devotion to Christ. It would seem ap-
propriate, therefore, to regard Blondel as a theologian.
Nevertheless, despite his personal piety and the language in which he liked to couch
his thoughts, Blondel did not consider his own work to be theological or even explicitly
apologetical. Nor did he regard it as a philosophy or phenomenology of religion, since he
was not concerned with religious facts but rather with the formal elements of the religious
question. Instead, he esteemed his own task to be the development of an autonomous reli-
gious philosophy, one that would help to support an apologetics, and in his Letter he de-
scribes it in precisely these terms.282 The respective domains of theology and philosophy,
according to Blondel, must remain distinct and separate. Far from indicting the bent of
280Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 214; Somerville, 169, provides a sum-mary list and discussion.
281Blondel, Lettre, 44-45; Trethowan, 162-63.282Ibid., 40; Trethowan, 158; see also Raymond Saint-Jean, L’Apologétique
philosophique. Blondel 1893-1913 (Paris: Aubier, 1966), especially 229-39 and 421-31,but note: Saint-Jean finds in Blondel both a phenomenology and a philosophy of religion(424-25).
119
modern philosophy toward autonomy, he encouraged it to be even more faithful to the in-
dependence of its principles than it had been in the past.283 But this should not be taken to
mean that Blondel would accept anything like what Pius X condemned under the rubric of
separated philosophies.284 To the contrary, his point was that genuine philosophy neces-
sarily raises the religious problem even if that is not its primary concern. Likewise, the
“rational element of theology” must not be confused with “the rationality of philosophy.”285
Blondel maintained that the proper domain of theology consisted in developing “the rational
system of the faith” and in “showing that the coherence of dogma, considered as such,
forms an organic synthesis and that sacred science is really a science”; adding that,
At a time of confusion and, above all, of religious ignorance, the first dutyof an apologist is to reveal, in all its definitive unity and in all its rich sim-plicity, the logical synthesis of Catholic dogma. Everything else belongs toa different order, must be put on a lower level, and must be handled byother methods and another competence.286
Blondel regarded his own contribution as belonging to this lower order, not for any want
of theological opinions, but because he perceived the urgency of restoring philosophy to its
rightful place through a renewal of its methodology. On occasion, in fact, Blondel did pub-
lish his theological opinions; yet, as noted before, he always did so under a pseudonym.
One might suspect that he adopted the practice in order to avoid becoming implicated in the
Modernist controversy. It is true, after all, that his editor, supporter and erstwhile287 friend
Lucien Laberthonnière was silenced in 1913 and all of his works, including all the issues of
the Annales published after 1905 under his editorship, were placed on the Index. In 1910
Le Sillon, the journal of a newly formed Christian Democratic group staffed by Blondel’s
former students, was condemned by Rome. Yet Blondel’s own writings, although occa-
sionally suspect, were never officially attacked or censured, so it is unlikely that he em-
283Cf. Blondel, Lettre, 69; Trethowan, 184.284Cf. Gerald A. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism. The Internal Evolution of
Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989). 7-8.285Blondel, Lettre, 71; Trethowan, 186.286Ibid., 75; Trethowan, 190.287Their long standing friendship and correspondence finally broke off in 1928 after
continuing disagreements; see Claude Tresmontant, “Epilogue,” in Maurice Blondel andLucien Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (Paris: Seuil, 1961), 361ff.
120
ployed a variety of pseudonyms simply in order to dodge potential threats. No, it seems
rather that he published his theological commentaries pseudonymously in order to not to
detract from the reputation he was trying to establish as a philosopher. He did not want to
risk being labeled an apologist by the philosophical guild of the universities and conse-
quently finding himself ostracized from their ranks, which happened nevertheless.288
Blondel consciously wrote for the professional elite, not for the ordinary Christian.
Still, he retained the hope that the impact of his ideas would be important for common
people, and so he strove to explain his positions as clearly as possible so that they might be
disseminated correctly by those were better placed and better gifted to do so than he. In a
brief memoir composed in 1894, Blondel confessed,
To the degree that I lack the taste or aptitude for exercising influencethrough persuasion or authority, to that extent I desire, through teaching andespecially through my pen, to address those who, situated at the source ofthe movement of ideas, contribute to forming the current of public opinion.It is this kind of influence, not so noticeable at first, not so rapid, not sowidespread that it is my dream to exercise.289
Blondel was frequently misunderstood because he often found himself struggling simulta-
neously between two opposed fronts. For example, in the opening to History and Dogma
he observed:
With every day that passes, the conflict between tendencies which setcatholic against Catholic in every order—social, political, philosophical—isrevealed as sharper and more general. One could almost say that there arenow two quite incompatible ‘Catholic mentalities,’ particularly in France.And that is manifestly abnormal, since there cannot be two Catholicisms.290
On the one hand, Blondel wanted to satisfy liberal Catholic thinkers by taking seriously the
evolution of modern philosophy and the historical crisis in the theological sciences. On the
other hand, like conservative Catholics, he was concerned to maintain the integrity of tradi-
tion and dogma. He later reminisced in L’Itinéraire philosophique, “on the left, they used to
accuse me of not preserving the part played by human person and of supernaturalizing ev-
288Cf. Saint-Jean, L’Apologétique philosophique, 16.289“Mémoire à Monsieur R., prêtre de Saint-Sulpice,” in Blondel, Carnets Intimes,
550-51; also quoted in Dru, Introduction to Blondel, Letter on Apologetics, 16; my transla-tion.
290Blondel, Histoire et Dogme, 150; Dru, 221.
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erything; on the right, they reproached me instead for not preserving the part played by
God and of naturalizing everything, even grace and the supernatural order.”291 Blondel was
caught between philosophers and theologians. He wanted to be accepted by both; fre-
quently however, both found his positions objectionable. Philosophers blamed him for
trying to use philosophy to justify the irrationality of religion. Meanwhile, theologians ac-
cused him of trying to deduce what could only be given through revelation and of deriving
the content of dogma through analytical means apart from faith.292
Being the subject of controversy contributed to the spread of Blondel’s influence.
This was especially the case with respect to neo-Thomist theologians.293 Few paid attention
to the publication of L’Action in 1893, and apart from scattered reviews, generally positive,
it generated little interest in theological quarters. Yet following the publication of the Letter,
Blondel suddenly found his ideas at the center of theological debates. Neo-scholastic
theologians were enraged by it, perceiving that Blondel was attacking their dogmatic edifice
at its foundations, and not without reason. In one place in the Letter Blondel writes:
Thomism seems to many an exact but, if I may so put it, a static account: asa building-up of elements, but one in which our passage from one to an-other remains something external to us; as an inventory, but not as an in-vention capable of justifying advances in thought by the dynamism which itcommunicates. Once a man has entered this system, he is himself assured;and from the center of the fortress he can defend himself against all assaultsand rebut all objections on points of detail. But first he must effect his ownentrance.294
Neo-scholastics like M.-B. Schwalm resented the implicit accusation that their system was
irrelevant to the modern mind.295 Schwalm, in fact, regarded the very attempt to seek a
reconciliation with modern philosophy as evidence that Blondel was simply another neo-
Kantian seeking conditions for the unconditioned. In a scathing review titled, “Les
291Blondel, L’Itinéraire, 52.292See Somerville, Total Commitment, 280-81.293For a summary of neo-Thomist reaction to Blondel see Claude Tresmontant’s
excursus on “Blondel et le Thomisme,” in Introduction à la métaphysique de Blondel, 315-29.
294Blondel, Lettre, 27-8; Trethowan, 146.295M.-B. Schwalm, “Les Illusions de l’idéalisme et leurs dangers pour la foi,”
Revue Thomiste 4 (1896): 415.
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Illusions de l’idéalisme et leurs dangers pour la foi,” Schwalm mounts a counterattack to
show that Blondel’s so-called method of immanence is nothing more than “the Kantian
method pushed to its ultimate phenomenalist consequences,”296 and that, as a result, it fails
to qualify as a genuine philosophical method and accordingly fails to respond to the exi-
gencies of modern thought.
Other theologians, notably of a more Augustinian than scholastic persuasion, took
up Blondel’s defense. Most vocal and most vigorous was Laberthonnière, but others rallied
to the cause of the method of immanence as well: Henri Brémond demonstrated that John
Henry Newman was a forerunner of the method, Johannes Wherlé published a pamphlet
praising its usefulness, and Auguste and Albert Valensin drafted a tactful entry about the
method for the Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique.297 Even the more conserva-
tive Ambroise Gardeil recognized the value of the method of immanence for those who
could not appreciate objective arguments of credibility.298 Their efforts helped keep Blondel
safe from the Modernist purges, but more importantly they assimilated Blondel’s method to
their own, thereby transforming apologetics. As Bouillard observes, “These theologians
and others too numerous to mention here did not restrict themselves to explaining Blondel’s
thought but took inspiration from it and made it bear fruit in their own work. Through them
it penetrated the fields of apologetics and theology.”299 And one might add: even scholastic
theology. A few progressive neo-Thomist theologians found Blondel’s work enlightening,
particularly the young Jesuit Pierre Rousselot.
Rousselot discovered Blondel through his friend Auguste Valensin. Though he
never became of disciple of Blondel’s or even a regular correspondent, he was an attentive
reader of Blondel and he found in the latter’s philosophy inspiration for some of his ideas,
296Schwalm, “Les Illusions de l’idéalisme,” 413; also quoted by Bouillard, Blondel
et le Christianisme, 34; Somerville, 20.297Cf. Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 40; Somerville, 26.298Cf. Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (New York: Corpus, 1971), 209.
Dulles distinguishes between traditional and revisionist approaches to apologetics in thetwentieth century, citing Blondel as chief example of the latter (see pp. 202ff.).
299Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 40-41; Somerville, 26.
123
especially those regarding the role of the will in conceptual knowledge and the dynamism
of intellect in the assent of faith.300 Because Rousselot appropriated some of Blondel’s
phenomenological tendencies, the development of his thought will be given more attention
in the next chapter on theological receptions of phenomenology. For now, however, it is
important to note that the channel of influence flowed in the other direction as well. Blondel
was favorably impressed by Rousselot’s attempt to revive the notion of connatural knowl-
edge in Thomas Aquinas’s epistemology. Blondel read Rousselot’s thesis, The
Intellectualism of Saint Thomas, when it was published in 1908.301 In 1913, Rousselot
sent him copies of his articles on “The Eyes of Faith”302 and that same year Blondel became
the first university professor in France to put Aquinas on the syllabus for the licentiate in
philosophy.303 Around this time Blondel jotted in one of his private notebooks:
If I were to republish my thesis and my first apologetical writings, I wouldhave to be frank: maintaining on the one hand the invariable direction of myeffort which has never ceased following the same pattern, while on the otherhand confessing that, from the point of view of the analysis of ideas, ofterminological expressions and of historical exactitude, I have a lot to cor-rect, to make precise, to complete. Notably, I have found it to be the casethat in contradicting certain neo-Thomists, I worked for the restitution of theoriginal and deep meaning of saint Thomas without my having been awareof it. Thus I must aim not at opposing, but in harmonizing my thought withthat which is most essential in the Angelic Doctor’s teaching on knowledge,action and being.304
Rousselot certainly helped Blondel better understand and appreciate the sources of scholas-
tic thought. Yet already in the Letter one encounters some praise for scholasticism. At one
point Blondel refers to it as “the most authentic organization of the truths which the Church
has in her keeping,” adding that “nothing could be more opportune for the healing of men’s
300Manuel Ossa, “Blondel et Rousselot: Points de vue sur l’acte de foi,” Recherchesde science religieuse 53 (1965): 189 [525].
301Ossa, “Blondel et Rousselot,” 198 [534]; cf. Pierre Rousselot, L’Intellectualismede Saint Thomas (Paris: Beauchesne, 1924); available as The Intellectualism of St.Thomas, trans. James E. O’Mahoney (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1932).
302Frederick J. D. Scott, “Maurice Blondel and Pierre Rousselot,” The NewScholasticism 36 (1962): 346; Pierre Rousselot, “Les Yeux de la foi,” Recherches de sci-ence religieuse 1 (1910): 241-59, 444-75; available in English as The Eyes of Faith, trans.Joseph Donceel with an introduction by John M. McDermott (New York: FordhamUniversity Press, 1990).
303Tresmontant, Introduction à la métaphysique de Blondel, 325.304Ibid., 325-26.
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minds than the setting forth of such a doctrine of apologetic teaching, presented in all its
purity and with all the candor which belongs to its supra-philosophical character.”305 In
this same context Blondel explains that he criticizes scholasticism only in order to extol its
virtues more purely and with a clearer conscience. Blondel’s goal, it would seem, was not
to destroy neo-Thomist theology and substitute a new philosophy in its place, but rather to
revitalize it through a distinct approach.
Blondel continued to have a hard time gaining acceptance among theologians, how-
ever. “The bill of complaints against Blondel was a lengthy one,” Bouillard remarks, “The
main objections concerned the value of knowledge and the gratuity of the supernatural.”306
Even after the publication in 1934 of La Pensée, in which Blondel tried to remedy his posi-
tion with respect to neo-Thomism, strict neo-scholastics like Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
and Joseph de Tonquédec remained critical.307 Jacques Maritain, too, maintained a disap-
proving stance toward Blondel. In a highly critical essay published as part of the 1926 vol-
ume Réflexions sur l’intelligence, Maritain charges Blondel with confusing the natural ap-
petite of the intellect for knowledge of the real with the supernatural desire of faith for spiri-
tual union with God. On the one hand Blondel brings the Church’s teaching about the cer-
tainty of natural knowledge into question while on the other he renders revealed doctrine
superfluous. In the course of the essay Maritain alludes sarcastically to the “extremely
improbable hypothesis” that Blondel’s philosophy would give rise to a new school of
theology.308
That was precisely what was about to happen. Following the condemnation of
L’Action française that same year, viewpoints which had been held suspect during the anti-
Modernist years were revisited with openness and appreciation. Blondel’s stock rose con-
305Blondel, Lettre, 77; Trethowan, 191-92.306Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 34; Somerville, 20.307Cf. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “La Théologie et la vie de la foi,” Revue
Thomiste (1935): 492-514; Joseph de Tonquedec, Deux Études sur La Pensée de M.Maurice Blondel (Paris: Beauchesne, 1936).
308Jacques Maritain, Réflexions sur l'intelligence (Paris: Nouvelle LibrairieNationale, 1926), 108; also quoted in Dru, “Introduction” to Blondel, Letter onApologetics, 13.
125
siderably during this fertile period and the spread of his influence was fueled less by con-
troversy than by curiosity. The Jesuit theologian Joseph Maréchal is a prime example. The
title of his famous Le Point de départ de la métaphysique is probably an allusion to
Blondel’s “Le Point de départ de la recherche philosophique,” published in 1906 in
Annales de philosophie chrétienne. Maréchal saw in L’Action a precursor of his own at-
tempt to go beyond Kant. Moreover, he pointed out how Blondel’s assumptions regarding
the finality of action approached those of Aquinas concerning the finality of the intellect.309
In a 1930 essay Maréchal proposed to integrate the dynamism of Blondel’s dialectic of the
will with the descriptive power of Husserl’s phenomenological logic in an attempt to renew
scholastic theology.310 Maréchal’s role in the theological reception of phenomenology will
be discussed in Chapter 3, but it is appropriate to note here that from these notions flowed
the stream of transcendental Thomism. It nourished thinkers like Karl Rahner and Bernard
Lonergan, so important for the theology of Vatican II.
Blondel was a tributary feeding that stream, and he deserves credit for influencing
the course of twentieth-century theology both in France and beyond. Other French theolo-
gians from the Vatican II generation who were marked by Blondel’s thought include Henri
de Lubac and Teilhard de Chardin; the latter, commenting upon Blondel’s ideas, once re-
marked that “they struck a note of perfect resonance with my own most vital thoughts.”311
309Albert Milet, “Les ‘Cahiers’ du P. Maréchal. Sources doctrinales et influence
subies,” Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 43 (1940-45): 247, cites the following re-mark about Blondel found in one of Maréchal’s notebooks: “En soulignant mieux queKant, l’action du sujet connaissant dans la constitution de phénomène, il avait permis à lamétaphysique de réintégrer la place qu’elle occupait jadis au coeur de l’épistémologie avantqu’un formalisme statique ne l’en eût chassée.” For Maréchal’s rapprochement of Blondeland Aquinas see pp. 242-43.
310See Joseph Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” inPhilosophia Perennis. Abhandlungen zu ihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. Fritz-Joachim Von Rintelen (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1930), 377-400. Maréchal, 400, con-cludes: “la notion critique d’évidence nous permettrait d’utiliser sans scrupule lesrigoureuses analyses de M. Husserl . . . sans laisser d’emprunter à M. Blondel quelquesvues pénétrantes du dynamisme sous-jacent à la pensée formelle. L’union de ces deuxpoints de vue, sur la base éprouvée de la tradition scolastique, se montrerait probablementféconde.”
311Letter of Teilhard de Chardin to Auguste Valensin, 29 December 1919, in Henride Lubac, ed., Blondel et Teilhard de Chardin. Correspondance Commentée (Paris:Beauchesne, 1965), 42; available in English as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Maurice
126
Perhaps the theologian who did the most to make Blondel a vital part of pre-conciliar theol-
ogy was another Jesuit, Henri Bouillard. His Blondel and Christianity has been cited many
times in this section and will be cited once more in order to sum up Blondel’s theological
legacy: “His real contribution,” Bouillard writes of Blondel, “was to highlight the sense in
which Christianity has a meaning for man so that there is always room for moving toward a
Christian view of the world. By clarifying the meaning of revelation, he suggested to the-
ology a means for its own deepening and interiorization, and this in turn was a reminder of
the true role of apologetics, which is to make this meaning manifest.”312
IV. Conclusion: Bergson and Blondel as Precursors to theReception of Husserlian Phenomenology in France
Bergson first sketched out his insights into lived duration and intuition in his Essay
on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. The date of its publication, 1889, may be taken
as the symbolic beginning of a phenomenological turn in French thought. French posi-
tivism, idealism and spiritualism all played their roles in preparing this new direction, but
only with Bergson did it truly come into being.
In other respects as well, 1889 represented an opening toward a new future in
France. It was the year of the Paris Exhibition; the Eiffel Tower was constructed and for
the first time the city was illuminated by electricity. One hundred years after the French
Revolution, 1889 marked a renewal of the ideals of progress, freedom, philosophical lib-
eralism and secularism. Though tranquil by comparison to the cultural transformation a
century earlier, it was nonetheless a period of agitation, confusion and controversy. Yet in
the sobriety that resulted from the war of 1914-1918, the fundamental changes that had
been taking place gradually came to light:
The decades astride of 1900 have, it is true, a fin de siècle air about them,but the decadence of la belle époque was simply the negative side, as itwere, of a renaissance in all the intellectual and cultural spheres. Much thesame thing is true of the political sphere: the frivolous fanaticism of the
Blondel: Correspondence, trans. William Whitman (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967),46.
312Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 44; Somerville, 29.
127
Dreyfus Affair conceals a profound change, la révolution dreyfusienne; justas in the religious sphere the fanatical controversies and authoritarian con-demnations obscure the fact that Catholicism was renewing itself fromwithin. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the cultural renaissancewas that it embraced a number of Catholics—no longer in the familiar roleof eccentrics and reactionaries, but as contributors to the general ferment ofideas and forms, men whose work was not only brilliant and arresting, butfertile for the future.313
Blondel was one such brilliant and fertile mind. Bergson, while never baptized into the
faith, was throughout his life a Catholic sympathizer whose philosophy, moreover, in-
spired many prominent Catholics intellectuals from Le Roy to Péguy to Maritain. Both
Bergson and Blondel shaped French thought definitively and prepared it for the reception
of the phenomenological movement.
It was not until relatively recently that the contributions of Bergson and Blondel to
the reception of phenomenology in France have begun to be recognized and appreciated. In
the case of Blondel, it was the Jesuit Henri Bouillard who first drew explicit connections
between Blondel and phenomenology in his book Blondel and Christianity published in
1960. His early proposals in this direction have been more recently reinforced by Claude
Troisfontaines and René Virgoulay. With the respect to Bergson, the testimonials are
scarcer, though some, such as Jean Héring, asserted Bergson’s importance to the French
reception of Husserl early on. In his history of phenomenological movement, Herbert
Spiegelberg was led to observe that in France phenomenology was perceived as
both less and more than a German version of Bergsonian philosophy; less:for it was not committed to Bergson’s metaphysical use of intuition nor,more specifically, to his metaphysics of creative evolution; more: for it didnot share Bergson’s anti-intellectualism and his hostility to the analytic ap-proach including his strictures on mathematics in particular. Moreover, itallowed for a specific intuition of general essences that came very close toPlatonism, which Bergson had always repudiated. Thus phenomenologycould easily pass for a liberalized Bergsonianism.314
Yet in order to buttress the thesis that the French reception of Husserl depended on
the precursory roles played by Bergson and Blondel, more must be done than to cite a few,
albeit notable, scholars who favor the position and to demonstrate points of contact be-
313Dru, Introduction to Blondel, Letter on Apologetics, 17.314Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 429.
128
tween the philosophies of Bergson and Blondel and Husserlian phenomenology. An expla-
nation must be offered for why more connections were not made sooner. One obvious rea-
son is that neither Bergson nor Blondel associated their philosophies with Husserl’s. Both
had formed their positions over several decades without any knowledge of the German
phenomenological movement. As the next chapter will demonstrate, Husserl was almost
completely unknown in France prior to the mid-1920s, and even then it took several more
years before his doctrines were presented accurately and in any detail. Furthermore, when
Bergson and Blondel did learn of Husserl, neither acknowledged any affinity with him.
Bergson completely ignored Husserl while Blondel implicitly criticized his notion of pure
phenomenology. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that Bergson and Blondel
likewise ignored or criticized each other’s work. Blondel claims that he only read
Bergson’s Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness after he had defended his own
thesis. Although he confessed finding some resonances there, Bergson’s doctrines seemed
to him to spring from a different inspiration.315 Bergson meanwhile did not feel compelled
comment about Blondel’s work, and so characteristically chose to remain silent about that
which he could not praise. The two philosophers guarded their independence and defended
their originality, and for the most part their strategy worked well. Few dared to relate their
doctrines during their lifetimes, let alone venture any comparisons of their approaches with
foreign philosophies such as Husserl’s—Jean Héring being a singular and notable excep-
tion.
On the other hand, another reason why connections between Bergsonism,
Blondelianism and Husserlian phenomenology may not have been noted earlier is that the
315Blondel, L’Itinéraire philosophique, 23-24: “Quant à m’inspirer de Bergson, jel’ai pu d’autant moins que je n’avais pas lu une ligne de lui avant d’achever et de soutenirma thèse. Après 1893, c’est avec un vif plaisir que j’ai goûté la merveilleuse imagerie duphilosophe-poète de l’élan vital . . . Toutefois, si la part critique est souvent belle et fé-conde (quoique sans doute autrement que je ne le souhaiterais), toute la part positive sedéroule en un plan qui me semble finalement intenable. Aussi les mot mêmes que nousemployons volontiers l’un et l’autre, tels que vie, action, intelligence, etc., me semblentchez lui (si j’ose m’exprimer de façon si peu pertinente) déracinés, désaxés et décapités, aupoint que la ‘durée pure’ et ‘l’évolution créatrice’ n’ont pu, après coup, que m’aider àprender davantage conscience d’une inspiration totalement divergente.”
129
similarities may have appeared so obvious at the time that no one felt it necessary to write
them down. In the 1930s it was too early to write a history of Bergsonianism or
Blondelianism, let alone a history of the reception of phenomenology. It was not even evi-
dent until the after the Second World War that phenomenology would actually take root in
France, consequently there was little reason before then to reflect at length upon its relation
to the major currents in French philosophy. One of the first to do so besides Héring was
Gaston Berger, a self-styled phenomenologist, who wrote in 1943:
Husserl’s disciples frequently stressed the liberating quality of their mas-ter’s seminars. But what really “bowled them over” (as Héring wrote) wasthe “unprecedented atmosphere of solidity which his philosophical teachingbreathed.” It was the forsaking of words and systems in order to attend “tothe things themselves,” renouncing, as did Blondel for entirely differentreasons, the purely fiduciary value of concepts; breaking away, as didBergson, from the prestige of language; demolishing “constructions” and“syntheses” not to replace them with new structures but in order to escapefrom formulas, to go beyond the methods and prescriptions and to return,with this dearly bought simplicity, to the genuine givens [véritables don-nées].316
It was apparently enough for Berger to simply gesture toward Bergson and Blondel in or-
der to bring the similarities between their approaches and Husserl’s into the mind of his
readers. Thus, there is good reason to assume that the affinities were generally recognized
and therefore did not need to be stated. There is also the matter of national pride: as a recip-
ient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928, one of only a handful of philosophers to be
awarded the honor, Bergson was a kind of national hero and symbol of the greatness of
French raisonnement. To compare him to an obscure foreign academic—and a German one
at that—would entail the denigration of his cultural status. The same would apply to
Blondel albeit to a lesser degree.
A more substantial reason why Bergson and Blondel were not explicitly associated
with the reception of the phenomenological movement in France, however, is that both
distanced themselves from the dominant Cartesianism of French academic philosophy
whereas Husserl tried hard to link himself to it. The next chapter will show how Husserl,
316Gaston Berger, “Bergson et Husserl,” in Henri Bergson, ed. Albert Béguin andPierre Thévenaz (Paris: Éditions de la Baconnière, 1943), 259.
130
in the introductory lectures to phenomenology which he presented at the Sorbonne in 1929,
deliberately cast his philosophy in the framework of Cartesian methodical doubt. By con-
trast, Bergson and Blondel are both resolutely anti-Cartesian, although in different ways
and for different reasons. Contrary to the Cartesian viewpoint which grants primacy to
consciousness and thought, Bergson’s philosophy is centered upon the élan vital, the prin-
ciple of life in nature. Whereas Cartesianism tends toward the thesis that nature is a con-
struction of consciousness, Bergsonism is founded on the notion that consciousness is a
construction of nature. Likewise Blondel’s philosophy can be called a philosophy of nature
because, according to Jean École,
counter to the current of modern philosophy, which, since Descartes andKant, has been a philosophy of the cogito, it is situated in the wake of thephilosophy which, issuing from Aristotle and developed by the scholastics,held sway until the seventeenth century. Now unquestionably this is a pointwhich merits attention, for, besides those who hold to the Thomist tradition,there are not many modern philosophers, especially in France, who havebroken so radically with the psycho-metaphysical tradition inaugurated bythe Cartesian cogito.317
Blondel is not a philosopher of thought but of action. “The center of philosophy must be
shifted to action, because that is also where the center of life may be found,” he argues in
the opening pages of his thesis on the subject.318 Bergson, too, recognizes that all thought
is oriented to action, whether actually or virtually.319 Husserl, on the other hand, was not
317École, Métaphysique de l’être, 197. École’s study appeared to late for
Tresmontant to discuss it in his Introduction à la métaphysique de Maurice Blondel, how-ever he quotes with approval several paragraphs from this section (see pp. 328-29).
318Blondel, L’Action (1893), xxii ; cf. Blanchette, 13 (my translation).319See Henri Bergson, “L’Ame et le Corps” (Conférence faite à Foi et Vie, le 28
avril 1912) in Bergson, Oeuvres, 850. This not to ignore the fact that there are also impor-tant differences between Bergson and Blondel with regard to the meaning of action:“Notons à ce propos, une différence radicale entre Blondel et Bergson. Ce dernier pré-tendait que toute action déforme le réel pour des motifs utilitaires et il demandait, en con-séquence, de revenir à une intuition originaire. Jamais Blondel n’a souscrit à ce propos car,pour lui, c’est en s’adaptant toujours mieux aux phénomènes que l’agent finit par enpercevoir et en assimiler la reálité, en sorte que l’intuition n’est pas à chercher dans unpassé perdu mais dans un avenir à conquérir” (Claude Troisfontaines, “L’Approchephénoménologique de l’être selon Maurice Blondel,” in Maurice Blondel: Une Dramatiquede la modernité. Actes du colloque Maurice Blondel, Aix-en-Provence, mars 1989, ed.Dominique Folscheid (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1990), 75).
131
directly concerned with action or the practical moral life.320 Hence, although Bergson,
Blondel and Husserl were all interested in describing lived experience, their approaches is-
sue from different sets of assumptions. This situation, too, helps to explain why explicit
connections between Bergson and Blondel and the advent of phenomenology in France
were made only infrequently at first.
As the next chapter will demonstrate, Husserl was successful in his campaign to
show that phenomenology represented a continuation of the Cartesian tradition, especially
among the younger generation of French philosophers: although Léon Brunschvicg could
praise his reading of Descartes, it would take a Jean-Paul Sartre to get really excited about
his unique perspectives on consciousness. The subsequent association of phenomenology
with Cartesian-based philosophies in France tended to obscure or override its affinities with
the philosophies of Bergson and Blondel, which were ironically what prepared for and
anticipated the initial French encounters with Husserl. This was not the case, however, for
all groups. Chapter 3 will show that French religious thinkers for the most part related to
Husserlian phenomenology through Bergson and Blondel rather than through interpreta-
tions offered by mainstream Cartesian rationalist and neo-Kantian philosophers. In fact, the
philosophical and theological receptions of phenomenology in France proceeded more or
less independently, hence the rationale for the separate treatment given to each in the
subsequent chapters.
320Likewise Max Scheler, who was the first and best known German phenomenol-
ogist in France for many years, rejected all voluntarist positions and philosophies of action(See Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 1930), 74, and Chapter 2, below).
134
CHAPTER 2
FOUR PHASES IN THE RECEPTION OF PHENOMENOLOGY
IN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY, 1910-1939
This chapter distinguishes four phases in the philosophical reception of phe-
nomenology between 1910 and 1939, the period which Herbert Spiegelberg has distin-
guished as the “receptive phase” of the French phenomenological movement.1 The precise
dates correspond to the first mention of Husserl’s work in a French publication in 1910 and
the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The terminus ad quem represents not only a political
milestone, but a milestone in the history of philosophy as well. Edmund Husserl died in
April 1938. By the end of that year, his voluminous store of unpublished manuscripts had
been safely evacuated from Nazi Germany, and in 1939 the Husserl Archives were estab-
lished at the Catholic University of Louvain.2 The easy access which this permitted French
researchers to Husserl’s writings augmented the beginning of what Spiegelberg has called
the “productive phase” in the French reception of phenomenology which is marked by the
rise of phenomenological existentialism after 1940.3 This chapter will demonstrate that
between 1910 and 1939 French philosophers evolved from a state of general ignorance of
and disregard for German phenomenologists through increasingly complete and accurate
understandings of their philosophical approaches to critical engagement with those
approaches.
1Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 426-27; cf. 431-35.2For a detailed account of the rescue Husserl’s papers from Nazi Germany and the
establishment of the Husserl Archives see Herman Leo Van Breda, “Le Sauvetage del’héritage husserlien,” Husserl et la pensée moderne, ed. H. L. Van Breda (The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1959), 1-41.
3Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 436-40.
135
I . Léon Noël and Victor Delbos
Husserl’s Logical Investigations were widely discussed in Germany following their
publication in 1900-1901. Not until a decade later, however, did they receive any critical
attention in French-speaking circles, and even then few took notice of his work. Two ex-
ceptions were Léon Noël and Victor Delbos.
A. Léon Noël
Credit for the first recognition of Husserl in a French-language publication goes to a
Belgian Thomist, Monsignor Léon Noël (1878-1955), who served as Director of the
Institut Supérieur de Philosophie at the Catholic University of Louvain. In a 1910 article
for the Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie, the neo-scholastic organ of that university,
Noël discusses Husserl’s work in the context of recent efforts in Germany and Austria to
restore objective foundations to the discipline of logic.4 At the time psychologizing view-
points were threatening to undermine these foundations together with the claims to objec-
tive scientific truths which they were meant to support. Since Christian dogma and theol-
ogy were perceived by neo-scholastics to exist within a similar realism, Noël finds in
Husserl a tactical ally.5
Psychologism was rooted in the assumption that thought is conditioned by mental
processes and that these, in turn, are conditioned by the physical state of thinker—what to-
day would be studied by neurologists. According to Noël, psychologism had its modern
origins in Hume and was advanced by contemporary thinkers like John Stuart Mill. Even
Kant may be interpreted in a psychologistic sense, Noël observes, and though he person-
ally rejects such a view, he recognizes that Kant’s early followers gave his transcendental
theory of logic metaphysical significance, thus laying the groundwork for psychologism on
the continent.6 Noël next criticizes recent experimental psychologists such as Wilhelm
4Léon Noël, “Les Frontières de la logique,” Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie17 (1910): 211-33.
5Noël refrains, however, from commenting on the theological implications ofHusserl’s new logic, hence the treatment of his article here rather than in Chapters 3 and 4.
6Ibid., 223-24.
136
Wundt and Ernst Mach for their attempts to link logic to biology. Amid the misguided ef-
forts of experimental psychology, Noël nonetheless finds cause for hope. He discerns a
new movement, “which tends to recognize the existence of processes of thought distinct
from processes of association, comprising elements which go beyond the sensible.”7
Leading this return to an objectivist logic are Carl Stumpf and his student and eventual col-
league at Halle, Edmund Husserl, whom Noël identifies as a convert from psychologism
and “perhaps the principle protagonist” of the budding movement.8
Noël devotes the last portion of his essay to a discussion of the theory of knowl-
edge contained in Husserl’s Logical Investigations. The most crucial aspect of this theory
for Noël is that it shows that evidence is not a feeling accessory to a judgment, but rather
the consciousness of an adequation between a thought and its intentional object. When an
intention is filled with intuition, a lived experience of adequation between thought and ob-
ject results; that experience is evidence, and the adequation itself truth.9 Truth is thus liber-
ated from the confines of a psychologistically interpreted subjectivity by a new affirmation
of realist epistemology. Noël concludes with avowed satisfaction that his fellow neo-
scholastic readers, “will recognize that there is not a very great distance between Husserl’s
analysis and the theory of objective truth expounded so many times in this review.”10 In
this same context, he also points out Husserl’s awareness of the medieval ancestry of his
notion of intentionality.11 In short, Noël does all he can to prove to his colleagues that the
attempt to revive an objective logic, or “phenomenology” as Husserl prefers to call it, is a
“movement whose progress on many sides is parallel to our own.”12
7Ibid., 225.8Ibid., 226.9Ibid., 230-31. Cf. Husserl, Logical Investigations, “Prolegomena to Pure Logic,”
§§49-51; Findlay, 1: 187-96; and Investigation VI, Chapter 5, “The Idea of Adequation.Self-evidence and Truth,” §§36-39; Findlay, 2: 760-70.
10Noël, “Les Frontières de la logique,” 231-32.11Noël, 232, quotes Husserl, Logical Investigations, “Prolegomena to Pure Logic,”
§15; Findlay, 1: 80.12Noël, “Les Frontières de la logique,” 232.
137
B. Vict or Delbos
In 1910, the same year that Noël published his essay on the “Frontiers of Logic,”
Victor Delbos (1862-1916), a historian of philosophy at the Sorbonne, was invited to con-
tribute a paper to a lecture series at the École des Hautes Études Sociales organized around
the theme of contemporary German philosophy.13 Other papers delivered during the
semester include a survey of Wilhelm Dilthey and the historicist school by a former stu-
dent, Bernard Groethuysen (whom we will meet again later in this chapter), an essay on the
religious philosophy of Rudolf Eucken by J. Benrubi and an exposition by Georges
Dwelshauvers of experimental psychology and its principal practitioner, Wilhelm Wundt.
This last paper especially provided a context for Delbos’s remarks on “Husserl’s Critique
of Psychologism and His Conception of a Pure Logic.”
Like Noël, Delbos begins his essay with a survey of psychologism, noting its ori-
gin among the British empiricists. Against it, however, he opposes the parallel history of
logicism, a movement he defines as an attempt to constitute objectivity on rational grounds
apart from psychology. The neo-Kantians, like Hermann Cohen, belong to this group, as
does Husserl on account of his formalizing tendencies.14 Yet Delbos is clear in pointing out
that Husserl was not a disciple of Cohen, but rather of Franz Brentano, whom he regards
as the principle representative of psychologism. Delbos thus sets the stage for portraying
13See Charles Andler, ed., “Préface” to La Philosophie allemande au XIXe siècle
(Paris: Alcan, 1912). Delbos’s essay, “Husserl, sa critique du psychologisme et sa con-ception d’une logique pure,” first published in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale 19(1911): 685-98, is reprinted in Andler’s volume, pp. 25-42. For the purposes of citation,the pagination of the original publication will be followed below.
14Delbos, “Husserl,” 686. Cf. Wilhelm Wundt, “Psychologismus und Logi-zismus,” in Kleinen Schriften (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1910), 1: 511-634. Wundt(1832-1920) was the prominent founder of experimental psychology. In this late article, heargues against both psychologism and logicism, yet his attack upon the latter is especiallyvehement. If Delbos followed Wundt in regarding Husserl’s work as an example oflogicism, he did so with evidently higher esteem, although he reiterates some of Wundt’scriticisms (see below, “Delbos’s Appraisal of Husserl). For Husserl’s comments onWundt’s essay, see Edmund Husserl, Introduction to the Logical Inv estigations . A Draft ofa Preface to the Logical Investigations (1913)., ed. Eugen Fink, trans. with introductionsby Philip J. Bossert and Curtis H. Peters (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), 52-55.
138
Husserl’s conversion from the psychologism of his mentor to a new conception of an ob-
jective logic.
In presenting Husserl’s critique of psychologism, Delbos finds it convenient to
summarize Husserl’s response to its three main presuppositions: first, that the laws govern-
ing psychic life must be drawn from it; second, that logic takes its matter from the psycho-
logical operations of representation, judgment, etc.; and third, that being in evidence of the
truth of a judgment merely reflects the experience of a harmonious psychic state. Delbos
demonstrates that Husserl’s reply in each case consists in distinguishing pure logic from
practical science and in pointing out the ideal conditions upon which the latter necessarily
rests. For Husserl, “the essential problem of logic is therefore the problem concerning the
conditions for the possibility of science in general, the possibility of theory and of deduc-
tive unity.”15 Thus far Delbos makes Husserl appear no different from the neo-Kantians,
yet he goes on to show how Husserl seeks a still higher order of logical research, aiming at
a theory of the diverse possible forms of all theory, a grand “theory of theories.”16 In the
closing pages of his essay, Delbos offers a few remarks about Husserl’s conception of
phenomenology as found in the second volume of the Logical Investigations. As a theory
of consciousness, he observes that phenomenology is related to psychology and pure logic
and that ideally it should serve as an intermediary and foundation for both. Delbos warns,
however, that Husserl risks compromising this balance through an excessively rigid for-
malism and an overuse of his mathematical mind with the result that phenomenology could
usurp the role of psychology altogether, cutting off thought from the world of experience.
C. Noël and Delbos as Interpreters of Phenomenology
Both Noël and Delbos devote most of their attention to Husserl’s critique of psy-
chologism, which comprises the first volume of the Logical Investigations. They expend
comparatively little energy on the second volume, where Husserl lays the foundations for a
15Delbos, “Husserl,” 695.16Ibid., 696.
139
phenomenological investigation of knowledge. The neglect on the part of Noël is not sur-
prising considering that his analysis is motivated by what resources Husserl may poten-
tially have to offer neo-scholasticism in its own battles against psychologism and subjec-
tivism. With regard to Delbos, some explanation may be found, perhaps, in the late nine-
teenth-century French legacy of positivism. Husserl’s quest for a “theory of theories” must
have appeared very abstract, a suspicion compounded by Husserl’s abstruse prose—fac-
tors which may well account for the absence of any discussion of Husserl in French publi-
cations before this time. Delbos himself complained about Husserl’s difficult style, never-
theless he did perceive Husserl’s concern to ground his investigations upon empirical ob-
servations. Thus he ventures at one point—perhaps out of a genuine grasp of Husserl’s
intentions, perhaps out of a desire to placate French sensibilities, or both—that “in his pur-
suit of phenomenology Husserl places a sort of positivism at the base of his rationalism.”17
A more obvious reason why Noël and Delbos did not say more about Husserl’s
phenomenology is that the only published material, and therefore only material they had at
their disposal, were the Logical Investigations and Husserl’s earlier volume on the
Philosophy of Arithmetic,18 and the only theme common to both works is psychologism
and its critique. Apparently neither Noël nor Delbos had contacts among Husserl’s stu-
dents, for neither shows knowledge of the fuller development Husserl had given phe-
nomenology in the decade following the publication of the second volume of Logical
Investigations in 1901. Neither mentions, for instance, the method of phenomenological
reduction which Husserl introduced in his Göttingen lectures of 1907.19 Thus, while we
may hold Noël and Delbos accountable for their biases in reading Husserl’s earlier works,
we cannot blame them for failing to divine the central role Husserl would eventually give
his phenomenology.
17Ibid., 698.18Neither Noël nor Delbos cites any of the half dozen or so articles that Husserl
published between 1891-1900.19Translated by William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian as Edmund Husserl,
The Idea of Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964).
140
The slight attention which Noël and Delbos do give to Husserl’s incipient phe-
nomenology in the Logical Investigations are therefore all the more interesting, and merit
comparison. Noël acknowledges Husserl’s use of the term phenomenology to identify a
neutral science preparatory to both logic and psychology whose method consists in the
analysis of the events [faits] of consciousness. Yet, while preferring Husserl’s terminology
for its clarity, Noël does not find his theory of knowledge substantially different from what
Stumpf still referred to as descriptive psychology.20 Delbos likewise notes Husserl’s at-
tempt to establish a neutral ground between psychology and pure logic, but he goes further
in discerning a certain uniqueness in Husserl’s program. The principal task of phe-
nomenology, he observes, consists in tracing and analyzing the operations of conscious-
ness as grounds for the possibility of logical and psychological laws.21 But what would
keep such a task from collapsing once again into psychologism? Delbos apparently grasps,
though he does not say so explicitly, that Husserl is in fact seeking a third concept of con-
sciousness distinct from both the empirical ego of psychologism and the purely appercep-
tive ego posited by the neo-Kantians.22 This third concept of consciousness is precisely
what Husserl tries to clarify through his discussion of intentionality. While Husserl later
expressly abandons the particular position outlined in the fifth Logical Investigation,23 the
quest for a transcendental level of consciousness as the ground of intentional acts remains
20Noël does not recognize Stumpf’s independent use of the term phenomenology
after 1904 to designate the initial phase of all scientific research, namely the description, byexperimental means or otherwise, of the contents of experience. See Spiegelberg, Phe-nomenological Movement, 51-65. Regarding Husserl’s own distinction of phenomenologyfrom descriptive psychology compare “Note 3” in the first and second editions of theLogical Investigations, “Introduction to Volume II,” §6; Findlay, 1: 262.
21Delbos, “Husserl,” 697. Delbos’s complete definition of phenomenology, whichwas subsequently included in the original edition of André Lalande’s Vocabulaire techniqueet critique de la philosophie which appeared in fascicles in the Bulletin de la Société fran-çaise de la Philosophie from 1902-1923 reads as follows: “it is a description and an analy-sis of these events which are representation, judgment and knowledge; it must occupy aneutral domain between psychology, which aims at the causal and genetic explication ofthese events, and pure logic, which is concerned with ideal laws; but above all it applies tofollowing and analyzing the operations which permit these laws to be posed.”
22See Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation V, §8; Findlay, 2: 550.23See Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation V, §8, “Additional Note to the
Second Edition”; Findlay, 2: 551.
141
one of the chief aims of his phenomenology, and it is to Delbos’s credit to have made some
preliminary observation of this fact. Finally, both Delbos and Noël recognize that Husserl’s
doctrine of intentionality stems from some form of scholasticism. Yet neither of them re-
mark how differently Husserl employs the term, not only from medieval usage, but even
from Brentano, who was Husserl’s direct inspiration.24 In Noël’s case, the oversight is
significant, for it contributes to his attempt to show that Husserl’s theory of knowledge is
not far distant from his own neo-scholastic views.
Yet to what extent exactly did Noël and Delbos contribute to the French philosophi-
cal reception of phenomenology? By a strange irony, Husserl’s pivotal essay “Philosophy
as Rigorous Science”—his first major publication after a decade of silence—appeared just
after Noël and Delbos had given the French-speaking philosophical public its first, but long
overdue, comptes rendus of the Logical Investigations. On account of the first World War,
another decade would pass before Husserl’s Logos article and the first volume of his Ideas
received any attention in French philosophical literature. Thus, with their brief expositions
and appraisals of his early writings, Noël and Delbos initiated interpretations of Husserl
that would endure in France into the latter half of the 1920s.
Although Noël does not comment on the theological implications of phenomenol-
ogy in his essay, he is the first French-speaking theologian to show an interest in Husserl.
Over the next quarter century others would follow, such as Jean Héring, Joseph Maréchal,
and members of the Société Thomiste, including Jacques Maritain. Noël interprets Husserl
as an ally fighting off the common enemy of psychologism and securing objective founda-
tions for truth claims. He seizes upon Husserl’s tendencies toward Platonic realism and
finds them compatible with the realist epistemology of neo-scholasticism. In seeking this
rapprochement, however, he suppresses the distinction Husserl draws between the inten-
24See Herbert Spiegelberg, “Scholastic Intention and Intentionality According to
Brentano and Husserl,” in The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, ed. Linda L. McAlister(London: Duckworth, 1976), 108-27.
142
tionality of sensible and ideal objects, one of the key concepts from the Logical
Investigations that will become a plank in Husserl’s later phenomenology.25
Delbos, in effect, leads Husserl into the French academic world. Twenty years
hence, the master himself would be invited to lecture at the Sorbonne. To a far greater de-
gree than Noël, Delbos is responsible for the first impressions the French had of the
founder of phenomenology. The publication of Delbos’s essay, first in the Revue de méta-
physique et de morale and subsequently in the collection of papers edited by the prominent
historian of German philosophy Charles Andler from the 1910-1911 lecture series at the
École des Hautes Études Sociales, attracted wide notice. Delbos was already a trusted au-
thority on German thinkers, having built his reputation with works on the moral philoso-
phies of Spinoza and Kant. Delbos’s Husserl, like Noël’s, is an effective critic of psychol-
ogism, but he is also an original thinker whose audacious pursuit of a pure logic risks the
danger of exile from the world of things.
II. Lev Shestov and Jean Héring
Despite the enticing introductions to Husserl offered by Noël and especially Delbos,
many years passed before any subsequent studies of the founder of phenomenology ap-
peared in French publications. The major reason for the delay was undoubtedly the agony
and antipathy caused by World War I. Delbos’s career, in fact, may be taken as an emblem
of a national shift of attention. With the onset of the war, Delbos turned from his study of
German Idealism to the history of French philosophy, attempting to demonstrate its origi-
nality vis-à-vis German and British traditions, and its moral triumph in promoting univer-
salism over nationalism.26 The most important consequence of the war for the reception of
25See Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation VI, Chapter 6, “Sensuous andCategorial Intuitions,” especially §§40-48; Findlay, 2: 773-95.
26Denis Huisman, ed., Dictionnaire des philosophes, 2 vols. (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1984), s.v. “Delbos, Victor.” Cf. Dominique Parodi, LaPhilosophie contemporaine en France. Essai de classification des doctrines (Paris: Alcan,1919), iii-iv. A particularly interesting essay that documents the shift of French interestaway from German philosophy to its own traditions is Émile Boutroux, Philosophy andWar, trans. Fred Rothwell (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1916). Also Émile Boutroux,Nouvelles études d'histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Alcan, 1927), 184-85, discusses uni-
143
phenomenology, however, was the westward migration of intellectuals from Russia,
Poland, Germany and other Eastern European states. During the early 1920s, a number of
disaffected and disenfranchised philosophers settled in Paris. Some of these, as we shall
discover in the course of our chronology, had studied with Husserl and other German phe-
nomenologists and consequently were uniquely qualified to transmit their influence to
French philosophical circles. Thus began a more direct phase in the reception of phe-
nomenology in France.
A. Lev Shestov
The first such immigrant philosopher to write about Husserl in France was Lev
Shestov (1866-1938). Ironically, however, Shestov met Husserl for the first time only
several years after his essays had earned him the reputation of being one of his chief antag-
onists. Shestov studied in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, and defected from his native
Russia following the Bolshevik revolution, settling in Paris in 1920. He established him-
self near the University of Paris at the Faculté Russe des Lettres as a professor of philoso-
phy, though he allowed his interests to range widely over literature, art and mysticism.
Among his inspirers can be counted Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche,
Luther and Pascal. Shestov in turn influenced a number of free-spirited thinkers in Paris,
including fellow exile Boris Feodorovitch de Schloezer, who served as his translator.27
In early 1926, Shestov published a lengthy and diffuse article on Husserl in the
Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger.28 It was primarily a reaction to
Husserl’s 1911 essay, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” which, expanding upon the ear-
versalism as a characteristic theme of French philosophy.
27Huisman, Dictionnaire des philosophes, s.v. “Chestov, Léon.” Note the Frenchspelling of Shestov name differs from the English; for the purposes of this dissertation, theEnglish spelling will be used in all references and citations. Shestov also inspired criticBenjamin Fondane, who published in 1936 a collection of literary essays on contemporaryphilosophers, including Husserl, Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Shestov. See “FurtherAspects, Other Figures” in the conclusion to this chapter and Benjamin Fondane, LaConscience malheureuse (Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1936).
28Lev Shestov, “Memento mori. A propos de la théorie de la connaissance deHusserl,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 101 (1926): 5-62.
144
lier objections to psychologism, outlined critiques of naturalism and Weltanschauung phi-
losophy and argued explicitly for the scientific renewal of philosophy based upon the phe-
nomenological intuition of categorial essences. Shestov gives the Logical Investigations
some consideration as well, but interprets them through the programmatic intentions of the
later essay. In this respect, Shestov merely follows Husserl’s attempt at self-interpretation
and clarification of his philosophical direction. Yet Shestov’s intention is not primarily to
bring the French philosophical community up to date on the activities of a little-known
German logician. Rather, his purpose is to issue a warning against the dangers of excessive
rationalism. Husserl represents the most remarkable attempt to solve the ancient epistemo-
logical problem, which Shestov defines as explaining the foundation for the conviction that
human knowledge of reality is perfect.29 In the opening of “Philosophy as Rigorous
Science,” Husserl charges that all philosophers before him have failed in this task, having
given up the scientific pursuit of truth and substituting metaphysical wisdom in its place.
According to Shestov, Husserl is the first philosopher to have so sharply opposed wisdom
(sagesse) and science (science) and to have defined philosophy in terms of the rigorous
methods of the latter.30 The image of Husserl as the stern and overzealous logician emerges
again as it had with Delbos, although Shestov goes further than Delbos in characterizing the
extent of Husserl’s radicalism. Husserl is opposed not only to psychologism, but to meta-
physics of any kind, and upon this latter conjecture Shestov tries to expose Husserl’s self-
betrayal: he charges Husserl with not remaining faithful to the abstention from metaphysics
he promises.
Shestov traces Husserl’s philosophical genealogy from Plato to Kant and Fichte by
way of Descartes. Unlike all of these thinkers, however, Husserl refuses to consider the
possibility of metaphysics, for metaphysical language, like religious language, is indirect
and unscientific, useful perhaps for consoling human suffering in this world but of no ul-
29Ibid., 7.30Ibid., 9.
145
timate value.31 “For the sake of time we must not sacrifice eternity,” Husserl writes and
Shestov quotes; only the methods and decisions of rigorous science bear “the stamp of
eternity.”32 Shestov points out that Husserl’s rationalism in “Philosophy as Rigorous
Science” is reinforced by a reference to the earlier Logical Investigations where he contends
that every subjective expression permits replacement by an objective one, thereby signify-
ing and affirming the “unlimited character of objective reason” (Schrankenlosigkeit der ob-
jektiven Vernunft).33 Against this ambition, Shestov argues in several places that reality is
fundamentally irrational and insusceptible to the categories science uses to name it.34 He
even concludes his essay by raising as a “memento mori” Plato’s assertion that truth lies
beyond all reason.35 Ironically, therefore, whereas German interpreters often criticized
Husserl’s Wesensschau as a throwback to Platonism,36 Shestov faults Husserl for not be-
ing enough of a Platonist, charging him with failing to recognize the necessity of meta-
physics and the realm of irrationality which stands above the domain of reason.
Briefly stated, Shestov’s principal complaint against Husserl is that he errs in his
aim to purge philosophy of its traditional function of providing wisdom through metaphys-
ical reflection. Yet his argument is actually more subtle: Shestov wants to show that
Husserl is unable to live up to the goal he proposes. He contends that Husserl turns his de-
scription of categorial essences into the foundation of an idealism, and hence into the a
species of metaphysics he purports to have avoided, i.e., not a Platonic metaphysics based
upon substantial ideas, but one grounded upon the univocal transcendental significations of
logical judgments.37 But from Shestov’s perspective, any affirmation of the absolute exis-
tence of the ideal necessarily relativizes and destroys reality. Reality must come first, and
31Ibid., 16-17.32Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” 142; quoted by Shestov, “Memento
mori,” 16.33Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation I, §28; Findlay, 1: 321; quoted by
Shestov, “Memento mori,” 57.34Cf. Shestov, “Memento mori,” 38, 44, 56.35Ibid., 61-62.36Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 696.37Shestov, “Memento mori,” 29-33.
146
thought about reality second. If thought is put first, then there can be only thought of
thought, leaving reality inevitably neglected. In the end, Shestov shows himself to be less
against Husserl’s particular theory of knowledge, which he openly praises for its frankness
and rigor,38 than he is against making epistemology the first priority of philosophy. The
work of the philosopher must not be to enshrine reason, but to protest its tyranny.39
B. Jean Héring
Shestov’s article sparked a response from a former student of Husserl’s, Jean
Héring (1890-1966). Héring, an Alsatian, had commenced his studies at the Protestant
faculty of theology at the University of Strasbourg. Disappointed by the offerings in phi-
losophy, however, he had traveled to Göttingen for a semester in 1909. There he met and
began to study with Husserl, becoming an integral part of the so-called Göttingen circle of
advanced students in phenomenology. Husserl’s transfer to Freiburg in 1916 and the
course of the war eventually brought an end to the Göttingen circle. Yet after the war
Alsace was reunited with France, and Héring, now back at Strasbourg, became, in
Spiegelberg’s estimation, “one of the ablest interpreters of German phenomenology to the
French world.”40
Héring published his response to Shestov in the Strasbourg Revue d’histoire et de
philosophie religieuse.41 On the whole, Héring comes across as somewhat defensive. He
takes Shestov’s criticisms too directly, and so fails to appreciate his larger questions con-
cerning the rational foundations which phenomenology claimed as its ground. On a point-
by-point by basis, however, Héring accomplishes much in correcting the inaccuracies and
imbalances in Shestov’s exposition. First, he counters the claim that Husserl disdains all
philosophies culminating in wisdom by distinguishing them sharply from rigorous sci-
38Ibid., 33.39Ibid., 56.40Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 238.41Jean Héring, “Sub specie aeterni. Réponse à une critique de la philosophie de
Husserl,” Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuse 7 (1927): 351-64.
147
ence.42 Rereading “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” Héring does not find Husserl op-
posed to metaphysical or practical, wisdom-oriented philosophies as such, but only that he
reproaches them for not pursuing their distinct goals with sufficient perseverance and re-
solve. Héring also clarifies that the wisdom traditions to which Husserl refers are not lim-
ited to the modern Weltanschauung philosophies. For Husserl, wisdom embraces all types
of humanism, including religion. Thus, Héring sees nothing contradictory in being both a
scientific philosopher and a religious person, as Shestov assumes.43 Secondly, Héring
objects to the charge that Husserl opposes all metaphysics. According to Héring, Husserl
always maintained that a properly methodical philosophy can lead to a metaphysics, and
therefore he stands closer to the Platonic tradition than to the critical skepticism of Kant.44
On the other hand, Husserl refuses to hypostasize ideas as metaphysical principles, a posi-
tion which Shestov recognizes and opposes. Against the Husserlian thesis, “no meta-
physics without epistemology,” Shestov proclaims the antithesis: “no epistemology without
metaphysics.”45 What Shestov overlooks in his arguments against Husserl on this matter,
Héring suggests, is precisely Husserl’s unique understanding of the cogito. At this point,
however, Héring shies away from explicitly introducing the phenomenological doctrine of
intentionality that constitutes the rationale for Husserl’s stance.46 Instead, he merely re-
proves Shestov for not having consulted either the second volume of the Logical
Investigations or Ideas. Thirdly, Shestov claims that Husserl’s idealism cannot compre-
hend the real world, but he goes too far in asserting that phenomenology regards all exis-
tents as absurdities. What is true about phenomenology is that it brackets the question of
42Ibid., 352.43Ibid., 359.44Ibid., 352. In a footnote, Héring admits that his assurance on this point derives
more from Husserl’s course lectures than his publications, although he does cite sections§58 and §51 of Ideas for support. Cf. Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse.Étude sur la théorie de la connaissance religieuse (Paris: Alcan, 1926), 83-86, where herejects, however, the ontological implications of Husserl’s interpretation of consciousnessin §49 of Ideas.
45Héring, “Sub specie aeterni,” 354.46Héring apparently leaves the reader to infer that if phenomenology ultimately
leads to a metaphysics, it will be because Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality affirms thatthe mind grasps objects in their very mode of being.
148
existence as irrelevant to the determination of essences.47 Shestov also charges that phe-
nomenology confuses time and eternity. Héring counters by saying that Shestov is a victim
of still greater confusion between the problem of existence and the problem of truth. Héring
defends the independence of mathematical truths from time, and from there to defend the
development of phenomenology “sub specie aeterni”—a scholastic formula he borrows for
the title of his article.48 Finally, like Shestov, Héring is opposed to the present scientific
culture, but that does not mean that science must be rejected altogether as Shestov suggests.
Instead, it must be reformed. Husserl proposes to accomplish this necessary task through a
return to the things themselves as they are brought to evidence by intuition. Héring con-
cludes that the opposition between rationalism and irrationalism propounded by Shestov
loses its meaning in a philosophy that is resolutely intuitionist, as is phenomenology.49
Héring’s brief response to Shestov does not adequately represent the depth and
breadth of Héring’s knowledge of phenomenology. His mastery can be better judged by
his study Phenomenology and Religious Philosophy which appeared in print around the
time of his exchange with Shestov.50 Since it is primarily a work in the philosophy of reli-
gion, discussion of its major themes will be deferred to the next chapter. At this juncture,
however, it is important to mention that Phenomenology and Religious Philosophy was the
first monograph on phenomenology to be published in French. As such, it played a signifi-
cant role in subsequent French receptions of Husserl and other German phenomenologists.
The second part of this three-part work provided the earliest detailed accounts of phe-
nomenological principles and methods, and so a brief exposition of its contents follows.
In Part II of his study, Héring introduces Husserl as the founder of a diverse
movement united nevertheless by “‘the common conviction to dig down to the primordial
springs of intuition and to draw from them the creative essential insights of the great philo-
47Ibid., 355; cf. 361.48Ibid., 356; cf. 363.49Ibid., 363.50Jean Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse. Étude sur la théorie de la
connaissance religieuse(Paris: Alcan, 1926).
149
sophical traditions.’”51 After a brief history of the movement and its major figures, Héring
goes on to explain that phenomenology, properly speaking, ought not to be called a
method, for its intuitionist principle implies the clear and distinct vision of what is given, as
imposed by the object itself, apart from the exigencies of any system.52 Héring subse-
quently clarifies the manner in which essences are attained through the phenomenological
reduction, which he compares to the scholastic doctrine of abstraction. A discussion of the
intentionality of consciousness and of its function in distinguishing phenomenology from
psychologism and Kantianism follows.53 Thus, Héring reverses the order Delbos’s presen-
tation: phenomenology is first of all an attempt to recover the effectivity of intuition, and
only secondarily a critique of psychologism and Kantian criticism. Furthermore, phe-
nomenology, far from being a doctrine advanced solely by Husserl, as Shestov leads one
to assume, is in fact a pluralist movement whose unity is derived from the principle of
Wesensschau, essential intuition, and whose diversity is a reflection of the broader or
stricter limits placed on the scope of the essences to be studied. For Husserl, phenomenol-
ogy comprises the study of the phenomenon of consciousness itself, and in this respect it
differs little from Cartesianism, whereas other phenomenologists, such as Alexander
Pfänder, Adolf Reinach and Hedwig Conrad-Martius apply themselves to the description of
all the essences and eidetic laws that flow from consciousness, including the domains of
anthropology, sociology and even law.54 Yet pluralism in this case is not necessarily a
virtue: Héring concludes Part II of his study commenting upon the danger of fragmentation
51Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 36, quotes from the preface of
the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung I (1913): v-vi. My trans-lation follows the original German which Héring quotes in a footnote: “und auf die aus ihrzu schöpfenden Wesenseinsichten die grossen Traditionen der Philosophie;” Héring liter-ally has: “. . . and to draw from the evidences of essential order” [“. . . et d’y puiser lesévidences d’ordre essentiel”].
52Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 43.53Ibid., 56-64.54Ibid., 72.
150
which the phenomenological movement faces on account of its increasing popularity and
diversity.55
C. Shestov’s Reply to Héring
Shestov found occasion to reply to Héring’s critiques,56 but rather than taking on
the issues point-by-point, as Héring had done, he again tried to bring to light what he re-
garded as the fundamental problems of phenomenology. Shestov finds the title Héring had
chosen for his response, “sub specie aeternitatis,”57 appropriate and telling because on his
view “sub specie aeternitatis” represents precisely the unscientific approach to philosophy
that Husserl condemns. Again, Shestov forces the distinction between wisdom and science
that Héring, in his opinion, obscures. Héring is consequently found to be unfaithful to his
master.58 Then in a more complex and subtle argument, Shestov shows that there is a cer-
tain link between phenomenology and the wisdom it attempts to dismiss. “Sub specie ae-
ternitatis” is the fundamental theme of Spinozism, Shestov points out. Under the light of
eternity, truth appears as a function of mathematical reason. There is no room for revelation
here; all events occur under the control of reason. The real is the rational, as Hegel says.
Hence, the notion of the good must also be identified with reason, and ethics can take the
place of ontology as “first philosophy.”59 Yet ethics is the domain of wisdom, practical
philosophy. In the ancient world, wisdom and science were one. So perhaps Héring’s in-
terpretation of phenomenology is only the classical extrapolation of motives implicit in
Husserl’s own rationalism. The classical tradition, however, was not confined to this syn-
thesis. Plotinus, whom Shestov regards as the culmination of Greek philosophy, suffered
55Ibid., 73-78; Hering’s remarks comparing Bergsonianism and phenomenology atthe end of Part II of his monograph have already been referred to in Chapter 1.
56Lev Shestov, “Qu’est-ce que la vérité?,” Revue philosophique de la France et del’étranger 103 (1927): 36-74.
57Shestov prefers the genitive construction aeternitatis over Hering’s adjectival us-age of aeterni—a reflection, perhaps, of the metaphysical aspersions he casts upon Husserland Héring.
58Shestov, “Qu’est-ce que la vérité?,” 37. Notice that Shestov’s argument for ethicsas first philosophy is ironical and not at all to be compared with the argument that Levinaswould later make on phenomenological grounds.
59Ibid., 49.
151
the shattering realization that beyond reason is a higher beauty, a higher mystical truth that
reason can only approach through the path of negation. This ultimate truth is not subject to
necessity and is therefore not under the control of reason: it appears, and is, “sudden.”60
Thus Plotinus teaches that neither reason alone, nor wisdom alone, nor even the synthesis
of both “sub specie aeternitatis” is adequate. Shestov concludes that it is not possible to
ground a theory of knowledge upon reason alone, which is what Husserl obviously in-
tends, given that he places the postulates of reason before all other evidence, including the
ego cogito and intuition.61
D. Héring’s Rebuttal to Shestov
Due to editorial delays, Héring’s response to Shestov, which he had sent to him
personally, did not appear in print until sometime after Shestov’s second article.62 This cir-
cumstance enabled Héring to append a brief rebuttal to his original response in which he
underscored the centrality of intuition in phenomenology. Contrary to Shestov’s interpreta-
tion that reason holds primacy in phenomenology and that intuition must appeal to it for
strength, Héring argues that for Husserl reason depends upon evidence, and there can be
no evidence without an immediate and intuitive vision of what is given.63 He concludes his
essay by quoting the following passage from Ideas, the well-known “principle of all prin-
ciples”:
No theory (which is to say, no presupposition) will ever make us doubt theprinciple of all principles, namely that every intuition which furnishes animmediate and original given [une donnée immédiate et originelle] is asource of justification for knowledge, and that every immediate and intuitivegiven (every given that is, so to speak, really present) must be accepted as itis given, but only within the limits in which it presents itself.64
60Ibid., 60-66.61Ibid., 70, 72.62See Héring, “Sub specie aeterni,” 363, n. 5.63Ibid., 364. Héring refers to Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation VI, §§
36-52; Findlay, 2: 760-802.64My translation of Héring. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §24; Gibson, 92.
152
E. Shestov and Héring as Interpreter s of Phenomenology
The second phase in the French reception of phenomenology defined by the debates
between Shestov and Héring marks a considerable advance over the earlier descriptions of
Husserl offered by Noël and Delbos. Whereas Noël and Delbos offered a rather uniform
portrait of Husserl as a logician with only hints of his ambition to found the new science of
phenomenology, Shestov and Héring clearly identify Husserl as a phenomenologist and
furthermore place him at the center of important contemporary philosophical controversies
regarding the limits of reason and the future of metaphysics. Neither Shestov65 nor
Héring66 regarded Husserl’s contribution to philosophy to be merely methodological, as
had many of his German disciples. In fact, when Adolf Reinach once asked Héring
whether he thought that he and Husserl taught the same thing, Héring responded: “For
you, phenomenology is a method; for Husserl, a branch of philosophy.”67 Héring and
Shestov were probably also partly responsible for the tendency among later French inter-
preters to conflate Husserlian and Hegelian phenomenologies.68 Both read “Philosophy as
Rigorous Science” through a kind of Hegelian dynamic. Shestov interpreted Husserl as
left-Hegelian insofar he took him to mean that with the age of scientific philosophy now
dawning, the ages of wisdom and religion must pass away.69 Héring read Husserl more as
a right-Hegelian, envisioning an ongoing and developing synthesis of wisdom and science.
65Cf. Lev Shestov, À la mémoire d’un grand philosophe: E. Husserl,” Revue
philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 129 (1940), 11.66Cf. Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 43.67Héring, “La Phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans,” 368.68Cf. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 441, attributes this tendency to
historical coincidence, noting the belated spurt of French interest in Hegel beginning in thelate 1920s (a neo-Hegelian movement had been underway in Europe since around 1910).Speigelberg also notes the influence of the Russian Marxist Alexandre Kojève, whose in-terpretation of the Hegelian method as essentially descriptive and non-dialectical enabledhim to identify it with Husserlian phenomenology. While I do not disagree with Spiegel-berg’s argument, I simply would add one more factor. See also Jean-François Lyotard, LaPhénoménologie, 11th corrected ed., vol. 625, Que sais je? (Paris: Presses Universitairesde France, 1992), 40-44.
69Cf. Shestov, “Qu’est-ce que la vérité,” 38: “Husserl avait posé la question: il n’ya pas d’autre issue; il faut choisir entre la philosophie et la sagesse, mais celle-ci a fini sontemps, tout comme l’astrologie et l’alchimie.” Elsewhere in this article Shestov makes ex-plicit reference to Hegel; cf. 49, 69.
153
In the final analysis, Héring and Shestov remain divided over how to interpret the
relation of reason and intuition in phenomenology. Héring’s interpretation ultimately pre-
vailed, but does this mean that Shestov’s criticisms of phenomenology were, or should be,
dismissed? There can be no doubt that Shestov was engaged in a visceral struggle against
an idea of rationalism which, to a certain extent, he projected upon Husserl. Just a just a
few months after Husserl’s death in November 1938 and just a few weeks before his own,
Shestov composed a final article for the Revue philosophique in which he confessed that he
spent his whole career locked in a Kierkegaardian either/or battle with this philosopher
whom he admired above all others.70 Whereas Husserl understood philosophy as
“reflection” [Ger. Besinnung, Fr. refléxion], Shestov could only experience it as a
“struggle [Ger. Kampf , Fr. lutte] against the evidences” brought forth by scientific rea-
son.71 He depicted this struggle against the evidences as the philosophical translation of the
biblical injunction: “Human wisdom is folly before God.”72 Furthermore, “human suffer-
ings stand above the truths which knowledge provides” and so Shestov juxtaposed the di-
mensions of concrete existence with the phenomenological investigations of essences—a
foretaste of phenomenological existentialism. Shestov’s vigorous reactions to Husserl also
echoed the tenor of the latter’s own last work, Crisis of the European Sciences. At stake for
Husserl, as for Shestov, were the spiritual foundations of civilization. In their respective
stands—Husserl for scientific revolution, Shestov for a mysticism of the real—each exhib-
ited a markedly religious fervor. It is probable that these intimations no less than the direct
rapprochement of religion and phenomenology tested by Héring played a role in influenc-
ing later receptions of phenomenology among French religious thinkers.
70Lev Shestov, “À la mémoire d’un grand philosophe: E. Husserl,” Revue
philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 129 (1940), especially pp. 5, 32.71Ibid., 29; cf. 11.72Ibid., 29.
154
III. Bernard Groethuysen and Georges Gurvitch
While the polemics between Shestov and Héring gave French philosophical sophis-
ticates a passionate though narrow glimpse into Husserl’s scientific approach to philoso-
phy, other scholars prepared informative surveys of contemporary German philosophy
which featured Husserl and his fellow phenomenologists and which were targeted for
broader audiences. That popularization of phenomenology marks the beginning of a third
phase in the French reception of Husserl.
A. Bernard Groethuysen
The first general introduction to Husserl’s phenomenology in French appeared in
1926. Its author was Bernard (1880-1946), a German-born student of Wilhelm Dilthey
who maintained strong contacts with France. In fact, Groethuysen’s publications were ex-
clusively in French, and following the rise of Nazism in 1933, he left Berlin to teach at the
University of Paris.73 Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande depuis Nietzsche,
his first book, offers a concise summary of the principal ideas of Nietzsche, Dilthey,
Simmel and Husserl.74 Moreover, it portrays these four thinkers as representatives of dif-
ferent approaches to resolving the crisis German philosophy faced after the collapse of
metaphysical idealism. In the final section of the book, Groethuysen reflects on the possi-
bilities for a new and independent philosophy built around a phenomenological approach to
facts and values, a synthesis of the foregoing approaches relying primarily upon Husserl.
Thus, unlike Shestov, who depicted Husserl as a radical thinker apart from the mainstream,
and Héring, who pictured him as the founder of a movement which was threatening to dis-
solve on account of its increasing diversity, Groethuysen situates Husserl at the cutting
edge of German philosophy.
If one were to ask what had become of philosophy in Germany, Groethuysen ob-
serves, one would hear that philosophy nowadays is a science comprised of two disci-
73Huisman, Dictionnaire des philosophes, s.v. “Groethuysen, Bernard”.74Bernard Groethuysen, Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande depuis
Nietzsche (Paris: Librarie Stock, Delamain & Boutelleau, 1926).
155
plines, psychology and logic, to which must be added the theory of knowledge. If philoso-
phy per se is taught at all, it is presented merely as matter of historical record, or as warn-
ing to avoid such erroneous ways of thinking in the future.75 The prevailing climate
notwithstanding, some thinkers are beginning to philosophize again, and their efforts tend
to center around the problem of doing philosophy as such, or the possibilities for being a
philosopher.76
Nietzsche, the first thinker to address the problem of doing philosophy as such, has
remarked that once philosophy becomes a science, the philosopher, as a personality and as
a creator, disappears; he can continue to do philosophy, but he ceases to be a philoso-
pher.77 Philosophers make the mistake of searching for truths that endure while ignoring
history and distrusting the process of becoming. Yet to live is to interpret. It is to give
meaning to things and events in relation to ourselves.78 According to Nietzsche, we cannot
conceive of the world except in creating it. Thus understood, “philosophy itself becomes a
vital function; in its most conscious form, it is nothing but a continuation of the effort
which one notices in every living thing.”79 The new philosophy proclaimed by Nietzsche
will keep itself free from dogmatism, adopting a variety of viewpoints and a multiplicity of
perspectives. As a “man of experience,” the philosopher will take on the task of creating
new values.80
For Dilthey, human beings are born philosophical.81 Each individual must form a
world view, a metaphysics. But there is widespread skepticism due to contradictions
among the many philosophical systems and each one’s claims to have found some univer-
sal truth.82 Dilthey groups philosophical systems into several categories, for instance those
that aim at achieving a final unity and those that are concerned with personality. The differ-
75Ibid., 8.76Ibid., 11.77Ibid., 16.78Ibid., 20.79Ibid., 23.80Ibid., 27-28.81Ibid., 50.82Ibid., 44.
156
ences between philosophies can only be explained by the difference in their points of view;
furthermore, philosophies can only really be understood from their own point of view.83
According to Groethuysen, what Dilthey ultimately achieves is a philosophy of philoso-
phy.84 In order to arrive at a philosophy of life, which Dilthey posits as his ultimate aim,
one must not search exclusively in his own life, but in the ensemble of many lives, namely
history.
Georg Simmel, by contrast, simply sets the question of overarching philosophical
truths aside. Simmel, a philosopher and sociologist associated with Max Weber’s
Heidelberg circle, maintained that the truth of a philosophy should be sought in its own in-
ternal reality rather than in external correspondences. Accordingly, philosophy is the ex-
pression of a personality, but not merely an individual one. Like Dilthey, Simmel discerns
a typology of philosophical systems corresponding to different kinds of personalities.85
Unlike Dilthey, however, Simmel takes his point of departure from Kant’s recognition of
the active role played by the mind in constituting the universe. Yet for Simmel, there is no
fixed number of categories for thought. Indeed, the work of freedom consists in multiply-
ing categories and forms.86 Whereas Kant showed the freedom of the ‘I’ with respect to
nature, so now the philosophical task is to show the freedom of the ‘I’ with respect to
history.87
The solutions to the problem of philosophy sought by Nietzsche, Dilthey and
Simmel form a background for appreciating Husserl’s efforts. According to the preceding
thinkers, philosophy cannot be considered a science. Yet with all the insistence upon the
personal and human side of philosophy, Groethuysen asks, “Is there not the danger of ne-
glecting the effort of thought to achieve its proper rights and domain?”88 Groethuysen be-
gins his presentation of Husserl with a reference to the Logos article whose title he trans-
83Ibid., 56.84Ibid., 65.85Ibid., 69.86Ibid., 72.87Ibid., 73.88Ibid., 89.
157
lates as La Philosophie comme science exacte. Immediately he finds Husserl’s use of the
term science equivocal for on the one hand Husserl does not want to confuse the exact sci-
ences and philosophy, while on the other he insists that the philosopher should have a
“methodical mind” and should conduct his research with precision, “just like the man of
science.”89 Thus, Groethuysen understands Husserl to intend an analogy between the sci-
ences and philosophy, but not that philosophy itself should become a science. According to
Groethuysen, the great difference between the exact sciences and Husserl’s approach to
philosophy lies in the different ways in which they regard their objects.90 This difference
can best be appreciated by recognizing the two manners in which a thought can be pre-
sented. All thought is intentional; as such it already contains it object. Yet thought tends to
construct its object as a fact independent of itself. In the first case, thought asks itself what
it wanted to say; in the second case it asks whether what it wanted to say corresponds to a
fact. The first kind of question defines the properly philosophical domain of problems and
methods which Husserl designates by the name phenomenology. While this first kind of
question might seem more basic, in fact, the typical way in which we deal with the world
passes it over in favor of the second mode of relation.
To explain the purpose of phenomenology, Groethuysen employs a pair of analo-
gies. In the first he imagines a society in which art has come to serve no other function be-
sides supplying information about history and geography. Into this situation comes some-
one who still has artistic taste, and he explains to the others that works of art have their
own meaning which must be searched out. No doubt his audience would be astonished.
Yet that astonishment is precisely what the phenomenological point of view effects: it is
“like learning to see again.”91 Vision thus becomes a metaphor for intuition, which can be
either sensible or intellectual. If scientific interpretation is based on sensible givens, phe-
nomenology is based on ideas as they present themselves to consciousness.
89Ibid., 92.90Ibid., 93.91Ibid., 96.
158
Phenomenology accepts all givens as self-justifying. In this respect, the phenomenologist
is a “positivist” insofar as he holds to what is “positively given.”92 Phenomenology, how-
ever, is indifferent with regard to the existence of its objects, whether they be the ego or the
external world. It eliminates all transcendencies and refrains from constitutive acts.
Consequently, the phenomenologist no longer finds himself in “the domain of things and
facts, but well into realm of ideas and thought.”93 Groethuysen draws his second analogy
from the field of linguistics. A text can be read with two different kinds of interests. First,
it can be read with a view towards discovering the truth of the facts it purports to signify.
Apart from this kind of scientific interest, which takes the signifying function for granted, a
text can also be read for its own sake and for the sake of the words it contains. To read a
text in this manner is analogous to what the psychologist does when he simply describes
the aspects of an experience without demanding anything more. It is also analogous to the
work of the phenomenologist, “who wants, so to speak, to interpret the text of thought, the
text which is at the origin of all others.”94 Thought, therefore, can by no means be treated
as a “fact” for the act of signifying embraces it entirely. For its meaning to be discovered, it
must be lived to the point of penetrating its essence. Thus, for Groethuysen, phenomenol-
ogy represents a philosophy of life as well as a form of idealism, a way of seeing as well as
a theory of knowledge.
Would Husserl recognize himself in this portrayal? Groethuysen claims that phe-
nomenology is only similar to a science, but in “Philosophy as a Rigorous Science”
Husserl does not claim that philosophy is an imperfect science but that “as science it has not
yet begun.”95 Thus, the destiny of philosophy is not simply to be like a science but to be-
come a science itself, and that transformation, Husserl argues, can only come about
through the phenomenological grasp of essences.96 Now Groethuysen certainly draws at-
92Ibid., 97.93Ibid., 99.94Ibid., 102.95Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 73.96Ibid., 147.
159
tention to the work of the phenomenologist in seeing essences, but here again a certain
grammatical interpretation seems to be at issue. What, after all, are the essences that must
be grasped? Groethuysen said that the phenomenologist must be a “man of experience,” but
Husserl observes that “it is of decisive significance to know that essential intuition is in no
way ‘experience’ in the sense of perception, recollection, and equivalent acts.”97 For
Groethuysen, “essence” often seems to mean the essence of perceptual objects, whereas for
Husserl it refers to the logical structures of consciousness itself. Thus in an important re-
spect, Groethuysen describes phenomenology in a manner that is more reminiscent of
Adolf Reinach than Husserl. Husserl restricted phenomenology to a study of the essence of
consciousness, while Reinach and other members of the Göttingen circle broadened it into
a universal philosophy of essences and their interconnections, whose range included all
sorts of aesthetic experiences—a characteristic clearly apparent in Groethuysen’s choice of
illustrations. One wonders if Husserl would have found Groethuysen likewise guilty of a
“picture book phenomenology.”98
In the first half of his book Groethuysen has shown how German philosophers
since Nietzsche have struggled with the problem of philosophy itself; now in the second
half he puts forward a synthesis of their ideas as a proposal for a philosophy of the future.
Philosophy must occupy its own domain, he avers, distinct from art and science, distinct
from psychic facts and from the facts of the exterior world. The place of philosophy will lie
neither with fact nor fiction, but somewhere in between, among “the vast ensemble of phe-
nomena which, not being imaginary nor capable of being completely discussed, do not
have their own existence, and cannot simply be observed [constatés]”99 Clearly, in stating
this formulation Groethuysen relies more heavily on phenomenology than any of the other
97Ibid., 112.98Husserl charged those of his students who applied phenomenological techniques
of description unreservedly to objects of any sort with practicing a “Bilderbuchphän-omenologie,” i.e, picture-book phenomenology. Cf. Spiegelberg, PhenomenologicalMovement, 168.
99Groethuysen, Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande, 124 (emphasisGroethuysen’s).
160
viewpoints he has discussed. Phenomenology enables a reconstruction of the domain of
ideas. By contrast to materialistic positivism, Groethuysen sees phenomenology leading to
a “spiritual positivism” [positivisme spirituel].100 Husserl’s great accomplishment is to
have liberated thought from science. Consequently, the philosophy of the future will not
have to rely upon science for its justification. The opposition of thought and science, how-
ever, is not characteristic of Husserl, and Groethuysen admits as much here by crediting
Max Scheler with furthering the progress of an autonomous philosophy through the dis-
tinction of science, which aims at knowledge of things and not the things themselves, from
philosophy, which aims at the essence proper to all things.101 Groethuysen never says it
directly, but it becomes clear by the end of the book that he regards Husserl as the inspira-
tion for a movement which in some respects has grown beyond him.
Groethuysen’s contribution to the popularization of phenomenology in France con-
sisted in a sympathetic interpretation of the philosophical renewal initiated by Husserl. He
introduced some of the basic principles of the phenomenological method, such as the direct
intuition of essences. He also announced themes that would characterize future French re-
ceptions of phenomenology, most notably the autonomy of philosophy and the liberation of
thought. On the other hand, Groethuysen ignored or misconstrued some of the fundamental
aspects of Husserl’s teachings. For instance, he neglected the phenomenological reduction
altogether. Groethuysen also failed to discuss any of Husserl’s works besides the Logos
essay, overlooking the preparatory work of the Logical Investigations and the structured
development of transcendental phenomenology in Ideas. Furthermore, Groethuysen did not
appreciate Husserl’s ambition to see philosophy fulfill its destiny as a science. These
omissions and distortions may have been due to the influence of other phenomenologists
like Reinach and Scheler, who were not persuaded by Husserl’s convictions in these areas.
Unfortunately, Groethuysen did not detail the nature of these other influences. Thus, while
100Ibid., 106. One is reminded here of the “spiritualist positivism” [positivismespiritualiste] that Ravaisson prophesied would become the dominant current of Frenchphilosophy by the end of the nineteenth century (see Chapter 1 under “Spiritualism”).
101Ibid., 108-109.
161
Groethuysen’s eminently readable little volume performed the valuable service of demon-
strating the prominent role played by phenomenology in contemporary German philoso-
phy, the need to bring greater clarity and accuracy to the French philosophical understand-
ing of Husserl and his fellow phenomenologists remained. Visits to France by Scheler and
Husserl would help to remedy this situation.
B. Interlude: German Phenomenologists in France
Bernard Groethuysen’s efforts were not alone responsible for the blossoming of
this third phase in the French reception of phenomenology. Several other important events
occurred in the late 1920s which served to reinforce French interest in the German move-
ment. In 1928, Max Scheler’s Nature and Forms of Sympathy became the first phe-
nomenological work available in French translation.102 It was also the year of Scheler’s
untimely death, and the passing of this scintillating personality was deeply mourned by the
French.103 Scheler had become well-known and loved in France on account of his presence
at an annual meeting of intellectuals at Pontigny in 1924 and a longer stay in 1926. During
these visits Scheler had made the acquaintance of such prominent French philosophers as
Bergson, Brunschvicg, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and Émile Meyerson.104 Notwithstanding the
impression he made on these thinkers, his real influence on French philosophy can only be
measured by his impact on the generation of philosophers that followed, for instance
Emmanuel Mounier, whose personalism owes much to Scheler.105 The possible influence
102Max Scheler, Nature et formes de la sympathie, trans. M. Lefebvre (Paris:Payot, 1928); the English translation by Peter Heath is actually published under the titleThe Nature of Sympathy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954). A second volume,containing French translations of “The Meaning of Suffering,” “Repentance and Rebirth,”and “Love and Knowledge, appeared under the title, Le Sens de la souffrance, suivi dedeux autres essais, ed. Louis Lavelle and René Le Senne, trans. Pierre Klossowski (Paris:Aubier Montaigne, 1936).
103Cf. Xavier Léon’s public introduction of Husserl on the occasion of his Feb-ruary, 1929 lectures at the Sorbonne, as reported by Emmanuel Levinas, “Avertissement,”in Edmund Husserl, Méditations Cartésiennes. Introduction à la phénoménologie, trans.Gabrielle Peiffer and Emmanuel Levinas, rev. ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1947), vi. See also KarlEschweiler, “Max Scheler et sa philosophie de l’homme.” La Vie intellectuelle 1 (1928):112-22.
104Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 432.105See Henri Leroux, “Sur quelques aspects de la réception de Max Scheler en
162
of Scheler upon Groethuysen’s conception of phenomenology has already been noted.
Furthermore, as we Chapter 4 will demonstrate, Jean Héring drew extensively upon
Scheler’s phenomenology of religion in formulating his own. Likewise Georges Gurvitch,
who we will be the topic of the next section, devoted a large share of Les Tendances
actuelles de la philosophie française to Scheler’s theory of values and his sociology of
knowledge. Gurvitch, in fact, would go on to a career in sociology.
A few months after his retirement from teaching at Freiburg in 1928, Husserl him-
self came to Paris to present a series of four lectures at the Sorbonne under the auspices of
the Académie française by joint invitation of the Institute for German Studies and the
French Philosophical Society. It was his first and only visit to France. His talks, delivered
on 23 and 25 February 1929 in the Descartes amphitheater, provided an opportunity not
only for French intellectuals whose interest in phenomenology had already been piqued by
Groethuysen and Gurvitch to hear in person the “most eminent master of German
thought,”106 but also for Husserl himself to restate the basic premises of his phenomeno-
logical method in conversation with the Cartesian tradition.107
Also in 1929, Husserl published Formal and Transcendental Logic, a work reflect-
ing several years of evolution in his thought on the themes of logic and the structure of the
transcendental ego. Apart from a second edition of the Logical Investigations and his 1905 France,” in Studien zur Philosophie von Max Scheler. Internationales Max SchelerColloquium, “Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs,” Köln 1993, ed. Ernst WolfgangOrth and Gerhard Pfafferott (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1994), 332-55, especially 336.
106Emmanuel Levinas, “Avertissement,” in Husserl, Méditations Cartésiennes, v.107Husserl lectured in German, but for the benefit of his French-speaking audience
a short syllabus in translation was printed and circulated. Stephan Strasser’s reconstructionof the original text of Husserl’s lectures from early versions of manuscripts for the eventualMéditations Cartésiennes, together with German and French versions of his syllabus, areincluded in Husserliana, Volume 1, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). A translation of Strasser’s reconstructed text with an in-troduction by Peter Koestenbaum has been published as The Paris Lectures, 2nd ed. (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967). In addition, a translation of the syllabus with an introduc-tion by Herbert Spiegelberg may be found in “Husserl’s Syllabus for the Paris Lectures on‘Introduction to Transcendental Phenomenology’,” Journal of the British Society forPhenomenology 7 (1976): 18-23. In his introduction to the Cartesianische Meditationenund Pariser Vorträge, Strasser notes that Husserl had already experimented with linking hisapproach to the Cartesian method of doubt in Ideas (cf. §31; Gibson, 107) and in some ofhis unpublished manuscripts.
163
Lessons on the Inner-consciousness of Time, which he had charged Heidegger with editing
for publication in 1928, Formal and Transcendental Logic was the only significant work of
Husserl’s to appear in print since the first volume of his Ideas in 1913. As such, it pro-
vided an important benchmark for measuring the progress of his conception of phe-
nomenology vis-à-vis that of his followers, most notably Heidegger, whose recent Being
and Time appeared to overturn its foundations. More detailed discussion of Formal and
Transcendental Logic and its bearing upon the theological reception of Husserl in France
will follow in Chapter 3 in conjunction with Gaston Rabeau’s 1932 review of the work for
the Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques. Discussion of Heidegger’s ascend-
ing influence during these years will be taken up with Levinas and Sartre, and more imme-
diately with Gurvitch, who was actually the first to introduce the French to Heidegger in
lectures and in print.
C. Georges Gurvitch
In 1928, Georges Gurvitch (1894-1965), a young professor from the Russian
University in Prague, was invited to give the first of three annual free courses [cours libres]
on contemporary German philosophy at the Sorbonne. Like Shestov, Gurvitch emigrated
from his native Russia in the early 1920’s, having been forced to leave on account of his
political views. A polyglot, Gurvitch quickly adapted to his new surroundings and func-
tioned as a channel for foreign ideas, providing introductions not only to German philoso-
phers, but also to Russian thinkers like Nikolai Losskii and Semen Frank, who were like-
wise advocates of intuitionism.108 He eventually settled in France in 1934 when he was
appointed as a professor in Bordeaux.109 Two of the studies Gurvitch prepared for his
108Cf. Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 83, n. 85: “Quant à l’in-tuitivisme de N. Losskij, il présente également quelques analogies avec la phénoménologie.Comme elle, le penseur russe rejette toute théorie de la connaissance qui invente demythiques copies ou images subjectives de l’objet; comme elle, il affirme nettement le car-actère transubjectif de l’acte de la connaissance. Mais les ressemblances s’arrêtent là.Notamment sa définition de la connaissance comme d’un événement de la conscience com-paré à d’autres, s’inspire d’une conception absolument différente de celle de l’intentional-isme des phénoménologues.”
109For background on Gurvitch’s courses at the Sorbonne, see Georges Gurvitch,
164
course at the Sorbonne, one on Edmund Husserl and a second on Émile Lask and Nicolai
Hartmann, appeared in the Revue de métaphysique et de moral and the Revue
philosophique de la France et de l’étranger in 1928 and 1929 respectively.110 These two
studies were brought together along with two others on Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger
in a volume titled Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie française.111 In the following
pages we will examine each of these four studies in turn in order to draw attention to the
specific clarifications and interpretations of phenomenology that Gurvitch contributed to the
French reception of movement, as well as his assessment of its significance for the
progress of philosophy.
1. Gurvitch on Husserl
In the title to his first study, Gurvitch introduces Husserl as “The Founder of
Phenomenological Philosophy.” After the war, Gurvitch explains, the intellectual atmo-
sphere of Germany changed. Neo-Kantian criticism lost its popularity as the burgeoning
phenomenological movement spread from university to university: from Göttingen, where
it was born, to Munich, to Freiburg, Cologne, Marburg and finally to Berlin, where in
1923 Husserl declined the offer of a chair. The followers of phenomenology had not only
increased in number but also in their disciplinary diversity, leaving their mark upon psy-
chology, aesthetics, sociology, law, history, ethnography and psychiatry. Phenomenology
unquestionably had become the most important philosophical current in contemporary
Germany.112
Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande (Paris: Vrin, 1930), 4, 9. Gurvitchpublished several articles in French on Russian philosophers during the 1920s, including:“La Philosophie russe du premier quart du XXe siècle,” Monde Slave (August 1926), 254-72. For biographical information on Gurvitch, see Huisman, Dictionnaire des philosophes,s.v. “Gurvitch, Georges.”
110Georges Gurvitch, “La Philosophie phénoménologique en Allemagne,” Revuede métaphysique et de morale 36 (1928): 553-97, and “Phénoménologie et Criticisme. Uneconfrontation entre les deux courants dans la philosophie d’Émile Lask et de NicolaïHartmann,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 108 (1929): 235-84.
111Georges Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande (Paris:Vrin, 1930). Vrin published a second edition in 1949.
112Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 11-12.
165
Gurvitch defines phenomenology as “the pure description of the neutral domain of
lived experience and the essences which present themselves there.”113 Contrary to Léon
Brunschvicg’s observations in the volume’s preface, Gurvitch asserts that phenomenology
has nothing in common with the doctrine of phenomenism, which limits human knowledge
only to what appears.114 Like Héring before him, Gurvitch quotes Husserl’s preamble to
Ideas and his “principle of all principles” to justify the central role played by intuition in
phenomenology. Again like Héring in Phenomenology and Religious Philosophy,
Gurvitch compares phenomenology with Bergsonism, arriving at the same conclusion:
while many apparent similarities exist, intuition in the philosophy of Bergson is derived
from the metaphysical principle of the élan vital, and is therefore not a function of the intel-
lect as it for Husserl, but rather stands opposed to it.115 Finally, Gurvitch reinforces
Groethuysen’s description of phenomenology as a “spiritual positivism” by stating that
“phenomenology presents itself as a positivism of extra-temporal essences, an empirical
apriorism, a call to description, to nothing but the description of the irreducible and isolated
givens of pure intuition.”116
After this preliminary introduction to Husserl and his phenomenological philoso-
phy, Gurvitch introduces the distinctive epistemological considerations that will serve as
the overarching themes of his essays, shaping his particular interpretation of phenomenol-
ogy. The main point of debate between critical and phenomenological epistemologies con-
cerns the constitution of the object. Kant’s Copernican thesis claims that the subject is re-
sponsible for constituting objects of knowledge through the categories of the understand-
ing. The interpretative issue lies in whether the constitution occurs through a passive syn-
thesis of the givens of intuition or whether it is effected by an active and material transfor-
mation of those same givens. If the early followers of Kant leaned toward the latter view, it
113Ibid., 12.114Ibid., 12; see also the preface to Gurvitch’s volume by Léon Brunschvicg, 3,
and the discussion of Brunschvicg in Chapter 1.115Ibid., 13-15; Cf. Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 78-83.116Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 19.
166
was because Kant linked his categories directly to a spontaneous subject. The neo-
Kantians, however, endeavored to disengage the a priori categories from the subject and so
had to find some other basis to account for the constitution of objects. The increasingly fa-
vored explanation involved attributing the categories themselves productive, synthetic
power—a direct recourse to Hegel. According to Gurvitch, it was precisely against the
dangers involved in a return to Hegelianism that the phenomenologists, who also eschewed
subjectivism, interpreted the categories of knowledge as given through pure intuition, irre-
ducible in themselves and isolated from one another, and hence free of all productive
power. They restored the notion of a passive categorial synthesis in harmony, ironically
enough, with Kant himself. Furthermore, their doctrine of phenomenological intuition was
meant to show that the extra-temporal elements grounding logic and epistemology do not
have the character of general abstractions, but rather of concrete totalities. Thus, the phe-
nomenologists achieved Hegel’s goal of attaining concrete universals while avoiding his
panlogism. Gurvitch, in fact, attributes the success of phenomenology in Germany pre-
cisely to its showing itself “the sole adversary having enough strength to block the route to
a new Hegelian reaction.”117
Gurvitch’s perception of the anti-Hegelianism of phenomenology had nothing to do
with the eventual success of phenomenology in France. To the contrary, as has been indi-
cated, the French for various reasons tended to conflate Husserlian and Hegelian notions of
phenomenology.118 Moreover, the epistemological situation was different in France than in
Germany. Brunschvicg, the most prominent French interpreter of Kant in the twentieth
century, regarded the constitution of objects as a function of judgment and so avoided the
117Ibid., 23.118Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 441-42, attributes this tendency on
the one hand to the coincidence of an overdue spurt of interest in Hegel in France duringthe late 1920s, and on the other to the Russian Marxist Alexandre Kojève, whose interpre-tation of the Hegelian method as essentially descriptive and non-dialectical enabled him toidentify it with Husserlian phenomenology. See also Jean-François Lyotard, La Phé-noménologie, 11th corrected ed., vol. 625, Que sais-je? (Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1992), 40-44.
167
temptation to attribute any active synthetic powers to the categories of the understanding.119
Consequently, the interest in Husserl generated by Gurvitch’s presentation must have been
due to factors other than the anti-Hegelianism which he laid to Husserl’s account. In fact,
the reason for Gurvitch’s success in promoting Husserl is not hard to recognize. Gurvitch
offered a much clearer account of Husserl’s thought and the growth of the
phenomenological movement in Germany than any of his predecessors in France. Whereas
earlier interpreters neglected the phenomenological reduction altogether or only gave it
slight attention (e.g., Héring), Gurvitch distinguishes two stages in the reduction. He also
outlines the evolution in Husserl’s concept of essence from the Logical Investigations to
Ideas. Initially, the phenomenological reduction only led Husserl to insights into meaning
and signification; eventually, however, it brought him to the investigation of pure essences.
Gurvitch observes that, “Husserl begins his second work precisely from the point where
the critical analysis of the Logical Investigations had led us: ‘the object’ offering itself in
complete adequation between nominal signification and intuitive fulfillment is not, in truth,
an object, but a pure essence, supra- or trans-objective, independent of knowledge and pre-
senting itself as an immediate given of the Wesenschau.”120 Yet, essences in their relation
to empirical facts are never detached generalities but always concrete totalities. Real indi-
viduals, therefore, are not subordinated to universal essences; their relation is always that
of participation. Husserl’s theory of abstraction differs not only from Aristotle’s but from
Kant’s: the abstract is always secondary to the concrete.121
Just as Gurvitch adheres to the subtle distinctions Husserl introduces into the con-
cept of essence, so too he is scrupulous in presenting the three intentional layers of con-
sciousness discussed in Ideas. Gurvitch defines intentionality as “the necessary tendency of
consciousness toward a content heterogeneous to itself.”122 Consciousness can tend toward
119See Léon Brunschvicg, La Modalité du jugement (Paris: Alcan, 1897).120Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 38. Note: Les Tendances actuelles contains
alternative spellings of Wesensschau, usually Wesenschau, but sometimes Wesenchau,evidently a typographical error.
121Ibid., 42.122Ibid., 45.
168
an object only potentially, or may do so actually, but in order for it to grasp or fix an object
requires an act of attention which is the highest level of intentionality.123 These distinctions
open the way for reconciling Husserlian and Kantian epistemologies, an important
component of Gurvitch’s interpretation of phenomenology. Categorial synthesis, which
constitutes the object of knowledge, may be understood as correlative to the act of pure at-
tention. “In following Husserl’s ideas,” Gurvitch notes, “we observe an effort of harmo-
nization between the Platonic absolutism of ideas and the Copernican revolution of Kant,
between intuitionism and transcendentalism, between idealism and realism.”124 Thus
Gurvitch portrays Husserl as a philosopher interested in the synthesis of earlier philosophi-
cal traditions rather than their destruction, thereby aligning him more closely with Hegel
than his initial remarks would lead one to believe.
The problem of constitution assumed central importance in Husserl’s more recent
Formal and Transcendental Logic which appeared in 1929 as well as in his lectures at the
Sorbonne. Accordingly, Gurvitch revised the earlier published version of his essay on
Husserl to comment on this new development. In Formal and Transcendental Logic,
Gurvitch observes, Husserl limits phenomenology to the description of pure consciousness
and its intentional acts. Description of all other essences are assigned to material or formal
regional ontologies. The first phenomenological reduction, which separates essences from
empirical realities, leads directly to ontology. The second reduction, which suspends the
being of essences with respect to the intentionality of consciousness, is required to arrive at
phenomenology itself. Accordingly, phenomenology may be defined as “transcendental
egology” [égologie transcendantale].125 This move need not necessarily lead to idealism,
but in Husserl’s case it does, for identifies philosophical logic with the phenomenology of
123Ibid., 49.124Ibid., 53.125Ibid., 54. Cf. Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, §§56, 94, 103-104;
Cairns, 151ff., 232ff., and 272ff. The term transcendental egology does not come fromFormal and Transcendental Logic, but it has been picked up by other interpreters (cf.Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 252).
169
consciousness and the pure ego.126 Consequently, Gurvitch considers the stress on the
ontological primacy of consciousness, which is more pronounced in the later works than
Ideas, as an instance of deviation rather than progress in Husserl’s thought.
Gurvitch concludes his essay on Husserl with three critiques. The linchpin of these
critiques (Gurvitch himself does not explain it in this manner) is that while Husserl pre-
tends to a theory of knowledge, in practice the phenomenological method brackets too
many essential factors, leading, as a result, to an incomplete epistemology. First, Husserl
achieves a theory of knowledge that works for ideal objects but not for real ones. Because
Husserl refrains from considering the notions of the Absolute and Infinity, he cannot ade-
quately fix the notion of the finite real, which he claims stands necessarily in relation to the
Absolute through the medium of a positive infinity. In the absence of a genuine Absolute,
Husserl tends to absolutize the relative idea of the pure ego, a fact which explains the ten-
dency towards dogmatism characteristic of his more recent writings.127 Second, Gurvitch
charges Husserl with ambiguity concerning the spontaneously active and creative nature of
consciousness. Husserl defines the attentional mode of consciousness and the constitution
of objects as acts yet shies from affirming them as true activities. This restraint demon-
strates what Gurvitch pejoratively designates as Husserl’s “intellectualism.”128 Finally,
while Husserl allows for a fundamental irrationality in the reciprocal relations of individual
essences, he fails to recognize irrationality as a positive limitation on reason, and that in
three respects: in the alogical character of moral and aesthetic values, in the nature of empir-
ical matter, and in the incomprehensibility of the Absolute.129
In sum, Husserl’s greatest weakness is his disregard of a genuine Absolute, an ab-
solute altogether other than the absolute of the transcendental ego. Here one encounters full
force the Fichtean background of Gurvitch’s objections, a theme that will return in the sub-
126Ibid., 56.127Ibid., 59-61.128Ibid., 62-64.129Ibid., 65-66.
170
sequent essays in this volume.130 It is also a theme that will be taken up again in Chapter 3,
for in Ideas, Husserl does acknowledge the possibility of an absolute beyond conscious-
ness, though he considers such to belong not to the field of phenomenology, but theol-
ogy.131 Gurvitch, however, does not raise the issue of a theological absolute per se.
Instead, he simply states that Husserl’s phenomenological method is useful for discerning
essences although too narrow in itself to arrive at a complete theory of knowledge since it
brackets the necessary notions of the Absolute and the Infinite, of pure activity and positive
irrationality. Gurvitch’s assessment recalls the defense of irrationality that Shestov mounted
in the face of Husserl’s alleged prejudicing of the “unlimited character of objective reason.”
Yet unlike Shestov and even Groethuysen, Gurvitch declines to introduce Husserl through
the program outlined in “Philosophy as a Rigorous Science.”132 Gurvitch’s Husserl is the
Husserl of Ideas, and in this respect his presentation is closer to Jean Héring’s than any
other of his predecessors in France. The portrait of Husserl that emerges from his introduc-
tory essay is far less a radical Nietzschean overthower of scientific traditions than an in-
sightful logician who needs to discover more fully the epistemological traditions that are, in
fact, his resource.
2. Gurvitch on Scheler
Gurvitch’s essay on Scheler is considerably longer than the one on Husserl, reflect-
ing, perhaps, the popularity of Scheler in France during these years as well Gurvitch’s own
ethical and sociological interests.133 The remarks which follow, however, will be limited to
130Gurvitch had recently published an important study of Fichte: Le Système de lamorale concrète de J. G. Fichte (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924).
131See Husserl, Ideas, §58; Gibson, 174: “ . . . What concerns us here, aftermerely touching on the different groupings of such rational grounds for the existence of a‘divine’ Being beyond the world, is that this existence should not only transcend the world,but obviously also the ‘absolute’ Consciousness. It would thus be an ‘Absolute’ in a totallydifferent sense from the Absolute of Consciousness, as on the other hand it would be tran-scendent in a totally different sense from the transcendent in the sense of the world”(emphasis Husserl’s).
132In fact, he refers to the essay only twice: once in a chronology of Husserl’sworks and a second time in a footnote as evidence of Husserl’s anti-Hegelianism. Cf.Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 27 and 21, n. 3.
133Cf. Waldenfels, Phänomenologie in Frankreich, 36.
171
Gurvitch’s assessment of Scheler as a representative of the German phenomenological
movement, leaving aside the details Gurvitch provides concerning Scheler’s theory of val-
ues and his sociology of knowledge.134
According to Gurvitch, “Scheler occupies a peculiar place among the phenomenol-
ogists. All the while adopting the very idea of phenomenology such as it had been devel-
oped by Husserl, with whom Scheler was never otherwise in personal contact, he inter-
prets in his own way the method of the phenomenological reduction, which he relates gen-
erally to the participation in being through love.”135 Gurvitch introduces Scheler as an in-
dependent philosopher who became inspired by phenomenological methods and adopted
them to suit his own purposes. On the whole this is an accurate statement, though it plays
down the actual involvement between Scheler and Husserl. Scheler first became acquainted
with Husserl in 1901 and frequented Göttingen during 1910-11. Along with Adolf
Reinach, Alexander Pfänder and Moritz Geiger, Scheler was invited to be one of the four
original co-editors of Husserl’s philosophical yearbook.136 Scheler was an outspoken critic
of Husserl while the latter never mentioned Scheler in his published works. It was more
this fact of tension-in-relationship that contributed to Scheler’s independent status as a phe-
nomenologist than any lack of personal ties to the movement.
Gurvitch devotes several pages to explaining how Scheler’s general conception of
phenomenology differs from Husserl’s. He notes that Scheler applies phenomenological
description more liberally, and to other domains besides those defined by Husserl.
Furthermore, alongside of Husserl’s intellectual intuition of essences, Scheler proposes an
emotional intuition of values.137 Values, too, are essences, according to Scheler, but they
134For a detailed reflection on the French reception of Scheler’s hierarchical theory
of values from Gurvitch to Ricoeur, see Henri Leroux, “Sur quelques aspectes de la récep-tion de Max Scheler en France,” in Studien zur Philosophie von Max Scheler. Internation-ales Max Scheler Colloquium, “Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs,” Köln, 1993, ed.Ernst Wolfgang Orth and Gerhard Pfafferott, (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1994), 332-55.
135Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 67.136Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung; cf. Speigelberg,
Phenomenological Movement, 268-69.137Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 67.
172
differ from other essences insofar as they are not tied to direct significations. In the intu-
ition of a value, the Wesensschau assumes a different character, for there can be no
adequation between signification and fulfillment. Still, the intuition of a value is the intu-
ition of something, and so a value must be the content of some kind of intentional act.
Since the intentionality of values differs structurally from intellectual intentions, Scheler
recognizes emotional intentions as a distinct category. Emotional intentions are “pure feel-
ings,” and as such, their contents are completely inaccessible to intellectual intentions. In
the history of philosophy, only a few thinkers would admit the intentionality of emotions,
but Scheler aligns himself with the greatest of these, notably St. Augustine and Pascal, for
whom there is a distinct order, or logic, of the heart.138 Scheler’s phenomenology of values
thus moves in a different domain than Husserl’s phenomenology of consciousness, leading
Gurvitch to remark: “when we pass from Husserl to Scheler, we are presented with another
philosophy.”139
In addition, Scheler’s whole philosophy is oriented towards a “spiritualist sociol-
ogy,” which might also be called a Christian socialism. Scheler’s philosophy, Gurvitch ob-
serves, “is constantly leading back to religion.”140 Scheler employs a phenomenological
approach to describing the essence of the divine and the intentionality of religious acts.141
The essence of the divine is characterized by superiority and by infinite and personal spirit.
Though religious acts have a different intentionality than all other acts, they may be classed
among acts of love. The essence of love is to tend always towards the positive value of the
object, no matter what its relative grade. Yet only as love is directed toward persons does it
manifest itself fully. As such, love is always a moral act tending towards theism.142 Love is
the highest form of emotional intentionality or sympathy.143 Scheler’s theory of intentional
138Ibid., 77-81.139Ibid., 68.140Ibid., 124-25.141Ibid., 125-27.142Ibid., 111-13.143As noted above, the small monograph which Scheler dedicated to its study be-
came the first phenomenological work to be translated into French.
173
sympathy attempts to resolve the problem of knowledge of the other by working from
different assumptions than Husserl. Husserl begins from the presupposition that con-
sciousness is monadic and therefore assumes that consciousness of oneself takes prece-
dence over consciousness of the other.144 Scheler’s doctrine, on the other hand, presup-
poses an equality between knowledge of self and knowledge of others. Consequently, the
problem of solipsism is avoided.
While Gurvitch praises Scheler’s notion of sympathy for helping to resolve the
solipsistic tendencies characteristic of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, he re-
proaches Scheler for going too far in his critique of Kantian formalism and rationalism. In
his insistence on primordial and absolute values Scheler loses sight of the Kantian idea of
active, creative freedom as the foundation of the moral life.145 In this respect, Scheler’s
theory of love leads to the same impasse as Husserl’s theory of the attentional act and pure
ego, only this time it is not due to any lack of meditation on the Absolute, nor for any dis-
regard of the irrational. The explanation lies rather in an insufficient theory of the will. For
Scheler, the will is completely devoid of its own intentionality; it aims at no proper content,
but only at what is imposed on it by emotional or intellectual intentions.146 This deficiency
occurs at every level of Scheler’s concept of person. Even God does not create according to
his infinite love; like other persons, he only fulfills his intentional acts with respect to al-
ready existing qualities.147 Hence, it is no surprise to find Scheler continually opening the
doors to authoritarianism, whether religious, social or political.148 What for Husserl was a
fault of intellectualism in his theory of knowledge becomes a moral fault in Scheler’s
ethics. Lacking a positive affirmation of the spontaneous activity of personal conscious-
ness, there is no foundation for moral autonomy and hence no defense against moral
tyranny. In the end, Gurvitch judges Scheler harshly, leading his French audience to seek
144Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 114-15.145Ibid., 150.146Ibid., 87; cf. 143.147Ibid., 139.148Ibid., 146, cf. 88.
174
other expressions and appropriations of phenomenology, which he is ready to introduce in
the modified Kantian criticism of Émile Lask and Nicolai Hartmann.
3. Gurvitch on Lask and Hartmann
In a brief retrospective following his essays on Husserl and Scheler, Gurvitch re-
marks that, “the phenomenological method is an invaluable method, but it is not sufficient
unto itself. In order to bring forth the fruits it promises, a synthesis with other methods is
needed.”149 The synthesis he has in mind is on the order sought by German Idealism, the
synthesis between Kantian criticism and classical philosophies of the Absolute. In order to
give a concrete illustration of what he intends, Gurvitch introduces the philosophies of
Émile Lask and Nicolai Hartmann in a third essay in his volume, comparing them respec-
tively to the two masters of synthesis, Fichte and Schelling.150 Before Husserl took his
phenomenology in the direction of transcendental subjectivism and before his student
Heidegger cast phenomenology in a dialectical frame, Gurvitch endeavors to show how
Lask and Hartmann had attempted to synthesize phenomenological insights with the prin-
ciples of Kantian criticism.151
Although Lask and Hartmann never received much subsequent attention in France,
it is worth briefly discussing Gurvitch’s exposition of their philosophies for three reasons.
First, he uses Lask and Hartmann to underscore the overarching thesis of Les Tendances
actuelles de la philosophie allemande, namely that in order to achieve the renewal of
German philosophy, phenomenology must be synthesized with other philosophical ap-
proaches. Secondly, the extra-phenomenological perspective of this essay enables Gurvitch
to address what he regards as the shortcomings of phenomenology, especially with respect
to epistemology. And finally, Gurvitch tailors his discussion of Hartmann in order to set up
his introduction to Heidegger, who would become important in the French reception of
phenomenology after 1930. Gurvitch’s presentation of contemporary German philosophy
149Ibid., 151.150Ibid., 156.151Ibid., 151-52.
175
has a trajectory, and it is essential to grasp the dynamic of this trajectory if one wants to
understand not only under what conditions the French first heard about phenomenology but
also how their interpretation of it was guided.
Gurvitch begins his discussion of Lask with an observation that recalls Delbos’s
explanation of the goal of Husserl’s incipient phenomenology in the second volume of the
Logical Investigations as a “theory of theories.” In his first major book, The Logic of
Philosophy, in which credits the Logical Investigations as his inspiration, Lask attempts to
establish a category of non-sensible, extra-temporal knowledge, in other words, a
“category of categories” or a “form of forms.”152 In this way Lask tries to go beyond Kant,
who recognized only empirical objects of knowledge as intuitable or immanent to reason.
Although Lask does not refer directly to the Wesensschau, the doctrine of categorial
intuition, in his estimate Husserl’s great merit lies in his recognition of the existence of
ideal objects of knowledge alongside of real objects. Taking up the Kantian perspective,
however, Lask points out that in order to become an object of knowledge an ideal content
must be enveloped by a categorial form, which is to say, constituted by a synthesis.
Consequently, ideal objects must also be regarded as immanent to reason. Thus, Gurvitch
portrays Lask as battling on two opposing fronts: on the one hand he defends Husserl’s
notion of pure or intellectual intuition against Kant, while on the other he defends Kant’s
thesis regarding the active synthesis effected by subjectivity in the constitution of knowl-
edge against Husserl.153
In harmony with Husserl, Lask’s insistence that real and ideal contents must be en-
veloped by categorial forms in order to become objects of knowledge does not entail that
the contents themselves are transformed or produced by the synthesis. The absolute irre-
ducibility of content to form raises, however, the question of the irrational. Whereas
Gurvitch faulted Husserl for not giving sufficient attention to this question, he points out
152Ibid., 160; cf. Émile Lask, Die Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre,in Émile Lask, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Eugen Herrigel, 3 vols. (Tübingen: J. C. B.Mohr, 1923), 2: 1-282.
153Gurvitch, Les Tendances actuelles, 161.
176
that Lask distinguishes two aspects of the irrational: a negative sense, whereby the irra-
tional is defined as a-logical, opposed to reason; and a positive sense where the irrational is
recognized as an impenetrable presence, a non-rationalizable element with respect to other
contents. All real contents are irrational in the first sense, but they can nevertheless be em-
braced by categorial logic without losing their essentially a-logical character. Ideal contents,
however, are irrational with respect to each other in the second sense. Thus, in Gurvitch’s
opinion, Lask’s distinctions aid in the recognition of the fundamental irrationality of reason
with respect to itself, a fact which Husserl acknowledged only implicitly.154
The need for a transcendent, transintelligible absolute, missing from the philosophy
of Lask and Husserl’s phenomenology, serves as Nicolai Hartmann’s point of departure.
Following the phenomenological viewpoint, Hartmann believes that epistemology must
begin with the phenomenological description of knowledge. Yet taking up the critical view-
point as well, Hartmann accepts that all knowledge is founded in the tension of the subject
and object relation. Gurvitch tries to show how Hartmann’s philosophy moves from both
viewpoints toward a synthesis of phenomenology and neo-Kantianism.
Because all knowledge is conditioned by the subject-object relation, the problem of
knowledge is not psychological or logical, but rather metaphysical or ontological. All
knowledge aims at a content which is beyond the dialectic of subject and object—the tran-
sobjective. Thus Hartmann endeavors to go beyond the three main epistemological
approaches of realism, idealism and monism. His aim is to discover a true ontology of
knowledge following upon the insight, essentially Schelling’s, that the subject-object
relation is immanent to being.155 Yet, since critical philosophy demonstrates that the object
toward which knowledge reaches is not identical with the object it actually reaches, anti-
nomies and aporias are an unavoidable feature of epistemology and contribute to its essen-
tially dialectical character.156 To the two species of the irrational distinguished by Lask,
154Ibid., 162-64.155Ibid., 186-91.156Ibid., 189-90.
177
Hartmann is compelled to add two more: the irrational as a given of intuition which can
never become an object of knowledge due to a lack of adequate categories, and the irra-
tional which is at once transintelligible and alogical and therefore not even subject to intu-
ition. From his fourfold schema, Hartmann derives two important conclusions. First, as a
general ontological law, the rational is immanent to the irrational. Secondly, all lower
species of the irrational are nothing but projections of an absolute, transintelligible
irrational. Knowledge, i.e., rationality, is interposed between two irrational entities,
namely the subject and object, which remain transcendent and irrational with respect to one
another.157
Hartmann thus opposes three different levels of epistemological research: the phe-
nomenology of knowledge, aporetics and the ontology of knowledge. In Gurvitch’s as-
sessment, Hartmann’s approach is mechanical, with the consequence that the phenomena
are inadequately described, the antinomies appear to be artificially constructed, and the on-
tological explications do more in revealing the errors of the first two levels than in deepen-
ing their results. Furthermore, by attributing being to the transintelligible, it ceases to be
transintelligible. Hartmann’s epistemology is haunted by the phantom of dogmatic realism,
the illusive “thing in itself.”158 Hartmann’s most serious fault, however, lies in neglecting
the intentionality of consciousness. Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings Hartmann’s
employment of a phenomenological approach to knowledge within the critical environment
of the dialectical subject-object relation demonstrates, “that phenomenology is called to be-
come an ontology, an analytical ontology of acts . . . and not an ontology of things.”159
By bringing phenomenology closer to its roots in classical German traditions on the one
hand, and by leading it towards ontology on the other, Hartmann anticipates the reorienta-
tion of phenomenology proposed by Martin Heidegger. Thus, although neither Lask nor
Hartmann manage a successful synthesis of phenomenology with neo-Kantian criticism,
157Ibid., 193-95.158Ibid., 204.159Ibid., 205.
178
they do indicate the continuity of phenomenology with earlier German philosophical tradi-
tions. In this way Lask and Hartmann help Gurvitch to show that phenomenology is not an
isolated or aberrant intellectual movement but an integral methodology in German philoso-
phy destined to play its role in the renewal of German thought.
4. Gurvitch on Heidegger
Gurvitch begins his essay on Heidegger by observing that “whereas Lask and
Hartmann tried to fill out the insufficiency of phenomenological philosophy from outside
the school, departing from neo-Kantian conceptions, Martin Heidegger . . . attempted and
has succeeded in profoundly modifying the primitive direction of the phenomenological
movement from within its own frame, upon a completely original basis.”160 Heidegger ac-
complishes this goal by addressing the three shortcomings of phenomenology to which
Gurvitch has been calling the reader’s attention throughout the three preceding essays,
namely: irresolution of the problem of knowledge of the real, lack of attention to the prob-
lem of the irrational, and misunderstanding of the necessary link between description of the
givens of pure intuition and their dialectical verification. Heidegger’s principal means for
overcoming these deficiencies consists in enlarging the domain of phenomenology and
centering it upon the description and analysis of existence. Phenomenology must not con-
fine itself to the description of essences, especially that of transcendental consciousness.
Instead, phenomenology must describe the “being of existence” as such.161
Gurvitch proceeds to explain how Heidegger effects an original synthesis of almost
all the currents of contemporary philosophy, including not only Husserl, Scheler, Lask and
Hartmann, who have figured in the trajectory of his own exposition, but also Bergson,
Nietzsche, Dilthey, Kant, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, and even Barth and Gogarten. “And all
these currents, so different and so many,” Gurvitch concludes, “are brought together by
Heidegger with an incontestable originality and spontaneity of thought in a very personal
160Ibid., 207.161Ibid., 207.
179
philosophy,” adding that still more revelations are to be expected from subsequent volumes
of his yet unfinished work, Being and Time.162 Gurvitch devotes considerable attention to
an exposition of Heidegger’s opus, unknown at the time in France, but since its themes are
now familiar, we can proceed directly to Gurvitch’s interpretation of Heidegger, which can
be most readily discerned through his translations of certain key Heideggerian terms.
Focusing on terminology also provides a basis for subsequent comparisons with the inter-
pretations of Heidegger offered by Levinas and Sartre.
Gurvitch was the first to attempt the translation of Heidegger’s neologisms and
special technical vocabulary into French. Generally, he prefers literal renderings. For in-
stance, he translates In-der-Welt-Sein by l’être-dans-le-monde, verfallen by perdu dans le
monde, Sorge by souci, and Angst by angoisse. Other terms, however, he interprets more
freely. For instance, Gurvitch renders Dasein by existence humaine and consistently refers
to the analytic of Dasein as analytique existentielle. Gurvitch, in fact, does not carry over
into French Heidegger’s judicious distinction between the German adjectives existentiell
and existenzial. The effect of Gurvitch’s interpretive choices is to bring Heidegger’s de-
scriptions and analyses of existence more immediately into the concrete world, exposing
them more readily to moral valuations. Terms such as Alltäglichkeit, Geworfenheit, and
Unheimlichkeit, which are all special noun forms introduced by Heidegger to describe for-
mal aspects of being, Gurvitch renders by common words in French—existence banale,
délaissement, and malaise respectively—all of which have a decidedly negative connota-
tions. Gurvitch’s Heidegger appears as a Heidegger read through Nietzsche. While he
never frankly admits it, it constitutes an element of his interpretation which must be taken
into account in understanding the French reception of phenomenology.163
The moral overtones of Gurvitch’s interpretative translations support his evaluation
that Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein, “moves completely in the circle of problems tradition-
162Ibid., 211.163Sartre, for example, favors a Nietzschean reading of Heidegger (see below).
180
ally regarded by ethics and the philosophy of religion.”164 Nevertheless, he observes,
Heidegger’s analysis differs from theological anthropologies because it investigates hu-
manity not through its exterior relations but through itself.165 On the other hand, he recog-
nizes Heidegger’s unwillingness to separate religious and ethical problems from the ontol-
ogy of existence. Gurvitch accordingly comments that there is a “monist” tendency in
Heidegger’s philosophy, for “in unifying theoretical philosophy and wisdom in a single
fundamental ontology he would find in existence itself the criterion of the Good and the
ways of salvation.”166
On the whole, Gurvitch’s assessment of Heidegger centers on two main features of
his philosophy: irrationalism and dialectic. Despite Heidegger’s rejection of a specifically
Romantic irrationalism and an expressly Hegelian dialectic, Gurvitch nevertheless contends
that, “the synthesis of irrationalism and dialectic, based upon a phenomenology of exis-
tence, is his most evident goal.”167 Heidegger’s implicit irrationalism is evidenced by his
conceptions of thrownness [Fr. délaissement, Ger. Geworfenheit] and of the malaise of
human existence, the latter being symbolized in anxiety. Anxiety arises from the impene-
trability of the Absolute, its non-rationalizable character. Meanwhile, Gurvitch connects
Heidegger’s description of the thrownness of human existence to the later Fichte’s concep-
tion of the separation of Logos and Spirit from the Absolute. Thus, Gurvitch cannot fault
Heidegger, as he faults the other phenomenologists in Gurvitch’s survey, for failing to take
into consideration the problem of irrationality.168 Likewise Gurvitch praises Heidegger’s
use of dialectic. Heidegger’s dialectic of existence, which moves between everyday and
authentic experience, is rooted in a dialectic of temporality in which primordial time syn-
thesizes the exstases of the past and the present in the exstasis of the future. In turn, the di-
alectic of temporality serves as a foundation for a dialectic of history and a dialectic of
164Ibid., 218.165Ibid., 208-209.166Ibid., 218.167Ibid., 228.168Ibid., 229. Recall that a failure to give adequate attention to the irrational was one
of Gurvitch’s main criticisms of Husserl.
181
ethics. Finally, Heidegger’s epistemology is profoundly dialectical, as evidenced by his
notion of truth as unconcealment. Yet, despite its movement from thesis to antithesis to
higher synthesis, Heidegger’s dialectic is not Hegel’s. The strong element of irrationalism
in his philosophy resists Hegel’s panlogism. On the other hand, the dialectical element
completes and goes beyond phenomenology to rejoin the tradition of classical German
idealism.169 Once again, Gurvitch shows that his hope for the future of phenomenology,
which he is ready to link to Heidegger’s revisionist program, is guided by the aspirations
of the golden age of German idealism, particularly Fichte.
Gurvitch’s praise of Heidegger is not unqualified, however. Although he restrains
his criticism because he recognizes Being and Time as a work in progress, he nonetheless
questions whether Heidegger’s existential analytic will prove a sufficient basis for the syn-
thesis of dialectic and irrationalism he sees him trying to effect. Gurvitch believes that the
phenomenological analysis of existence alone cannot provide adequate criteria for justifying
the value judgments that frequently arise in Heidegger’s supposedly pure descriptions of
existence. The problem is that Heidegger wants to ground morality on the being of exis-
tence, and so he cannot avoid the temptation to attempt a deduction of the former from the
latter, resulting in dangerous consequences for both. Because Heidegger intercalates ethics
with ontology, his philosophy assumes a moralizing tone.170 Gurvitch is not altogether
opposed to linking ethics and ontology, but this main objection to Heidegger on this point
is that for the latter, the being of existence is identified with human being, which leads, in
his opinion, to a “cult of humanity.”171 Hence, Gurvitch brings the same charge against
Heidegger that he brought against Husserl: human existence is merely relative to the being
of the Absolute, which remains separated from the former by an “unbridgeable gulf.”172
Furthermore, Gurvitch reproaches Heidegger, as he reproached Scheler, for ignoring the
169Ibid., 230-31.170Ibid., 232.171Ibid., 233.172Ibid., 233; Note that the expression reveals Gurvitch’s negative assessment of
Heidegger’s attempt to go beyond this Kantian impasse.
182
primordial element of all morality, namely a purely active and creative free will. “The on-
tology of creative action,” he states, “is opposed to the ontology of the being of exis-
tence.”173 If dialectic is to be kept from falling into emanationism, it must respect the irra-
tional, affirming its ultimate oppositions while at the same time becoming synthesized with
it. Only Fichte in his late period accomplished this balance, according to Gurvitch;
Heidegger has not yet reached this plateau.174 Clearly, from Gurvitch’s perspective, the
future of phenomenology lies in the past.
D. Groethuysen and Gurvitch as Interpreters of Phenomenology
Neither Groethuysen nor Gurvitch had any direct contact with Husserl, yet their
immersion in the German philosophical world prepared them not only to recognize the
growing importance of phenomenology in Germany but also to give a more or less accurate
exposition of its principal themes and methods. Groethuysen explains the basic phe-
nomenological techniques of overcoming the natural attitude and seeing essences in terms
accessible to the layperson but his interpretation of phenomenology in certain respects
stands closer to Reinach and Scheler than to Husserl. Furthermore, he limits his discussion
of Husserl’s works to the Logos essay. Gurvitch, on the other hand, expands the textual
basis of his interpretation of Husserl to encompass Ideas, and while he presupposes a more
philosophically literate audience than Groethuysen, he too refrains from introducing
Husserl’s technical vocabulary—with the notable exception of the Wesensschau, which by
1930 had become so familiar that it no longer needed to be translated.
More importantly, both Groethuysen and Gurvitch provided the important service
of situating phenomenology within the context of contemporary philosophical schools and
thereby assigning it a role in the unfolding drama of thought and culture. For the first time
the educated French public was positioned to appreciate phenomenology as a philosophical
movement in its own right and not simply as a corrective criticism of psychologism and
173Ibid., 233.174Ibid., 234.
183
logicism. In Groethuysen’s view, phenomenology continues the modern legacy of
philosophies of life from Nietzsche and Dilthey and Simmel while at the same time integrat-
ing the concern for methodological rigor characteristic of the empirical sciences. Husserl is
introduced as having largely fulfilled these aims, although as Groethuysen endeavors to
show in the last chapter of his book, phenomenology might yet serve as point of departure
for a still broader philosophical synthesis, combining spiritualist and positivist tendencies.
Similar to Groethuysen’s Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande depuis
Nietzsche, Gurvitch’s Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande offers more
than a gallery of philosophical portraits. Like Groethuysen, Gurvitch deliberately se-
quences and links his essays on contemporary German thinkers in order to bring to light a
fundamental theme. For Groethuysen that theme was the problem of philosophy itself; for
Gurvitch it is more precisely the problem of developing an epistemology that can ade-
quately account for knowledge of the real and the ideal, the irrational as well as the rational,
and the contingent singular in relation to the Absolute. Furthermore, whereas for
Groethuysen Husserl represented the culmination of recent efforts to resolve the basic
problem of philosophy, for Gurvitch he is clearly only the point of departure for further at-
tempts to move beyond the opposition of realism and idealism. Phenomenology is destined
to play a role in a future synthesis of the principal German philosophical traditions. If it
should remain alone and independent, it will suffer from certain shortcomings, particularly
the lack of an adequate concept of the absolute and an inadequate appreciation for the irra-
tional. Yet if phenomenology is synthesized with other critical viewpoints it can help the
enterprise of modern philosophy to overcome its defects. Gurvitch’s essays on Husserl’s
successors are all meant to underscore this point: the essay on Scheler is meant to show the
value of combining phenomenology with ethics; the essay on Lask and Hartmann is meant
to reveal the benefits of integrating phenomenological viewpoints in neo-Kantian criticism;
and finally the essay on Heidegger is meant to show how phenomenological insights can be
incorporated effectively into a dialectical strategy. Nevertheless, Gurvitch does not think
184
that the ultimate goal of philosophical synthesis will be attained by extrapolating from pre-
sent attempts, as does Groethuysen. No, for Gurvitch, the master and model of philosoph-
ical synthesis belongs to the past and awaits rediscovery. In his opinion, Fichte offers the
best integration of the Absolute and irrationality in a comprehensive, synthetic philosophy
and can therefore serve as a ruler against which to measure contemporary philosophies,
such as phenomenology. Gurvitch appeals especially to the achievements of the later Fichte
to point out the limitations of phenomenology as an isolated method. He charges that
Husserl mistakenly absolutizes consciousness because he lacks a concept of a genuine ab-
solute, and he lacks the latter because he does not give adequate attention to the problem of
the irrational. Scheler does better in both areas, he thinks, but still he fails to recognize
spontaneous creative freedom as an essential feature of human consciousness. Even
Heidegger, whom Gurvitch praises most among phenomenologists, lacks a foundation for
affirming free will and moral action. Given the nature of his critiques, one might speculate
that if he had known Blondel’s philosophy as well as Fichte’s he might have used it to the
same purpose. Blondel’s emphasis on the spontaneous creativity of the free will and the
dynamism of the same toward an infinite and irrationalizable Absolute could have furnished
Gurvitch with equally effective correctives for the shortcomings of phenomenology. Yet
Gurvitch, like Groethuysen, had received his formation in the German academic tradition,
not the French, nor was he disposed to assimilate the religious aspects of Blondel’s
thought. The synthesis of phenomenology with Blondelian philosophy would have to wait
for thinkers formed in the French theological milieu to discern the potential for integration
and to incorporate phenomenological themes into religious philosophy. Meanwhile, two
other philosophers, both formed in the secular academic tradition, would attempt to assimi-
late phenomenological themes to Cartesianism.
IV. Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre
The earliest essays on Husserl’s logic and phenomenology in France had as their
aim simply to explain his doctrines and methodology, and from there perhaps to hint at
185
their potential value for resolving certain philosophical problems originating in experimental
psychology or neo-Kantianism. A critical appropriation of phenomenology had not yet
been tested. Shestov voiced objections against what he perceived as the excessive rational-
ism of phenomenology, but as we have shown, his arguments lacked sufficient grounds.
Furthermore, he did not develop his criticisms into a coherent counter-position; he demon-
strated no real appropriation of phenomenological themes. Gurvitch presented substantial
criticisms of Husserlian phenomenology, but he did so through a discussion of contempo-
rary German thinkers. A personal appropriation of phenomenology was lacking once
again. Yet, a new phase in the French philosophical reception of phenomenology was
about to begin.
A. Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) was born in Lithuania. His childhood years, how-
ever, were spent in the Ukraine, where he witnessed the Russian revolution. Being from an
orthodox Jewish family he studied the Hebrew Bible and Talmud, but he also read the great
Russian authors: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. In 1923, Levinas left his na-
tive land to study philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. At Strasbourg, he came un-
der the influence of professors who had grown up during the controversy over the Alsatian
Jewish artillery officer, Alfred Dreyfus. Impressed by the humanism which the
Dreyfusards had instilled in their characters, Levinas applied for and received naturalization
as a French citizen in 1930.175
Levinas spent two formative semesters studying with Husserl in Freiburg in 1928-
1929, having been sent there by his Strasbourg mentor, Jean Héring, who had introduced
him to phenomenology the previous year.176 Levinas arrived in Freiburg just after
175Biographical information drawn from Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom, ed.Sander Gilman and Steven T. Katz, trans. Seán Hand (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1990), 291.
176 Ibid., 291. Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Éthique et Infini, (Paris: Le Livre de Poche,1992), 19-20, where he credits fellow student Gabrielle Peiffer, with whom he later sharedthe work of translating the Cartesian Meditations, with having first exposed him to Hus-serl’s written works, a passage from the Logical Investigations. Héring is not mentioned in
186
Husserl’s official retirement. Nevertheless, the master still taught a few courses and so
Levinas was able to attend his lectures on phenomenological psychology and the constitu-
tion of intersubjectivity.177 Although Levinas studied principally with Husserl while in
Freiburg, he also became acquainted with Heidegger, who had just been appointed as the
successor to Husserl’s chair in philosophy. Like everyone else around him he began read-
ing Being and Time.178
Levinas’s first publication on phenomenology appeared in the March-April 1929
edition of the Strasbourg Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, coinciding
with Husserl’s series of lectures at the Sorbonne and serving as an introduction to his main
themes.179 The article, which summarizes the first volume of Husserl’s Ideas (the only
volume to have appeared in print by that time), makes occasional references to relevant pas-
sages in the Logical Investigations but is largely shaped by later developments in Husserl’s
thought. Meanwhile, Levinas was also preparing his doctoral thesis on Husserl under the
direction of Héring. In order that Husserl might receive more thorough attention in French
philosophical literature, Héring encouraged Levinas to focus on a particular aspect of
Husserl’s philosophy, namely his theory of intuition.180 Levinas, however, was becoming
increasingly persuaded by the need to shift the orientation of phenomenology from episte-
mology to ontology as Heidegger proposed. Clear traces of Heidegger’s thought may be
detected both in Levinas’s exposition of Ideas as well as in his thesis, but it was only two
years later, in 1932, that Levinas published a study devoted to Heidegger’s Being and
this context. See also Levinas’s memoir “Fribourg, Husserl et la phénoménologie,” Revued'Allemagne et des pays de langue allemande 5, no. 43 (1931): 402-14.
177Levinas, Éthique et infini, 23.178Seán Hand, Introduction to The Levinas Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 2.
Cf. Levinas, Éthique et infini, 27.179Emmanuel Levinas, “Sur les Ideen de Husserl,” Revue philosophique de la
France et de l’étranger 107 (1929): 230-65.180Emmanuel Levinas, La Théorie de l’intuition dans la phénoménologie de
Husserl, 2nd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1963), 5. Levinas’s thesis is available in English as TheTheory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology, trans. André Orianne (Evanston: North-western University Press, 1973), yet due to the inaccessibility of this volume when I wrotethis section, all translations of this work are my own.
187
Time.181 In order to clarify the precise nature of Levinas’s contribution to the French re-
ception of phenomenology prior to 1939, each these essays will be analyzed below. The
discussion will highlight his unique interpretation of the methods and aims of phenomenol-
ogy and also his assimilation of phenomenology to the Cartesian philosophical tradition.
In addition to the foregoing essays, Levinas made another contribution to the
French reception of phenomenology through his collaboration with Gabrielle Peiffer in
preparing a French translation of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations.182 The Cartesian
Meditations evolved from Husserl’s Sorbonne lectures. On his return to Freiburg, Husserl
stopped in Strasbourg and there delivered another series lectures which were similar, al-
though not identical, to those given in Paris. In the latter series Husserl gave the problem of
intersubjectivity considerably more attention. Encouraged by the lively interest his talks
aroused, Husserl decided to work up his new approach as a comprehensive introduction to
the fundamental problems of transcendental phenomenology. Solicitous of his French audi-
ence, he suggested the title Cartesian Meditations and asked Jean Héring to find translators
for the project. Héring selected Levinas and a fellow student, Gabrielle Peiffer, for the task
and enjoined Alexandre Koyré, one of Husserl’s former students in Göttingen and now a
professor at Montpellier, to read through the entire translation and to suggest improve-
ments.183 Husserl worked feverishly on the manuscript of the Meditations through the
middle of May 1929, at which point he sent it to Strasbourg to be translated. Husserl in-
tended to publish the German text in his Jahrbuch that fall, but became dissatisfied with it
and held it back from the press. The French translation appeared in early 1931, but despite
Husserl’s repeated attempts to rework the draft, believing it would the “masterpiece of his
life’s work,” a German edition of the Meditations was never published during his life-
181Emmanuel Levinas, “Martin Heidegger et l’ontologie,” Revue philosophique de
la France et de l’étranger 113 (1932): 395-431.182Edmund Husserl, Méditations Cartésiennes. Introduction à la phénoménologie,
trans. Gabrielle Peiffer and Emmanuel Levinas, rev. ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1947).183Strasser, “Introduction” to Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge,
Husserliana 1: 13-14.
188
time.184 In the absence of a German edition of the Meditations, the French translation pre-
pared by Levinas and Peiffer became all the more significant for the reception of Husserl’s
thought, both in France and abroad. Comparing the Meditations to the roughly contempo-
raneous Formal and Transcendental Logic, Stephan Strasser has observed that the former
contains a “more thorough and systematic introduction into the thought-world of transcen-
dental phenomenology.”185 Certainly the work had a formative impact on Levinas, whose
portion of the translation included the final meditations where Husserl developed the be-
ginnings of an intersubjective phenomenology—a theme which figures in both of his es-
says on Husserl, to whose exposition we now turn.
1. On Husserl’s Ideas
Levinas divides his exposition of Husserl’s Ideas into four sections in accordance
with Husserl’s organization, while introducing his own subheadings in order to highlight
what he considers its principle theses. In the first section on “Essence and the Knowledge
of Essences,” Levinas explains how Husserl’s conception of phenomenology is built upon
a doctrine of essences that had received its first elaboration in the Logical Investigations. As
Levinas observes, the intuition of essences is one of the important discoveries of Husserl’s
early work.186 In order to arrive at the essence of an object, one begins from an imagined
or perceived object and then passes it through the series of possible conscious modifica-
tions until the invariable content of consciousness, i.e., the essence of the object, is
grasped. This process Husserl calls ideation, and the essence that it yields he refers to as
the eidetic object. Levinas subsequently shows that despite the inductive character of
ideation, the act of grasping eidetic objects is the work of intuition. The intellection of
essences is analogous to sensible intuition insofar as the eidetic object is “originally given”
184Ibid., 15; quotation adapted from a letter of Husserl to Roman Ingarden datedMarch 19, 1930: “. . . das wird das Hauptwerk meines Lebens sein . . .” (cf. StephanStrasser, “Einleitung,” in Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und PariserVorträge, ed. H. L. Van Breda, vol. 1, Husserliana (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950),xxvii).
185Strasser, “Introduction to Husserliana Volume 1,” 13.186Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 233.
189
to consciousness “in person” and is seen by it in an act of “vision.”187 Accordingly,
Levinas remarks that, “The extension of the concept of intuition to the sphere of essence
and categorial forms permitted Husserl to see in intuition the essential moment of true
knowledge.”188 For Levinas, then, rationalism and empiricism are there reconciled to a
certain extent, echoing earlier appraisals of Husserl’s success in synthesizing competing
metaphysical and epistemological traditions.189
Levinas next explains how for Husserl the empirical sciences depend on eidetic sci-
ence, and that in two respects. First, empirical facts are understood as individuations of
specific essences. Not all essences are specific, however; some essences are general,
defining regions of related essences, such as material things. In turn, these general
essences can also become objects of eidetic investigation, resulting in regional ontologies.
In addition to regional ontologies, Husserl defines what he calls formal ontology. Formal
ontology concerns the eidetic laws common to all regional ontologies, in other words, the
laws regarding the form of the object in general. Formal ontology, therefore, is nothing
other than pure logic. Thus, insofar as the empirical sciences are dependent upon logic,
they are dependent upon eidetic science in this second respect as well.190
Regional ontologies are determined through the application of the laws of formal
ontology to a domain of material essences. In Kantian terms, therefore, regional ontologies
present synthetic a priori knowledge: synthetic due to the presence of the formal element, a
priori because the material element is independent of empirical experience. Yet for Husserl,
in contrast to Kant, synthetic a priori knowledge is not limited to a closed system of cate-
gories; rather, it is extended across the full range of regional ontologies.191 Husserl’s earli-
est disciples, Levinas remarks, understood phenomenology to entail the working out of
187Ibid., 234. The quotation marks indicate Levinas’s employment of Husserl’s
terminology (cf. Husserl, Ideas, §3; Gibson, 54-56, and Husserl, Logical Investigations,Investigation II; Findlay, 1: 337-432).
188Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 234.189Ibid., 235. Cf. the discussion of Gurvitch above.190Ibid., 236. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §13; Gibson, 72-74.191Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 237. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §16; Gibson, 78.
190
these regional ontologies.192 Husserl, however—and it is important to note the emphasis
Levinas places upon this distinction—understands phenomenology as something other than
the exploration of regional ontologies. All regional ontologies as well as all empirical sci-
ences require an absolutely certain foundation, and it is the task of phenomenology to
provide it.193
One can begin to appreciate the phenomenological viewpoint by understanding the
shortcomings of what Husserl calls naturalism or the natural attitude. Naturalism dogmati-
cally identifies experience with sensible experience. Furthermore, it confuses the act of
knowledge, which undeniably has its origin in the psychology of the individual, with the
object of knowledge, namely the a priori essence. Yet, as noted above, a priori essences are
immediately given to the intellect through intuition. Hence, the presuppositions of natural-
ism are shown to be false, leading Levinas to affirm that “intuition is the first source of ev-
ery right of knowledge to the truth, the ‘principle of principles.’”194 On the primacy of in-
tuition in phenomenology, Levinas is in agreement with his mentor Héring and with other
interpreters of Husserl in France. Beyond this point, however, his interpretation begins to
diverge from theirs.
Levinas explains that in Husserl’s view, the naturalist misconceives the way objects
are given to and exist for consciousness.195 Consequently, “The manner in which the ob-
ject gives itself to consciousness, the meaning of its objectivity, must themselves become
objects of intuitive research”—this is the foundational task of phenomenology, according to
Levinas, and it would seem that he sides with Husserl against phenomenologists such as
Reinach and Scheler, who sought to broaden the scope of phenomenological investiga-
tion.196 “Still, there is more,” Levinas continues: “to ask what it means for objects to give
themselves to consciousness, what their transcendence or objectivity means for conscious-
192Adolf Reinach, whom we encountered in our earlier survey of Groethuysen’sintroductory volume on phenomenology, would be an example of this tendency.
193Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 238.194Ibid., 239. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §24; Gibson, 92-93.195Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 239. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §19; Gibson, 83.196Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 240 (emphasis Levinas’s).
191
ness, is to ask at the same time the plain meaning of the existence of things.”197 Here
Levinas tries to make explicit what he believes is contained implicitly in Husserl’s text.
That his concern for the meaning of the existence of things was inspired by Heidegger will
become clearer when we examine Levinas’s subsequent writings. For now, we may simply
note that for Husserl the essence of the phenomenologically reduced consciousness was of
more importance than the existential status of transcendent objects, which is precisely what
gets bracketed in the reduction.198
In the second section of his article, still following Husserl’s own program in Ideas,
Levinas discusses the phenomenological reduction and the intentionality of consciousness.
The absolute character of the new science of phenomenology depends upon its absolute re-
sistance to skepticism. This resistance is achieved by employing a methodology similar to
Cartesian doubt: any thesis which is susceptible to doubt is put out of action or placed
within parentheses. Husserl calls this method the phenomenological epoché or reduction.
Thus, the existence of the world, which is the general thesis of the natural attitude, must
enter the brackets, while consciousness itself remains outside them, absolutely certain.199
“Consciousness presents itself therefore as a residue that resists the phenomenological
epoché,” Levinas concludes.200 Similarly, “Being as consciousness has a different meaning
than being as nature.”201 Hence, the study of consciousness performed by phenomenology
is different than that undertaken by psychology, where the being of consciousness is
regarded a being of nature. By contrast, phenomenology studies pure and absolute
consciousness. “The originality of this conception,” Levinas comments, “consists
moreover in the fact that it is not an abstract consciousness, . . . nor the absolute Ego of
Fichte—but an individual consciousness which every one of us finds in himself in the cog-
ito.”202 Whether or not Levinas intends here to respond to Gurvitch’s critique of Husserl,
197Ibid., 240 (emphasis Levinas’s).198Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §§ 31, 33, 50; Gibson, 107-110, 112-114, 154.199Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 241-42.200Ibid., 246 (emphasis Levinas’s).201Ibid., 247.202Ibid., 247.
192
he certainly hits the mark.203 He thinks that the phenomenological reduction enables
Husserl to attain a layer of consciousness that is absolutely certain, and furthermore, indi-
vidual—a pure ego, though he refrains, like Husserl, from using this neo-Kantian termi-
nology in order to avoid confusion. Thus for Levinas, phenomenology represents a contin-
uation of the Cartesian meditation on the cogito. By its independence from all other sci-
ences and by its focus on indubitable principles, phenomenology achieves the Cartesian
ideal of first philosophy.204 In making this assessment, Levinas shows that he is relying
more on his familiarity with the recent developments in Husserl’s thought, especially his
Sorbonne lectures, than on the text of Ideas. What is more important from our perspective,
however, is that this alignment of Husserl with the Cartesian tradition as opposed to the
tradition of German Idealism indicates the beginning of a properly French appropriation of
phenomenology.
In the third section of his article, Levinas tries to clarify the uniqueness of the phe-
nomenological method. In order to do so, he returns to the process of ideation which he
discussed earlier, distinguishing it, as does he Husserl, from idealization. Idealization ar-
rives at an idea in the Kantian sense of a completely determined concept. Such ideal con-
cepts, which are the objects of mathematics and the exact sciences, are achieved through
deduction. Traditional philosophies likewise took ideal concepts for their bases and em-
ployed deductive methodologies in elaborating their own a priori sciences.
Phenomenology, on the other hand, does not proceed from exact concepts determined
through idealization, but from inexact concepts attained through ideation. The existence of
inexact concepts is one of Husserl’s great discoveries in Levinas’s estimation, for it means
that philosophy as an a priori science is not limited to the purely deductive methodology of
mathematics and the exact sciences but can be grounded independently.205 Furthermore,
this discovery means that Husserl has overcome the impasse left by Bergson, namely that
203 Recall that Gurvitch faulted Husserl for absolutizing what he regarded as therelative idea of the pure ego while failing to posit a transcendent Absolute, as Fichte had.
204Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 248.205Ibid., 250.
193
consciousness can either be studied rationally through well-defined concepts or it cannot be
subjected to rational study at all.
“Phenomenology is a descriptive eidetic science,” Levinas observes, not a deduc-
tive one.206 Again: “Phenomenology cannot consist in deducing the essence of one or an-
other state of consciousness through some axiom, but in describing its necessary struc-
ture.”207 As a descriptive eidetic science phenomenology proceeds by the method of reflec-
tion. “Reflection grasps consciousness in its unmodified form through its modifications,”
Levinas asserts.208 Reflection can be oriented either subjectively or objectively, that is, re-
flection can be directed to the relation of the ego [moi] to consciousness or it can be directed
to the relation of the object to consciousness, i.e., intentionality. The principal focus of
Ideas rests upon the latter.209 The two orientations of reflective consciousness, however,
are always correlated. Accordingly, Levinas introduces the terms noesis and noema which
Husserl applies to their respective contents.210 Levinas does not go into much detail con-
cerning this complex aspect of Husserl’s doctrine, but moves on to clarify the phenomeno-
logical notion of truth. Levinas explains that the truth of a judgment, according to Husserl,
does not consist in a noematic synthesis of disparate elements, but in a simple intuition of
the state of affairs [Fr. état de choses, Ger. Sachverhalt] expressed by the judgment.211
Levinas anticipates his discussion of the final section of Ideas by announcing that,
“Only true knowledge has being for its object. How knowledge attains being with
truth—what being signifies—here is the essential problem of phenomenology in relation to
206Ibid., 249 (emphasis mine). Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §75; Gibson, 209.207Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 251.208Ibid., 251 (emphasis Levinas’s). Note that Levinas’s proposition is similar to
Lask’s insistence that in order for ideal objects to become objects of knowledge, they mustbe enveloped by a categorial form, or in other words, that they must be constituted by asynthesis. So far as I can judge, however, Levinas was not influenced by Lask or anyother neo-Kantian in offering this interpretation.
209Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §80; Gibson, 234: “The meditations which we propose tofollow up still further in this Section of our work [i.e., the longest section, Section 3 on the‘Procedure of Pure Phenomenology in Respect of Methods and Problems’] will bear, bypreference, on the objectively oriented aspect, as that which first presents itself when weforsake the natural standpoint.”
210Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 254-56.211Ibid., 256-57. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §94; Gibson, 272-276.
194
all the others, which merely serve as preparation.”212 The problem of reason and reality is
posed in a new manner: it does not consist in asking how consciousness can reach an
already existing object that is transcendent to it, but rather in explicating what
consciousness thinks when it thinks a real object, that is, how the intentionality which
attains being can be characterized.213
In the final section of his article, Levinas meditates with Husserl on the essence of
reason. He begins by noting with Husserl that the noema of consciousness is not the same
as the object of consciousness since different noematic acts may all refer to the same object
pole. The pretension of consciousness towards this object pole Levinas interprets as an act
whereby consciousness poses its object “as existing.”214 In order to justify this extension
of the domain of pure phenomenology defined by Husserl, Levinas returns to the distinc-
tion between signifying acts and intuitive acts that Husserl developed in the Logical
Investigations. Briefly, signifying acts envisage without seeing; they are empty intentions.
Intuitive acts see with evidence; they are fulfilled intentions.215 “The act of reason is the
intuitive act,” Levinas observes. He continues: “What characterizes the essence of reason is
not therefore such and such a form, such and such a law of thought or category of logic; it
is a certain mode of relating to the object in which the latter is given with evidence and is
present ‘in person’ before consciousness.”216 Does Levinas confuse being given with evi-
dence with the meaning of existing? He contends that for every category of objects the
question of reality must be posed.217 The different modes of givenness imply different
forms of evidence. Following Husserl’s discussion in Ideas, Levinas distinguishes be-
tween mediate and immediate evidence. Mediate evidence must always be justified by a re-
turn to immediate evidence, which is the sole source of truth, being known through an act
of intellectual intuition. In his own words, but essentially in harmony with Husserl,
212Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 257 (emphasis Levinas’s).213Ibid., 258.214Ibid., 259 (emphasis Levinas’s).215Husserl, Logical Investigations, Investigation VI; Findlay, 2: 675-706.)216Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 260 (emphasis Levinas’s).217Ibid., 261.
195
Levinas affirms that “[t]he noetic-noematic structure of such mediate justification is a field
of research in the phenomenology of reason.”218
Levinas proceeds to indicate other problems awaiting phenomenological investiga-
tion, some of which go beyond Husserl’s own prescriptions. The main problem, in his
opinion, is to describe the constitution of the various categories of objects for pure con-
sciousness in order to see how these objects exist. The chief example Levinas discusses
here is the constitution of the material object. It belongs to the essence of a material object,
he claims, that it cannot have the character of absolute existence since the existence of each
of its aspects depends upon the whole and the whole can never be given completely.
Levinas points out that this fact is overlooked in the exercise of the natural attitude, which
is why “the meaning of existence . . . becomes the principal object of research in phe-
nomenology and must be explicated by the phenomenology of reason.”219 Husserl, how-
ever, seems more concerned with clarifying the rational character of the act in which the
object is posited in consciousness than with its existence.220 For Husserl, the idea of “true
Being” is an “equivalent correlate” of “to be rationally posited,”221 but nowhere does he
claim outright that phenomenology is primarily concerned with explicating the meaning of
existence.
In addition to the foregoing extension of the aims of Husserl’s phenomenology,
Levinas also offers a critique. Objectivity presupposes the agreement of many egos, he ob-
serves, not just one. Hence, the intersubjective world is ideally presupposed in the very
essence of truth. “Therefore if phenomenology truly wants to study the meaning of truth
and of being,” he claims, “all researches of egological phenomenology must be subordi-
nated to ‘inter-subjective phenomenology.’”222 The idea of intersubjectivity, which is in-
218Ibid., 262.219Ibid., 264.220Husserl, Ideas, §139; Gibson, 387. Cf. §141; Gibson, 393: “. . . All this may
serve to indicate by way of illustration large and important groups of problems dealing withthe ‘confirming’ and ‘verifying’ of immediate rational positings” (emphasis Husserl’s).
221Husserl, Ideas, §142; Gibson, 395.222Levinas, Sur les Ideen , 265.
196
troduced only briefly as a higher order of objectivity in Ideas,223 thus functions in
Levinas’s hands as a lever to overturn the significance of constitutive acts on the level of
the individual.
What influenced Levinas to venture beyond the text of Ideas and reinterpret the aims
and methods of phenomenology? We noted above that Levinas studied in Freiburg while
Husserl was lecturing on phenomenological psychology and the constitution of intersub-
jectivity. Levinas’s critique of Ideas from the viewpoint of the intersubjective constitution
of objectivity therefore probably has its origins in Husserl himself. On the other hand,
Levinas’s focus on the being of objects and the meaning of their existence does not have a
precedent in Husserl. To the contrary, the later period of Husserl’s philosophy is marked
by an increasing subjectivization. This inspiration must therefore have come from other
quarters. The following discussion of Levinas’s thesis on Husserl’s theory of intuition will
reveal how Heidegger shaped his interpretation of phenomenology from the very
beginning.
2. Husserl’s Theory of Intuition
In the preface to his dissertation on Husserl’s theory of intuition, Levinas states that
his task involves correcting the impression left by Delbos, whose 1911 essay made it ap-
pear that logicism was the centerpiece of Husserl’s work. Levinas wants to show that even
from the period of his Logical Investigations Husserl had larger intentions than combating
psychologism. He argues that Husserl strove hard against psychologism because it implied
an inadequate theory of being. Levinas thinks that Husserl ultimately had ontological moti-
vations for his investigations into pure logic, and that these eventually became the founda-
tion of his phenomenology. “He was looking not only for a new logic,” Levinas explains,
“but a new philosophy.”224
223Husserl, Ideas, §§151-52; Gibson 419-22.224Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 18.
197
Levinas believes that the ontological presupposition of psychologism uncovered by
Husserl in the first volume of his Logical Investigations led him necessarily to pose the
question of the essence of consciousness, and furthermore, its unique mode of existing.225
Consciousness exists in a different manner than the material thing. The material thing de-
notes a double relativity: first, it is relative to consciousness; second, it is relative to its
phenomenal appearances.226 The doubly relative way in which objects must appear is the
basis of their existence as contingents. Hence, Levinas concludes, “Contingence is not a
relation between the essence and existence of an object, but an internal determination of
existence itself.”227 The existence of consciousness, however, is determined to be absolute.
Levinas claims, “The fundamental intuition of Husserlian philosophy consists, on the one
hand, in attributing absolute existence to concrete conscious life, and on the other, in
transforming the very notion of conscious life.”228 Conscious existence does not consist in
the perception of a series of subjective phenomena, but rather in its “being continually
present to itself.”229
Levinas notes that Husserl prefers the term intentionality to name this continuous
self-presence, although he employs it in a different sense than its original scholastic usage,
and even from Brentano, from whom he borrowed it. For Husserl, intentionality does not
signify a mental image of a real object, nor does it signify a link between a psychological
state and a real state of affairs. Rather, intentionality denotes the self-transcending character
of all conscious life, the “very subjectivity of the subject.”230 Levinas furthermore calls at-
tention to the fact that intentionality, while characteristic of all conscious acts, is not identi-
cal in every instance.231 For example, the individual ego [le moi] presents a unique case. In
225Ibid., 33.226Ibid., 45.227Ibid., 48.228Ibid., 50.229Ibid., 60: “Exister ne signifie pas, en effet, pour la conscience, être percu dans
une série de phénomènes subjectifs, mais être continuellement présente à elle-même—ceque traduit le terme de conscience” (emphasis Levinas’s).
230Ibid., 70 (emphasis Levinas’s).231Ibid., 73.
198
the Logical Investigations, Husserl denied that the ego was itself an intentional object, as-
serting that it is identified with the totality of intentions comprised in a certain moment in
time. In Ideas, Husserl takes up the Kantian thesis that the ‘I think’ must accompany all of
‘my’ representations, but the ego in this case remains an empty form. Only in his later un-
published studies does Husserl consider the ego concretely, as existing in an intentional
relationship with consciousness. In these studies he tries to show that the ego belongs to
subjectivity in a completely different way than other intentional objects, describing it as a
“certain transcendence in the immanence of consciousness.”232 Thus, in determining the
essence of consciousness, Husserl begins roughly with the Cartesian cogito but quickly
shifts its foundation. He points out that the flow of consciousness in its various modes is
always immediately given to consciousness through an immanent perception and therefore
it can be regarded as absolute. For Husserl, the indubitability of the flow of consciousness
grounds the judgment ‘I am,’ i.e., the cogito, whereas for Descartes the indubitability of
the cogito supplies the foundation for conscious experience.233
In a later chapter of his thesis, Levinas considers the role of intuition in objectifying
acts and Husserl’s theory of evidence. A signifying intention can either be fulfilled or re-
vealed as a deception. For example, I can imagine a red-tiled roof and then see it before me,
or I can imagine it but subsequently discover upon seeing it that in fact the roof is green. In
both cases, however, the positive displacement between the signifying intention and its
fulfillment in intuition constitutes the notion of evidence. “Evidence is not therefore a
purely subjective feeling accompanying a psychic phenomenon,” Levinas concludes: “[i]t is
an intentionality in which the object is, in person, before consciousness such as it was for-
merly signified.”234 Levinas defines evidence as “the presence of consciousness before
232Ibid., 84. Husserl’s theories concerning the transcendental ego will also becomethe focus of Sartre’s interpretation of phenomenology (see below).
233Ibid., 57: “En résumé, la conscience se présente comme sphère d’existenced’absolu. Et cette existence absolue n’exprime pas seulement le caractère indubitable ducogito, mais, en tant que détermination positive de l’être même de la conscience, fonde lapossibilité du cogito indubitable.” Levinas does not cite but relies heavily upon the first ofHusserl’s Cartesian Meditations here.
234Ibid., 114 (emphasis Levinas’s).
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being.”235 Levinas thus argues that Husserl’s theory of intentionality is anti-psychologistic
because it restores objectivity to the notion of evidence.
By explaining how evidence is attained through intuition, Levinas shows that intu-
ition is the central element in a phenomenological account of knowledge. But doesn’t this
stand in conflict with the idea that knowledge consists in the truth of a judgment? A neo-
Kantian would insist that truth is an affirmation concerning the nature of an object, and that
an object is necessarily the product of a categorial synthesis in the mind of the knower. The
role played by intuition is minimal according to this view: intuition merely supplies the
sensible matter to be synthesized. Hence, it would be false to assert that intuition is the
central element of knowledge and that it contributes decisively to the notion of truth.
Husserl, however, does not regard intuition as limited to mere sensible perception; indeed,
he maintains that intuition is directly involved in the categorial synthesis which supplies a
content for the act of judgment. In order to explain this most important, and for Levinas,
most interesting aspect of Husserl’s teaching,236 it is necessary to understand that for
Husserl, the intentional correlate of a judgment is not an object simply put, but rather what
may be called a substantive meaning.237 In fact, as Levinas will assert, the content of a
judgment for Husserl represents a different order of being than the object of perception.238
The substantive meaning intended by an act of judgment can be expressed by a
proposition, such as S is P. According to Husserl, this content is grasped not analytically,
but immediately by an act of intuition: I see that-the-red-tiled-roof-is-red. Obviously, a
proposition expresses more than its sensible elements; contained within any proposition are
235Ibid., 114.236Ibid., 119.237Ibid., 115. Husserl’s term is Sachverhalt, which Levinas typically leaves un-
translated, but occasionally renders by état de choses (cf. 124). In his translation of theLogical Investigations, Findlay employs the equivalent phrase state of affairs, but since thisexpression is commonly used in possible worlds theory with a different meaning, I preferto borrow the expression substantive meaning, which Gibson uses in his translation ofIdeas. Cf. Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations. How Words Present Things(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 31-32, for comments on the relativemerits of translating Sachverhalt by state of affairs and fact.
238Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 126.
200
certain categorial forms and relations. Hence, if a propositional content, or substantive
meaning, is grasped immediately by an act of intuition, then Husserl reasons that in some
manner an intuition of categorial forms is achieved, and that achievement, he claims, corre-
sponds to the notion of judgment. “Between sensible intuition and categorial intuition there
is a profound community,” Levinas observes, “in the two acts, consciousness finds itself
directly before being: ‘a thing appears as real and as given in person.’”239 Being as given in
person and being as real are thus two distinct modes of being corresponding to the same
“objectity” [Fr. objectité, Ger. Gegenständlichkeit].240
The implications of Husserl’s phenomenological account of knowledge are pro-
found with respect to the notions of being and truth. Truth does not begin with the act of
judgment as does it for the neo-Kantians. Rather, truth originates in the presence of the
object before consciousness. Levinas remarks, “Judgment does not make truth possible,
but on the contrary, truth makes judgment possible.”241 Consequently, he perceives
Husserl to be marking a return toward the traditional notion of truth as adequation.242
Levinas furthermore comes close to affirming with Heidegger that truth is a moment of
disclosure, a self-presencing of a thing to consciousness. In a 1981 interview with Phillipe
Nemo, he reflects,
The work I did then on Husserl’s theory of intuition was . . . influencedby Sein und Zeit to the extent that I sought to present Husserl as having per-ceived the ontological problem of being, the question of the status ratherthan the quiddity of beings. Phenomenological analysis, I said, in investi-gating the constitution of the real for consciousness, does not undertake aninvestigation of transcendental conditions in the idealist sense of the term somuch as it asks about the meaning of the being of beings in the various re-gions of knowledge.243
239Ibid., 120 (emphasis Levinas’s); Levinas cites Husserl, Logical Investigations,
Investigation VI, §45, “Widening of the concept of Intuition, and in particular of the con-cepts of Perception and Imagination. Sensible and categorial intuitions”; Findlay, 784-86.
240Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 120; cf. 123. Levinas follows Husserl in recog-nizing that the dual intentionality characterizing phenomenological knowledge is differentthan what is normally referred to as objectivity, and he therefore endeavors to translateHusserl’s terminology more precisely by inventing a new form of the French word objec-tivité.
241Ibid., 133.242Ibid., 127.243Levinas, Éthique et infini, 29-30 (emphasis Levinas’s). Also quoted in Hand,
201
On the other hand, Levinas does not fail to recognize that on Husserl’s view, neither truth
nor being are restricted to the level of presence; both also pertain to the higher intuition of
substantive meaning in the act of judgment.
In the final chapter of his thesis, Levinas critiques what he refers to as Husserl’s
intellectualism. He claims, “Phenomenology does not pursue any other goal than to put the
world of objects—objects of perception, of science, of logic—back into the concrete fabric
of our life, and to understand them from thence.”244 In his opinion, this is the aim of the
phenomenological reduction. But doesn’t the reduction, as Husserl describes it, remove the
philosopher from the historical situation of human life? Husserl, in fact, never directly
considers the question of how a person living completely according to the natural attitude
could might even become aware of his naïveté since the natural attitude is presented as im-
plicitly theoretic.245 The problem doesn’t arise since the movement from the natural to the
theoretic attitude is a simply a movement towards greater depth. It is a taking leave of the
empirical, historical level of existence and movement toward the essential reality. Levinas,
however, is not satisfied with this account. Following Heidegger, he wants to regard the
reduction as an act effected by and within the historical situation of the empirical ego. In an
article written a decade later, he goes so far as to remark: “The phenomenological reduction
is a violence done by man—a being among other beings—in order to find himself again as
pure thought.”246 The bracketing of the world in his opinion is not meant to be a provi-
sional procedure, a moment of armchair speculation, but a definitive existential transforma-
tion. Levinas portrays the reduction as an interior revolution rather than as a quest for cer-
“Introduction” to The Levinas Reader, 3, although in this case the translation is my own.
244Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 212.245Ibid., 222: “. . . malgré le caractère révolutionnaire de la réduction phénoméno-
logique, la révolution qu’elle accomplit est, dans la philosophie de Husserl, possible de parla nature de l’attitude naturelle, dans la mesure où celle-ci est théorique. Et le rôle historiquede la réduction, la signification de son intervention à un certain moment de l’existence,n’est même pas un problème.”
246Emmanuel Levinas, “L’Oeuvre d’Edmond Husserl,” Revue philosophique de laFrance et de l’étranger 129 (1940): 67. This is the same volume of the Revue philosophi-que commemorating Husserl’s death in which Shestov’s final article appeared (see above).
202
tainties, a manner for the spirit to exist in conformity with its vocation, in short to be free
with respect to the world.
Yet individual freedom is not enough; there must also be freedom in society.
Hence, the phenomenological reduction alone is not sufficient and another step must be
taken. To move beyond the shortcomings not only of Husserl’s intellectualism but also of
the solipsism for which he is often criticized, one must perform what Levinas calls an inter-
subjective reduction. The idea for an intersubjective reduction comes from the recognition
that all experience is constituted not merely subjectively, but intersubjectively. As Levinas
explains, concrete objects do not exist for one consciousness alone; in fact, “the very idea
of concrete being contains the idea of an intersubjective world.”247 Yet even more than
shared objects, “the phenomenological intuition of the life of another [d’autrui], a reflection
by empathy [Einfühlung] opens for us this field of transcendental intersubjectivity, and
completes the work of the philosophical intuition of subjectivity.”248 But the investigation
of intersubjectivity remains and unfinished work both within the scope of Levinas’s thesis
and within the compass of the Husserl’s then published works. Nonetheless, Levinas hints
that among Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts are many studies relating to the problem of
intersubjectivity: studies on the perception of one’s own body and the body of another,
studies which form the basis for reasoning by analogy to the nature of intersubjective exis-
tence. With Husserl’s death in 1938 and the transfer of his inédits to Louvain, the sign-
posts for this new orientation of the phenomenological enterprise would become available
to French philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who would use them to further the
creative French appropriation of phenomenology already initiated here by Levinas.
Phenomenological existentialism glimmers on the horizon.
247Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 214. In 1949, Ludwig Landgrebe published aseries of essays under the title Phänomenologie und Metaphysik, the last of which containshis own proposal for an intersubjective reduction. It would be interesting, but obviouslybeyond the scope of this dissertation to compare the respective notions of Levinas andLandgrebe.
248Levinas, Théorie de l’intuition, 215. Note: Levinas borrows Husserl’s termEinfühlung without translating it into French; my translation follows Gibson’s (cf. Ideas,§151; Gibson, 420).
203
It is worth considering the relation between Levinas’s thesis and his article on
Husserl’s Ideas. Having been drafted around the same time one might expect to find many
similarities. Indeed, in both essays Levinas aligns Husserl with the Cartesian tradition
rather than German Idealism. Furthermore, in both instances he is concerned to show how
Husserl has resolved some of the latent problems of Cartesianism, including the separation
of the knowledge of an object from its mode of being. “For the first time,” he remarks in
his thesis, “there exists the possibility of passing from a theory of knowledge . . . to a
theory of being.”249 What distinguishes Levinas’s thesis from his earlier essay, however,
and what marks its significance as the first genuine French philosophical appropriation of
phenomenology, is its overarching thesis that Husserl’s notion of intuition as a mode of
philosophizing flows from his very conception of being. In the course of his thesis,
Levinas argues that Husserl’s theory of being begins with his phenomenological descrip-
tion of the material thing, which reveals that its essence is to give itself only through the
presentation of its various aspects in succession. The fact that subjective phenomena do not
present themselves to intuition in phases but all at once consequently indicates that being
cannot be reduced to a univocal concept. On the contrary, being gives itself variously to
consciousness. Furthermore, because “existence does not signify everywhere the same
thing,”250 neither can intuition. In brief, the character of being determines the nature of in-
tuition, and not the other way around.
Husserl’s 1929 publication of Formal and Transcendental Logic appeared too late
for Levinas to make use of it in preparing his thesis. Perhaps this fact accounts for his em-
phasis of the objective orientation of phenomenology over the subjective orientation that
came to characterize Husserl’s later work. Still, having been a student of Husserl’s in
Freiburg during these years, Levinas must have been aware of this significant turn in his
thought. One can only conclude, therefore, that Levinas deliberately chose to emphasize
those aspects of Husserl’s earlier work that he found more persuasive. No doubt he was
249Ibid., 59.250Ibid., 22.
204
influenced by Heidegger in this decision, for Heidegger, too, contested the increasing sub-
jectivization and idealism evidenced in the later Husserl. Like Heidegger, Levinas wanted
to displace the intentional analysis of the transcendental ego from the center of phe-
nomenology and focus attention instead on the meaning of being and existence.
3. Martin Heidegger’s Ontology
In 1932, Levinas published a study of Heidegger’s Being and Time in the Revue
philosophique de la France et de l’étranger.251 Like Gurvitch before him, Levinas takes the
problem of knowledge as his point entry into Heidegger’s philosophical program. At the
outset he notes Heidegger’s strong opposition to the prevalent neo-Kantian epistemological
theories which endeavored to explain how knowledge corresponds to being, and more fun-
damentally, how the subject goes out itself to attain its object. Nevertheless he portrays
Heidegger as engaged with the same fundamental problems: first, how is the subject’s go-
ing out of itself to be understood? and secondly, since the subject is bound to time, how is
the temporal dimension of subjectivity to be understood?252 In confronting subjectivity, the
problem of the duality between existence and knowledge is encountered, and more gener-
ally, the problem of the meaning of existence itself.253
Levinas states that for Heidegger the problem of the meaning of existence assumes
priority and devotes the first part of his study to explaining why. He begins by showing
how Heidegger approaches the problem through an initial distinction between being [Fr.
l’étant, Ger. das Seiende] and the Being of being [Fr. l’être de l’étant, Ger. das Sein des
Seienden]. For Heidegger, this distinction represents not an ontical but an ontological dif-
ference. It cannot be grasped through ordinary definition, that is, through a categorization
according to genus and specific difference. Yet, the Being of beings can be comprehended,
Heidegger insists. According to Levinas’s reading, “The comprehension of being is the
251Emmanuel Levinas, “Martin Heidegger et l’ontologie,” Revue philosophique de
la France et de l’étranger 113 (1932): 395-431.252Ibid., 396-97.253Ibid., 401.
205
fundamental characteristic and fact of human existence.”254 Its innate comprehension of
being places the human being at the center of ontological research. The essence of a human
being is its existence; human being is a being-there [être-là], a Dasein, according to
Heidegger, but it does not follow that its existence is necessary—quite the reverse, in fact.
The finite, temporal structure of human existence belongs to the essence of humanity. To
be human, in other words, to exist, is “to temporalize oneself.”255
Levinas returns to the theme of temporality at the end of his study. First, however,
he explores more deeply the phenomenon of Dasein’s comprehension of being, explaining
the significance of Heidegger’s distinction between an existentielle and an existenzial anal-
ysis of Dasein.256 An existentielle analysis or description of Dasein is accomplished
through the various human sciences, such as literature, psychology, religion, and even
philosophy. In each of these sciences Dasein is subjected to ontical considerations. An
existenzial analysis, by contrast, subjects Dasein to a properly ontological study. An
ontological study of Dasein investigates the Being of beings through Dasein’s innate
comprehension of its own existence. This is accomplished through a phenomenological
analysis of the meaning of the care that Dasein exhibits for its own being. Levinas writes:
“To comprehend being is to exist in such a manner that one takes care [prend soin] of one’s
own existence.”257 Heidegger’s phrase being-in-the-world signifies precisely this manner
of being.
The care of Dasein for its own being, its comprehension of the Being of its being,
constitutes the primordial meaning of transcendence for Heidegger, Levinas contends.258 In
order to explain the nature of Dasein’s transcendence, Levinas appeals to Husserl’s theory
of intentionality. He remarks that the novelty of Husserl’s teaching is not simply that
consciousness is always consciousness of something, but that intentionality expresses the
254Ibid., 403 (emphasis Levinas’s).255Ibid., 398.256Ibid., 406; cf. 425. Gurvitch failed to make this distinction in his presentation of
Heidegger (see above).257Ibid., 408; cf. 413.258Ibid., 413.
206
whole essence of consciousness. Consciousness does not exist first and then transcend it-
self in grasping an object of knowledge; rather, self-transcendence is the very mode
whereby consciousness exists.259 Transcendence is the leap from being to Being. This
ontological transcendence, in turn, conditions the transcendence of the subject to the object,
and hence serves as the proper grounding for epistemology. In short, ontology takes
precedence over epistemology in Heidegger’s philosophy—which explains why the prob-
lem of the meaning of existence must assume priority over the problem of the duality
between existence and knowledge.
Being-in-the-world is an event of transcendence for Dasein, and Heidegger’s onto-
logical analysis of that event reveals three principal existential structures: Dasein’s
“thrownness” [Fr. déreliction, Ger. Geworfenheit] in the world and before its possibilities,
its “fallenness” [Fr. chute, from Ger. verfallen] in the everydayness of the world, and its
“projection” [Fr. projet-esquisse, Ger. Entwurf] into the authentic possibilities for its fu-
ture.260 What constitutes the unity of these structures? Levinas asks. Their unity is to be
found in the attitude Dasein takes towards its being. The basic attitude, as Levinas has al-
ready indicated, is care or solicitude. Here, however, he takes Heidegger a step further and
qualifies it as anxious solicitude [sollicitude angoissée]. Dasein, in facing the Being of its
being and its possibility of not being, experiences anxiety. Hence the unity of Dasein’s be-
ing-in-the-world is not the unity of a proposition, Levinas remarks. Rather its unity is to be
found in its attitude of anxious solicitude which comprehends its various modes of tempo-
ral presence in the world: its “being-ahead-of-itself” [être au devant de soi], its “already-
being-in the world” [avoir d’ores et déjà été dans le monde], and its “being-alongside of
things” [auprès des choses].261 Each of these prepositional states and their corresponding
259Ibid., 407.260Ibid., 417-19.261Ibid., 429. My English translations of these expressions follow Martin Heideg-
ger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper &Row, 1962), 375.
207
existential structures articulate the underlying phenomenon of temporality which character-
ize the unity of Dasein’s ontology. He concludes his survey of Being and Time:
Already the fact that the structures studied [by Heidegger] are modes of ex-isting and not “quiddities”—ontological and not ontical structures—leads usto postulate their relationship with the [kind of] time that is not a being but isBeing. And already the expressions such as “already-in”, “ahead-of,” and“alongside-of”—all charged with the tragic meaning which is that of care[sollicitude]—permit us to glimpse in them the ontological root of what wecall in everyday life—immersed in a trivialized and inoffensive time—past,future, present.262
In sum, Levinas recognizes that Heidegger’s conception of ontology cannot be separated
from his notion of temporality.
Levinas’s essay on Heidegger’s ontology followed Gurvitch’s final chapter in Les
Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande as the second major treatment of
Heidegger’s philosophy to appear in French.263 Levinas followed Gurvitch in other re-
spects as well. Like Gurvitch, Levinas took the problem of knowledge as his point of de-
parture. He showed how Heidegger challenged the priority of epistemology in philosophy,
especially phenomenology, arguing instead for the urgency of restoring its ontological
foundations. Nevertheless, despite clear indications of Heidegger’s major disagreements
with Husserl, both Levinas and Gurvitch emphasized Heidegger’s continuity with and de-
pendence upon Husserl’s phenomenological approach to philosophy. For Levinas,
Heidegger represents “a new phase, and one of the high points, of the phenomenological
movement.”264 Elsewhere he calls Heidegger’s description of everyday Dasein the best
proof of the phenomenological method.265 This fact is significant because other contempo-
rary interpreters of Heidegger in France would portray him more as an existential thinker
like Karl Jaspers or Søren Kierkegaard than as a phenomenologist.266 Even at the end of
262Levinas, “Heidegger et l’ontologie,” 431 (emphasis Levinas’s).263Henry Corbin’s 1931 translation of “Was ist Metaphysik?” also included a brief
introduction to Heidegger by Alexandre Koyré; see Martin Heidegger, “Qu’est-ce que lamétaphysique?,” trans. Henry Corbin with an introduction by Alexandre Koyré, Bifur 8(1931).
264Levinas, “Heidegger et l’ontologie,” 395.265Ibid., 420.266See for example Siegfried Marck, “La Philosophie de l’existence dans l’oeuvre
de K. Jaspers et de M. Heidegger,” trans. Ernest Fraenkel, Revue philosophique de la
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the decade when Heidegger’s differences with Husserl became more pronounced and more
widely recognized, Levinas would still insist that Heidegger remained “a tributary of
Husserlian phenomenology.”267 In his own phenomenological pursuits, Levinas appears to
have been more inspired by Heidegger’s concern for the transcendence of Being than
Husserl’s interest in the immanent structures of consciousness. In the end, however, he re-
fused to choose one master over the other and instead tried to integrate the crucial insights
he gleaned from Heidegger into the cadre of Husserlian phenomenology, with the aim of
transposing the whole framework into the dimension of intersubjectivity.
Another way to compare the introductions to Heidegger offered by Levinas and
Gurvitch is to examine their respective translations of key Heideggerian terms and neolo-
gisms. Gurvitch employed ordinary French words to render Heidegger’s terminological in-
ventions, but his selection encompassed words with decidedly negative connotations, re-
flecting a reading of Heidegger through the pessimism of Nietzsche, who was arguably a
large influence on Heidegger. Levinas, too, uses ordinary French vocabulary in translating
Heidegger’s special terms, but his choices are drawn from a different register. For exam-
ple, whereas Gurvitch translated Alltäglichkeit as existence banale, Levinas chooses the
neutral phrase vie quotidienne. Gurvitch rendered Sorge literally by souci, meaning care or
worry, but Levinas prefers sollicitude—thoughtful, almost prayerful, concern.268 Again,
verfallen is translated as perdu dans le monde by Gurvitch, but as déchu (as in ange déchu,
fallen angel) by Levinas. Markedly theological in character, Levinas’s selections intimate a
religious complexion in Heidegger’s thought. Thus, whereas Gurvitch gave his interpreta-
tion of Heidegger a moralizing edge, Levinas evokes a degree of mysticism. Furthermore,
France et de l’étranger 121 (1936): 197-219; Benjamin Fondane, “Martin Heidegger, surles routes de Kierkegaard et de Dostoïewski,” in La Conscience malheureuse (Paris: Denoëlet Steele, 1936), 169-198; and Lev Shestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle,trans. Boris de Schloezer (Paris: Vrin, 1936).
267Levinas, “L’Oeuvre d’Edmond Husserl,” 85.268Levinas actually uses three expressions to translate Heidegger’s variations on
Sorge (i.e., Besorge, Fürsorge, etc.): prendre soin, souci, and sollicitude, although hedoes not employ them with any discernible consistency. On the whole, he seems to prefersollicitude to express the general existential notion of care.
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if pessimistic and tragic elements remain in Levinas’s portrayal of Heidegger, they are
probably due more to Levinas’s background in Russian literature than to Heidegger’s ap-
propriation of Nietzsche. Together these subtle difference in the feel and style of Levinas’s
interpretation of Heidegger define its originality with respect to Gurvitch’s reading.
Both through his essay on Heidegger’s ontology and through his incorporation of
Heideggerian viewpoints into his interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology, Levinas ex-
ercised a considerable influence on the initial French reception of Heidegger’s philosophy.
This is especially the case since very few of Heidegger’s texts were available in French
translation in the early 1930s. Being and Time, which both Levinas and Gurvitch relied on
exclusively for their expositions of Heidegger’s thought, was not translated until 1938,
when a few short sections were attempted (§§46-53 and §§72-76, which deal with
Dasein’s Being-towards-death and historicality).269 Prior to this date, the only essays to
have appeared in French were his contribution to Husserl’s Festschrift, “Vom Wesen des
Grundes,” which was published in the first issue of Recherches philosophiques under the
title “De la nature de la cause,”270 and Henry Corbin’s translation of “Was ist Metaphysik?”
for the literary review Bifur.271 In the absence of more direct means of engaging with
Heidegger’s philosophy, the French-speaking philosophical public formed its first
impressions of this challenging thinker under the tutelage of Levinas, Gurvitch, and
another interpreter who was about to appear on the scene in the mid-1930s, Jean-Paul
Sartre.
269Martin Heidegger, Qu’est-ce que la Métaphysique?, trans. with a preface and
notes by Henry Corbin (Paris: Gallimard, 1938). Corbin’s collection also included transla-tions of the complete texts of Was ist Metaphysik?, Vom Wesen des Grundes, Hölderlinund das Wesen der Dichtung, and §§42-45 of Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik.Sections 1-44 of Being and Time were translated in 1964, but a complete translation be-came available only in 1985.
270Martin Heidegger, “De la nature de la cause,” trans. by A. Bessey, Recherchesphilosophiques 1 (1931-32): 83-124.
271Martin Heidegger, “Qu’est-ce que la métaphysique?,” trans. Henry Corbin withan introduction by Alexandre Koyré, Bifur 8 (1931).
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B. Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) got his first glimpse into the world of phenomenol-
ogy through a former classmate at the École Normale Supérieur and through a quick read-
ing of Levinas’s thesis on Husserl’s theory of intuition. Simone de Beauvoir relates the
story:
Sartre began to realize that in order to bring the ideas that were dividing himinto coherent organization he would need some help. The first translationsof Kierkegaard appeared about this time: nothing incited us to read them andwe ignored them. On the other hand, Sartre’s mouth was watering overwhat he heard said about German phenomenology. Raymond Aron wasspending the year at the French Institute of Berlin preparing a historical the-sis and studying Husserl at the same time. When he came to Paris, he toldSartre about it. We spent an evening together at the Bec de Gaz on the RueMontparnasse. We ordered the specialty of the house, apricot cocktails.Aron pointed at his glass: “You see, my dear friend, if you are a phenome-nologist, you can talk about this cocktail, and that’s philosophy!” Sartrepractically turned pale with emotion. It was exactly what he had wishing foryears: to talk about things in the way that he touched them and to have thatbe philosophy. Aron convinced him that phenomenology responded pre-cisely to his concerns: to go beyond the opposition between idealism andrealism, and to affirm at once the sovereignty of consciousness and thepresence of the world such as it is given to us. He bought, on the BoulevardSaint Michel, Levinas’s work on Husserl, and he was in such a hurry to in-form himself, that while walking along, he leafed through the book whosepages he had not even lanced. His heart skipped a beat when he found allu-sions to [the notion of] contingency. Had someone cut the ground from un-der his feet? Reading further, he reassured himself: contingency did notseem to play a significant role in Husserl’s system, of which Levinas onlygave a formal and rather vague account. Sartre decided to study Husserl se-riously, and upon the instigation of Aron, he took the necessary steps tosucceed his friend at the French Institute in Berlin the following year.”272
De Beauvoir’s narrative recollection of this auspicious soirée in the spring of 1933
reveals several important features of Sartre’s first encounter with phenomenology. First,
Sartre was already aware of phenomenology, though he seems to have had little under-
standing of its basic principles and had never read anything by Husserl. One reason why he
had not is that his ability to read German remained quite limited before he forced himself to
the task in Berlin. His lack of German probably also kept him away from Husserl’s lec-
272Simone de Beauvoir, La Force de l’âge (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 141-142; cf.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life, trans. of La Force de l’âge by Peter Green(Cleveland: World, 1962), 112, although the translation in this case is my own. Alsoquoted in Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 485.
211
tures at the Sorbonne (he did not start his military service until November, 1929). On the
other hand, Sartre did not attend any of Gurvitch’s free courses at the Sorbonne nor did he
report reading any of the several French introductions to phenomenology prior to the sum-
mer of 1933.273 He had read, however, Corbin’s translation of Heidegger’s inaugural lec-
ture, What is Metaphysics?, which had appeared in the literary journal Bifur in 1930
(together with a fragment of an essay his own, “The Legend of Truth”), though he later
claimed not to have understood it.274 Surely, however, some of Heidegger’s passion must
have soaked in, and since Heidegger was recognized as a phenomenologist, that passion
must have contributed to Sartre’s budding interest in phenomenology which had been
developing otherwise through hearsay.
A second important feature of de Beauvoir’s account is that the descriptive power of
the phenomenological method appears to be what attracted Sartre most. The promise of
being able to philosophize in the manner of a novelist must have appealed enormously to a
man whose literary and analytical talents had been dividing him for so long. Description,
furthermore, would allow Sartre to circumvent the stalemate between the competing epis-
temological systems of idealism and realism that had overshadowed his formal philosophi-
cal training while at the same time enabling him to reaffirm the “sovereignty of conscious-
ness” that he experienced as the revolutionary force of the Cartesian tradition.275 Sartre had
already encountered a species of phenomenological description through his reading of
Scheler’s Nature and Forms of Sympathy when it appeared in French translation in 1928;
273In an entry in the diary he kept during the war dated 1 February 1940, Sartre
writes: “[A]round the time that I was leaving for Berlin, a movement of curiosity aboutphenomenology started up among the students. I participated in this movement, exactly as Iparticipated in the movement of Parisians towards winter sports. That’s to say, I seizedhold of words that were floating about everywhere; I read a few isolated French worksdealing with the question; I mused about notions that I ill understood and wished I knewmore about them. Whereupon I left for Berlin” (Jean-Paul Sartre, Carnets de la drôle deguerre, septembre 1939-mars 1940, ed. Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gallimard,1995), 406-407; available in English as The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre, November1939-March 1940, trans. with an introduction by Quintin Hoare (New York: Pantheon,1984), 185).
274Ibid., 406; Hoare, 185.275Ibid., 284-85; Hoare, 85-86.
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yet, because Scheler did not explicitly link his methodology with Husserl in this work,
neither did Sartre. Besides, Sartre was primarily interested in Scheler for his theories con-
cerning values and emotions.276 Prior to Husserl, his inspiration for descriptive techniques
in literature and philosophy were Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Bergson’s Les Données
immédiates de la conscience.277
A third significant aspect of de Beauvoir’s narrative is that it points to one of
Sartre’s chief philosophical concerns, a preoccupation that would eventually give decisive
shape to his unique appropriation of phenomenology: the notion of contingency. Sartre’s
disrupted family situation had brought him the experience of contingency as a child. He had
first given the theme explicit formulation in a 1928 thesis on Nietzsche, and by 1931 had
begun drafting the so-called “factum on contingency” which, five years and three complete
revisions later, became the novel that first brought him fame, Nausea.278
Nausea is the fictional diary of Antoine Roquentin, an amateur historian living alone
in the provincial setting of Bouville who conducts daily researches in the municipal library
on a minor eighteenth-century scholar, Adhémar, the marquis de Rollebon. Roquentin rep-
resents consciousness reduced to its bare minimum—a self-portrait, in certain respects, of
Sartre as a high school professor in Le Havre. Gradually the awareness of contingency
grows on Roquentin. At first, he experiences a feeling a nausea that he cannot explain.
Eventually, however, the superfluous and ultimately absurd character of his existence, of
all existence, dawns on him. At lunch one afternoon with the autodidact whom he would
watch every day in the library, he asks himself: “Why are these people here? Why are they
eating? It’s true they don’t know they exist. I want to leave, go to some place where I will
be really in my own niche, where I will fit in . . . But my place is nowhere; I am un-
276Ibid., 287-88; Hoare, 88. Cf. Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 474.Sartre’s indications in his War Diaries contradict his sweeping statement in Jean-PaulSartre, Critique de la raison dialectique, précédé de Questions de méthode, 2 vols. (Paris:Gallimard, 1960), 34, that it was only during his year in Berlin that he first read Husserl,Scheler, Heidegger and Jaspers.
277Cf. Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 482.278Jean-Paul Sartre, Oeuvres romanesques, ed. Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka
(Paris: Gallimard, 1981), 1660-61.
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wanted, de trop.”279 In Being and Nothingness, Sartre offers a theoretical elaboration upon
this insight:
The for-itself [pour-soi], looking deep into itself as the consciousness ofbeing there, will never discover anything in itself but motivations; that is, itwill be perpetually referred to itself and to its constant freedom (I am therein order to . . ., etc.). But the contingency which paralyzes these motiva-tions, to the same extent that they totally ground themselves, is the facticityof the for-itself. The relation of the for-itself to facticity, which is its ownfoundation as a for-itself, can be correctly called factual necessity. It is in-deed this factual necessity which Descartes and Husserl apprehended asconstituting the evidence of the cogito. The for-itself is necessary insofar asit provides grounds itself. And this is why it is the reflected object of anapodictic intuition. I cannot doubt that I am. But insofar as this for-itself,such as it is, might also not be, it has all the contingency of fact. Just as mynihilating [néantisante] freedom is apprehended in anguish [angoisse], sothe for-itself is conscious of its facticity: it senses its complete gratuity; itapprehends itself as being there for nothing, as being superfluous [detrop].280
Yet this is Sartre’s perspective from a later period. That evening with Aron, the evening he
skimmed through Levinas’s thesis, he found little evidence of his idea of contingency in
Husserl’s philosophy. Perhaps he feared lest his cherished notion had been pirated. At any
rate, sometime between 1933 and 1943 when he wrote Being and Nothingness Sartre had
assimilated Husserl’s philosophy to his own. In order to understand this process, it is im-
portant to determine first of all when Sartre began his serious study of Husserl, which
works he read, and when.
Sartre set himself the task of slowly deciphering the difficult German of Husserl’s
Ideas over the course of his year in Berlin. He also read the Levinas and Peiffer translation
of the Cartesian Meditations, and one can be sure that the invincible bond that Husserl
279Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, trans. Lloyd Alexander (Cambridge, MA: RobertBentley, 1964), 122; Oeuvres romanesques, 144.
280Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Être et le Néant, Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique (Paris:Gallimard, 1943), 126; cf. Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay onOntology, trans. with an introduction by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington SquarePress, 1956), 132; the translation is my own. See also L’Être et le Néant, 404; Barnes,444-45: “In particular, when no discernible feeling of suffering, or comfort or even dis-comfort is ‘existed’ by consciousness, the for-itself does not cease to project itself beyonda pure and, so to speak, unqualified contingency. Consciousness does not cease to ‘have’ abody. . . . This perpetual apprehension by my for-itself of an ever-present and insipidtaste which follows me despite my efforts to get rid of it, and which is my taste—this iswhat I have described elsewhere by the name Nausea.” (my translation, emphasisSartre’s).
214
forges with Descartes in that volume only served to strengthen Sartre’s own philosophical
ties to Husserl.281 Beyond that, however, it is difficult to say exactly which of Husserl’s
other works Sartre did or did not read. He claims not to have studied the Logical
Investigations,282 yet in his essays on the transcendence of the ego and imagination, he
makes explicit references to portions of the fifth Investigation. In the same essays he also
cites Husserl’s lectures on The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness and even
Eugen Fink’s 1933 contribution to Kantstudien although he never mentions them in his di-
aries. It is possible that Sartre gained his knowledge of these other works through sec-
ondary sources, but the depth of his arguments belie a more thorough familiarity with
them. On the other hand, he never mentions Formal and Transcendental Logic except in
passing. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that Sartre read selectively from several of
Husserl’s principal works and other phenomenological literature during the 1930s, but that
Ideas remained the central focus of his study.
Finally, it must be noted that neither during his year in Germany nor anytime after-
ward did Sartre ever venture to Freiburg to meet Husserl. The only time he ever encoun-
tered Heidegger was in 1953, and their meeting was brief and inconsequential.283 Sartre
evidently preferred to have the influence of his most significant philosophical mentors me-
diated by their texts. Like the autodidact in Nausea, he wanted to remain in control of his
learning. Phenomenology, in a way, had to become his own idea.
281Annie Cohen-Solal, Sartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 139; cf. Annie Cohen-
Solal, Sartre: A Life, ed. Norman MacAfee, trans. Anna Cancogni (New York: Pantheon,1987), 92. Sartre refers implicitly and explicitly to the development of Husserl’s theory ofthe transcendental ego in his essay on the subject, which he drafted in Berlin. See the sec-tion below, “La Transcendance de l’ego.”
282“His friend Pouillon asked him, ‘And in what order did you read Husserl, firstthe Ideen, or did you start with Logische Untersuchungen?’ Sartre replied ‘Ideen, andnothing but Ideen. For me, you know, who doesn’t read very fast, a year was just aboutright for reading his Ideen.’” Jean-Paul Sartre, Sartre by Himself, trans. of Sartre: Unfilme realisé par Alexandre Astruc et Michel Contat (1977) by Richard Seaver (New York:Urizen, 1978), 29-30; quoted in Thomas W. Busch, The Power of Consciousness and theForce of Circumstances in Sartre’s Philosophy, ed. John Sallis, Studies in continentalthought (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1990), 4.
283Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 485.
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1. The Transcendence of the Ego
Sartre worked intensely during his year of study in Berlin. In addition to reading
Husserl and continuing the diary of Roquentin, he also drafted a brief but powerful essay
that would establish his reputation as a philosopher upon its publication in the 1936-37
volume of Recherches philosophiques.284 “The Transcendence of the Ego: Sketch of a
Phenomenological Description” presents a complex meditation on the status of the ego cog-
ito in dialogue with Husserl, Kant, Descartes and the tradition of French psychologists.
Sartre’s central thesis, stated at the outset, is that “the ego is neither formally nor materially
in consciousness: it is outside, in the world . It is a being of the world, like the ego of an-
other.”285 The essay is divided into two main parts. In the first part, Sartre critiques theo-
ries of the ego that regard it as a formal necessity, while in the second he presents his own
theory concerning the material constitution of the ego as an object for consciousness. Along
the way Sartre draws out some of the implications of his theory, showing its potential im-
portance for the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, as well as ethics and politics.
In the first section of the essay concerning the formal presence of the ‘I’, Sartre
draws a neat methodological distinction between the philosophies of Kant and Husserl.
Kant, he argues, tries to establish the conditions for the possibility of consciousness and
conscious acts. These conditions (i.e., the categories) comprise what Kant refers to as tran-
scendental consciousness. For Kant, the ‘I think’ provides the formal unity of transcenden-
tal consciousness in an ideal way, which is why he states that the ‘I think’ must be able to
accompany all our presentations. Kant’s viewpoint and method, however, remain specula-
284Cf. de Beauvoir, La Force de l’âge, 189-90; Green, 147-48. The essay wasoriginally published as “La Transcendance de l’Ego. Esquisse d’une description phé-noménologique,” Recherches philosophiques 6 (1936-37): 85-124. It was republished withsame title under its own cover by Vrin in 1965 with an introduction, notes and appendicesby Sylvie Le Bon. See Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, Les Écrits de Sartre (Paris:1970), 56-57, for additional background and the publication history of this essay.
285Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory ofConsciousness, trans. with an introduction and annotations by Forrest Williams and RobertKirkpatrick (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1957), 31. Because Williams andKirkpatrick have prepared an accurate and very readable translation of Sartre’s essay, I willquote from it unless otherwise noted. References will be given first to Le Bon’s edition(see previous note) followed by the citation of the translation.
216
tive: he is not concerned with how empirical consciousness is actually constituted, nor is
responsible for the error of his followers who tried to deduce the reality of the transcenden-
tal ‘I’ from the conditions of its possibility. Nevertheless, according to Sartre, the question
of possibility may be validly restated as a question of fact. He asks, “is the ‘I’ that we en-
counter in consciousness made possible by the synthetic unity of our representations, or is
it the ‘I’ which in fact unites the representations to each other?”286
The phenomenology of Husserl, claims Sartre, is well-suited to answer this ques-
tion of fact because “phenomenology is a scientific, not critical, study of conscious-
ness.”287 Its methodology is not speculative but intuitive. Its aim is to put us in the pres-
ence of the thing and to describe it. Through the phenomenological epoché, Husserl dis-
covers Kant’s transcendental consciousness as an absolute fact. Sartre accepts the existence
of transcendental consciousness, but fails to see the need to introduce a third term, namely
a transcendental ‘I’ standing between transcendental and empirical consciousness and unit-
ing the presentations of the latter. For him, the phenomenological doctrine of intentionality,
already articulated in the Logical Investigations, precludes this requirement. Husserl does
not need to posit a transcendental ‘I’ to guarantee the unity and individuality of empirical
consciousness like the idealists, for he has demonstrated that the unity of consciousness
lies in its object. Furthermore, his analysis of retention in the lectures on The
Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness has shown that the unity of conscious-
ness in the flux of time can be explained without recourse to the synthetic power of a tran-
scendental ‘I’. Why, then, does Husserl revert to the classic position of the transcendental
ego in Ideas and Cartesian Meditations? Sartre asks.288 Is it not enough to recognize tran-
scendental and empirical consciousness as distinct, the latter being constituted by the
former as an object among other objects in the world?
286Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 16; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 34.287Ibid., 16-17; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 35.288Ibid., 20; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 37.
217
At first, Sartre’s indictment of Husserl appears benign: Husserl betrays his own
phenomenological insights by adopting a useless remnant of idealism. Yet Sartre believes
this move is fatal. “The transcendental ‘I’ is the death of consciousness,” he charges. “If it
existed it would tear consciousness from itself; it would divide consciousness; it would
slide into every consciousness like an opaque blade.”289 In order to understand these dra-
matic allegations one must recognize that for Sartre, transcendental consciousness repre-
sents an absolute spontaneity before whose lucidity the object is revealed by its contrasting
opacity. Sartre is able map this dualistic, essentially Cartesian model of consciousness onto
Husserl’s philosophy because he interprets the meaning of objectivity through the latter’s
description of a perceptual object. Because perceptual objects can only be revealed through
an infinite series of profiles and thus never completely, Sartre calls them opaque. Husserl’s
view of consciousness as absolute inwardness or immanence, on the other hand, appears
light and translucent since it is not enclosed in monadic substance as it is for Descartes. By
positing the transcendental ‘I’ as a necessary structure of consciousness in his more recent
works, Husserl has rendered consciousness “heavy and ponderable,” according to
Sartre.290
While Sartre does not deny that the formal ‘I think’ continues to appear in reflec-
tion, he objects that a transcendental ego as such should survive the phenomenological re-
289Ibid., 23; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 40.290Ibid., 26; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 42 (emphasis Sartre’s). Although Sartre
does not document his interpretation of Husserl, it is not hard to bring to mind passagesthat support his reading. In §57 of Ideas for example, Husserl points out that even after thephenomenological reduction has been performed, every cogitatio still takes on the explicitform cogito in reflection. Hence he concludes, “the pure Ego appears to be necessary inprinciple, and as that which remains absolutely self-identical in all real and possiblechanges of experience” (Gibson, 172; emphasis Husserl’s). Casting the same thought inmore subjective terms in the first of his Cartesian Meditations, Husserl writes, “By phe-nomenological epoché I reduce my natural human Ego and my psychic life—the realm ofmy psychological self-experience—to my transcendental-phenomenological Ego, the realmof transcendental-phenomenological self-experience” (§11; Cairns, 26; emphasis Hus-serl’s). Husserl thus makes a distinction between the transcendental ego and the empiricalego, and he further distinguishes the transcendental ego from transcendental or pureconsciousness itself, whose being is absolute (cf. Husserl, Ideas, §50; Gibson, 154).Nevertheless, he does little to clarify the relation of the transcendental ego to pure con-sciousness, although it seems that the former would depend upon the latter in some way,but not vice versa.
218
duction, reasoning as follows. Consciousness manifests itself under two essential modali-
ties: reflected and unreflected. Reflected consciousness is the consciousness which takes
the form of ‘I think’. It is second-order consciousness because it takes what was previ-
ously just a function of the inherent intentionality of consciousness and turns it into an ob-
ject. In reflected consciousness, the phenomenological principle that all consciousness is
consciousness of something is preserved because “we remain in the presence of a synthesis
of two consciousnesses, one of which is consciousness of the other.”291 Consciousness it-
self, however, is unreflected for Sartre; it is pure, intentional subjectivity. Even when the ‘I
think’ is effected, the reflecting consciousness does take itself as an object. The reflecting
consciousness remains unreflected. That is, it remains conscious of itself, but not con-
scious of itself as an object. The ‘I’ in the ‘I think’, the transcendental ego, is precisely a
transcendent product of reflected consciousness, Sartre concludes, and “all transcendence
must fall under the epoché.”292
Sartre recognizes that Husserl grants to the ‘I think’ a special kind of transcen-
dence, one that differs from the transcendence of objects in the world or the world itself.
Nevertheless, he questions Husserl’s grounds for doing so. “How account for this privi-
leged treatment of the ‘I’ if not by metaphysical and critical preoccupations which have
nothing to do with phenomenology?” he asks. In defense of Husserl, we might say that
Husserl arrives at this affirmation not by design but through pure phenomenological de-
scription. The ‘I think’ is given through reflected consciousness: it is apprehended by in-
tuition and is grasped with evidence—even Sartre admits as much. It really makes little dif-
ference whether the evidence is apodictic or even adequate, as he contests. For Husserl the
fact that of its being given through the reduction constitutes sufficient grounds to merit its
description. The phenomenologist’s aim is always to attend “to the things themselves.” It is
therefore just as un-phenomenological to deny the existence of something simply because
291Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 28; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 44 (emphasis
Sartre’s).292Ibid., 35; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 51 (emphasis Sartre’s).
219
some theory says that it ought not to be there than it is to allow transcendencies to stand in
the face of the reduction. Specifically, it would be wrong to impose a dialectical theory of
consciousness (e.g., reflected vs. unreflected) on the hyletic data of intuition and to force
the data to fit into either of the two categories. Sartre comes close to doing this at the end of
the first part of his essay when he insists, “The cogito affirms too much. The certain con-
tent of the pseudo-cogito is not ‘I have consciousness of this chair,’ but ‘There is con-
sciousness of this chair.’”293 For Sartre, it is axiomatic that unreflected consciousness is
autonomous.294
Having shown that for Husserl as for Kant the ‘I’ is a formal structure of con-
sciousness, in the second half of his essay Sartre gives his own account of the ‘I’ of the
cogito, which he regards as “never purely formal,” but rather as “an infinite contraction of
the material ‘me’ [Moi].”295 As we shall see, his theory turns out to be every bit as complex
as Husserl’s and perhaps just as unsatisfying.
Sartre has established that the ego is a transcendent object for consciousness. As
such, the ego appears as an intentional unity—but only to reflective consciousness, and
then only as a noematic correlate of a reflective intention.296 In this respect, the ‘I think’
that emerges is a ‘me’. What is more, the ego itself stands in intentional relation to other
objects and other egos in the world. In this regard, the structure of the ‘I think’ reveals the
ego as a “transcendent pole of synthetic unity,”297 and this, it seems, is the meaning of the
ego as an ‘I’ for Sartre. He states quite plainly, in fact, that the ‘I’ [Je] and the ‘me’ [Moi]
are but two aspects constituting “the ideal (noematic) and indirect unity of the infinite series
of our reflected consciousnesses.”298 The ‘I’, he goes on to explain, is the ego as the unity
of actions, while the ‘me’ is the ego as the unity of states and optionally of qualities.
293Ibid., 37; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 53-54 (emphasis Sartre’s).294Ibid., 41; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 58. According to Simone de Beauvoir, La
Force de l’âge, 189-90; Green, 147-48, the autonomy of the unreflected consciousness isone of Sartre’s “earliest and most stubborn beliefs.”
295Sartre, La Transcendence de l’Ego, 37; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 54.296Ibid., 43; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 60.297Ibid., 44; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 61.298Ibid., 43; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 60 (my translation).
220
States appear to reflective consciousness as transcendent objects of concrete intu-
ition. Sartre takes hatred as an example. If I hate Peter, then I can apprehend my hatred for
him in reflection. Yet, the feeling of repugnance that arises upon my reflection is not itself
the hatred. The hatred appears through the experience of repugnance, but is not limited to
it, for it appears as having already been there before the act of reflection. Hatred is therefore
not of consciousness, but a transcendent object for consciousness. To describe the peculiar
passive identity of hatred and other similar psychical objects, Sartre employs the term
state.299 Actions, like states, are transcendent objects of reflected consciousness that stand
as concrete unities in the stream of consciousness. Actions may appear in the world of
things, such as driving a car or as psychical events such as doubting. Yet, because in either
case the action may be apprehended by reflected consciousness, it must be conceived as
transcendent, not immanent to consciousness.300 Qualities, finally, are intermediaries be-
tween states and actions. Once we have experienced hatred toward many different people,
for example, we unify these diverse states into a psychic disposition which Sartre calls a
quality. Qualities stand in relation of actualization with respect to states and actions; in other
words, they exist as potencies. Their existence is real, however, and as such, qualities are
transcendent to consciousness, just like the states or actions which they may spontaneously
actualize under the influence of various factors.301
According to Sartre, the ego is directly the unity of states and actions, and indirectly
and passively the unity of its qualities. As a complex unity, the ego is not reducible to any
one of its states or actions, he explains; rather, it is transcendent to all of them. And yet,
Sartre is quick to point out, the ego is not “an abstract X whose mission is only to unify,”
but “the infinite totality of states and of actions.”302 In other words, the ego is not to be
mistaken for a purely formal presence nor for a transcendental ego. The ego is the “infinite
299Ibid., 45-51; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 61-68.300Ibid., 51-52; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 68-69.301Ibid., 52-54; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 70-71.302Ibid., 57; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 74.
221
contraction” of the material unities it supports. It is, in the words of Hegel, whom Sartre
approximates with his language of totality, a concrete universal.
Yet, how exactly is the ego related to its states, qualities and actions? Sartre con-
tends that, “The ego is the creator of its states and sustains its qualities in existence by a
sort of preserving spontaneity.”303 The spontaneity of the ego, however, must not be con-
fused with the spontaneity of unreflected consciousness. Being an object, the ego is pas-
sive; it cannot therefore be a genuine spontaneity, for if it were, then it would be what it
produces. Yet, from one perspective the ego does appear to be what it produces. Sartre
gives the classic statement of surprise as an example: “‘Me [Moi], I [je] could have done
that!’”304 On the other hand, the ego is always surpassed by its productions. Its states and
actions, although incapable of existing by themselves, nevertheless exhibit a certain inde-
pendence with respect to the ego. Consequently, Sartre refers to the spontaneity of the ego
as “unintelligible,”305 or as a “pseudo-spontaneity.”306 “This is the spontaneity described
by Bergson in Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience,” he remarks, “which he
took for freedom, without realizing that he was describing an object rather than a con-
sciousness, and that union posited is perfectly irrational because the producer is passive
with respect to the created thing.”307 Elsewhere Sartre describes the irrational spontaneity
of the ego and its paradoxical union to its states, qualities and actions as “magical,”308 as a
“poetic production,”309 and even as a “creation ex nihilo.”310
303Ibid., 61; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 78.304Ibid., 62; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 80 (my translation, emphasis Sartre’s).305Ibid., 63; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 80.306Ibid., 62; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 79.307Ibid., 63; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 80 (emphasis Sartre’s). Cf. Henri Bergson,
Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1889), 165-66; Bergson, Oeuvres, 145-47; Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will. An Essayon the Immediate Data of Consciousness, trans. F. L. Pogson (New York: Macmillan,1910), 219-21.
308Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 51, cf. 64; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 68, cf.82.
309Ibid., 60; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 77.310Ibid., 60; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 77.
222
Scattered throughout the second half of the essay are several examples of the ethical
and psychological implications of his theory of the ego. For instance, Sartre claims that,
“reflection ‘poisons’ desire.”311 He explains that if Peter needs help and I go to help to
him, it is because I am drawn by the quality of having-to-be-helped which lies in Peter.
This quality is an intentional object of unreflected consciousness; it is a pure desire. Yet, if
I stop to reflect on Peter’s having-to-be-helped and decide to help Peter because it would be
good for Peter, self-love moralists such as La Rochefoucauld would point out that my re-
flected desire conceals an element of self-love: I would be acting to promote my own good
as moral being by making Peter’s need my own—hence, the logic of Sartre’s statement that
reflection poisons desire. What Sartre believes his theory helps restore therefore is purity of
moral action. The self-love moralists confuse reflected and unreflected acts and therefore
reduce all moral deeds to self love. By distinguishing them, Sartre effectively privileges the
domain of unreflected moral acts. Later in the essay, Sartre refers to the concept of respon-
sibility and the rationality of the reflected will,312 but in the absence of any development of
these points, the privileging of unreflected consciousness casts the reflective ego in a decid-
edly negative light.
Sartre brings his distinction between the genuine spontaneity of absolute con-
sciousness and the pseudo-spontaneity of the ego to bear on psychological problems such
as the analysis of neuroses. He gives the example of a newlywed woman who was in terror
of soliciting passers-by from her window like a prostitute whenever her husband left the
house. Sartre speculates that some negligible circumstance, a novel perhaps, produced in
the woman a “vertigo of possibility.”313 The overwhelming experience of her freedom,
however, can only be explained as a sudden appearance of the genuine spontaneity of abso-
lute, impersonal consciousness through the ordinary unity and passive spontaneity of her
ego. Consequently, Sartre conjectures that the essential role of the ego may be to mask
311Ibid., 42; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 59.312Ibid., 61; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 78-79.313Ibid., 81; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 100.
223
from absolute consciousness its very spontaneity. The pseudo-spontaneity of the ego cre-
ates the illusion that it is responsible for unifying the phenomena presented to it and master-
ing the actions that issue from it, when in fact it is merely an object constituted by absolute
consciousness. Sartre observes:
Everything happens, therefore, as if consciousness constituted the ego as afalse representation of itself, as if consciousness hypnotized itself beforethis ego which it has constituted, absorbing itself in the ego as if to make theego its guardian and its law. It is thanks to the ego, indeed, that a distinctioncan be made between the possible and the real, between appearance and be-ing, between the willed and the undergone.314
Yet, it remains an ever-present possibility that the spontaneity of absolute consciousness
may break through the ego, disrupting the unity the latter maintains between its transcen-
dent states, actions and qualities. When this occurs, an overwhelming experience of an-
guish [angoisse] is produced. Sartre does not explicitly compare this experience to
Heidegger’s “shock of Being” or his description of Angst but the connection is clear. If the
‘I’ of the ‘I think’ were the primary structure of consciousness, Sartre argues, this kind of
anguish would not be possible.315 The very fact of its occurrence, therefore, stands as evi-
dence against any theory of the transcendental ego, including Husserl’s.
The irruption of transcendental consciousness into the everyday life of the ego
raises the issue of the phenomenological reduction and the conditions under which it is
brought about. Commenting on Eugen Fink’s 1933 article in Kantstudien, Sartre observes
that as long as one remains in the natural attitude there is no motivation to effect the
epoché.316 Husserl himself offers only vague psychological reasons for effecting the re-
duction and Sartre expresses dissatisfaction with his explanations as well.317 “On the other
hand,” Sartre explains,
314Ibid., 82; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 101.315Ibid., 83; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 102.316Ibid., 83; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 102. Cf. Eugen Fink, “Die phänomenolo-
gische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwärtigen Kritik,” Kantstudien 38 (1933):346-51. Sartre also comments disparagingly on Fink’s theory of the three ‘I’s of transcen-dental consciousness (La Transcendance de l’Ego, 36; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 52). Thefact that Husserl gave Fink’s article his personal endorsement must have added to Sartre’sconsternation.
317Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 83; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 102. Sartre
224
if ‘the natural attitude’ appears wholly as an effort made by consciousnessto escape from itself by projecting itself into the me and becoming absorbedthere, and if this effort is never completely rewarded, and if a simple act ofreflection suffices in order for conscious spontaneity to tear itself abruptlyaway from the ‘I’ and be given as independent, then the epoché is no longera miracle, an intellectual method, an erudite procedure: it is an anguishwhich is imposed on us and which we cannot avoid: it is both a pure eventof transcendental origin and an ever possible accident of our daily life.318
Sartre’s interpretation of the reduction no doubt would have appeared remarkable to
Husserl, who insisted on the difficulty and the years of practice required to perform the
epoché. Moreover, the function of the epoché according to Sartre and Husserl appears
vastly different. For Husserl, the purpose of the reduction is to identify, isolate and de-
scribe scientifically the various structures of transcendental consciousness. It is a tool for
correcting mistaken epistemologies and for grounding empirical scientific investigations.
For Sartre, by contrast, the purpose of the reduction seems to be to liberate the spontaneity
of absolute consciousness and to reveal the world and the ego in the raw contingency of
their transcendent existences. Its function is more poetic, perhaps, than scientific. In a
striking passage from Roquentin’s diary during his last day in Bouville, Sartre brings to-
gether many of the phenomenological themes he develops in “Transcendence of the Ego,”
namely the impersonal absolute of consciousness, the ego as a transcendent, and hence
contingent, object of consciousness existing as unity of transcendent states, actions and
qualities, and the accidental irruption of the phenomenological epoché:
Lucid, immobile, deserted, consciousness is walled-up; it perpetuates itself.No one lives there anymore. Just a little while ago someone said me, saidmy consciousness. Who? Outside there were noisy streets, with familiarcolors and odors. Now there are only anonymous walls, an anonymousconsciousness. This is all there is: walls, and between the walls, a smalltransparency, alive and impersonal. Consciousness exists like a tree, like ablade of grass. It dozes, it gets bored. Little fugitive existences populate itlike birds in the branches. Populate it and disappear. Consciousness is for-gotten, abandoned between these walls, under the gray sky. And here is themeaning of its existence: that it is consciousness of being superfluous [detrop].319
makes reference to Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §1; Cairns, 2. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §32;Gibson, 110, where Husserl explains the scientific motivation for performing the epoché.
318Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 83-84; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 103.319Sartre, Nausea, 170, though I have adapted the translation in this case; cf.
Oeuvres romanesques, 200-201.
225
Sartre’s depiction of the ego and its relation to transcendental consciousness is
stark, yet he argues that it offers a much stronger refutation of solipsism than does
Husserl’s theory, which remains rooted in the error of the transcendental ego. As long as
the existence of the transcendental ego is affirmed, reasons Sartre, it will continue to be re-
garded as a permanent and necessary structure of and in consciousness. Hence, by compar-
ison to other egos, it will always have an ontological priority, and will remain haunted by
the specter of solipsism. Yet if the ‘I’ is recognized as transcendent, then “solipsism
becomes unthinkable,” claims Sartre, since my ego along with all other egos will fall before
the epoché.320 Insofar as the existence of all transcendent objects may be doubted under the
sign of the epoché, the existence of my ego is not indubitable. It does not exist necessarily
or absolutely; only absolute consciousness exists absolutely. “My ‘I’,” Sartre concludes,
“is no more certain for consciousness than the ‘I’ of other men. It is only more
intimate.”321
By excising Husserl’s doctrine of the transcendental ego from phenomenology,
Sartre believes he has achieved the liberation and purification of the transcendental field.322
As a result, phenomenology can meet the charges of Marxist theorists and other thinkers on
the left who contend that phenomenology remains a species of idealism. “For centuries,”
Sartre exclaims, “we have not felt in philosophy so realistic a current.”323 Phenomenology
has “plunged man back into the world,”324 but as long as it accepts the ‘I’ as a structure of
absolute consciousness, it will be continue to be viewed by some as an escapist doctrine.
Ultimately, Sartre regards his mission in “The Transcendence of the Ego” not as destroying
Husserl’s work but as completing it. Indeed, Paul Ludwig Landsberg, a former student of
Scheler’s who came to Paris in the mid-1930s to seek refuge from the Nazism, once re-
marked, “Without any doubt, the decided apersonalism of a young French phenomenolo-
320Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 85; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 104.321Ibid., 85; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 104 (emphasis Sartre’s).322Ibid., 74; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 93.323Ibid., 86; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 105.324Ibid., 86; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 105.
226
gist [i.e., Sartre] legitimately drew the further consequences of Husserl’s method by fash-
ioning a properly mystical entity of transcendental consciousness constitutive of all exis-
tences.”325 The interdependent relationship that this transcendental, absolute consciousness
establishes between the empirical ego and the world from which it draws its content and be-
fore which it appears “endangered” is sufficient, according to Sartre, to provide “a philo-
sophical foundation for an ethics and a politics which are absolutely positive.”326
2. Sartre’s Assessment of Husserl
Sartre wrote other phenomenological essays during the 1930s, but since their cen-
tral theses all have their origin in “The Transcendence of the Ego,” a synopsis each will
suffice to round out Sartre’s assessment of Husserlian phenomenology. In addition to “The
Transcendence of the Ego,” Sartre drafted a short article on Husserl’s idea of intentionality
while he was in Berlin. Written for a non-specialist audience, it was published in the liter-
ary magazine La Nouvelle Revue française in 1939.327 More than any other of Sartre’s
writings, it captures the initial excitement he experienced upon discovering Husserl’s phe-
nomenology. “Husserl has restored horror and charm to things,” he writes in an oft-quoted
passage, “He has reinstated the world of artists and prophets: terrifying, hostile, danger-
ous, with havens of grace and love.”328 Surely, Husserl never expressed himself in this
manner, so we might ask how Sartre got this idea by reading Ideas.
From the beginning of the article, it is clear that Sartre wants to repudiate the ratio-
nalist and idealist philosophy he was taught at the École Normale and that he thinks Husserl
can give him the means to do so. He compares the idealism of Brunschvicg, Lalande and
Meyerson to a spider that captures flies in its web, covers them with white saliva, and then
325Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, “Husserl et l’idée de la philosophie,” Revue interna-tionale de philosophie 1 (1939): 325.
326Sartre, La Transcendance de l’Ego, 87; Williams and Kirkpatrick, 106.327Jean-Paul Sartre, “Une Idée fondamentale de la phénoménologie de Husserl:
l’intentionnalité,” La Nouvelle Revue française 52 (January 1939): 129-32. An Englishtranslation is available as, “Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserl’s Phenomeno-logy,” trans. Joseph Fell, The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 2 (1970):4-5. I have employed my own translations, however.
328Ibid., 131; cf. Fell, 5.
227
slowly digests them, reducing them to its own substance. Such is the image of “alimentary”
philosophy, as Sartre calls it.329 The world of things is reduced to ideas until nothing of
their former state remains. According to Husserl, however, consciousness does not assimi-
late the world to itself, but rather “bursts forth” into the world. Yet Husserl is not a simple
realist affirming the independent existence of things. The world is given with conscious-
ness in one stroke. For an image of Husserlian consciousness, Sartre suggests a whirl-
wind. If you try to enter it, he explains, you will be thrown back outside. “It is nothing but
the outside of itself; and it is this absolute flight, this refusal to be a substance that consti-
tutes it as a consciousness.”330 The centrifugal force of a whirlwind is Sartre’s metaphor
for the intentionality of consciousness. Thus, it may be inferred that Sartre does not under-
stand intentionality in correlational terms as does Husserl, nor that he regards phenomenol-
ogy as an epistemologically oriented philosophy. To the contrary, the domination of
epistemology is precisely what phenomenology overcomes. Consciousness of things is not
limited to knowledge of them, Sartre insists. Emotional states such as fear, hatred and love
represent other ways in which consciousness “bursts toward” other instances of its
intentionality.
Sartre introduces the topic of emotions in “The Transcendence of the Ego,” but he
develops his ideas more fully in Sketch for a Theory of Emotions.331 Published in 1939,
the Sketch is actually only a fragment of a much larger study of emotion that Sartre was
working on during the late 1930s but eventually abandoned, which was to have been called
La Psyché.332 In the first part of the Sketch, Sartre contends that psychologists beginning
with James have failed to give an adequate account of emotions and their relation to con-
sciousness because they treat them exclusively as psychical facts devoid of signification.
He introduces Husserl’s phenomenology as a response to this failure because it maintains
329Ibid., 129; cf. Fell, 4.330Ibid., 130; cf. Fell, 5.331Jean-Paul Sartre, Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions, ed. Jean Cavaillès, 2nd
ed. (Paris: Hermann, 1948); English translation: Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions,trans. Philip Mairet (London: Methuen, 1962).
332Cf. de Beauvoir, La Force de l’âge, 326; Green, 253-54.
228
that the classification of facts can only be accomplished through an inspection of their
essences.333 Sartre would approach emotions in the same way, although he announces that
he does not indent to conduct a thorough phenomenological study of emotion, but simply
an experiment in phenomenological psychology. By this he means that he will treat emo-
tions as psychic phenomena insofar as they signify, while setting aside the totality of what
they signify, namely the human reality [réalité humaine] as a whole.334 Phenomenological
psychology studies human beings positively, in their situation in the world, and conse-
quently subjects emotions to intentional analysis. On the other hand, a pure phenomenol-
ogy of emotions would be directed to establishing that “emotion is a realization of the
essence of the human reality insofar as it is affectivity.”335 In the Sketch, Sartre attempts
the former task but not the latter.
In the remainder of the Sketch, Sartre presents his phenomenological psychology of
emotions as counterpoint to classical and psychoanalytic theories. He is critical of psycho-
analytic theories like Freud’s because they depend upon the notion of an unconscious—a
notion to which Sartre refuses to subscribe. On his view, consciousness is always con-
sciousness of something; it can never be consciousness of nothing or not conscious of it-
self. Hence, there can be nothing like an unconscious behind consciousness determining it
through a mechanism of psychic causality. As a corrective to classical theories, which as-
sume that consciousness of emotion is primarily a matter of reflection, Sartre introduces his
own notion of a pre-reflective consciousness which is aware of emotions unthematically,
that is, without relation to intentional objects as such. According to this view, emotions can
become a way of escaping the realties that confront us; we transform the way the world ap-
pears to us through our emotions because we cannot bear the way it presents itself.336 In
333Sartre, Esquisse, 7-8; Mairet, 21-22.334Ibid., 11-13; Mairet, 28-31. Sartre employs the term réalité humaine to signify
human being in an ontological manner, a conscious reference to Heidegger’s Dasein. See“Sartre’s Assessment of Heidegger,” below.
335Ibid., 52; cf. 11. Mairet, 94; cf. 28 (emphasis Sartre’s).336Ibid., 33; Mairet, 63.
229
Being and Nothingness, Sartre develops this emotional flight from the world into the exis-
tential notion of bad faith.
In addition to his investigations of emotion, Sartre also applied phenomenological
insights to a problem that had occupied his attention as a student: the distinction between
images and perceptions. Following his graduation from the École Normale in 1929, he re-
vised his thesis on the theory of the image since Descartes over the next several years, even
adding a section on Husserl as a result of his growing acquaintance of phenomenology.
Alcan accepted the first part of the manuscript in 1936, publishing it under the title
L’Imagination.337 Sartre reworked the sections Alcan had rejected, leading to the publica-
tion of a long essay, “Structure intentionnelle de l’image” in the Revue de métaphysique et
de morale in 1938.338 This article, in turn, was incorporated as the first part of
L’Imaginaire, psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination, which had been accepted
by his new publisher, Gallimard, for release in 1940.339 The references to phenomenology
in these three works reveal the extent to which Sartre thought it could be used to overcome
the dualism between physical and psychical images inherent in classical psychologistic the-
ories of perception. Husserl did not set out to destroy psychology, Sartre asserts, but to
revitalize it by furnishing it with eidetic foundations. Intentionality promotes a new concep-
tion of the image by taking it out of the realm of inert contents of consciousness and estab-
lishing it as a unified and synthetic consciousness in relation to a transcendent object.340 A
distinction between images and perceptions remains, but it lies in the different intentionali-
ties of the lived experiences through which they are presented. Sartre, however, does not
337Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Imagination (Paris: Alcan, 1936). A good English translation
is available as Imagination: A Psychological Critique, trans. with an introduction by ForrestWilliams (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1962), though I prefer my owntranslations for the passages quoted below. See Contat, Les Écrits de Sartre, 55, for thepublication background of this essay.
338Jean-Paul Sartre, “Structure intentionnelle de l’image,” Revue de métaphysiqueet de morale 45 (1938): 543-609.
339Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Imaginaire, psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination(Paris: Gallimard, 1940); available in English as Jean-Paul Sartre, The Psychology ofImagination, trans. anonymous (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948).
340Sartre, L’Imagination, 148; Williams, 134.
230
accept this distinction as a complete solution, for it leaves open the problem of distinguish-
ing mental images from perceptions after the phenomenological reduction, that is, after the
material element shared by their intentionalities has been suspended. Somehow the material
of images and perceptions must be different, leading Sartre to speculate on the need for ei-
detic description. At least “the way is open for a phenomenological psychology of the im-
age,” he concludes in L’Imagination, while leaving the task for another occasion.341 Sartre,
in fact, returns to this problem in L’Imaginaire, where he draws upon Husserl’s analyses in
the Logical Investigations in order to discriminate between the intentionality of images and
perceptions, and also other forms of intentional consciousness, especially signs and
symbols. Perceptual consciousness intends its object as present and really existing,
whereas imaginative consciousness intends its object as absent. In Sartre’s terminology,
imaginative consciousness negates the existence of its object “by cutting it off from all real-
ity and annihilating it, by presentifying it as nothingness.”342 Perception and imagination
are therefore mutually exclusive acts of consciousness, and their distinction plays an impor-
tant role in Sartre’s aesthetic analyses in this and other essays.
The most significant aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology in Sartre’s estimation, and
the one that he discussed most frequently in “The Transcendence of the Ego” and his vari-
ous essays on phenomenological psychology, was the intentionality of consciousness.
Husserl’s theory of intentionality enabled Sartre to overcome the impasse created by the
opposing epistemologies of idealism and realism. Intentionality meant that consciousness
and its object were given at one stroke, obviating the need to explain how a subject attained
an object that existed independently of it, while at the same time avoiding the reduction of
objectivity to subjective immanence. Intentionality affirmed the transcendence not only of
perceptual objects, but more importantly for Sartre, the transcendence of the ego and the
world. On the other hand, when Sartre tried to integrate Husserl’s doctrines concerning the
341Ibid., 159; Williams, 143.342Sartre, L’Imaginaire, 350-51: “le coupant de toute réalité et en l’anéantissant, en
le présentifiant comme néant”; cf. English trans., 265.
231
transcendental ego and the phenomenological epoché with his own essentially Cartesian
view of consciousness, he encountered difficulties. Although Husserl claimed to have dis-
covered the transcendental ego as a fact of consciousness through rigorous application of
the phenomenological reduction, Sartre believed that his theory of intentionality nullified
the need to posit a transcendental ego as pole of identity consciousness and synthesis.
Meanwhile Sartre’s insistence upon the duality between the genuine, creative spontaneity of
absolute consciousness and the passive spontaneity of the ego led him to interpret the
epoché as an accidental irruption of the former into the latter. In his view, the epoché im-
plied both an existential and ontological event, while for Husserl the epoché represented a
controlled modification of consciousness undertaken for scientific purposes. Husserl in-
tended the epoché to lead to a deeper understanding of the transcendental field, yet Sartre
regarded it as a means of liberation from its abstraction. Consequently, whereas Husserl
was indifferent to the existence or non-existence of the ego, Sartre considered it crucial to
recognize the ego as an illusion that keeps absolute consciousness from grasping the power
of its essential freedom.
The note of freedom which resounds in Sartre’s early essays heralds the ethics he
would soon elaborate. In Sartre’s Two Ethics, Thomas Anderson has explored the two
ethical systems which subsequently appeared in Sartre’s published writings: the first, an
idealistic ethics following Being and Nothingness (1943); and the second, a realistic ethics
after the Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960).343 Anderson’s main thesis is that Sartre’s
ethical thinking does not depend upon Marxism or any other sociopolitical ideology but
rather upon his ontology, or ontologies, given that his ideas in this arena underwent con-
tinual revision and development. Accordingly, he devotes the introduction of his study to
the early essays in which Sartre charts the ontological principles that will form the basis of
his later writings. Anderson recognizes that “The Transcendence of the Ego,” with its dis-
343Thomas C. Anderson, Sartre’s Two Ethics: From Authenticity to IntegralHumanity (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 1. Anderson also mentions a third morality begunin the 1970s which consists mainly of tape recorded interviews with the ex-Maoist, BennyLévy, which have not been transcribed and published as yet.
232
tinction between reflected and unreflected consciousness, lays the groundwork for the
ethics that will issue from Being and Nothingness. Likewise he observes that although
Sartre’s other essays in phenomenological psychology from 1930s contain no explicit re-
marks about ethics, they do incorporate notions that will become central to his ontology and
hence his moral philosophy, especially the identification of consciousness with freedom.
Nevertheless, Anderson finds that Sartre’s early ontology is hopelessly abstract and unreal-
istic—an opinion, he notes, which Sartre himself later expressed in retrospect.344 “Sartre
has saddled himself with a conception of consciousness that is, I submit, exceedingly ab-
stract and unreal, for it is not a human consciousness or freedom, or is at best only one as-
pect of human consciousness and freedom.”345 “In fact,” Anderson remarks, “the founda-
tion he has set forth is so terribly abstract because it is so incomplete.”346 The inverse is
equally true: Sartre’s attempt to ground an ethics on the spontaneity of absolute conscious-
ness is incomplete precisely because it is abstract. Sartre is able to offer explanations for the
existence and functions of the ego, but ultimately his phenomenological psychology fails to
provide a satisfactory foundation for the positive, and not merely positivistic, ethics he de-
sired. In short, in Sartre’s philosophy before 1939 there is an ethical orientation but not yet
an ethics.
3. Sartre’s Assessment of Heidegger
In the early 1930s, Sartre made attempts to read Heidegger but abandoned them due
to the difficult vocabulary on the one hand and his complete absorption with Husserl on the
other.347 Simone de Beauvoir reports that Sartre only began a serious study of Heidegger
after Corbin’s volume of translations appeared in 1938.348 Nevertheless, already in his ar-
ticle for the Nouvelle Revue française, which he drafted in Berlin in 1934, Sartre turns to
344Ibid., 9 (emphasis Anderson’s).345Ibid., 8.346Ibid., 6.347See Sartre, Carnets de la drôle de guerre, 404; Hoare, 183. While in Berlin,
Sartre bought himself a copy of Heidegger’s Being and Time, planning to read it after fin-ishing Ideas, but he gave up after fifty pages.
348De Beauvoir, La Force de l’âge, 363-64; Green, 282.
233
Heidegger to help explain his interpretation of Husserl’s notion of the intentionality of con-
sciousness: “To be, says Heidegger, is to be-in-the-world. Take this ‘being-in’ in the sense
of movement. To be is to burst forth into the world, it is to leave the nothingness of the
world and of consciousness in order to suddenly burst-consciousness-in-the-world.”349
Sartre’s logic is unclear perhaps, but he certainly grasps something of Heidegger’s themes
of nothingness and thrownness, not to mention his dramatic hyphenated prose. With re-
spect to “The Transcendence of the Ego,” we might speculate that Sartre’s concern to un-
derstand the phenomenological reduction as an existential event may have been encouraged
by Heidegger’s assertions regarding Dasein’s comprehension of its own being.
Not until 1939, however, with his Sketch for a Theory of Emotions does Sartre
venture any real comparisons between Husserl and Heidegger. Significantly, he introduces
Heidegger in this essay as “another phenomenologist”350—not yet as an existentialist, as he
will do after 1945.351 Like Husserl, Heidegger recognizes the inseparability of the knower
and the object to be known. In Heidegger’s case, however, what is to be known is being,
and so the inquiry must begin with the being that we are, human being—“réalité humaine,”
as Sartre translates Dasein. The aim of Heidegger’s analysis of the réalité humaine is to
establish an anthropology that can serve as the foundation for psychology. Hence, Sartre
portrays Heidegger as in league with Husserl in combating psychologism. Furthermore, in
defining phenomenology as the study of phenomena, Sartre explicitly takes over
Heidegger’s interpretation of the latter as that which shows-itself-in-itself [ce qui se
dénonce soi-même],352 assuming that such a definition would satisfy both Husserl and
349Sartre, “Une Idée fondamentale,” 131; Fell, 5.350Sartre, Esquisse, 8; cf. Mairet, 23, who mistakenly translates “psychologist.”351In his famous 1945 lecture, Existentialisme est un humanisme, Sartre classifies
existentialists according to two categories: Christian existentialists, among whom he namesJaspers and Marcel, and atheistic existentialists, among whom he names Heidegger first,then the “French existentialists,” and finally himself. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialismeest un humanisme (Paris: Éditions Nagel, 1970), 17. An English translation with an intro-duction by Bernard Frechtman is available as Existentialism (New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, 1947). See p. 15.
352Sartre, Esquisse, 9; Mairet, 25. Cf. Heidegger, Being and Time, Int II.A, pp.51-55.
234
Heidegger alike. Indeed, Sartre observes that, “to exist for the réalité humaine is, according
to Heidegger, to assume its own being in an existential mode of comprehension; to exist for
consciousness is to show itself [s’apparaître], according to Husserl.”353 Thus, at the end of
the 1930s, Sartre seems content to present Heidegger’s analysis of existence as compatible
with Husserl’s analysis of consciousness. The story will change, however, with the
evolution of Sartre’s next work, Being and Nothingness, which, as the title itself indicates,
represents a direct challenge to Heidegger and a clear break from Husserl.
C. Levinas and Sartre as Interpreters of Phenomenology
Both Levinas and Sartre offer original interpretations and appropriations of
Husserlian phenomenology. Together they are responsible for having initiated a new phase
in the reception of phenomenology in French philosophy. Unlike their predecessors, who
mainly tried to explain Husserl’s principal teachings, Levinas and Sartre incorporate phe-
nomenology in the development of their own philosophies. Furthermore, in contrast to ear-
lier interpreters like Gurvitch and Groethuysen, who contextualized phenomenology in the
German traditions of Idealism, neo-Kantianism, or Weltanschauung philosophies of life,
both Levinas and Sartre outline the affinities between phenomenology and Cartesianism.
Inspired by Husserl’s approach in his Sorbonne lectures, Levinas shows how phe-
nomenology is a continuation of Descartes’s own meditations. He points out similarities
between the Cartesian method of radical doubt and the phenomenological epoché and their
common aim of finding apodictic grounds for the natural sciences. Yet he goes further, ar-
guing that Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality has overcome the Cartesian separation of
knowledge from being. Sartre, too, dissociates Husserl from contemporary German phi-
losophy and brings him into dialogue with the Cartesian tradition, though in a somewhat
different manner than Levinas. According to Sartre, Husserl’s epistemology breaks from
Kantianism by proceeding as a descriptive science of fact rather than as a deductive specu-
lation on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge. It also breaks from psychologism
353Ibid., 10; Mairet, 25.
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by affirming the reality of transcendental consciousness and its intentional relatedness to
transcendent objects. Husserl’s theory of the intentionality of consciousness leads Sartre to
regard phenomenology as a revitalization of the Cartesian cogito. Husserl has liberated
absolute consciousness from the imprisonment of monadic substance.
Levinas would agree: “In the final analysis Husserl’s phenomenology is a philoso-
phy of freedom,” he concludes in the essay quoted earlier commemorating Husserl’s philo-
sophical achievement upon the latter’s death.354 In support of this claim he cites several of
Husserl’s later publications. The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, a series
of lectures from his Göttingen years edited by Heidegger for publication in 1928, demon-
strates that temporality, which is constituted by the very subjectivity of the subject, is “the
manifestation itself of freedom and spirituality.”355 Next, Crisis of European Sciences,
portions of which were published in 1936, portrays science as the fulfillment of freedom
because it consists in the power of human beings to confer a reasonable meaning upon their
existence. Finally, the Cartesian Meditations, which Levinas himself helped to translate,
argues that the subject is not absolute because it is indubitable (Descartes) but because it is
self-sufficient. “This self sufficiency characterizes its absoluteness,” Levinas remarks,
adding: “It puts freedom into action in us.”356 Elsewhere in the same essay he qualifies this
endorsement. Husserl’s interpretation of intentionality, he explains, lends itself to a
monadic view of consciousness, with the result that it represents not the being-in-the-world
of consciousness but its being-out-of-the-world.357 On the other hand, according to
Heidegger’s view, “The subject is neither free nor absolute; it no longer speaks entirely for
itself. It is dominated and overburdened [débordé] by history.”358 Heidegger’s philosophy
goes to the other extreme because his notion of intentionality focuses more on the relation
to objects than the spontaneity of subjectivity. Nevertheless, even this contrary this inter-
354Levinas, “L’Oeuvre d’Edmond Husserl,” 81.355Ibid., 73.356Ibid., 79.357Ibid., 82.358Ibid., 81.
236
pretation serves to emphasize the centrality of intentionality to the phenomenological enter-
prise, according to Levinas.359
Sartre likewise underscored the central importance of Husserl’s doctrine of inten-
tionality to phenomenology by showing its applicability to other disciplines, including psy-
chology, ethics and ontology. His studies of the relation of emotions to consciousness and
the constitution of images from perception demonstrated the value of intentional analysis
for resolving long-standing controversies in psychology. For Sartre, moreover, a phe-
nomenologically-based psychology helped to reveal the true spontaneity and freedom of
absolute consciousness and thereby to unleash its power for moral living. Meanwhile
Sartre’s chief criticism of Husserl issued from the clash of their respective theories of con-
sciousness. Through the exercise of the phenomenological reduction, Husserl concluded
that the transcendental ego was a necessary formal structure of consciousness. Sartre, on
the other hand, concluded from his incorporation of intentionality into his own dialectical
theory of consciousness that the transcendental ego was a superfluous hypothesis. Instead,
he claimed that the ego was a transcendent object of unreflected consciousness and that the
‘I think’ was only a formal element of reflected consciousness. For Husserl, the affirma-
tion of the transcendental ego became the basis for his affirmation of objectivity. Sartre,
too, was concerned with objectivity, but on his view it was precisely the affirmation of the
ego’s transcendence and the centrifugal force of intentionality that spelled emancipation
from the subjectivism and interiority. “We are hereby delivered from Proust!” he would
exclaim in his article for La Nouvelle Revue française.360 For Sartre, the unity and objec-
tivity of consciousness rested in its intentional relation to things. Moreover, the fact of the
ego’s transcendence meant that the threat of solipsism, which continued to plague Husserl,
had been definitively overcome. These insights, gained from his close study of Husserl’s
Ideas and Cartesian Meditations, combined with his exposure to Heidegger, would even-
tually lead to the phenomenological ontology and anthropology of Being and Nothingness.
359Ibid., 83.360Sartre, “Une Idée fondamentale,” 132; Fell, 5.
237
Nevertheless, because Sartre’s theory of the ego diminished individual subjectivity into a
pseudo-spontaneity, it could not provide a satisfactory solution the problem of intersubjec-
tivity to which Husserl called attention in his later studies.
Levinas offered an approach to intersubjectivity that addressed the need to affirm
objectivity while not compromising the subjectivity of the subject. Genuine objectivity, he
argued, could not be constituted by a single subjectivity because it is essential to an object’s
mode of being to be an object for many subjects. Hence, all true knowledge of objects, and
consequently all true knowledge of being, must include from the beginning the presupposi-
tion of intersubjectivity. So rather than starting with the apparently simpler problem of
egology and working towards intersubjectivity as Husserl had tried, Levinas proposed that
phenomenology should proceed from intersubjectivity and should effect what he called an
“intersubjective reduction” in order to arrive at the truth of objectivity, and hence of being.
Like Sartre, Levinas extended his interpretation of Husserl toward ontology due to the in-
fluence of Heidegger, although he did not stray as far beyond Husserl’s methodological
principles. Levinas could continue to philosophize in the basic framework of the eidetic and
phenomenological reductions because he did not bring to his interpretation of Husserl any
previously elaborated theories of consciousness. Besides, Levinas was less interested in
the essence of consciousness than in the various modes of being. On the whole, his inter-
ests tended to complement rather than conflict with Husserl’s, as was the sometimes the
case for Sartre.
Levinas and Sartre developed different approaches to ethics and ontology based on
their different orientations toward the possibility of intersubjectivity, but both recognized
that phenomenology was essentially a moral enterprise for it ultimately comprised the af-
firmation of human freedom. Furthermore, both agreed that the most liberating aspect of
phenomenology was Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality, for intentionality made it possible
to philosophize from within the human situation and to discover its essential meaning.
238
Together and in their respective ways, Sartre and Levinas marked the beginning of an
original French appropriation of phenomenology.
V. Conclusion: Four Phases in the Reception ofPhenomenology in French Philosophy, 1910-1939
The strategy of grouping the eight philosophers most responsible for introducing
phenomenology to French-speaking audiences into contemporaneous pairs for purposes of
exposition and comparison has resulted in the identification of four distinct phases in the
reception of phenomenology in French philosophy from 1910 to 1939. The concluding
sections that follow briefly recapitulate the significant features of each of the four phases in
order to clarify how the successive phases in turn achieved a greater degree of accuracy,
sophistication and originality in the French interpretation, and ultimately appropriation, of
Husserlian phenomenology.
A. Phase One: Awareness of Husserl as a Critic of Psychologism
The earliest French-speaking interpreters of Husserl portrayed him as an effective
opponent of psychologism. Léon Noël and Victor Delbos both published short articles on
Husserl’s Logical Investigations in 1910-11, devoting their attention primarily to the first
volume of the work, especially the “Prolegomena to Pure Logic.” Noël, a Thomist
philosopher at Louvain, highlighted Husserl’s theory of evidence as a lived experience of
adequation between thought and its object, noting its similarity to neo-scholastic episte-
mologies. His regard for Husserl as an ally in restoring objective foundations to logic
would lay the groundwork for future interest in phenomenology among French-speaking
theologians. Victor Delbos, an expert on the history of German philosophy at the
Sorbonne, introduced Husserl to the French academic world. He portrayed Husserl’s work
as an attempt to find a middle ground between the excessive empiricism of psychologism
and the cold detachment of rationalism and neo-Kantian idealism. Husserl himself, he
noted, was a convert from psychologism, whose bold ambition was to investigate the
conditions for the possibility of science, and to develop from them a grand theory of theo-
239
ries. Delbos recognized that Husserl’s methodology involved the description of the opera-
tions of consciousness, and discerned that Husserl, in fact, advanced a concept of con-
sciousness based on intentionality that was distinct from both empiricism and neo-
Kantianism. Yet Delbos, like Noël, honored Husserl more for his contributions to episte-
mology than as the founder of a new science called phenomenology.
B. Phase Two: Polemics over Ideas and the Logos Essay
More than a decade passed before Husserl was again discussed in French philo-
sophical literature due to the decline of interest in and knowledge of contemporary German
philosophy brought about by the first World War. Husserl’s pivotal essay “Philosophy as
Rigorous Science” and the first volume of Ideas, published just prior to the war, would not
receive notice in France until the French philosophical culture once again became open to
German influence in the mid 1920s, thanks in part to the influence of scholars from central
and eastern Europe who had studied in various German universities before finally settling
in Paris. Lev Shestov was the first of these immigrant philosophers to write about Husserl
for French philosophical journals. In 1926 he published a lengthy reaction to “Philosophy
as Rigorous Science” in which he charged Husserl with excessive rationalism and idealism.
Against Husserl, Shestov asserted that reality is fundamentally irrational and insusceptible
to scientific categorization. Furthermore, whereas some of Husserl’s contemporaries criti-
cized his Platonizing tendencies, Shestov complained that Husserl was not Platonic enough
for he ruled out any kind of metaphysics or wisdom philosophy.
Shestov’s article provoked a response from a former student of Husserl’s at
Strasbourg, the Protestant philosopher and theologian Jean Héring. In defense of his men-
tor, Héring explained that Husserl was not opposed to wisdom philosophies but only
faulted them for not pursuing their aims with sufficient resolve. Neither was he opposed to
metaphysics, although he insisted that epistemology must precede metaphysics, and not the
other way around as Shestov maintained. Furthermore, the intuitionist methodology of
Husserl’s phenomenology precluded characterization of reality as rational or irrational.
240
Whereas Shestov had based his interpretation of Husserl on his Logos article, Héring
grounded his on Ideas. In both his response to Shestov and his monograph,
Phenomenology and Religious Philosophy, Héring expounded Husserl’s “principle of all
principles,” which affirmed the right of every datum of intuition to be regarded as legitimate
source of knowledge. His interpretation of Husserl consequently marked a significant ad-
vance over Delbos’s because it introduced Husserl as a phenomenologist rather than a lo-
gician, showing that he was primarily concerned with restoring the role of intuition in
epistemology and that his critique of psychologism was merely a derivative benefit. In ad-
dition, whereas Shestov depicted his adversary as lone pioneer, Héring showed that phe-
nomenology was a diverse philosophical movement in its own right, having been initiated
by Husserl but distinguished among its many practitioners more by the technique of
Wesensschauung, or essential intuition, than by Husserl’s own goals for the establishment
of pure phenomenology as foundational science.
C. Phase Three: Popularization of Phenomenology
While Shestov and Héring exchanged volleys in a technical debate about the validity
of Husserl’s philosophical approach, another phase in the French reception of phe-
nomenology was just beginning: its popularization. Bernard Groethuysen, a former student
of Dilthey writing from Berlin, made available on the Paris market a layperson’s guide to
contemporary German thought. More than a simple dictionary of philosophers,
Groethuysen’s little volume showed that German philosophers since Nietzsche have all
shared the common problem of redefining the meaning of philosophy. He introduced
Husserl as offering the most comprehensive solution to this problem, combining aspects of
the philosophies of life with the rigor of a scientific pursuit. Nevertheless, his synopsis of
Husserl’s thought was somewhat misleading. Groethuysen claimed that Husserl intended
that philosophy should be conducted like a science, not as a science. Furthermore, by ex-
plaining that phenomenology was “a manner of envisaging the givens of thought”361 (he
361Groethuysen, Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande, 92-93.
241
never used the terms reduction or epoché), and illustrating its methodology with examples
from literature and the visual arts, the portrait that emerged resembled certain of Husserl’s
followers more than Husserl himself. These misinterpretations contributed to
Groethuysen’s proposal in the last chapter of his book that the phenomenological move-
ment should continue to evolve beyond Husserl toward a new philosophy of the future
based on the notions of facts and values—a vision no doubt inspired by Scheler, though
the latter received only brief mention.
Georges Gurvitch, a more significant popularizer of phenomenology in France
during the late 1920s, also introduced Husserl as the founder of an important philosophical
movement that in some respects had grown beyond him. Gurvitch, a professor from the
Russian University in Prague, conducted a series of three free courses at the Sorbonne for
the interested public on contemporary German philosophy. His lectures also appeared as
articles in French philosophical journals and were compiled into a book in 1930. Gurvitch
took as his point of departure the crisis caused by the fragmentation of neo-Kantianism. In
the midst of this disarray, the phenomenological movement promised a revitalization of
philosophy. Husserl, however, failed to address the need for an Absolute and to adequately
treat irrational phenomena. Scheler meanwhile constructed an independent phenomenologi-
cal ethics around a hierarchy of values, but went too far in his critiques of neo-Kantian
formalism and rationalism. Consequently, Gurvitch proposed that a synthesis of phe-
nomenology and neo-Kantian criticism might resolve the current epistemological crisis. He
discussed and criticized the attempts of Lask and Hartmann in this direction, and then in the
final chapter of his book, he turned to the ontological reorientation of phenomenology re-
cently advanced by Heidegger. Heidegger’s dialectic and his incorporation of irrational el-
ements into his philosophy offered the best hope in Gurvitch’s opinion, for they signaled a
return to the classical synthesis of German Idealism. The ultimate solution, however,
awaited recovery from the past, particularly from Fichte. Thus, while Gurvitch informed
242
and stimulated his French audiences, he did not directly animate their creative participation
in efforts to transform phenomenology into a philosophy for the future.
D. Phase Four: Original French Appropriations of Phenomenology
The popularization of phenomenology in France by Groethuysen and Gurvitch led
to the invitation of Husserl to lecture at the Sorbonne in 1929. There Husserl presented a
series of philosophical meditations in which he drew explicit connections between phe-
nomenology and Descartes’s method of radical doubt and ambition to furnish apodictic sci-
entific foundations. Husserl’s lectures at the Sorbonne coincided with the beginning of the
fourth phase in the philosophical reception of phenomenology in France, which was char-
acterized by original appropriations of phenomenology and attempts to assimilate its doc-
trines to the Cartesian tradition.
Emmanuel Levinas, a student of Héring at Strasbourg who spent a year with
Husserl in Freiburg in 1928-29, offered the first original appropriations of phenomenology
to appear in French philosophical literature. Immediately following Husserl’s Sorbonne
lectures, Levinas published an interpretive synopsis of Ideas in the Revue philosophique de
la France et de l'étranger. In this essay, Levinas proposed to extend the aim of phe-
nomenology to encompass the meaning of being. He showed particular interest in the abil-
ity of the phenomenological reduction to reveal the various modalities whereby objects ex-
ist. By contrast to Husserl, Levinas considered the constitution of objectivity to be more
significant than the constitution of subjectivity, suggesting furthermore that genuine objec-
tivity could only be attained by what he called an intersubjective reduction. His critique of
Husserl in this regard stemmed from the treatment Husserl gave to the problem of intersub-
jectivity in the classroom and in his Sorbonne lectures. On the other hand Levinas’s con-
cern for the meaning of existence had been influenced by his exposure to Heidegger during
his stay in Freiburg and by his subsequent study of Being and Time. Levinas published an
influential survey of Heidegger’s opus in 1932. Levinas’s most significant early phe-
nomenological publication, however, was his doctoral thesis on Husserl’s theory of intu-
243
ition. In this essay especially, Levinas detailed the similarities between the phenomenologi-
cal epoché and Descartes’s method of doubt. Yet he went even further, showing how
Husserl’s approach could be used to overcome the Cartesian separation between being and
knowledge, thereby reuniting epistemology with ontology. Besides offering his own inter-
pretation of Husserl, Levinas collaborated with Gabrielle Peiffer to provide the first direct
access to Husserl’s thought in French. Their translation of the Cartesian Meditations was
an important stimulus for additional creative appropriations of phenomenology in France,
for even many well-trained native philosophers who, like Jean-Paul Sartre, had difficulty
working through Husserl’s dense German prose.
Yet it was Sartre more than Levinas who transformed phenomenology into a new
species of French philosophy. Whereas Levinas had simply tried to point out where phe-
nomenology intersected the Cartesian tradition, Sartre actually assimilated Husserl’s theory
of intentionality to his own essentially dualistic Cartesian theory of consciousness.
According to Sartre, intentionality proved that transcendental consciousness was absolute
and impersonal. Against Husserl, Sartre argued that intentionality rendered superfluous the
need to posit a transcendental ego as a support for the unity of consciousness.
Consciousness achieves unity in its object—that is the meaning of the phenomenological
dictum that all consciousness is consciousness of something. The ego, too, Sartre rea-
soned, must be a transcendent object for consciousness. Sartre tried to show therefore that
the cogito, the ‘I think,’ appeared only indirectly to reflected consciousness while unre-
flected consciousness remained autonomous. Moreover, Sartre employed a dialectical the-
ory of consciousness to completely reinterpret the significance of the phenomenological re-
duction. The reduction could not be a deliberate, studied act effected for the purpose of sci-
entific investigation, as Husserl claimed. Rather, it represents the sudden irruption of abso-
lute consciousness into the passive spontaneity of the ego. With Sartre, the epoché became
an accident of existence signaling the absolute freedom of consciousness. It also became a
literary device for mirroring the poetic production of the ego as a constant creation ex nihilo
244
of transcendental consciousness, and finally, the basis for the ethical system that would
issue from Being and Nothingness.
Sartre brought the early history of the French philosophical reception of phe-
nomenology full round. Whereas Noël and Delbos had introduced Husserl as a logician
battling against psychologism, Sartre demonstrated how fruitful Husserl’s phenomenologi-
cal method could be for analyzing psychical and psychological life. Like Scheler before
him, though in a more direct dialogue with Husserl, Sartre applied phenomenological
techniques of intentional analysis to emotions. Like Levinas, Sartre could not resist the pull
of Heidegger, with the result that the phenomenological psychology which characterized
his studies during the late 1930s led to the phenomenological ontology of Being and
Nothingness in the early 1940s. Thus, at the same time that phenomenology was
experiencing a decline in Germany following the death of Husserl in 1938, it was being
given a new incarnation in France.
E. Other Figures, Further Aspects
This chapter has endeavored to give an account of the four successive phases in the
French reception of phenomenology through a chronological and critical analysis of the
principal essays on Husserlian phenomenology that appeared in French philosophical litera-
ture between 1910 and 1939. While this methodology has yielded the essential background
for the subsequent investigation of the specifically theological receptions of phenomenol-
ogy in France, it has nevertheless excluded other significant factors contributing to French
interest in phenomenology which can only be briefly mentioned here.
Notably absent from the present chapter is any discussion of Gabriel Marcel, con-
cerning whom Jean Héring once said that even if German phenomenology had never be-
come known in France, still a phenomenology would have arisen there due to Marcel’s in-
fluence.362 In the same context Héring also noted that Marcel “practiced the phenomenolog-
362Jean Héring, “La Phénoménologie en France,” in L'Activité philosophique enFrance et aux Etats-Unis, ed. Marvin Farber (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1950), 86. This text appeared simultaneously in English as “Phenomenology in France,” in
245
ical method well before he knew of Husserl, Scheler and their disciples.”363 By this remark
Héring meant to recall the fact that Marcel had independently developed a method of
questioning the essence of things which he would later associate with phenomenology in
the mid-1930s once he had heard about the movement from other sources. Thus, while
Marcel may be counted with Bergson and Blondel as an important precursor to the recep-
tion of Husserlian phenomenology in France, he did not contribute directly to French
knowledge of phenomenology from its original German sources.
Besides Marcel, the essayist and literary critic Benjamin Fondane deserves credit
for continuing Groethuysen’s efforts to inform the general educated public about phe-
nomenology during the 1930s. Born Benjamin Wexler, Fondane emigrated to France from
Romania in 1924. In Paris he came under the influence of Shestov and began a private
study of existential philosophy. In 1936 he published a collection of essays on Nietzsche,
Gide, Husserl, Bergson, Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Shestov together with a program-
matic introduction under the Hegelian caption, La Conscience malheureuse.364
It is also worth calling attention to the fact that two journals were above all respon-
sible for transmitting phenomenological impulses to French philosophers. The Revue
philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, edited by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, contained many
of the essays by Shestov, Gurvitch and Levinas that were examined in this chapter. In ad-
dition, Recherches philosophiques, a philosophical yearbook founded in 1931 for the ex-
plicit purpose of “welcoming initiative and encouraging intellectual audacity”365 carried
phenomenology as a subheading in the table of contents beginning with the second issue.
This section featured book reviews by Emmanuel Levinas, Henry Corbin and others.
Translation of essays by contemporary German phenomenologists such as Martin Philosophic Thought in France and the United States, ed. Marvin Farber, trans. anony-mous (Buffalo, NY: Univ. of Buffalo Publications in Philosophy, 1950), 75. Also quotedby Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 448.
363Héring, “La Phénoménologie en France,” 84; English trans., 74.364Benjamin Fondane, La Conscience malheureuse (Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1936).365“Avertissement,” Recherches philosophiques 1 (1931-32): viii. See also Louis
Lavelle, La Philosophie française entre les deux guerres (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1942),“Les Recherches philosophiques,” pp. 251-62.
246
Heidegger, Hedwig-Conrad Martius and Oskar Becker were also regularly included under
the rubric although their content was not always phenomenological. The final volume of
Recherches philosophiques, which appeared in 1936, contained Sartre’s “The
Transcendence of the Ego” and an essay by Gabriel Marcel titled, “Aperçus phénoménolo-
giques sur l’être en situation.”366
Finally, the present chapter has demonstrated the crucial role in the French reception
of phenomenology played by Eastern European scholars who emigrated to France follow-
ing the Russian revolution and the first World War. Because many of them had studied in
Germany, some with Husserl himself, they were uniquely qualified to transmit Husserl’s
influence and teachings and to contextualize phenomenology among contemporary German
philosophical movements. In addition to Shestov, Gurvitch, Levinas and Fondane, several
others deserve mention for the minor roles they played in the French philosophical recep-
tion of phenomenology. Alexandre Koyré, a Russian immigrant cited in the last chapter for
his role in bringing knowledge of Bergson to Husserl and his followers in Göttingen later
became one of the co-founders of Recherches philosophiques.367 Another Russian,
Alexandre Kojève, who temporarily took over Koyré’s course on Hegel at the École des
Hautes Études Sociales, mistakenly spread the notion that Hegel’s phenomenology was es-
sentially the same as Husserl’s. Better informed was the Polish psychiatrist and philoso-
pher Eugène Minkowski, who contributed two essays to Recherches philosophiques. Their
titles “Études phénoménologiques” and “Le Problème du temps vécu” reflect his familiarity
with Husserl although he was actually more influenced by Bergson.368 Aron Gurwitsch, a
Lithuanian who had prepared his doctoral dissertation on sociology and phenomenology
366Gabriel Marcel, “Aperçus phénoménologiques sur l’être en situation,”
Recherches philosophiques 6 (1936-37): 1-21.367See Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 239, 428, 431-34, 438 and
441.368Eugène Minkowski, “Esquisses phénoménologiques,” Recherches philoso-
phiques 4 (1934): 295-313; “Le Problème du temps vécu,” Recherches philosophiques 5(1935): 65-99; both essays were republished in Minkowski’s second book, Vers unecosmologie (Paris: Aubier, 1936). See also Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement,434.
247
under Scheler, brought phenomenological perspectives to the interpretations of Gestalt psy-
chology he published while residing in Paris after the rise of Nazism in Germany in 1933
and before his departure for the United States in 1940.369 Finally a German refugee from
Nazism and another of Scheler’s outstanding students, Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, also con-
tributed to the French awareness of the diversity of the original German phenomenological
movement.370
The four phases in the French philosophical reception of phenomenology between
1910 and 1939 provide a background against which we can identify the channels through
which knowledge of Husserlian phenomenology spread among French-speaking religious
thinkers. The next two chapters will examine the sources of the reception of phenomenol-
ogy among French religious thinkers and evaluate the assimilation of phenomenological
themes and methods to specifically theological topics.
369See for example, Aron Gurwitsch, “Quelques aspects et quelques développe-
ments de la psychologie de la forme,” Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 33(1936): 413-70. See also Speigelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 251-52.
370Cf. Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, “L’Acte philosophique de Max Scheler,” Re-cherches Philosophiques 6 (1936): 299-312. See also Speigelberg, PhenomenologicalMovement, 302 and 431.
250
CHAPTER 3
RECEPTIONS OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL INSIGHTS
IN FRENCH RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1901-1929
Husserlian phenomenology gradually became known in French philosophical cir-
cles during the late 1920s and 30s, largely due to the efforts of immigrant scholars such as
Gurvitch and Levinas, as well as personal visits and lectures by leading German phenome-
nologists. How did the reception of phenomenological philosophy proceed in French reli-
gious circles? Did theologians and religious philosophers in France learn about Husserl and
his followers through the same channels as French philosophers? Both by their academic
background and by Husserl’s own design French philosophers were prepared to receive
phenomenology as a contemporary variation of Cartesian rationalism. Were French reli-
gious thinkers likewise inclined to accept it as such, or were they conditioned by a different
set of precursors?
The remainder of this dissertation addresses these questions by tracing the reception
of phenomenology in French religious thought from 1901-1939. This reception took place
in two overlapping stages. The present chapter covers the first stage, during which reli-
gious thinkers appropriated the phenomenological insights of Bergson and Blondel and
used them in constructing new theories to resolve contemporary religious problems, for
instance those concerning the nature of dogma and the act of faith. The two figures who
best exemplify this kind of appropriation of Bergsonian and Blondelian impulses were
Édouard Le Roy and Pierre Rousselot respectively. Much like Bergson and Blondel, who
were themselves unaware of Husserl until late in their careers, Le Roy and Rousselot func-
tioned as precursors to the actual encounters of Husserlian phenomenology by religious
thinkers in France which began in 1926. Chapter 4 treats this second stage in the reception
251
of phenomenology in French religious thought. It includes direct applications of Husserlian
phenomenology to theology, religious philosophy and philosophy of religion, and also
evaluations of possible rapprochements between phenomenology and traditional forms of
theology, such as Thomism. It reveals that the reception of phenomenology in French reli-
gious thought proceeded along different lines and with different motivations than the recep-
tion of phenomenology in French philosophy. A comparison of the two stages in the re-
ception of phenomenology in French religious thought follows at the end of Chapter 4.
I . Édouard Le Roy
Bergson did not have a direct influence on religious though in France before his last
book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, was published in 1932. Prior to that
time, however, some of his followers were already applying his insights to religious ques-
tions. Foremost among these was Édouard Le Roy.
A. His Li fe and Works
Édouard Le Roy was the most prominent of Bergson’s followers, although he was
never his student.1 Born in Paris in 1870, Le Roy was only a few years younger than
Bergson. Like Bergson, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure, completing his agré-
gration in mathematics (1895) and later his docteur ès sciences (1898). Le Roy spent the
next several years teaching mathematics at various Parisian lycées and the Collège
Stanislas, where he held a chair in specialized mathematics. During this period he was a
partner in reforming the philosophy of science with Henri Poincaré, Pierre Duhem and
Gaston Milhaud. Following his mentor Émile Boutroux, he contested the necessity of natu-
ral law and determinism. Following Bergson, he underlined the arbitrary character of sci-
entific theory, regarding it is an edifice designed to serve practical ends.
1For biographical information on Le Roy, see Henri Daniel-Rops, “Réception de
M. Daniel-Rops à l’Académie française (son discours éloge d’Édouard Le Roy),” La Docu-mentation catholique 53 (1956): 475-92.
252
While Le Roy joined forces with those who were occupied with the criticism of sci-
ence, he also represented those who offered constructive insights to religious philosophy.
A liberal but ardent Catholic and a philosopher of action, he was a collaborator in Blondel’s
journal, Annales de philosophie chrétienne. Le Roy was an apologist and moralist, and yet
his basic philosophical approach diverged sharply from the prevailing neo-scholasticism.
All of his publications which treated religious themes were eventually placed on the Index
because to some they displayed too much of the error of Bergsonian vitalism.2 Le Roy’s
interest in articulating an account of faith that would harmonize with contemporary scien-
tific and evolutionary theories later led to his becoming an acquaintance and admirer of
Teilhard de Chardin. When Bergson entered diplomatic service at the beginning of the war
in 1914, Le Roy stepped in as his replacement at the Collège de France. In 1919 he was
elected to the Académie de sciences morales et politiques and in 1921 he formally inherited
Bergson’s chair of philosophy. In 1945, as a final tribute to the latter’s life-long inspira-
tion, Le Roy was nominated as Bergson’s successor in the Académie française. Le Roy
died in Paris in 1954.
Le Roy’s earliest publications dealt with issues in the philosophy of science. In
1901 he published a lecture in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale which opened with
the prophetic following lines:
At the threshold of the twentieth century, in reaction against the tendencieswhose development comprised the middle of the preceding century, we wit-ness the birth and growth of a new Criticism which, shattering the classicalframeworks which have confined us until now, attempts to replace formerconcepts with a completely different theory of Science, its nature, its mean-ing, its importance, its value and its methods.3
An invitation to discussion, Le Roy captioned his talk and his theory “Un Positivisme nou-
veau”—a new positivism.4 Making deliberate allusion to Ravaisson as if to announce the
2Cf. Jean Abelé, “Édouard Le Roy et la philosophie des sciences,” Études 284
(1955): 107.3Édouard Le Roy, “Un Positivisme nouveau,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale
9 (1901): 138.4Cf. also Édouard Le Roy, “La Science positive et les philosophies de la liberté,” in
Bibliothèque du Congrès international de Philosophie (Paris: Colin, 1900) and Édouard Le
253
fulfillment of the latter’s ambition, Le Roy advocated a spiritualist positivism.5 Le Roy’s
own ambitions are likewise well-expressed by these terms: science and spirituality would
remain constant themes in his writings and their synthesis his ultimate goal.6 The new crit-
icism to which he referred was first of all that of Poincaré, the immensely influential math-
ematician and author of more than thirty books. It was Poincaré who taught him to place a
higher value on intuitive induction than formal logical deduction. “Put insight before de-
duction,” the latter would say, “Must I remind you that this is the way important discover-
ies are made?”7 More proximately, however, the new positivism—or better, the new spiri-
tualism—to whch he refers is Bergson’s, who had already announced the theme in various
articles.8 In 1912 Le Roy published The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, which ap-
peared first as a pair of articles then as a book later that same year.9 It provided a general
introduction to Bergson’s thought by summarizing the trajectory of his first three books. In
a rare expression of approval for the commentary of another upon his works, Bergson
praised Le Roy in a personal letter which Le Roy quotes in the preface to the volume.
Bergson writes:
Roy, “Science et philosophie,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 7-8 (1899-1900): 7:375-425, 503-62, 708-31; 8: 37-32.
5Cf. the opening line of Jean Lacroix, “Édouard Le Roy, philosophe de l’inven-tion,” Études philosophiques n.s. 10 (1955): 189: “Très consciemment Édouard Le Roy,après Bergson et comme plusieurs de ses contemporains, a voulu justifier la prédiction deRavaisson selon laquelle la philosophie de l’avenir serait un réalisme ou un positivismespiritualiste.”
6Cf. Daniel-Rops, “Réception,” 480: “La pensée d’Édouard Le Roy repose surdeux fondements; lui-même l’a bien marqué en déclarant que pour lui la philosophie est une‘synthèse de science et de spiritualité.’”
7Henri Poincaré, La Valeur de la Science (Paris: Flammarion, 1905), 168-69. Cf.Henri Poincaré, Science et Méthode (Paris: Flammarion, 1902), 137. For a comparison ofLe Roy’s and Poincaré’s views on the philosophy of science see Abelé, “Édouard LeRoy,” 107-112.
8See especially, Henri Bergson, “Compte rendu des Principes de métaphysique etde psychologie de Paul Janet,” Revue philosophique 44 (1897): 526-551; Bergson, Êcritset Paroles, 98-128; Bergson, Mélanges, 375-410, particularly pp. 386-87.
9Édouard Le Roy, Une Philosophie nouvelle. Henri Bergson (Paris: Alcan, 1912),which appeared in English the following year as Édouard Le Roy, The New Philosophy ofHenri Bergson, trans. Vincent Benson (New York: Henry Holt, 1913). Only the Englishtranslation will be cited hereafter. “Une Philosophie nouvelle” originally appeared in LesRevue des Deux Mondes in February 1912.
254
Underneath and beyond the method you have caught the intention and thespirit. . . . Your study could not be more conscientious or true to the origi-nal. it has required deep sympathy of thought, the power, in fact, ofrethinking of the subject in an original manner, . . .
adding that,
Nowhere is this sympathy more in evidence than in your concluding pages,where in a few words you point out the possibilities of further develop-ments of the doctrine. In this direction I should myself say exactly what youhave said.10
Here Bergson refers to Le Roy’s speculations concerning the fruitfulness of his philosophy
for religion, a topic which Bergson himself would not broach until much later in Two
Sources of Morality and Religion.
Yet by the time Le Roy had published this study on Bergson, he had already be-
come well-known for his application of Bergsonian philosophy to contemporary religious
questions. The essay for which Le Roy is most famous, “Qu’est-ce qu’un
dogme?”—“What is a Dogma?” raised a storm of controversy around the issue when it
appeared at the height of the Modernist crisis in 1905.11 Published in the biweekly Catholic
magazine La Quinzaine, it reached a wide audience, both clerical and lay. Le Roy
contended that dogma has primarily a practical, as opposed to speculative, significance. In
Bergsonian terms, a dogma is a dynamic schema that is grasped intuitively by the mind and
which gives impetus to the movement toward God in faith. Le Roy’s argument offended
many neo-scholastic thinkers because they thought it denigrated the intellect and the role of
reason in faith. Some of their objections were published, and Le Roy replied to many of
them in print; others, meanwhile, were addressed in personal correspondence. The most
important responses were gathered into a volume along with the original article and
published under the title Dogme et critique in 1907.12
10Le Roy, The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, vi.11Édouard Le Roy, “Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme?,” La Quinzaine 252 (16 April 1905):
495-526. Available in English as Édouard Le Roy, What is a Dogma? trans. Lydia G.Robinson (Chicago: Open Court, 1918). Hereafter citations to “Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme”will be made to its reprinting in Dogme et critique (see note below) with secondary refer-ences to the English translation.
12Édouard Le Roy, Dogme et critique (Paris: Bloud, 1907).
255
That same year, the encyclical Pascendi was promulgated and Le Roy’s book was
immediately placed on the Index. Le Roy officially submitted to the ecclesiastical censure,
but never renounced his views. He continued his work quietly, selling copies of Dogme et
Critique from his home.13 He also continued teaching and lecturing, although he did not
publish any of his thoughts on religious topics until 1929, when he brought out a new col-
lection of essays, Le Problème de Dieu .14 The volume included a pair of philosophical ar-
ticles originally published in the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale in 1907 in which Le
Roy reflects upon the pragmatic and moral significance of the traditional proofs for the
existence of God.15 These are followed by a later series of lectures titled “Un chemin vers
Dieu” which were given first in 1910-1911 and then again in 1924-25. These lectures
complement the earlier articles, although they have a different style and tone, which in his
preface Le Roy describes as “a spiritual meditation rather than scientific dialectic.”16 The
later lectures take reflection on human restlessness as their point of departure. Le Roy con-
siders that this restlessness derives from our having two wills: a deep will and superficial
will, much as Blondel had described them. The moral life, according to Le Roy consists in
overcoming their contradiction and duality and in harmonizing one’s actions with the
deeper will. Morality anticipates and prepares the religious affirmation.17 God cannot be
grasped by abstract reasoning, but implicit faith in God lies at the heart of every action and
every thought. Le Roy takes up this theme again in his last book, Introduction à l’étude du
problème religieux, which appeared in 1944.18 Here Le Roy portrays religion as a “lived
participation in spiritualizing realities much more than speculative adherence to pure ideas
13Alec R. Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1970), 93, n. 1. For the text of Le Roy’s submission, see Daniel Rops, 483.14Édouard Le Roy, Le Problème de Dieu (Paris: L’Artisan du livre, 1929).15Édouard Le Roy, “Comment se pose le problème de Dieu,” Revue de méta-
physique et de morale 15 (1907): 129-170; 470-513.16Le Roy, Le Problème de Dieu, 3.17Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2: 1013: “Le Roy estime que la Morale, en
tant qu’elle affirme l’obligation et la liberté, prépare l’affirmation proprement religieuse.”18Édouard Le Roy, Introduction à l'étude du problème religieux (Paris: Aubier
Montaigne, 1944).
256
which theoretically represent these realities.”19 His argument unfolds in three steps: first,
an investigation of scientific reasoning from a philosophical perspective; second, an exami-
nation of history as the sole means for offering a revelation from beyond; and third, the
discernment of the principles of the inner life.20 In the course of his argument, Le Roy
makes frequent reference to Bergson’s distinction between static and dynamic religion to
stress “the practical necessity of the Church as the effective organ of insertion of the indi-
vidual into the history of humanity.21
Apart from his religious writings, Le Roy continued his dialogue with Bergsonian
philosophy in his scientific publications. L’Exigence idéaliste et le fait de l’évolution
(1927), based on a course which he taught at the Collège de France, furthers the reflections
Bergson had initiated in L’Évolution créatrice on the significance of evolutionary biology
for philosophy. “Drawing upon the most recent results of biology,” Benrubi explains, “Le
Roy establishes a close relation between the idealist imperative and the vitalist and finalist
concept of life.”22 Vitalism is essentially the expression of idealism in biology and repre-
sents an application of the concept of finality to evolutionary history. Les Origines hu-
maines et le fait de l’intelligence, which appeared in 1930, furthers the direction of
L’Exigence idéaliste. Based on another course Le Roy taught at the Collège de France, it
offers a metaphysical anthropology. Le Roy characterizes the history of the earth as the vi-
talization of matter and the hominization of life, describing the latter process in Teilhardian
terms as the perfectioning of the Biosphere in the Noosphere. This transformation is not yet
complete, however, hence the present moral crisis. Nevertheless, it can and must continue
through humanity’s taking responsibility for its own invention and progress. Also during
these years, Le Roy published a mature expression of his philosophical perspective in La
Pensée intuitive.23 In this work published in 1929-30, Le Roy draws upon and reworks
19Ibid., 19-20.20Ibid., 209.21Ibid., 182; see also 156, 174ff.22Benrubi, Les Sources et les courants, 2: 837.23Édouard Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2 vols. (Paris: Boivin, 1929-30).
257
passages from many of his earlier articles, bringing them into the framework of his class-
room lectures. Because it offers the most systematic presentation of Le Roy’s philosophy,
it will serve as the primary source for the following section which will show how Le Roy
adopted and recombined the phenomenological insights of Bergson and how on certain
points he approached the phenomenology of Husserl.
B. Le Roy and Bergson
Le Roy claims that when he came to know Bergson’s philosophy around the turn of
the century, he had already been coming to some of the latter’s essential insights through
his own reflection upon science and life. “I found in his work the striking realization of a
presentiment and a desire,” Le Roy writes in the preface to The New Philosophy of Henri
Bergson.24 In fact, Le Roy’s philosophy is a largely a transposition of Bergsonian themes
into a new register. New metaphors and catchwords present Bergson’s essential insights
into intuition and duration. Echoing Bergson’s Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness, Le Roy describes the basic notion of intuition as a “retour à
l’immédiate”—a return to the immediate. “Philosophy consists in reliving the immediate
over again,” he explains.25 In another place, Le Roy describes the Bergsonian notion of
intuition by referring to the methodology which Sainte-Beuve used to compose his
biographies of great literary figures, a process of entering sympathetically into the life of
the author: “transpose this page from the literary to the metaphysical order, and you have
intuition, as defined by Mr. Bergson. You have the return to immediacy.”26 Elsewhere Le
Roy uses analogies to dramatize the difference between philosophical intuition and
conceptual analysis. “The latter delights in the play of dialectic, in fountains of knowledge,
where it is interested only in the immovable basins,” he writes, “the former goes back to
24Le Roy, The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, v.25Ibid., 20.26Ibid., 37.
258
the source of the concepts, and seeks to possess it where it gushes out. Analysis cuts the
channels; intuition supplies the water. Intuition acquires and analysis expends.”27
La Pensée Intuitive is largely devoted to explaining what intuition is and how it
leads to what Le Roy calls intuitive thinking.28 Here again, he builds upon his notion of a
return to the immediate, which he claims has always been the ambition of philosophy.29
One must guard against the temptation to think that the perception of the immediate can be
immediately and easily obtained, Le Roy contends. It is not simply a matter of opening
one’s eyes or consciousness, as the British empiricists presumed; it can only be attained
through disciplined, regressive analysis. “It is not without reason that one speaks of a re-
turn to the immediate,” Le Roy observes.30
The rewards for such an effort are the discoveries of a true beginning point for
philosophy and metaphysical insight. For Le Roy, intuition designates
a knowledge of the kind that is obtained through consciousness, which is tosay synthetic and direct, at once simple and infinite, a revelation of actuallypresent living reality grasped from within and not from an external point ofview, immediate and non-discursive, specific and non symbolic, at last ade-quate to its object because it coincides with it. These are the characteristicsof consciousness as a source of knowledge.31
Like Bergson, Le Roy contrasts intuition with intelligence. He is critical of intellectualism,
by which he means the tendency to live solely by intelligence, to think as if the whole
27Ibid., 53.28Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2: 285: “Le dessien majeur du présent ouvrage était
de répondre aux questions suivantes: qu’est-ce que l’intuition? en quoi consiste et commentdoit être conduite la pensée intuitive? que vaut enfin cette attitude ou démarche de l’esprit etde quels résultats est-elle capable?”
29Ibid., 1: 34.30Ibid., 1: 105, emphasis Le Roy’s. Cf. Édouard Le Roy, “Notice générale sur
l'ensemble de mes travaux philosophiques,” Études philosophiques n.s. 10 (1955): 167:“... Mais la saisie directe de l’immédiate n’est réalisable que par éclairs, par lueursévanouissantes. Ces lueurs fugitives et sporadiques, il faut les soutenir, puis les raccorder;il faut tendre de l’une à l’autre un fil continu de transition théorique, le long duquel coureune lumière intelligible; et là intervient, à titre de substitut, le critère du total, c’est-à-dire lavérification par établissement d’une solidarité d’ensemble telle que, le long des fils con-courants de la connexion rationnelle, la lumière émanée des ponts de perception immédiatevienne se rassembler jusque sur les points d’ombre où d’abord elle faisait défaut.”
31Ibid., 1: 148-49.
259
thinking of were a matter of analytical reasoning and discourse.32 In one place he calls in-
tellectualism “the original sin of thinking.”33 Yet what Le Roy opposes is not intelligence
per se, but the restriction of thought to intellectual functions alone. The mind must contin-
ually enlarge and expand. It must attain higher levels of thinking. Intuitive thinking repre-
sents a higher level, nevertheless it complements the rational. “In the final analysis,” Le
Roy states,
intuition is not a sort of extra-intellectual view: it is the supralogical ortransdiscursive act of thinking, the operative act of consciousness whichcorresponds to the most profound work of intelligence, that which perceivesthe indivisible unity of asymptotically converging dynamisms. An act of thiskind, if it is seen in its fullness, constitutes the essential progress of creativethinking.”34
Intuition is thus the fulfillment of intelligence.35 It marks the true path of return to the im-
mediate, leading Le Roy to refer to it as “the heroic mode of thinking.”36
For Bergson, intuition chiefly implies the intuition of duration. Le Roy, in fact,
calls Bergson’s philosophy a “philosophy of duration.”37 Perhaps even more strongly than
Bergson, Le Roy emphasizes that the intuition of duration is the intuition of an act, and is
even an act itself:
intuition bears essentially upon an act and in no way upon a dead thing; it isitself an act, the creative act of thinking, such as one sees for example inscience before the interior tension of invention crystallizes into a result ca-
32We may note that this is a rather a limited conception of intellectualism, to which
may be contrasted that of Rousselot, below, which is essentially a form of contemplation.33Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2: 15. For an early critique of intellectualism see
Édouard Le Roy, “Sur quelques objections adressées à la nouvelle philosophie,” Revue demétaphysique et de morale 9 (1901): 296ff.
34Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 175.35In The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, Le Roy describes the fulfillment of
intelligence though intuition as follows: “our task is to bring instinct to enrich intelligence,to become free and illumined in it; and this ascent towards super-consciousness is possiblein the flash of an intuitive act . . .” (p. 217). Le Roy also draws a connection between hisunderstanding of intuition as a return to the immediate and Bergson’s notion of instinct:“[T]he peculiar task of the philosophy is to reabsorb intelligence in instinct, or rather to re-instate instinct in intelligence; or better still, to win back to the heart of intelligence all theinitial resources which it must have sacrificed. This is what is meant by return to the primi-tive, and the immediate, to reality and life. This is the meaning of intuition.” (p. 119)
36Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 203.37Le Roy, New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, 223; cf. 140.
260
pable of formulation, or in art when the perception is still only a lived feel-ing prior to the expressive image.38
With Le Roy, Bergson’s fundamentally passive notion of intuition is transformed into a
fully creative activity. Le Roy furthermore interprets Bergson’s concept of vital evolution in
terms of his own scientific metaphor of invention. Describing the characteristics of vital
evolution, Le Roy observes that it represents “a dynamic continuity, . . . duration, an ir-
reversible rhythm, a work of inner maturation,” adding: “It is also an effort of perpetual in-
vention.”39 Elsewhere Le Roy notes directly that the act of invention presupposes a con-
densation of duration.40
Because the metaphor of invention is central to Le Roy’s enterprise, commentators
have in fact dubbed it a “philosophy of invention.”41 To possess the spirit of invention, ac-
cording to Le Roy, one must first believe in the dynamism and plasticity of reason.42 Like
analysis, the discipline of invention, as he refers to it, begins with the dissociation of dis-
cursive elements. In its pursuit of primordial data, it inscribes a return to the immediate, a
return to the intuitional sources of knowledge.43 Yet the return to the immediate represents
only the first phase of the process of invention. The second phase consists in the grasping
of the intuitional content in act of perception. Old structures of knowledge are cast aside as
an attempt is made to view the world again the way an artist sees it: naked, and in its most
profound intimacy.44 The mind is quieted and wrapped in an intuitive absorption with the
object to which it is united sympathetically. This phase is relatively passive and akin to
mystical contemplation, as Bergson describes it. The third phase is more active. In an act of
discovery which Le Roy calls creative imagination, the elements are synthesized and re-
38Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 152.39Le Roy, New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, 107.40Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2: 85.41See Louis Weber, “Une Philosophie de l’invention. M. Édouard Le Roy,” Revue
de métaphysique et de morale 39 (1932): 59-86, 253-92; and also Jean Lacroix, “ÉdouardLe Roy, Philosophe de l’invention,” Études philosophiques n.s. 10 (1955): 189-205.
42Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2: 21.43Ibid., 2: 44.44Ibid., 2: 45.
261
combined into new patterns of intelligibility.45 In the fourth and final phase, these new
patterns are linked to another like scientific hypotheses to construct a theory that can be
tested and verified against experience.46 In La Pensée Intuitive, Le Roy relates the process
of invention to concept of the dynamic schema which Bergson developed in L’Énergie
spirituelle. Le Roy notes that the dynamic schema can serve as a heuristic for representing
the progress of thinking.47 As such, it can help explain how the immediate can function as
a limit to thought although it is inexpressible by rational discourse. According to Le Roy,
the notion of the dynamic schema shows how the immediate can be understood as a kind of
finality immanent to process of thinking itself, in his words: “an ideal sustained by the
movement of convergence.”48 To know the real implies knowing the unity of the separate
and relative modes whereby its immediacy can be perceived and thought. “Absolute knowl-
edge is therefore possible,” Le Roy argues, “but only under the form a dynamic schema
that crosses the lines of events and ideas which spread out to infinity and that expresses
convergence toward a limit.”49
Le Roy’s use of scientific, mathematical and artistic metaphors to translate essen-
tially Bergsonian theories of thinking often overlaps, sometimes leading to confusion. At
other times, this type of equivocation seems intentional, as if Le Roy were using it to make
the point that the various phases and aspects of intuitive thinking are intertwined and insep-
arable. Perhaps the metaphor which best expresses his intention in this regard is the com-
pound pensée-action which he coined in order to emphasize the creative and active nature of
thinking in its lived duration.50
45Ibid., 2: 67-158. Le Roy devotes a lengthy chapter to discussing this phase, as he
does for the next on verification..46Ibid., 2: 159-221. On pp. 212-13 Le Roy offers a synopsis of the four stages in
the process of invention.47Ibid., 1: 58.48Ibid., 1: 137.49Ibid., 2: 243.50Le Roy developed this terminology in his investigation of dogma to express the
complex unity of the judgment of faith and the act of faith. See below and Le Roy, Dogmeet Critique, 128.
262
Le Roy’s appropriation and transformation of Bergson’s phenomenological insights
into intuition and duration led him to adopt philosophical positions and methods that are in
some respect’s comparable to Husserlian phenomenology. “If I were to undertake to ex-
plain briefly in a summary volume my views a whole,” Le Roy once commented, “I would
readily call it Principles of a Philosophy of Experience.”51 Like Husserl, Le Roy endeavors
to articulate a philosophy capable of describing the operations of consciousness as they are
actually lived. These operations must be apprehended directly, in their mode and act of be-
ing, not through secondary reflection upon their function. Le Roy is after perception, not
abstraction or deduction. All abstractions and deductions, moreover, must be grounded and
verified by a primary act of perception. Le Roy writes:
If the act of perceiving realizes the lived communion of the subject and theobject in the image, we must admit that here we have the perfect knowledgewhich we wish to obtain always: we resign ourselves to conception only forwant of perception, and our ideal is to convert all conception into percep-tion. Doubtless we might define philosophy by this same ideal, as an effortto expand our perceptive power until we render it capable of grasping all thewealth and all the depth of reality at a single glance.52
Much like Husserl, Le Roy seeks a vision of the essence of things. He likewise trans-
gresses Kant’s restriction of intuition to sensible perception. Because French does not have
a verb that corresponds to the noun intuition, however, Le Roy employs the verb percevoir
to denote the act of intuiting in general, including the intuition of non-sensible objects. The
basic metaphor for intuition, as with Husserl, remains visual. Le Roy observes that intu-
ition can refer to either to the direct and rapid vision of an object or a concept that has been
made into an image. In both cases, the intuitive perception involves the unification of a
complex into a whole that can be grasped in its immediacy. An interior view, a plain and
living view, rich and unified—this is what Le Roy means by intuition and how he relates it
to lived experience.53
51Le Roy, “Notice générale,” 161.52Le Roy, New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, 156.53Edouard Le Roy, “Sur quelques objections adressées à la nouvelle philosophie,”
Revue de métaphysique et de morale 9 (1901): 314.
263
That which is grasped in the intuitive act Le Roy recognizes as an immediate given.
Husserl, too, describes the essence which is attained through the intuitive act of essential
insight [Wesensschau] as an absolute datum, or given, of consciousness.54 Husserl tends
to emphasize the stability of this essence and its function in what he calls a pure logic of
consciousness. Le Roy, on the other hand, emphasizes its dynamic qualities. He steers
clear of essentialist language altogether when describing the immediate given in order to
avoid confusion with idealist and rationalist conceptions of reality. Intuition does not grasp
some eternal essence or Platonic idea, nor does it fix upon a transcendent logical structure.
Rather, intuition seizes the living and dynamic duration of an object, the temporal continu-
ity which links the heterogeneous moments of its existence. “The expression ‘primitive
given’ [donné primitif] or ‘absolute given’ [donné absolut] thus indicates not so much a fi-
nal object as a direction of thinking,” according to Le Roy.55 This absolute notion of the
immediate given relativizes common notions of science and criticizes their presuppositions.
From the perspective natural science, the given is an object which is simply and univocally
there, the same with respect to whatever operation may be performed upon it. For Le Roy,
by contrast, the given “is that which is taken as the point of departure, as the material to be
worked, and the definition which it permits is necessarily relative to the type of operative
activity that one has in view.”56 From the perspective of science, furthermore, the operation
and the given typically stand opposed to each other as subject and object. Le Roy,
however, proposes that the given must be recognized as belonging to the science itself.
There are degrees of givenness and the solution to any particular problem must be obtained
by returning to the corresponding degree of immediacy. Genuine science is a matter of dis-
covering how to properly pose a problem, which is to say functionally or pragmatically
with respect to its givens. From the perspective of scientific language and practice, there-
54Cf. Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), 56; Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, trans.William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), 44; andHusserl, Ideas, §3; Gibson, 54ff.
55Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 138.56Ibid., 1: 138.
264
fore, the given remains relative to the operation, but from an absolute perspective there is
really only one object of intuitive perception, namely the internal duration of an object.57
The shift from the relative notion of the immediate given to the absolute notion re-
quires a complete change of perspective. The act of intuition represents the inverse of ana-
lytical reflection. True reflective thinking, Le Roy explains, consists in leading the mind
back to original intuitive sources of its knowledge. In this respect, Le Roy approaches
Husserl’s phenomenological reduction, whose etymological meaning precisely expresses
the idea of leading back. Furthermore, both philosophers describe this shift in perspective
as an abrupt break from ordinary patterns of thinking. Le Roy claims that the act intuition
“begins with a more or less brusque leap of the mind beyond the zones of clarity.”58 In The
New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, he remarks that “in order to grasp the complex content
of reality, the mind must do itself violence, must awaken its sleeping powers of revealing
sympathy, must expand till it becomes adapted to what formerly shocked its habits so much
as almost to seem contradictory to it.”59 This conversion is similar to the shift from the
natural attitude to the phenomenological point of view which Husserl describes in more
sober and abstract language in Ideas.60 Yet, whereas for Husserl the shift is from an unre-
flected practical engagement with reality to reflective and speculative detachment, for Le
Roy, who follows Bergson, this shift is mainly from a mechanical to an organic view of
the world. Elsewhere Le Roy describes it as the passage from a superficial ego to a more
interior ego, an ego unknown to ordinary consciousness—not an infra-consciousness, he
notes, but a supra-consciousness—what the mystics call the center of the soul.61 It would
57Ibid., 1: 140: “En toute rigueur, il n’y a qu’un seul object de parfaite perceptionimmédiate, si tant est même qu’on puisse alors parler d’objet s’opposant à un sujet: àsavoir, l’universelle continuité hétèrogène et mouvante à l’intuition de laquelle conduit lacritique du morcelage.”
58Ibid., 2: 218.59Le Roy, New Philosophy of Henri Bergson, 218.60Husserl, Ideas, §50; Gibson, 154: “[I]nstead of naïvely carrying out the acts
proper to the nature-constituting consciousness with its transcendent these and allowingourselves to be led by motives that operate therein to still other transcendent these, and soforth—we set all these theses ‘out of action’, we take no part in them; we direct the glanceof apprehension and theoretical inquire to pure consciousness in its own absolute being.”
61Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 2: 48.
265
be incorrect, however, to associate this inner ego with the phenomenologically reduced
transcendental ego that Husserl described in his later writings. Le Roy emphasizes that
what remains after the return to the immediate given is an insight it to the duration of object.
For Husserl, on the other hand, the “phenomenological residuum,” as he calls it, is the re-
duced consciousness, not the object itself.62 Le Roy never leaves the psychological sphere
whereas Husserl would bracket it altogether. Le Roy tries to address the psychology of
thinking without embroiling himself in a transcendental phenomenology. He is not inter-
ested in recovering the foundations of a pure logic, but rather in encouraging “supra-logi-
cal” mental activity, which he describes in terms of an inventive process analogous to po-
etic inspiration.63
Whereas Husserl models philosophy upon the rigor of the exact sciences alone, Le
Roy’s notion of philosophy embraces aspects of both science and art. From Le Roy’s per-
spective, the complete and perfect philosophy would emerge form a synthesis of science
and art operating under the mediating inspiration of criticism. It would represent both an
intuitively enriched science and a rationally verifiable art.64 “In some respects, art is phi-
losophy previous to analysis, criticism and science,” Le Roy writes in The New Philo-
sophy of Henri Bergson:
. . . Reciprocally, philosophy is the art which follows upon science, andtakes it into consideration, the art which takes for its material the results ofanalysis and submits itself to the demands of stern criticism. Metaphysicalintuition is aesthetic intuition verified, systematized and ballasted by the lan-guage of reason. Philosophy thus differs from art in two essential points:first, it depends upon, envelops and supposes science; secondly, it implies atest of verification properly so-called. Instead of stopping with the givens ofcommon sense, it completes them through everything analysis and scientificinvestigation can offer.65
Bergson offers a new conception of philosophy in which philosophy is distinguished from
science while remaining no less positive. The distinction of philosophy from science and
62Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §33; Gibson, 113.63Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 175.64Ibid., 1: 37.65Le Roy, Une Philosophie nouvelle,” 51 (my translation). Cf. Le Roy, New
Philosophy of Henri Bergson, 57.
266
art in order to elevate philosophy is compatible with Husserl’s ambition to raise philosophy
to the status of a discipline of real knowledge. In following Bergson, however, Le Roy
goes beyond the limits that Husserl would otherwise set upon the philosophical domain.
From the first page of La Pensée intuitive, Le Roy announces that metaphysics stands at the
center of philosophy,66 and by the end of the book he contends that when art is united to
science in philosophy, the doors to the mystical and spiritual orders of reality are opened.67
The last line of La Pensée intuitive reads: “In its own manner philosophy requires embark-
ing on the mystical path; only in this way can it become a positive discipline.”68
C. Le Roy’s Application of Bergsonian Insights to Religious Thought
Le Roy applied the phenomenological insights he learned and adapted from
Bergson toward resolving contemporary theological issues. Le Roy’s 1905 article, “What
is a Dogma?” represents his first attempt to bring the elements of Bergsonian vitalism and
pragmatism to bear upon an aspect of religious thought. According to contemporary neo-
scholastic theologians, dogmas constituted propositions expressing an objective content.
They presented precisely formulated rational truths about God and God’s relation to the
world. The dogmatic teachings of the Church taken as an ensemble formed the principles of
a logical system from which guidelines governing matters of faith and morals could be de-
duced. Against this view, Le Roy argued that dogmas have a primarily practical, rather than
speculative, significance.69 Dogmas do not yield direct knowledge of God’s nature, but
serve to point out His attributes. “The knowledge of God is the fruit of lived experience,
not abstract reasoning,” Le Roy would later reply to his critics.70
Le Roy noted that the very idea of dogmas had become repugnant to the majority of
lay people in his day. He cited four reasons for the widespread rejection of these objects of
66Le Roy, La Pensée intuitive, 1: 1.67Ibid., 2: 284.68Ibid., 2: 296.69Le Roy, Dogme et Critique, 25; Robinson, 68.70Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié, à Mgr. Turinaz et à quelques autres critiques,”
in Dogme et Critique, 150.
267
Christian belief.71 First, dogmatic statements are typically presented as being neither
proven nor provable. Secondly, dogmas are propounded by extrinsic sources of authority.
Thirdly, dogmatic statements contain linguistic ambiguities that are frequently ignored.
Finally, the content of dogmas appears to belong to a different order of knowledge than
ordinary facts. All these factors cause offense to the modern mind. They seem to imply that
being a Christian and being a rational thinker are incompatible. Le Roy does not dispute
their claims, but instead tries to show that the notion of dogma rejected by modern thinkers
is not the Catholic idea of dogma.72 Although Le Roy was at variance with traditional
forms of apologetic, he nevertheless had apologetical intentions of his own. His notion of
experiential proof was meant to restore respect for theological formulas as well as to satisfy
the exigencies of the modern mind.
Le Roy explains that dogmas have first of all a negative or prescriptive meaning.73
The creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople were defined in order to combat the heresies of
Arianism and Apollinarianism. Yet this does not mean that dogmas themselves are devoid
of positive content, nor that their negative meaning constitutes their primary significance.
To the contrary, Le Roy insists that “dogmas are positive affirmations, affirmations signal-
ing objective real existences.”74 For this reason they can serve as the foundation for a prac-
tical attitude. Le Roy risks quoting Lucien Laberthonnìere to support his view: “‘Dogmas
are not simply enigmatical and obscure formulas which God has promulgated in the name
of his omnipotence to mortify the pride of our spirits. They have a moral and practical
meaning; they have a vital meaning more or less accessible to us according to the degree of
spirituality we possess.”75 Summarizing his notion of dogma, Le Roy states that a dogma
71Le Roy, “Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme,” in Dogme et Critique, 6ff; Robinson, 29ff.72Ibid., 13; Robinson, 44.73Ibid., 19ff.; 57ff.74Le Roy, Letter to M. le Directeur de La Vérité Française, 16 November 1905, in
Le Roy, Dogme et Critique, 40.75Le Roy, Dogme et Critique, 25; Robinson, 69; quoted from Lucien
Laberthonnière, Essais de philosophie religieuse (Paris: Lethielleux, 1903), 272.Laberthonnière would later charge that Le Roy had not entirely avoided extrinsicism (seeRoger Aubert, Le Problème de l'acte de foi. Données traditionnelles et résultats des contro-verses récentes (Louvain: E. Warny, 1945), 366, n. 13).
268
is at once: (1) the announcement of a fact or a given, (2) a matter for theoretical speculation,
(3) a regulatory criterion of these developments, and (4) a principle for orienting or a direct-
ing the movement of thought.76 The adherence of faith in the strict sense of the term is due
to dogma as an announcement of facts and givens. Faith may be owed to dogma as a regu-
latory criterion, but only under a negative form, and only within these parameters can a
dogma become a matter for speculation. “A dogma intervenes and functions in the specula-
tive order a bit like what Claude Bernard calls a directive idea and Bergson a dynamic
schema,” he notes.77 A dogma does not represent the gathering of results or the systemati-
zation of givens, but rather a principle of movement. It is much more like the posing of
problem than the discovery of a solution. It signals the dynamism of belief confronting a
transcendental reality. Le Roy comments:
In sum, the major difference between our view and that of the scholasticsconcerns the nature of truth itself. Their view is static: they represent truthas a thing; quite naturally they couple with it the epithets eternal and im-mutable. We believe, on the contrary, that truth is life, hence movement,growth rather than end, the expression of definite progress more than ofcertain results.78
Le Roy remarks that like Vincent of Lérins, he recognizes faith as a progression, as a grad-
ual passage from the implicitly lived to the explicit formula, from the germination of the
seed to full bloom.79
Following the publication of “What is a Dogma?”, Le Roy was sharply criticized by
a number of theologians for having abandoned the Catholic conception of faith with the re-
sult his works were officially censured.80 Against these charges, Le Roy would make clear
that he did not question the authority of dogmatic statements. Dogmas are irreformable af-
firmations because they are revealed, and because they are revealed they are therefore infal-
76Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié et al.,” in Dogme et Critique, 278.77Ibid., 278. Cf. Henri Bergson, “L’Effort Intellectuel,” Revue philosophique 53
(1902), 1-27; Mélanges, 519-50; Oeuvres, 930-59.78Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié et al.,” in Dogme et Critique, 355 (emphasis Le
Roy).79Ibid., 284.80See among others the criticisms of Mgr. Turinaz, Une très grave question doctri-
nale (Paris: Roger et Chernoviz, 1905) and Eugène Portalié, “L’Explication morale desdogmes,” Études 104 (1905): 166-71.
269
lible. What Le Roy did question was simply the logical modality of dogmatic expressions.
“I asked myself only about what order dogmatic truth belongs to,” Le Roy replied to editor
of La Vérité française,
and I answered: dogmatic truth as such belongs to the vital order, not tospeculation. The corresponding affirmations announce facts, givens—nottheories. They present their object under the species of attitude, of conduct,and of the action they require from us. It is solely the pragmatic and moralmeaning thus understood that gives rise to the obligation to adhere to themby an act of faith which is divine and catholic, under the threat of censureaccording to the note of heresy.81
Against other theologians who accused him of anti-intellectualism, Le Roy clarified that he
never meant to imply that dogmas have nothing to do with intelligence or thought.82 After
all, they furnish intelligence with its matter and direction. What Le Roy objected to was a
purely intellectualist approach to dogma. An intellectualist approach, he claimed, inevitably
separates the judgment of faith from the act of faith, assigning the former to the intellect and
the latter to the will.83 Yet faith cannot be not a matter of two parallel efforts where the one
precedes and the other follows. Le Roy granted that the act of faith implies an intellectual
assent. He also acknowledged that the will, too, is involved in the assent. He found objec-
tionable, however, the notion that the act of faith could be composed of two otherwise sep-
arable, or for that matter, opposing elements. “The two processes are interior and immanent
to one another,” he contended, “they reciprocally presuppose and enfold each other.”84 To
designate their complex unity Le Roy employed the compound expression pensée-action to
show that he understood faith as solidary act comprising both reflection and action. “When
I proclaimed the primacy of action,” Le Roy later explained in his defense, “I did not radi-
cally separate it from thought. Against such separations, which one does either for the ben-
efit of action or thought, I will continue to protest.”85 For Le Roy, a lived experience of
dogma leads precisely to knowledge. “It is by the putting into practice, by the lived experi-
81Le Roy, Letter to La Vérité Française, 16 November 1905, in Dogme et Critique,40-41.
82Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié et al.,” in Dogme et Critique, 114.83Ibid., 330; cf. 128.84Ibid., 128.85Le Roy, “Réponse à M. l’abbé Wehrlé,” in Dogme et Critique, 85.
270
ence, by the illuminating effort of action in the process of being realized that the knowledge
of dogma deepens within us,” he asserts, adding, “true knowledge is action.”86
Dogmas and remain obscure and mysterious, yet their obscurity is really only a
problem for the intellectualists who would base certitude on clarity. For the pragmatist, by
contrast, it is sufficient that the dogma be shown to possess the capacity to furnish practi-
cal, moral instruction. The First Vatican Council poses more of a problem to the intellec-
tualist than the pragmatist, observes Le Roy, for it declares anyone anathema who teaches
that divine revelation does not contain any mysteries and that natural reason is capable of
exhausting dogmatic statements.87 Moreover, the assent of faith is truly free on the prag-
matist account because it is not necessitated by reason. Finally, because the practice of the
truth of dogma does not depend upon one’s intellectual understanding of it, it opens the life
of faith to all, not just an educated aristocracy. For these reasons, Le Roy argues in “What
is a Dogma?” for the superiority of the pragmatic solution, quoting the Gospel in his favor:
“qui facit veritatem venit ad lucem”—the one who does the truth comes to the light.88 The
intellectual interpretation of a dogma is relativized by moral engagement. The scholar has
freedom to speculate so long as he does not transgress the moral meaning. Intellectual in-
terpretations can and will vary, but moral obligation remains single and binding.
Phenomenological and pragmatic themes also emerge in the collection of Le Roy’s
essays published in 1929 as Le Problème de Dieu. In the first half of the book, comprising
a pair of articles which had appeared previously in the Revue de métaphysique et de
morale, Le Roy examines the classical proofs for the existence of God taken from the
physical world, the moral world and pure reason. He aims to show that these three types of
argumentation are insufficient, at least in the manner that they have been presented up to
now, although he promises that they will reemerge and be reintegrated into his dialectic.
The immediate task, however, is to demonstrate that the problem of God cannot simply be
86Le Roy, “Réponse à M. l’abbé Wehrlé,” in Dogme et Critique, 85 (emphasis LeRoy’s).
87Le Roy, “Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme,” 27; Robinson, 73.88Ibid., 31; Robinson, 81.
271
dismissed, “for the problem of God is in effect the integral problem of the spiritual life.”89
Le Roy’s argumentative strategy recalls Blondel’s L’Action. He demonstrates the contra-
diction of negative solutions to the problem and thereby clears the ground for a positive
approach.
Le Roy argues that the traditional metaphysical proofs for God are far removed
from the reasoning of men. “They would prove the system before they prove God,” he re-
marks.90 A genuine proof of God must be valid and accessible to everyone, therefore it
cannot belong to a purely speculative order open only to philosophers and scientists.
Furthermore, the affirmation of God implies the affirmation of a concrete freedom and an
absolute that transcends all forms and categories. Hence, to try to deduce God would mean
denying God’s essence; it would entail the absurdity of trying to search out God by using
atheistic methods. Le Roy next shows that purely fideist solutions are as insufficient as
purely rational and deductive approaches. All avenues to an affirmation of God appear to be
closed off. Do any remain open? “There is only one,” Le Roy replies. “If God can be
known, it will only be by experience, and given that experimentation is impossible in this
field, this experience must be immanent, implicated in the very exercise of life.”91
At this point in his argument, Le Roy turns directly to Bergson, for it is Bergson
who offers a philosophy of life. Invoking Bergson’s distinction of the geometrical and vital
orders, Le Roy suggests that of the two, God must surely belong to the latter. But in which
way exactly? Traditional proofs for the existence of God focus on the notion of immanent
causality, a principle of self-existence. Le Roy notes that in the traditional formulations
causality sometimes signifies rational dependence, sometimes creative action, but neither of
these two meanings corresponds to the genesis of the universal Absolute. In the end, every
argument based on causality or cosmology tries to demonstrate that the world is insufficient
to establish its own existence. Yet the only premise that can be proven is the imperfection
89Le Roy, Problème de Dieu, 77.90Ibid., 79.91Ibid., 85.
272
of the world, and so one is brought back to the ontological argument. But the question,
“Does God exist?” involves a petitio principii and so Le Roy is forced to conclude, “Only
one recourse remains: to give up trying to attain God as the conclusion of a transitive pro-
cess of reasoning, and to establish that the affirmation of God’s existence is immanent to
thought; in brief, to recognize by reflexive analysis that we in fact affirm God from the
moment we conceive of God, in and by the very act of thinking.”92
Each of us learns and forms ideas about God through common opinion, just as we
receive our ideas about other realities. But in order to define the real in terms of thought, it
is not enough to conceive of it in purely discursive terms as a static system of categories
and forms, “for thinking appears to itself as becoming, dynamism, progress, creative in-
vention.”93 Le Roy prefers his compound expression pensée-action to emphasize the dy-
namic aspect of thought: “If I use the word pensée, it is in order to recall that this activity is
conscious, which is to say that it is capable of being luminous to itself and that it tends in
that direction. And I add that this thinking is action to note that I envision it in its infinite
dynamism, not only in its crystallized products.”94 Le Roy directly links his notion of pen-
sée-action to Bergson’s élan vital, commenting that they are two names for the same vital
impetus depending on whether one is looking at the root or the flower.95 Le Roy defines
the real in practical terms as an expression of this vital impetus. The real has two principal
characteristics: resistance to critical dissolution and an inexhaustible, enduring fecundity.96
The idea of God corresponds to a real existence, and the affirmation of God therefore en-
tails the affirmation of a living reality. Traditional proofs for the existence of God based on
pure reason may reach this far, but no farther. They introduce the problem of God under
the heading of the real, but they cannot reach God himself. This is because they are not able
to move from thought to life. Knowledge of God, however, is practical: “to live is to be-
92Ibid., 95-96.93Ibid., 102.94Ibid., 108.95Ibid., 114.96Ibid., 103.
273
lieve in God and to know God is to become aware of what the act of living implies.”97 “All
told,” Le Roy remarks, “we believe in God more than we prove Him.”98 What proof there
is comes down to religious experience.99
Phenomenological themes are prevalent in the second half of Le Problème de Dieu,
where Le Roy invokes a Blondelian phenomenology of the will as the foundation for a di-
alectical demonstration of the truth of Christianity. The introduction the lectures titled “Un
Chemin vers Dieu” reads like the opening of L’Action:
I do not experience the slightest hesitation over the choice of a point of de-parture. It is first of all a matter of understanding how and why a problemrises up before the human being for which he himself is the unknown, aproblem of destiny, of judgment, of moral behavior, and this problem im-poses itself upon each one of us, whether it is enthroned beforehand in thevery intimacy of our heart or whether it grips our bowels, such that we canby no means escape its grasp. It is not a question of simple speculative cu-riosity: it is a vital question . . . Everyone encounters this problem and ev-eryone must resolve it, for better or for worse.100
Le Roy casts his problematic in existentialist terms. He immerses the reader in his text and
involves him in his argument. Le Roy adopts not only Blondel’s style, but also Pascal’s
force. With Pascal he confronts the reader with his own mortality. He quotes the Pensées:
“‘It is a horrible thing to feel everything that you possess slip away.”101 Everything slips
away, however, and our life itself is but a incessant flight toward an unknown mystery. “In
a deeper and truer sense, the heart and the thought of human beings are another infinity
which in their turn envelop that of the mute universe,” Le Roy observes. “There are two
orders of infinity: every aspect of one contains the other, and in this way parity is reestab-
lished.”102 Following Pascal, Le Roy adds that the earth, the stars and the heavens them-
selves are not so great as the least among spirits since none of them can think even a little
thought. The infinity of life contains and exceeds the infinity of the material world.
97Ibid., 117 (emphasis Le Roy’s).98Ibid., 127.99Ibid., 132.100Ibid., 137.101Ibid., 138.102Ibid., 144.
274
Resuming his dialogue with Blondel, Le Roy observes that thinking is an expres-
sion of desire, and an unquenchable desire at that. “Desire is thus a universal fact,” he as-
serts, “whose absence would be the equivalent of annihilation for the human person.”103
Like Blondel, Le Roy undertakes a phenomenological analysis of desire to demonstrate that
it is a product of the conflict between two contrary wills: a deeper unconscious will and a
superficial will. The superficial will seeks only finite ends, but the deeper will longs for in-
finity. In a footnote, Le Roy invites the reader to decide whether there are any points of
contact between his doctrine and Blondel’s.104 The similarities are obvious, and so Le Roy
does not bother with the comparison. Nevertheless, he does suggest an analogy between
the conflict between the deeper and superficial wills and the faculties of intuition and intelli-
gence: “The relationship between our two kinds of willing is the same in many respects as
that which we discern in the order of intelligence between intuition and discourse, between
creative thinking and analytical understanding.”105 There are two lives in the human being:
the animal and the spiritual, and the moral problem bears on the passage from the former to
the latter; in Bergsonian terms we must make the transition in our moral lives from instinct
to intuition. The moral obligation is thus the obligation to continue striving toward spiritual
perfection.
Le Roy explains that what we want above all is “to establish ourselves in being and
to grow there, and along this ascending path to go beyond and to transcend ourselves con-
tinually.”106 By deepening our consciousness and contacting our inner will we pass from
restless striving to faith. Le Roy thus interprets Bergson’s élan vital through Blondel’s no-
tion of action to arrive at a spiritualist pragmatism, which he describes as
a creative exigency, absolute because it is the principle of every relation andof every modality, . . . an exigency of the moral order whose sovereignprimacy imposes itself upon every right and every event without any possi-
103Ibid., 163.104Ibid., 164, n. 1.105Ibid., 165.106Ibid., 171.
275
ble means of evasion: this is what we have at last recognized, discerned anddiscovered.107
To affirm in this manner the primacy of the moral exigency is to affirm God, at least provi-
sionally. This exigency, which is the dynamism perceived at the center of our inner will,
marks the point of our insertion into God and it is there that we come to know Him. This
exigency also corresponds to and reflects the interminable desire and restlessness in our
hearts. Restlessness, Le Roy observes, is already present in the core of all of our works,
because our works contain this restlessness they are capable of serving as the basis for ex-
amining that characterizes the vital impetus. Moreover, by reason of its immanence, this
restlessness is not only a privileged beginning point for investigation but the point of depar-
ture par excellence.108 In this respect, restlessness is as certain a form of evidence as the
cogito.
According to Le Roy, religion signifies above all “a lived participation in spiritualiz-
ing realities much more than simple speculative adhesion to pure ideas which pretend to
represent these realities theoretically.”109 This also indicates the difference between morality
and religion. Morality is concerned with fulfilling obligations in the present. It does not
look to the future. Religion, on the other hand, concerns what is to come and, moreover,
with the means to prepare us for it. “In its turn, and more thoroughly,” Le Roy observes,
“it tells us what we have to become, and it also brings us the means of becoming so. It
proposes to deliver us from evil, to ground our hopes and open the springs of love. And,
so far as a doctrine goes, we could define it ‘an ontology of values.’”110 Le Roy makes a
deliberate reference to Max Scheler, although he does not base his argument directly on
Scheler’s phenomenology of religion. Yet the fact that he associates Scheler’s doctrine with
his own suggests that Le Roy sensed a compatibility with the former’s phenomenological
method. Both philosophers, after all, sought to uncover the dynamic principles of religious
107Ibid., 201.108Ibid., 229.109Ibid., 301.110Ibid., 302.
276
experience. Perhaps the only reason the Le Roy does not refer more often to Scheler is that
the lectures which form the basis of these chapters were drafted before the widespread
awareness of Scheler’s philosophy in France. In addition, as we have seen with Blondel,
Le Roy was generally not in the habit of mentioning by name other thinkers who influenced
him apart from Bergson.
Morality finishes its work when it has established a theory of practice; religion
strives until it has found the means of realizing the practice of the theory.111 Yet human
beings cannot reach their spiritual destiny on his own. Destiny must be brought to them and
raise them. Le Roy contends that “for the realization of this work which is transcendent to
nature, revelation is necessary: a redemptive act defined as the encounter of an effort that
rises and a grace that descends—here, in its substance, is the fundamental religious affir-
mation.”112 A serious objection may be raised, however. What about the evil found in the
world? Surely God cannot be the author of it. The last obstacle Le Roy must face is the
problem of theodicy. “Schopenhauer’s words haunt us: ‘If God made the world, I would
not want to be that God, for the misery of the world would tear my heart to shreds.’”113
We can accept that God permitted evil, that He permitted an imperfect world in order to
bring it to perfection. We can recognize the good fruit of suffering. These are the classical
explanations which cannot hide their insufficiency. In the face of such a reality, only one
solution can be effective and complete. There must be a redemptive act and not merely an
elaborate explanation. An act can only be redemptive if it takes in the whole of humanity.
True redemption can thus be the work only of God and human being combined into one.
Christianity recognizes this fact in the doctrine of the Incarnation. Le Roy does not venture
to say more about this mystery, but concludes that no objection can be raised against God.
“How can we refuse to listen to Jesus, the ‘Man of Sorrows’?” he asks.114 From Bergson
and Blondel we have returned to Pascal and the Gospels.
111Ibid., 302.112Ibid., 305.113Ibid., 329.114Ibid., 343.
277
D. Le Roy’s Contribution to the Theological Reception of Phenomenology
In his philosophical works on intuitive thinking and invention, Le Roy exemplified
the influence of Bergson, but his religious writings display more Blondelian traits.115 Le
Roy’s attempts to show the contradictions inherent in negative solutions to the problem of
God and especially his dialectical phenomenology of the will indicate strong affiliations to
the method of immanence championed by Blondel and Laberthonnière. Explaining why he
rarely cited Blondel despite the obvious similarities, Le Roy once remarked in a letter to
Blondel’s friend Abbé Johannes Wherlé: “If I have never cited the author of Action and the
famous Letter, if I have never cited anyone, it is because my aim was neither to criticize
extrinsic apologetics nor to defend the apologetic of immanence.” Nevertheless, Le Roy
went on to state,
I believe that Catholicism objectively possesses and can produce claims thatare valid in themselves. I believe that a probing apologetic is possible, anapologetic having the virtue of being able to manifest to the human mind in areasonable form the obligation which adherence to the Church places uponit. I believe finally that the method of immanence, such as Blondel andLaberthonnière expound it, . . . is the true point of departure for re-search.116
To the extent, therefore, that the method of immanence may be considered a precursor to
Husserlian phenomenology, to that extent we may consider Le Roy to have played the role
of a precursor the reception of phenomenology in French religious thought. Elsewhere Le
Roy makes clear that he objects to the expression philosophy of immanence. He accepts
that there is a principle of immanence from which flows a method of immanence which
leads finally to a doctrine of transcendence, but he does not think there are grounds for
speaking of a philosophy of immanence as such, and especially not for a religion of imma-
nence.117 “The principal of immanence does not express a doctrine, especially not a doc-
115Cf. Roger Aubert, Le Problème de l'acte de foi. Données traditionnelles et résul-
tats des controverses récentes (Louvain: E. Warny, 1945), 362: “M. Le Roy est, enphilosophie, un disciple de Bergson et non de M. Blondel. Mais il a développé incidem-ment, à propos de l’acte de foi, certains thèmes qu’il reprenait aux blondéliens.”
116Le Roy, “Réponse à M. l’abbé Wehrlé,” in Dogme et Critique, 58.117Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié et al.,” in Dogme et Critique, 305.
278
trine of exclusion and division,” he explained to Wehrlé, “it distinguishes a method and re-
lates less to the truth in itself than to our manner of entering into relationship with it.”118
Like Blondel, Le Roy believed that God is known through “a dialectic of action as
much and even more than through discourse.”119 The dialectic of action is one of experi-
ence, and it is experience that furnishes the criterion of the real. “In my opinion,” he once
remarked concerning Blondel’s philosophy, “the powerful originality and solid truth of the
new philosophy lies in having recognized the subordination of the ideal to the real and the
real to action.”120 The moral freedom entailed by the life of action stands in contrast to the
necessary logic governing the realm of ideas. Moral freedom is not a matter of necessity but
of supernatural destiny. Following Blondel and Laberthonnière, Le Roy repeats that the
method of immanence shows that it is not the case that supernatural is necessitated by us,
but that it is necessitating in us.”121 Nevertheless, Le Roy may be more open to critique
than Blondel for reducing the supernatural destiny of humanity to a fulfillment of human
nature.122 Le Roy does not adequately account for the difference between Christian faith
and ordinary moral striving.
In addition to these Bergonsian and Blondelian aspects of his thought, Le Roy’s
philosophical approach also displays certain Cartesian traits—an additional factor which
contributed to his role in preparing the French reception of Husserlian phenomenology.
Like Descartes, Le Roy sought an absolute and immanent point of departure. Reflecting on
the origins of his philosophy, he once commented,
It consisted first of all in isolating a directive principal, an initial current ofimpulse. I thought I could attain it by an interpretation of the Cartesian cog-ito: a rather liberal interpretation it must be added, in which the formula ofDescartes is taken, independently of any historical regard, as a theme of
118Le Roy, “Réponse à M. l’abbé Wehrlé,” in Dogme et Critique, 63.119Édouard Le Roy, Le Problème de Dieu (Paris: L’Artisan du livre, 1929), 125.120See Jacques Havet, “La Tradition philosophique française entre les deux guer-
res,” in L'Activité philosophique en France et aux Etats-Unis, ed. Marvin Farber (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), 7.
121Le Roy, “Réponse à M. Portalié et al.,” in Dogme et Critique, 307 (emphasis LeRoy’s): “Cette méthode enseigne—combien de fois faudra-t-il le répéter—que le surnaturelest exigé par nous, mais qu’il est exigeant en nous.”
122Cf. René Virgoulay, Blondel et le modernisme (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 267-68.
279
autonomous meditation and transposed into the perspective of an intuitivephilosophy.123
According to Le Roy, the cogito must not be confused with transitive operations of reason-
ing in which two terms are linked according to a set of logical principles. Instead, it should
be appreciated as an expression of the intuition of a coincidence between thought and be-
ing. In this respect, the cogito represents precisely what Le Roy terms intuition of the im-
mediate. As such, it is essentially action. “The cogito does not propose either the agent nor
the essence of the act of thinking as a first principle, but the act itself,” Le Roy observes.124
Le Roy thus assimilates Cartesianism intuitionism into a philosophy of action. This
fact accounts for his ability to more freely between Bergsonism and Blondelianism in his
scientific and religious philosophies. It also helps to explain how Bergsonism and
Blondelianism, although somewhat different in their inspiration and development, could
jointly prepare for the reception of Husserlian phenomenology in French religious thought.
Le Roy demonstrates the compatibility of the two philosophical approaches in combating
the rationalism and positivism which were the common foes of Husserl and the French
spiritualists. He does not exhaust all possibilities for a rapprochement between their
methodologies or their application to theological problems, however. For example, in his
discussions of dogma, Le Roy never argues that a dogma statement represents a truth that
can only be grasped through a dynamic act of intuition as opposed to a deductive chain of
reasoning. Such an argument would have brought him closer to the intellectualists against
whom he fought. Yet it does not mean that such an approach would be impossible. Indeed,
as the subsequent sections will show, this is precisely the kind of approach that would be
attempted by creative neo-Thomist thinkers.
II. Pierre Rousselot
The philosophies of Bergson and especially Blondel were well-known to neo-
scholastic theologians in France. Most were critical of these new philosophies which advo-
123Le Roy, “Notice générale,” 179-80.124Ibid., 181.
280
cated a method of immanence and which tended to denigrate the function of discursive rea-
soning. Not all neo-scholastic thinkers, however, dismissed Bergsonism and
Blondelianism as dangerous species of Modernism. Some, especially the emerging group
of neo-Thomist thinkers who took a more historical approach to interpreting the philosophy
of Aquinas and his followers, discovered certain points in common with the new philoso-
phies and attempted to use them to help communicate the insights of traditional Thomist
thought to the skeptical and secular modern mind. In addition to renewing apologetics, their
efforts also helped prepare the eventual interest neo-Thomists would take in Husserlian
phenomenology. The most influential of this new breed of neo-Thomist thinkers was Pierre
Rousselot.
A. His Life and Works
Pierre Rousselot was born in Nantes, Brittany, in 1878, the oldest of nine chil-
dren.125 At age sixteen, he entered the Jesuit novitiate across the channel in Canterbury,
England, where he continued his studies in literature and modern languages, developing
proficiency in English and German and an acquaintance with Italian and Spanish.
Rousselot was also strong in Latin and Greek, so following a year of military service
which brought him back to Nantes in 1899 and the completion of the required philosophical
studies at the scholasticate in Jersey, he returned to Canterbury as a professor of classics
for his younger Jesuit confreres. In 1908, the year of his ordination, he received a doctor-
ate from the Sorbonne upon the defense of his two theses before a jury which included
Émile Boutroux and Victor Delbos. Thus, by the age of 29, and while carrying several
other responsibilities, Rousselot had managed to complete an extensive course of
studies—a testimony to his prodigious energy and acumen.
125For details concerning Rousselot’s life, see the “Notice” by Léonce de
Grandmaison in Pierre Rousselot, L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 2nd ed. (Paris:Beauchesne, 1924), v-lx; Elie Marty, Le Témoignage de Pierre Rousselot (1878-1915),2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1940) and Jules Lebreton, “Pierre Rousselot,” Dictionnaire dethéologie catholique, 14: 134-38.
281
Rousselot’s first doctoral thesis was a study of the intellectualism of Thomas
Aquinas.126 It defended the Aquinas’s doctrine of connatural knowledge against the pre-
dominant rationalism of the era. According to neo-Cartesians like Brunschvicg, the highest
form of knowledge consisted in the all-inclusive unity of a system of clear and distinct
ideas which were linked to one another necessarily by a chain of rigorous, deductive logic.
The ideal of knowledge was modeled on the abstract universal concept. Following
Descartes, who contended that reason functioned in the same way in every mind, rational-
ists interpreted intellectual knowledge in a univocal sense. Yet for Aquinas, Rousselot ar-
gued, rational thinking represented the lowest form of knowledge. Higher than ratio was
intellectus, the intuitive knowledge which purely spiritual creatures have of their own
essence. Human beings are not pure spirits, but through the inherent dynamism of their
faculties it is possible for humans to attain an analogical awareness of fundamentally spiri-
tual nature.
Whereas in his first doctoral thesis, Rousselot defended intellectualism against ra-
tionalism, his second thesis championed intellectualism against voluntarism. Pour l’His-
toire du problème de l’amour au moyen-âge examined scholastic controversies surrounding
the relation of the intellect and will with respect to the matter of love.127 Rousselot took up
Aquinas’s physical theory of love which maintained that love of self, understood as the
natural drive of the individual toward his specific perfection, functions as the ontological
basis for the supernatural love charity through which the individual comes to love God
more than himself. By articulating this metaphysics of participation, Rousselot aimed to
overcome the voluntarist interpretation of the medieval Franciscans and their contemporary
counterparts who regarded love as an irrational leap beyond the subject to a higher union
whose ontological structure would be defined subsequently by the act itself. Through both
126Pierre Rousselot, L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 2nd. ed. (Paris:Beauchesne, 1924). Available in English as Pierre Rousselot, The Intellectualism of St.Thomas, trans. James E. O’Mahony (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1932). Unless otherwiseindicated, quotations from this work will be cited from O’Mahony’s translation.
127Pierre Rousselot, Pour l’Histoire du problème de l’amour au moyen-âge(Münster: Aschendorff, 1908).
282
studies Rousselot demonstrated his commitment to Aquinas, although he contended that
“Thomism would have to ‘absorb’ a number of the contributions that idealism had made to
philosophy if were to become an effective contemporary philosophy.”128 Rousselot saw the
need to recover Aquinas’s architectonic approach apart from some outmoded doctrines his
philosophy contained. Historical study and critical absorption of modern thought consti-
tuted the two pillars of his approach.
In 1909, following the publication of his doctoral theses, Rousselot was appointed
to the Faculty of Theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris. During these years, he be-
came involved in various other projects. He devoted much time to a collaboration with
Joseph Huby for a handbook on the history of religion.129 He also served as secretary for
the new journal launched by the French Jesuits in 1910, Recherches de Science Religieuse.
The second and fourth numbers of the first volume contained a pair of his own articles ti-
tled “Les Yeux de la Foi”—“The Eyes of Faith.”130 The basic thesis of these essays is that
the act of faith is best understood as a dynamic complex of intellect and will as opposed to
the neo-scholastic theory which portrayed faith as a series of discrete steps in which intel-
lect and will appear on the stage at different moments to play their distinct and respective
roles. Rousselot’s proposal was vigorously debated, leading him to return to the problem
continually in subsequent articles, letters and unpublished notes, the wealth of which testi-
128McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 47. See also John M. McDermott, “Un Inédit
de Rousselot: ‘Idealisme et thomisme’,” Archives de philosophie 42 (1979): 91-126.According to McDermott, 92, the original title that Rousselot gave to the manuscript whichthe censors never allowed him to publish was, “Les absorptions nécessaires: la scolastiqueet l’idéalisme.”
129Joseph Huby, ed., Christus. Manuel d'Histoire des Religions (Paris:Beauchesne, 1912). See Jean Rimaud, “Caritate Fraternitatis Invicem Diligentes,”Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965): 7[343] -17[353] for a discussion ofRousselot’s collaboration in this project.
130Pierre Rousselot, “Les Yeux de la foi,” Recherches de science religieuse 1(1910): 241-59, 444-75. Available in English as Pierre Rousselot, The Eyes of Faith,trans. Joseph Donceel with an introduction by John M. McDermott (New York: FordhamUniversity Press, 1990). Due to the precision and fluency of Donceel’s translation and thelack of a readily available reedition of the original French text, citations to this work will begiven for the English edition only.
283
fies that he was never entirely satisfied with his attempts to articulate a definitive solution to
understanding the act of faith.131
Apart from a one-year sabbatical during which he completed the last year of his re-
quired theological studies at Canterbury, Rousselot taught at the Institut Catholique until
September 1914, when he was recalled to military service. His decision to go to war was a
reflection of his patriotism, as was his support of the Action Française movement which
Charles Maurras had recently initiated. Tragically, the brilliant career of the young Jesuit
was cut short before he reached his fortieth birthday. Rousselot was killed in the battle of
Éparges on 25 April 1915, while attempting to fulfill the order of his commanding officer
to negotiate a surrender with the German troops that had besieged his detachment. Like
other members of his family from previous generations, he died a martyr for his country.
B. Rousselot and Blondel
Rousselot developed his philosophical methods and positions in conversation with
the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas. Nevertheless, the results of his investigations
led him to conclusions that in some respects approached those of Blondel. In order to
demonstrate the similarity between Rousselot’s style of thinking and Blondel’s, the follow-
ing pages summarize the arguments of his theses on Aquinas’s intellectualism and the
problem of love. Next, some of the letters the two thinkers exchanged are examined for
what they reveal about the degree of influence that each one exercised upon the other.
Finally, some remarks are offered concerning the ways in which Rousselot’s thought
touches upon some of the central themes of Husserlian phenomenology.
In the introduction to The Intellectualism of St. Thomas, Rousselot states that he
means by intellectualism “the doctrine which places the supreme value and intensity of life
in an act of the intellect, that sees in this act the radical and essential good, and regards all
things else as good only in so far as they participate in it.”132 This understanding is op-
131For a discussion of developments in Rousselot’s position after 1910, seeMcDermott, Love and Understanding, 201-90: “Part III: Toward a New Synthesis.”
132Rousselot, L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 4; O’Mahony, 1.
284
posed to common usages of the term, he notes, whereby intellect is equated with the pow-
ers of deductive and inferential reasoning. Rousselot has in mind a metaphysical doctrine
that begins with contemplation and ends in the realization of identity with divine. The thesis
he proposes to expound and defend he states briefly as follows: “Intelligence, for St.
Thomas, is the faculty of the real, but it is only the faculty of the real because it is the fac-
ulty of the divine.”133 Scholastic intellectualism, with its doctrine of abstraction, is com-
monly reproached for diminishing the sense of the real and for rationalizing the divine
through the articulation of dogmas. Nevertheless, Rousselot endeavors to extricate the
genuine philosophy of Aquinas from these misconceptions and restore a true appreciation
for his doctrine of intellectualism. In the first part of his thesis, Rousselot gives an account
of the intellectual process as such and endeavors to show that for Aquinas intelligence is
essentially oriented toward the acquisition of reality, and not merely the generation of con-
cepts and propositions. In the second part, he shows how human speculation attempts to
substitute for the lack of direct intuition of the real through various composite representa-
tions ranging from the concept to the symbol. Finally, in the third part, Rousselot reflects
on the application of the intellect to moral action in this world while waiting for the world to
come. Here he discusses the value of religion in relation to the supernatural life.
Against the then popular notion that intelligence represents a mere epiphenomenon
in the evolutionary chain, Rousselot argues that for Aquinas, intellect is life par excellence.
“It unites in the highest degree subjective intensity and objective extension,” Rousselot ex-
plains, “because if it grasps reality it does so by becoming reality in a certain manner.”134
Of these two characteristics, immanence and exteriorization, immanence imparts to the
intellectual act its perfection because through reflection upon itself the intellect can both
know reality and itself. Furthermore, the more intense the life of an intellectual being, the
less it is limited to its own narrow circle. Thought is commonly opposed to action,
133Ibid., v; O’Mahony, 2 (emphasis Rousselot’s).134Ibid., 7; O’Mahony, 20.
285
Rousselot observes, yet thought is actually the most powerful form of action.135 If action
implies the movement or passage from one being to another, then it follows that the most
perfect action is the one that reaches the other being most fully. Because intellectual activity
is immaterial it can possess the other completely, hence intellectual knowledge represents
perfect act. Aquinas’s examination of the intellectual process leads him to affirm the
existence of Absolute Mind. “Absolute Mind is at one and the same time perfect Immanence
and perfect Extensiveness penetrating to the depths of things.”136 In distinction to the
Absolute, the human soul is intelligent because it has a passive capacity for being. God, on
the other hand, is the active source of all being; God’s knowledge is the cause of things.
The normative intellectual operation, therefore is neither abstraction nor judgment, but the
immediate grasp of reality through forms and principles. The highest form of knowledge is
the beatific vision, in which the creature ‘sees’ God through the divine essence. “The
intelligence that enjoys the beatific vision has no other idea of God than God Himself,”
notes Rousselot, “He takes the place both of the species impressa [impressed species] and
of the verbum mentale [mental word].”137 Aquinas’s understanding of the beatific vision
shows clearly that he sides with the intellectualists against the voluntarists, like Scotus. For
Aquinas, the intellect possesses reality whereas the will merely tends beyond itself toward
other things.138 The voluntarists mistakenly confuse movement and action because they fail
to grasp the notion of the pure act which is static as opposed to imperfect acts which
proceed from potentiality.
Up to this point, Rousselot has been mainly focused on what Aquinas has said
about perfected intelligences. In the second part of his thesis, Rousselot investigates how
human intelligence strives to emulate this ideal by employing a range of substitutes for pure
knowledge. Rousselot takes these up in turn, beginning with the concept, then moving on
135Ibid., 11; O’Mahony, 24.136Ibid., 19; O’Mahony, 31.137Ibid., 33; O’Mahony, 43.138Ibid., 41; O’Mahony, 51. Rousselot plays upon the alliterative possibilities of
French here: “Le nerf de la théorie thomiste est la conception de l’intelligence comme fac-ulté qui tient, opposée à la volonté, faculté qui tend” (emphasis Rousselot’s).
286
to science, system and symbol. In conceptual knowledge, we unite our ideas of a thing
with certain sensible qualities and this operation yields for us our notion of the external ob-
ject. By comparison with intellectual knowledge, conceptual knowledge is analogical. The
real essence is never grasped, but only the general notion. The general notion may be cor-
rected by a subsequent series of negations, but the boundary between approximation and
realization is never crossed. Concepts and the inferences and deductions needed to attain
them may be further organized into a system yielding a more complete, if not more perfect,
understanding of reality. This systematization of discursive knowledge corresponds to
Aquinas’s understanding of science, which may be defined as “an intelligible and au-
tonomous whole, unified by the principle of the deduction, composed of propositions
which are logically subordinated and which descend, by a constant contraction, from the
most general principles to the laws which determine the individual characteristics of the
most specialized species.”139
In order for science as a whole to form an intelligible system, it must be united by a
common principle, which, by virtue of the abstract order of knowledge which it represents,
must itself be abstract. For Aquinas that principle is being, and all subalternate sciences are
ultimately dependent upon metaphysics. The purity of its principle notwithstanding, sci-
ence, like the conceptual knowledge it draws together, cannot reach the ideal of genuine
knowledge. “What science can at the most furnish as a mental equivalent of reality is a logi-
cal skeleton of the scheme of things,” Rousselot remarks.140 Furthermore, most of what
today are called sciences really deserve to be classified among the arts since the knowledge
they yield, deriving from experimentation, belongs to the practical rather than speculative
order.141 Yet where speculative knowledge is incomplete and propositions of only a prob-
able value are available, it is nevertheless possible to combine them into a form of argument
which scholasticism termed dialectic.142 Typically this kind of inferential argumentation
139Ibid., 133, my translation; cf. O’Mahony, 133.140Ibid., 134; O’Mahony, 134.141Ibid., 146; O’Mahony, 145.142Ibid., 149; O’Mahony, 147.
287
depends upon the enthymeme, an uncertain proposition which may be included expressly
or, in some cases, omitted altogether from the syllogism. Rousselot comments: “Just as
science is demonstrative reason’s substitute for the pure idea, so system is a substitute on
the part of intellectual imagination for science.”143 At the very limit of systematic construc-
tion is the symbol. Symbolic reasoning is used to simulate the pure idea by relating the
spiritual object to a concrete reality that can be the object of a sensible intuition. Symbolic
arguments are employed in theology to suggest the fittingness of certain facts when the real
reason for them remains a mystery. Because they appeal to the imagination, symbols are
useful in directing the human intellect to its supernatural end. Yet symbols, like the system
of sciences and the concepts upon which they are built, remain mere substitutes for pure
intellectual knowledge.
Human intelligence may be evaluated from two perspectives: the possible order of
pure nature or the actual order of grace which prepares the individual for the beatific vi-
sion.144 The difficulty lies in discerning how the two orders of reason and revelation are
related, and especially in describing their relation in such a way that the supernatural does
not appear to be necessitated by the natural. This is precisely the difficulty of the life of
faith, for faith represents a kind of knowledge that is most perfect with respect to its object
but most imperfect with regard to the subject.145 The paradox of the life of faith throws into
question the value of human speculation with respect to the practical sphere of moral action.
In the third and final part of his thesis on the intellectualism of Aquinas, Rousselot
considers the relative importance of practical and speculative ideas. He asserts, “The idea of
progress is essential to the concept of man in statu viae and what is of prime importance
consequently is man’s capacity for action.”146 Hence, the value of intellectual activity must
be measured by its ability to direct the will. The intellectual and practical orders, mean-
while, are inversely related. In the philosophy of Aquinas, the value of practical idea is the
143Ibid., 162-63; O’Mahony, 159.144Ibid., 173; O’Mahony, 169.145Ibid., 192; O’Mahony, 187.146Ibid., 203; O’Mahony, 199.
288
reverse of the value of the purely intellectual idea. The practical idea is all the more perfect
in its sphere as its immanent character diminishes. Hence, “abstract moral knowledge may
be a necessary condition for virtue, but it is not a cause of virtue.”147 Nevertheless, the
practical and intellectual orders are united in the good of the human being who is destined
to fulfill his existence in both. The mind comes to recognize in itself the subject whose laws
govern the real, and from thence the affirmation of an infinite intelligence follows as an ab-
solute necessity. “There exists a form of intellectual activity, which is infinite in its effi-
cacy, and which we call God, ” Rousselot insists.148 The intellectualism of Aquinas is es-
sentially a religious philosophy.
The foregoing summary of Rousselot’s thesis on Aquinas’s intellectualism has not
yielded any striking similarities to Blondel’s philosophy of action, nevertheless a few paral-
lels may be noted. Like Blondel, and like Bergson for that matter,149 Rousselot opposed
the notion that discursive thinking represents the highest form of knowledge. In its place,
he privileged intuition. Also like Blondel, although within a different context, Rousselot
affirmed the primacy of moral action in ordinary human life. Moreover, Rousselot recog-
nized that action in its truest sense must not be confused with mere movement. Act signifies
the immediacy of knowledge, the expansion of the subject into its object and its union with
the other; act signifies the quest for infinity and pure act its fulfillment. Finally, with respect
to the problem of the supernatural, Rousselot labored under the same restrictions as
Blondel. Beyond their contributions to philosophical theology, both were religious
philosophers for whom the supernatural was to be admitted as a fact. Yet, because they
presented their respective theses before a jury at the Sorbonne, references to the supernatu-
ral and its role in shaping their philosophical stances had to be minimized. Nevertheless,
even under these circumstances, both could, and did, argue that the dynamism of the hu-
man faculties pointed to a fulfillment that lay beyond their natural ends. Both could postu-
147Ibid., 211-12; O’Mahony, 206-7.148Ibid., 224; O’Mahony, 218 (emphasis Rousselot’s)149Cf. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 82.
289
late a supernatural Absolute even if they had to remain reserved about the religious import
of their conclusions.
Points of contact between the philosophies of Rousselot and Blondel are more ap-
parent in Rousselot’s thesis on the problem of love in the middle ages. The basic dilemma
confronting medieval theologians was this: on the one hand, the philosophers affirm that
one’s happiness lies in the fulfillment of one’s natural desires, in other words, through
loving oneself; on the other hand, the Christian tradition demands that one love God for
God’s own sake and more than one loves one’s own self. None disagreed that the best way
to love oneself would be to give oneself entirely to the love of God, but this does not elimi-
nate the speculative problem of explaining how the two kinds of love are reconcilable.150
For the disciples of Augustine, who defined the nature of the human will according to the
desire for beatitude, the problem is especially acute because their view requires that the in-
dividual sacrifice his own good to a Being who is distinct from himself. In order to love
God more than himself, the individual must renounce his self-interest altogether and aban-
don himself to God. This conception of ecstatic love, rooted in the duality subjects, was
common among the medieval Franciscans and the school of Peter Abelard. It was opposed
by those who maintained what was known as the physical theory of love. Physical in this
case does not signify bodily love, but rather the natural propensity to seek one’s own good.
Hugh of St. Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux, among others, advanced this theory. The
difficulty with their conception of love is that if one finds in God a good greater than one-
self, then loving God is reduced to another expression of one’s own self-interest. “In order
to avoid this reduction,” Rousselot explains, “it would be necessary to find a principle
which led the individual to tend toward the good of God just as spontaneously, just as nat-
urally, just as directly as he tends toward his own good.”151
Rousselot observes, “It is St. Thomas, who, taking inspiration from Aristotle, iso-
lated the fundamental principle by showing that unity (or rather individuality) is the raison
150Rousselot, Problème d’amour, 2.151Ibid., 10.
290
d’être, the measure and the ideal of love; in one stroke it reestablishes perfect continuity
between love born of desire and love born of friendship.”152 The unity of which Aquinas
speaks is a transcendental unity, that is, a unity that can be predicated analogously of all
being depending on their degree of participation in being. McDermott notes that in The
Intellectualism of St. Thomas, Rousselot investigated the transcendental unity with respect
to the immanence of the divine unity, and, by analogy, to the immanence proper to angelic
intelligence. He goes on to explain:
Since the real and intentional orders cannot be separated, Le Problème nowapplies the term to the realities intended by the mind. On the highest levelthe principle of transcendental unity finds its clearest manifestation in Godwho alone is identical with His Esse. All other beings, not identical withtheir esse, are deficiently one since they only deficiently participate in God.According to the principle of analogy God is more one than an angel, an an-gel than a man, an a man than a stone.153
Aquinas’s metaphysics of participation shows a way to the resolution of the problem of
love insofar at shows that the participation of the individual in his species does not have to
occur in a different mode than his participation in God. Aquinas teaches, in effect, “that the
individuality of a spiritual nature has a definitive nature due to its capacity to attain God as
he is, and to his affinity with the whole. This is to say that the good of the individual spiri-
tual creature is not different than the whole, and, consequently, than the good of God, be-
cause his nature consists in representing God and the whole in proportion to the intensity of
his intellectual life.”154 Hence the creature’s perfection as a participant in the whole and his
beatitude as an individual coincide. “The spiritual good and the good in itself are the same
thing,” Rousselot affirms.155
Aquinas’s theory presupposes and affirms the ontological unity of the individual
and God. From the perspective of God, it can rightly be said the God dwells in the creature
152Ibid., 3 (emphasis Rousselot’s).153John M. McDermott, Love and Understanding: The Relation of the Will and
Intellect in Pierre Rousselot's Christological Vision (Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice,1983), 44.
154Rousselot, Problème d’amour, 19-20.155Ibid., 20.
291
through a divine creative act.156 Aquinas thus provides a solution to the initial dilemma by
showing that a love coaptatio appetitus, or a genuinely connatural love, is possible.157 This
kind love does not violate the natural order, as does the ecstatic love, nor is it irrational.158
As Gerald McCool puts it: “Intentional unity, with ontological unity as its necessary
ground, is the cause, not the consequent, of the culminating act of charity. If this is so,
union with God in the concrete historical order can be the term of a reasonable act of self-
interested love on the part of the creature.”159 Instead of reducing love of God to love of
self, as had Hugh of St. Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux, Aquinas effectively reduces love
of self to love of God.160
Rousselot’s analysis of the problem of love in the middle ages reveals an opposition
between voluntarist and intellectualist views. Rousselot, along with Aquinas, upholds the
intellectualist view. Consequently, one might assume that he would oppose Blondel’s phi-
losophy in L’Action which is based solely upon an analysis of the will. Nevertheless, one
should not move too hastily toward this conclusion. Blondel’s phenomenology of the will
in fact yielded results that are in significant ways comparable to Rousselot’s. In The
Intellectualism of St. Thomas, for instance, Rousselot claimed that all of Aquinas’s argu-
ments were based on the impossibility of an absolute and radical dynamism: “If there is
movement, it must be towards something. There is no such thing as tending to tend.”161
Blondel would be in full agreement with this principle; in fact, he makes it the basis of his
investigation:
156Cf. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 69: “In a way, God is the creature while
transcending it because the creature and God are one through the unity of participation. Asthe ever-present creative source of the creature’s being, God is the creature’s good morethan the creature himself is. If therefore a spiritual creature loves his own good truly, hemust love God more than he loves himself” (emphasis McCool’s).
157Ibid., 10.158Ibid., 56-87, where Rousselot examines the disadvantages of the ecstatic love
theory.159McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 43 (emphasis McCool’s).160Cf. McDermott, Love and Understanding, 49.161Rousselot, L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 44; O’Mahony, 53. See also
225; O’Mahony, 219.
292
Since the will, never tending toward nothingness, ordinarily goes towardthe object of sensation or of knowledge, we must therefore inquire now asto whether action can be adequately defined in function of this object whichit proposes as an end for itself, and whether it is really restricted to phenom-ena; whether, in a word, it is not itself only a fact like other facts, andwhether, in the narrow sense of the term, the problem of life allows for apositive solution.162
Blondel’s analysis of the will reveals that it is in fact double. The superficial will, the
volonté voulante, seeks its fulfillment in the phenomenal world. On the other hand, the
deep will, the volonté voulue, knows that its fulfillment lies beyond itself in union with its
infinite, supernatural destiny. Hence, there is a certain analogy between Blondel’s double
will and the two kinds of love which the medieval theologians were trying to reconcile, the
cupiditas and the caritas.163 Moreover, the solution discovered by Blondel is similar to the
one affirmed by Aquinas. By expressing the desire for satiation in the world of things, the
superficial will exemplifies the creature’s pursuit of happiness and love of self. The deep
will, by contrast, expresses the creature’s love for God as well as its desire for ultimate
being. The conflict between the wills disappears when it is recognized that the deep will is
actually the ontological foundation for the superficial will; the deep will for ultimate being
grounds the superficial will for finite being, not vice versa. Thus, as with Rousselot, the
underlying unity of the double will is the cause for which the creature’s supernatural striv-
ing is the consequence. Blondel’s analysis of the will is thus a kind of mirror image of
Rousselot’s analysis of the intellect, and both philosophers, in the end, affirm the notion of
connatural love.
To see that these fundamental similarities in the arguments of Rousselot and
Blondel were no mere historical coincidence, one only need survey what they wrote to and
about each other. Their personal diary notes as well as their correspondence reveal how the
two thinkers overcame their initial reservations and gradually came to appreciate one anoth-
er’s work.
162Blondel, L’Action, 41; Blanchette, 52, emphasis Blondel’s.163Cf. Rousselot, Problème d’amour, 35.
293
Rousselot’s read Blondel’s L’Action in 1904. Three pages of reading notes and
quotations survive among his papers at the Jesuit Archives in Chantilly, France.164 The
selections which Rousselot chose to reproduce and comment upon indicate the pitch of his
interest in Blondel. Three of the four passages deal precisely with the double aspect of the
will, while the fourth deals with the nature of the symbol in art.165 Rousselot’s annotations
on these passages include remarks such as: “An inspiring, profound, true idea, yet con-
tained in scholasticism,” and “He has then done me the great favor of formulating with
penetration and depth my truth.” These remarks suggest that Rousselot had already formed
his philosophical opinions in conversation with scholasticism and that he regarded Blondel
as an outside participant to that dialogue.166 Moreover, in addition to those passages with
which he agreed, there were others which he grouped under the heading “anti-intellectual-
ism.” The latter included quotations from Blondel’s discussion of metaphysics, which
Rousselot found inconsistent with Blondel’s stated aim to free the science of phenomena
from ontology. Rousselot also rejected Blondel’s implication that logical notions are ulti-
mately dependent upon the will.
Despite some misgivings, Rousselot continued to read Blondel. In 1908 he read
“L’Illusion Idéaliste,” a critique of intellectualism which Blondel had published a decade
earlier.167 Rousselot states in his notes that “I am in fundamental agreement with the author
whom I transpose into my scholastic language as follows. To possess being intellectually is
to possess oneself fully—this is what I wanted to say in my thesis concerning the certitude
of principles justifiable to the mind inasmuch as they are the experiences of the self.”168
164Because these notes have never been published, the information in the present
paragraph has been drawn from Frederick J. D. Scott, “Maurice Blondel and PierreRousselot,” The New Scholasticism 36 (1962): 332, who discusses these and other notesand correspondence regarding Blondel.
165According to Scott, Rousselot copied passages from pages 19, 133, 198 and 229into his notes.
166Cf. Manuel Ossa, “Blondel et Rousselot: Points de vue sur l’acte de foi,”Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965): 189[525]-190[524].
167Maurice Blondel, “L’Illusion Idealiste,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 6(1898): 727-46. Cf. Scott, 338ff. Ossa, 189[525], contests this interpretation, however,insisting that Rousselot’s usage is completely different than Blondel.
168Scott, 340 (emphasis Rousselot’s).
294
Once again, Rousselot wants to bring Blondel into his scholasticism, but this time with a
difference: he accepts the latter’s insistence upon taking account of the self as a whole, not
simply as an intellectual faculty. He admits that Blondel’s essay “has made me progress
and better understand myself.”169 In later articles, Rousselot seems to draw upon Blondel’s
notion of the “attitude” or “disposition” one takes toward the problem of being.170
In 1909 Rousselot read Blondel’s essay “Le Point de Départ de la Recherche
Philosophique” and his Letter on Apologetics.171 With respect to the former, Rousselot
agrees with Blondel that one must not stop at concepts in philosophical investigation but
push on in the pursuit of being which they pretend to represent. He also agrees with
Blondel’s critique of intuitionist philosophies that would sacrifice reflection to concrete
knowledge, although he does not think Blondel goes far enough in distinguishing of the
role of reflection in philosophy. Rousselot is happier with Blondel’s earlier formulations in
the Letter on Apologetics where he states that the Christian spirit cannot be discovered
within the self but must come from outside. “How marvelously this harmonizes with the
definition of philosophy!” Rousselot observes, “because its object is, according to Blondel,
‘to determine the content, the internal relations, and the conditions of action’ but ‘never to
furnish being.’”172 In a footnote to his essay, “Métaphysique Thomiste et Critique de la
Connaissance,” Rousselot remarks that “Blondel is one of those who have best shown that
knowledge is neither exclusively nor especially representative.”173 Rousselot sent a copy of
169Ibid., 340.170Cf. Pierre Rousselot, “L’Être et l’Esprit,” Revue de philosophie 16 (1910): 562,
where Rousselot claims there are two moments in human intellection: “attitude and knowl-edge or sympathy [connaturalitas], and representation”; cited by Scott, 345.
171Maurice Blondel, “Le Point de départ de la recherche philosophique,” Annales dephilosophie chrétienne (1906); Maurice Blondel, Les Premiers écrits de Maurice Blondel.Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière d'apologétique (1896).Histoire et Dogme. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956).
172Cf. Blondel, Lettre, 65, 66; quoted in Scott, “Maurice Blondel and PierreRousselot,” 343.
173Pierre Rousselot, “Métaphysique thomiste et critique de la connaissance,” Revuenéo-scolastique de philosophie 17 (1910): 502, n. 1; cited by Scott, 337-38.
295
the article to Blondel via Valensin, who noted in his letter that Rousselot had confided that
after Aquinas, Blondel had been the philosopher who had most marked his thought.174
Blondel’s first reactions to Rousselot were mixed. When Rousselot completed his
thesis in 1908, he promptly sent Blondel a copy through their common friend, Auguste
Valensin. Blondel did not have time to read it through right away, but in a short reply to
Valensin he offered some initial impressions: “He makes excessively clear the depth of pa-
ganism, anti-individualism and impersonalism from which Aristotelianism can never be
completely freed. I prefer the Deus-Caritas of St. John to the Deus-Intellectus.”175 Two
weeks earlier he had already written, somewhat sarcastically, to Lucien Laberthonnière:
Yes, I have the Rousselot and I have just now begun to read it. Oh! Thisbeatific vision which is glacial, absolutely cold, an immobile light, a trans-parency without love, a union without heart, this beautiful ideal—and howwell one sees the kind of goodness that such a doctrine engenders amongthose who can penetrate it!176
After he had finished the first part of L’Intellectualisme, Blondel complained again to
Laberthonnière of the “intense irritation” he felt towards the author.177 Blondel reacted most
strongly against Rousselot’s professed intellectualism. He criticized Rousselot’s penchant
for locating the source and essence of human communion with God in the intellect, leaving
aside consideration of the heart, the will and the emotions. Thanks to Rousselot, however,
Blondel acquired an interest in Aquinas. In “La Semaine sociale de Bordeaux et le
monophorisme” Blondel gives some Thomist expression to his thoughts, employing, for
example, the notion of connatural knowledge, which he appears to have garnered from his
reading of Rousselot.178 In 1913, Blondel became the first professor to put Aquinas on the
174Auguste Valensin, Letter to Maurice Blondel, February 29, 1910, in Blondel andValensin, Correspondance, 2: 200; cited by Ossa, 191[527].
175Maurice Blondel, Letter to Auguste Valensin, 5 November 1908, in MauriceBlondel and Auguste Valensin, Correspondance (1899-1912), 2 vols. (Paris: AubierMontaigne, 1957), 38. Quoted also in Scott, 335-36, my translation.
176Maurice Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 20 October 1908, in MauriceBlondel and Lucien Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique (Paris: Seuil, 1961),215-16.
177Maurice Blondel, Letter to Lucien Laberthonnière, 1 November 1908, in Blondeland Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique, 216.
178Cf. Maurice Blondel [Testis, pseud.], “La Semaine sociale de Bordeaux et lemonophorisme,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne 159 (1909): 252-53; cited by Ossa,
296
required reading lists for university examinations in philosophy.179 Blondel’s rapproche-
ment with Aquinas was costly in personal terms, for it further widened the rift that had de-
veloped in his friendship with Laberthonnière.180
Rousselot and Blondel thus gradually came to appreciate one another’s philosophi-
cal foundations. Near the end of his life Rousselot wrote to Blondel, “The Thomistic notion
of possessing intellection (from which have flowed almost all my philosophical ideas) has
led me to hold positions quite close to yours or which coincide with them.”181 While
Blondel never embraced the label intellectualism, he eventually did approve of Rousselot’s
particular brand of it. In a short letter to the editor of the Revue de clergé français in 1919 in
which he protested against the classification of his philosophy as pragmatist, Blondel clari-
fied the meaning of intellectualism especially as it related to his own thought.182 Having
initially regarded the term in a solely pejorative sense, Blondel credits Rousselot with re-
habilitating the notion and using it to critique rationalism.183 Manuel Ossa explains the
affinities between the philosophies of Rousselot and Blondel on the basis of their respective
fusions of Aristotelian and modern thought which set their enterprises apart from their
contemporaries. “A common trait links their thinking,” he notes: “it is their insistence on
the immanence of the faculties.”184 Ossa also suggests that the best way to characterize the
relationship of Rousselot and Blondel, in the absence of any direct personal contact, might
198[534]. Scott, 337, argues the reverse, namely that Rousselot adopted the notion of con-natural knowledge from Blondel, but this makes little sense given that Rousselot incorpo-rates the concept of connatural knowledge in both of his doctoral theses.
179Cf. Alexander Dru, “Introduction” to Maurice Blondel, The Letter onApologetics and History and Dogma, trans. with an introduction by Alexander Dru andIlltyd Trethowan (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1964), 64.
180Cf. Blondel and Laberthonnière, Correspondance philosophique, 242.181From Rousselot’s diary, quoted by Scott, 330.182Maurice Blondel, “Le vrai et le faux intellectualisme,” Revue du Clergé Français
99 (1919): 383-87.183Ibid., 385, n. 1. See also Maurice Blondel, “Le Procès de l’intelligence,” in Le
Procès de l’intelligence, Paul Archambault, et al. (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1922), 229, n. 1.,for more remarks approving Rousselot’s intellectualism.
184Ossa, 193[529].
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be as a “convergence” or a “long-distance collaboration.”185 Neither can be considered a
disciple of the other, and yet they enriched one another’s thinking in significant ways.186
How did Rousselot contribute to the French reception of phenomenology? His
thought complemented Blondel’s and contrasted the dominant of rationalism of the uni-
versities he can certainly be regarded as a contributor the spiritual current that ushered in a
climate favorable to the introduction of Husserl’s thought in France. Rousselot privileges
direct, intuitive knowledge. Although he does not believe that such knowledge is possible
for human beings in their natural state, insofar as it represents their supernatural destiny, he
takes it as the measure for knowledge per se. Husserl does not make a distinction between
natural and supernatural intelligence, yet he is concerned with the structures of ideal or
transcendental knowledge. To access this higher order of knowledge the phenomenologist
must perform an special kind of intuitive act. The phenomenological reduction does not
yield the beatific vision, but it is meant to enable one to grasp directly the essences of things
and one’s own transcendental faculties. Hence, while Husserl and Rousselot would dis-
agree on the nature and conditions of intellectual intuition, their basic notions of intuition
and especially its relevance to philosophy as an epistemological foundation are comparable.
In addition, Rousselot’s dictum that the intellect is a faculty of the real expresses the essen-
tial idea behind Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality. Rousselot’s affirmation points to the
fact that the intellect is always turned toward and focused upon real objects. There is no ab-
solute dynamism. If the intellect is in motion, it is moving toward something definite.
Furthermore, the ideal intellectual state for Rousselot is one of cognitive repose. His static
notion of intellectual intuition lies closer to Husserl than Blondel, for whom all forms of
experience are driven by the dynamism of the will. Indeed, if there is any single aspect of
185Ossa, 191[527]: “. . . il me semble que les notes de Rousselot conseillent plutôtde parler de convergence ou d’un genre particulier de ‘collaboration’ à distance.”
186See also Pedro Descoqs, Praelectiones Theologiae Naturalis (Paris: Beauchesne,1935), 2: 326, who observes that Rousselot was “influencé dans une large mesure, trèscertainement et très manifestement, par L’Action.” Descoqs’s testimony has been cited byAlbert Milet, “Les ‘Cahiers’ du P. Maréchal. Sources doctrinales et influence subies,”Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 43 (1940-45): 250-51, n. 65, and the latter in turn byBouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 41; Somerville, 26.
298
Rousselot’s thought that suggests a point of contact with phenomenology it is precisely his
intellectualism.
C. Rousselot’s Application of Blondelian Insights to Religious Thought
Following the publication of his two doctoral thesis for the Sorbonne, Rousselot
began to address theological issues more directly in his philosophical investigations. His
later essays bear witness to the constant evolution of his thought as well as to the applica-
tion of what we may call his pre-phenomenological insights toward resolving contemporary
problems in religious philosophy, particular those concerning the development of dogma
and the act of faith.
In a short paper presented before his fellow students in the Jesuit scholasticate at
Hastings in March 1909, Rousselot proposed the application of his intellectualist insights to
the notion of the development of dogma.187 The two points that Rousselot aimed to
demonstrate were how dogma, at no matter what stage of its development and explication,
could remain substantially one with what the apostles knew, and secondly, how the Church
could define a dogma without adding anything to what had been said before.188 The two
propositions that Rousselot brought to bear on these matters were the following: 1) “the
true intelligible is the living mind,” and 2) “the true knowledge of the living mind is loving
knowledge.”189 Applying the first proposition to the first problem, Rousselot proposes that
solution lies in affirming that the whole dogmatic teaching of the Church, even its most ab-
stract concepts and statements, is nothing else but the explication of the concrete and per-
sonal knowledge that the apostles had of Jesus of Nazareth, and which they transmitted as
his disciples.190 The witness of the apostles is true because it stems from their lived experi-
ence of the presence of Jesus. The subsequent development of dogmatic teaching marks the
187Pierre Rousselot, “Petite théorie du développement du dogme,” with an intro-duction and notes by Henri de Lubac, Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965): 19[355]-54[390].
188Ibid., 20[356].189Ibid., 21[357]: “Le véritable intelligible est l’esprit vivant. La véritable connais-
sance de l’esprit vivant est la connaissance amoureuse.”190Ibid., 28[364]-29[365].
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conceptual elaboration of their a priori sympathetic knowledge, or knowledge per modum
naturae. The relation of the latter to the former is analogous to the relation of a fraction to its
decimal equivalent: they both express the same reality through different means, the latter
representing a more direct and immediate intuition of that reality than the former. Just as the
intelligible possession of the self is the engine, the goal and regulating idea of the natural
life, and the intelligible possession of God in the beatific vision functions in the same way
for the supernatural life, so the intelligible possession of Jesus—not just His teachings but
Jesus Himself—serves as the engine and the regulating idea of the life of faith as such,
Rousselot argues.191
Rousselot also invokes the second proposition concerning knowledge per modum
naturae to explain to account for how the Church can pronounce new dogmatic teachings
without adding anything to the deposit of faith bequeathed by the apostles. The first point
Rousselot makes is that the Church does not enjoy the same lived experience of Jesus as
the apostles, but that it strives toward remembering that experience by entering more deeply
into the concepts expressed by its dogmatic teaching:
[T]he knowledge by which the Church becomes aware of the truth that itwould define is not strictly speaking vital knowledge or ‘prospection’. It isactually an operation which aims at bringing the residue of the expression ofvital knowledge to the conceptual framework. It is a re-cognition [re-con-naissance].192
Thus, the Church does not add anything new to the deposit of faith because it cannot.
Lacking the original experience which is the foundation of her teaching, the Church can
only try to express in more precise conceptual terms the content of that original experience
for the contemporary generation of believers. The deposit of faith is invariable and persists
through time. It consists in the vital knowledge of Jesus which precedes any question re-
garding doctrine and remains the same after that question has been answered. The note of
infallibility meanwhile consists in a “special exterior protection” which guarantees the
translation of the lived knowledge to an expressed knowledge, from implicit experience to
191Ibid., 39[375].192Ibid., 44[380].
300
explicit teaching.193 Rousselot explains that this passage from the implicit to the explicit
often comprises two stages of development. The first stage is marked by a slow and mys-
terious process of maturation which prepares for general acceptance of the teaching which
is brought to light in a short space of time through a second stage of explication. This
model of doctrinal development can account for how a dogma such as the Immaculate
Conception can be regarded as an essential component of the deposit of faith and yet its
definition by the Church might not occur for several centuries.
Rousselot conceived his theory of the development of dogma in dialogue with con-
temporary theologians including Blondel, Harnack and especially Newman, whom he cites
on more than one occasion.194 Nevertheless, Rousselot’s particular elaboration of the the-
ory derives from his own insights into Aquinas’s distinction between conceptual and con-
natural knowledge which he discovered while preparing his doctoral theses. Rousselot thus
demonstrates the practical application of his intellectualism to the religious sphere. A more
potent example of the practical application of his insights to theological questions is his
account of the act of faith.
The first course Rousselot taught upon his arrival at the Institut Catholique as a pro-
fessor in November 1909 addressed the understanding of the act of faith.195 His intention
was not to prove any new theory, but rather to reconcile the demands of magisterial teach-
ing with the experience of the faithful. In the introduction to his course, Rousselot ex-
plained that “the theologian is bound, or rather protected, by a double limit: on the upper
limit by the pronouncements and teachings of the Magisterium, and on the lower limit by
193Ibid., 45[381].194Due to his years of study in England, Rousselot was certainly well-acquainted
with Newman’s writings. The question of Newman’s influence on his theory of the act offaith has been partially explored by Maurice Nédoncelle, “L’Influence de Newman sur ‘LesYeux de la foi’ de Rousselot,” Revue des sciences religieuses 27 (1953): 321-32.Nédoncelle concludes that while Newman privileges the moral conscience in the act offaith, Rousselot privileges the intellect. Nevertheless, the superiority of assent over infer-ence which is expressed by the notion of the illative sense in the Grammar of Assent finds acertain analogy in the primacy Rousselot accords to synthesis over analysis (p. 328).
195For details regarding Rousselot’s course on faith, De fide et dogmatismo, seeHenri Holstein, “Le Théologien de la foi,” Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965):86[422]-125[461].
301
the spiritual experience of religious persons. To transgress these limits is either to expose
oneself to heresy or to contradict the facts.”196 According to First Vatican Council, the act
of faith must display four notes. It must be at once supernatural and rational, certain and
free. An analysis of religious experience, however, shows that these demands can some-
times come into conflict. How can an act be both reasonable and above reason? How can
the mind believe that something certain and yet be free with respect to the acceptance of its
truth? The problem for the theologian is to reconcile these opposing conditions in an inte-
gral theory.
In the published version of his course lectures, his famous pair of essays on “The
Eyes of Faith,” Rousselot reviews the attempts of contemporary scholastic theologians to
resolve the above dilemma. Most, including Ambroise Gardeil, resolve the act of faith into
a series of discrete steps.197 First, an examination of the various proofs offered by the
Church leads to the judgment of credibility: the individual rationally and legitimately be-
lieves that the doctrine has been revealed by God. This process is usually assisted by grace,
but may be achieved through natural reason alone. Next, the judgment of credentity im-
poses a moral obligation to believe what reason has previously affirmed. Lest the conclu-
sion appear purely natural, however, Gardeil draws a distinction between the rational
judgment of credentity, which is conditional and provisionary, and the supernatural judg-
ment of credentity, which is necessitating and completes the act of faith. According to
Rousselot, theologians who take this psychological approach “restrict themselves to analyz-
ing the elements of representation and overlook the synthetic activity of the intelligence,
whether natural or supernatural.”198 To explain the difference, Rousselot introduces the
analogy of a criminal investigation. Two detectives arrive upon the scene of crime and
196Ibid., 108[444].197Cf. Ambroise Gardeil, La Crédibilité et L'Apolgétique (Paris: Librarie Lecoffre,
1928). For an analysis of Gardeil theory as well as other contemporary theories of the actof faith, including Rousselot’s see Roger Aubert, Le Problème de l'acte de foi. Donnéestraditionnelles et résultats des controverses récentes (Louvain: E. Warny, 1945). For a de-tailed study of Rousselot’s theory see Erhard Kunz, Glaube—Gnade—Geschichte. DieGlaubenstheologie des Pierre Rousselot S.J. (Frankfurt: Josef Knecht, 1969).
198Rousselot, The Eyes of Faith, 26 (emphasis Rousselot’s).
302
record in their reports an identical set of facts. It does not follow, however, that both will
come to the same conclusion about who committed the act. Their interpretations will de-
pend on how they perceive the facts as clues, in other words, how they synthesize the raw
data open to their analysis into a theory that points to the perpetrator of the crime. So it is
with faith, Rousselot contends. Until the intellect is graced with the supernatural light of
faith, the lumen fidei, the individual will not see that the various rational demonstrations
and objective evidences cited by the Church’s apologetical teaching indicate the existence of
a supernatural reality. In Rousselot’s view, therefore, it is a mistake to assume that the
judgment of credibility constitutes a distinct act. Perception of credibility and belief in truth
are identically the same act,” he argues.199 The crucial point to recognize is that “the instan-
taneously acquired habit, call it perceptive knowledge, both precedes and follows its coun-
terpart, perceived knowledge.”200 The continuity between these two kinds of knowledge is
possible only because the natural and the supernatural are not opposed. If this were not the
case, then the supernatural synthesis would require the addition of another cognitive fac-
ulty. Yet, since the latter is not the case, and since there is continuity between the natural
and supernatural orders of knowledge, the act of faith may be said to consist in the eleva-
tion of natural intelligence. Faith, in short, is a “supernatural cognitive activity.”201
The reasonableness of faith derives precisely from its supernaturality. Similarly,
Rousselot would show that the certitude of faith is a function of its freedom. The second
part of the “The Eyes of Faith” opens with an antimony: “The objection runs as follows:
either you see with certitude that God has spoken, or you do not see it with certitude. In the
first case, how can the assent be free? And in the second, how can its certitude be legiti-
mate?”202 The usual explanations destroy one or the other of the notes. On the one hand
there are those who say that one should believe blindly at first, and that afterward under-
standing will come. On the other hand, there are some who say that one should strive first
199Ibid., 31 (emphasis Rousselot’s).200Ibid., 32 (emphasis Rousselot’s).201Ibid., 29.202Ibid., 45.
303
for understanding and then belief will follow of its own accord. According to Rousselot,
the first group delegitimizes the certitude of faith while the second threatens freedom.
Vatican I clearly rejects the blind adherence advocated by the voluntarists, who make up the
first group, so most theologians lean toward the second camp, the intellectualists. Instead
of subordinating the perception of credulity to the will or to love, the intellectualists make a
distinction between two aspects of double movement, separating out the intellectual and
voluntary components and positing a chronological sequence between the two. Rousselot
asserts that this approach is inadequate because once the intellect is convinced, the will is
obliged to follow suit, with the result that the freedom of belief is jeopardized. “In short,”
he says, “it seems that if the act of faith is to conform to the conditions the Church im-
poses, the two following statements must be true at the same time: It is because man wills
that he sees the truth. It is because man sees the truth that he wills.”203 If either of these
statements are taken in isolation, the requirements of dogma, or those of experience, or
both, are not satisfied. The task, therefore, is to show how both can be true at the same
time.
By considering how love complements the intellect in the act of faith, Rousselot
proposes a theory that he believes can satisfy the essential requirements. His premise is that
love and intellect influence each other through a reciprocity of priority and causality. In
some cases, the intellect seizes upon the truth and in turn motivates the will toward its ac-
ceptance. In other cases, the reverse occurs. The will discovers some good and moves to-
ward it while convincing the intellect of its value. “In the phenomenon in question,”
Rousselot point out, “the subject has not explicitly decided to color his understanding. The
will has freely chosen, not the new knowledge as such, but the love, or the manner of liv-
ing that necessarily implies the love.”204 Love can lead the individual to faith without any
preceding judgment of credibility; in a flash, he can exclaim with full certitude and free-
203Ibid., 47-48.204Ibid., 49.
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dom, “‘My Lord and my God!’”205 Here the movements of love and intellect, although
wedded by the stroke of insight, remain discrete: love chooses the Good and the life that
goes with it, meanwhile intellect can examine and perceive the rationality of its decision.
“In the act of faith love needs knowledge as knowledge needs love,” Rousselot affirms:
Love, the free homage to the supreme Good, gives us new eyes. Being, be-come more visible, delights the beholder. The act is reasonable since theperceived clue summons the natural order as witness to the new truth. Theact is free, since man, if he so chooses, can refuse to love his supernaturalGood. Or, to express the same thing in other words: reflection distinguishestwo causal series that co-exist in the act without interfering or intersectingwith each other.206
The two processes, love and knowledge, are not separable as in the scholastic model. They
are both integrated within the living unity of a single act.
In giving the intellect new eyes to see, love restores the natural sympathy for its
proper object, being. Yet, “just as we need eyes for seeing, and need that natural sympathy
for total being which is called intelligence for perceiving things under the aspect of being,”
Rousselot explains, “so for believing we must have that spiritual sympathy for the object of
our belief which is called the supernatural grace of faith.”207 Because the intellect has been
corrupted by sin, a supernatural grace of love is required to reinstate its proper perfection
and orientation to uncreated Being. Hence, while willingness to believe is essential to faith,
it is not sufficient. A spiritual sympathy must be instilled by grace in order to move the in-
tellect to belief. Thus, two conditions must be present before an act of faith can take place,
according to Rousselot. First, there must the presentation of the object of faith, and sec-
ondly, there must be a spiritual faculty capable of grasping it. Lacking the sympathized in-
telligence to perform the synthesis, the elements alone are insufficient. Hence the act of
faith must be understood as an essentially dynamic and graced process.
The emphasis on the dynamic interplay of the faculties of the will and intellect in
“The Eyes of Faith” marks an evolution in Rousselot’s thought with respect to his earlier
205Ibid., 50.206Ibid., 56.207Ibid., 65.
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theses.208 In 1908 connatural knowledge played a relatively minor role, yet by 1910 the
notion of a sympathized intellect takes center stage. What happened in the interval to bring
about this change? Rousselot’s continued study of Blondel may partially account for the
shift. Although it was Blondel who learned the concept of connaturality from Rousselot
and not vice versa, still Blondel’s system expresses the idea more readily in some respects.
The expansion of the will into higher levels of being and the concept of coaction suggest a
kind of connatural sympathy. Ossa, however, points out that Rousselot and Blondel hold
to somewhat different ideas of connaturality since the former relates it to the intellect and
the latter to the will.209 Furthermore, their systematic elaboration proceeds differently. As
Ossa remarks, Rousselot thinks more in terms of a parallelism between the supernatural
knowledge of faith and natural knowledge, whereas Blondel conceives more strongly of a
continuity between the two orders. Around 1910, Rousselot was also reading Hegel, but it
is unlikely that the latter influenced his thought to any great extent, although there is cer-
tainly similarity between Rousselot’s notion of synthesis and the Hegelian Aufhebung.210
Rousselot’s view of the universe as a finite creation which participates in the divine Esse is
vastly different than Hegel’s idea of it as the self-constitution of Absolute Mind.
A more important source of influence on Rousselot’s thought during these years
was his fellow Jesuit, Joseph Maréchal. Maréchal’s philosophy and his contribution to the
reception of phenomenology in French religious thought will be discussed in detail in a
subsequent section, but it is relevant to point out here that Rousselot read Maréchal’s 1909
essay on the feeling of presence in mystics and non-mystics.211 In this essay, Maréchal ar-
gued that the natural impulse of the mind is to affirm the reality of its objects. He portrays
the intellect as “a faculty in search of its intuition, which is to say, an assimilation with be-
208Cf. John M. McDermott, Love and Understanding: The Relation of the Will andIntellect in Pierre Rousselot's Christological Vision (Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice,1983), 149ff.
209Ossa, 204-205.210McDermott, Love and Understanding, 164ff.211Joseph Maréchal, “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et les
mystiques,” Revue des questions scientifiques 64-65 (1908-09): 64: 527-63; 65: 219-49,376-426.
306
ing.”212 According to McDermott, Maréchal’s article contributed to the evolution in
Rousselot’s thought in three specific areas, the first of which is the most relevant to the
present question.213 Whereas in The Intellectualism of St. Thomas Rousselot defined the
finality of the intellect solely in terms of a static contemplation of the beatific vision, after
reading Maréchal he began to give more attention to the natural order of knowledge, refer-
ring even to the “soul’s self-possession” as noted above in his paper on the development of
dogma. This new emphasis on the natural order of knowledge included a recognition of the
dynamism of the intellect.214
212Ibid., 248.213McDermott, “Love and Understanding,” 184-90. Other sources that discuss the
influence of Maréchal on Rousselot include McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 61-63, 70,and Georges Van Riet, L'Épistémologie Thomiste. Recherches sur le problème de la con-naissance dans l'école Thomiste contemporaine (Louvain: Éditions de l’Institut Supérieurde Philosophie, 1946), 301-13. Van Riet, however, tends to explain similarities in theirthought as a product of their common dependence upon Blondel, which he exaggerates.
214Further evolutions in Rousselot’s religious philosophy due to Maréchal’s influ-ence may be discerned in other essays published in 1910. Prior to to this time, Rousselothardly addressed the role of judgment in knowledge. Yet in “Amour spirituel et synthèseaperceptive,” Revue de philosophie 16 (1910): 225-40, he borrowed Maréchal’s notion ofjudgment as an aperceptive synthesis to argue that love is the formal object of the intellect.This won Rousselot the double advantage of assuring the qualitatively supernatural eleva-tion of the intellect as well as insuring that the product of human intellection, namely theconcept, could not be treated in isolation, but had to be referred to the dynamism of the selftoward God as its final end (cf. McDermott, Love and Understanding, 116). In “L’Être etl’Esprit,” Revue de philosophie 16 (1910): 561-74, Rousselot links the themes of judgmentand apperceptive synthesis to the Thomist concept of the species impressa. According to theThomist scheme, human knowledge consists in the impression of the intentional form[species] of an object on the possible intellect through an operation of the active intellect.Once this operation is complete, the knower can express himself in the mental word[verbum] of the judgment. Because the judgment confirms that the mind of the knower hasbeen ontologically similar to the object known in the mental word, Rousselot argues thatthe effect of the species impressa in Aquinas’s metaphysics of knowledge is to produce an“enlightening sympathization of the mind” (p. 563). “Métaphysique thomiste et critique dela connaissance,” Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 17 (1910): 476-509, represents thefinal stage of development in Rousselot’s thought published during his lifetime. Towardsthe end of this essay, Rousselot reverses the a priori strategy which characterizes the argu-ment of The Intellection of St. Thomas. Instead of presupposing the divine and angelic in-tellects as the ideals of human knowledge, Rousselot tries to demonstrate from below, as itwere, how one can conclude to their existence by examining the conditions for the possi-bility of the affirmation of material being. Rousselot contends that in the simplest humanconceptions the mind synthesizes essence and existence in an “natural and primitive act” ofjudgment whereby it affirms “this is a being,” and by implication “being exists” (pp. 497-98). By elaborating a Thomist metaphysics within the critical parameters of post-Kantianphilosophy, Rousselot would thus “renew from the inside” the traditional scholastic proofsfor the existence of God (p. 509).
307
Rousselot’s emphasis in his later essays on the dynamic relationship between the
faculties of intellect and will and his attention to the striving of the natural order of being
toward God under the influence of supernatural grace, both of which owe much to
Maréchal, paradoxically brought his thinking into greater harmony with Blondel. Whereas
in his doctoral theses Rousselot maintained a strict separation and parallelism between intel-
lect and will, by 1910 their identities were becoming confused, converging upon the dy-
namic continuity characteristic of the Blondelian synthesis.215 In a late manuscript, for in-
stance, Rousselot referred to faith as an “intelligent love” [amour intelligent].216 The new
dynamic relationship between intellect and will in turn threatened the distinction between
the natural and supernatural orders which had been previously distinguished on the basis of
cognitive differences between human and angelic intellects. In order to maintain the distinc-
tion and to explain why the natural intellect for all its inherent drive toward the supernatural
could not attain divinity on its own, Rousselot introduced the notion of sin. Although he
insisted in “Amour spirituel”217 and “L’Être et l’Esprit”218 that his argument did not depend
on theological presuppositions, his later writings are marked by an increased theological
orientation.
D. Rousselot’s Contribution to the Theological Reception of Phenomenology
Rousselot applied the insights he gained from his study of Aquinas, Blondel and
Maréchal toward the resolution of pressing theological problems, including the understand-
ing of the development of dogma and the act of faith. His original syntheses of their ideas
not only established significant landmarks in the ongoing struggle of modern theologians to
address these problems, but he also helped prepare fellow neo-Thomist theologians for
their eventual encounters with Husserlian phenomenology.
215Cf. McDermott, Love and Understanding, 175-76.216Holstein, “Le Théologien de la foi,” 125[461].217Cf. Rousselot, “Amour spirituel,” 234, n. 1.218Cf. Rousselot, “L’Être et l’Esprit,” 570, n. 1.
308
Rousselot did not share the anti-intellectual bias common to other French precursors
to the reception of phenomenology. To the contrary, Rousselot championed the cause of
intellectualism, which is significant for the later receptions of Husserlian phenomenology
among neo-Thomists for two reasons. First, Husserl’s own philosophy is decidedly more
intellectualist than anti-intellectualist. Husserl’s intuitionism is a logical intuitionism.
Husserl is concerned with explicating the intelligibility of essences more than with restoring
awareness of their existence. Secondly, although many neo-Thomists did not accept
Rousselot’s definition of intellectualism, they, too, were intellectualists and strongly op-
posed the anti-intellectualism characteristic of the spiritualist and pragmatist philosophies of
Bergson, Blondel, Le Roy and their followers.
On the other hand, Rousselot managed to infuse an intellectualist perspective with
some of the prominent phenomenological characteristics that distinguished French spiritual-
ism and pragmatism. As in these philosophical movements, intuition is privileged over dis-
cursive knowledge. Yet, in Rousselot’s case the privileging of intuition is even more
significant from a phenomenological viewpoint since it is precisely an intellectual intuition
that he makes the ideal of human knowledge. This is not to say that for Husserl and
Rousselot intuition implies the same abilities. It does not. According to Husserl, intuition is
capable of grasping the essence of an object, but in Rousselot’s view this is impossible.
The human intellect can never directly intuit the identity of essence and existence in an
object but only pronounce their identity in an act of judgment.219 Nevertheless, simply by
privileging intuition as an ideal for human knowledge, Rousselot transformed the
intellectualist perspective in such way that it stood nearer the spiritualist camp. Moreover,
in stating the limits of discursive knowledge, and especially in his rejection of a purely
analytical approach to the act of faith, Rousselot in fact draws close to Bergson’s notion of
lived duration.220 Bergson criticized the attempts of analytical reasoning to describe spatial
219Cf. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 71.220Rousselot himself never admitted any kinship or interest in Bergson. In fact, his
rare comments about him are generally negative. Elie Marty, Le Témoignage de PierreRousselot (1878-1915), 2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1940), 258, cites the following re-
309
movement and temporal duration on the basis of their inability to recompose from static
data the dynamic wholes they represent. Likewise Rousselot argued that the magisterial
teachings concerning the act of faith could be satisfied by theories which divide the act of
faith into discrete steps instead of as an integral and dynamic unity of intellect and will.
“Without challenging the validity of the older ‘extrinsic’ form of neo-scholastic
metaphysics,” McCool points out, “Rousselot’s theology of the act of faith helps to free it
from its rationalism and bring it closer to the actuality of lived human experience.”221
Indeed, Rousselot’s theory shows that the act of faith can only be properly approached as
an instance of Bergson would called concrete duration and Husserl lived experience.
Another aspect of Rousselot’s theory of faith that exhibits a phenomenological res-
onance is his recognition that the act represents an elevation of natural cognition as opposed
to the infusion of an extrinsic supernatural faculty. The implication of this observation is
that the light of faith can never be perceived from the outside, as it were. It can only be in-
directly acknowledged through an apperceptive synthesis. The same is true, in a way, for
what Husserl calls the transcendental ego. Since the transcendental ego is the basis for all
structures of experience, it cannot grasp what it is in itself. Though Husserl would never
call it supernatural, the sphere of the transcendentally constituting ego represents a qualita-
tively higher (or lower, depending of the metaphors one prefers to use in describing it) or-
der of experience. Against positivism, naturalism and psychologism, Rousselot, like
Husserl, makes a strong argument for affirming transcendental reality on the basis of the
immanence of consciousness.
mark which Rousselot made to one of his friends upon the election of Bergson to theAcadémie Française: “Pour Bergson, je trouve regrettable de voir un Juif cans ce fauteuil.Au point de vue intellectuel, la tendance générale de sa philosophie me paraît pernicieuse,mais il a des théories de détail justes, neuves et bien fouillées. C’est ce que Daudet ou dumoins Maurras auraient pu dire; l’A.F. [L’Action Française] journal ma paru un peu tropdur; la Revue Critique, pour rétablir l’équilibre, a, selon moi, un peu trop penché de l’autrecôté.—On me dit que Bergson s’est tenu soigneusement tranquille pendant l’affaireDreyfus; on me dit même qu’il admire beaucoup Maurras, mais cela ne suffit pas à justifiersa philosophie. Il a arraché des gens au matérialisme et les a orientés vers la foi: tel ceMaritain converti qui l’attaque maintenant.”
221Ibid., 81.
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It is important to point out in this context that Rousselot’s essentially Aristotelian
notion of intellect does not correspond exactly to what Husserl calls consciousness.
Husserl’s notion is at once comparable to the Cartesian cogito and somehow broader and
vaguer. In his thesis on The Intellectualism of St. Thomas, Rousselot’s definition of intel-
lect is sharp and precise; only later does it get blurred with the faculty of the will.
Nevertheless, in all its various articulations, the intellect does exhibit the characteristic of
intentionality which is so central to Husserlian phenomenology. In his doctoral thesis, the
notion of intentionality or directedness toward an object may be discerned most readily in
the moral context. As for Blondel, directedness is primarily a function of the will. The
intellect, by comparison, is passive and static. Its relationship to objects is secondary to its
relationship to its final end, namely contemplation of the beatific vision. The notions of
connaturality and sympathy are presented in relation to intellect, but Rousselot does not
bring out their dynamic aspects until his later essays. Still even in his earlier works, the
notion of connaturality affirms an a priori ontological unity with being as the basis of all
knowledge of the real. This is a metaphysical assertion from which Husserl would shy
away, but it is serves to ground what Husserl means by intentionality, namely the essential
relation of the mind to objects. Later, under influence of Maréchal, Rousselot affirms that
the intellect is fundamentally ordered to the judgment that being exists. Again, although the
human intellect does not perceive the content of this judgment intuitively, its implicit
affirmation in every act of intelligence shows that for Rousselot the concepts, if not the
terms, of intentionality and directedness toward an object, are as essential to his theory of
knowledge as they are to Husserl’s. Finally, as the role of the sympathized intellect in
Rousselot’s later essays recalls the role played by sympathy in Scheler’s phenomenology
of values. For Scheler as for Rousselot, love both aids the perception of higher values and
is itself the highest value.
To argue that Rousselot’s theories prepared neo-scholastics and neo-Thomist the-
ologians for their eventual encounters with Husserlian phenomenology is not to imply that
311
the outcomes of those encounters were always positive, or for that matter, that Rousselot’s
theories were widely applauded, for neither was the case. Rousselot was criticized from all
directions. From the liberal side, Laberthonnière charged that Rousselot’s intellectualism
“invaded God.”222 From the Neo-Thomist quarter the protests were louder and more nu-
merous. Ambroise Gardeil contested the importance Rousselot placed upon connatural-
ity,223 while Hippolyte Ligeard objected on historical grounds to Rousselot’s theory of the
act of faith, arguing that Aquinas held that the judgment of credibility could be made by the
natural reason alone, apart from grace.224 Finally in 1920, the Superior General of the
Jesuit order, Wlodimir Ledochowski, appointed an international committee of theologians
to examine Rousselot’s teachings. The committee concluded that Rousselot’s account of the
act of faith should not be followed and recommended that Jesuits hold to safer opinions ap-
proved by the Church, whereupon Ledochowski issued a letter in which he forbid Jesuits
to teach or defend Rousselot’s doctrines.225
Thus, to argue that Rousselot’s theories contributed to the reception of phe-
nomenology in France is not to argue that they were accepted, but rather to make the point
his ideas were discussed and were well-known in theological circles and that their affinities
in some areas to Husserlian phenomenology offered points of reference for subsequent in-
vestigations of the significance of phenomenology for French religious thought. The
courses and outcomes of those investigations form the subject of the subsequent chapter.
222Lucien Laberthonnière, “Dogme et théologie: V,” Annales de philosophie chréti-enne 159 (1909): 291.
223Ambroise Gardeil, “Faculté du divin ou faculté de l'être?,” Revue néo-scolas-tique de philosophie 18 (1911): 90-100.
224Hippolyte Ligeard, “La crédibilité de la révélation d’après S. Thomas,”Recherches de science religieuse 5 (1914): 40-57. Rousselot answered the charges ofLigeard and another critic, S. Harent, in an article published together with Ligeard’s; seePierre Rousselot, “Réponse à deux attaques,” Recherches de science religieuse 5 (1914):57-69. An English translation of the latter appears as an appendix to Pierre Rousselot, TheEyes of Faith, trans. Joseph Donceel with an introduction by John M. McDermott (NewYork: Fordham University Press, 1990).
225See Avery Dulles, “Principle Theses of the Position of Pierre Rousselot,” inRousselot, The Eyes of Faith, 113. In a footnote, Dulles notes that Ledochowski’s letterwas upheld in 1951 by then Father General John Baptist Janssens in a comment onHumani generis. Nevertheless, since Vatican II did not reaffirm the relevant passages of theencyclical, Dulles doubts that the prohibitions of the earlier Jesuit generals remain in effect.
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CHAPTER 4
RECEPTIONS OF HUSSERLIAN PHENOMENOLOGY
IN FRENCH RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, 1926-1939
The papal condemnation of the Action Française movement in 1926 signaled an era
of tolerance and openness in French Catholicism to ideas that had been declared off-limits
during the height of the Modernist controversy. Bergson and Blondel began to receive ac-
knowledgment and acceptance among a growing number of theologians during the late
1920s, a trend that would only grow stronger in subsequent decades. During these years of
intellectual exploration, the study of German philosophy also revived. It was encouraged
by the first-hand knowledge brought by scholars like Gurvitch and Levinas who emigrated
from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Communist revolution and the war. These wit-
nesses were principally responsible for guiding the reception and interpretation of phe-
nomenology in French philosophical circles. The reception of phenomenology in French
religious thought, however, did not depend so directly upon their contributions. Instead,
this parallel theological reception depended mainly upon associations made with the phe-
nomenological insights of Bergson and Blondel as well as the traditions of Aristotelianism,
neo-scholasticism and Protestant liberal theology.
I . Jean Héring
Jean Héring helped to correct the interpretation of Husserl that Lev Shestov offered
the academic philosophical community. He also did much more: Héring was the first
French-speaking religious thinker to apply Husserlian phenomenology to problems in reli-
gious philosophy and the philosophy of religion.
315
A. His Life and Works
Jean Héring was born in 1890 in the Alsatian town of Ribeauville. From the con-
clusion of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 until the end of World War I in 1918, Alsace
belonged to Germany, and so the whole of Héring’s intellectual formation was strongly in-
fluenced by the German academic system and traditions.1 He began his career as a student
at the University of Strasbourg, but in order escape the dull philosophical instruction he re-
ceived there, he spent a short time in Heidelberg and then went to study in Göttingen in
1909. Upon his arrival in Göttingen, he started attending all of the courses he could man-
age but eventually settled on those taught by Adolf Reinach and Husserl. In a retrospective
essay, Héring remembers having been “bowled over” by the “unprecedented solidity” of
Husserl’s teaching.2 Instead of remaining only one semester, as he had originally planned,
he stayed three years. At first it was the lectures on Kant, Hume, Ernst Mach and other fig-
ureheads of modern philosophy that attracted Héring, but gradually he came to understand
that Husserl had his own program for a new science called phenomenology which involved
a particular manner of studying the acts of consciousness.
During the winter semester of 1912-13, Héring served as president of the
Philosophische Gesellschaft, a study circle comprised of students of Reinach and Husserl
that had begun meeting more or less informally around 1907.3 Upon completing his exams
in 1914, he remained in Göttingen through the summer in order to defend the thesis which
he had prepared under Husserl’s direction on the a priori according to Hermann Lotze. He
subsequently returned to Strasbourg, but after the war he moved to Paris, where he became
1Between 1870 and 1918 the University of Strasbourg was administered by the
German authorities who tried to model the institution after other German universities, albeitwith only moderate success. See John E. Craig, Scholarship and Nation Building: TheUniversities of Strasbourg and Alsatian Society, 1870-1939 (Chicago: University of Chi-cago Press, 1984).
2See Jean Héring, “La Phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans.Souvenirs et réflexions d’un étudiant de 1909,” Revue internationale de philosophie 1(1939): 367-89.
3See Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Movement, 168. Speigelberg also notes thatthe Göttingen Philosophische Gesellschaft served as a sounding board for Max Scheler,who was without an academic position at the time.
316
the assistant director of the Collège de Théologie Protestante. In 1921, he published
“Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee” in Husserl’s philosophical
yearbook.4 Based on his earlier study of Lotze, this essay examined Husserl’s material
ontology in Ideas with respect to the notions of essence, essentiality and the idea. Héring’s
original contribution consisted in relating Husserl’s distinctions to Aristotelian categories
and in exploring their respective roles for first philosophy. Héring’s pioneering study on
phenomenology and religion, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, was published by
Alcan in 1926.
Later that same year, Héring returned to Strasbourg as professor of moral philoso-
phy and maître de conférences at the Faculté de Théologie Protestante. Immediately follow-
ing his lectures at the Sorbonne in February 1929, Husserl accepted Héring’s invitation to
spend a few days in Strasbourg before returning to Freiburg. Between 8 and 12 March,
Husserl gave a series of four lectures to audiences which included members of both the
Catholic and Protestant theological faculties.5 The lectures were similar, although not iden-
tical, to those given in Paris. No manuscripts survive, and apparently none were ever
worked up. Husserl’s journal notes indicate, however, that he developed the theme of in-
tersubjectivity more explicitly in Strasbourg than in Paris. This account is matched by
Héring’s recollection that the first two lectures addressed the transcendental reduction while
both the third and fourth focused on the problem of intersubjectivity.6 Despite the proxim-
4Jean Héring, “Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee,”
Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 4 (1921): 495-543.5Jean Héring, “Edmund Husserl. Souvenirs et réflexions,” in Edmund Husserl,
1859-1959. Recueil commémoratif publié à l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance duphilosophe, ed. H. L. Van Breda (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959), 28: “. . . Nousn’oublierons pas non plus la grande amabilité avec laquelle, en revenant de ses conférencesà la Sorbonne en 1928 [sic.], il voulut bien consacrer quelques jours de son temps précieuxaux Strasbourgeois, auxquels il donna une conférence très suivie et accorda plusieurs en-tretiens à un petit groupe de philosophes, parmi lesquels nous vîmes appraraître levénérable E. Goblot retiré à Strasbourg, ainsi que le professeur E. Baudin de la Faculté deThéologiqe Catholique, savant compréhensif et sagace qui se lia d’amitié au philosophe deFribourg.”
6Stephen Strasser, “Einleitung” in Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationenund Pariser Vorträge, ed. H. L. Van Breda, vol. 1, Husserliana (The Hague: MartinusNijhoff, 1950), xxiv.
317
ity of Freiburg to Strasbourg, Husserl does not appear to have visited Héring on any other
occasion. Héring and his Göttingen classmate Roman Ingarden, on the other hand, traveled
to Freiburg almost every year until 1936 in order to see their mentor. Husserl always re-
garded Héring as one of his favorite and most faithful students.
Héring’s had other intellectual interests: patristics and New Testament exegesis. In
his memorial homage to Héring, François Wendel said that besides his encounter with
Husserl, the other decisive turning point in Héring’s academic career came with his discov-
ery of Clement of Alexandria.7 Héring wrote a short thesis on Clement’s gnostic doctrines
in 1925 and then went on to study Origen.8 Eventually though, he settled on New
Testament literature and established himself as an exegete with the defense of his doctoral
thesis in 1937 on the Kingdom of God according to Jesus and St. Paul.9 Héring subse-
quently was named honorary professor of New Testament studies in Strasbourg, and went
on to publish commentaries on the epistles to the Corinthians and the Hebrews.10 Having
struggled against ill health most of his life, he was forced to retire in 1957. He died in
Strasbourg in 1966.
B. Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Religion
In his 1926 study, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, Héring argues for a
phenomenological approach to resolving the problem and recovering the valid aspects of
nineteenth-century Protestant theology. Following the first World War, he notes, Protestant
liberal theology had come under attack by a new generation of dogmatic theologians which
7François Wendel, “Hommage de la Faculté de Théologie Protestante à M. Jean
Héring, professeur honoraire (12 septembre 1890 - 23 février 1966),” Revue d’histoire etde philosophie religieuses 46 (1966): 112.
8Jean Héring, Étude sur la doctine de la chute et de la préexistance des âmes chezClément d’Alexandrie (Paris: Leroux, 1925); see also Jean Héring, “La Pensée d’Origène,”Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 9 (1929): 319-40.
9Jean Héring, Le Royaume de Dieu et sa venue. Étude sur l’espérance de Jésus etde l’Apôtre Paul (Paris: Alcan, 1937).
10See Jean Héring, La Première Epître de saint Paul aux Corinthiens (Neuchâtel andParis: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1949; 2nd rev. ed. 1959; translated London, Epworth Press,1962) and Jean Héring, L’Epître aux Hébreux (Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé,1959).
318
included Emil Brunner, Friedrich Gogarten and Karl Barth.11 These theologians struggled
to free religious truths from their enslavement to psychological explanations. They were not
the only ones who had this ambition, however, nor were their methods the most effective.
Héring points out that members of the Barthian school failed to take account of the inherent
intentionality of consciousness and so their theories tended either toward subjectivism or
dogmatism. Héring dedicates the first part of his work to explaining the causes of the con-
temporary crisis in religious philosophy, while in the later parts he offer solutions.
Héring begins by clarifying terminology. He first distinguishes philosophy of reli-
gion, which he defines as “a category of inquiries having for their object religion itself,”
from the more comprehensive designation religious philosophy, comprises “the set of
propositions which have as their theme God or the world or man or some other entity as
seen from the angle of natural or positive religion.”12 In other words, religious philosophy
is inspired by reflection upon a given religious tradition. It incorporates philosophy of reli-
gion because it depends upon the latter to furnish philosophical justification for its point of
departure. In this regard, religious philosophy differs from dogmatics, which likewise
takes inspiration from positive religion but is not obligated to provide philosophical justifi-
cation for its content. Religious philosophy is also distinct from rational theology. While
the latter offers a series of philosophical affirmations about God it does so without refer-
ence to a specifically religious context, and sometimes while repudiating any religious ele-
ment. Religious philosophy, however, does have a metaphysical aspect insofar as meta-
physics concerns an entity which is represented as inaccessible to empirical study but is af-
firmed as actually existing. Metaphysics is distinct from ontology, which deals only with
possible being or being in general. Accordingly, philosophy of religion may address onto-
logical issues, but because it does not posit the reality of its objects it is not metaphysical.
Héring returns to these distinctions throughout his essay in order to show in what specific
11Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 5ff., and also Jean Héring,“La Phénoménologie en France,” in L’Activité philosophique en France et aux Etats-Unis,ed. Marvin Farber (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), 77-80.
12Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 7.
319
ways phenomenology can contribute to philosophy of religion and especially to religious
philosophy.
In the first part of his book, Héring gives an account of how the religious philoso-
phy of the nineteenth century progressively fell into psychologism. In the Glaubenslehre,
Schleiermacher separated religion from reflection in order to protect it from the agnosticism
which characterized eighteenth-century rational theology. Separation, however, was not
sufficient. The various manifestations of religious consciousness affirmed by
Schleiermacher’s approach demanded analysis and organization. Empirical psychology an-
swered the call. Its purely descriptive and non-evaluative methodology however, induced
skepticism regarding the nature of religious phenomena. Thus, the psychology of religion
which had descended previously from philosophy of religion now degenerated into pure
psychologism.13
In order to escape from the agnosticism in which religion had once again become
entangled, various attempts were undertaken at the end of the nineteenth century to rescue
it. The first of these was historicism. The basic strategy of historicism was to uncover,
through the study of the evolution of religion, some underlying principle that served as its
foundation and animated its growth. Historians of religion such as Ernst Troeltsch, how-
ever, gradually became aware that their investigations presupposed the very principles for
which they searched, and so the new history of religion proved no better than the old phi-
losophy of religion.14 Contemporaneous with the historicist movement were the related in-
vestigations into religion by sociologists. Sociologists like Durkheim explained the various
manifestations of religion as expressions of social desire. The test of a religion, accord-
ingly, was its fruit in the social sphere. In this respect, the sociological approach to religion
appeared to be simply a variation on pragmatism. Meanwhile pragmatism was shown to be
nothing but an outward projection of psychologism: it helped to explain religion but could
not justify it. On Héring’s view, the only type of pragmatism that had any value for philos-
13Ibid., 11-14.14Ibid., 17-18.
320
ophy of religion was one which recognized “in the prior adoption of a certain mental atti-
tude, whether moral or religious, the necessary condition for every valid verification of re-
ligious truth.”15 Only a system that presupposed the reality of the religious phenomenon,
like the experimental intuitionism of Le Roy (though Héring doesn’t mention his name),
could stand before the critique of psychologism because it depended upon a completely dif-
ferent kind of epistemology.
Another attempt to break away from psychologism, a mindset as strong in Germany
as pragmatism outside the continent, was the neo-Kantian movement. Some neo-Kantians
proposed that alongside of the transcendental faculties in human consciousness there ex-
isted a religious a priori with an independent set of exigencies. Yet this attempt also failed
to avoid collapsing into psychologism, even among philosophers of religion like Troeltsch
who, following Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert, replaced Kantian criticism with
Fichte’s system of absolute values. How then is it possible to avoid the reduction of reli-
gious philosophy to psychologism if all of these several avenues turned out to be dead
ends? With this question Héring closes the first part of his essay—but not without offering
a glimmer of hope: there is a yet another group of philosophers who have struggled against
this common foe. Having achieved success in the realm of pure logic, followers of the
phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl might be able to help religious philoso-
phy triumph once and for all over psychologism. Héring devotes the second part of his es-
say to expounding its methods and doctrines, for he claims:
Husserlian phenomenology, which can also be qualified as the phe-nomenology of consciousness, far from being a return to the psychologismbattered down by the Prolegomena, is on the contrary the only ground uponwhich it can be radically destroyed.16
Because Héring’s introduction to phenomenology in the second part of Phénoménologie et
Philosophie Religieuse was already discussed in the last chapter, the following pages focus
15Ibid., 24 (emphasis Héring’s).16Ibid., 67. Prolegomena refers to “Prolegomena to Pure Logic,” the title of the
first volume of the first (1900) and second (1913) editions of Husserl’s LogicalInvestigations.
321
on the aspects of Héring’s interpretation of Husserl deal with theology. These may be
found in the third part of his study, which bears the programmatic title, “The Contributions
of the Phenomenological Movement to the Reconstruction of Religious Philosophy.”17 It is
divided into three chapters which explore respectively: 1) how the intuitionist principle of
phenomenology might play a role in religious philosophy, 2) how the phenomenological
doctrine of essences might serve the philosophy of religion, and 3) how the intentionalist
epistemology of phenomenology might contribute to the theory of religious knowledge. To
illustrate the application of phenomenology to each of these domains, Héring turns to
Scheler, who in On the Eternal in Man defines three essential tasks for phenomenological
inquiry into religion: 1) to establish an a priori ontology of divinity [Wesensontik des
Göttlichen], 2) to offer a theory of the different forms of revelation, and 3) to study the re-
ligious act, not only in its immanent characteristics, but also and especially with respect to
its intentional character, that is, its relation to a real or imaginary transcendental entity.18
Héring relates these three tasks to the respective domains listed above. The following ex-
position examines each of these topics in turn, making occasional reference to earlier por-
tions of Héring’s thesis in order to clarify certain points.
In order to understand how Héring envisioned the application of the intuitionist
principle of phenomenology to religious philosophy, it will be helpful to recall how Héring
described this principle in Part II of his thesis. There he noted that the intuitionist principle
upon which Husserl grounds his phenomenology opposes any naïve dogmatism which
would accord philosophical value to scientific or pre-scientific concepts or constructions.
Borrowing Le Roy’s phrase, Héring referred to phenomenology as a “new positivism” [un
positivisme nouveau] because it admits to philosophical consideration only those forms of
evidence which give themselves originally and immediately to consciousness.19 Héring
17Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 87-140: “Les Apports dumouvement phénoménologique à la reconstruction de la philosophie religieuse.”
18Ibid., 89-90. Cf. Max Scheler, Vom Ewigen in Menschen (Leipzig: Neuer Geist,1921), 376-79.
19Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 42; cf. Édouard Le Roy, “UnPositivisme nouveau,” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 9 (1901): 138-53.
322
also cited Adolf Reinach’s way of describing the task of phenomenology: “‘not to reduce or
explain, but to lead and to explore.’”20 Hence, Héring argued that phenomenology should
not be regarded as a philosophical method, because the actual method employed in a given
field of investigation will vary and depend upon on the particular nature of that field rather
than upon some formal systematic determination.21 Neither should the intuitionist principle
be considered a method, Héring observed, since it only indicates a direction and a orienta-
tion to phenomena. On this basis, Héring contends in the third part of his thesis that a sepa-
rate phenomenological investigation of religion and theology is not only justified, but fur-
thermore demands a particular methodology and course of development. Scheler’s attempt
to outline an ontology of divinity illustrates this point well, and he devotes several pages to
its description. Héring begins by noting that according to Scheler, the religious path and the
metaphysical path both lead to the same destination and for that reason he refers to his the-
ory as a Konformitätssystem—a system of harmony and conformity. Because of this ten-
dency to systematize, Héring criticizes Scheler for not adhering more closely to Husserl’s
principles; Scheler’s vague references to the harmony of human nature fall short of being
rigorous descriptions of specific acts of consciousness, and recall instead the metaphysical
presuppositions which phenomenology is supposed to rule out. Nevertheless, while
Scheler does not follow phenomenological techniques to the letter, overall Héring grants
that “his way of understanding the task of religious philosophy is faithful enough to the
phenomenological attitude, which is to make the religious phenomena speak in as broad a
manner as possible.”22 Furthermore, the extent of Scheler’s application of phenomenology
to religious phenomena goes beyond not only psychological interpretations of religion but
20Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 43: “pas de ‘réduire’ et
d’‘expliquer,’ mais de ‘conduire’ et d’‘explorer.’” Héring here quotes Adolf Reinach,Gesammelte Schriften (1921), p. 384: “Deskriptive Psychologie [which Héring notes ispresented as an example of science which employs the phenomenological method] sollnicht erklären und zurückführen, sondern sie will aufkären und hinführen.”
21Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 43. Note that Héring de-scribes an Aristotelian approach to science, although he does not say so directly.
22Ibid., 92.
323
also beyond the boundaries of what Héring would define as the philosophy of religion.
“We are in the presence of a genuinely religious philosophy,” he remarks.23
Integral to Scheler’s ontology of divinity is his phenomenological philosophy of
values. Here the intuitionist principle of phenomenology enables Scheler to overcome the
dualism of epistemological systems which reduce evidence either to purely external sensa-
tions or to purely immanent psychological manifestations. The phenomenological affirma-
tion that the mind intuitively grasps states of affairs [Sachverhalten] helps to explain the
nature of an important class of transcendental objects, namely values.24 Neither purely
empirical nor purely formal, values are material essences whose meaning contents are in-
tended and grasped intuitively by consciousness. “These are not cold theoretical statements;
they are characterized by a certain emotive warmth, which allows one to say that values are
felt by the heart,” Scheler comments, taking inspiration from Pascal.25 Yet a value is not
precisely a feeling. Feelings are merely reactions to perceived values. To emphasize the in-
dependent and transcendent nature of the latter, Scheler sometimes refers to them as value-
essences. Furthermore, he observes that values may be organized hierarchically: utilitarian
values form the base of the pyramid, while intellectual, aesthetic and moral values consti-
tute the middle layers, and finally religious values stand at the summit. Because religious
values are essences like other values, and because phenomenology is a method for gaining
access to essences, Scheler contends that religious values, too, can be investigated phe-
nomenologically.26 He begins his discussion of religious values by referring to the investi-
gations of Rudolf Otto into the concept of the holy.27 Otto never associated himself with
23Ibid., 90.24We may be reminded that for Husserl the notion of Sachverhalten or states of af-
fairs is crucial for his theory of judgment (cf. Husserl, Ideas, §94; Gibson, 272-76).25Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 94.26Héring anticipates here his observations concerning the relevance of the phe-
nomenology of essences for the philosophy of religion which follow in the next section.27Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein
Verhältnis zum Rationalem (Breslau: Trewendt und Granier, 1917). A French translation ofOtto’s essay was published in 1948: Rudolf Otto, Le Sacré. L’Elément non-rationnel dansl’idée de divin et sa relation avec le rationnel, trans. anonymous (Paris: Payot, 1948). Amonograph study, however, had appeared in the early 1920s: Auguste Antoine Lemaitre,La Pensée religieuse de Rudolf Otto et le mystère du divin (Lausanne: La Concorde, 1924).
324
Husserl although they both taught concurrently at Göttingen for a number of years.
Furthermore, Otto never called himself a phenomenologist, although many, including
Husserl himself, praised his 1917 essay, Das Heilige, for being the first successful appli-
cation of the descriptive methods of phenomenology to the study of religion.28 Scheler as
well interprets Otto in this manner and tries to relate his own phenomenology of religious
values to the latter’s work. Scheler finds in “the numinous a sui generis value-essence
whose vision can, according to the circumstances, be triggered by a wide variety of empiri-
cal givens.”29 By showing that value-essences are bound to the empirical manifestations
while at the same time transcending them, Scheler argues that phenomenology helps to ex-
plain how the experience of the holy can be provoked under a variety of situations.
Scheler’s discussion of religious values, however, is only preliminary step to what
he refers to as an ontology of divinity. Preliminary but necessary, he adds, for other at-
tempts at grounding such an ontology have failed. For example, the neo-Kantians have not
been able to secure a religious a priori either by abstraction, by induction or by studying the
exigencies of a postulated religious consciousness. Scheler argues, however, that a firm
basis for an ontology of divinity can be obtained through phenomenological investigation
of specifically religious acts whose object is a real being incarnating the divine essence.
Such acts belong to the essence of Christianity. In Christianity, natural theology or meta-
physics is united with revelation, but only a phenomenological investigation can supply ad-
equate evidence to support this contention. Scheler’s attempt to sketch an ontology of di-
vinity thus demonstrates how phenomenology can play an integral role in Christian reli-
gious philosophy.
From Scheler, Héring passes for a moment to Husserl, whom he finds has little to
say about theological problems. Nonetheless, Héring calls attention to two significant pas-
28In a letter to Otto dated 5 March 1919, Husserl writes: “It is a first beginning for aphenomenology of religion . . . this book will retain an abiding place in the history ofgenuine philosophy of religion, or rather phenomenology of religion” (quoted by Philip C.Almond, Rudolf Otto. An Introduction to His Philosophical Theology (Chapel Hill: Uni-versity of North Carolina Press, 1984), 87.
29Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 98.
325
sages in Ideas concerning the notion of divinity. In a note following §51, Husserl consid-
ers whether the world might not possess a teleology that is inexplicable of itself. If the
answer is affirmative, and Husserl seems persuaded that it is, then the question of God is
posed unavoidably. Yet if God represents an all-encompassing teleological principle, then
God would have to be transcendent not only to consciousness but also to the world, and so
transcendent in an absolutely unique sense. Héring quotes the passage where Husserl
reasons:
[S]ince a world-God is evidently impossible, and since, on the other hand,the immanence of God in the absolute Consciousness cannot be grasped asimmanence in the sense of Being as experience [Erlebnis] (which would beno less absurd), there must be in the absolute stream of consciousness andits infinities other ways of manifesting the transcendent than the constitutingof thing-like realities as unities of appearances that agree together; and fi-nally there must be intuitive manifestations to which theorizing thought canadjust itself, and by following the indication of which in a reasonable spiritwe might come to understand the single rule of the assumed theologicalprinciple.30
Héring finds further evidence of Husserl’s affirmation of a teleological and hence theologi-
cal principle in the universe in §58 of Ideas. Anticipating the direction of neo-Kantian at-
tempts to Husserl writes: “We pass by all that might lead to the same principle from the side
of the religious consciousness, even though its argument rests on rationally grounded mo-
tives.”31 Rereading the first passage in light of this latter one, however, Héring finds that
like Scheler, although in a different manner, Husserl envisions the possibility of develop-
ing a religious philosophy and a theological metaphysics as two complementary but inde-
pendent sciences that would lead to a theology properly so-called.32
30Husserl, Ideas, “Note” following §51; Gibson, 157. Cf. Héring,
Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 100-101: “Il faut donc qu’il y ait dans le flux dela conscience avec ses aspects infinis, encore d’autres espèces de manifestations d’entitéstranscendantes, que la constitution des entités réiformes en tant qu’unités de phénomènesconcordants; et enfin ces manifestations seraient d’ordre intuitif; la pensée s’adaptera àelles, de manière à pouvoir, en les suivant intelligemment, faire comprendre une actiond’ensemble du principe théologique supposé.”
31Husserl, Ideas, §58; Gibson, 174. Cf. Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophiereligieuse, 101: “Nous passons sous silence les motifs qui, de la part de la conscience re-ligieuse, peuvent conduire au même principe, motifs lui fournissant une base rationnelle.”
32One may argue that in making the preceding claim, Héring unfairly extrapolatesHusserl’s intention. After all, in §58 of Ideas (Gibson, 173), Husserl explicitly suspendsthe transcendence of God: “After abandoning the natural world, we strike in our course
326
From applications of the intuitionist principle of phenomenology to religious phi-
losophy and the ontology of divinity specifically, Héring next explores how the phe-
nomenological doctrine of essences might contribute to philosophy of religion. In this con-
text, Héring takes up the second task which Scheler defines for a phenomenological inquiry
into religion, namely an investigation and description of the various modes of revelation,
which entails above all an examination of personal and collective religious experience.
Héring notes that Neo-Kantian philosophers of religion sought to justify traditional reli-
gious beliefs by searching for a religious a priori in human consciousness. In this vein
Troeltsch had suggested that there may certain laws or rational structures governing the re-
ligious experience. A phenomenological approach might help to uncover these, but here
one must be careful to avoid psychologism, Héring warns. While it is certainly admissible
to undertake an empirical investigation of the psychological phenomena associated with re-
ligious experiences, the properly phenomenological path would be to examine the essences
of different kinds of religious experience and then to describe their necessary relations.
This is precisely what Scheler does in the first part of On the Eternal in Man, where he pre-
sents the phenomenology of repentance and rebirth and demonstrates the essential connec-
tion of these two moments of religious conversion. This kind of phenomenological analysis
applied to religious experience in general (according to Héring, the true meaning of a reli-
another transcendence, which is not given like the pure Ego immediately united to con-sciousness in its reduced state, but comes to knowledge in a highly mediated form, stand-ing over against the transcendence of the world as if it were its polar opposite. We refer tothe transcendence of God.” Nevertheless, if the God worshipped by religion has no placein a rigorously phenomenological investigation, there does seem to be room for an absoluteof another kind. The question of teleology is not eliminated by the bracketing of naturallaws. “On the contrary,” Husserl remarks, “the transition to pure consciousness throughthe method of the transcendental reduction leads necessarily to the question concerning theground of what now presents itself as the intuitable actuality [Faktizität] of the correspond-ing constituting consciousness” (Ideas, §58; Gibson, 174). Husserl nevers associates thisground with the God of any positive religion, however. We must therefore conclude thatfor Husserl, there remains perhaps the possibility for a phenomenological philosophy ofreligion but not a religious philosophy, at least not according to Héring’s definition of theterm.
327
gious a priori) may help in turn to furnish criteria for evaluating individual experiences and
even for diagnosing certain spiritual maladies.33
Yet it is one thing to describe the essence of individual religious experience and an-
other to describe the essence of a particular religious form, such as Christianity. To de-
scribe the latter, one must take account of the stable core that has endured through history.
Because of its ever-changing historical manifestations, Troeltsch argues that the essence of
Christianity can only be grasped intuitively as a whole. The historical sciences, however,
cannot perform this necessary step, and hence another approach is needed. Héring explains
that in this case phenomenology can be used to distinguish the essences of ordinary percep-
tual objects from the essences of uniquely given objects, such as those belonging to the re-
ligious sphere. Phenomenology makes possible the isolation and identification of the ideal
essences of the latter while avoiding the snare of idealism. Héring contends that “these
ideas, once uncovered, can in turn guide the philosophy of history when it considers until
what point a given group of events or a given stage of a particular religion expresses one of
its essential aspects.”34 The problem would be different, however, if one were to examine
the essence of a particular religion only at a particular stage of its historical development. In
this case the phenomenologically oriented historian would be faced with the challenge of
linking the essences of successive historical periods through time. The pursuit would yield
fruit, however, in showing that either there is a higher essence binding the stages together
or that no such essence exists, which would mean that a historical rupture in the religion
had occurred. A proper application of the phenomenological investigation of essences
would eliminate two types of confusion: first, mistaking empirical essences for categorial
essences, and secondly, mistaking subordinate qualities for essences. In these ways phe-
nomenology could help to accomplish the historical tasks which Troeltsch envisioned but
lacked the adequate tools to carry out.
33Héring, Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse, 105-106.34Ibid., 113.
328
Finally, Héring considers the value of a third aspect of phenomenology for reli-
gious philosophy, namely its intentionalist epistemology. Héring has in mind the task de-
scribed by Scheler as the analysis of the religious act with respect to its intentional relation
to a transcendental entity, although he keeps Scheler in the background for most of this
chapter. Héring begins by noting that the intentionalist conception of consciousness ad-
vanced by phenomenology can be used to criticize those theories of religious psychology
which maintain that religious belief depends on a set of psychic motivations rather than
upon a relation to a real object.35 Phenomenology, he argues, can overcome the danger of
judging the value of religious experiences subjectively. On the one hand, its theory of evi-
dence demonstrates that true religious experiences must be open to verification by others,
while on the other, it accounts for the fact that religious experiences vary according to dif-
ferences in spiritual maturity and transcendental capacity.36 The discipline of phenomenol-
ogy precisely helps to develop these capacities, thereby proving its worth for this field of
investigation. Furthermore,
An impartial study of religious consciousness will reveal without a doubt acharacteristic to which only the intentionalist conception of consciousnesscan do justice, namely that it is always and essentially not a state of soulpure and simple, nor the consciousness of the latter, but the consciousnessof a transsubjective sui generis entity to which it stands in relation.37
This conception of a phenomenological religious philosophy would not entail the dogmatic
presupposition of the existence of this transcendent object, for such a presupposition would
be bracketed in accordance with Husserl’s transcendental reduction. “A religious philoso-
phy with a Husserlian epistemology as its foundation,” Héring concludes, “would effec-
tively realize one of the most legitimate ambitions of modern theology by faithfully accept-
ing Cartesian doubt as a judge of its solidity and its point of departure.”38 Because it would
35Ibid., 120.36Ibid., 125. In these respects, Héring asserts that phenomenology can help to rein-
force the observations of the religious psychologist Henri Bois (cf. Henri Bois, La Valeurde l’expérience religieuse (Paris: Nourey, 1908).
37Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 128-29.38Ibid., 130.
329
be intentionalist, it would not founder in psychologism; because would be eidetic, it would
not get mired in empiricism.
Nevertheless, Héring asks, would not such a religious philosophy be condemned to
agnosticism if it continually refrained from making any pronouncement regarding the exis-
tence of its transcendental object? Husserl never moves beyond the eidetic plane to address
such problems. Yet Héring thinks that the suspension of judgments of existence need only
be provisional because they are essentially methodological. He asserts, in fact, that only the
phenomenologist is qualified to speak about the meaning of existence on account of his
methodological discipline. Although Héring does not develop the ontological implications
of his contention, he anticipates the direction Heidegger would soon take phenomenology.
Instead, Héring makes reference to the pragmatic approach of Édouard Le Roy, who ar-
gues that religious experience depends on practical faith and moral certitude. Because ev-
eryday moral living is founded on these assumptions, any bracketing of their existence can
only be methodological and provisional. The reality of religious experience and its object
can consequently be affirmed though practical means.39
Héring classifies the phenomenological proofs used to affirm the existence of God
into three types.40 First, there are purely rational or metaphysical demonstrations which are
independent of any particular religion, such as the teleological argument. Secondly, there
are combinations of speculative reflections and religious statements. Belonging to this type
are Scheler’s revival of the Cartesian attempt to demonstrate that God is author of our reli-
gious acts as well as Alexandre Koyré’s study of the Anselmian version of the ontological
argument.41 Finally, there are purely hierological arguments which indicate rather than
demonstrate the existence of God. According to the last type of argument, which is em-
ployed both by Scheler and Le Roy, there can be no such thing as an atheist because one
39Ibid., 132-33.40Ibid., 133-37.41Cf. Scheler, Vom Ewigen in Menschen, 396-402, 524-25, 565-90, and
Alexandre Koyré, L’Idée de Dieu dans la philosophie de Saint Anselme (Paris: Leroux,1923). For further discussion of the phenomenological aspects of Koyré’s work, seeHéring, “La Phénoménologie en France,” 80-82.
330
conception of God can only be denied in light of a higher concept. This argument, Héring
observes, depends upon a particular intuition of a phenomenological nature wherein lies its
strength and value. In summary he adds:
In all of these remarks, we have continually designated by divinity not oneof those numerous possible or real beings to which the phenomenon of thedivine might accidentally become attached (and which is incorrectly calledan intermediary between the human being and God), but God himself, theone who fully and adequately realizes the attributes inherent in the divine apriori.42
In this light, an important contribution of phenomenology to philosophy of religion is that it
permits the evaluation of the concepts of God proposed by the various religions and their
corresponding forms of the act of faith.
In the conclusion to his study and resuming the three points outlined above, Héring
states that phenomenology can help to effect syntheses between several opposing currents
in contemporary religious philosophy: 1) a synthesis between theocentric and anthropocen-
tric tendencies through the creation of an ontology of divinity on a firm epistemological
foundation, 2) a synthesis of a priori and experimental elements through the notion of
essences that are rich in objective content, and 3) a synthesis of personalist and objectivist
concerns through the affirmation of religious experiences that are at once personal and ob-
jectively valid.43 In addition, Héring stresses that while there remains a place for a psy-
chology of religion, it must not be confused with phenomenological religious philosophy.
The latter incorporates an eidetic philosophy of religion but not an eidetics of individual re-
ligious experience (i.e., an eidetic psychology) nor an empirical or sociological religious
psychology. Phenomenology restores the autonomy of religious philosophy with respect to
these other disciplines.
C. Héring’s Application of Phenomenology to R eligious Thought
Héring was the only Protestant theologian in France to take serious account of phe-
nomenology prior to 1939. He was also the only French theologian, Catholic or Protestant,
42Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 140 (emphasis Héring’s).43Ibid., 141.
331
who had actually studied or had any considerable contact with Husserl. While a student in
Göttingen, he also had the chance to become acquainted with Max Scheler. Thus, Héring
must be regarded as one of the most equipped and most reliable interpreters of phe-
nomenology in France. He was also one of the first to critically evaluate the application of
phenomenological methods to religious philosophy and philosophy of religion.
Héring drew upon the resources of phenomenology in order to renew the revolution
in religious philosophy initiated by Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher recognized that the
only way to talk meaningfully about the objects of religion is to place oneself inside the re-
ligious consciousness. The fact that religious philosophy after Schleiermacher degenerated
into philosophy of religion and psychologism was not due to Schleiermacher’s reorienta-
tion of the religious question, but rather to the manner in which subsequent analyses of re-
ligious consciousness were carried out.44 Phenomenology, in Héring’s opinion, can com-
plete Schleiermacher’s revolution because its rigorous methodology of intentional and es-
sential analysis is better suited to the task.
Héring’s application of phenomenology to religious thought may be understood and
appreciated not only with reference to modern philosophy and theology, but also against
the background of traditional forms of philosophy, especially Aristotelianism and
Augustinianism. One Aristotelian aspect of Héring’s appropriation of phenomenology is
his insistence that the intuitionist principle of phenomenology ought not be to called a
method. This is so, Héring argues, because the actual method that one must use in ap-
proaching a given field of investigation depends on the nature of the particular field rather
than upon formal criteria. Héring never explicitly states that he favors an Aristotelian ap-
proach to science, but in practice he does. For example, in another place, Héring compares
Husserl’s eidetic reduction to the scholastic method of “precisive abstraction” [abstraction
précisive].45 In general, the Aristotelian aspects of Héring’s appropriation of phenomenol-
44Jean Héring, “La Phénoménologie d’Edmund Husserl il y a trente ans. Souvenirs
et réflexions d’un étudiant de 1909,” Revue internationale de philosophie 1 (1939): 372.45Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 53.
332
ogy are related more to methodological issues than to matters of content. Augustinianism
elements, on the other hand, are more central. For example, Héring’s discussion of the role
of the intuitionist principle of phenomenology in religious philosophy stresses the immedi-
acy of intuitional knowledge. The Augustinian emphasis in Héring’s proposals for a phe-
nomenological religious philosophy undoubtedly derive from Scheler, for whom Augustine
represented the master of religious experience.46 One of the overarching arguments of On
the Eternal in Man is that a phenomenological natural theology should be used to recover
Augustine’s insight into the immediacy of the soul’s contact with God:
This task it can only perform once it has delivered the kernel ofAugustinianism from the husklike accretions of history, and employed phe-nomenological philosophy to provide it with a fresh and more deeply rootedfoundation. . . . When this has been done, natural theology will more andmore clearly reveal and demonstrate that immediate contact of the soul withGod which Augustine, from the experience of his great heart, was strivingwith the apparatus of neo-Platonism to capture and fix in words. Only atheology of the essential experience of divinity can open our eyes to the losttruths of Augustine.47
In recovering Augustinian intuitionism, Scheler also brings back a Platonic philosophy of
essences in the form of a philosophy of values. With Scheler and against Husserl, Héring
emphasizes the simple apprehension of value-essences over the constitution of such objects
in consciousness. This emphasis was more characteristic of members of the Göttingen cir-
cle than Husserl’s himself. It will be remembered, however, that as a phenomenologist
Scheler was perhaps more influenced by Reinach than Husserl, and that his religious
thought was largely formed by Rudolf Eucken.
In applying phenomenological methods and insights to religious philosophy,
Héring gives a more important role to the Augustinian and Platonic aspects of phenomenol-
ogy than to its Aristotelian features. Could this be a reflection of Héring’s own Protestant
46On the relationship between phenomenology and Augustinianism see also
Scheler, “Liebe und Erkenntnis” in Max Scheler, Krieg und Aufbau (Leipzig: WeisseBücher, 1916). Héring, Phénoménologie et Philosophie Religieuse, 78, n. 77, also men-tions Josef Geyser, Augustin und die phänomenologische Methode der Gegenwart(Münster: Aschendorff, 1923).
47Scheler, On the Eternal in Man, preface to the first German edition, 13 (emphasisScheler’s).
333
background, or does it signal the necessary orientation of a phenomenological religious
philosophy? Scheler, too, was formed by the Protestant tradition before professing the
Catholic faith. Moreover, as a Catholic, Scheler preferred the dialectic of Pascal to scholas-
ticism in any of its forms. On the other hand, Héring was quite critical of the dogmatism of
the Barthian movement in contemporary Protestantism while he seemed to appreciate Le
Roy’s pragmatic approach to doctrine. Likewise Scheler criticized Luther for creating a di-
chotomy between religion and morality and for displacing salvation from the social or ec-
clesial sphere to the individual.48 Hence, it would be wrong to conclude that because
Scheler’s and Héring’s interpretations of phenomenology emphasize certain Augustinian
themes that they are therefore intrinsically Protestant as opposed to Catholic. Augustine
belongs as much to Roman Catholics as German Lutherans. Furthermore, it would be pre-
mature to conclude that Augustinian elements are incompatible with Aristotelian elements in
a phenomenological religious philosophy simply because neither Scheler nor Héring
explicitly tries to link them. Before any judgments on these questions can be made, the
interpretations and applications of phenomenology by other religious thinkers needs to be
examined.
II. Gaston Rabeau
Jean Héring, a Protestant, was the first to propose the significance of Husserl’s in-
sights for theology and to introduce Scheler’s phenomenological philosophy of religion to
French religious thinkers. His efforts in this regard were reinforced during the late 1920s
and 1930s by the writings of a Catholic apologist and philosopher, Gaston Rabeau.
A. His Life and Works
Gaston Rabeau (1877-1949) studied theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris and
in his later years completed the requirements for a doctorate in philosophy at the Sorbonne.
A priest of the Oratory, he initially taught at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland but
48Cf. Ibid., 289, 369.
334
by the early 1930s he returned to France and became professor of theology at the
Université Catholique de Lille. His academic experience east of the Rhine and his knowl-
edge of contemporary German scholarship defined his role as an importer and popularizer
of German thought in his areas of specialty, namely theology and the philosophy of reli-
gion. His publications, all in French, reflected eclectic and tentative syntheses of ideas
gleaned from his wide reading in both languages. During the 1920s and 1930s, Rabeau
produced a number of articles and several books, including Introduction à l’étude de la
théologie (1926),49 Réalité et relativité (1927),50 Dieu, son existence et sa providence
(1933),51 Le Jugement d’existence (1938),52 and Species. Verbum. L’activité intellectuelle
élémentaire selon s. Thomas d’Aquin (1938).53 As glance at these titles suggests, Rabeau
became increasingly interested in ontological and epistemological issues during the course
of his career. These titles do not directly reveal, however, Rabeau’s discovery of phe-
nomenology during the late 1920s and its impact upon his attempts to systematize and di-
rect the evolution of his religious thinking. In order to appreciate how Rabeau was influ-
enced by phenomenology, and consequently how he contributed to its reception in France,
it is necessary to look at his occasional writings on Scheler,54 Gurvitch55 and Husserl56 as
well as his later books. First, however, it is appropriate to set Rabeau in his context as a
theologian and apologist by examining briefly his Introduction à l’étude de la théologie.
49Gaston Rabeau, Introduction à l’étude de la théologie (Paris: Bloud & Gay,
1926).50Gaston Rabeau, Réalité et relativité. Études sur le relativisme contemporain
(Paris: M. Rivière, 1927).51Gaston Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence (Paris: Bloud & Gay,
1933).52Gaston Rabeau, Le Jugement d’existence (Paris: J. Vrin, 1938). Presented as one
of the two required theses for the degree of Docteur ès Lettres.53Gaston Rabeau, Species. Verbum. L’activité intellectuelle élémentaire selon s.
Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1938). With the above, presented as a thesis for the de-gree of Docteur ès Lettres.
54Gaston Rabeau, “La Philosophie religieuse de Max Scheler,” La Vie intellectuelle2 (1929): 234-46.
55Gaston Rabeau, “La Logique d’Edmund Husserl,” Revue des sciencesphilosophiques et théologiques 21 (1932): 5-24.
56Gaston Rabeau, “Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande,” La Vieintellectuelle 17 (1932): 412-14.
335
In a recent article, Jean-Claude Petit contends that Rabeau’s handbook was one of
the first French systematic works of theology to recognize the importance of history in the
development of theological truth and to situate theology in the context of contemporary so-
cial and psychological sciences.57 “In the final analysis,” however, Petit finds that, “the
conception of theology which Gaston Rabeau defends falls completely in line with that of
Ambroise Gardeil, from which it borrows the same presuppositions and conclusions.”58
Petit’s last observation is more accurate than his first. While his manner of presentation is
more up-to-date than contemporary neo-scholastic manuals, Rabeau’s theology hardly de-
parts from their content. He adopts the theory of revelation outlined by contemporary neo-
Thomists like Gardeil and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, which leaves no room for the
evolution of dogma and which reiterates the medieval view of theology as a wisdom which
exceeds all other disciplines of knowledge.59 Rabeau’s concern throughout the book is
apologetical. He wants to keep thinking Catholics in the Church and to bring thoughtful but
wandering intellectuals back into the fold. In the conclusion to Part I on the object of theol-
ogy, he claims, “only the Catholic religion declares itself to be absolutely supernatural and
presents the necessary proofs. The Introduction to Theology is therefore the Introduction to
Catholic Theology.”60 Rabeau’s forceful style reflects the strength of his commitment to
offering theology in the service of the Church, an orientation which remains even in his
later purely philosophical studies.
57Jean-Claude Petit, “La Compréhension de la théologie dans la théologie française
au XXe siècle,” Laval théologique et philosophique 47 (1991): 216-19.58Ibid., 219.59Rabeau, Introduction à l’étude de la théologie, see especially Part II on the
method of theology, pp. 117-61. It is worth noting perhaps, that while Rabeau does defendthe traditional view of theology as queen of the sciences, he arrives at that conclusion in arather original way by using John Stuart Mill’s method of collocation. For criticism of thisapplication of Mill, but praise for the work as a whole see Ambroise Gardeil, “Compte-rendu de Gaston Rabeau, Introduction à la théologie,” Revue des sciences philosophiqueset théologiques 15 (1926): 595-604. For further discussion of this point see also Marie-Dominique Chenu, “Compte-rendu de Gaston Rabeau, Introduction à la théologie,”Bulletin Thomiste 2, no. 6 (1927): 202-207.
60Ibid., 113.
336
B. Phenomenology and Th eological Epistemology
Rabeau’s first foray into the field of phenomenology was his review of Joseph
Engert’s Studien zur theologischen Erkenntnislehre, which appeared in the Bulletin
Thomiste in September 1927.61 Engert’s volume brings together a series of studies having
as common themes proofs for the existence of God, the act of faith and theological knowl-
edge. Rabeau praises the first two studies on Aquinas for staying very close to the letter of
the master. The remaining studies treat, among others, the phenomenological thinkers Otto
and Scheler. Engert faults Otto for transforming the concept of the holy in Christianity into
a religious inclination and for deriving from the latter various states of grace and self-af-
firming judgments. Summarizing his critique, Rabeau writes: “Having placed the Irrational
above all else, to which reason applies itself only later as a pure form, Otto arrives at a sort
monist theosophy which has no place for those who attribute all the operations of thought
to reason. Thomist intellectualism certainly has much more in its favor than this emotional a
priorism.”62 Scheler, on the other hand, is more intellectualist than Otto and therefore
stands closer to authentic Christianity. Furthermore, Scheler is not interested in the psy-
chology of religion but rather in its phenomenology:
He applies to religion the methods which Husserl applied to logic: to attenddirectly to the essences, the structures and the relations of essences to theobjects given in positive religion; in sum, to determine the concrete materialof religious acts and the intentional relation (in the scholastic sense) of theseacts to their objects.63
This, however, is Rabeau’s way of calling attention to Husserl; Engert only makes
brief mention of Husserl’s influence on Scheler following the exposition of his philoso-
phy.64 Engert notes that while Scheler’s intuitional epistemology overcomes the limitations
of psychologism, it nevertheless runs counter to the Aristotelian method of abstraction ad-
vanced by Aquinas. Engert then turns to the doctrine of supernatural revelation which
61Gaston Rabeau, “Compte-Rendu de Joseph Engert, Studien zur theologischenErkenntnislehre,” Bulletin Thomiste 2, no. 5 (Sep. 1927) (1927): 194-202.
62Ibid., 198.63Ibid., 198.64Cf. Joseph Engert, Studien zur theologischen Erkenntnislehre (Munich: G. J.
Manz, 1926), 427-28.
337
Scheler derives from his descriptions of various religious acts: first, there is an apprehen-
sion of the Holy in which everything is seen in the light of God while God remains unseen;
next, God is revealed to the mind as a force analogous to its powers; finally, the mind at-
tributes God with having a will and a reason which are united in love. In distinguishing
these three stages, which Rabeau remarks stand at the center of Scheler’s system, Engert
departs somewhat from Scheler’s own classification of revelation according to its func-
tional and personal forms.65 In the end, Engert offers mixed praise of Scheler’s theories.
On the one hand he congratulates Scheler for having established irrefutably the objectivity
of the sacred, while on the other he criticizes his subsequent analyses for being simply
phenomenological, psychological and metaphysical translations of Christian spirituality.66
Concluding his review, Rabeau recommends his own favorite sections of Scheler’s work,
namely his proofs concerning the existence of God and his reflections on the church.67 By
the number of glosses and digressions scattered throughout the article, it is clear that
Rabeau would have preferred to discuss Scheler’s philosophy directly, as opposed mediat-
ing his comments through his summary of Engert’s work.
65Rabeau, “Compte-Rendu de Joseph Engert, 199; cf. Engert, Studien zur theolo-
gischen Erkenntnislehre, 428-40, and Max Scheler, On the Eternal in Man, trans. BernardNoble, 2 ed. (New York: Harper, 1961), 161ff. Actually, the difficult lies in Scheler’stext. At the beginning of the division on “The Essential Phenomenology of Religion”Scheler list the branches of study as follows: “1) the essential nature of the divine; 2) thestudy of the forms of revelation in which the divine intimates and manifests itself to man; 3)the study of the religious act through which man prepares himself to receive the content ofrevelation, and through which he takes it to himself in faith.” There are headings in the textcorresponding to the first and last of these branches, but no heading clearly indicatingwhere Scheler discusses the forms of revelation as such, which makes it all the more curi-ous why Rabeau considered them to be the centerpiece of Scheler’s philosophy of religion.
66Ibid., 201.67Ibid., 202; Ever revealing his apologetical bent, Rabeau cites a remark here by
Frau Förster, the Protestant moralist: “Against the tremendous pressure with which thecentralization, the density and the division of labor among new societies burdens the mind,the interior life, to remain alive, needs an authority to defend it, it needs the Catholicchurch.”
338
1. Early articles
Two years later, in fact, Rabeau contributed his own synopsis and evaluation of
Scheler’s philosophy of religion to La Vie intellectuelle.68 Just Bergson has delivered us
from materialist positivism, Rabeau begins, so Scheler has liberated us from trivializing
explanations and has confronted us once again with only real religious problem, namely the
soul’s relationship to God. Towards the end of the essay, Rabeau compares the orientation
of Scheler’s philosophy to the Itinerarium mentis in Deum of Bonaventure.69 Rabeau’s ci-
tation of a doctor of the Church seems to be a way of defending his praise of Scheler, who,
after having embraced Catholicism while he was writing On the Eternal in Man, had for-
saken the Church in the years prior to his death.
In his article, Rabeau contends that the background for understanding Scheler’s ori-
entation to the philosophy of religion lies in the descriptive approaches to religious experi-
ence employed by William James and French Catholic psychologists like Henri Delacroix
and Henri Bremond. Yet, whereas as these focus only on the psychological aspects of re-
ligious experience and try to explain in affective terms on the basis of subconscious drives,
Scheler demonstrates that genuine religious experience represents a kind of knowledge that
is not reducible to any other form of experience or worldly object.70 Hence, a particular
method for describing it is required, and Scheler recommends the same one that phenome-
nologists use to analyze other types of human knowledge. This method consists in describ-
ing objects as they are thought and the relationship of consciousness to those objects.
Psychologists like James make the mistake of describing not what his subject is thinking
during a religious experience but only what he feels. “The error is absurd and inexcusable,”
decries Rabeau, for “it consists in confusing an act of thought with the psychological or
68Gaston Rabeau, “La Philosophie religieuse de Max Scheler,” La Vie intellectuelle
2 (1929): 234-46.69Ibid., 246.70Ibid., 235-36. In a footnote, p. 236, Rabeau recognizes that, “Ces vérités étaient
familières aux savants catholiques, mais Scheler les a systématisées et mises en valeur d’unpoint de vue purement philosophique. D’où l’intérêt special de son oeuvre.”
339
physiological means which prepare, accompany and follow it.”71 In the science of religion
the important thing is to describe the objects of religion as they are given in each religious
act; the question of their reality and their value can be reflected upon subsequently.
In describing the religious act as such, the first fact one encounters is that it is di-
rected toward an object whose chief characteristics are to be holy and self-existent. Rabeau
does not mention Scheler’s indebtedness Otto for this insight, although Scheler himself
freely acknowledges it.72 Rabeau also does not mention Scheler’s indebtedness to
Augustine, although he discusses one of the principal metaphors that Scheler borrows from
him. In describing the apprehension of the holy, Scheler says that one sees it in all things,
not directly, but reflected as it were in “the light of God” that bathes them.73 In an attempt
to restore this metaphor to its scholastic usage, Rabeau proposes in a footnote:
This light is nothing other than the light of reason, insofar as it shows usspontaneously that the beings which arise and perish and which do not at allsubsist in themselves—which, in a word, are contingent—have their prin-ciple in self-subsistent and perfect Being.74
In addition to its relation to a transcendent object, namely the holy or Being itself, the reli-
gious act displays two other essential features: it can only be fulfilled by divinity, and the
knowledge that it attains can only come from God.75 Rabeau clarifies in another footnote
that the last point refers to revelation in two senses, direct and indirect. Direct revelation
refers to the word of God whereas indirect revelation comprehends the illumination of rea-
son. For Rabeau, the latter represents revelation only in the broadest sense, nevertheless it
is this meaning which Scheler regards as fundamental. To explain Scheler’s theory of reve-
lation more fully, Rabeau draws upon Engert’s tri-partite classification although he embel-
lishes it by comparison.
71Ibid., 236.72Although Scheler disagrees with Otto’s postulate that the essential forms of reli-
gious experience correspond to a priori epistemological structures, he frequently acknowl-edges with candid praise Otto’s description of the holy; cf. Scheler, On the Eternal in Man,145, 154, 169ff., 285ff., 306 and 315.
73Rabeau, “La Philosophie religieuse de Max Scheler,” 237; cf. Scheler, On theEternal in Man, 194.
74Rabeau, “La Philosophie religieuse de Max Scheler,” 237, n. 2.75Ibid., 239.
340
For Rabeau, the chief result of Scheler’s investigations is that they show how the
soul functions as the principal symbol of God. The soul is like a mirror whose reflections
must in turn be reflected upon in order to attain more explicit knowledge of divinity. This
necessarily mediated process accounts for the varieties of individual religious experiences
and points toward the need for collective social interpretation and especially organized reli-
gious societies or churches. Rabeau points out that the phenomenological description of re-
ligion leads to a justification for the existence of religion and its value. By affirming the
reality of the religious object, namely the idea of God, Scheler’s phenomenology of reli-
gion condemns the subjectivism that has characterized theories of religious experience from
Luther to nineteenth-century liberal Protestant theologies. It also demonstrates that the reli-
gious act is not only a matter of knowledge but also practice. Religion motivates moral ac-
tion and participation in rituals of worship. Through these one enters into the will of God,
which Scheler contends is a prerequisite for knowing God. “One does not find God except
by doing God’s will,” Rabeau explains: “to speak in philosophical language, the knowl-
edge of values grounds that of being.”76 Rabeau concludes that Scheler’s insights can be
readily grasped through common sense and should therefore be accessible to the general
public. In closing, he leaves open to consideration the exact meaning of Scheler’s metaphor
of divine light. Does it in fact refer to the illumination of reason as it does for Aquinas?
Rabeau would return to the question of the compatibility between phenomenology
and Thomism in his study on the judgment of existence. In the meantime, however, he
continued his campaign of helping the French religious public become more aware of phe-
nomenology by contributing a short review of Gurvitch’s Les tendances actuelles de la
philosophie allemande to La Vie intellectuelle.77 By contrast to the favorable and promising
evaluation of Scheler in his earlier article, the tone stuck by this piece is reserved, even
foreboding. Instead of summarizing the content of Gurvitch’s volume, Rabeau points out
76Ibid., 244.77Gaston Rabeau, “Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande,” La Vie
intellectuelle 17 (1932): 412-14.
341
some of the problems raised by phenomenology. First, he asks, how is it possible that the
tradition of German idealism has suddenly given way to a philosophy whose first inspira-
tion is realist? Husserl has justified his new emphasis according to the exigencies of phi-
losophy and science, especially as these are related to logic and mathematics. Yet the rapid
success of phenomenology, Rabeau remarks,
also appears to indicate that it satisfied the needs and preoccupations of theGerman soul after the war: its absolute objectivism corresponded to the no-tion that philosophical thought had aroused those brutal, irrational forcesthat were contrary to her spirit and which destroyed her. The restlessnesspushed to level of anxiety, conceived as the essential content of existence(Heidegger) manifests the horrible disarray of a German tradition that hadbeen overwhelmed, ruined and vanquished by its own errors.78
Likewise, the theology of Karl Barth effects a stark realism insofar as it leads people to
God only by plunging them first into the dark abyss of their sin and suffering. Now, how-
ever, Husserl is turning the realist impetus of phenomenology again toward transcendental
idealism. How can this new twist in its evolution be explained? It would seem that Husserl
is trying to connect his transcendentalism with classical philosophy. Yet, for all its
promises of being able to provide access to being, can the phenomenological method be ac-
cepted by those who hold to a Christian realism? Here Rabeau reveals his own commitment
to the scholastic tradition. He observes that Scheler has constructed a philosophy of reli-
gion that on many points is oriented more toward Catholicism than Protestantism;
Heidegger, too, is oriented toward religious philosophy. Nevertheless, a warning is appro-
priate: “it is important to take from them only what is truly clear and sound.”79 In his stud-
ies of these thinkers, Gurvitch has done his job as a historian; he has explained the various
doctrines and even pointed out their weaknesses. But what he has neglected to do, in
Rabeau’s opinion, is to guide his audience to an interpretation of phenomenology: Rabeau
78Ibid., 413: “Mais sa réussite si rapide semble bien montrer aussi qu’elle satisfai-
sait les besoins et les préoccupations de l’âme allemande après la guerre: l’objectivisme ab-solu correspondait à cette constatation que la penée avait mis en oeuvre de brutales forcesirrationnelles qui s’opposent à elle et l’écrasent. L’inquiétude poussée jusqu’à l’angoisse,conçue comme le contenu essentiel de l’existence (Heidegger), manifeste l’horrible désarroidu germanisme vaincu, ruiné, accablé par ses propres erreurs.”
79Ibid., 414.
342
does not offer one of his own, but insists that “for readers who have not already formed
their philosophical judgments and who are not assured in their convictions, it risks being a
cinema of ideas that are astonishing, disappointing and troubling.”80 Considering the sober
nature of phenomenology, Rabeau’s selection of adjectives itself is astonishing. No doubt
it was calculated to make French religious thinkers wary of the German movement.
Rabeau’s comments Gurvitch’s volume signal the displacement of his phenomeno-
logical interests from Scheler to Husserl. This shift is further evidenced by his review of
Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic, also published in 1932.81 In the opening of
the article, Rabeau cites Delbos’s essay on the Logical Investigations as if to set the stage
for a demonstration of the connection between Husserl’s logical studies and the evolution
of his ideas on the subject. Nevertheless—and despite Husserl’s repeated references to his
earlier work on logic82—Rabeau ignores the Logical Investigations and focuses all his en-
ergies on summarizing and evaluating Formal and Transcendental Logic. He begins with a
series of complaints: Husserl’s style is intolerable, he pushes everything to the extreme of
abstraction and never offers a concrete example to help the reader. Furthermore, up to the
last page he continually raises new problems which he never resolves. Nevertheless, the
attentive reader feels obliged to continue because, “after all, he is in the presence of a mind
that is as powerful as its expression is barbarous.”83 Later, on a more optimistic note,
80Ibid., 414. Evidently when he wrote this article, Rabeau did not detect the trajec-
tory linking Gurvitch’s series of essays that we pointed out in Chapter 2, namely themovement to restore German Idealism as epitomized by the later Fichte. Yet, in his subse-quent review of Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic, he does note the Gurvitchlinks phenomenology to the tradition of Fichtean idealism (see below).
81Gaston Rabeau, “La Logique d’Edmund Husserl,” Revue des sciencesphilosophiques et théologiques 21 (1932): 5-24. Cf. Edmund Husserl, Formale und tran-szendentale Logik, Versuch einer Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1929);available in English as Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1969).
82See for example Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, Introduction and§§27 and 67; Cairns, 11, 86, 171. See also Suzanne Bachelard, A Study of Husserl’sFormal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Lester E. Embree (Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1968). In the preface and introduction to her commentary, Bachelard of-fers an extensive comparison of Husserl’s aims in the Logical Investigations and Formaland Transcendental Logic, especially with respect to the issue of psychologism.
83Rabeau, “La Logique d’Edmund Husserl,” 6.
343
Rabeau compares the effort needed to enter into Husserl’s philosophical perspective to that
required of the first readers of Bergson’s Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness.
At first, Bergson seemed incomprehensible, but now everyone is accustomed to his ideas.
So, too, Rabeau speculates, will it become the case with Husserl, albeit to a much lesser
degree.84
For those not already familiar with Husserl, Rabeau offers a sketch of his phe-
nomenology in which focuses on three main points: the transcendental epoché, the inten-
tionality of consciousness, and the task of explicating of the a priori objects which con-
sciousness intends. Next, Rabeau turns to summarize the contents of Formal and
Transcendental Logic. Husserl divides his work into two parts, the first dealing with the
structure of objective formal logic, the second with the shift from formal logic to transcen-
dental logic. Rabeau divides his summary into five sections in order to call attention to what
he thinks are the major transitions in Husserl’s argument. In the preliminary section on the
object of logic, Rabeau explains Husserl’s distinction between material and formal
essences; the former indicate contingent a priori while the latter constitute the a priori
structures of logic and hence are its objects of study.85 In the next section, Rabeau exam-
ines the historical transition from traditional logic to formal object logic which comprises
the first part of the first half of Formal and Transcendental Logic. Aristotle was the first to
formalize the sphere of apophantics, or the logic of judgments, but Duns Scotus deserves
credit for being the first to discovered purely formal logic, that is, one which uses only ab-
stract significations. Ancient logic could have become a branch of mathematics, but it failed
to achieve the necessary degree of abstraction because it never regarded the objects of the
logic as ideal. Yet, “if a formal theory of objectivities calls for a formal theory of judgment,
and if a formal theory of judgment calls for a formal theory of objectivities, then the relation
between mathematical analysis and logical analysis is very close.”86 Husserl’s aim is to
84Ibid., 22.85Ibid., 8-9.86Ibid., 12; In a footnote Rabeau corrects the translation of Husserl’s Gegenständ-
lichkeiten [objectivities]: in the Méditations Cartesiennes Levinas and Pfeiffer use entités
344
transcend this distinction by aiming at a higher level of integration, a grand theory of scien-
tific theories, the ideal of a mathesis universalis.87 In the third section of his summary,
Rabeau considers the relation between the objects of formal ontology and formal apophan-
tics, which Husserl describes as intentional.
The next section deals with the transition from formal logic to transcendental logic.
It would appear that Husserl’s turn to the subjective signals a return to the psychologism
which he so vigorously condemned in his earliest works.88 Not so. In their positivist
methodologies, psychology and objective formal logic take the matters of evidence and in-
tentionality for granted. Husserl argues, however, that the latter must and can be supplied
by transcendental critique of knowledge. Apart from an intentional analysis of the world,
formal logic is impossible. In other words, “Logic cannot be founded except by transcen-
dental phenomenology.”89 Rabeau, however, devotes little space to explaining Husserl’s
doctrine of the transcendental ego, which most commentators have regarded as the most
controversial aspect of the work.90 Instead, he proceeds the final section of his summary
where he treats the Husserl distinction between objective logic and the transcendental logic,
the latter being the result of a phenomenology of reason. Rabeau does not bother dis-
instead of objectivités, which is more literal. Rabeau, however, chooses to follow the us-age of the Méditations Cartesiennes in the body of his essay.
87Rabeau, “La Logique d’Edmund Husserl,” 14. Again, it is curious that Rabeaudoes not refer to Delbos, who makes the same point at the end of his essay on the LogicalInvestigations (cf. Delbos, “Husserl, sa critique du psychologisme et sa conception d’unelogique pure,” 698.
88Rabeau, “La Logique d’Edmund Husserl,” 16. Here Rabeau only makes implicitreference to the Logical Investigations.
89Ibid., 19 (emphasis Rabeau’s). While not a direct quotation of Husserl, it cap-tures well enough the conclusion to Formal and Transcendental Logic, Part II, Chapter 5(§93); Cairns, 231: “Thus, having been led from knowledge and science to logic as thetheory of science, and led onward from the actual grounding of logic to a theory of logicalor scientific reason, we now face the all-embracing problem of transcendental philoso-phy—of transcendental philosophy in its only pure and radical form, that of a transcenden-tal phenomenology.”
90The longest chapter in Bachelard’s commentary, for instance, is devoted to theproblem (see Bachelard, A Study of Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic, 161-205,“Transcendental Phenomenology and Intnetional Psychology. The Problem of Transcen-dental Psychologism.”
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cussing the three appendices to Formal and Transcendental Logic but moves directly to his
criticism.
Rabeau raises three objections. First, he is not convinced that Husserl’s method of
intuiting essences is applicable in every situation. “How is it possible to discern the essence
of something that is not an essence?” Rabeau asks referring to imaginary structures. The
problem is compounded by the fact that Husserl never employs a method of abstraction.
Second, Rabeau thinks that the transcendental epoché too sharply separates the empirical
aspects of thought from the laws govern it with the result that essences described by phe-
nomenology appear arbitrary. Rabeau’s third and most emphatic criticism is that despite
Husserl’s insistence upon the absolute character of the transcendental ego he never once
raises the question of God among the essential problems of the phenomenology of reason.
Rabeau rejects Gurvitch’s attempt to avoid the question by connecting phenomenology to
the tradition of Fichtean idealism. Instead, Rabeau contends that phenomenology implicitly
leads to a religious affirmation because it invites a search for the truth within man. He
seizes upon the Husserl’s quotation of Augustine in the closing lines of the Cartesian
Meditations: “Noli foras ire, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas”—“Do not wish
to go out; go back into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.”91
2. Dieu, son existence et sa providence
Rabeau’s growing obsession with phenomenology during the early 1930s, particu-
larly its theological implications, prompted him to attend the colloquy on phenomenology
and Thomism sponsored by the Société Thomiste in 1932. Unfortunately, transcripts of the
discussions from that meeting do not include any comments by Rabeau so it is impossible
to discern directly what he thought about the various positions that were put forward.92
Nevertheless, Rabeau offers some of his own ideas on how phenomenology might con-
91Ibid., 24; cf. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction toPhenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 157. The ci-tation of Augustine is from De vera religione, 39, n. 72; translation by Dorion Cairns.
92Cf. Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie (Juvisy: Cerf, 1932). The proceedingsof the colloquy will be discussed in a subsequent section.
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tribute to theology in a book published the following year under the title, Dieu, son exis-
tence et sa providence.93 By comparison to his earlier introduction to the study of theology,
this volume represents a creative synthesis of contemporary methodologies in the history,
sociology and philosophy of religion.94 It also displays a more positive reception of phe-
nomenology than his 1932 essays would have led one to expect. Like Scheler, Rabeau
employs phenomenological methods toward proving the existence of God.
In the introduction, Rabeau sets up the problem of proving the existence of God on
the speculative and practical levels, making reference to Husserl and Heidegger in turn in
these respective contexts. With respect to the speculative problem of knowing God, Rabeau
cites the distinction Husserl makes in the sixth of his Logical Investigations between ful-
filled and unfulfilled meaning intentions, observing that “indeed, every activity of our rea-
son consists essentially in relating facts and ideas to one another, in trying to seek out and
organize order and unity, in discovering meanings and in pursuing ends.”95 In other
words, the finality of consciousness and its intentional relation to objects implies knowl-
edge of a higher level of being, and hence of God. Rabeau notes, however, that when it
comes to God, most philosophers, like Brunschvicg, claim that these same activities do not
apply. Nevertheless, in addition to speculative routes there are also practical means of
knowing God. Following Heidegger, Rabeau suggests that “to exist is to be in the world,”
by which he means that our thoughts and our actions are always directed to others and
hence full of a moral significance that cries out from anxiety “to establish rules of conduct,
93Gaston Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence (Paris: Bloud & Gay,1933).
94Perhaps in recognition of this fact, his publisher, Bloud & Gay, issued two setsof four hundred numbered editions on fine paper for subscribers to the BibliothèqueCatholique des Sciences Religieuses besides the inexpensive paperback edition for the gen-eral public.
95Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence, 10. In the footnote following thisstatement Rabeau writes, “Un des résultats importants des travaux de M. Edmund Husserlest d’avoir montré les significations d’abord ‘indiquées’ dans la conscience, puis ‘remplies’par l’activité de l’esprit, ce ‘remplissage’ s’effectuant par ‘couches’ superposées. Un ‘sens’est toujours constitué par une série de ‘strates’, dont l’une indique l’autre.” Réalité et rela-tivité, 118, makes brief reference to Husserl’s Logical Investigations as an example of thePlatonic tendency to speak of an order of “logical facts” [faits logiques], but phenomenol-ogy as such does not play a role in the argument of this earlier work by Rabeau.
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to justify an ideal to pursue and to find strength, satisfaction and security.”96 Concrete
questions thus confront us with the question of God’s existence. These questions are only
preliminary, however. In themselves they do not establish the reality of God but only indi-
cate that in our capacities of reasoning and acting can be found the basis for plausible
demonstrations. The demonstrations themselves follow in the remaining nine chapters of
the book and are ordered from the simplest and most concrete to the most complex and
abstract.
Rabeau begins by examining the origin of the idea of God in the history of human
societies. Since it is with the idea of the God of Christianity that he is most concerned,
Rabeau first reviews the concepts of God set forth in the Old and New Testaments. Next,
he surveys concepts of God in primitive cultures to look for correlations. For the latter
task, Rabeau relies heavily on the ethnographic studies of Wilhelm Schmidt which show
that a monotheistic idea of God as a merciful Father and moral legislator prevailed in the
oldest human culture to which contemporary primitive societies permit access.97 This leads
Rabeau to speculate that “the religion of the earliest human beings, which remains inacces-
sible to us, was surely more spiritual than that of the Pygmies, the Arctic peoples and the
Algonquins,” and from there to conclude that “belief in God constitutes the normal exercise
of human thought.”98
From this sociological proof of the existence of God, Rabeau turns to psychological
demonstrations. Bergson has noted that the existence of static forms of religion but insofar
as religion develops personal thought and will, it fosters the feeling of absolute dependence
as Schleiermacher has observed. Yet to say that religious experience consists in the feeling
of absolute dependence is rather vague. Rudolf Otto, however, in his description of the
holy distinguishes several aspects of religious experience. “The attitude of the ego [moi] in
the presence of the Holy can be characterized by the word ‘divination’,” Rabeau explains:
96Ibid., 11-12.97Ibid., 32ff. Cf. Wilhelm Schmidt, Völker und Kulteren (Regensburg: J. Habbel,
1924) and Der Ursprung der Gottesidee 12 vols. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1926-55).98Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence, 64-65.
348
“the ego, attempts, in effect, to discover in its own being and in its life an essential reality
ready to give itself in a living way; it ‘opens’ itself to God and the things of God.”99 Before
going further in his investigations of ordinary and mystical religious experience as means
for demonstrating the existence of God, Rabeau pauses to consider some basic issues in the
psychology of experience. At his point Husserlian phenomenology explicitly enters his
discussion.
Husserl teaches that consciousness is essentially intentional, that its only mode of
being in act is to be directed towards objects. This doctrine is compatible with Aquinas’s
observation that our reason remains a passive potency until it receives the impression of
sensible images.100 The only way the mind can know itself, therefore, is through examin-
ing the way it intends objects. This fact applies equally to religious experience as well as to
all other ordinary types of experience, and it is upon this premise that Scheler develops his
phenomenological philosophy of religion. In the remaining pages of this section on “The
intentional character of religious consciousness: the religious act and its object,” Rabeau by
and large reproduces his summary of Scheler’s philosophy of religion from his earlier arti-
cle in La Vie intellectuelle although he introduces a few modifications. Rabeau includes
more extensive references to Scheler’s treatment of primitive cultures in light of his own
previous discussion of the same. Secondly, and more significantly from a phenomenologi-
cal perspective, Rabeau clarifies his presentation of the three principal laws governing the
religious act while discarding mention of Scheler’s doctrine of revelation. He describes
them here as “the symbolism of religious representations, the particular role of our soul as a
symbol of the divine, and the role of society in the elaboration of religious concepts.”101
Thus, whereas the critical function of society only followed this tri-partite classification in
the earlier presentation, now it forms an integral part. Rabeau concludes his discussion by
remarking that “the description of religious feelings and ideas toward which these feelings
99Ibid., 69.100Ibid., 71. As will we observe below, Rabeau frequently tries to assimilate the
tenets of Husserlian phenomenology to the Aquinas’s epistemology.101Ibid., 73-4.
349
tend shows us that the idea of God is the normal object of the most important of the syn-
thetic functions of consciousness and explains the higher forms as well as the lower or
aberrant forms of religion.”102
With this theoretical background of religious psychology in place, Rabeau turns to
report the results of Karl Girgensohn’s analyses of the functions of religious conscious-
ness.103 The point, however, is not to recommend Girgensohn’s researches, but rather to
make the point that the soul is healthiest when it finds the middle ground between the ex-
tremes of what Otto calls the tremendum and fascinosum of religious experience. Rabeau
contends this is only possible with the Christian idea of God: “only then is the human per-
sonality lifted to extraordinary heights while keeping full control over itself.”104 Rabeau
thus embarks upon a discussion of mysticism, whose phenomenology constitutes a further
proof of the existence of God. Bergson’s analysis of mysticism in The Two Sources of
Morality and Religion shows that mystical experience is directed by the same higher reality
that governs the élan vital underlying biological evolution, namely a divine creator who is
seeking to create creative beings worthy of his love.105 Bergson, however, is only able to
offer his observations from the outside, as it were, because he himself is not a Christian.
To stand on still firmer ground, one must consider the lives of the mystics directly, and so
Rabeau devotes another chapter to describing the piety of several Christian saints. Lest
mystical experiences seem too far removed from ordinary religious life, and thus unsatis-
factory as proofs of the reality of God, a subsequent chapter probes the dynamics of the
ordinary Christian moral life. Here Rabeau introduces three contemporary variations on
classical theories which argue from the consciousness of a moral law to a supreme moral
legislator. He takes up the arguments of Édouard Le Roy, René Le Senne and Maurice
102Ibid., 76.103Ibid., 78. Cf. Karl Girgensohn, Der seelische Aufbau des religiösen Erlebens,
2nd ed. (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1930).104Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence, 83.105Ibid., 87-88. Rabeau quotes Bergson, Deux Sources, 270; Oeuvres, 1192: “La
création apparaîtra comme une entreprise de Dieu pour créer des créatures, pour s’adjoindredes êtres dignes de son amour.”
350
Blondel to show respectively that the characteristics of the moral law, its causality and its
finality all point to the existence of God. In short, for each of these thinkers the idea of
“will as nature” with its infinite capacity for expansion demonstrates in pragmatic terms that
God is the real object of the morality.106
From practical proofs Rabeau turns finally to speculative means of affirming God’s
existence. Rabeau reopens the traditional proofs of God—the proofs from the notions of
necessary truth, pure act, causality, the degrees of being and finality—and restates them in
the simplest forms possible, by appealing to Aquinas and, where convenient, to their con-
temporary philosophical forms. In the final chapters of his book, Rabeau also reopens me-
dieval scholastic debates concerning the nature of God, the divine attributes and the prob-
lem of creation. Since phenomenology does not play a direct role in any of these pages, we
will not summarize them here. Suffice to say that in this short volume on the existence of
God, Rabeau achieves a synthesis that if not deep in its conceptual foundations is certainly
broad in its scope. At any rate, it was one of the first attempts in French religious literature
to indicate the significance of phenomenology for contemporary theology and its compati-
bility with traditional scholastic approaches.
3. Le Jugement d’existence and Species. Verbum .
Rabeau’s thoughts on the relevance of phenomenological insights to scholastic
philosophy came to maturity in the two theses he prepared for the doctorate in 1938 on the
judgment of existence and the notions of species and verbum in the epistemology of
Aquinas. The following pages summarize the argument of each of these works so that
points of contact between Husserl and the later developments in Rabeau’s thinking may be
brought to light. In addition, this section will serve as an introduction to the issues neo-
Thomist philosophers confronted in their reception of Husserl, the topic of the remaining
portions of this chapter.
106Cf. Rabeau, Dieu, son existence et sa providence, 113, 118.
351
In the beginning of his thesis on judgment, Rabeau argues against the presupposi-
tions of psychologism. He accepts Husserl’s basic approach but announces that he will not
retrace the argument of the first volume of the Logical Investigations because he does not
agree with Husserl on every detail. He remarks:
it is rather the spirit of the work which inspires us. We want to adopt itspoints of view, which are those of eternal philosophy. With respect to thedreadful analyses contained in the second volume, we concede much toHusserl’s adversaries. It is indeed possible that he frequently wasted histime analyzing language and in presenting commonplaces laboriously ob-tained by subtlety as if they were discoveries.107
While maintaining a critical distance, Rabeau praises Husserl’s for succeeding where logi-
cians before him had failed: in describing precisely what it means to know. “To describe
the act of knowledge completely, without prejudice, under its dual aspects as an immanent
act fulfilling itself in consciousness and as ‘intention’, as truth, requires a detachment from
metaphysical presuppositions which most never trouble themselves with,” Rabeau ob-
serves.108 The value of phenomenology lies in its ability to offer a rigorous description of
the cognitive act in both its immanent and intentional aspects while remaining free of meta-
physical prejudices. Yet phenomenology is useful only for describing the act of knowledge;
it does not attempt to make pronouncements about what it is affirmed in a judgment con-
cerning existence. Phenomenology purports to treat essences, but it does so while ignoring
the ontological aspects of their foundations. It does not recognize that essences are concepts
resulting from judgments and instead confuses them with ideas.
In the first part of his thesis, Rabeau addresses existence as an idea. According to
Rabeau, “The idea of being is not an image nor a schema of images nor a mental attitude; it
is an idea.—It is an idea, not simply a mental act of representation, but an idea endowed
with signification: it implies reality.”109 In phenomenological terms, Rabeau is saying that
107Rabeau, Jugement d’existence, 32.108Ibid., 40. In a footnote to this remark, Rabeau notes that he was inspired by
Husserl’s Logical Investigations, vol. 1, chap. 8 (a chapter which concerns psychologicalprejudices); he notes further that Husserl took up this question again at the beginning of thesecond part of Formal and Transcendental Logic.
109Rabeau, Jugement d’existence, 123.
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ideas of have intentional meanings. On the other hand, he notes, “the predicate being, al-
though it has a real objective meaning, is abstract and analogical, detached by a spiritual ac-
tivity of the thinking subject.”110 Nevertheless, when intelligence reflects upon its act of
knowing, it is able to grasp the idea of being within the image that has been presented to it.
In this manner, intelligence perceives the object represented by the image as an individual.
“This complete contact, this continuity between intelligence and sensible action,” described
by Aquinas, “constitutes what our contemporaries call a return to the immediate”—an obvi-
ous reference to Le Roy.111
In the second part of Le Jugement d’existence, Rabeau shifts from the analysis of
existence as a concept, intentional relation and idea to its role as an ontological element of
judgment. Here one finds more points of contact with Husserlian phenomenology. Rabeau
begins by raising the issue of the intelligibility of being. He notes there are two extreme
views: one that says being is radically outside of intelligibility and the other which claims
that it is intelligibility itself. He notes that the former group has been well-represented in
contemporary philosophy from the Romantics to Heidegger.112 According to Rabeau,
however, the intelligibility of being is beyond question since judgments precedes concepts,
both in the order of time and the ideal order of thought.113 This is because existence as
predicated by a judgment is something other than a concept. It is an ontological element of
judging itself, and is thus necessarily prior to the concept which is founded upon it.
Furthermore, although every judgment contains an ontological element, real judgments of
existence, whereby a subject constitutes its own interiority and thus differentiates itself
from the rest of the universe, must be distinguished from ordinary judgments which result
in concepts. According to Rabeau, “the well-known descriptions of spiritual energy
110Ibid., 123.111Ibid., 127: “retour à l’immédiate” was a phrase used by Édouard Le Roy (cf. La
Pensée intuitive, 1: 86-141). Rabeau’s description also recalls Husserl’s insistence uponthe need to return to the immediate givens of experience.
112Ibid., 141; Rabeau gives a short critical exposition of Heidegger’s philosophy onpp. 142-45.
113Ibid., 156.
353
[énérgie spirituelle] by Bergson and of intuitive thought [pensée intuitive] by Le Roy put
beyond question the existence of a knowledge that is both creative and unexpressed,
knowing and not known, and that is identical with ourselves.”114 They have affirmed
Aristotle’s adage intellectus et intellectum sunt unum. In other words, the intellect is
brought into act by the intelligible form. Rabeau notes that faithful to Descartes and
Malebranche, modern philosophy has affirmed that the ego is a knowing principle and not a
known thing, although one side of the equation has usually been emphasized to the detri-
ment of the other. Aquinas, however, puts the situation in a clearer and more balanced
light: we cannot know ourselves directly because self-knowledge can only be gained
through reflecting upon our acts of knowing, in other words, our judgments about
existence.115
Corresponding to the different kinds of judgments that we make about ourselves
and the relations of objects in the world, there are different concepts of being. The most
important distinction lies between the concept of being as a universal, as a supreme genus,
and the concept of being as act. Rabeau contends that we face a dilemma in conceiving of
the act of being, for either we must think of it abstractly, which in the end is not to think of
it at all, or we must think about it by another kind of knowing.116 The problem lies in dis-
covering what other kind of knowing there is. Here Rabeau introduces the notion of the
analogy of being which had recently been revived in neo-Thomist literature. “The analogy
of being must be conceived according to this very general form,” according to Rabeau:
“between every being-subject and every existence, there is a relation which we conceive of
univocally, but whose application differs according to the requirements of the essences and
114Ibid., 202; cf. 206-7.115Ibid., 210. Cf. 165, where Rabeau suggests that there is certain similarity be-
tween the views of Bergson and Aquinas on the progress of conceptual knowledge: “. . .Et apercevoir des relations de plus en plus intelligemment, c’est les définir les unes par lesautres jusqu’à ce qu’on arrive aux relations les plus aisées à débrouiller, jusqu’à ce qu’onarrive . . . à des éléments qui définissent sans être définis, aux définientia [sic.]absoluteconsiderata parmi lesquels est l’élément ontologique affirmé par le jugement d’existence”(p. 165). On the other hand, Rabeau charges Bergson with not being able to describe theconcrete without immediately shifting to abstractions. (See p. 150, n. 1).
116Ibid., 200.
354
their manner of possessing existence.”117 Rabeau affirms that the idea of being as a pro-
portionate relation is not at an abstract universal, but that “it is the structure itself, renewed
in every individual case, of the affirmation of the concrete.”118 Thus, he would agree with
Husserl that there are various modes of existence. Yet Rabeau’s approach to the issue is not
through a phenomenological description of the essence of an object, which is Husserl’s
method for isolating its particular modality of being, but rather through an analysis of the
act of judgment in which existence is affirmed. The latter is something that Husserl simply
never considered, apparently because he was persuaded by the Kantian argument that exis-
tence is not a real predicate. Why else would Husserl suspend or bracket the question of the
existence of an object indefinitely? It is not because he thought being itself was irrational in
a positive sense like Heidegger, but because he considered the question of existence irra-
tional in the negative sense of not being open to rational investigation.
So what are theological implications of the analogy of being and the discernment of
a hierarchy in judgments of existence? Rabeau does not say. In Le Jugement d’existence,
as well as in Species. Verbum. L’activité intellectuelle élémentaire selon s. Thomas
d’Aquin, he is exclusively concerned with epistemology. Theological issues are pushed
into the background in order to work out the foundations of knowledge. Rabeau’s second
thesis is especially interesting in this regard because it frames the task in phenomenological
terms. In the preface, Rabeau notes the reorientation of neo-Thomist literature during the
past several decades.119 At the end of the nineteenth-century, neo-scholastics recovered
Aquinas’s distinction between created being and being as pure act. As a result, their studies
tended to focus on metaphysical issues. Due to the spread neo-Kantian criticism during the
early part of this century, however, neo-Thomist scholars had to shift their attention to
epistemological matters. They came to recognize that for Aquinas, as for other philoso-
phers, the question of intellectual knowledge boils down to its objective origin and subjec-
117Ibid., 219.118Ibid., 218.119Rabeau, Species, 7.
355
tive evolution. Rabeau, too, works from these assumptions and tries to advance the work
of neo-Thomists like Maritain, Sertillanges, de Tonquédec and Gilson by bring a phe-
nomenological approach to studying the concepts of species intelligibilis and verbum in
Aquinas. Insofar as each of these scholars had undertaken to describe the acts of con-
sciousness, including the nature of the objects these acts intend, they had employed phe-
nomenological methods according to Rabeau. Moreover, they had used phenomenology
without venturing into metaphysics, and rightly so. Although epistemology and ontology
frequently go hand and hand in Aquinas, there is only one entryway: the theory of knowl-
edge. As Sertillanges once said, if Aquinas’s thought forms a circle, that circle is not com-
pletely closed and its opening is precisely epistemology.120 Rabeau likewise endeavors to
conduct his “phenomenology of elementary intellectual activity” without recourse to meta-
physics.121 Although he does not state it explicitly, he seems persuaded by Husserl’s insis-
tence on the needed for a presuppositionless point of departure.
The difficulty in carrying out such an analysis on the philosophy of Aquinas is that
he never dedicated a specific work to epistemology. As a result, commentators since John
of St. Thomas have arrived at various interpretations. Following John of St. Thomas,
Maritain argues, for example, that in the process of knowledge the agent intellect first ab-
stracts the essence of an object, the indivisibilium intelligentia, then possible intellect, hav-
ing been impressed with this species of the object, produces the internal notitia intellectualis
or verbum by an immanent action, the immutatio spiritualis. Rabeau contests this interpre-
tation, pointing out that Aquinas says in numerous places that the human mind does not
have access to the essence of the things. Consequently, there is a need to review the texts
of Aquinas while paying strict attention to what they actually say about species and ver-
bum. Maritain neglected this important task because he relied too upon the commentators of
Aquinas. “In the end,” Rabeau explains, “it is a matter of studying a philosophical theory,
120Ibid., 11, 208; cf. Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges, “L’Idée générale de la con-naissance dans saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques2 (1908): 457.
121Rabeau, Species, 10, 11.
356
not in order to examine from a dogmatic point of view that is foreign to it, but rather to de-
velop it in the manner suggested by the author himself.”122
Rabeau’s exposition of Aquinas’s theory of species and verbum is lengthy and de-
tailed, but suffices to turn briefly to his conclusions in order to note points of contact and
differences with Husserl. Aquinas establishes the existence of the species intelligibilis
through transcendental analyses. He shows that to know consists in becoming what one
knows, not physically, but intentionally. In this respect, Rabeau thinks there are grounds
for a rapprochement with Husserl’s concept of intentionality. Furthermore, the intelligible
species, Rabeau observes, is normally unconscious, or better, transparent, since it is that
whereby one thinks rather than what one thinks. “It is the dynamism of the looking and not
the contemplated image,” he remarks.123 Nevertheless, it can be made visible, and this is
precisely what happens when the intellect produces the verbum, the species intellecta. The
intelligible form, the forma intelligibilis, however, remains transparent and unknown inso-
far as it is not incorporated in the mental word. The intelligible form, according to Aquinas,
can only be known indirectly through reflection. It does not correspond to any object,
physical or verbal, nor is it subject to analysis or decomposition; it is an integral unity.
According to Rabeau, Thomist doctrine holds to two points which every phenomenology
of knowledge must take account of:
On the one hand, the intelligible form, being purely spiritual, is not theproduct of corporeal substances—yet, on the other hand, whether it is thisor that does depend on these substances. The intelligible form is the productof the mind [l’oeuvre de l’esprit]—it stands in a functional relation to theuniverse that surrounds us.124
To know that the intellect is determined by intelligible forms is only the beginning of a phe-
nomenology of knowledge, Rabeau adds. Those forms must be studied, which presents an
immense task.
122Ibid., 10.123Ibid., 209.124Ibid., 211.
357
The task of studying intelligible forms is not exactly the same as the one pursued by
Husserl and his school. According to Husserl, the phenomenologist must bracket the ques-
tion of existence and attend solely to describing essences. Yet Aquinas envisions the work
from a different and more profound perspective, according to Rabeau. “Instead of admit-
ting the division of the objects of knowledge into regions from the start, and of letting the
atomized ideas be posed before the intellectual gaze, he takes the species itself, for every
species has a structure, and far from taking this structure outside the reality of being, he
sees being in it.”125 Hence the structure of the species intelligibilis comprises both essence
and existence. Furthermore, because every species is a principle of relation for others, it
makes possible the communication of essences. Through a method of reduction, Rabeau
suggests, the presuppositions of these structures and their interrelations can be uncovered.
“By the analysis of the structure of the species and by reduction, Thomism has at its dis-
position a means of discovery and proof that is simpler than syllogistic reasoning,” he
contends, adding that “it possesses the principle and method of a reflexive metaphysics,
and St. Thomas was fully aware of this.”126 A single species can produce a multiplicity of
verba. Any bit of knowledge can be examined from the point of view of the act, the intel-
lect, the will, etc., and each through distinct mental words.127
125Ibid., 213-14.126Ibid., 214.127Criticizing Rabeau’s interpretation of species and verbum, Bernard Lonergan,
Verbum. Word and Idea in Aquinas, ed. David B. Burrell (Notre Dame, IN: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1967), 66-67, n. 82, notes that Rabeau, “would urge that there must bea species intelligibilis of existence prior to its affirmation in judgment. His argument is thatto affirm existence of essence one must first have the species of existence. It overlooks thefact that existence is the act, the exercise, of essence; that to know essence is to know itsorder to its act of existence; but, though potential knowledge of existence is contained in thegrounds of existential judgment and so is prior to judgment, actual knowledge of the act ofexistence of any given essence cannot be had prior to the judgment; and there is no exis-tence that is not the act of some essence. To put the point differently, M. Rabeau might ar-gue that without a prior species of existence one would not know what one was affirmingwhen one affirmed it; but this is to overlook the essentially reflective character of the act ofjudgment, which proceeds from a grasp of sufficient grounds for itself. A third line ofconsideration is [sic. the] following dilemma: Is the species of existence one or is it many?If one what happens to the analogy of ens? If many, how do the many differ from the con-tent ‘act of essence’ where act is analogous concept and essence is any or all essences weknow?”
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Thus, in his last major work, Rabeau manages to achieve what earlier in his career
he deemed unlikely and dangerous, namely the reconciliation of Husserlian phenomenol-
ogy with a theological logic and the elaboration of phenomenological epistemology and
within the context of a thoroughly religious philosophy, Thomism.
C. Rabeau’s Application of Phenomenology to Religious Thought
Rabeau’s oeuvre reflects the itinerary of a religious thinker whose fervor becomes
gradually tempered and disciplined by the phenomenological method. Rabeau’s
Introduction à l’étude de la théologie reflects his apologetical enthusiasm and commitment
to traditional neo-scholastic theology. It contains no traces of the burgeoning neo-Thomist
movement nor any references to phenomenology or any of its German exponents, includ-
ing Husserl. Apparently in 1926 when the book was published, Rabeau had not yet en-
countered the movement, or if he had, it had not yet had an impact on his thinking. Indeed,
it is impossible to say exactly how or when Rabeau first learned about phenomenology,
although it is reasonable to suppose that during his tenure as a professor in Lublin he kept
abreast of developments in theology and philosophy in nearby Germany. His publications
show that he read widely in German scientific literature and that his knowledge of phe-
nomenology came through German sources rather than French. For instance, he never
mentions Héring’s Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse despite his particular interest
in Scheler’s philosophy of religion. Appreciation for the development of a phenomenologi-
cal movement in France came only upon his return from Poland in the early 1930s.
Rabeau’s contribution to the reception of phenomenology in French religious
thought may be divided into three stages. The first comprises his introductory articles on
Scheler’s philosophy of religion. These were important because Scheler was the most well-
known and popular of the German phenomenologists in France at the time and because
relatively little of his work had been translated, and none dealing directly with religion.128
Rabeau’s articles provided French audiences with fresh glimpses not only into Scheler’s
128Scheler’s Von Ewigen in Menschen has yet to appear in French.
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thought, but also into phenomenology as philosophical method, particularly with respect to
its potential application to religious questions. Rabeau’s mention of Rudolf Otto in his con-
tribution to the Bulletin Thomiste was significant in this regard as well, for Otto was practi-
cally unknown in France.129 Furthermore, the placement of Rabeau’s summary of
Scheler’s philosophy of religion in La Vie intellectuelle and its non-technical nature con-
tributed to the diffusion of Scheler’s ideas among a wide audience and to the popularization
of the phenomenology in France.
The second stage of Rabeau’s contribution to the French reception of phenomenol-
ogy is marked by a deeper and more critical engagement with Husserl and the beginnings a
personal appropriation of his philosophical methods. His brief review of Gurvitch’s Les
tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande, cast suspicion on the German origins of
the movement. Nevertheless, this too was significant with respect to the spread of phe-
nomenology in France, for no French writer before 1932 had offered a sociological com-
mentary on Husserlian phenomenology. Rabeau’s reservations toward the movement were
also reflected in his estimation of the validity of the method for theology. At the time, he
seemed pessimistic about the possibilities for fully integrating phenomenological insights
into the context of a Thomist religious philosophy. His review of Husserl’s Formal and
Transcendental Logic and opened with complaints about his abstract and convoluted style
and ended with the charge that he avoided the theological implications of his phenomenol-
ogy of reason. As it turned out, Rabeau’s essay would offer the only exposition in French
of this major phenomenological work prior to its translation in 1957.130 Yet much as
129Otto’s famous work on the Holy appeared in 1917 but a French translation was
not published until after the second World War: Rudolf Otto, Le Sacré. L’Elément non-rationnel dans l’idée de divin et sa relation avec le rationnel, trans. anonymous (Paris:Payot, 1948).
130See Edmund Husserl, Logique formelle et logique transcenantale. Essai d’unecritique de la raison logique, trans. Suzanne Bachelard (Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1957). In the same year Bachelard also published a commentary on Husserl’s text:Suzanne Bachelard, La Logique de Husserl: Étude sur Logique formelle et logique tran-scendentale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957). In neither work, however,does Bachelard acknowledge Rabeau’s earlier contribution, nor for that matter did any ofher French reviewers.
360
Rabeau tried to assimilate Husserl to the Aristoleian side of the Thomist tradition, he rec-
ognized, at least implicitly, its Augustinian bent. That same year, however, Rabeau at-
tended the colloquy at Juvisy where possibilities for a rapprochement of phenomenology
and Thomism were discussed. Evidently encouraged by the prospects, he returned home to
draft a new general introduction to theology. Dieu, son existence et sa providence signals a
turning point in Rabeau’s thinking for not only does he manage to down the fervor of his
apologetics while maintaining the strength of his Catholic commitment, but he also steps
outside the circle of scholasticism to offer a broad religious synthesis, drawing upon di-
verse fields of contemporary study, including phenomenology. Rabeau’s receptions of
Husserl and Scheler in this work do not so much depend on his receptions of Bergson and
Blondel as they complement one another. For the first time Rabeau incorporates phe-
nomenological methods and insights, such as intentionality, into his own attempts to vali-
date Christian belief in the existence of God. The little volume may not have attracted wide
notice given that it is seldom cited in the religious literature of the period. Nevertheless, it
represents one of the earliest French efforts to appropriate the phenomenologies of Scheler
and Husserl in a specifically theological context. If only for that reason, it deserves to be
recognized as a landmark in the reception of phenomenology in French religious thought.
Rabeau’s personal engagement with phenomenology deepened further in a third
stage of his career corresponding to the preparation of his theses for the doctorate in phi-
losophy. In his theses on the judgment of existence and species and verbum in Aquinas,
Rabeau attempted to introduce phenomenological perspectives into the framework of a
Aristotelian theory of knowledge. Whereas in the earlier stages of his engagement with
phenomenology he employed phenomenology primarily in the service of philosophy of re-
ligion, now he would use it to build the foundations of what might have eventually led to
the theological logic he had faulted Husserl for failing to develop. Other commentators have
also noticed a shift a Rabeau’s epistemology due to the influence of phenomenology. To
demonstrate the change, Georges Van Riet has compared a 1921 article by Rabeau on the
361
concept and judgment to his doctoral theses. He notes that in the early essay Rabeau admit-
ted the double intellectual intuition of the ‘I think’ affirmed by Aquinas in De veritate and of
common being. In 1938 Rabeau still holds to the notion of a double intellectual intuition,
although in the later study he refers it to the reflexive grasp of the species and the direct ap-
prehension of the verbum. Comparing the intuition of common being in the first essay and
the apprehension of the verbum in the second, Van Riet contends that the former ap-
proaches the method of abstraction whereas the latter represents concrete intuition. “This
recourse to concrete intuition manifests an evolution in the thought of Rabeau,” he con-
cludes, “an evolution no doubt due to the influence of existential phenomenology.”131 The
concerns for the existential aspects and implications of phenomenology may be reflected in
the selection of the theme of his other doctoral thesis on the judgment of existence. It is
possible that his appreciation for Heidegger, shown by his excursus of his philosophy,
may have played role in this choice.132 The fact that he never cites Levinas or Sartre indi-
cates that he continued to go directly to the German sources to shape his understanding and
interpretation of phenomenology.
As might be expected, Rabeau’s attempt to assimilate the philosophy of Aquinas to
the phenomenology of Husserl met with criticism, even from more liberal Thomist
thinkers. In a review of Rabeau’s two dissertations for the Revue néo-scolastique de
philosophie, Dominic-Marie De Petter rebuffed his interpretation of Aquinas’s theory of
knowledge.133 Rabeau’s thesis on species and verbum pretends to restore the elements of a
Thomist theory of knowledge. “In reality,” De Petter asserts, “what Rabeau offers seems to
be, for the most part, not an analysis of the facts of experience, but rather a study of the
ontological structure that St. Thomas attributes to them by virtue of the rational processes
131Georges Van Riet, L’Épistémologie Thomiste. Recherches sur le problème de la
connaissance dans l’école Thomiste contemporaine (Louvain: Éditions de l’InstitutSupérieur de Philosophie, 1946), 613.
132Rabeau, Jugement d’existence, 141-45.133Dominic-Marie De Petter, “Les Deux dissertations de M. G. Rabeau,” Revue
néo-scolastique de philosophie 41 (1938): 544-54.
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of interpretation.”134 Overall De Petter praises Rabeau’s structural analysis and his attempts
show the affinities between the inspiration of Thomist doctrines and contemporary philo-
sophical approaches, albeit with some reservations. For example, he finds regrettable that
Aquinas is presented as the precursor to Husserl and his Logical Investigations for having
remarked that the species intelligibilis is not the id quod cognoscitur [that which is known]
of knowledge but the id quo cognoscitur [that by which it is known].135 De Petter’s real
criticism, however, focuses on Rabeau’s attempt to show that the species and verbum rep-
resent “moments in an internal and vital evolution” in the thinking process.136 This is a
fundamental misunderstanding of Thomism, he claims. For Aquinas, knowledge is pre-
cisely the opposite of a dynamic evolution. It is essentially static, consisting in the identity
of the mind with its object. “The knowing is the known,” he insists, adding that on that
point Aquinas’s commentators, above all Cajetan, were in no way mistaken as Rabeau
supposed.137 Likewise in Le Jugement d’existence, De Petter finds the same basic fault.
There Rabeau envisions only one possible corrective to conceptualism: “an appeal to evolu-
tionary dynamism whereby we as imperfect knowers are elevated to the actuality of know-
ing.”138 In Le Jugement d’existence Rabeau makes this thesis the foundation of his attempt
to give knowledge it most decisive objectivity, but this is impossible according to De
Petter. By detaching the process of knowing from the metaphysics of conceptualization,
Rabeau negates any possibility of securing real knowledge. Real knowledge begins with
the affirmation of the existence of the object, not with the judgment of the existence of the
mind, which is the direction Rabeau’s subjective metaphysics leads. De Petter concludes
that Rabeau’s thinking has been shaped by Maréchal.139 Whether Rabeau was in fact influ-
134Ibid., 544.135Ibid., 546 n. 1. Cf. Rabeau, Species. Verbum, 121.136De Petter, “Les Deux dissertations de M. G. Rabeau,” 548. De Petter gives as
references pp. 7, 20, 41 and 208 of Species. Verbum.137De Petter, “Les Deux dissertations de M. G. Rabeau,” 549.138Ibid., 554.139Ibid., 554
363
enced by Maréchal, whom he cites only rarely,140 can be left open for now. At this point, it
will be more instructive to study Maréchal’s thought more closely.
III. Joseph Maréchal
Héring and Rabeau employed phenomenological perspectives and methods to de-
velop approaches to the philosophy of religion that would validate Christian belief in the
existence of God. In this process, they drew largely upon the phenomenological philoso-
phy of religion pioneered by Max Scheler, and drew to it insights from French spiritualist
and pragmatist philosophers, particularly Bergson. In the later stages of his career, Rabeau
also attempted to bring phenomenology into the framework of an Aristotelian theory of
knowledge. De Petter’s criticisms demonstrate that at least some neo-Thomists disagreed
with this initiative, which raises an important question: How did contemporary interpreters
of Aquinas relate to the new science of phenomenology? Or more precisely: How did the
reception of Husserl’s description of the acts of consciousness vary among various groups
of neo-Thomists—among those who, for instance, followed the sixteenth-century
commentators of Aquinas and their emphasis on his conceptual realism, and those who
advocated a historically-contextualized reading of Aquinas and who brought his
epistemology into dialogue with post-Kantian critical philosophies? The remainder of this
chapter will address this question by examining the reception of Husserl’s thought among
French Thomists, beginning with a study of Joseph Maréchal, whose transformation of the
scholastic tradition has already been alluded to in the sections on Rabeau and Rousselot.
Although Maréchal was a Belgian, he must be included in the discussion because it is
impossible to understand the development of French neo-Thomism apart from his
influence, and furthermore because he proposed an original synthesis of Blondelian and
Husserlian perspectives within a Thomist epistemology.
140Rabeau cites Maréchal only once in each of his theses; cf. Rabeau, Le Jugement
d’existence, 70; and Rabeau, Species. Verbum, 157, n. 2.
364
A. His Life and Works
Joesph Maréchal was born in Charleroi, Belgium, in 1878, the same year as Pierre
Rousselot. Like Rousselot Maréchal entered the Jesuit novitiate not long after his sixteenth
birthday. Towards the end of the normal course of philosophical studies, Maréchal became
interested in experimental psychology, and subsequently biology, which he took to be its
foundation.141 Approving the new direction of his research, his Jesuit superiors enrolled
him in a broad program of study in natural sciences at the University of Louvain, where he
obtained the doctorate in 1905. Afterwards, Maréchal became a member of the zoological
section of the scientific society in Brussels and taught biology to his younger confreres at
the Jesuit college of theology and philosophy at Louvain. Meanwhile, and despite chronic
poor health, he also pursued the required course of theology, publishing in 1908, the year
of his ordination, an important article on the psychology of mystics.142 In the opinion of
his bibliographer, Albert Milet, this study constitutes the cornerstone of Maréchal’s oeuvre
for it sets out the basic premises of his philosophical approach.143
After completing a tertianship at Linz in 1910, he returned to the Jesuit College at
Louvain, where he was appointed professor of philosophy. In 1911 he was given leave for
a semester to do research at various German universities on experimental psychology. He
made the acquaintance of a few prominent professors, including Alexander Pfänder in
Munich and Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Due to his fragile health, it was one of the few
141André Hayen, “Le Père Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944),” in Mélanges Joseph
Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1950), 4-5, reproduces excerpts of a memoir from1900 in which Maréchal explains the significance of biology with respect to experimentalpsychology, as well as the significance of the latter for philosophy and apologetics.
142Joseph Maréchal, “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et lesmystiques,” Revue des questions scientifiques 64-65 (1908-09): 64: 527-63; 65: 219-49,376-426; republished in Joseph Maréchal, Études sur la psychologie des mystiques, 2nded., 2 vols. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1938), 1: 69-179. Available in English as JosephMaréchal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, trans. with a foreword by AlgarThorold (New York: Benziger, 1927). Unless otherwise indicated, citations of this workare from Thorold’s translation.
143Albert Milet, “Les Premiers écrits philosophiques du P. Maréchal,” in MélangesJoseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1950), 23-46. See also Albert Milet,“Bibliographie du Père Maréchal,” in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée deBrouwer, 1950), 47-71.
365
times in his career that he was able to travel to other universities. It proved to be a fruitful
semester, leading to the publication of four more articles treating religious psychology. The
outbreak of war in 1914 and the invasion of Belgium shortly thereafter forced Maréchal to
retreat to England with a group of his students. Lacking laboratory equipment, he focused
his energies on initiating them into philosophy. He returned to a German-occupied Belgium
the fall of the following year, where he resumed his personal research without the burden
of teaching. When the Jesuit scholasticate reopened in 1919, Maréchal became a professor
of rational and experimental psychology. Despite his preparation and preference for these
fields, however, he was frequently called upon to offer courses in theodicy and the history
of modern philosophy.
Between 1923 and 1926, the fruit of his wartime labors were published, including
Le problème de la grâce mystique en Islam,144 Les Lignes essentielles du freudisme145 and
Réflexions sur l’étude comparée des mysticismes.146 These studies reflect the continually
increasing breadth of Maréchal’s interest in religious psychology. More significant, how-
ever, were the publication of the first of his now famous Cahiers or notebooks containing
his lectures on the history of philosophy, which appeared under the collective title Le Point
de départ de la métaphysique. Leçons sur le développement historique et théorique du
problème de la connaissance.147 The first three Cahiers were published in quick succession
in 1922 and 1923, and the fifth appeared in 1926. Maréchal’s groundbreaking investiga-
144Joseph Maréchal, “Le problème de la grâce en Islam,” Recherches de science re-ligieuse 3-4 (1923): 244-92. Available in English as Joseph Maréchal, “The Problem ofMystical Grace in Islam” in Joseph Maréchal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics,trans. with a foreword by Algar Thorold (New York: Benziger, 1927), 239-82.
145Joseph Maréchal, “Les Lignes essentielles de Freudisme,” Nouvelle revuethéologique 52-53 (1925): 52: 537-51, 577-605; 53: 13-50.
146Joseph Maréchal, “Réflexions sur l’étude comparée des mysticismes,” Revuedes questions scientifiques 90 (1926): 81-112, 353-401. Adapted version available inEnglish as “Reflections on the Comparative Study of Mysticism” in Joseph Maréchal,Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, trans. with a foreword by Algar Thorold (NewYork: Benziger, 1927), 283-344.
147Joseph Maréchal, Le point de départ de la métaphysique. Leçons sur ledéveloppement historique et théorique du problème de la connaissance (Brussels: Beyaert,1922-26) and Le point de départ de la métaphysique. Leçons sur le développement his-torique et théorique du problème de la connaissance. Cahier V: Le thomisme devant laphilosophie critique (Louvain: Éditions du Museum Lessianum, 1926).
366
tions aroused ecclesiastical suspicions. Following the appearance of Cahier III, which dealt
with Kant’s criticism, Maréchal was charged with being a Kantian. In order to respond
more quickly to his accusers, Maréchal delayed publication of Cahier IV, treating the post-
Kantian idealists, and instead worked to bring out Cahier V, which confronted scholastic
and critical philosophies. In order to justify his positions before the censors. Maréchal was
forced to belabor them. The revisions consumed sixteen months. Later Maréchal would
smile and say, “everyone wanted to place his stone on the monument.”148 Cahier IV was
delayed indefinitely due to other responsibilities, the increasing volume of new literature on
the subject, and failing health.
Maréchal continued teaching at the Jesuit scholasticate until his retirement in 1935.
Thereafter he remained at Louvain and continued preparing his mature works for publica-
tion while revising and reissuing his old ones.149 In 1938, the Royal Academy of Belgium
awarded him its decennial Prix de Philosophie. Nevertheless, his last years were marked
by melancholy and delusion. He felt continually frustrated with his attempts to put his most
important philosophical insights into words. A worse calamity struck in May, 1940, when
the invading Nazi army burned the house where he was living in Eigenhoven, causing the
loss of his most of his notes. Courageously, Maréchal resumed work, but by the time of
his death in 1944, he had been unable to publish any new material. His drafts of Cahier IV
were assembled posthumously and published in 1947. A promised Cahier VI, in which he
planned to give definitive expression to his epistemology, never got beyond the initial
stages.150
148Hayen, “Le Pére Joseph Maréchal,” 12.149A second edition of Cahier I had already appeared in 1927, but Maréchal revised
it again and a third edition was released in 1944. Second editions of Cahiers II and III weremeanwhile published in 1942, and third editions of each appeared in 1944. A second edi-tion of Cahier V appeared posthumously in 1949.
150Upon his retirement from teaching, Maréchal stated that he planned to “rectifierl’idée inexacte qui s’est répandue chez nous et ailleurs au sujet de ce qu’on appelle ‘monépistemologie’. De celle-ci, on croit trouver dans le Cahier V l’expression authentique etcomplète. En réalité, je n’ai jamais eu le moyen d’exposer, oralement ou par écrit, ma con-ception d’ensemble du problème de la connaissance. Le Cahier V pose encore ce problèmedans les termes de Kant, qui gardent quelque chose d’artificiel, commandé par les antécé-dents historiques immédiats. Ma position définitive ne devait apparaître qu’à la fin du
367
During his lifetime Maréchal passed largely unnoticed except by his closest peers
and associates. Three factors account for that “relative obscurity.”151 First, delicate health
hampered his work and his ability to travel and meet with other scientists and philosophers.
Secondly, he was forced to expend his diminishing energies explaining and defending his
work to ecclesiastical censors. Thirdly, and most importantly in his own opinion, he was
never offered an appointment at Louvain or any other university. Maréchal spent his whole
career teaching undergraduates at the scholasticate, isolated from his intellectual peers. Yet
it was precisely his formative influence upon younger minds that led to his subsequent
reputation as the founder of transcendental Thomism. Influential thinkers at the Second
Vatican Council have acknowledged their debt to Maréchal, most notably Karl Rahner and
Bernard Lonergan.152 To appreciate the significance of Maréchal’s thought, however, and
especially its relevance to the French reception of phenomenology, it is not enough to sur-
vey the stages of his career and the list of his principal publications. One must consider
how he was shaped by various intellectual influences and how, in turn, he sought to bring
those points of view into a creative synthesis in order to shed new light on the problem of
knowledge and its relation to metaphysics.
Maréchal spent his earliest years as a religious studying uninspiring neo-scholastic
manuals of theology with his peers.153 Nevertheless, one of his professors, Jules Thirion,
took note of his intellectual abilities and directed him toward the sciences.154 Under
Thirion’s tutelage, Maréchal studied mathematics and scientific criticism, including the Cahier VI, dans lequel une étape nouvelle restait à franchir” (from an unpublishedmanuscript quoted by Hayen, “Le Père Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944),” 13).
151Cf. Joseph Donceel, “Introduction,” A Maréchal Reader, ed. and trans. JosephDonceel (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), xi. Maréchal himself used the phrase“obscurité relative” to refer to his career in 1927 (see Hayen, “Le Pére Joseph Maréchal,”14).
152Cf. McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 225, 229-30.153The next several paragraphs tracing Maréchal’s intellectual formation are based
largely upon Albert Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal. Sources doctrinales et influencesubies,” Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 43 (1940-45): 225-51.
154Jules Thirion, S.J. (1852-1918), was a physicist and an active collaborator forthe Louvain journal Revue des questions scientifiques. Maréchal began reviewing booksfor the journal in 1901 and continued to do so every year through his retirement, sometimesas many as a dozen books a year.
368
works of Cournot, Duhem and Poincaré (much as Le Roy was doing at the time in Paris).
In 1899, he read Lachelier and Boutroux, whose spiritualism and doctrines of finality he
assimilated readily into his own thinking. Also in 1899, Maréchal received permission from
his superiors to study Kant. His initial efforts left him bewildered, but he pushed ahead and
gradually discerned the significance of the Kantian a priori and transcendental perspective.
He also discovered that the manner in which scholastic manuals typically presented critical
philosophy was woefully naïve and inadequate. From that time, Maréchal resolved to pur-
sue Thomist philosophy from a genuinely critical viewpoint.
Beginning in 1902, Maréchal broadened his perspectives on contemporary philo-
sophical movements, tackling in that year alone the principal works of Bergson, Blondel
and William James.155 Although he rejected many of James’s assumptions, his own studies
of mystical psychology were prompted by his approaches and insights. In 1905, he read
Franz Brentano’s Psychologie vom empirisichen Standpunkt.156 Thanks to Brentano, who
taught Husserl and Freud in Vienna, Maréchal came to appreciate the Aristotelian doctrine
of intentionality as well as the notion that all representations imply judgments. These
phenomenological themes would later become features of his own epistemology.
During his years as student, however, and throughout the rest of his life, the most
formative influence on Maréchal’s thinking was his study of Thomas Aquinas. In a testa-
ment to his students upon his retirement, Maréchal recommended daily reading of Aquinas
as the best introduction not only to scholastic thought, but also to understanding the devel-
opment and significance of modern philosophies.157 This might seem paradoxical, but
Maréchal was convinced that the history of modern philosophy largely issued from a
155Cf. William James, Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. (New York: Henry Holt,
1890).156Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirisichen Standpunkt, vol. 1 (Leipzig:
Duncker & Humboldt, 1874).157Hayen, “Le Père Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944),” 12-13, reproduces a long ex-
cerpt from this document dating to 1935. Maréchal writes: “une longue familiarité avecsaint Thomas—par la trempe d’esprit qu’elle confère et le parfait équilibre doctrinal qu’elleassure—est la meilleure introduction à une intelligence vraiment profonde de la philosophiemoderne.”
369
breakdown of the synthesis of the scholastic tradition that Aquinas had achieved. Thus, in
his view, the key to sorting out the various claims advanced by modern philosophies lay in
returning to their sources, especially the writings of Aquinas. The benefit of modern
philosophies is their focus on particular philosophical issues and their exacting criticism.
The benefit of Aquinas, however, is his grounding of critical perspectives in an integrated
synthesis that speaks to the whole range of philosophical issues in a balanced way. Hence,
the greatest benefit to be had from close study of Aquinas in conjunction with modern
philosophers is the identification of one’s own thinking with the master’s. “Do I need to tell
you,” Maréchal once wrote to a friend, “that if I am integrally Thomist, it is solely upon
personal conviction, for I find in Thomist philosophy the maximum coherence of my own
thinking?”158 It would be impossible, therefore, to detail the ways in which Aquinas
shaped Maréchal’s thinking apart from writing a commentary to his collected works.
Nevertheless, two principal ideas which Maréchal gleaned from his study of Aquinas stand
out: the finality of intelligence and the interpenetration and reciprocal causality of intelli-
gence and the will.159 While these principles constitute the foundation of Thomist episte-
mology according to Maréchal, they also recall themes central to the philosophies of
Bergson and Blondel.
Maréchal rarely cites Bergson directly, but the ambiance of the latter’s thought may
occasionally discerned in his writings, especially his articles on religious psychology.160
158Joseph Maréchal, Letter to Blaise Romeyer, 14 November 1924, quoted in
Hayen, “Le Père Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944),” 8. Bernard Lonergan, who was one ofthe subsequent generation of neo-Thomists most profoundly marked by Maréchal’s thoughthas said, “After spending years reading up to the mind of Aquinas, I came to a two-foldconclusion. On the one hand, that reaching had changed me profoundly. On the other hand,that change was the essential benefit. For not only did it make me capable of graspingwhat, in the light of my conclusions, the vetera really were, but also it opened challengingvistas on what the nova could be” (Bernard Lonergan, Insight. A Study of HumanUnderstanding (New York: Longmans, 1958), 748.
159Cf. Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 233.160Ibid., 240. Milet cites in particular Joseph Maréchal, “Science empirique et psy-
chologie religieuse. Notes critiques,” Recherches de science religieuse 3 (1912): 1-61, inwhich he notes the following theses which Maréchal maitains in common with Bergson: theinfluence of the psychological past on sensation, the profound diversity of apparently iden-tical phenomena, the radical insufficiency of empirical determinism and the rejection of apassive associationism founded exclusively on physical causality. All of these themes may
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The dynamic aspect of Bergsonian philosophy attracted his attention. Milet notes that like
Bergson, Maréchal believed that “the perception of change could open a breach in the rela-
tivism of the understanding and the senses through which it would be possible for meta-
physics to enter.”161 Because human intelligence does not posses the capacity for direct
intuition of transcendent objects, it can only grasp an absolute through the very movement
in which it finds itself immersed. Does not this movement, this passage from potency to act
correspond to the lived duration described by Bergson? Milet asks. In Cahier V, Maréchal
asserts that the point of departure for the critical metaphysics of Aristotle is precisely the
penetrating grasp of becoming—not simply the pure succession of phenomena, but their
unity in act.162 Bergson revives this insight in contemporary philosophy, and thereby pre-
pares the path toward a critically justified metaphysics. Nevertheless, Bergson goes too far
in identifying the concrete duration that we perceive in the process of our thinking with the
essential finality of our intelligence. Following Aquinas, Maréchal distinguishes the act of
becoming which constitutes action from the act of becoming which constitutes being. An
analogy exists between the two kinds of becoming, between the dynamism of action and
the dynamism of intelligence, but only the latter attains being in the absolute and transcen-
dent sense required to ground metaphysics. There are certain parallels between the ap-
proaches of Bergson and Maréchal to restore a critical metaphysics, and it is quite probable
that Bergson helped stimulate Maréchal’s recognition of dynamism as the key to resolving
the problem, nevertheless Maréchal’s particular solution came to him in dialog with
Aquinas. be found in Bergson’s Matter and Memory.
161Ibid., 239.162Cf. Maréchal, Cahier V, 27 , n. 1: “Le point d’arrivée, dans l’évolution
‘dynamiste’ de la Critique moderne, se trouve être correspondant au point de départ de laCritique moderne d’Aristote: d’un côté l’intuition immanente du mouvement, de l’autre ladonnée physique de la κινησιs (M. Bergson nous paraît s’exagérer un peu le caractère sta-tique de ce concept chez Aristote). De part et d’autre, bien que par des voies diverses, ceque l’on postule au début, c’est la saisie pénétrante d’un ‘devenir’, soit subjectif soit objec-tif, et non d’une pure succession de phénomènes, la saisie donc de l’acte maîtrisant la puis-sance, c’est-à-dire de quelque chose d’absolu qui peut servir de thème initial à une méta-physique” (quoted by Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 239, n. 42 (emphasisMaréchal’s)).
371
Maréchal was also one of the first Thomist thinkers to recognize the significance of
Blondel’s philosophy and its dynamic principle for a critical solution to the problem of
metaphysics. As with Bergson, Maréchal seldom cited Blondel directly and rarely em-
ployed his characteristic expressions, but the basic tenets of his philosophy pervade his
writings.163 In fact, it is likely that the general title Maréchal gave to his series of Cahiers
on the problem of metaphysics was inspired by Blondel’s 1906 essay “Le Point de départ
de la recherche philosophique.”164 Far more important evidence of Maréchal’s appreciation
of Blondel, however, may be found in a manuscript which he drafted in 1917. This short
text, bearing the heading “The Philosophy of Action,” formed part of his original plan for
Cahier III.165 In it Maréchal explains why he finds in Blondel’s philosophy the
“experimental confirmation of an idea which runs throughout our lectures and unifies
them,” namely, that philosophical thought had achieved for the first time in the
Aristotelianism of Aquinas a perfect balance whose subsequent rupture Kantianism has
only begun to repair.166 In Maréchal’s estimation, “the philosophy of Blondel already
marks a spontaneous return of western thought to its traditional equilibrium,” precisely be-
cause Blondel recovers, relying in part upon the preliminary work of Ravaisson and
163Ibid., 241. Milet, 241, n. 48, cites a book review from Revue des questions sci-
entifiques 83 (1923): 565, in which Maréchal calls Blondel’s philosophy “une des oeuvresles plus vigoureuses et les plus hautement représentatives de la philosophie contempo-raine.” Otherwise, direct citations in the Cahiers, for example, are infrequent and often re-fer to minor points of Blondel’s argument (see for example how Maréchal makes use ofBlondel’s refutation of scepticism in Cahier I, 2nd. ed., 35-36). On the other hand,Maréchal develops some of his key propositions in dialogue with Blondel even though hedoes not mention the latter by name (see for example Maréchal’s account of the voluntariststage of the critical proof of realism in Cahier V, 403-406).
164Maurice Blondel, “Le point de départ de la recherche philosophique,” Annales dephilosophie chrétienne 151-52 (1906): 151: 337-60; 152: 225-50.
165Joseph Maréchal, “‘L’Action’ de Maurice Blondel. Texte inédit de JosephMaréchal présenté et commenté par André Hayen,” Convivium (Barcelona) 2, no. 2(1957): 3-41. According to Hayen, 7, the manuscript on Blondel was to have constitutedpart of the third section of the third book of the third Cahier, whose theme would have beenpoints of contact between scholasticism and post-Kantian philosophy. In the final plan forLe point de départ de la métaphysique, this topic would have been treated in the projectedCahier VI, which was never published.
166Ibid., 14.
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Boutroux, the essential themes of Aristotelianism, particularly the dynamism and finality of
action.167
It would be problematic, Maréchal observes, to take the psychological descriptions
with which L’Action opens as premises of a rational epistemology and from there to try to
deduce an absolute, but this is not Blondel’s route. Instead, Blondel envisions the dy-
namism of the psychological faculties as necessarily leading toward a synthetic point of
knowledge which they cannot attain on their own, and hence to the option of affirming a
supernatural potency capable of sustaining their dynamism and bringing their respective fi-
nalities to fruition. To this supreme alternative in Blondel’s system is tied the problem of
objective existence and the science of metaphysics. Prior to the exercise of the option, ob-
jective existence emerges as a postulate engendered by the dialectic of action. As such, the
subjective necessity of the dialectic does not require anything behind the chain of action to
constitute an absolute for it regards the chain itself as objective and necessary. And yet,
“the series of objective conditions for action never comes to an end, or rather, it closes
upon an alternative,” Maréchal explains. “The full possession, which correspond in us to
the absolute universality of this tendency, can only be realized by an intuitive assimilation
to God, which is to say, an immediate participation in the divine.”168 Since this kind of
intuitive assimilation is impossible for human beings due to the limitations of their faculties,
the exercise of the option entails the supernatural donation of the divine reality through
grace. Insofar as Blondel tries to appreciate not only the unfolding of knowledge and action
but the precise link between this becoming and its possible final end, Maréchal finds that
Blondel’s philosophy is completely compatible with Thomism. Milet notes that from this
angle, L’Action appeared to Maréchal as a vast commentary on certain chapters of the
Summa contra Gentiles”—an assessment with which Blondel himself would have been
inclined to agree.169
167Ibid., 15.168Ibid., 24 (emphasis Maréchal’s).169Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 245. Milet cites Maurice Blondel, Le
Problème de la philosophie catholique (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1932), 47, n. 20, where
373
According to André Hayen, who introduces and comments upon the fragment, this
text helps to clarify ambiguities in the last chapter of Blondel’s work and is superior to
Maréchal’s comparison of Blondel and Husserl which appeared in 1930.170 Nevertheless,
since the later essay focuses directly upon Husserl, it will be closely analyzed in the subse-
quent section treating Maréchal’s appraisal of appropriation of phenomenology.
The affinities between Maréchal’s thought and Blondel’s also helps to account for
similarities between Maréchal and another neo-Thomist who took inspiration from Blondel,
Pierre Rousselot.171 Maréchal read Rousselot as he was finishing his essay on the feeling
of presence among mystics and non-mystics, but by that time the principles of his episte-
mology had been largely established.172 Thus, while it may not be accurate to speak of
Rousselot’s influence on Maréchal, it is nevertheless instructive to mention a few points of
contact between the two thinkers since Rousselot helped prepare neo-Thomist thinkers for
understanding Husserlian phenomenology. The strongest point of contact between
Maréchal and Rousselot lies in their common appreciation for the intellectualism of Aquinas
and its importance for the affirmation of metaphysics. Towards the end of the 1917
manuscript on Blondel’s L’Action cited above, Maréchal writes:
Prior to the option, the reality of the metaphysical object is only immanentdynamically, as the necessary condition of our active finality. . . . To attain
Blondel compares the dynamism of L’Action with that found in the third book of theSumma contra Gentiles. Cf. Maréchal, Études sur la psychologie des mystiques, 1: 69-179. Available in English as Joseph Maréchal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics,trans. with a foreword by Algar Thorold (New York: Benziger, 1927). Unless otherwiseindicated, citations of this work are from the Thorold’s translation.
170Joseph Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” inPhilosophia Perennis. Abhandlungen zu ihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. Fritz-Joachim Von Rintelen (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1930), 377-400. In his introduction to“Un Texte inédit du P. Maréchal,” Hayen, 7, remarks: “il est frappant de voir comment lemouvement premier de la pensée maréchalienne saisit la pensée de Maurice Blondel avecune étonnante pénétration et trouve d’emblée une expression plus sûre et plus fidèle, noussemble-t-il, que l’étude de 1930, marquée par l’influence paralysante des suspicions, despolémiques et des incompréhensions.”
171Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 251-52.172Maréchal, “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et les mys-
tiques,” in Maréchal, Études sur la psychologie des mystiques, 1: 121, n. 1; Thorold, 101,n. 81: “. . . We consider it superfluous to heap up references here, all the more as the dy-namic nature of the intellection in the Thomist philosophy has been brilliantly brought tolight in a recent book, to which we cannot do better than to refer our readers.”
374
still more objective knowledge, the object itself . . . must become imma-nent for us. We will never possess the reality in itself of any object prior tothe moment when, according to the expression of St. Thomas, the being ofGod, the principle of all being, makes itself the form of our intellectualfaculty. Complete objective certitude prevails at the blessed end of this su-pernatural experience which begins obscurely in this world through faith.And the metaphysical knowledge which follows the option of the uniquelynecessary already belongs to the higher level where reason receives newlight and truly sees with new eyes.173
Here Maréchal brings together strands from Blondel’s theory of the option, Rousselot’s
theory of the act of faith and Aquinas’s theory of intellection, and weaves them into his
own argument for the metaphysical affirmation of objective being. Like Rousselot,
Maréchal perceives that root of Aquinas’s intellectualism is the natural orientation of the
human intellect toward the immediate intuition of unlimited being.174 Furthermore, he rec-
ognizes that this intuition is impossible for the natural human intellect but that it will be
granted through the grace of the beatific vision. Only in that moment will it be possible for
the human intellect to affirm with absolute certitude the existence of objective being. In the
meantime, however, Maréchal agrees with Rousselot that the supernatural elevation of the
intellect in the act of faith permits the rational and critical affirmation of metaphysical
knowledge. Hence it is the inherent dynamism of the intellect and its finality toward being
itself, according to both philosophers, that essentially distinguishes and justifies Thomist
epistemology.
B. Phenomenology and the Critical Justification of Metaphysics
Maréchal’s entire philosophical oeuvre is geared toward finding critical justification
for the metaphysical affirmation of objective being. Whether he is studying issues in reli-
gious psychology or the history of philosophy or the compatibility of contemporary philo-
sophical methods with the scholastic tradition, Maréchal’s overriding concern lies in dis-
covering what these fields can contribute to metaphysical insight and experience. Indeed,
the various contemporary approaches to philosophy, including phenomenology, would be
173Maréchal, “L’Action de Maurice Blondel,” 38-39 (emphasis Maréchal’s).174Cf. Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 248.
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of little interest in themselves apart from this overarching project. To better grasp the
essence of Maréchal’s project, the following section takes soundings at four points of its
development. First, it examines the basic argument of Maréchal’s early essay on the feeling
of presence among mystics and non-mystics. Next, it explores the structure of Le point de
départ de la métaphysique. Finally it focuses on two later essays: a 1931 review of Édouard
Le Roy’s Le Problème de Dieu, and the 1930 essay in which Maréchal confronts the
philosophies of Husserl and Blondel. From this investigation will emerge not only a clearer
sense of Maréchal’s overall philosophical project and its theological implications, but also
his appraisal of the relevance of Husserlian phenomenology toward its realization.
1. “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et les mystiques”
Like Husserl, Maréchal struggled against the reductionism of contemporary schools
of experimental psychology. In his 1908-1909 essay on the feeling of presence among
mystics and non-mystics, Maréchal argued against those who regarded it as a purely sub-
jective phenomenon. In the opening of the essay, Maréchal makes explicit the implied rela-
tionship between the notions of presence and immediately perceived reality.175 Most mod-
ern psychologists since Hume, he observes, have contended that a form of persuasion or
belief invests the sensation of objects with reality. According to Brentano, for example, ev-
ery object touches consciousness in two ways: first as a simple representation, and second
as the object of affirmation or negation. When an affirmation is accompanied by immediate
sensation, the feeling of presence results. This analysis of the situation implies a spatial re-
lationship between subject and object and their a priori existence and distinction. It also
generates further problematic implications: first, it would seem that the judgment of reality
is a synthesis that cannot justify itself; and secondly, the nature of sensation and the mental
representation appear to be the same. Consequently, the difficulty arises of explaining how
a subject who is essentially distinct and enclosed can go out of himself toward the object.
175Maréchal, “À propos du sentiment de présence chez les profanes et les mys-
tiques,” in Maréchal, Études sur la psychologie des mystiques, 1: 69; Thorold, 58.
376
Yet rather than working from a skeptical premise to determine the mechanism for affirming
the real, Maréchal postulates the affirmation of the real as primary and from there proceeds
to explain the phenomenon of doubt. “We shall thus come once more, with a certain num-
ber of modern psychologists and impelled by experience, to the very clear, but insuffi-
ciently analyzed point of view of the old Thomist psychology,” he claims.176
Maréchal asserts that “[t]he empirical feeling of presence, the perception of a
spatialized reality, is a particular case of intuition—the only case, moreover, which we meet
with in our ordinary experience.”177 Intuition may be defined as the direct assimilation of a
knowing faculty with its object, but it is important to distinguish the different levels of in-
tuition. Sensible intuition brings the subject into contact with real objects, but does not of
itself discern reality. True perception, on the other hand, is a function of intelligence.
Intelligence criticizes the data provided by the senses and synthesizes judgments. Yet, be-
ing removed from sensation, intelligence is not strictly intuitive. The primitive and natural
movement of the mind may be stopped altogether by logical contradiction and suspended
by the threat of contradiction. These facts show that “human intelligence is not merely a
mirror passively reflecting objects which pass within its field, but an activity directed in its
deepest manifestations towards a well-defined term, the only term which can completely
absorb it—Absolute Being, Absolute Truth and Goodness.”178 For this reason Maréchal
calls intelligence “a faculty in quest of its intuition.”179 Maréchal concludes that the affir-
mation of reality is the expression of the fundamental striving of the intellect toward union
with the absolute. This affirmation only attains its full objective value in the direct intuition
of the absolute, although ordinary knowledge preserves an analogous and relative value.
Objects are judged as real insofar as they converge toward the unity of the mind, and unreal
to the extent that they diverge from it.
176Ibid., 1: 110; Thorold, 92.177Ibid., 1: 117; Thorold, 98 (emphasis Maréchal’s).178Ibid., 1: 120; Thorold, 100.179Ibid., 1: 121; Thorold, 101 (emphasis Maréchal’s). At this juncture in his argu-
ment that Maréchal alludes in a footnote to Rousselot’s L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas.
377
In the second part of the essay, Maréchal applies these Thomist insights toward
explaining the phenomenon of mystical experience. He begins by distinguishing the acces-
sory phenomena associated with mystical states, such as visions, levitation, stigmatization,
etc., from the essential phenomenon, namely “the feeling of the immediate presence of a
Transcendent Being.”180 Maréchal notes that other contemporary psychologists of religion
have made the same distinction, including Boutroux, James, and Augustin Poulain, who in
his famous book on the graces of interior prayer, explains that the difference between ordi-
nary contemplation of absolute being and mystical experience is that “‘in the mystic state,
God is not merely satisfied to help us think of him and to remind of us his presence; he
gives us an experimental intellectual knowledge of this presence.’”181 Maréchal proceeds to
examine intermediary states between ordinary knowledge and mystical states in order show
that while psychology may be competent to describe certain lower mystical experiences, it
is inadequate to describe the higher states since their peculiar nature consists precisely in the
transcendence of normal psychological life.
In an attempt to try to isolate the particular features which distinguish higher mysti-
cal states, Maréchal considers the varieties reported by mystics in the several world reli-
gions and non-theistic pantheism, concluding with a more detailed investigation of the great
orthodox Catholic contemplatives, like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. His analysis
shows that “higher mystical contemplation is neither a sense-perception nor an imaginative
projection nor a discursive knowledge, but, strictly speaking an intellectual intuition.”182
This is not to say that the phenomenal content of all mystical experiences is the same, for
the great variety of experiences attests that it is not, but it does suggest some common un-
derlying psychological structure. James, Delacroix and others have tried to describe this
structure by making reference to the subconscious, yet the problem with their accounts is
180Ibid., 1: 124; Thorold, 103.181Ibid., 1: 123; Thorold, 102. Cf. Augustin Poulain, Des Grâces d’oraison. Traité
de théologie mystique. 5th ed. (Paris: Victor Retaux, 1906), 66; available in English asAugustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer, trans. by Leonora L. Yorke-Smith(London, Paul, Trench, Trübner: 1912): 64.
182Ibid., 1: 150; Thorold, 121.
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that despite their formulation as scientific hypotheses they are unverifiable. Maréchal does
not dispute the need for verification, but suggests that another type of psychological ap-
proach is more applicable. This approach makes use of the accounts given by mystics as
they stand without reducing them to more familiar terms. These accounts show that the
human understanding is “perpetually chased from the moveable, manifold and deficient to-
wards the Absolute, towards the One and the Infinite, that is, towards Being pure and
simple.”183 Upon closer consideration, the natural finality of the mind proves, in fact, to be
“only a long pursuit of the always fleeting intuition of this Being.”184 Hence, mystical ac-
tivity will appear to the psychologist as a unification of the contents on consciousness
through the systematization and negation of its particular determinations. Psychology,
however, cannot describe the actual point of convergence envisioned by this process for it
lies outside its domain. Mystical experience is fundamentally metaphysical and theological,
Maréchal contends. The feeling of presence described by mystics can be compared only
analogically to the ordinary feeling of present reality. It does not contradict it, however,
since it is in fact an expression of the finality inherent in all psychological experience.
Maréchal’s approach to the problem of mystical experience displays several phe-
nomenological traits. Maréchal’s insistence upon accepting the mystical phenomena as they
are without reducing to them to common forms of experience recalls Husserl’s insistence
upon the right of all phenomena to be accepted as they give themselves out to be.185 This
protocol is reflected further in Maréchal’s reversal of the problem of knowledge, whereby
experiences of reality are only doubted under the threat of logical contradiction. While
Husserl does not make use of the principle of contradiction in the same way as Maréchal,
183Ibid., 1: 165; Thorold, 133 (emphasis Maréchal’s).184Ibid., 1: 165; Thorold, 134 (emphasis Maréchal’s). It interesting to note that four
years later in “Science empirique et psychologie religieuse,” 7, Maréchal recasts this sameidea in similar wording: “nous reconnaîtrons volontiers la démarche propre de l’esprithumain, l’expression de sa nature intime, effectrice et affirmatrice d’unité, parce que fon-cièrement orientée vers l’unité de l’Être, son inaccessible object et sa fin toujours fuyante.”In the later article, however, Maréchal includes a footnote referring the reader to Book IIIof Summa contra Gentiles as and Rousselot’s thesis on Aquinas’s intellectualism.
185Cf. Husserl, “The Principle of All Principles,” Ideas §24; Gibson, 92.
379
his doctrine of intentionality similarly expresses the essential relationship of the mind to
objective reality. Maréchal’s demonstration that the fundamental orientation of the mind is
toward intuitional knowledge and that only intuition provides complete, objective certitude
is echoed by Husserl’s refusal to accept for phenomenological consideration any knowl-
edge that cannot be attained intuitively. Certainly, Maréchal and Husserl disagree on the ca-
pabilities of the human mind for intuitional knowledge—a point to which we will
return—yet it is important to note how both privilege intuition as the ideal form of
knowledge. Finally, the theme of Maréchal’s study, namely the feeling of presence and the
accompanying judgment of reality, was of great interest to Husserl, especially in the
Logical Investigations.186 To the extent, however, that Husserl developed his theories of
intentionality and judgment in conversation with Brentano, he stands at odds with
Maréchal, who rejected Brentano’s approach because he found that it remained bound to
the idealistic conundrum of trying to explain how the immanent subject can grasp
transcendent reality. While both philosophers were equally committed to refuting the
viewpoint of psychologism (or, as Maréchal often refers to it, empirical phenomenalism),
an investigation of other works by Maréchal will reveal that the crux of the divergence from
Husserlian phenomenology lies in his appreciation for knowledge as a dynamic synthesis
produced jointly by the several mental faculties.
2. Le point de départ de la métaphysique
Maréchal’s major work on the history of philosophy is his series of Cahiers pub-
lished under the general title Le point de départ de la métaphysique. Because the work grew
out of his years of lecturing as a professor at the Jesuit scholasticate and abroad, its organi-
zation and division evolved considerably prior to and even during the course of its publica-
tion.187 A study of its development and structure can therefore provide insight into the
186See especially the second Logical Investigation, in which Husserl critiques mod-ern theories of abstraction (i.e., Locke and Hume); Findlay, 1: 337-432.
187For a brief discussion the documents cited in this paragraph and the evolution ofLe point de départ de la métaphysique see E. Dirven, De la forme à l’acte. Essai sur lethomisme de Joseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1965), 19-21.
380
principal aims of Maréchal’s mature philosophy, thereby suggesting the basis for the inter-
est he would later show in Husserlian phenomenology.
The earliest conception of Le point de départ de la métaphysique can be traced to a
manuscript drafted during the war while Maréchal was in England as a refugee with some
of his students.188 The fragment consists in a series of propositions in which Maréchal at-
tacks the foundations of Kantianism from a neo-scholastic perspective. The essence of con-
frontation of between scholasticism and Kantianism which would later constitute Cahier V
is already present in germ although the terminology and organization are not yet fixed. The
earliest draft bearing the actual title of series dates from 1917.189 This manuscript calls for
three volumes and contains the principle elements arranged roughly in their eventual order:
an introductory comment on metaphysics and its relation to the problem of knowledge, a
critical study of modern philosophy culminating in Kant, an examination of the insuffi-
ciencies of the post-Kantian legacy, and finally set of general theses expounding the foun-
dations of critical metaphysics. In the introduction, Maréchal calls metaphysics “the human
science of the absolute,” for it “translates immediately the grasping of our intelligence by
the absolute, a grasping which is in no way a yoke imposed from outside but an internal
principle of life.”190 By the end, Maréchal claims to have laid the groundwork for a meta-
physics and a theory of experience, but he admits that in order to address the problem of
knowledge, he will have to enlarge the investigation to include a metaphysical deduction
and theory of inductive science.191 A pair of later documents, however, show that Maréchal
would abandon this idea for an extension of the scope of his work in favor of more focused
approach to the problem of evaluating a scholastic theory of knowledge from the
188Joseph Maréchal, “Jugement ‘Scolastique’ concernant la racine de l’agnosticisme
kantien (Romiley, 1914),” in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer,1950), 273-87.
189Joseph Maréchal, “Le point de départ de la métaphysique (première rédaction.Louvain, 1917),” in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal, (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1950), 288-98.
190Ibid., 289.191Ibid., 298.
381
perspective of a transcendental critique.192 The idea for a deduction is still present, but it is
set within the bounds of psychology rather than a critical metaphysics.
This series of preliminary drafts and parallel studies reveal that although the frame-
work of the Le point de départ de la métaphysique would grow to encompass the whole
history of critical philosophy, Maréchal’s ambitions remained speculative and focused on
the justification and renewal of Thomist approaches to the problems of knowledge and
metaphysics. In the final plan for the projected six-volume work, the first Cahier would to
deal with the critique of knowledge from antiquity to the end of the middle ages. Cahier II
would treat the conflict of rationalism and empiricism in modern philosophy prior to Kant.
Cahier III, the centerpiece of the series, would be dedicated entirely to an exposition and
critical commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The unfinished fourth Cahier,
which was only published from manuscripts left by Maréchal after his death, was to have
addressed the legacy of post-Kantian idealism. Cahier V, the last to appear during
Maréchal’s lifetime, would comprise two major parts: “The Theory of Knowledge within
the Framework of Thomist Metaphysics,” and “The Thomist Critique of Knowledge
Transposed into the Transcendental Mode.”193 The anticipated Cahier VI was to have ex-
amined contemporary epistemologies, and probably would have included the excursus on
Blondel found in the third volume of the 1917 plan as well as discussions of Bergson,
American neo-realism and pragmatism; one might speculate whether Maréchal would have
included a section on phenomenology.
In the opening to Cahier I, Maréchal states the fundamental problem he plans to ad-
dress: “If metaphysics is possible, it must necessarily take as its point of departure an abso-
lute, objective affirmation: do we encounter such an affirmation in the contents of our con-
192Joseph Maréchal, “Première formule d’une doctrine complètement formée
(Louvain, avril 1920),” in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1950),299-303; and Joseph Maréchal, “Esquisse d’une psychologie déductive (1920, revue en1928),” in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1950), 303-22.
193These two parts comprise respectively Books II and III of Cahier V. Book Ibriefly sets out the distinction between metaphysical and transcedental critiques.
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sciousness, supported by all the guarantees required by the most exacting criticism?”194 He
notes that while modern philosophers might exaggerate the rights of a critique of meta-
physics, scholastic thinkers generally fail to appreciate the critical claim or at least misun-
derstand it. Maréchal’s intention, therefore, is to renew the scholastic tradition by providing
critical justification for the metaphysical affirmation. As a criterion for his endeavor he en-
joins the strongest form of proof:
An error can be overcome only when we manage to show that it includes acontradiction; in other words, we can say that the metaphysical affirmationwill victoriously maintain itself against relativism only if it can show that notonly is it ‘morally’ or ‘practically’ necessary, but that it is also ‘theoretical-ly’ necessary.195
Maréchal contends that establishing such necessity entails full acceptance of the critical
claim. The purpose of studying various historical approaches to the problem of knowledge
therefore is to show that rejecting or abstaining from the absolute affirmation of objective
reality leads to contradiction. Maréchal argues that scholastic philosophy cannot afford to
reject this subtle task, “unless it is willing to lock itself up within the ivory tower of narrow
dogmatism.”196 The scholastic philosopher, however, need not feel threatened. Historical
analysis shows that the critical concern only entered modern philosophy following the
breakdown of the Thomist synthesis of knowledge. To blame are Duns Scotus and espe-
cially Ockham for having introduced a schism between intellect and will. As a result, west-
ern philosophers have tended to forget that intelligence has a natural appetite for being.
Maréchal’s plan in the Cahiers is to demonstrate how “this schism of the intellect and the
will, of speculation and action, after having caused the metaphysical impotency of the ra-
tionalisms, decreased the usefulness of the Kantian critique by rendering it unduly negative
and destructive.”197 Hence, on the one hand Maréchal seeks to justify Thomism before
modern critical demands, while on the other, he wants to show that the confines of some
194Maréchal, Cahier I, 2nd. ed., 3 (my translation); cf. Donceel, ed., Maréchal
Reader, 3.195Maréchal, Cahier I, 2nd. ed., 5; Donceel, ed., Maréchal Reader, 5.196Ibid., 5; Donceel, 5.197Ibid., 208; Donceel, 22.
383
forms of modern criticism are too narrow and their methodologies overly strict. As a study
of subsequent essays will reveal, these latter constituted Maréchal’s major complaints
against phenomenology.
3. “Le Problème de Dieu d’après M. Édouard Le Roy”
A case in point of the misunderstanding of the scholastic tradition by a contempo-
rary philosopher is Édouard Le Roy. Upon the publication of Le Roy’s collection of essays
and lectures treating Le Problème de Dieu, Maréchal drafted a long response to his criticism
of scholastic proofs for the existence of God.198 Maréchal’s basic accusation is that Le Roy
fails to grasp the intention and form scholastic methods of argument. “I cannot help but
have the impression that the author of Le Problème de Dieu, no doubt misled by terminol-
ogy unfamiliar to him, understood badly the true import of the medieval arguments,”
Maréchal writes. “Instead of a real objection, is there not above all a grave misunderstand-
ing in the reproach he addresses against the great scholastic authors (not to mention others)
for a naïve decomposition [morcelage] and overly simplistic reification?”199 In particular,
Le Roy misunderstands the proof based on the doctrine of final causes, supposing that it
refers to external causes or causes given after the fact. He also mistakes the fundamental
notions of potency and act. “Le Roy questions the primacy of act,” Maréchal observes,
“but his difficulty has less to do with the logical priority of the act in its conceptual relation
of act-potency than with the possibility of being able to truly express the real by these two
concepts.”200 The root of the problem stems from Le Roy’s devaluation of conceptual
knowledge.
Le Roy’s objects that reality is not demonstrated but perceived. Knowledge is not a
matter of conceptual analysis, he argues, but lived intuition. Searching for God by means
of demonstration will only lead to an explicative hypothesis that is more or less conjectural.
198Joseph Maréchal, “Le Problème de Dieu d’après M. Edouard Le Roy,” Nouvellerevue théologique 58 (1931): 193-216, 289-316; reprinted in Mélanges Joseph Maréchal,207-59.
199Ibid., 207; Mélanges, 221.200Ibid., 216; Mélanges, 230.
384
Instead, the affirmation of the existence of God must come through a kind of perception.
Maréchal points out that Le Roy’s argument reduces the divine existence to a contingent
event when in fact there is a real difference between contingent and necessary being. In re-
ply, Maréchal asserts that it is in the empirical grasp of being as a contingent event that one
finds the implicit affirmation of necessary existence. Reflection on contingent existence can
yield knowledge of necessary being although the latter can never become the object of in-
tuition for the natural human intellect. “Hence the scholastic demonstration of necessary
existence, although not strictly speaking a formal dissociation of concepts, really belongs to
the analytical type,” Maréchal concludes.201 It is precisely this kind of analytical thinking
that Le Roy does not recognize. Scholastic epistemology does not take for its point of de-
parture the raw sensory given but the given once it has become an intelligible object
through the aperceptive act of understanding, which is to say once it has been submitted to
the universal exigencies of objective thinking. With respect to God, this type of dynamic
conceptualization does not provide immediate evidence of the divine reality although it does
furnish sufficient evidence to logically infer this reality. Le Roy demands too much of in-
tuition because he demands too little of conceptual thinking. A proper understanding of the
scholastic tradition, however, would cure both ills. “If one refuses to interpret the meta-
physics of scholasticism in purely static terms, the most cutting of Le Roy’s objections lose
their edge,” Maréchal remarks, “they retain no more than an uncertain meaning; they indi-
cate perhaps points needing clarification but not necessarily theses which must be sacri-
ficed.”202 Maréchal’s comments are meant to cut both ways: not only does he aim to refute
Le Roy, but he intends to chastise fellow scholastic philosophers who likewise ignore the
essentially dynamic character of conceptual thinking.
201Ibid., 300; Mélanges, 242.202Ibid., 297; Mélanges, 239.
385
4. “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?”
Because Le Roy anticipates phenomenological approaches in his own methodology,
particularly the insistence upon intellectual intuition and the devaluing of abstractive
conceptualization, we can readily surmise Maréchal’s appraisal of Husserl. We are not left
to guess, however. In 1930, Maréchal published a provocative essay in which he brings
the philosophies of Husserl and Blondel into confrontation with the scholastic tradition.203
Titled “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?” it suggests a choice between
contrary alternatives. In fact, Maréchal presents the methodologies of Husserl and Blondel
as mirror opposites, leaving open the question of whether they are reconcilable or irrecon-
cilable, or simply different. For his part, Maréchal limits himself to exploring their compat-
ibly from only one aspect, the metaphysical. He begins by asking: “What resources, direct
or indirect, can Blondel or Husserl offer us for the critical justification of the metaphysical
affirmation?”204 Maréchal addresses his question to fellow scholastic thinkers who are al-
ready familiar with the basic elements of Blondelian and Husserlian philosophy. Because
Maréchal’s presentation of phenomenology exhibits an unusual degree of sophistication,
close attention is given to its development below.
In the first part of the essay, Maréchal tries to wrest a foundation for metaphysics
from Husserl’s doctrines concerning the necessity of eidetic essences and the transcenden-
tal ego. This task proves difficult because phenomenology presupposes neither a subject
nor an object in itself, but only the process of consciousness, the cogito, such as it is im-
mediately given in lived experience. Furthermore, consciousness as such always stands
opposed to the contents it illuminates. Consciousness is always consciousness of some-
thing; it is intentional, or, more accurately, a center of intentionality.205 The object is tran-
scendent, not immanent, to consciousness. Formal essences or ideas are also related inten-
203Joseph Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” inPhilosophia Perennis. Abhandlungen zu ihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. Fritz-Joachim Von Rintelen (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1930), 377-400; reprinted in Mélanges,181-206.
204Ibid., 379; Mélanges, 181-82.205Ibid., 380; Mélanges, 183.
386
tionally to consciousness. Only the brute sensory given ceases to be intentional because,
unable to bear relation to an idea, it blocks the objective expansion of consciousness.
Between the extremes of the intentional and objective poles of the act of consciousness,
Maréchal explains, there exists an intentional or noetic layer in which every other layer,
participating at once in intentionality and objectivity, presents two rigorously corresponding
but inverse aspects: an attitude of consciousness (subjective aspect) and a content which is
present to consciousness (objective aspect). Husserl refers to the subjective aspect as a
noesis and the objective aspect as a noema. The immediate content of every noema is con-
stituted by an idea related to an object, in other words, by a signification [Ger. Sinn] dou-
bled by a position—the two elements together forming a proposition [Ger. Satz]. Although
one may debate the inventory of essences given by one or another phenomenologist, they
all share certain characteristic methodological characteristics and phases. Maréchal dis-
cusses each of these briefly with an eye to the problem of the metaphysical affirmation.
The first methodological characteristic is the phenomenological reduction. Maréchal
explains that the process of consciousness considered a series of states experienced by the
psychological subject does not interest the phenomenologist. The phenomenologist is only
concerned with its intentional expressions, namely signification and position. This gives
rise to the critical preoccupation: “Which are the authentic significations, and which are the
valid positions?”206 The originality of the phenomenological method in approaching these
questions is to admit only the most incontestable evidence in the form of immediate intu-
ition.207 This integral positivism, as Maréchal calls it, demands a special type of method-
ological restraint. Husserl proposes a series of phenomenological reductions, whereby all
purely intentional acts of consciousness are preserved, but all other propositions are brack-
206Ibid., 382; Mélanges, 185.207Ibid., 382; Mélanges, 185. Maréchal refers here to Husserl’s “principles of all
principles,” which he translates as follows: “Tout donné immédiat et primitif d’intuitionfonde (proportionnellement) une valeur de connaissance; tout ce qui se présente directe-ment, en son originalité vive (‘corporellement’: leibhaft), au sein d’une intuition, doit êtreaccepté comme il se donne, ni plus ni moins.” Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §24; Gibson, 92 andHéring’s translation above, in Chapter 2.
387
eted from consideration. This latter group covers whole scientific domains, including em-
pirical science, psychology, theodicy and even general logic. The remaining base would
seem too narrow to provide a foundation for metaphysics, Maréchal remarks, but he in-
dulges Husserl on this point and follows him further.
The next characteristic of phenomenology Maréchal presents is eidetic intuition. The
immediate objects of intuition for the phenomenologist include not only empirical facts but
ideas or essences. The two are opposed: facts are individual and contingent, and given as
reality; essences are universal and necessary, and given as the possibilities for existential
relations. Eidetic intuition yields the formal content of the essence in all of its inherent rich-
ness—“in the plenitude of its concretion” as Husserl says.208 The essence displays two in-
separable aspects: in itself and absolutely it shows itself as pure form, while relative to in-
dividuals it appears as a universal. “These meta-empirical properties of the essence should
in no way scare off a scholastic,” Maréchal contends. “If he experiences some uneasiness,
it will be because he hears them called objects of an immediate and original intuition rather
than the result of an abstraction of discursive elaboration.”209
Nevertheless, Husserl’s eidetic doctrine is subject to certain critiques from a
scholastic perspective, some trivial, others more serious. The first difficulty that Maréchal
notes is that Husserl’s way of describing essences seems identical to the Platonic notion of
substantial ideas. The difference from Husserl’s perspective is that the phenomenologist
regards essences as belonging to the order of being according to their necessary possibility,
but not as actually existing. This objection is not so serious, but can possibles be known
intuitively? “Can we penetrate metaphysics by the royal road of the ‘possibles’ without
even firing a shot?” Maréchal wonders.210 Not according to Husserl: the phenomenological
notion of the intuition of essences only permits the perception of a pure, non-individuated
208Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” 383; Mélanges,
186: “dans la plénitude de sa concrétion,” translating “in der Fülle seiner Konkretion”; un-fortunately Maréchal does not provide an exact page reference to Husserl’s Ideas.
209Ibid., 383; Mélanges, 187.210Ibid., 384; Mélanges, 187.
388
form or law whereby a series of individual objects is given to consciousness. Eidetic
essences cannot lead directly to existence because all contents of consciousness are related
to being by virtue of a transcendental position. “The passage from essence to existence,
from Sein to Dasein, can no longer designate, strictly speaking, anything but the substitu-
tion of individual essences for eidetic essences under the common transcendental attribution
of being,” Maréchal explains.211 In other words, between essence and existence there is no
a priori theoretical road, only a practical one. Yet if that is the case, Maréchal asks, how can
the universality of the eidetic essence be given intuitively? Universality is not actuality, but
potentiality; not given, but ‘givable.’ Expressed in scholastic terms, Husserl’s notion of
universal eidetic essences represents a “total abstraction”: more than a simple formal ab-
straction, but something less than an ontological intuition.212 Furthermore, Husserl insists
that eidetic essences give themselves precisely and necessarily as universals and that this
mode of giving themselves expresses their inherent ontological possibility. Yet if the uni-
versality of eidetic essences were truly necessary, does this not entail the very kind of on-
tology that Husserl would otherwise bracket? Furthermore, the kind of necessity that
Husserl refers to is synthetic, not analytic. However, “no synthesis justifies its necessity of
itself,” Maréchal points out, and so the road to metaphysics by way of eidetic intuition is
closed off.213 From the phenomenological perspective, there are only two non-synthetic
principles open to consideration as absolute necessities: the ego [le Moi] and the object
[l’objet]. Consequently, Maréchal examines each of these principles to see if they can pro-
vide the critical justification for the metaphysical affirmation that he is seeking.
The phenomenological doctrine of intentionality implies that consciousness is given
at once as essence and as a necessary existence.214 Consciousness is not given as the abso-
211Ibid., 384; Mélanges, 187.212Ibid., 385; Mélanges, 189.213Ibid., 387; Mélanges, 191.214Ibid., 387; Mélanges, 191. Cf. Husserl, Ideas, §46 “Indubitability of Immanent,
Dubitability of Transcendent Perception”; Gibson, 143-46. “The thesis of my pure Ego andits personal life, which is ‘necessary’ and plainly indubitable, thus stands opposed to thethesis of the world which is ‘contingent’” (Gibson, 145 (emphasis Husserl’s)).
389
lute property of intentional contents, but as an independent transcendental principle—a pure
ego distinct from the totality of the intentional contents to which it is related.215 Despite its
necessity, however, the pure ego remains indefinable; it can only be described. The most
important characteristic that a reflective phenomenological description brings to light is its
essential temporality. The unity of psychological consciousness is a unity constituted in
lived duration, while the transcendental unity of consciousness represents the totalizing
unity of time itself. Hence, as Maréchal points out, the formal unity of time is central to the
whole phenomenological enterprise. Because it is founded upon intuitional givens that are
always incomplete, the present does not represent an intuitable moment, but rather the pas-
sage toward a limit. It is merely an ideal construction in the Kantian sense. Consequently,
as a transcendental proposition the notion of the pure ego as a metaphysical presence must
also fall before the phenomenological reduction. Another characteristic of the pure ego is its
spontaneous and variable attentional states. The absolute independence of the exercise of its
attention would seem to represent an intuitive experience of freedom. If so, Maréchal as-
serts, a phenomenology of attentional states would open the door to metaphysics. Yet
Husserl does not argue in this manner, and with good reason. If he were to argue thus he
would end up with either a dualistic notion of the absolute (an absolute subject opposed to a
series of absolute objects) or an absolute idealism (the objective expression of a subjective
absolute). Nonetheless, certain passages in Ideas do approach those taken by the post-
Kantian transcendentalists, like Fichte, but Maréchal does not see how the phenomenologi-
cal notion of the pure ego could ever free itself from temporal conditioning, in which case it
could never be a strictly transcendental and metaphysical absolute.
Since the way to a critically justified metaphysical affirmation appears blocked by
way of the subjective absolute, Maréchal considers the opposite path, the one leading to-
ward an objective absolute. Here Maréchal follows Husserl’s exposition in the latter chap-
215Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” 387; Mélanges,
191-92. Maréchal notes that in Ideas Husserl rescinds the scepticism he expressed towardthe notion of the pure ego in the Logical Investigations.
390
ters of Ideas where he expounds the phenomenology of reason. The propositions posited
by noemas can be of two types: affective and volitive, or speculative. The former constitute
values and so have to do with the practical sphere. These depend upon the latter, which ex-
press perceptions and judgments and constitute beliefs. Among the speculative propositions
some are more basic than others, functioning as the very conditions for the possibility of
rational conscious life. These are what Husserl calls the Urdoxa, the primitive propositions
indicating necessary belief. To isolate these Urdoxa, the phenomenologist must examine all
of the eidetic regions and all of the various modalities which can be predicated of an object.
Beneath all of the modalities, there would seem to be an absolute position to which the plu-
rality of modalities stands related. Is it possible that this absolute position might harbor the
a priori certitude of being, and hence the point of departure for a metaphysics? Only one
proposition can withstand the neutralizing modification before which all other modalities
are phenomenologically reduced: the affirmation which poses the contents of consciousness
as givens in the immanent consciousness of time. And so once again the problem becomes
finding, by means of reason alone, an object which transcends the essential temporality of
consciousness and exists absolutely. The only possibility would be if one of the formal ei-
detic essences were to realize itself as a concretely existing example. Even this, however,
would be insufficient because by definition no concretely existing object can give itself ad-
equately to consciousness, and so even if the idea were to become real, it could never be
known by reason as such. “Which is to say,” Maréchal adds, “that the experimental verifi-
cation of eidetic essences which are posited as rules constitutive of existence, no matter
how elaborate they be, remain at an incommensurable distance from the absolute evidence
required by critical certitude.”216 The perspective of intersubjective constitution which
Husserl subsequently interjects into the phenomenology of reason will not resolve the criti-
cal problem either. This last avenue closed off, Maréchal concludes that Husserlian phe-
216Ibid., 393; Mélanges, 198.
391
nomenology cannot pass beyond the Kant of the third Critique. There is no possibility of a
critical affirmation of metaphysics within the boundaries of pure phenomenology.
Is there really no other critical foundation of evidence than “this static intuition, this
cold light which does not animate any dynamism?” Maréchal asks.217 Phenomenology does
not ignore non-speculative, which is to say pragmatic, positions, but in these cases it
translates their movements into abstractions: “it knows the idea of action, but not ac-
tion.”218 The “severe intellectualism of Husserl,” a “Cartesianism purged of all traces of
ontologism,” brackets the dynamism of objects from consideration.219 Because phe-
nomenology fails to reach the goal of a critical metaphysics, Maréchal turns to consider the
possibilities offered by a reverse method, a method which takes into account precisely
those factors which phenomenology ignores, namely the dynamism of objects as seen from
the practical perspective. The philosophy of Blondel presents just such a method. Blondel’s
basic premise is that thinking is an aspect of the total person, and can only be separated
from that integrated context at the risk of falsifying its true nature. Thus to study the chain
of action is also to study thought.
Maréchal’s limits his introductory remarks on Blondel because he can presuppose a
greater familiarity with his ideas on the part of his audience. Action has its own internal
logic with its necessary steps which Blondel’s rigorous phenomenology brings to light.
The moments of its ascending dialectic issue from its dynamic principle, the willing will.
Whenever the willing will encounters a positive content, it passes into the phase of the
willed will. The link between willing will and willed will is necessary; to take the first step
in action means to will implicitly all the stages through to its end. Maréchal does not unfold
the whole dialectic, but instead sums up its essential movement in two propositions: 1) ac-
tion always includes the exigency of objective existence and 2) the necessary stages of ac-
tion lead to a final option from which the unconditional confession of transcendent being
217Ibid., 393; Mélanges, 199.218Ibid., 394; Mélanges, 199.219Ibid., 394; Mélanges, 199.
392
emerges in consciousness. Both principles warrant examination. With respect to the first,
Maréchal notes that “by successively unfolding everything implicit in the willing will
through explicit wants, action gradually constructs, by postulate [par postulat] a meta-
physics of the object.”220 This postulated metaphysics, however, presents a double insuf-
ficiency. First, it only posits being in terms of a logical dependence upon the obscure initial
necessity of the willing will and hence remains subjective. Secondly, this metaphysics re-
mains incomplete. It lacks a capstone, namely the Absolute in itself.
According to Blondel, these two insufficiencies are correlative and are eliminated
together through the final option, whose exercise imposes a necessary chain of action upon
the will. This option presents itself as at once necessary and impracticable. It is necessary
insofar as abstention from electing the option expresses refusal. It is impracticable insofar
as it is impossible to grasp the Absolute in its inaccessible transcendence—unless, how-
ever, the Absolute should offer itself as an extrinsic and gratuitous gift which reason can
accept without surrendering its autonomy. For Blondel, this last alternative explains in
what sense the Absolute appears as a postulate of action. From the perspective of the will,
being is given in two acts: first, it is indirectly posited as the necessary condition of action,
and second, by virtue of these same exigencies, it is accepted or shunned in its absolute
transcendence through a supreme act of freedom. Blondel’s notion of the Absolute is thus
purely philosophical, and yet it carries theological implications.
The differences between the epistemologies of Husserl and Blondel are striking, ac-
cording to Maréchal. Both describe phenomenologically the necessary structures of knowl-
edge—for Blondel, the inexorably lived structure of action; for Husserl, the intuitively
given structure of knowledge—yet Blondel subordinates thought to action, whereas
Husserl subordinates action to thought. Blondel’s approach has the disadvantage of making
all knowledge participate in the obscure transcendence of the will. Husserl’s approach, on
the other hand, only recognizes knowledge as a formal reality. “Is it for us scholastics to
220Ibid., 395; Mélanges, 201.
393
choose between these two extreme epistemologies, between the dynamic primacy of the
good and the formal primacy of the true?,” Maréchal considers.221 The Thomist tradition
contends that both attributes equally designate the plenitude of being. In God, who is pure
act, the true has no priority over the good and vice versa. Only in the created order do they
appear alternatively. Ideally, being can legitimately be approached by both the practical and
speculative methods, but in the arena of finite intelligences, the practical takes precedence.
Yet, if action were to be regarded as an implicit dynamism representing the natural finality
of the speculative faculties themselves, then a critique of action must in some way enter into
any critique of knowledge. Blondel does not take this step explicitly, yet according to
Maréchal, the overall tenor of his work inclines in this direction.222 Maréchal concludes:
“Without being unfaithful to the scholastic tradition, we could thus complete the method of
Husserl by that of Blondel, and hope to attain, by the narrow roads of modern criticism,
the objective Absolute which escapes pure phenomenology.”223
In the conclusion to his article, Maréchal fills out the premise of his proposed con-
junction of pure phenomenology and the philosophy of action. Husserl does well to bracket
the affective and volitive positions . But what about the exigency of being [Fr. devoir être;
Gr. Sollen] which poses the implicit and unconscious dynamism of thought? If it is to
stand before the phenomenological reduction, it must appear as an a priori condition of
possibility for every objective representation, such that to deny it would be result in the
negation of consciousness itself. This hypothesis can only be justified if it is possible to
establish that every immediate given presented intentionally to consciousness is a moment
in the tendency of consciousness toward the intuitive possession of being. Maréchal does
not think that such strong proof is impossible, for it would indeed entail a contradiction to
accept a given as immediate on the one hand, while contesting the dynamism that intrinsi-
221Ibid., 396; Mélanges, 202.222Ibid., 397, n. 16; Mélanges, 203, n. 2: “Blondel (qu’il me pardonne cet acca-
parement) était devenu virtuellement thomiste le jour où il reconnut dans l’intelligence (depréférence à la volonté) ‘une puissance possédante,’ la faculté de ‘l’être assimilé.’”
223Ibid., 397; Mélanges, 203.
394
cally constitutes it on the other. Furthermore, he argues that the exercise of judgment by the
reflective, critical consciousness can be demonstrated to issue from the same dynamic
source and to obey the same transcendental laws as immediately apprehended knowledge.
“In this case,” Maréchal claims, “the objective affirmation of all reality implicitly posed by
the dynamism of our thought would be shown to be absolutely necessary: the contradiction
of this affirmation would not be conceivable without logical incoherence.”224
Because Husserl neglects the dynamic aspects of knowledge, he draws the limits of
objective evidence too narrowly. There are, in fact, two types of legitimate objective evi-
dence. First, there is the evidence of direction intuition, which Husserl admits, and sec-
ondly there is the indirect evidence that comes through affirmation of the necessary. The
latter form is equally objective because it is guaranteed by the impossibility of logical con-
tradiction. Founded upon the deepest dynamic exigencies of thinking, what Kant would la-
bel the transcendental a priori, this second form of evidence can provide the critical guaran-
tee not only of the universality and necessity of eidetic essences, but also of their transcen-
dental objectivity, which is to say, their metaphysical reality. Hence by the dynamic path,
one can arrive at a critical justification of the metaphysical affirmation. Maréchal concludes
that as long as scholastics draw upon the dynamic perspective of Blondel, they will be able
to profitably use the rigorous analyses of Husserl, which offer “to philosophers a mar-
velous discipline of mind, and to philosophy a salutary method of elimination.”225 “The
union of these two points of view upon the proven foundation of the scholastic tradition,”
he speculates, “will probably prove fruitful.”226
224Ibid., 399; Mélanges, 205.225Ibid., 399; Mélanges, 206.226Ibid., 399, Mélanges, 206. In a footnote at the end of the essay, Maréchal men-
tions that he learned about Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic too late to incorpo-rate it into his proposal. Nevertheless, he thinks that its incorporation would not essentiallyalter it. Perhaps it would even allow him to state it with greater clarity and precision sinceFormal and Transcendental Logic ties the problem of knowledge more explicitly to theframework of transcendental philosophy. The question of metaphysics is tied more explic-itly to the problem of the absolute ego, the constituting subject. Still, Maréchal notes, de-spite this decided step toward ontology, Husserl links the notion of the absolute ego moreclosely to metaphysics, but he still refrains from concluding to its objective necessity be-cause he persists in thinking that lived judgment raises a pretention to truth but does not
395
C. Maréchal’s Application of Phenomenology to Religio us Thought
“Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?” ends on an optimistic note, but
overall Maréchal’s attitude toward Husserl appears ambivalent. He seems to believe phe-
nomenology offers something of philosophical value, but it is hard to grasp exactly what.
A rigorous method of investigation? Many other philosophers, more or less recent, have
pursued their work with comparable restraint and austerity. Besides, it is precisely the nar-
rowness of Husserl’s approach that Maréchal ultimately condemns. He never charges him
directly with an excessive positivism, but he well could have for everything else he said
about the drawbacks of Husserl’s limitation of evidence to the immediate givens of intu-
ition. Maréchal recommends Husserl only in tandem with Blondel, yet even then it is hard
to see what Husserl brings to the partnership. Blondel contributes everything of real value,
especially the implicit recognition of knowing as an appetite that hungers for being and the
appreciation for consciousness as a dynamic process. By contrast, Husserl’s doctrines of
intuition and intentionality appear cold and static.
Why, then, does Maréchal bother with Husserl? What stake does he have in phe-
nomenology? Why try to save it? For that matter, can it be saved? Before proposing its
complementarity with Blondel’s philosophy of action, Maréchal had already shown that the
phenomenological method inevitably leads to logical contradiction because it neglects the
dynamism of the knowing process. It would seem that nothing remains to salvage. Perhaps
Maréchal’s persistence in trying to redeem phenomenology can be attributed to his ambition
to promote Thomism among contemporary philosophers and to make it more conversant
with their claims. To suggest that phenomenology may be useful to Thomists may be a
diplomatic way of recommending Thomism to non-Thomists. Since Maréchal wants to
show that Thomism can respect the claims of critical philosophy, what better way to do it
than to show how one of its most rigorous forms can be of service?
touch its essence. Maréchal finds such reserve unfounded, and refers the reader to the fifthCahier where he has treated this problem with respect to other post-Kantian criticalphilosophers.
396
On the other hand, Maréchal may be making a greater diplomatic ploy toward the
fellow scholastic thinkers whom he directly addresses in his article. His calling attention to
complementarity between the methods of Husserl and Blondel may be read as an attempt to
bring Blondel into harmony with Thomism through the back door of criticism. As his essay
makes clear, Maréchal felt he had more in common with Blondel’s dynamism than
Husserl’s intellectualism. Due to earlier problems with his censors, however, he had rea-
son to be wary of associating himself too closely with Blondel.227 By the end of the 1930s
Modernist suspicion of Blondel had subsided, but endorsing his doctrine was still risky.
Husserl, on the other hand, was practically unknown among scholastic thinkers at the time.
Furthermore, his notions of intentionality and the intuition of ideal essences appeared, at
least on the face of it, to have something in common with Thomist epistemology. The
pairing of Blondel’s expansiveness with Husserl’s reserve seems calculated to make
Blondel more palatable to neo-scholastics. The placement of the essay in the Festschrift to
Joseph Geyser, a critical neo-realist philosopher who was deeply sympathetic to Thomism
but also engaged with phenomenology from an Aristotelian perspective, reinforces this
reading.228
How well was Maréchal project received? At the time, it appears to have gone
largely unnoticed. Only passing references to it appear in the literature from the period.229
Authors who discuss Maréchal’s attempts to confront scholasticism and criticism cite the
Cahiers, or his articles “Dynamisme intellectuel”230 and “Abstraction ou Intuition?,”231 yet
227Maréchal intended the manuscript on Blondel discussed above for publication in
Le point de départ de la métaphysique.228For Geyser’s appraisal of Husserl see Josef Geyser, Grundlegung der Logik
und Erkenntnistheorie (Münster, 1919); for a more original presentation of his epistemol-ogy see Josef Geyser, Eidologie oder Philosophie als Formerkenntnis (Münster, 1921).
229See for example Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie (Juvisy: Cerf, 1932),82.
230Joseph Maréchal, “Le dynamisme intellectuel dans la connaissance objective,”Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 28 (1927): 137-65; reprinted in Mélanges, I: 75-101;excerpts translated in Donceel, ed., A Maréchal Reader, 244-50.
231Joseph Maréchal, “Au seuil de la métaphysique: abstraction ou intuition?,”Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 31 (1929): 27-52, 121-47, 309-42; reprinted inMélanges, I: 102-180; excerpts translated in Donceel, ed., A Maréchal Reader, 235-44.
397
they neglect the essay on Husserl and Blondel entirely.232 For scholastic thinkers interested
in the critique of knowledge, Maréchal’s mention of phenomenology alone may not have
been enough to attract notice, but together with Blondelian dynamism it may have been too
much. The article also did not draw any positive attention from either Husserl or Blondel.
Husserl never mentioned the essay or Maréchal in any of his published writings, although
one may suspect he would have resisted Maréchal’s efforts to discern in his methodology a
pathway to metaphysics. Blondel, on the other hand, wrote to Maréchal personally to
complain that he misunderstood his philosophy. In a letter dated 18 August 1930, Blondel
protested:
I do not recognize myself in the description you propose of my position,and it seems to me that problems which concern me are completely differentthan the ones you attribute to me. . . . You say that I ‘postulate’ a meta-physical realism on the basis of a subjective or immanent idealism, which isto completely contrary to my intention and my itinerary. Far from departingfrom a supposed ideological and subjectivist given, I want to show that wedo not have to begin with the idea of being, nor postulate a reality exterior tous, but that our living thought is already in being, that it is full of reality,that the ‘subjective’ itself not only is real, but is the antecedent fact of real-ity, concomitant and subsequent to the epistemological or abstract aspect towhich philosophy would be wrong to attach itself to and restrict specula-tion.233
Blondel charged that Maréchal’s analyses did not bear upon concrete thinking, being and
action, but only their abstract forms. As a consequence, Maréchal made the problem of
human destiny appear abstract and purely philosophical, whereas he insisted upon its su-
pernatural and theological character.
In reply, Maréchal suggested that Blondel’s criticisms reflected mistaken impres-
sions. He stated again that it had not been his purpose to present the philosophies of
Husserl or Blondel in their entirety, nor even to make an inventory of their various doc-
232See for example Henri Holstein, “Scolastique et problème critique,” Revue dephilosophie n.s. 4 (1933): 529-58, especially pp. 539-42, and G. Picard, “Réflexions surle problème critique fondamental,” Archives de philosophie 13 (1937): 1-74, especially 9-14. Even later studies sympathetic to Maréchal’s point of view and cognizant of the impactof phenomenology on French thought, such as J. Defever, La Preuve réelle de Dieu. Étudecritique (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1953), ignore “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophiede l’action?”
233Maurice Blondel, Letter to Joseph Maréchal, 18 August 1930, in MélangesJoseph Maréchal, 338.
398
trines which could potentially benefit scholasticism, but simply to introduce the resources
that these philosophies offered scholastic thinkers “for the critical justification of the meta-
physical affirmation.”234 Hence, in “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?,” he
concentrated only upon the particular aspects of Blondel’s epistemology that served his
subject. Far from attributing the notion of a metaphysics by postulate to Blondel, Maréchal
emphasized that Blondel’s option overcame this common impasse in metaphysical reason-
ing. The option itself did not arise as a postulate since it was necessitated by the inherent
dynamism of action, nor did the supernatural destiny since it was completely gratuitous.
The term postulate was meant to describe in philosophical language the indefinite character
of the striving of the will prior to exercise of the option. Thus Maréchal held to the distinc-
tion he drew in his essay between the ability of philosophical reasoning to pose the neces-
sity of confronting the option, and the theological necessity of supernatural grace to enable
a positive response. In other words, the natural dynamism of the will necessitated the op-
tion but did not necessitate a positive response. To respond positively to the option once it
is presented, however, required the action of grace.
Blondel remained dissatisfied with Maréchal’s interpretation of his philosophy,
claiming that it presupposed a dualism between subjective and the objective aspects of real-
ity and hence a false notion of the critical problem.235 For his part, Maréchal did not attempt
to further justify his position, nor did he venture any other explicit confrontations between
234Joseph Maréchal, Letter to Maurice Blondel, 28 August 1930, in Mélanges
Joseph Maréchal, 341-43.235Maurice Blondel, Letter to Joseph Maréchal, 13 May 1931, in Mélanges Joseph
Maréchal, 349-50. Cf. Maurice Blondel, Letter to Joseph Maréchal, 18 October 1932, inMélanges Joseph Maréchal, 352, where Blondel says of his own method: “ . . . cetteméthode concrète, réaliste, positive, permet de graduer, de concentrer les phases succes-sives de l’enquête, d’abord en établissant qu’en fait, nul esprit crée ne saurait ni se passerd’une tendance congénitale à chercher, à désirer, à poursuivre Dieu, ni capter naturellementce terme absolument transcendant à toute intelligence, à toute volonté, à toute fruition de lacréature. En second lieu, si à cet état congénital et métaphysiquement nécessaire s’ajoute enfait une vocation gratuite, mais positive et impérative de Dieu, cette stimulation, sans seconfondre avec le desiderium naturale, l’actionne d’une façon infiniment plus déterminante,crée en nous des obligations et prépare l’adhésion à l’ordre révélé qui devient ainsi la solu-tion de problèmes où la philosophie métaphysique, morale et religieuse est tout entière en-gagée in concreto.”
399
Blondel, Husserl and Aquinas. “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?” would
remain the most sophisticated attempt by a Thomist thinker to bring his tradition into
dialogue with phenomenology, but it would not be the only one. Soon French-speaking
Thomists would gather outside of Paris to debate as a group the possibilities for
rapprochement between the philosophies of Husserl and Aquinas. His delicate health, al-
ways preventing him from travel, kept Maréchal from participating in the meeting.
Nonetheless, his pioneering spirit and openness to contemporary philosophical movements
would be shared by those who attended.
IV. Neo-Thomist Encounters with Phenomenology
A significant event in the French theological reception of phenomenology (surely
the most curious) was the first annual day of studies conducted by the Société Thomiste in
1932 which took for its theme “Thomism and Contemporary German Phenomenology.”
Even just a few years earlier this kind of direct dialogue with secular philosophy by an as-
sembly composed largely of religious would have been unthinkable. While the decision to
hold a colloquy on Thomism and phenomenology probably came as a surprise to some, the
background had been prepared by several papers published in Germany and France during
the preceding decade which had offered preliminary comparisons of the phenomenology of
Husserl and the philosophical tradition of Aquinas. The earliest such essay appeared in
1923 and it examined the phenomenological intuition of essences in light of the Thomist
doctrine of abstraction.236 A second contribution, a survey of Thomism in Germany by
Abbé Alfred Boehm of the University of Strasbourg, appeared in 1927.237 Boehm treated
the engagement of Thomists with the two main philosophical movements in Germany at the
time, neo-Kantianism and phenomenology. With respect to the second, Boehm noted that
Husserl was a disciple of Franz Brentano and that consequently some of latter’s
236Matthias Theil, “Die phänomenologische Lehre der Anschauung im Lichte der
thomistischen Philosophie,” Divus Thomas (Freiburg) 1 (1923): 165ff.237Alfred Boehm, “Le Thomisme en Allemagne,” Bulletin Thomiste 2, no. 5
(1927): 157-69.
400
Aristotelian traits had migrated into phenomenology. Furthermore, under the influence of
the Catholic mathematician and philosopher Bernhard Bolzano, Husserl had transformed
Brentano’s descriptive psychology into a true science, “a science which would yield
knowledge of essences (ideas) and essential laws.”238 Yet in contrast to Aristotle’s method
of abstraction, Boehm noted, “the idea is also given with the empirical object, and is given
just as immediately and without being deduced from it.”239 Boehm also noted the criticism
of Aquinas mounted by Max Scheler, adding that “the renaissance of Augustinianism
which is presently attending the rise of phenomenology favors still more the development
of an a-Thomist philosophy.”240 Consequently, Boehm concludes that there is no need for
Thomists to become phenomenologists since Thomist tradition has enough resources of its
own to constitute a sufficient theory of knowledge.
A third significant contribution to the discussion of phenomenology and Thomism
appeared in the Festschrift presented to Husserl on the occasion of his seventieth birthday
in 1929. For this volume Edith Stein prepared an extensive comparison of the points of
view of the two philosophies.241 Stein had been the first to earn a doctorate under Husserl
at Freiburg and had served there as his research assistant until 1918. Born a Jew, she con-
verted to Catholicism in 1922 after reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila. A dozen
years later she would enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne. In the intervening period,
Stein translated the letters and journals of John Henry Newman and continued her phe-
nomenological researches in conduction with a study of Aquinas. Even after a break with
Husserl and phenomenology in the mid-1920s over the issues of constitution and intersub-
jectivity, Stein continued to find many points of contact between Husserlian phenomenol-
ogy and the philosophy of Aquinas.242 In her 1929 article, she drew attention to three
238Ibid., 164.239Ibid., 164.240Ibid., 165. Boehm credits Christian Hermann with this observation.241Edith Stein, “Husserls Phänomenologie und die Philosophie des hl. Thomas von
Aquino. Versuch einer Gegenüberstellung,” in Philosophia Perennis. Abhandlungen zuihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, ed. Fritz-Joachim Von Rintelen (Regensburg: JosefHabbel, 1930), 315-38.
242For more details on the philosophical thought of Edith Stein see Reuben Guilead,
401
points in particular: the role of sense experience in knowledge, the similarity between
ideation and abstraction, and the passive nature of intuition in both philosophies.
Nevertheless, Stein asserted that Thomism was more nuanced, and that with respect to
other issues, such as the relation between knowledge and belief, there was disagreement.
These differences notwithstanding, the issues raised by Stein’s article and the others which
preceded it undoubtedly piqued interest in phenomenology on the part of Thomists in
France and helped to lay a foundation for the discussions that followed at Juvisy.
A. The Société Thomiste and the Journée d’Études
In 1924, the Dominican Pierre Mandonnet, one of the most prominent historians of
theology and philosophy in the middle ages during the first part of this century, founded
the Société Thomiste in order to promote the study and propagation of the teachings of
Aquinas.243 At the general assembly of the society in 1930, the first part of this mission
was given a special impetus by the formation of the Office de Coordination des Études
historiques et doctrinales de S. Thomas. Among the programs to be sponsored by this new
office were réunions d’études or colloquia on various topics of current interest, such as the
relationship between Aristotelianism and Thomism or Spanish Thomism in the sixteenth
century.244 At subsequent meetings of the Society a format for the series was adopted. The
first colloquy was announced for 12 September 1932, and was to be held at the offices of
Éditions du Cerf, the Dominican publishing house, located just south of Paris in Juvisy.
The topic for the meeting was much different than those originally suggested. Instead of
focusing internally on the history of Thomism, the first annual Journée d’Études, as it was
to be known, turned outward to reflect on the philosophy of Aquinas in light of the phe-
nomenological movement.245 This theme had been selected at the previous general as-
De la phénoménologie à la science de la croix. L’Itinéraire d’Édith Stein (Louvain:Nauwelaerts, 1974). Guilead divides Stein’s life into three periods: phenomenology,Christian philosophy and mysticism.
243Bulletin Thomiste 1, no. 1 (1924): 1.244Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 3-4 (May-Jul., 1930): 70.245Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 3-4 (Jul.-Dec, 1932): 125.
402
sembly of the Society after lively discussion.246 Unfortunately, no public record of that
discussion exists, so it is impossible to say precisely what motivated the choice. A note in
the Bulletin Thomiste published shortly after the colloquy simply explained that “the selec-
tion of this theme was prompted by the concern to initiate contact between the philosophy
of St. Thomas and one of the most significant forms of contemporary thought.”247
The format of the Journée d’Études was designed to foster a mutual exchange be-
tween Thomists and phenomenologists. In place of second hand reports on phenomenol-
ogy, presentations were given by scholars who were personally acquainted with members
of the German phenomenological movement. Furthermore, among the specially invited
guests were some who had studied with Husserl and others who had read extensively in
his published works. In addition, the list of attendees reflected the international diffusion of
phenomenology by the early 1930s. In all, six countries were represented by the thirty-
three participants. Msgr. Léon Noël, who had published the first French article on Husserl,
came with three colleagues from Louvain, including Réné Kremer, who gave the afternoon
address. Four came from Germany, including Edith Stein who would be invited to formal
membership in the Société Thomiste the following April.248 Two delegates came from Italy
while a third was forced to cancel at the last moment. Another came from the Netherlands.
The morning speaker, Daniel Feuling, came from Austria with a fellow Benedictine profes-
sor. The remaining participants came from various institutions in France, including the
Hegelian scholar Alexandre Koyré from the Université des Hautes-Études. Gaston Rabeau,
from the Université Catholique de Lille, attended. Three Jesuits made a showing, including
246Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar., 1932): 372: “On reprend ensuite le pro-
ject, d´battu déjà lors de la dernière Assemblée générale de réunions d’études. Une discus-sion animée le conduit à des précisions nouvelles intéressant et le sujet et la date de ces en-tretiens.” (cf. Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 4 (Oct., 1931): 316). Also at this general assemblythe presidency passed from Mandonnet to Chenu while Maritain was reelected to anotherterm as vice-president. Others present at the assembly who attended the 1932 Journéed’Études included H.-M.Féret, Th. Deman and F.-A. Blanche.
247Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 3-4 (Jul.-Dec., 1932): 125.248Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun., 1933): 822.
403
Auguste Valensin from Lyon, one of Blondel’s foremost supporters. Among the officers of
the Société Thomiste, Mandonnet and Maritain were present, as well as Etienne Gilson.
Jacques Maritain, acting in the role of senior officer of the Society in the absence of
Chenu, convened the meeting with a brief remarks about the importance of phenomenology
in contemporary thought and its growing reputation in France due to translations of
Scheler, the series of articles by Gurvitch, and to Husserl’s own lectures at the Sorbonne.
Maritain also pointed to the fact that phenomenology was close to Thomism on account of
its roots in Brentano and its potential to criticize deviations in the scholastic tradition, espe-
cially those introduced by Duns Scotus.249 The program for the day was divided into two
parts. The morning session was devoted to the discussion of phenomenology itself, while
the afternoon was dedicated to the comparison of phenomenology with Thomist philoso-
phy. The format for each session consisted in the presentation of a paper followed by dis-
cussion; copies of the paper had been circulated in advance to participants.250 The sections
that follow summarize the contents of these two presentations and the ensuing discussions
and then provide a critical evaluation of their significance for the reception of phenomenol-
ogy among French neo-Thomists.
a. Presentation by Daniel Feuling
For the morning session, Daniel Feuling of the University of Salzburg divided his
remarks on the phenomenological movement into three parts. First, he situated the phe-
nomenological movement within the broad outlines of Western philosophy since the middle
ages. Second, he summarized the main principles of phenomenology that were shared by
its diverse representatives. Finally, in the third part of his presentation he spoke more con-
cretely about the respective phenomenological approaches of Husserl and Heidegger.
According to Feuling, the history of philosophy had achieved its apex and perfec-
tion with Aquinas, whose contribution was to have overcome the dualism between anthro-
249Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 11.250Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 3-4 (Jul.-Dec., 1932): 560.
404
pology and metaphysics, between human being and being as such. After Aquinas, how-
ever, philosophy did not continue to draw out the fruitful implications of his synthesis but
rather degenerated into nominalism and subjectivism. To combat the latter, Descartes at-
tempted once again to secure the foundations of knowledge. Though his efforts were
checked by Hume, he nevertheless represents the source of a rationalist current which has
since flowed through Kant, positivism and mostly recently neo-Kantianism. But these
tributaries ignored the concrete aspects of existence, prompting reactions from Nietzsche,
Dilthey, Kierkegaard and Bergson. These anti-rationalist philosophies, however, have not
resolved the crisis in philosophic thought but only brought it into greater relief. Either phi-
losophy must be abandoned, and with it all hope of intellectual and moral integrity, or phi-
losophy must begin again with radical courage. Phenomenology, Feuling contends, is a re-
fusal of the first option and a bold attempt at the second. Moreover it contains elements of
all of the great philosophers from Plato to Aristotle, Descartes and Kant, the philosophies
of life and also Thomism—the latter through the influence of Brentano on Husserl.251
In discussing the main idea of phenomenology, Feuling first points out that it is
nearly impossible to do so on account of the many different directions into which phe-
nomenological movement had developed. In this context he notes that this is especially the
case on account of the new orientations introduced by Heidegger. Although Heidegger rep-
resents a recent permutation of Husserlian phenomenology, Feuling relies upon §7 of
Being and Time in order to draw out the essential features of the phenomenological move-
ment as a whole.252 Following Heidegger, he states that phenomenology must be recog-
nized as a philosophical method whose goal is the acquisition of fundamental truths and
their apodictic justification. Its supreme rule is to attend to the things themselves, which
means attending to what the phenomena say about themselves apart from any presupposi-
tions. Thus, there are two essential principles, one negative and one positive: first, to set
aside all prejudices and preconceptions and second, to accept as certain only what is given
251Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 18-21.252Ibid., 22; cf. Being and Time, §7, pp. 49ff.
405
immediately by intuition. Thus, all theoretical postulates are ruled out as well as any practi-
cal laws that are not directly grounded. Insofar as in the history of philosophy this program
has never been carried out with sufficient fidelity and rigor, a truly scientific philosophy
has yet to appear. “Thus according to the phenomenologists,” Feuling remarks, “there can
be no solid and scientific philosophy without the radical application of the phenomenologi-
cal method, and it is phenomenology that is called to give humanity a true and certain phi-
losophy.”253 Phenomenology, in other words, “is called to save humanity.”254
Continuing his exposition of the main ideas of phenomenology based upon the pas-
sage in Being and Time, Feuling considers the meaning of phenomenology in light of its
component terms, namely phenomenon and logos. With respect to the meaning of phe-
nomenon, Heidegger has uncovered three basic senses: as that which shows itself as itself
[das Offenbare], as that which shows itself through its resemblance to something else [der
Schein], as that which in showing itself shows something else that remains hidden [das
Erscheinung]. From the third meaning Heidegger distinguishes a fourth: that which shows
itself in order to show something else that can never show itself in any other way. To
these, Feuling adds two more definitions which play an important role in Husserl’s con-
ception of phenomenology. Husserl considers the phenomenon chiefly as a correlate of
consciousness, but its precise meaning depends on whether consciousness is considered a)
psychologically, or b) transcendentally. From these six different definitions, Feuling dis-
tills three essential meanings, which he calls respectively the phénomène-chose, the
phénomène-apparition and the phénomène pur.255 The first comprises the first two senses
distinguished by Heidegger, namely the original and derivative understanding of the phe-
nomenon as a thing. The second comprises the two types of phenomenon as appearance
while the third incorporates the notion of the phenomenon as a correlate of either natural or
transcendental consciousness.
253Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 23.254Ibid., 23.255Ibid., 25.
406
In light of these distinctions, Feuling takes up Heidegger’s explication of phe-
nomenology as a logos, that is, a word which according to the inherent verbal meaning of
the term announces or reveals that about which it speaks. Phenomenology is the science
whose task is to reveal the phenomena, to show what is revealed and to show it precisely in
the manner that it reveals itself. It encompasses all of the meanings of phenomenon given
above with the possible exception of the fourth, namely the pure phenomenal appearance.
Described in this way, the role of phenomenology as a philosophical method becomes
clearer. It does not pretend to be the totality of all of philosophies, but aims to serve as first
philosophy, i.e., a foundational science upon which other sciences can be built. Hence,
phenomenology functions as a kind of “radical positivism.”256 While focusing on what is
given through immediate intuition, it does not exclude the possibility of a metaphysics.
Whether or not it leads directly to an ontology is a matter of debate between the two leading
exponents of phenomenology, Husserl and Heidegger, whose respective positions Feuling
subsequently compares.
Feuling begins his remarks on Husserl by emphasizing the difficulty, even the ob-
scurity, of his thought, noting that Husserl himself has said that not even ten people in the
world understand him. The directive idea of his philosophy, nevertheless, is to be an exact
and rigorous science [une science vraiment stricte et exacte]. Its goal of laying the apodictic
foundations of all science entails the principle of being absolute presuppositionless.
Summing up the fundamental method of Husserlian phenomenology, Feuling states that it
“consists in reducing every judgment, every idea, every notion, to immediate evidences and
these evidences are never found originally except in the intuition of the phenomena.”257 No
category of phenomena is excluded from investigation, but Husserl is primarily interested
in those phenomena which are the correlates of pure or transcendental consciousness. “All
the other phenomena, whatever they may be,” he explains, “do not attain their phenomeno-
logical value and do not contribute the constitution of apodictic philosophical science until
256Ibid., 27.257Ibid., 30.
407
they have been transformed into transcendental phenomena.”258 Every act of consciousness
has its correlate, but for the most part these acts refer to ordinary worldly appearances.
Husserl would suspend the natural attitude by which consciousness embraces the world in
order to bring out the transcendental aspects of these appearances. Feuling explains that he
does not doubt their existence, as did Descartes, but rather puts any judgments about their
objectivity in parentheses. But even this thematic reduction does not fully escape the natural
attitude because the worldly ego remains at the center of consciousness. It, too, must be re-
duced through a second epoché in order to isolate the transcendental ego and its respective
correlative acts. This is what Husserl calls the transcendental reduction, and through it
alone is opened the properly phenomenological sphere of investigation. “This departure
from the field of natural experience in order to become immersed in the pure immanence of
the phenomena, the acts of the transcendental ego,” Feuling observes, “requires tremen-
dous effort, the supreme effort of the human mind, and leads to enormous tasks.”259 The
tasks are enormous because the transcendental field, once opened, displays still deeper lay-
ers. The transcendental ego of the individual proves to be constituted by yet another tran-
scendental subjectivity even more removed from the mundane world.
The work will never be finished until we are led to the first source of all thatis constituted and of all constitution, to this first ego [moi] in which and bywhich all of the multiple egos, transcendent and natural, with their acts andtheir objects, are originally constituted—to this truly absolute ego which,alone, constitutes all and is not in any way constituted—to God who liveshis life in constituting, in and by his transcendental consciousness, the tran-scendental egos of the second order with their noesis and noemata, and bythem, the worldly egos the objective world.260
Feuling thus recognizes Husserl’s phenomenology as a species of transcendental idealism,
but he does not regard it as a psychological idealism like Fichte’s.
Only at this point does Feuling introduce what Husserl calls the eidetic reduction.
The eidetic reduction, he explains, reduces empirical forms to their essential ideas. Thus the
concrete individual is considered from the point of view of humanity in general and the
258Ibid., 30.259Ibid., 32.260Ibid., 32-33.
408
transcendental ego of the individual is considered from the point of view of the transcen-
dental ego in general. It is through the eidetic reduction, therefore, that transcendental phe-
nomenology achieves its aim. Thus, Husserlian phenomenology may be summed up in a
word as “eidetic-transcendental phenomenology.”261 Nevertheless, several problems re-
main outstanding in Husserl’s investigations, most especially the distinctions between the
different layers of the transcendental ego. In this context Feuling cites the work of
Husserl’s student and assistant Eugen Fink. Feuling relates how Fink had discussed with
him his own solution to the phenomenologizing transcendental ego. The transcendental ego
is not constituted like the individual transcendental ego, according to Fink, but issues from
transcendental subjectivity in such a way that it is able to reflect phenomenologically upon
the latter’s activity.
Turning next to Heidegger, Feuling calls attention to the differences between
Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology and Husserl’s. The first difference lies in
Heidegger’s notion of the phenomenon. It is not, as with Husserl, the phenomenon as the
correlate of consciousness, the phénomène pur, but rather the phénomène-chose, the phe-
nomenon as thing. “According to Heidegger,” Feuling observes, “it is without the inter-
mediary of transcendental experience that phenomenological seeing attains its principal and
proper phenomenon. All other phenomena are founded upon the phénomène-chose.”262 In
the domain of the phenomenon-thing it is necessary to distinguish beings from the Being of
those beings. Accordingly, Heidegger’s phenomenology proceeds in two directions: it can
be used describe beings as they appear—a necessary task since no other method besides a
phenomenological one can do this with sufficient objectivity—and, more importantly, it can
be used to explicate the Being of beings. Being as such is not a thing which hides behind
phenomena that are accessible in themselves, nor is it pure appearance; rather, it is that
which being hidden most of the time must be brought forth. This direct investigation of
Being is what most distinguishes Heidegger’s phenomenology from Husserl’s. The tran-
261Ibid., 34.262Ibid., 36.
409
scendental reduction, although central to Husserl, has no decisive importance for
Heidegger. Whereas Feuling termed Husserl’s phenomenology an eidetic-transcendental
phenomenology, he calls Heidegger’s an existential and ontological phenomenology.263
Heidegger’s method differs from Husserl’s insofar as it rooted not in a series of reductions
but in the interpretation of Being and a description of its fundamental structures.
In contrast to Husserl’s dense prose, Being and Time offers a series of penetrating
analyses which Feuling praises for their clarity. In his conclusion, Fueling focuses on two
problems which Heidegger brings to the fore. First, there is the problem of the precise
meaning of what Heidegger calls being-in-the-world. Feuling explains it in scholastic terms
as the transcendental relation between being and intelligence: omne ens est intelligibile,
omnis intellectus est entis [every being is intelligible, every intellect is a being].264 The
second problem is the implication of Heidegger’s analysis of temporality with respect to the
finite character of Being and beings. Certain passages of Heidegger leave the impression
that he considers Being itself to be finite and limited in its essence. Nevertheless, based on
his long conversations with Heidegger about this very point, Feuling reports that
Heidegger considers only the notion of Being to be finite while withholding any judgment
about the nature of Being in itself. If there were an infinite being it would surely have no
need of notions.
How did Feuling’s presentation compare to the introductions of phenomenology
that were circulating in the secular French universities at the time? Unlike other scholars
who brought news of the phenomenological movement from central and eastern Europe,
Feuling based his remarks on first-hand contacts with Husserl and Heidegger.
Furthermore, his personal conversations with Eugen Fink enabled Feuling to introduce his
audience into the current problematic of Husserl’s phenomenology in a way that Gurvitch
and other popularizers of phenomenology in France could not. In fact, because Fink did
not publish his theory until a year later, the perspectives on Husserlian phenomenology
263Ibid., 37.264Ibid., 39.
410
which Feuling shared with members of the Société Thomiste were more up-to-date than
anything available in French academic circles. On the other hand, Feuling’s acquaintance
with phenomenology was apparently brief. He emphasized only the latest developments in
Husserl’s philosophy while ignoring his earlier positions and the characteristic doctrines
shared by other phenomenologists. Feuling regarded Husserl’s phenomenology as a
species of transcendental idealism, although he did not, like Gurvitch, take Fichte’s psy-
chological idealism as the model for the philosophical synthesis to which phenomenology
should aspire. For Feuling, the radical positivism of Husserl’s idealism implied and consti-
tuted a realism, and it was precisely in this manner that phenomenology achieved a philo-
sophical synthesis—in this case a synthesis of idealism and realism. Feuling’s reading of
Husserlian phenomenology through Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology was also
unique in the French reception of phenomenology. In one important respect, however,
Feuling’s presentation was similar to the interpretation of the movement prevalent in French
academic circles: it emphasized the Cartesian aspects of phenomenology while downplay-
ing its Aristotelian features, and hence the basis for a rapprochement with Thomism.
The discussion which followed Feuling’s paper centered around three main topics:
first, clarifications regarding the development of Husserl’s phenomenology; secondly,
whether phenomenology is essentially realist or idealist; and finally, preliminary compar-
isons between phenomenology and scholasticism. Clarifications of Husserl’s phenomenol-
ogy were offered first by Feuling then by Edith Stein. Léon Noël asked whether or not
Husserl employed a deduction in his philosophy. Feuling responded that deduction plays a
certain role in Husserl’s philosophy following the Cartesian Meditations although intuition
remains the principal source of knowledge. Stein immediately countered, stating that the
phenomenological method in no way includes a deduction in the traditional sense because it
is a “reflexive process of revelation” characterized first of all by regressive analysis of the
acts of consciousness and then by a description of the constitution of the world by the tran-
411
scendental ego.265 In response to further questions, Stein went on to give a brief account of
the development of Husserl’s phenomenology. She noted that in the first volume of the
Logical Investigations Husserl was concerned to bring a new orientation to the notion of an
objective logic, while in the second he developed a method for analyzing objective
essences. Husserl realized that his new method was a universal method capable of support-
ing the ideal of truly scientific philosophy, a project which began to receive explicit formu-
lation in Ideas, where Husserl introduces the reduction as a kind of Cartesian doubt which
furnishes an absolute point of departure for transcendental research.
Stein’s remarks thus gave a different center to Husserl’s philosophical project than
had Feuling. In her view, the center of Husserl’s is found in Ideas whereas for Feuling it
lay in the more recent works, such as the Cartesian Meditations. Stein observed that con-
trary to Feuling’s order of presentation, the eidetic reduction preceded the transcendental
reduction in Husserl’s thought. She also pointed out that Scheler and Heidegger really
should not be considered students of Husserl because the latter’s influence was limited in
their cases, and likewise even Eugen Fink was influenced by certain ideas of Fichte and
Hegel which were far from Husserl’s own. Thus, Stein implicitly challenged Feuling’s re-
liance on Fink as an interpreter of Husserl. Furthermore, whereas Feuling had found a
certain discontinuity in Husserl’s thought between his earlier work and Ideas due to the in-
tervening influences of Descartes and the neo-Kantian philosopher Paul Natorp, Stein does
not discern any rupture in this thought. In fact, in her opinion Husserl would have arrived
at the same positions even if he had not passed through the stage of Cartesian doubt.266
Stein’s comments during the discussion period differed somewhat from the note
she published in the Bulletin Thomiste just a few months before the colloquy.267 There
Stein clearly stated that the heart of Husserl’s enterprise was not to be found not in the
265Ibid., 42-3. Note: Stein and her colleagues from Germany offered their remarksin German. These appear in the published proceedings of the colloquy together with aFrench translation.
266Ibid., 45-46.267Edith Stein, “La Phénoménologie transcendantale de Husserl,” Notes et
Communications du Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 6 (1932): 123-24.
412
Logical Investigations, which she described as a kind of return to the Philosophia perennis,
but in Ideas and especially in the Cartesian Meditations, which offers at once a synthesis of
Ideas and a furthering of its most important themes. In addition, Stein also recommended
Fink’s dissertation as an excellent guide to Husserl’s project as set forth in the Cartesian
Meditations.268 It is unclear why Stein felt obliged to give a different interpretation of
Husserl at Juvisy. Her remarks in any case serve to underscore a point that Feuling made
himself, namely that Husserl’s thought is very difficult and that what phenomenology pre-
cisely encompasses remains an open matter for debate.
A particular point which the discussion of Feuling’s paper demonstrated was quite
open to debate was whether phenomenology was essentially realist or idealist. Gottlieb
Söhngen, a philosopher from the University of Bonn, pointed out that while Husserl is of-
ten accused of idealism, his theory of knowledge is thoroughly realist and that it nullifies
the empiricism which it supplants.269 On the other hand, Charles Devivaise of Besançon
said that he was not satisfied that Husserl had sufficiently distinguished his epistemology
from neo-Kantianism and that it appeared to him to represent a transcendental idealism.
Feuling responded by noting that Husserl distinguished two kinds of idealism, psychologi-
cal and transcendental, and that while his was a species of the latter it in no way succumbed
to the pitfalls of the former. Aloïs Mager, dean of philosophy at Salzburg, added, “What
sharply distinguishes phenomenology from neo-Kantianism is that it is at once a reaction
against the subjectivism of Kantian and post-Kantian movements. Phenomenology restores
268Eugen Fink, “Beiträge zu einer phänomenologischen Analyse der psychischenPhänomen, die unter den vieldeutigen Titlen ‘Sich denken, als ob’, ‘Sich etwas blossvorstellen’, ‘Phantasieren’ befasst werden.” (PhD thesis, University of Freiburg, 1930).
269For a discussion of Söhngen’s philosophy and critical evaluation of its relation-ship to phenomenology, see Van Riet, L’Épistemologie Thomiste, 572-83. At the begin-ning of his brief study, Van Riet remarks: “L’auteur prétend se servir de la méthode‘phénoménologique’, mais, chez lui, cette méthode n’a vraiment rien d’originel: elle con-siste simplement à examiner les problèmes avant les solutions qu’on y apporte et à consid-érer, avant les problèmes, les phénomènes de la connaissance tels qu’ils se présentent ànous.” (pp. 572-73) Later, however, he affirms that although there is nothing distinctive inhis methodology, the influence of phenomenology may be discerned “dans la significationparticulière que revêtent certaines notions fondamentales: d’après l’auteur, l’existence estun donné opaque pour l’intellection, l’essence réelle est visée par l’intelligence sans êtreimmédiatement vue ou saisie, l’intentionnel définit l’ordre de la connaissance.”
413
the value of the object in its independence relative to the subject . . . In itself phenomenol-
ogy is neither realism nor idealism; it can be oriented in one direction just as well as an-
other.”270 In Mager’s estimation, Heidegger deserves credit for leading phenomenology
beyond these traditional distinctions by linking the question of reality to a historical inter-
pretation of the meaning of existence.
Finally, during the morning discussion period a few preliminary remarks were
made concerning the relationship of phenomenology to Thomism. Edith Stein observed that
Husserl’s orientation of logic to objective essences created the impression at the time of a
renewal of scholasticism.271 Fritz-Joachim von Rintelen, an empirical psychologist who
had adopted phenomenological methods in his own work, noted that with respect to phe-
nomenology, “this epistemology turned toward the object presented strong resemblances to
Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy, although the latter puts an accent on the necessity of ab-
stracting from existence, that is, accidents, while the former emphasizes the intuitive grasp
of essences.”272 Söhngen stated that Husserlian phenomenology was similar to the
scholastic method because the latter, too, tended toward “the vision of essences.”273 Hence
whether Thomism and phenomenology were judged to be close or far apart depended not
only upon the interpretation of phenomenology but also upon the interpretation of Thomism
that was assumed. Von Rintelen also noted that while he regarded Heidegger’s concern for
existence as more consonant with the spirit of Thomism than the epoché practiced by
Husserl and Scheler, he nevertheless expressed reserve that Heidegger’s analysis of exis-
tence was too subjective, and that as such it would ultimately detract from the Christian ac-
ceptance of existence as positive fact in the light of faith and the supernatural world.
Söhngen likewise expressed his reserve about Heidegger. Despite the latter’s mention of
the intelligibility of being, Söhngen found his orientation anti-intellectualist. Feuling tried to
rescue Heidegger by showing that for Heidegger being is intelligible because it can be
270Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 53.271Ibid., 44.272Ibid., 46.273Ibid., 49.
414
known through one’s being-in-the-world with other beings. According to Mager, however,
it is futile to try to seek a rapprochement between Heidegger and scholasticism. The task
which Thomism should undertake, in his opinion, is to determine whether historical being
has its own structure and whether that structure should be conceived as different than being
as presence.274
c. Presentation by René Kremer
The afternoon presentation by René Kremer resumes the comparison of Thomism
and phenomenology that had emerged at the end of the morning session. In offering what
he calls “Thomist glosses on phenomenology,” Kremer explains that he does not regard the
two philosophies as in any way parallel, but only discerns several points of contact be-
tween them. He does not present phenomenology as a corrective to Thomism. On the con-
trary, he adopts the “point of view of Thomism in order to judge phenomenology.”275
Kremer does not evaluate all of the various strains of phenomenology in his talk, but fo-
cuses on Husserl, whom he refers to as “the founder of the school.”276 Kremer examines
those aspects of Husserl’s philosophy which call for a comparison with Thomism on ac-
count of their apparent similarities, and from there he initiates an exchange of views be-
tween phenomenologists and Thomists.
The first point of contact Kremer notes is Husserl’s insistence that philosophy must
become a rigorous science. “Husserl contends that philosophy has not yet managed to
constitute itself as a science because its representatives have not succeeded in attaining that
unity and that harmony of minds that is the mark of scientific objectivity.”277 According to
Kremer, Husserl’s definition of science is Aristotelian insofar as he emphasizes knowledge
of the necessary over experimental investigation of contingent events. Phenomenology and
274Ibid., 54.275Ibid., 60.276Ibid., 59. Evidently, Kremer did not think it inappropriate to refer to phe-
nomenology as a school instead of as movement on account of its diversity, as did many ofhis colleagues. Kremer repeats the expression “école phénoménologique” on p. 65.
277Ibid., 62.
415
Thomism appear to agree on this point, although Kremer believes that Husserl exaggerates
the role of rationality in the broad scope of human knowledge. “He is captivated by the
ideal of a science which draws out everything from the human mind,” he observes.278 As
evidence, Kremer cites Husserl’s observation in the opening pages of the Cartesian
Meditations that from the dawn of modernity, religion has been destined to be replaced by a
truly scientific philosophy.279 Scheler, too, despite his divergence from Husserl on other
points would seem to follow him in this respect: why else would Scheler undertake to
demonstrate rationally not only the existence of God as Creator but also as Redeemer?
Theologians, however, should be wary of this stance for it makes the mysteries of the faith
objects of demonstration. According to Aquinas, although science represents the highest
degree of human knowledge, it is not the summit of knowledge as such. “It is insufficient
even for human beings,” Kremer explains, “it requires the support of intuition, either sen-
sible or intellectual, which is to say the perception of a material given or the simplest pos-
sible apprehension of metaphysical principles.”280 This given is something that cannot be
deduced; it is contingent, even irrational. The preliminary question, therefore, of the rela-
tion of the religious aspect of phenomenology to Thomism is linked to the issues of ratio-
nalism, idealism and realism, Kremer concludes.
In the next section of his talk, Kremer explores Husserl’s doctrine intuition. The
importance of the phenomenological reduction in Husserl’s later philosophy depends upon
on his doctrine of the Wesensschau, or the intuition of essences, which he developed first.
For the purpose of making a comparison with Thomism, Kremer isolates intuition from its
role in the reduction. Here he finds the closest point of contact between phenomenology
and Thomism despite several differences. The main difference is that Husserl does not
278Ibid., 63.279Ibid., 62; cf. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §2; Cairns, 4-5: “When, with the
beginning of modern times, religious belief was becoming more and more externalized as alifeless convention, men of intellect were lifted by a new belief, their great belief in an au-tonomous philosophy and science. The whole of human culture was to be guided and il-luminated by scientific insights and thus reformed, as new and autonomous.”
280Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 64.
416
teach a doctrine of abstraction but insists upon intellectual intuition, a stance which, Kremer
claims, Aquinas rejects. With respect to intuition, Husserl stands closer to Plato than to
Aristotle, but these positions are nearer to each other than either is to the errors of empiri-
cism and positivism. Indeed, Kremer asserts that notwithstanding differences in methodol-
ogy, that the meaning of essence for both Husserl and Aquinas is practically the same: “the
term, according to St. Thomas and Husserl, designates only an objective and partial aspect
of a thing: for the former it is what the synonyms quidditas and ratio refer to; for the latter,
it refers to the distinction between pure essences and simple morphological descriptions,
and with respect to the pure essences themselves, the manner by which they are related to
the given which fulfills them.”281 For neither philosopher does essence mean the specific
quality of a thing which one could contemplate in itself. Husserl’s phenomenology accords
with Thomism on this point, although Husserl’s notion of categorial intuition represents
another instance of exaggerated rationalism.
A third point of contact mentioned by Kremer is Husserl’s vigorous critiques of
psychologism, relativism and nominalism found in the first volume of the Logical
Investigations. Thomism can use all of these without reservation, Kremer notes. In the
second volume of the Investigations, however, Husserl reverts to a psychological approach
in describing acts of perception. Still, Husserl’s analyses in this second part of the volume
lead him to recover the notion of intentionality described by Brentano. If Husserl were to
follow this path through to its proper conclusion he would arrive at the scholastic doctrine
of abstraction. Husserl’s notion of intentionality must therefore be taken according to its
fuller meaning, that is, not simply as a term of psychological description but as a means of
metaphysical explication. Kremer adds, “Given that the subject and the object are two reali-
ties, two distinct beings, the essential problem is to know how they can communicate, such
that they can in some sense be one and such that the object can be in the knowing subject.
This what the notion of intention together with is correlative explications drawn from the
281Ibid., 66.
417
idea of accidental form and causality are meant to do.”282 Husserl himself, however, re-
fuses to recognize the metaphysical aspects of intentionality, with important consequences
for his doctrine of pure logic. Logic cannot be pure if pure means being removed from con-
crete reality. Once again, Kremer confronts phenomenology with the matter of realism so
central, in his opinion, to Thomist philosophy. Realism, after all, enables Thomism to
mount an effective criticism of the sciences.
With respect to Husserl’s doctrine of the phenomenological reduction, Kremer
avers that its function of bracketing the existence of an object in order to attend to its
essence is useful from a Thomist perspective because it bears a certain affinity to the pro-
cess of abstraction and because it implicitly recognizes the fundamental difference between
essence and existence. Nevertheless, the bracketing of existence should be no more than a
methodological step. If phenomenology would purport to express a definitive philosophical
attitude, must it not address the very problem of existence which it raises? Yet Husserl, es-
pecially in his most recent writings, fails to do so, which is strong evidence that his philos-
ophy retreats from realism into idealism. According to Kremer, existence is given together
with essence, and so “from the point of view of phenomenology itself, the problem of real-
ity is posed.”283
In sum, for every point of contact between Husserlian phenomenology and
Thomism, the former lacks something of the precision and balance of the latter. While this
opinion may be expected from a Thomist, it is important to note that Kremer’s presentation
suffers from striking deficiencies, including a shallow and sometimes contradictory inter-
pretation of Husserl and a biased reading of the scholastic tradition. For instance, in his
indictment of Husserl’s alleged extreme rationalism (a charge encountered earlier with Lev
Shestov), Kremer says that Husserl has no room for the irrationality of intellectual intu-
itions as does Aquinas. Yet in the next section, Kremer goes on to state that intuition is the
282Ibid., 67.283Ibid., 70. Kremer excludes discussion of Heidegger from his presentation, but
one senses here that he would have been persuaded by the latter’s argument that phe-nomenology must lead to ontology.
418
central tenet of Husserl’s philosophy. Then, in this same context, Kremer argues that there
is no real point of contact between phenomenology and Thomism because Aquinas does
not recognize intellectual intuition but only a species of abstraction. Not only does Kremer
contradict what he had just stated about Husserl, but he gives a confused reading of
Aquinas. Kremer apparently wants to argue that the Thomist notion of essence implies that
essence is given in the contingent object itself and that it can be abstracted from it without
recourse to intellectual intuition—an argument similar to the one Jesuit Caspar Nink used to
combat the errors of phenomenology in an earlier contribution to the discussion in German
Thomist literature.284 If that is the case, then Kremer’s emphasis on the role of abstraction
in Thomist epistemology shows that he adheres to the tradition of scholasticism that flour-
ished in the sixteenth-century under Cajetan and Suarez.285 No wonder, then, that he has
such a negative appraisal of the worth of phenomenology. No wonder, too, that he did not
find that Husserl’s doctrines of intuition and intentionality lead to a metaphysics.
It would seem that in Kremer’s opinion, the only merit of Husserl’s philosophy is a
general connection to scholasticism through Brentano. The closer Husserl’s teaching to
Brentano, the better; hence the early works, especially the first volume of the Logical
Investigations, are to be preferred by Thomists to what followed. Yet Kremer misunder-
stands Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality and how it differs from Brentano’s. As noted in
Chapter One, for Brentano and other scholastics intentionality is synonymous with the no-
tion of immanent objectivity, whereas for Husserl intentionality refers in a special sense to
the relatedness of consciousness to the transcendent meaning content of an object. This
meaning-content is what is grasped through the Wesensschauung. Consequently, Kremer
284Caspar Nink, “Die Wesenheiten der Dinge und ihre Erkenntnis,” Scholastik 2(1927): 541-61.
285The following statement makes this plain enough: “Lorsqu’il [i.e., St. Thomas]affirme que les essences physiques sont l’objet propre de l’intelligence humaine, il veutsimplement dire que c’est vers les choses sensibles qu’elle est orientée et qu’elle les saisitsuivant son mode propre, l’abstraction. D’où il suit qu’elle ne s’arrête pas à la réceptionpassive d’impressions, de qualités sensibles; mais très souvent, le plus souvent même, laconnaissance que nous avons des choses de la nature revient à dire qu’elles sont desêtres—c’est la quiddité—affectée de certaines déterminations accidentelles dont la constanceest plus ou moins grande” (Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 68-69).
419
is wrong when he says that essence means the same thing for Husserl and Aquinas.
Kremer fails to understand the phenomenological position, and so criticizes Husserl for
slipping into idealism whenever he departs from the prima facie scholasticism supposedly
contained in the first volume of the Logical Investigations. Moreover he does not see the
connection between Husserl’s early and later works, and so regards the phenomenological
reduction as an unnecessary outgrowth of his studies of intuition. It is inconsistent, how-
ever, to accept part of Husserl’s teaching on intuition while rejecting another part, for ex-
ample categorial intuition.
The discussion following Kremer’s presentation took the form of a round table.286
The gist of each participant’s comments on the possibility of a rapprochement of phe-
nomenology and Thomism will be presented, leaving aside remarks made about phe-
nomenology itself.287 Instead of reviewing the summary of these various opinions which
Kremer offered at the close of the meeting, a critical comparison will follow in a concluding
section.
The first to speak during the afternoon discussion was the Hegelian scholar
Alexandre Koyré. Koyré’s observations mainly concern the idealist character of phe-
nomenology as a philosophical method, but towards the end of his remarks he stated con-
cisely: “Phenomenology is, in its basic inspiration, Cartesian and Platonic. What weds it to
the philosophies of the middle ages is its objectivism, its method (heuristic) of distinctions,
and the analysis of essences and ontologism. As a result, it is closer to the Augustinians
than the Aristotelians and closer to Scotism than Thomism.”288 He credits Etienne Gilson
with the last observation and then proceeds to outline the differences between phenomenol-
ogy and Thomism more precisely. First, phenomenology brackets existence and makes it a
286Following Kremer’s presentation and immediately preceding the afternoon dis-
cussion, letters from two invitees who were unable to attend at the last moment were readto the assembly. Because their remarks did not directly concern the relation of Thomismand phenomenology, they will be passed over here.
287In several cases these comments were edited into a fuller form by the participantsfor the published precedings.
288Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 73 (emphasis Koyré’s).
420
problem whereas Thomism begins with the position that existence is directly apprehended
in the act of perception. In the second place, phenomenology is founded upon the intuition
of essences whereas Thomism recognizes only abstraction as a means for knowing
essences. Thirdly, Thomism admits a distinction between essence and existence while phe-
nomenology does not. Koyré acknowledges that the potential for equivocating terms be-
tween the two systems of thought makes it difficult to draw sharp distinctions.
Nevertheless, he remains persuaded that phenomenology and Thomism have very little in
common.
Next to speak was Paul Delannoye, a Jesuit from Louvain. Delannoye makes the
question of a rapprochement between phenomenology and Thomism dependent on whether
phenomenology should be considered an idealism. If it were an idealism, he argues, then
there would be no basis for a comparison. Yet, Delannoye himself finds that Husserl has
successfully passed beyond both realism and idealism in the ordinary sense of those terms.
Consequently, he discerns a parallelism between phenomenology and Thomism, at least
with respect to the goals they pursue, namely constituting an objectively valid system of
knowledge. Delannoye acknowledges, however, that their methods are somewhat differ-
ent, though perhaps not completely incompatible since Thomas recognizes a kind of uni-
versal doubt and limited role for intuition in his epistemology.289
Aimé Forest, a professor from the University of Poitiers, took up practically the
opposite position from Delannoye, stating: “One will find many points of contact between
phenomenology and Thomism if one considers particular theses in these two philosophies.
Yet whatever may be the significance and truth about these rapprochements, it seems to me
that the orientation of their doctrines is quite different and that the methods adopted from
the beginning lead to results that are very sharply opposed.”290 Part of the problem, ac-
cording to Forest, is that phenomenology itself exhibits divergent tendencies. On the one
289Ibid., 76-77.290Ibid., 76. For a discussion of Forest’s analysis of the opposition between
French idealism and Thomist realism, see Van Riet, L’Épistémologie Thomiste, 564ff.
421
hand, some phenomenologists, especially Heidegger, have turned the method in the direc-
tion of a pure irrationalism. Husserl’s position, too, displayed irrational aspects prior to its
recent evolution into a transcendental idealism. According to Forest, Husserl’s phe-
nomenology now represents a “philosophy of pure analysis.”291 Thomism, too, is analyti-
cal, but in the end it goes beyond analysis to achieve a synthesis between thought and its
objet. Analysis is insufficient because it never yields a complete intuition of an object
whether through its sensible reality or through its concept. Because of this insufficiency the
mind is led further to postulate the existence of its object beyond its abstract form.
According to Forest, “the critical analysis of thought consequently poses the problem of the
existence of the other; better yet it forces one to grasp the metaphysical necessity of this al-
terity, and in this way it goes beyond, it seems to me, the attitude of the transcendental
epoché.”292 This is not to say that Thomas does not accept bracketing the notion of exis-
tence, but for Thomas existence is not an accident that can be added to an essence from the
outside, as would seem to be the case for Husserl. For Thomas, “Essence is not only the
form and the principle of material diversity, it is the determination of a mode of being as
such, and it is to the analogical unity of being that judgment must refer, such that it is in
God that one comes to find the final guarantee of consistency in the object of thought.”293
In this respect Thomism shows itself to be a philosophy of synthesis and not merely of
analysis, like phenomenology. For Thomas, judgment is dynamic and active process, not
passive intuition or static assimilation as it is for Husserl.294 In sum, “Thought cannot
progress unless it is situated solidly on the ground of existence itself,” and since phe-
nomenology is not so situated it cannot compare to Thomism nor offer it anything it does
not already have.295
291Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 78.292Ibid., 79 (emphasis Forest’s}293Ibid., 81.294Ibid., 82. Here Forest cites Maréchal, “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de
l’action?,” 393, who refers to Husserl’s epistemology as “intuition statique, lumière froideque n’anime aucun dynamisme.”
295Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 83.
422
Edgar de Bruyne of the University of Ghent disagreed. In his view, “Thomism can
and must enrich itself non only with the positive results of phenomenological analyses but
also with a manner of posing problems that may differ slightly from its own.”296 Whereas
Thomism to him seems to be based on a rigid series of deductions, phenomenology re-
quires of consciousness “an activity that is vital in its concrete totality.”297 De Bruyne did
not offer much support for his remarks, but his sympathy for phenomenology was picked
up by Edith Stein, who began her remarks by affirming that “it is on the question of the
analysis of objective essences that the meeting between phenomenology and Thomism
would seem to have the most chance of success.”298 Departing from the interpretations of-
fered by previous commentators, Stein contended that
phenomenological intuition is not simply a vision of essence uno intuitu. Itconsists in the disengagement of essences by an operation of the agent-intel-lect, an abstraction, in other words the separation of the contingent and thedisengagement of the positively essential. Undoubtedly the end of all thiswork is the stillness of vision; but St. Thomas also recognizes this intuslegere and says that the human intellect at the height of its operation attainsthe mode of knowledge of pure intellects.299
Although the respective epistemologies of phenomenology and Thomism do not precisely
coincide they do approach one another. Also important is whether the Thomist affirmation
of the real permits the abstraction of existence or whether it demands that the phenomeno-
logical reduction be abandoned. Stein concludes that it does permit abstraction. Husserl’s
idealism cannot be overcome, and “therefore it seems that the faithful analysis of a real
given [Fr. donné réel, Ger. Realitätsgegebenheit] forces us to abandon the transcendental
reduction and to return, as far as perception is concerned, to the point of view of natural
belief in the reality of the world.”300
296Ibid., 84.297Ibid., 84.298Ibid., 84.299Ibid., 85.300Ibid., 86. Thus Stein responded negatively to the question she left open at the
end of her note in the Bulletin Thomiste of April 1932, namely: “Considering things fromthe point of view of the philosophia perennis, one must ask whether it is possible to enterinto the problems of phenomenological constitution without accepting in the process whathas been called the transcendental idealism of phenomenology” (p. 124).
423
The last participant to address the compatibility of Thomist and phenomenological
epistemologies was Gottlieb Söhngen. His lengthy comments revolved around three main
points. First, with respect to the question of whether the phenomenological intuition of
essences coincides with the Aristotelian and Thomist method of abstraction, Söhngen con-
cludes that it does not. A fundamental tenet of Thomist epistemology is that essences are
not given directly to human intelligence. To try to speak of an intuitive abstraction as do
some contemporary Thomists would be a contradiction in terms. Phenomenology and
Thomism are as widely separated as Plato and Aristotle. The only thing they share in com-
mon in this regard is the rejection of the associationist or psychological theories of abstrac-
tion upheld by empiricists.301 Secondly, phenomenology and Thomism are incompatible
because their respective notions of intuition derive from different premises.
Phenomenology claims that we can arrive at an intuitive knowledge of ourselves because
we have an intuitive knowledge of external objects. For Söhngen, however, the reverse is
true. He contends that according to Aquinas we can never have direct intuitions of the exis-
tence of mundane objects. Nevertheless, we can affirm that the world really exists because
we do have an immediate intuition of our own existence. Thus for Söhngen, “a meta-
physics of knowledge must be above all a metaphysics of the knowledge of oneself, be-
cause it is only in the knowledge of oneself (namely in the vision which the divine mind
has of itself) that the abyss which remains between subject and object can be filled.”302
Phenomenology begins from the wrong presuppositions and so it can never close this gap.
Thirdly, with respect to metaphysics Söhngen noted that whereas in its beginnings phe-
nomenology was premised upon the rejection any form of metaphysics, especially the in-
ductive form of neo-scholasticism, recently certain phenomenologists had begun to recog-
nize the unavoidability of metaphysical issues, adding that
to the extent that phenomenology has focused again on an authentic knowl-edge of essences, it is very close to the Aristotelian conceptions of scienceand metaphysics since every scientific and metaphysical effort of Aristotle
301Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 86-87.302Ibid., 88.
424
inclined to a science of essence, without at the same time putting existencebetween brackets.”303
In other words, if phenomenology continues to mature, it might eventually reconnect with
the Thomist tradition. Thomism, on other hand, would have comparatively little to gain
from an encounter with phenomenology.
B. Neo-Thomist Appraisals of Phenomenology
a. Appraisals of the Journée d’Études
Concerning the general character of the meeting at Juvisy, a report in the Bulletin
Thomiste offered the following observation:
No doubt it was the first time in France that phenomenology was made thesubject of such a high-level and thorough debate. Moreover, perhaps in noother country has an encounter with Thomism been attempted under as fa-vorable conditions to insure a successful outcome. A spirit of cordiality andcollaboration pervaded the entire day.304
Despite the openness of the participants to discussion, however, the outcome was incon-
clusive. A few interesting similarities were noted but the general tenor of the discussions
reveal that little more was expected. The commitment to fostering a mutual interchange
between phenomenology and Thomism was never insisted upon. Did the members of the
Société Thomiste anticipate learning something new and vital? Did they sense, perhaps, that
phenomenology represented a direct challenge to the Thomist tradition or an implicit accu-
sation that had to be answered? Or did they fear that Thomist philosophy had become irrel-
evant to contemporary thought and therefore needed interpretation and reinforcement
through a popular philosophical form?
Nothing in the discussions suggests that the participants felt they had to defend
Thomist philosophy or offer an apology on its behalf. Nor does it seem that any of the par-
ticipants were particularly concerned with the relevancy of Thomism to the modern forms
of thinking. Most of the comments, in fact, reflect the assumption that Thomism did not
303Ibid., 89.304Bulletin Thomiste 3, no. 3-4 (Jul.-Dec., 1932): 561-62.
425
suffer from any deficiencies and that it had already achieved an appropriately nuanced and
balanced idiom of expression. In this light, the comparisons between Thomism and phe-
nomenology appear more as condescending gestures than serious engagements. Only Edith
Stein seems to have really struggled to adjudicate the claims of the respective philosophies.
Assuming that the Thomist tradition had nothing to gain from such an examination, then it
seems that practical function of the colloquy was to show how a contemporary philosophi-
cal form attests to the ongoing validity of the philosophia perennis. Such an attitude might
be perceived as self-congratulatory, although on the other hand, it could be regarded as an
attempt to introduce Thomism to a larger audience and even to lead that audience to an ac-
ceptance of Thomist philosophical perspectives. How one decides depends in the first in-
stance on whether one stands inside or outside the Thomist tradition. For example, in a re-
view of the published proceedings of the colloquy for Recherches philosophiques,
Alexander Kojevnikoff remarked that the comparison of phenomenology and Thomism
was of utmost importance for those who find in Thomism absolute truth, but that for non-
Thomist philosophers like himself it was only a matter of secondary historical interest.305
To what extent was the lack of consensus over the relevancy of phenomenology to
Thomism due to differences in the degree to which the participants and onlookers had be-
come acquainted with the respective philosophies? To those like Koyré and Kojevnikoff,
who moved chiefly in French academic circles, and who consequently had little knowledge
of neo-Thomism, there appeared to be few points of contact. On the other hand, to those
like Stein and Feuling, who had had both personal contacts with phenomenologists and
also a deep experience of Thomist thought, the possibilities for a rapprochement between
phenomenology and Thomist philosophy seemed greater. Nevertheless, one cannot speak
of a direct proportion between knowledge of the two philosophies and a judgment regard-
ing their compatibility. Some of the participants at Juvisy, such as Gottlieb Söhngen, were
very knowledgeable both of Thomism and phenomenology but failed to find a common
305Alexander Kojevnikoff, “Compte rendu de La Phénoménologie,” Recherchesphilosophiques 3 (1933-34): 429-31.
426
ground between them. Others, like Edgar de Bruyne, displayed less knowledge but more
optimism and enthusiasm.
A more interesting and fruitful question to ask is how the participants at Juvisy
came to know about phenomenology. Did they learn about it from native sources or from
secondary interpretations? What role did the reception of phenomenology in French aca-
demic philosophy play in acquainting French neo-Thomists with the German movement?
Among the twenty French participants in the colloquy the interventions of only four are
recorded in the proceedings, while among the thirteen foreign participants comments are
recorded for nine. Moreover, neither of the two principal speakers were from France.
These facts indicate that the reception of phenomenology in French neo-Thomist circles by
1932 lagged behind the reception in Germany, Belgium and Austria. It suggests, further-
more, that the reception of phenomenology among French academic philosophers, which
was quite pervasive and sophisticated by that time, had had little impact on religious
thinkers in the scholastic tradition. For instance, among the French participants at Juvisy,
only Aimé Forest seems to have been influenced by Gurvitch’s introduction to Husserl,
while none of the participants from outside France showed any signs of familiarity with the
interpretations of phenomenology that Gurvitch and others had made popular in France.306
Among neo-Thomists, whether in France or east of her borders, knowledge of phe-
nomenology came from German sources, whether from direct contact with Husserl or his
followers or from discussion of phenomenology among neo-Kantian and empirical psy-
chologists. Furthermore, neo-Thomists focused their attention on the Aristotelian aspects of
phenomenology more than its Cartesian features. In contrast to French academic philoso-
phers who occupied themselves with the question of how the epoché compares to methodi-
306The following aspects of Forest’s intervention in the afternoon discussion period
suggest that he was influenced by Gurvitch’s introduction to the phenomenological move-ment: 1) his emphasis on the divergent tendencies within the movement, 2) his contrastingof the irrationalism of Heidegger with idealism of the later Husserl, 3) his criticism ofHusserl’s penchant for analysis and his praise of the synthetic orientation of Thomistthought, and 4) his insistence that phenomenology must go beyond the transcendentalepoché to grapple with the problem of the existence of the other.
427
cal doubt, neo-Thomists were concerned whether the Wesensschau [essential intuition]
could be considered a species of abstraction—an issue which academic philosophers hardly
addressed.
The phenomenological insights of Bergson and Blondel likewise had little impact
on the neo-Thomist reception of phenomenology at Juvisy. None of the participants in-
voked their names or viewpoints in order to interpret phenomenological doctrines and
methods. Likewise the affinities between the phenomenological aspects of Blondelian
thought and the work of neo-Thomists like Rousselot and Maréchal was never mentioned.
Similarly, no reference was made to Bergson or Le Roy, not even to highlight differences
between neo-Thomist and phenomenological notions of intuitions. In these respects, the re-
ception of phenomenology among French neo-Thomists proceeded differently than among
other French religious thinkers, such as Héring and Rabeau, who occasionally offered
comparisons between phenomenology and French spiritualist philosophers.
The privileging of Husserl and to a lesser extent, Heidegger, among the neo-
Thomists marks a departure from Héring and Rabeau in another respect as well, for the
latter found in Scheler the most significant phenomenological insights into the study of re-
ligion. In 1926, when Héring published his thesis on phenomenology and the philosophy
of religion, Scheler was the most well-known phenomenologist, both in Germany and in
France. Following his sudden death in 1928, however, Scheler’s popularity began to wane
meanwhile Husserl garnered more attention in France due to his personal visits and the
publication of the Cartesian Meditations. Moreover, in addition to these circumstantial rea-
sons, there were theological and philosophical reasons why neo-Thomists were drawn
more to Husserl and Heidegger than to Scheler. Although a Catholic for a while, Scheler
emphasized an Augustinian perspective and not a Thomist one. Husserl, on the other hand,
though he came from a Protestant background and though he rarely made theological ob-
servations, could be linked to the scholastic tradition through the concept of intentionality
which he adapted from Brentano. Likewise Heidegger addressed a topic central to the
428
scholastic tradition, namely the meaning of being and existence.307 Nevertheless, the prop-
erly theological and religious aspects of phenomenology received relatively little attention
among the French neo-Thomists. For example, the discussions at Juvisy did not address
topics such as the psychology and epistemology of the act of faith or the ontology of divin-
ity. The Journée d’Études was by and large an encounter between phenomenology and
neo-Thomism as a philosophy rather than as a theology. At only one point did the delibera-
tions touch on a specifically theological point. In response to a question from Jacques
Maritain about the passive role of the intellect in the constitution of the world by the tran-
scendental ego, Feuling remarked that in the natural attitude, the object determines the intel-
lect and its act, while in the transcendental region it is more accurate to speak, albeit analog-
ically, of a creative activity. “It is here,” notes Feuling, “that the theory of the necessary
emanation of the divine consciousness enters.”308
Following the adjournment of the colloquy at Juvisy a few articles were published
by attendees, and some by others who wanted to raise awareness of the discussions among
other French religious thinkers. Shortly after the colloquy, Louis-Bertrand Geiger, a
Dominican from the Saulchoir who was present at the meeting, offered a brief synopsis of
the event in the popular journal La Vie intellectuelle.309 Geiger’s motivation for writing the
article is clear: “The enthusiasm manifested by many Catholic thinkers concerning the new
philosophy creates a pressing need.”310 Lest one conclude that a rapprochement between
phenomenology and Thomism is possible, Geiger warns that they are too divergent. Only
limited comparisons are feasible, and these can only be done selectively. There may be
307Interestingly, none of the participants at Juvisy mentioned the fact that Heideggerdid his habilitation thesis in the area of scholasticism; see Harold J. Robbins, “‘DunsScotus Theory of the Categories and of Meaning,’ by Martin Heidegger,” (PhD thesis, DePaul University, 1978). See also John D. Caputo, “Phenomenology, Mysticism and the‘Gramatica Speculativa’: A Study of Heidegger’s ‘Habilitationsschrift,’” Journal of theBritish Society for Phenomenology 5 (1974): 101-17.
308Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 43. Husserl never proposed such a the-ory in any of his published or unpublished works, so Feuling’s remarks must havestemmed either from his own interpretation of Husserl or from his contact with Fink.
309Louis-Bertrand Geiger, “Phénoménologie et Thomisme,” La Vie intellectuelle 17(1932): 415-19.
310Ibid., 419.
429
points of contact between Thomist and the phenomenological method of essential intuition
or the insistence upon presuppositionless beginnings. These may be explained on the basis
of the indirect influence of Aquinas on Husserl through Brentano, or their common reaction
to positivism on the one hand and neo-Kantianism on the other. Still, phenomenology does
not attain the ideal of universality that it seeks; only Thomism can rightly claim it.
Phenomenology suffers from other shortcomings as well. “Practically speaking,” Geiger
observes, “the phenomenological reduction has led Husserl towards transcendental ideal-
ism, and the preference which Heidegger shows for human being [Dasein] and more gen-
erally the problems of the human person, make one fear a similar result.”311
In 1933, Regis Jolivet, Dean of Philosophy at the Facultés Catholiques de Lyon,
published his own reflections on phenomenology on idealism.312 Although he had not par-
ticipated in the Journée d’Études, he picks up the threads of the Juvisy discussions and
adds to them. For instance, he agrees with those at Juvisy who, like Geiger, had argued
that Husserl’s thought had developed into a transcendental idealism. Furthermore, he ob-
serves that Husserl’s notion of intuition is closer to Descartes’s than Aquinas’s.
Phenomenology is no longer just a method: it has become a doctrine. While this leads
Jolivet to contend that Husserlian phenomenology is open to a metaphysics and even to the
affirmation of God as the unifying principle of transcendental consciousness, he neverthe-
less concludes that a rapprochement with Thomism would be dangerous due to a lack of
common methodological ground.313
b. Two Neo-Thomist Appraisals of Phenomenology: Pedro Descoqsand Jacques Maritain
In addition to discussion of the proceedings of the colloquy at Juvisy, the issue of
the relevance of phenomenology to Thomism was occasionally mentioned in other French
publications. For example, in his two-volume work on natural theology, Pedro Descoqs,
311Ibidl, 418.312Regis Jolivet, “La Phénoménologie et l’Idéalisme,” Revue Thomiste 39 (1933):
224-30.313Ibid., 226.
430
professor at the Jesuit scholasticate in Jersey, classified phenomenology under the rubric of
argumenta invalida.314 He noted that two phenomenologists in particular, Max Scheler and
Otto Gründler, had applied the peculiar methods of this movement to the knowledge of
God, but had contributed nothing new to the question, adding that the kind of intuition
upon which their argument is based has “nothing in common with the intuitive vision
known to Catholic theology.”315 Decoqs’s review of recent works on metaphysics for the
1933-34 edition of the Archives de Philosophie incorporated a lengthy summary of Alfons
Hufnagel’s Intuition und Erkenntnis nach Thomas von Aquin, including a translation of
Hufnagel’s eleven-point comparison between the intuitionist epistemologies of Husserl and
Aquinas.316 Decoqs found Hufnagel’s sketch dubious, however, especially with respect to
his treatment of Aquinas, whom he portrayed as a thoroughgoing intuitionist while never
mentioning his doctrine of abstraction. Descoqs’s rejection of phenomenology reflects well
the fact that neo-Thomist interest in phenomenology had already declined significantly by
the mid-1930s. In fact, the last mention of phenomenology and Thomism—or phe-
nomenology at all, for that matter—in French Thomist literature until after war was the ci-
tation of a Spanish article published in 1935.317 The decline of interest was probably the
result of the largely negative outcome of the discussions at Juvisy.
One of the most active and vocal members of the Société Thomiste was Jacques
Maritain. In his opening remarks at the Journée d’Études, Maritain had recommended that
students of Aquinas examine phenomenology “with sympathy and discernment” since “the
points of contact between Thomism and phenomenology are frequent” and because their
criticisms of phenomenology might clarify criticisms of certain figures within the scholastic
314See Pedro Descoqs, Praelectiones Theologiae Naturalis, 2 vols. (Paris:Beauschesne, 1932-35), 1: 569-72.
315Ibid., 571.316See Pedro Descoqs, “Métaphysique,” Archives de Philosophie 10 (1933-34):
151[569]-240[658], and Alfons Hufnagel, Intuition und Erkenntnis nach Thomas vonAquin (Münster i. W.: Aschendorff, 1932). Hufnagel’s point-by-point comparison ofHusserl and Aquinas may be found on pp. 295-97 of his work; Descoqs’s translation ap-pears on pp. 212[630]-213[631].
317See Société Thomiste, Bulletin Thomiste. Tables des tomes IV à VII (Années1934-1946) (Paris: Le Saulchoir, 1946), 79.
431
tradition, such as Duns Scotus.318 Yet, just as with Bergson, whom he first praised and
later criticized, so the openness and interest which Maritain expressed toward phenomenol-
ogy at Juvisy quickly turned sour. Shortly after the colloquy had adjourned, Maritain pub-
lished his major epistemological, Distinguer pour unir, ou les degrés de savoir.319
Maritain’s main purpose in the book, which he carefully assembled from lectures and
courses given during the previous decade, was to set forth a coherent portrait of the process
of knowing according to the principles of Thomist philosophy. For this task, Maritain drew
not only upon Aquinas, but also his commentators Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, whose
theories concerning the three degrees of formal abstraction inspired the subtitle of the
book.320 In the first part of the work, Maritain discussed the empirical, mathematical and
metaphysical levels of knowledge, while in the second part he considered suprarational or
mystical knowledge. The guiding theme of the work as a whole was the eidetic intuition of
being, which Maritain defined in terms of an intellectual identity with the formal essence of
its object.
The Degrees of Knowledge is not about phenomenology. Nevertheless, insofar as
it is concerned with offering a contemporary account of Thomist epistemology, it fre-
quently engages phenomenology and other idealist approaches to the critique of knowl-
edge. Maritain sustains a running dialogue with Husserl in the first half of the book, espe-
318Société Thomiste, La Phénoménologie, 11.319Jacques Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, ou Les Degrés du savoir, 2nd ed. (Paris:
1934). Except for some corrections and the addition of a few notes, it is identical to the firstedition, which appeared in 1932. The most satisfactory English translation was preparedunder the direction of Gerald B. Phelan from the fourth corrected edition, and was origi-nally published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1959 (a reedition by the University of NotreDame Press appeared in 1995). All quotations of this work will be drawn from this transla-tion with page number references to the second French edition followed by a citation of thePhelan translation in the Scribner edition.
320Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 71-78ff.; Phelan, 35-38ff. In the first degree, themind considers the object in its sensible reality, with all of its empirically ascertainableknowledge abstracted from sensible being, the qualities of the object as it isperceived—what the ancients called physics. The second degree, corresponding to thescience of mathematics, consists in the abstraction of the form of the object purified ofsensible matter. In the third degree, the object is abstracted from all matter and is examinedfrom the perspective of being. This last degree of abstraction defines the domain ofmetaphysics.
432
cially in the numerous and digressive footnotes. The references to Husserl reveal that
Maritain studied carefully the Cartesian meditations and Gurvitch’s treatment of Husserl in
Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande.321 They also display some familiarity
with the themes of Formal and Transcendental Logic, but Husserl’s important earlier
works, such as the Logical Investigations, Ideas and Philosophy as Rigorous Science, are
never cited nor alluded to. The absence of citations and the lack of familiarity with certain
concepts suggests that Maritain never read these works. His scrutiny of the Cartesian medi-
tations, however, provides an ample base for his critique of Husserlian phenomenology,
especially in its later, transcendental stages. The following paragraphs examine Maritain’s
criticisms of phenomenology in their successive contexts in The Degrees of Knowledge.
In the opening of the chapter on philosophy and experimental science, Husserl’s
name emerges quite naturally, for Maritain is interested here in defining the characteristics
that constitute science in general and in its ideal types, much as Husserl does in the first of
the Cartesian Meditations. The scholastic approach to such a question, he notes, is based
on the method of abstractio formalis, or the abstraction of formally constitutive elements.322
Most modern philosophers ignore this method and try to substitute other ones its place. For
example, Husserl sets out to make the task of science a lived experience so that he can
thereby grasp its overall intention. This approach might be successful were it to involve
reflection upon the sciences as they are actually given. The Cartesian method which
Husserl adopts, however, compels him to temporarily invalidate the very sciences from
which he ultimately draws his generic concept. On the other hand, the Thomist approach
321Cf. ibid., 166, n. 1; Phelan, 85, n. 3. Explaining Husserl’s interpretation of in-tentionality, Gurvitch writes in Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophie allemande, “In noway is consciousness a container: it is neither a circle nor a case, and it cannot have eitherinterior or an exterior. The intentional content is neither inside nor outside of conscious-ness” (p. 47; emphasis Gurvitch’s). Maritain agrees, and argues precisely for this reasonthat the object can exist both inside the mind and outside of it. Husserl, meanwhile, insistsexclusively upon the immanence of objects to consciousness, rejecting the real existence ofobjects outside the mind, according to Maritain. Maritain derives his interpretation ofHusserl on this point not only from Gurvitch but also from the Cartesian Meditations,which he cites elsewhere (cf. Distinguer pour unir, 153, n. 3; Phelan, 79, n. 5).
322Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 45-46, n. 1; Phelan, 22, n. 1. Cf. Husserl,Méditations cartésiennes, 7-11.
433
accepts the realism of the empirical sciences as given and turns the gaze of critical reflection
upon them only subsequently. Critical reflection yields the universal elements of the indi-
vidual sciences, thereby determining their necessary foundations. For Maritain, science
represents the kind of knowledge whereby the mind is led necessarily to the reason for the
being of things. Science is knowledge that is necessarily true, knowledge that cannot not be
true. “Taken in itself and abstracting from its systematic connections,” he consents, “the
notion of scientific truth proposed by Husserl and ‘conceived as an ensemble of well-
founded predicative relations or relations founded in an absolute fashion’ does not seem
very far removed from such a conception.”323
Phenomenology envisages an ideal for science similar to the one proposed by
Thomism, and although its means of arriving at that ideal are deficient, certain aspects of
the phenomenological method may still prove useful for the critique of knowledge. In a
subsequent chapter of The Degrees of Knowledge, Maritain suggests that the critique of
knowledge involves two tasks. The first task involves reflection upon the self in order to
confirm the general validity of knowledge and its first principles. The second and more im-
portant task itself comprises two parts: “on the one hand, in analysing and describing—due
regard being had for its integrity—the objective content of knowledge in its various phases
and the witness it bears to itself; on the other hand, it consists in metaphysically penetrating
its own nature and causes, and making it, properly speaking, know itself.”324 With respect
to the first part of this second task, Maritain notes that it embraces the essence of the phe-
nomenological method, and what will remain of that method “once it has been sifted by
time and reduced to more modest proportions,” namely its rigorous discipline of empirical
description.325 Once again, Maritain finds Husserl’s scientific spirit and exactitude praise-
worthy, and the fundamental ambitions of his method compatible with a Thomist approach
323Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 47, n. 1; Phelan, 23, n. 2. The quotation of
Husserl is taken from Husserl, Méditations cartésiennes, 10 (Phelan’s translation of thispassage is followed here).
324Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 144; Phelan, 75.325Ibid., 144, n. 1; Phelan, 75, n. 1
434
to knowledge. A Thomist critique of knowledge, however, “must needs be recognized as
distinct from every sort of idealistic critique both by reason of its starting point and by rea-
son of its mode of procedure.”326 A Thomist critique will be distinguished by three charac-
teristics. First, it cannot take the pure cogito as its starting point because the cogito is closed
in upon itself. The mind’s primordial contact with being must be acknowledged from the
beginning. “Intelligible being and the self are given to the intellect together and from the
very start,” Maritain contends, “but being is given in the foreground and up-stage; the self
is in the background, behind the scenes, as it were.”327 The self only comes to the fore in
the second moment of reflexive intuition, and it is only than that the critique of knowledge
actually begins. A second characteristic of a Thomist critique of knowledge is that it never
involves real universal doubt. Aquinas’s universalis dubitatio de veritate is in no way lived
or exercised doubt, like Cartesian doubt or the phenomenological epoché. “It is a conceived
or represented doubt,” Maritain observes, and for that reason it is both stricter and more
sincere than the arbitrary idealist pseudo-dramas arising from a peculiar forcing of the
will.328 Aquinas’s method of doubt, in fact, is not a matter of doubt at all, but rather of
bringing to light the realism that is unconsciously lived by the intellect. Thirdly, a Thomist
critique of knowledge does not pretend to be a required condition for philosophy.
Epistemology is not something separate from metaphysics, and therefore it cannot precede
it as a sort of preamble. Epistemology and ontology must grow together. “From this point
of view, the conception which Cartesians and Neo-Cartesians [e.g., Husserl] form of
‘philosophical radicalism’ appears to be the very epitome of presumption in the matter of
human knowing,” Maritain remarks.329
326Ibid., 146; Phelan, 75.327Ibid., 150; Phelan, 78 (emphasis Maritain’s).328Ibid., 152; Phelan, 79.329Ibid., 153; Phelan, 79. Cf. 160, n. 1; Phelan, 82, n. 2, where, referring to
Husserl, Maritain comments: “It is a kind of singularly naïve credulity about the possibili-ties of philosophy to think that from the very outset it should be constituted by a ‘radical’awareness of self, and built up step by step on the ‘fundamental basis of a full, entire anduniversal awareness of self.’ [Husserl, Méditations cartésiennes, 131, 134] The humanmind will never achieve an awareness of self. For such a self-awareness presupposes a self
435
Maritain offers a longer excursus on phenomenology in the third chapter of The
Degrees of Knowledge where he develops more fully the foundations of his own position,
which he calls critical realism.330 Maritain restricts his comments to Husserlian phe-
nomenology (which he notes was the best known in France at the time), although he shows
an appreciation for the diversity of the phenomenological movement, citing, for instance,
the existence of the Munich school which stayed clear of Husserl’s neo-idealism. The basic
inspiration for the movement as a whole, he observes, issues from the same sources as
Thomism. “Strange as it seems,” comments Maritain, “at the very outset of the
phenomenological movement a kind of activation of post-Kantian philosophy took place by
means of a contact with Aristotelian and scholastic seeds, as transmitted by Brentano.”331
Nevertheless, Maritain claims that the phenomenological project was flawed from its incep-
tion because it took the reflexive approach of Descartes as primary, and from there set out
perceive the immediate givens of knowledge. Reflexivity cannot precede perception, how-
ever. To pretend otherwise leads to a vicious circle, yet Husserl insists upon using a reflex-
ive method to constitute and construct reality. Maritain observes that Husserl’s error is also
reflected in the phenomenological epoché because the latter, by bracketing all extra-mental
existence, separates the essence of the object from the thing itself. As such, the epoché in-
volves a contradiction, or at least a charade: “the possibility of thinking of being while re-
above all else, and that holds for all degrees of knowing . . . If philosophy is to help thehuman mind gain a more and more profound awareness of self in any very effective way, itis on the condition that philosophy itself is first founded, and then built up step by step.”
330Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 137-264; Phelan, 71-135. See also the preface tothe second edition of Jacques Maritain, La Philosophie bergsonienne (Paris: MarcelRivière, 1930), available in English as Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy andThomism , trans. Mabelle L. Andison and J. Gordon Andison (New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, 1955): “Intellectualism, anti-intellectualism,—to be absolutely exact one shoulduse these words only to designate two opposing errors. It is improperly and through reac-tion against the contemporary anti-intellectualist current that the thought of Saint Thomashas sometimes been called intellectualist . . . others in so designating it tended to displaceits centre of gravity and in a way to transfer it into conditions of intellect in the pure state.The best of designating it, in reality, would be rather as critical realism” (p. 57; Andinsonand Andison, 43).
331Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 195-96; Phelan, 101.
436
fusing to think of it as being is admitted in practice and by presupposition.”332 Husserl and
his followers do not see that the Cartesian notion of freeing philosophizing mind from all
presuppositions “is itself a prejudice born of a naïvely materialistic conception of the life of
the spirit, namely, that, in order to allow nothing to enter a material recipient that has not
first been verified, that recipient must first be emptied of all content.”333 The mind can per-
form this emptying virtually or ideally. By a signified, not lived, suspension of judgment
the mind can make a critical appraisal of its first principles. Hence, not only is the epoché
impossible, it is unnecessary. Furthermore, Husserl and his followers are mistaken in as-
suming that the mind must possess actual extramental knowledge in order to insure the
certitude of the intellect. Maritain argues that the intellect need only have possible extramen-
tal knowledge. It can know with absolute certainty that it is not nothing. The idea of a pure
cogito is therefore superfluous. Philosophy does not begin with ego cogito cogitatum but
with ego cogito ens.
In a later chapter of The Degrees of Knowledge on what he deems to be the other-
wise laudable anti-mechanist reaction in contemporary biology, Maritain cautions against
the irrationalism of Bergsonism and also the insufficiency of the phenomenological
method.334 In contrast to Bergsonian intuition, phenomenological intuition belongs to the
332Ibid., 197; Phelan, 102 (emphasis Maritain’s). See also Peasant of the Garonne,158; Cuddihy and Hughes, 106, where Maritain refers to the epoché as the “HusserlianRefusal.”
333Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 197-98; Phelan, 102.334It is instructive to note Maritain’s critiques of Bergson and Blondel, for they are
in some respects similar to his critique of phenomenology. In his collection of earlypolemical essays titled La Philosophie bergsonienne (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1914; 2nd ed.1930), Maritain criticizes Bergson’s concepts of intuition, evolution and the intellect.Bergson, he charges, has abandoned intellect and being, replacing the first with an extra-intellectual intuition and the second with movement (cf. 2nd ed., 64ff). Although he rec-ognizes the need to affirm an intuitive faculty, he denies a priori that it could be found in theintellect, and so ends up positing a distinct faculty which he then opposes to the intellect.He is wrong, moveover, to assume that the intellect reduces movement to a series of suc-cessive states of rest. The intellect can know movement as such without ever having to ob-serve objects from discrete vantage points because it can place itself within movement andgrasp it intuitively (cf. Jacques Maritain, Sept leçons sur l’être (Paris: Téqui, 1934), 54). IfBergson’s philosophy suffers from anti-intellectualism, then Blondel’s is tainted by a kindof hyper-intellectualism. In his critique of Blondel’s epistemological treatise “Le Procès del’intelligence.” Blondel deserves praise for rejecting the anti-intellectualism of Bergson andLe Roy, but unfortunately he conflates practical reason with action. Maritain explains, “We
437
intellectual order. Yet, “from the start it assumes a vantage of reflexive thought that does
not admit the thing (the transobjective subject). Hence, it is devoted to a pure description of
essence-phenomena which it isolates (contrary to their nature) from extramental being.”335
Furthermore, since it refuses to recognize the primary value of transcendental being, phe-
nomenological intuition cannot pass beyond an empiricism of the intelligible.
Consequently, it cannot ground an ontology, a metaphysics, or even a philosophy of na-
ture. In a footnote, Maritain observes that Husserl’s use of the word ontology [Ger.
Ontologie] in Formal and Transcendental Logic and the Cartesian Meditations is equivocal.
Husserl’s solipsistic egology with its supposed a priori discovery of the sciences is indis-
tinguishable from ordinary empirical and logical analysis. “In spite of all the philosopher’s
efforts,” Maritain concludes, and “in spite of the realist tendency which gave birth to phe-
nomenology, it remains radically incapable of furnishing anything but an illusory idealistic
substitute of the real.”336
Elsewhere in The Degrees of Knowledge, Maritain contends that as a result of these
errors on the part of the phenomenologists, the original scholastic notion of intentionality
gets distorted.337 Intentionality, Maritain claims, is not just a property of consciousness but
of thought, for it is in the immaterial act of thought where being, conceived as that which is do not reproach Blondel with neglecting intelligence to the exclusive benefit ofaction—such was never his intention—but rather for declaring that if intelligence excludesaction and the will from its operation . . . if it does not attain things by a non-intellectualmode, it remains essentially insufficient with respect to its proper object” (Réflexions surl’intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 3rd ed. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1932), 93-94). Onthe other hand, in trying to exalt speculative intelligence, Blondel goes too far and lifts itcompletely out of the human world where it belongs. He is not to be blamed for admittingthat a consciousness superior to ratiocination exists, but for declaring that it isindispensable to the ordinary functions of the intellect. Knowledge by inclination orconnaturality, as Blondel (and one might add, Rousselot) understands it, is not required forthe natural activity of intelligence. Blondel is right to insist on the essential need ofintelligence to grasp the real, but he misinterprets the realism intelligence requires. Hedefines it in terms of possession and appetite, when in fact the reality sought by the intellectis immaterial.
335Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 389-90; Phelan, 197.336Ibid., 389, n. 1; Phelan, 197, n. 1.337Ibid., 199; Phelan, 103. In a footnote, Maritain points out that both the phe-
nomenologists and their critics honor Brentano with the discovery of intentionality when infact it was the Scholastics who discovered it. He also notes that certain aspects of phe-nomenology depend upon Scotus, particulary his theory of ideas and esse objectivum.
438
entirely independent of thought, “becomes a thing existing within it, set up for it and inte-
grated into its own act through which, from that moment, they both exist in thought with a
single, self-same suprasubjective existence.”338 Husserl brushes up against knowledge but
then misses the great secret. He does not see that knowledge has no need to go outside of
itself to attain the object it seeks. He does not recognize the power of thought to surmount
being, and so his notion of intentionality is materialistic. Intentionality becomes a con-
stituent of the object and the structural laws governing its constitution. Yet instead of the
object bringing me into itself, the scholastic notion of intentionality expresses the idea that
the object is brought into me. It is a sign of “the very glory of the immateriality of thought,”
according to Maritain, that it can possess the world inside of itself, that it can draw the
substance of the world to itself through the senses.339
Maritain might have revised his critique of Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality had
he studied those portions of Ideas where Husserl introduces the concept of the noema and
compares it to the scholastic notion of mental or intentional (in)existence.340 On the other
hand, his concentration on the later Husserl brings sharply into focus the problems inherent
in the idealistic direction implied by phenomenology from the beginning. Phenomenology,
he charges, has never been able to free itself from the phenomenist notion of a pure ob-
ject.341 From a Thomist perspective, however, it is impossible to think of an object apart
338Ibid., 200; Phelan, 103. See also André Hayen, L’Intentionnel dans la philoso-phie de Saint Thomas (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1942), 15.
339Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 202; Phelan, 104.340Cf. Husserl, Ideas, § 90; Gibson, 262. Maritain’s charge that Husserl has a
materialistic concept of intentionality and that his philosophy follows other idealism in try-ing to find a way of affirming the existence of extramental objects seems unfounded on thebasis of statements such as the following: “‘In’ the reduced perception (in the phenomeno-logically pure experience) we find, as belonging to its essence indissolubly, the perceivedas such, and under such titles as ‘material thing,’ ‘plant,’ ‘tree,’ and so forth. The invertedcommas are clearly significant; they express that change of signature, the correspondingradical modification of the meaning of the words. The tree plain and simple, the thing innature, is as different as can be from this perceived tree as such, which as perceptualmeaning belongs to the perception, and that inseperably. The tree plain and simple can burnaway, resolve itself into its chemical elements, and so forth. But the meaning—the meaningof this perception, something that belongs necessarily to its essence—cannot burn away; ithas no chemical elements, no forces, no real properties” (Ibid., § 89; Gibson, 260-61(emphasis Husserl’s)).
341Maritain, Distinguer pour unir, 192-93; Phelan, 99.
439
from its being for itself. Phenomenology’s attempt to dispense with the extramental object
is the result of a false logic. Phenomenology tries to constitute both the object and the ego
subject within the bounds of the transcendental ego. Yet by doing so, it invokes the very
transcendental notion of being which it had formerly bracketed and makes it the foundation
of the ego subject and its object. “Let us make this point once more: realism and idealism
are not transcended,” Maritain remarks. “There is no higher position that goes beyond and
reconciles them. A choice must be made between the two, as between true and false.”342
In sum, the phenomenological method has lead to delusion. Husserl’s pursuit of
Cartesian radicalism has proven futile; his phenomenology has returned to the idealism it
had initially tried to flee. In his later works, Husserl has even declared phenomenology to
be the new transcendental idealism. Although Husserl’s idealism differs from Kantian
idealism insofar as it rejects the notion of the thing-in-itself, this decision nevertheless con-
strains Husserl to constitute the real world from the transcendental ego. Upon closer in-
spection, the constitution of reality proposed by Husserl proves to be more of a reconstitu-
tion, Maritain points out, and “like every reconstitution, it presupposes some original: the
world of naïve realism from which phenomenological idealism is suspended like a parasite
trying to suck its host into itself.”343 In trying to eliminate naïve realism, phenomenology
has unwittingly become its victim, binding itself to pre-critical belief in extramental reality.
The phenomenological method claims to bracket this belief, but in fact it only substitutes it
with idealized forms. “The fact that the essences perceived by the mind are no longer
grasped in transobjective subjects [i.e., things] existing outside the mind and themselves
involved in the flow of time, the extra-temporal objects of the intellect are, through an un-
expected return to Platonism, separated from real, temporal existence,” according to
Maritain.344 The only way to recover the real existence would appear to be to invert the in-
tellect by giving time precedence over being, either by substituting it for being like
342Ibid., 195; Phelan, 100.343Ibid., 204; Phelan, 105.344Ibid., 207; Phelan, 107.
440
Bergson, or by resting being on time like Heidegger. “And that is to guarantee realism by
destroying its primary foundations,” Maritain asserts.345
In 1966, Maritain published a volume of philosophical reminiscences, The Peasant
of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself About the Present Time. Although
written thirty years after Degrees of Knowledge, Maritain resurrects his earlier critiques of
Husserlian phenomenology and brings them up to date. He acknowledges that for contem-
porary philosophers Husserl has played a role analogous to the one Descartes played in the
seventeenth century. He introduced a new philosophical methodology that has been widely
adopted by the generation which followed him. “A man of greatness and fundamental in-
tegrity,” Maritain writes, “he deserved the gratitude and affection Edith Stein continued to
feel from him while freeing herself from his influence.” Husserl promised much, yet
. . . like so many others, he was a victim of Descartes and Kant. Thetragedy of Husserl lies in this, that, after being given his start by Brentano,he made a desperate effort to liberate philosophic eros, and at the moment hewas about to succeed, he hurled it back into its jail, binding it (because hewas himself ensnared), with the finest of threads, stronger by far than thoseof the old cogito, to illusions much more deceptive than all the Cartesian il-lusions, and which were to bring ideosophy taken for philosophy to a re-fined form most treacherous for the mind.346
The real proof of Husserl’s error may be witnessed in his followers. Maritain goes on to
quote Pierre Trotignon, who, in his study of Heidegger concludes that Husserl’s successor
at Freiburg presents “the most significant evidence of the absence of philosophy in our
time”347 Although he disowns Husserl, he is still a prisoner of Husserl’s great Refusal, by
which Maritain means the rejection of the real as such. In France, Sartre catches a glimpse
of real existence through his description of the experience of radical contingency. Yet he
only perceives it as shapeless, enormous and obscene, and so gets nauseated. Sartre, too,
is a prisoner of Husserl’s bracketing of existence from reality, as are more recent practi-
tioners of phenomenological existentialism. Maritain “was not opposed to post-Cartesian
345Ibid., 208; Phelan, 108.346Maritain, Peasant of the Garonne, 157-58; Cuddihy and Hughes, 105-6.347Ibid., 160; Cuddihy and Hughes, 107; Cf. Pierre Trotignon, Heidegger: sa vie,
son oeuvre. Avec un exposé da sa philosophie, 3rd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1965), 66.
441
philosophy because it was modern,” Gerald McCool observes, but “because it deprived
modern culture of the philosophical integration it should have received during the period of
its evolution.”348 Husserl’s insistence on a univocal method is the principal problem. He
makes the mistake of putting method before the real object. Like all other modern philoso-
phies, phenomenology errs on this fundamental point. Hence, if there is to be an exchange
between phenomenology and Thomism as Maritain had optimistically proposed at
Juvisy,349 evidently it will be phenomenology that will profit from Thomism, and not vice
versa.
V. Conclusion: Two Stages in the Reception of Phenomenologyin French Religious Thought Prior to 1939
The reception of phenomenology in French religious thought prior to 1939 occurred
in two slightly overlapping stages. The first stage comprised the reception of the phe-
nomenological insights of Bergson and Blondel among religious thinkers who took inspi-
ration from their respective philosophies. Because this chapter has focused on Le Roy and
Rousselot as the most significant representatives of Bergsonian and Blondelian trends in
religious thought, it is convenient to date this preparatory stage according to the span of
their publications in that area. In his address to the Société française de philosophie on 28
February 1901, Le Roy heralded the new spiritualist positivism which had been foreseen
by Ravaisson and was being ushered in by scientifically oriented philosophers like
Poincaré and Bergson. Marking the completion of this initial period of reception, Le Roy
published in 1929 a synthesis of his pragmatic approach to the problem of God, based
largely on his interpretation of Bergson’s philosophy of duration and intuition. Rousselot’s
career, tragically cut short by war in 1915, fell entirely within the compass of Le Roy’s,
and yet it accomplished as much for the integration of Blondelian dynamism into
philosophical theology as Le Roy’s efforts had for Bergsonian intuitionism.
348McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 153.349In his opening remarks at the Journée d’Études, Maritain had called for a
“reciprocal understanding” between Thomism and phenomenology (see Société Thomiste,La Phénoménologie, 12).
442
The beginning of the second stage in reception of phenomenology in French reli-
gious thought may be dated to the publication of Jean Héring’s thesis on Phénoménologie
et philosophie religieuse in 1926. Héring was the first French philosopher to have directly
used Husserl’s phenomenological methods in constructing a philosophy of religion and re-
ligious philosophy. His attempts were soon followed by others, including Gaston Rabeau,
who retained an interest in phenomenology longer than most other Catholic thinkers—in
fact, right up to the beginning of World War II. Rabeau’s two thesis, which endeavored to
incorporate phenomenological viewpoints within the framework of Thomist epistemology,
were both published in 1938. The following remarks recapitulate the principal features of
these two stages and offer interpretative perspectives on the course of the reception of
Husserlian phenomenology among French religious thinkers.
A. Stage 1: Integration of Bergsonian and Blondelian Insights , 1901-1929
Both Bergson and Blondel served as essential precursors to the reception of phe-
nomenology in France, not only among philosophers but also among religious thinkers.
Their influence among the latter group was often more indirect than direct, being mediated
by a few progressive philosophers and theologians who grasped the significance of their
ideas for addressing topics of current interest, such as the nature of dogma and the act of
faith. Édouard Le Roy transposed Bergson’s pre-phenomenological insights into his own
idiom. He described Bergsonian intuition as a return to the immediate and adopted
Bergson’s doctrines of duration and creative evolution as the bases for his own notion of
invention. All told, Le Roy emphasized the dynamic elements of Bergsonian philosophy
over its static aspects, such as mystical contemplation. Le Roy’s dynamism as well as his
pragmatic orientation approached Blondel’s dialectic of the will. Le Roy even coined the
expression pensée-action in order to convey the essentially dynamic and pragmatic nature
of thinking.
Le Roy’s interpretation Bergsonian philosophy and his appropriation of Blondelian
themes approached Husserlian phenomenology on several points. Le Roy’s notion of in-
443
tuition, like Husserl’s, was fundamentally visual, being rooted in metaphors of perception.
Furthermore, Le Roy recognized the need to shift from a relative perception of the immedi-
ate givenness of an object to an absolute grasp of the same, and so advocated what was es-
sentially a phenomenological reduction. Like Husserl, Le Roy applied these phenomeno-
logical insights to the criticism of narrowly empirical and positivist approaches to science
and furthermore brought them to bear on theological issues. For example, Le Roy argued
that dogmas should be regarded as lived experiences of truth, not as abstract premises for a
deduction. He also drew upon the Blondelian principle of immanence to renew traditional
proofs for the existence of God, contending that evidence of the existence of God is imma-
nent to the process of thinking itself. He also adopted Blondel’s phenomenological analysis
of desire to demonstrate that the end of all willing is supernatural, namely to establish one-
self in being.
Le Roy could have gone still further in his application of Bergsonian and
Blondelian phenomenological insights to theological problems. He might have proposed,
for instance, that the content of a dogmatic formulation be accessible through a kind of es-
sential intuition, but he did not go so far. His aim was primarily to show that the notion of
dogma maintained by most Catholics is not the true Catholic notion of dogma. He was
more concerned with apologetics than with opening a dialogue with contemporary philoso-
phies simply for its own sake. Le Roy’s spiritualist pragmatism thus represented only a
preliminary attempt to incorporate phenomenological approaches within a religious philos-
ophy, but one that could be built upon by other religious thinkers. His assimilation of
Cartesianism intuitionism to a philosophy of action opened possibilities for neo-Thomist
thinkers to appreciate the value of Husserlian phenomenology for renewing their own es-
sentially Aristotelian philosophy. Le Roy furthermore demonstrated the compatibly of
Bergsonian and Blondelian philosophies, and so facilitated their precursory roles to the re-
ception of Husserlian phenomenology among French religious thinkers. Meanwhile, Le
Roy’s own integration of phenomenological insights remained incomplete from a
444
Husserlian perspective because he did not go far enough in overcoming Bergson’s separa-
tion of intuition and intelligence. Other religious thinkers, particularly the neo-Thomist
philosopher Pierre Rousselot, came closer to the spirit of Husserlian phenomenology in
this respect.
Many of Rousselot’s positions displayed a certain affinity to Blondel’s philosophy
and incorporated some of the latter’s pre-phenomenological elements, although Rousselot
did not elaborate upon them directly. His theses on the intellectualism of Aquinas and the
problem of love in the middle ages exhibited certain Blondelian traits, for example his no-
tions of the dynamism of the intellect and connatural knowledge. Insofar as Rousselot
brought Blondelian dynamism into harmony with Thomist intellectualism, he also brought
it closer to Husserlian phenomenology. Like Husserl, Rousselot took direct, intuitive
knowledge as the ideal for all knowledge. His notion of the sympathized intellect moreover
expressed the phenomenological principle of intentionality. For Rousselot, however, as-
serted that intentional unity with an object was founded upon a prior ontological unity. In
this regard, as well as with his view of knowing as an essentially dynamic process,
Rousselot ventured farther into metaphysics than Husserl would dare. He also went be-
yond Husserl in applying phenomenological insights to problems in the religious sphere.
For instance, with respect to the nature of dogma, Rousselot proposed that it represented
the conceptual rendering of the lived experience of Jesus as mediated by the faith of the
apostles. In addition, Rousselot’s account of the act of faith depended on the notion of ap-
perceptive synthesis, which had an approximate counterpart in the phenomenological doc-
trine of constitution.
Thanks to the progressive philosophies of Le Roy and Rousselot, the subsequent
generation of religious thinkers in France was well prepared to understand Husserl’s phe-
nomenology and its appreciate its potential value for renewing a theological epistemology.
The philosophies of Le Roy and Rousselot were both essentially spiritualist, and for that
reason tended to run counter to the rationalist theologies common in their day. By the same
445
token, their spiritualism also created a favorable atmosphere for the reception of Husserlian
phenomenology, with its emphasis on intuition and lived experience. Furthermore, their
more or less explicit critiques of positivist approaches to experimental science and psychol-
ogy anticipated and reinforced Husserl’s own call for scientific reform. Le Roy and espe-
cially Rousselot also represented an advance over Bergsonian anticipations of phenomenol-
ogy insofar as they forged a greater continuity between discursive intelligence and logic and
higher modes of intuitive thinking. The dynamism of knowing which they proposed estab-
lished a precedent for interpreting the phenomenological notion of intentionality and went
beyond it in its application. In their creative synthesis of phenomenological insights, Le
Roy and Rousselot foreshadowed the uniquely French incarnations of phenomenology that
would take place after initial encounters with the movement during the latter half of the
1920s. Le Roy and Rousselot were metaphysicians; likewise French appropriations of
phenomenology after 1930, both in the philosophical and religious spheres, tended to push
the phenomenological envelope to incorporate metaphysical dimensions. Finally, Le Roy
and Rousselot emphasized the existential features and implications of their respective
philosophies much as Levinas and Sartre would later call attention to the existential aspects
of the phenomenological reduction.
B. Stage 2: Applications and Appraisals of Phenomenology, 1926-1939
Beginning in the mid-1920s, religious thinkers in France became aware of
Husserlian phenomenology and they immediately began to consider its usefulness for their
field. The first French religious thinker to bring Husserl’s phenomenology directly into the
context of philosophy of religion and religious philosophy was Jean Héring. A Protestant,
Héring reflected on the value of a phenomenological perspective for rescuing the achieve-
ments nineteenth century Protestant liberal theology from attacks of contemporary dogmatic
theologians like Karl Barth and Emil Brunner. In his thesis, Phénoménologie et philoso-
phie religieuse, Héring argued that phenomenology was capable of rescuing liberal theol-
ogy because it could distinguish between the errors of psychologism and truths of imma-
446
nentism. Héring then proposed how a phenomenological approach can be used to construct
a critical religious philosophy, focusing on three elements of the phenomenological method
in particular: its intuitionist principle, its doctrine of essences and its intentionalist episte-
mology. Although Husserl never dared to apply his methodology to religious questions,
Héring believed his followers were justified in doing so. For example, he took Scheler’s
phenomenology of religion as a model for how the intuitionist principle could be used to
identify and define religious phenomena as a unique field of phenomenological investiga-
tion. Furthermore, he argued that the phenomenological doctrine of intentionality could be
used to assert that religious experience arises from relationship to a real transcendental ob-
ject against critics who would attribute it to a set of psychic motivations or subjective de-
sires. While Husserl would never speculate beyond the eidetic plane delimited by the
brackets of the phenomenological epoché, Héring thought that the question of the real exis-
tence of transcendental objects could not be suspended indefinitely. By virtue of its rigor-
ous discipline, he argued that phenomenology was in fact better qualified than other philo-
sophical methods to make existential judgments. Following Le Roy, Héring claimed that
the existence of God as the intentional pole of religious experience could be affirmed
through practical means. Phenomenology could thus restore the autonomy of religious
philosophy with respect to the psychology and sociology of religion.
The first French Catholic theologian to have taken a direct interest in Husserl and
the phenomenological movement was Gaston Rabeau. Rabeau was concerned to defend
Catholic theology against outside attacks while at the same time presenting it in a convinc-
ing manner to the secular mind. Phenomenology appeared advantageous for such a project
for it contained resonances with scholastic philosophy. Rabeau learned about phenomenol-
ogy from German sources although he never actually studied with Husserl. Like Héring,
Rabeau became intrigued with Scheler’s phenomenological philosophy of religion and its
usefulness for identifying the unique features of religious experience. He picked up on
Scheler’s metaphor of the soul as a mirror whose reflections of the created world may in
447
turn be reflected upon in order to attain knowledge of divinity. Curiously, Rabeau read
phenomenology as supporting a mediated rather than immediate form of knowledge. This
is because he gravitated toward the dynamic theory of knowing proposed by certain neo-
Thomists, as evidenced by his later works on the judgment of existence and the concepts of
species and verbum in Aquinas. Rabeau also employed phenomenological strategies to
bolster classical proofs for the existence of God. In this endeavor he came to close to Le
Roy, to whom he alluded when treating moral arguments for God’s existence. Rabeau also
took the phenomenology of religious experience in a Bergsonian direction, using it to
ground mystical experience. While he demonstrated the versatility of the phenomenological
method, he also cautioned against its excessive use. He regarded Husserl’s turn toward
transcendental idealism as dangerous and then criticized him for not facing the question of
God in the context of his theories regarding the transcendental ego. On the other hand,
Heidegger’s existentialism went too far in the other direction. While Rabeau thus main-
tained a skeptical reserve toward phenomenology, he nonetheless persisted in seeking out
applications for its method. Although he did not think that the phenomenological method
could benefit theology directly, he believed it could help describe elementary intellectual ac-
tivity, thereby yielding an epistemology which could serve as the foundation for a religious
philosophy. As such, he thought phenomenology was of some value for Thomism, al-
though what it had to offer might just as well be derived from the Thomist tradition it itself.
In that case, phenomenology could play a confirmatory if not constructive role in a Thomist
epistemology and theology.
Another proposal for integrating a phenomenological approach within a Thomist
epistemology was put forth by Joseph Maréchal in his essay “Phénoménologie pure ou
philosophie de l’action?” Here the influence of Blondel as a precursor to the reception of
phenomenology was discerned most readily. Maréchal used Blondelian dynamism to re-
deem the static account of knowledge offered by Husserl. Maréchal accomplished the rec-
onciliation of these otherwise opposite approaches to knowledge by subsuming them under
448
the higher viewpoint of a dynamically oriented Thomist epistemology. Maréchal read both
thinkers through his interpretation Aquinas’s intellectualism:
Saint Thomas, in effect, betrayed a constant propensity to grasp things froman intellectualist angle; he sought the will in the intelligence (in ratione vol-untatem). By contrast, Blondel, due to his concern to edify a ‘science of thepractical’ [science de la pratique], was interested in action; it was in the willthat he sought intelligence (in voluntate rationem). Yet they met up witheach other when it came to affirming the mutual inclusion and the reciprocalpriority of these two faculties.350
As Albert Milet has aptly stated, “When Blondel would write, ‘I act,’ he meant to include
thought in action; when St. Thomas would write, ‘I think,’ he comprehended in action both
the beginning and completion of action.”351 An integral of unity of thought, being and ac-
tion had to be affirmed, and it is precisely in this respect that phenomenology fell short.
Consequently, like Rabeau, Maréchal envisioned only a limited role for phenomenology in
a renewed Thomist epistemology. It was even more the case with Maréchal that Husserlian
phenomenology appeared superfluous to his ambition to provide a critical justification for
metaphysics. Nevertheless, Maréchal respected Husserl’s rigor and methodological disci-
pline even if, in the end, he found the foundations of his phenomenology too narrow to
build upon.
Other neo-Thomist philosophers in France came to similar conclusions after study-
ing the possibilities for a rapprochement between phenomenology and Thomism for them-
selves. The meeting of the Société Thomiste at Juvisy on 12 September 1932 displayed
both initial enthusiasm for this prospect as well as ambivalence toward its realization.
Except for those having a deep experience of both phenomenology and Thomist philoso-
350Milet, “Les Cahiers du P. Maréchal,” 243351Ibid., 243-44: “Quand M. Blondel écrivait: ‘j’agis’, il comprenait la pensée dans
l’action; quand saint Thomas écrivait: ‘j’intellige’, il enfermait dans l’intellection à la fois lecommencement et couronnement de l’action.” See also Blondel’s entry on action in thesupplement volume to the second edition (1928) of Lalande, Vocabulaire, p. 3: “Je n’ad-mets pas le mot action désigne quelque chose d’extérieur, de définitivement réfractaire,d’essentiellement impenétrable à l’intelligence; j’admets que l’intelligence est interieure àl’action, qu’elle cherch peu à peu à l’égaler, à l’expliciter, et qu’elle doit finir par l’orienteret la gouverner. Retournant donc la thèse intellectualiste, quant à la méthode sinon quantaux conclusions ultimes, je soutiens (contre M. Lapie par exemple) que le problème logiquen’est qu’un aspect du problème de laction” (emphasis Blondel’s).
449
phy, such as Edith Stein, most participants saw more obstacles than opportunities for inte-
grating phenomenological and scholastic approaches to epistemological and metaphysical
questions. The chief difficulties which they brought forward included Husserl’s refusal to
broach the question of metaphysics, his apparently Platonic notion of essences, his ten-
dency toward idealism, and especially his lack of a doctrine of abstraction. Heidegger’s
phenomenology, with its ontological orientation seemed more promising in some respects,
although his subjectivism and anti-intellectualism raised concerns. Scheler’s phenomenol-
ogy, meanwhile, was hardly mentioned, reflecting perhaps his repudiation of the Catholic
faith towards the end of his life and the decline of his popularity following his death.
Following the intense scrutiny of phenomenology at Juvisy, interest in phenomenology
among neo-Thomists decreased markedly. Reviews of the published proceedings noted the
lack of consensus among participants but did not take the issue further. Maritain’s incisive
criticisms of Husserl in The Degrees of Knowledge, which appeared shortly after the col-
loquy, no doubt also contributed to the decline. His indictment of phenomenology as an
essentially Cartesian philosophy effectively distanced it from the Aristotelian foundations of
scholastic thought which other Thomist thinkers had tried to emphasize in their attempts to
make connections with Husserl through Brentano. Only Rabeau, who at any rate was a
marginal figure in the neo-Thomist movement, persisted in the belief that phenomenology
could play a significant role in a Thomist epistemology, and even he recognized its
limitations.
In retrospect, therefore, we may conclude that the application of Bergsonian and
Blondelian insights to contemporary religious issues by Le Roy and Rousselot helped pre-
pare the subsequent generation of French religious thinkers to understand and appreciate
Husserl’s phenomenology, although it did not serve as the basis for their eventual recep-
tions of his ideas. For that matter, neither did the popularization of phenomenology in aca-
demic circles. By and large, the French religious thinkers who showed an interest in phe-
nomenology became acquainted with the movement and its methodology directly through
450
its German sources. They sometimes drew parallels between phenomenology and
Bergsonian and Blondelian philosophy, but only rarely did they gesture toward their prin-
cipal theological interpreters, Le Roy and Rousselot. Still, the preparatory role of the latter
figures need not be denied for lack of acknowledgment. Their role was more general. They
created an atmosphere which supported inquiry and stimulated exploration. They reopened
important questions and suggested alternative solutions. Because in their respective ways
they anticipated an explicit turn to phenomenology, they obviated it. The neo-Thomist de-
bates over the relevancy of phenomenology to scholastic forms of thought confirmed this
implicit outcome. Independently and collectively, French religious thinkers by the end of
the 1930s had demonstrated that the theological tradition contained sufficient resources to
nourish the seeds of its renewal. They showed that they did not need to venture outside that
tradition to seek aid from a purely secular philosophy such as phenomenology, even to jus-
tify their positions critically. In short, they did not need, as Leo XIII had prescribed in
Aeternis Patris, “to strengthen and complete the old by aid of the new” [vetera novis augere
et perficere].352 They only had to look more deeply within their own intellectual and spiri-
tual heritage.
352Pope Leo XIII, “Aeterni Patris,” in The Papal Encyclicals, ed. Claudia Carlen
(Wilmington, NC: McGrath, 1981), §24, p. 24.
453
CONCLUSION
Why did phenomenology become popular in France when it did? That is the ques-
tion which began this investigation into the reception of phenomenology in French philoso-
phy and religious thought. Clearly French interest in Husserl did not arise spontaneously
but came rather in the wake of a gradual transformation of the French intellectual and cul-
tural milieu whose origins reached back into the latter part of the nineteenth century. The
first chapter of this dissertation traced what may be called a phenomenological turn in
French thought to the spiritualist current in French philosophy which emerged at that time.
Spiritualism combined a positivist focus on the givens of experience with an idealist orien-
tation to the subject as active and creative—themes which were held in common by phe-
nomenologists. Bergson and Blondel furthered anticipated the phenomenological orienta-
tion to intuition and meditation on concrete lived experience. In a climate dominated by ra-
tionalism, their philosophies were greeted like a change in season. Some resisted and some
remained skeptical, but others found their thought invigorating. Like the weather, every-
body talked about them and gave their opinion. But in the end, the philosophies of Bergson
and Blondel penetrated the various regions of French philosophy and altered its landscape.
I . Receptions of Phenomenology in FrenchAcademic Circles prior to 1939
The time required for this gradual transformation of French philosophy accounts for
why Husserl remained relatively unknown in France until the late 1920s. Husserl’s Logical
Investigation garnered considerable attention in Germany upon their publication at the turn
of the century, but French philosophers at the time were not so concerned with the problem
of psychologism and the need to renew the foundations of logic and science. Philosophers
like Bergson, Poincaré and Le Roy were only just beginning to assess the negative impact
454
the predominant wave of positivism was having in these areas. Neo-scholastic philoso-
phers were also among those who recognized the epistemological crisis brought about by
positivism and psychologism, but they were less inclined to look to other permutations of
modern philosophy for a solution. Moreover, French academics maintained a cautious atti-
tude toward their aggressive German neighbors; they studied the great systems of post-
Kantian idealism from a historical viewpoint, but rarely adopted their totalizing approaches.
With the outbreak of World War I, this circumspect curiosity changed into an atmosphere
of outright suspicion and hostility. Not until several years after peace was restored did in-
terest revive in German thought. And then it was not the French themselves who were pri-
marily responsible, but the dozens of intellectuals who emigrated from Eastern Europe after
the war, bringing with them knowledge of German philosophical movements. As Chapter
2 demonstrated, they were the principle channels through which word of Husserl’s new
science of phenomenology initially entered the French academic world.
The reports of phenomenology given by these emigrant scholars varied in their
depth and accuracy. Lev Shestov’s contributions to the Revue philosophique de la France
et de l’étranger exaggerated Husserl’s rationalism and concern for scientific rigor and ob-
jectivity. Bernard Groethuysen ignored the more complex and unique features of Husserl’s
methodology, such as the phenomenological reduction, drawing attention instead to its de-
scriptive power and its potential application to literary and artistic studies. These incomplete
accounts were balanced and refined by the cours libres which Georges Gurvitch offered at
the Sorbonne and later published as an introduction to contemporary German thought. His
lectures included an extensive discussion of the philosophy of Scheler, which had attracted
notice in France due to Scheler’s visits and translations of his essays just prior to his death
in 1928. Gurvitch’s synopsis of phenomenology aligned the movement with German ideal-
ism and argued for its completion through a return to Fichte. During his own series of lec-
tures at the Sorbonne, Husserl offered a different perspective on the historical context of
phenomenology, portraying it as a renewal of Cartesian radicalism and an attempt to
455
reestablish the methodology of what Descartes had called first philosophy. This direct ap-
peal to the sources of the dominant schools of French rationalism and neo-Cartesianism
doubtlessly added momentum to the growing wave of interest in phenomenology at the
Parisian colleges and universities.
Another factor which boosted interest in phenomenology in French academic circles
in the early 1930s was the stir created by Heidegger’s Being and Time and his succession
to Husserl’s chair at Freiburg. What did Heidegger signal for the future of the phenomeno-
logical movement? While Husserl was leading phenomenology into an ever more explicit
form of transcendental idealism, Heidegger was trying orient it toward a realist ontology.
Heidegger’s boldness and charisma appealed to the younger generation of philosophers in
Germany, and also in France, where an existential focus was developing among indepen-
dent philosophers like Gabriel Marcel. A few translations of Heidegger’s essays ap-
peared—enough to whet the appetite, but enough to satiate it. Knowledge of Heidegger’s
philosophy as well as the later stages of Husserl’s philosophy remained the privilege of
those who could penetrate the linguistic and cultural barriers and gain access to their writ-
ings. These obstacles only contributed to their aura, however, and phenomenology gained
a larger following precisely on account of its twofold obscurity. Texts were hard to come
by and difficult to read, but for those who succeeded at both a certain authority and stature
came as a reward. Vincent Descombes explains:
It is also significant that the texts most quoted after 1930 were often difficultof access, either because they had not been translated by that date, . . . orbecause they had not even been published (thus, with Husserl, the texts toreceive the greatest acclaim were precisely the inédits, or unpublishedmanuscripts, at Louvain). Such circumstances are particularly conducive toproductive transformation of the quoted thought by the reader, a transfor-mation that is always manifestly at work in the making of an authority. Itshould not be believed that the authority a work may carry is the result of itshaving been read, studied and finally judged convincing. The reverse istrue: reading derives from a prior conviction. Works are preceded by ru-mour.1
1Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, translation of Le Même et
l’Autre by L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1980), 4.
456
Thus, paradoxically, the challenges in accessing phenomenological sources may account as
much for the success of phenomenology in France as the introductions given by emigrant
scholars and the anticipations of its method found in the philosophies of Bergson and
Blondel.
II. Appropriations of Phenomenology by French Philosophers
The trailblazers in the French appropriation of phenomenological philosophy,
Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre, each studied for a year in Germany and thereby
distinguished themselves as experts on the subject. The brilliance and originality of these
two thinkers and those that came after them, like Gaston Berger and Maurice Merleau-
Ponty, would establish phenomenology as an enduring element of twentieth-century
French philosophy and stamp it with a unique French identity. One contribution of Levinas
and Sartre to the French reception of phenomenology is their assimilation of Husserl’s
thought to the French Cartesian tradition. Husserl had sought such a reception, but only
with Levinas and Sartre were his intentions realized. In Levinas’s view, phenomenology
both extends the Cartesian meditation on the cogito and turns it upon its head. The cogito
remains the beginning point for philosophical reflection, but the judgment which it implic-
itly represents, the ‘I think,’ is grounded upon the continuous flow of conscious experience
rather than the reverse. This inversion of elements permits Levinas to find in phenomenol-
ogy a way to overcome one of the defects of Cartesianism, namely its separation of knowl-
edge of an object from the object’s mode of being. Furthermore, because phenomenologi-
cal intuition depends upon and is shaped by an object’s mode of being, phenomenology
permits one to move directly from epistemology to ontology and metaphysics. In seeking a
passage to metaphysics, Levinas took inspiration from Heidegger to go beyond the limits
prescribed by Husserl; nevertheless, he kept the issues within the framework Cartesian
epistemology.
Sartre brought Husserl into conversation with the Cartesian tradition by a different
route. In Sartre’s view, the inherent duality of the Cartesian view of consciousness does
457
not necessarily pose an obstacle to be overcome in fostering a rapprochement with phe-
nomenology. This is because phenomenology radicalizes the duality inherent in the
rationalist position insofar as it implies that the ego is neither formally nor materially in
consciousness, but outside it, in the world. According to Sartre, Husserl’s doctrine of
intentionality holds the potential to revitalize the Cartesian conception of the cogito by
liberating it from the bonds of monadic substance. Husserl is inconsistent in maintaining
this point, however, and in his latter works he reverts to the notion of a transcendental ego
characteristic of idealism. In appropriating phenomenology to his own version of
Cartesianism, Sartre picks up on the notion of consciousness that he finds in Ideas and
Logical Investigations. There Husserl describes consciousness as the instantiation of
absolute immanence and spontaneity before whose lucidity the object is revealed in its
contrasting opacity and impermeability to simple acts of perception.
The appropriations of phenomenology by Levinas and Sartre are divergent, perhaps
even irreconcilable because they proceed from different interpretations of the meaning of
consciousness. For both philosophers, however, phenomenology represents a philosophy
of consciousness that must in some way be assimilated to Cartesian philosophy, which is
also a fundamentally a philosophy of consciousness. It is this problematic—the encounter
with phenomenology as an essentially Cartesian philosophy of consciousness—that de-
lineated the initial reception of Husserlian phenomenology among French academic
philosophers.
III. Appropriations of Phenomenology by French Religious Thinkers
In contrast to appropriations of phenomenology by academic philosophers, the re-
ception phenomenology among French religious thinkers proceeded along different lines.
One of the aims of this dissertation is to show that the initial reception of phenomenology in
France occurred simultaneously but independently in philosophical and religious circles. At
the beginning of this study it was suggested that the reception of phenomenology among
French religious thinkers depended upon the reception of phenomenology among secular
458
French philosophers. Because Husserlian phenomenology is by design a philosophical
method independent of any theological presuppositions, one would think that its primary
reception in France would have occurred through philosophical channels, that is, through
contacts between French philosophers and German phenomenologists, and that the recep-
tion among French religious thinkers would have followed from the former. Chapters 3
and 4 showed, however, that the reception of phenomenology among French religious
thinkers did not depend directly upon the receptions of phenomenology by French aca-
demic philosophers. The fact that the same precursors who prepared the philosophical re-
ception were also influential in theological circles, namely Bergson, Blondel and their re-
spective followers, created a situation in which the reception of phenomenology in the
spheres of academic philosophy and theology proceeded more or less independently. It was
probably the case that curiosity about phenomenology on the part French religious thinkers
was fed by their awareness of the growing fame of the movement in French philosophical
circles. They also studied Husserl’s writings for themselves and came to their own
interpretations, their own conclusions regarding the significance his methodology, and their
own means of employing it to serve their needs. French theologians and philosophers of
religion went directly to the original German sources, whereas their counterparts in the
universities tended to rely upon second-hand accounts of phenomenology to form their
ideas about the movement.
What were the principle differences in the reception of phenomenology among reli-
gious thinkers in France? The earliest engagements of French religious thinkers with the
German movement centered upon the phenomenological philosophy of religion of Max
Scheler rather than upon Husserl. For instance, Jean Héring took Scheler’s phenomenolog-
ical philosophy of religion as the point of departure for his own proposals for employing
the phenomenological principle of intuition, its doctrine of essences and its intentionalist
epistemology in the service of religious philosophy. Likewise Gaston Rabeau first became
459
intrigued with the possibilities phenomenology had to offer Catholic theology through his
reading of Scheler, especially the latter’s descriptions of the intentionality religious acts.
Next, French religious thinkers were quicker to apply phenomenological insights to
specific problems in their field. They were less inclined to write general introductions to the
German movements than to move directly to an evaluation and application of phenomeno-
logical methods in the philosophy of religion and religious philosophy. Again Héring and
Rabeau furnish examples of this approach to phenomenology: Héring brought phe-
nomenology into dialog with the Protestant liberal theology of the nineteenth century while
Rabeau pointed out similarities between Scheler’s doctrines and Augustinian scholasticism.
Third, the reception of phenomenology among religious thinkers proceeded more
quietly than among academic philosophers. Part of the reason is that their engagements
with and expectations of phenomenology were more limited from the outset.
Phenomenology was brought into the framework of existing philosophical strategies, such
as the classical proofs for the existence of God, rather than being proposed as a new and
radical point of departure for a complete philosophical renewal. Also, in Catholic circles,
discussion of contemporary philosophies had been discouraged during the Modernist con-
troversy, which accounts for why more neo-Scholastic philosophers did not follow the
early lead of Lucien Noël in seeking in Husserl’s philosophy a tactical ally in the common
struggle against psychologism. Anti-Modernist vigilance among conservative French
Catholic thinkers almost completely abetted following the papal condemnation of the Action
Française movement in 1926, however, signaling a new openness to secular philosophies
like phenomenology and fostering theological experimentation.
Finally, whereas academic philosophers were interested in phenomenology as a
continuation of the Cartesian meditation on the cogito, for religious thinkers, particularly
neo-Thomists, phenomenology was attractive precisely because it offered an alternative to
Cartesian rationalism. In the mid-1920s, Neo-Thomist philosophers attempted rapproche-
ments between phenomenology and the philosophy of Aquinas. These attempts were most
460
prevalent in Germany, such that by 1927 Abbé Alfred Boehm could call attention to a dis-
tinct phenomenological current in the German neo-Thomist movement. By comparison,
however, neo-Thomist interest in phenomenology diverged somewhat from the kind dis-
played by Héring and Rabeau, and even more from the interest shown by secular philoso-
phers in France. Rather than seeing in phenomenology a philosophy of consciousness or a
method for describing the essences of religious experience and objects, neo-Thomist
philosophers noted features that recalled Aristotelian aspects of scholasticism. They scruti-
nized the phenomenological doctrines of intentionality and the intuition of essences to de-
termine if they were compatible with the scholastic concepts of mental (in)existence and
abstraction. Some tried to link phenomenology with scholasticism through Franz Brentano,
the priest-professor of Würzburg and Vienna whose doctrine of intentionality Husserl re-
putedly borrowed. Others observed similarities between Husserl’s hierarchical view of the
sciences in relation to phenomenology and the Aristotelian subalternation of the individual
empirical sciences to the science of being in itself, namely metaphysics.
Scholastic interest in determining whether common ground existed between phe-
nomenology and Thomist philosophy culminated in 1932 with the colloquy sponsored by
the Société Thomiste dedicated to the topic. The invited speakers and attendees were well-
qualified to address the subject having gained their knowledge of phenomenology mostly
from native German sources, including Husserl’s and Heidegger’s closest associates. Their
discussions were inconclusive, however. Some participants, such as Edith Stein, ex-
pressed optimism regarding the possibilities for introducing phenomenological perspectives
into Thomist thought. Others recommended caution, while still others voiced opposition.
After Juvisy, interest in phenomenology declined in Thomist circles, particularly among
scholastic philosophers, like Jacques Maritain, who saw little value in modernity after
Luther and Descartes. Maritain, in fact, closed the doors to phenomenology altogether in
The Degrees of Knowledge.
461
Meanwhile alternative strategies for renewing scholastic thought were being pur-
sued by French-speaking neo-Thomist philosophers in Belgium and France. These re-
flected the creative influences of Bergson and especially Blondel (Bergson’s intuitionist
philosophy was important for the French philosophical reception of phenomenology, but
less so for the religious reception). The key figures were Pierre Rousselot and Joseph
Maréchal, who developed their unique perspectives on the scholastic tradition more or less
independently, yet within the awareness of Blondelian and Bergsonian philosophy. Their
insights into connatural and intuitional forms knowledge furnished neo-scholastics with a
foundation for interpreting Husserlian phenomenology while at the same time going be-
yond it.
Rousselot was killed in World War I, and thus before Husserlian phenomenology
became widely known in France, yet aspects of his philosophy probably served as precur-
sors to the reception of phenomenology among French religious thinkers, much like certain
themes in the philosophies of Bergson and Blondel. In some respects, Rousselot’s insights
paralleled those of Bergson and Blondel. Like Bergson, Rousselot privileged knowledge
obtained by intuition over inference. In addition, he uncovered a dynamism in the episte-
mology of Aquinas that bore similarities to the dynamism of the will described by Blondel.
These insights enabled him to envision the act of faith as a dynamic and intuitive act rather
than as a series of discrete logical steps. Although Rousselot’s theory met with criticism,
his approach to the issue was explicitly intellectualist and showed, moreover, that
Blondel’s philosophy of action was intellectualist by implication. The intellectualist ten-
dencies of phenomenology, which Rousselot’s reading of the scholastic tradition would
have evoked, probably stimulated the interests of neo-Thomists in the movement.
Nevertheless, because phenomenology stopped short of distinguishing the natural and su-
pernatural levels of intellect which are essential to Thomism as a religious philosophy, neo-
Thomists would ultimately reject it as superfluous.
462
Maréchal’s essay “Phénoménologie pure ou philosophie de l’action?” offered an
explicit example of an attempt to integrate the philosophies of Blondel and Husserl from an
intellectualist perspective. Maréchal’s familiarity with post-Kantian philosophy enabled him
to navigate the complexities of Husserl’s thought, but it was Blondel’s philosophy that
provided the critical lever. Maréchal used Blondelian dynamism to gain a broader perspec-
tive on phenomenology as an epistemology and to point out the narrowness of its positivist
assumptions. Although Maréchal proposed a synthesis of Husserlian phenomenology and
Blondelian dynamism as a way of invigorating Thomist epistemology, in the end it ap-
peared that phenomenology would have contributed little to such a partnership.
Religious thinkers thus came to phenomenology with different sets of motivations
and goals than academic philosophers. Receptions of the vigorous impulse of phenomenol-
ogy would persist among the latter, but among French neo-Thomists the initial interest in
phenomenology came to a close by the mid-1930s. Rabeau, who moved along the fringes
of the neo-Thomist movement, would continue to incorporate phenomenological methods
and perspectives into the framework of Aquinas’s epistemology, but his efforts were not
widely accepted.
IV. French Receptions of Phenomenology since 1939
It would require several more dissertations to adequately trace the stages in the re-
ception of phenomenology in French philosophy and religious thought since 1939, but the
broad outlines of its development may be sketched here as a way of stimulating reflection
on the significance of the earlier phases for the current renewal of phenomenology among a
segment of contemporary French philosophers and self-styled independent theologians.
Following the initial period of the reception of phenomenology in French philoso-
phy and theology, which this dissertation has shown ended roughly with the beginning of
the second World War, a hiatus of activity was followed by a period of intense creative de-
velopment in the philosophical arena. This was phenomenological existentialism. It oc-
curred first with Jean-Paul Sartre, who emphasized existentialism, and subsequently with
463
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who laid more stress on the phenomenological side of the equa-
tion. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre focused on the negating acts of consciousness
whereby the for-itself affirms its existential freedom, whereas in the Phenomenology of
Perception, Merleau-Ponty examined consciousness from the perspective of the concrete,
lived body and as an intention toward things. In any event, by 1945 phenomenology had
become so completely integrated with French intellectual culture that Merleau-Ponty could
write:
We shall find in ourselves and nowhere else the unity and true meaning ofphenomenology. It is less a question of counting up quotations than of de-termining and expressing in concrete form this phenomenology for our-selves which has given a number of present-day readers the impression, onreading Husserl or Heidegger, not so much of encountering a new philoso-phy as of recognizing what they had been waiting for.2
These developments would not be matched in the theological arena until sometime later.
In fact, only in the late 1950s did significant work resume in the phenomenology of
religion in France. In 1957, Henry Duméry published a two-volume study, Philosophie de
la religion. Essai sur la signification du christianisme. Here a Catholic thinker examines the
various systematic categories of Christian doctrine.3 Although Duméry does not refer to his
method as phenomenological, the work is premised upon the suspension of the act of faith
in order to critically examine its content.4 The following year Duméry published a shorter
study, Phénoménologie et religion. Structures de l'institution chrétienne, which, as the title
suggests, attempted a more direct and formal phenomenological description of the struc-
tures and institutions of Christianity.5
2Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (NewYork: Humanities Press, 1962), 11. Quoted in Vincent Descombes, Modern FrenchPhilosophy, trans. of Le Même et l’autre by L. Scott-Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1980), 4.
3Henry Duméry, Philosophie de la religion. Essai sur la signification du christian-isme., 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), 2: 257-63.
4See Concilium General Secretariat, “A Note on the Work of Henry Duméry,” inThe Development of Fundamental Theology, trans. Theodore L. Westow, Concilium, vol.46 (New York: Paulist Press, 1969), 175-78. An additional historical note: when Philos-ophie de la religion and three other of his books were censured by the Vatican in 1958,Duméry requested and received laicization.
5Henry Duméry, Phénoménologie et Religion. Structures de l’institution chréti-enne, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), available in English as
464
In 1962, Maurice Nédoncelle, who served at the time as Dean of the Catholic
Faculty of Theology at Strasbourg, published a study of prayer titled Priere humaine, priere
divine: notes phénoménologiques.6 In this little volume written for a general audience,
Nédoncelle follows a phenomenological approach in describing Christian prayer as it is
manifested in the life of the believer. The inspiration for the book derives largely from an
previous study on love and the person.7 Although less explicitly phenomenological, this
earlier essay is more deeply engaged with the phenomenological themes of essence and in-
tersubjectivity. In the preface, Nédoncelle explains that he refrains from calling his method
phenomenological mainly because his interests extend into the metaphysical aspects and
implications of his investigation.8
The attempts by Nédoncelle and Duméry to renew theological inquiry through phe-
nomenology can perhaps be appreciated best as expressions of the broad renewal of
Catholicism in France during the 1950s in the areas of biblical studies, patristics and me-
dieval studies, and liturgical and pastoral practice.9 They should also be seen in the context
Phenomenology and Religion, trans. Paul Barrett (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1975). Faithful to the constraints of the phenomenological method, Duméry doesnot advance any particular conclusion, although the title of his last chapter, “Option andInstitution,” hints in Blondelian fashion at the practical alternative toward which his studypoints. Duméry was in fact one of Blondel’s closest followers, and had become well-known for his interpretations of the latter’s thought, particularly on the subject of religion[see La Philosophie de l’Action. Essai sur l’intellectualisme blondélien (Paris: AubierMontaigne, 1948), and especially Blondel et la religion. Essai critique sur la "Lettre" de1896 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954)]. The fact that Duméry moved easilybetween Blondel’s genetic description of the exigencies of moral life and phenomenologysupports our contention that Blondel functioned as a precursor to the reception of phe-nomenology in France.
6Maurice Nédoncelle, Prière humaine prière divine: notes phénoménologiques(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1962), available in English as God’s Encounter with Man: AContemporary Approach to Prayer, trans. A. Manson (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964);this translation was also simultaneously published in Great Britain under the title TheNature and Use of Prayer (London: Burns & Oates, 1964).
7Maurice Nédoncelle, Vers une philosophie de l’amour et de la personne (Paris:Aubier Montaigne, 1957), available in English as Maurice Nédoncelle, Love and thePerson, trans. Ruth Adelaide (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1966).
8Cf. Nédoncelle, “Preface” to Vers une philosophie de l’amour, 9; cf. Adelaide, ix.9See for example James M. Connolly, The Voices of France (New York: Mac-
millan, 1961).
465
of the appearance of French editions of other important phenomenological studies of reli-
gion, such as those by Gerardus Van der Leeuw10 and Mircea Eliade.11
By the mid-1960s, French interest in phenomenology had subsided. This corre-
sponded to the crisis in the human sciences brought about by Marxist orientations and
methodologies, including the structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss and the historical mate-
rialism of Louis Althusser. It was also the decade in which the French discovered Freud
and Nietzsche. How far the influence of these masters of suspicion extended may be
judged by the diffusion of works by Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. Although these
new figures pushed phenomenology into the background, demanding and rigorous thinkers
like Michel Henry and Paul Ricoeur kept it alive and furthered developed its application to
religious inquiry. Henry’s voluminous work, The Essence of Manifestation represented a
full-scale destruction of the metaphysical tradition in the style of Husserl and Heidegger
and a revalorization in phenomenological terms of the theological concept of revelation.12
Meanwhile Ricoeur, who had already established himself as a cornerstone of the French
phenomenological movement by publishing a translation of Husserl’s Ideas and his own
phenomenological study of the will in 1950,13,14 was making the transition from what has
been described as a structural to a hermeneutic phenomenology.15 The inspiration for
Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology may be traced to Heidegger, for whom getting at
the meaning of being [der Sinn von Sein] involved the explication of human facticity, the
10Gerardus Van der Leeuw, La Religion dans son essence et ses manifestations:
phénoménologie de la religion (Paris: Payot, 1955).11Mircea Eliade, Le Sacré et le Profane (Paris: Gallimard, 1956).12Michel Henry, L’Essence de la manifestation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1963), available in English as Michel Henry, The Essence of Manifestation, trans.Girard Etzkorn (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).
13Edmund Husserl, Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie, trans. with an in-troduction and notes by Paul Ricoeur (Paris: Gallimard, 1950).
14Paul Ricoeur, Le Volontaire et l’involontaire, vol. 1 of Philosophie de la volonté(Paris: Aubier, 1950); available in English as Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and theInvoluntary, trans. with an introduction by E. V. Kohák (Evanston: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1966).
15See Don Ihde, Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), especially 95ff..
466
existential analytic of human existence.16 By this time, Heidegger was becoming better
known to the French, thanks especially to Jean Beaufret, to whom Heidegger addressed his
Letter on Humanism.17 According to Heidegger, understanding [Verstehen] has an onto-
logical meaning; it is the response of a being who is thrown into the world and who must
project himself into his ownmost possibilities. Textual and linguistic interpretation follows
this ontological comprehension and is founded upon it. The metaphysical and linguistic ori-
entations of Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian hermeneutics thus represent both an ex-
tension of Husserlian phenomenology and its reversal.
Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach to phenomenology reflects a particular reading of
Husserl which brings to the fore elements which Husserl himself left in the background.
As Peter Koestenbaum has pointed out, “Husserl must be understood to assume that lan-
guage reflects the structure of experience, or, if it does not, that we can examine experience
independently of language.”18 Ricoeur, on the other hand, questions such this assumption
and tries to bring phenomenological criticism into dialogue with linguistic criticism.19 For
instance, in Freud and Philosophy he invokes a hermeneutics of suspicion in order to
counter naïve appropriations of symbolic discourse.20 Ultimately, however, Ricoeur seeks
to restore the meaning of symbols, as witnessed by his later investigations of the métaphore
vive and the function of narrative in the construction of temporality.21, 22 The implications
of alienation from symbols and their rediscovery are profound in the case of biblical exe-
16For a brief account of the presuppositions of the phenomenological and
hermeneutical traditions with which Ricoeur identifies himself, see Paul Ricoeur, “Nar-rativité, phénoménologie et herméneutique,” in Encyclopédie philosophique universelle,ed. André Jacob (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), 1: 63-71.
17Martin Heidegger, Lettre sur l’humanisme, trans. Rober Munier (Paris: Aubier,1964).
18Peter Koestenbaum, “Introduction” to Edmund Husserl, The Paris Lectures,trans. Peter Koestenbaum, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), xii.
19Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Le Conflit des interprétations. Essais d’herméneutique (Paris:Seuil, 1969).
20Paul Ricoeur, De l’Interprétation. Essai sur Freud (Paris: Seuil, 1965); availablein English as Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. D. Savage (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1970).
21Paul Ricoeur, La Métaphore vive (Paris: Seuil, 1975).22Paul Ricoeur, Temps et récit, 3 vols. (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1983-85).
467
gesis, and Ricoeur explores these consequences in several essays.23 In other articles,
Ricoeur considers the impact of genre on the biblical concept of revelation.24 As a
Protestant, Ricoeur engages in dialog with other Protestant thinkers, ranging from Rudolph
Bultmann25 to Gerhard Ebeling.26
Emmanuel Levinas’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity represents another rever-
sal Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of consciousness. Once again, the shift draws
something from Heidegger’s ontological transformation of phenomenology. Levinas’s in-
terpretation of Husserl was shaped by Heidegger from the beginning, but in subsequent es-
says, such as “Time and the Other”27 and Existence and Existents,28 this fact becomes all
the more evident. This is not to say that Levinas always follows or agrees with Heidegger.
Whereas for Heidegger grasping one’s own existence authentically as being-towards-death
becomes the project, the fundamental issue for Levinas is recognition of one’s responsibil-
ity for the death of the other [l’autre]. For example, in his 1961 doctoral thesis, Totality and
Infinity, Levinas argues that the face of the other is a moral summons that creates an a pri-
23Paul Ricoeur, “Du conflit à la convergence des méthodes en exégèse biblique,” in
Exégèse et herméneutique, ed. Xavier Léon-Dufour (Paris: Seuil, 1971), 35-53;“Philosophical Hermeneutics and Theology,” Theology Digest 24 (1976): 154-161;“Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Exegesis. Problems ofMethod and Exercises in Reading (Genesis 22 and Luke 15), ed. François Bovon andGrégoire Rouiller, trans. D. J. Miller (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1978), 321-39;“Naming God,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 34 (1979): 215-28.
24Paul Ricoeur, “Herméneutique de l’idée de Révélation,” in La Révélation, ed.Paul Ricoeur, et al. (Brussels: Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, 1984), 15-54. See also“Expérience et langage dans le discours religieux,” in Phénoménologie et théologie, ed.Jean-Louis Chrétien et al. (Paris: Criterion, 1992), 15-39.
25See for example, Paul Ricoeur, “Temps biblique,” Archivio di filosofia 53(1985): 29-35, available in English as “Biblical Time,” trans. David Pellauer, in Ricoeur,Figuring the Sacred, 167-80.
26See for example, Paul Ricoeur, “Le Sujet convoqué: À l’École des récits de voca-tions prophétique,” Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 28 (1988): 83-99, available inEnglish as “The Summoned Subject,” trans. David Pellauer, in Ricoeur, Figuring theSacred, 262-75.
27Emmanuel Levinas, “Le Temps et l’autre,” in Le Choix, Le Monde, L’Existence,ed. Jean Wahl (Grenoble: Arthaud, 1947); available in English as “Time and the Other,” inTime and the Other (and additional essays), trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh:Duquesne University Press, 1987).
28Emmanuel Levinas, De l’existence à l’existant (Paris: Fontaine, 1947); availablein English as Emmanuel Levinas, Existence and Existents, trans. Alphonso Lingis (TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978).
468
ori and infinite indebtedness to the other based on the commandment, “You shall not
kill.”29 Hence ethics, not ontology, is first philosophy. In later philosophical works,
Levinas brings the religious aspects of his ethics more into the open. In Otherwise than
Being or Beyond Essence, for instance, he reflects on the nature of prophetic language.30
Jean-Luc Marion has done the most to draw out the theological dimensions of
Levinas’s radicalization of the phenomenological method. The rejection of the metaphysics
of presence and the corresponding notion of non-representational intentionality which stand
at the basis of Levinas’s concept of the Other are echoed in Marion’s theme of distance
[distance]. In L’Idole et la distance, Marion argues that the death of God proclaimed by
those who, like Heidegger, have destroyed the classical metaphysical tradition must not be
confused with the death of God announced in the Gospels. The death which God elected to
die opens a distance that paradoxically reveals the invisible God: “the depth of the visible
face of the Son delivers to the gaze the invisibility of the Father as such.”31 In this iconic
space, metaphysical notions of God prove to be mere conceptual idols. Here Marion
struggles not only with contemporary figures like Nietzsche and Hölderlin, but also with
Descartes, whose ontology and implicit theology he deals with in other works.32 A ques-
tion which Marion himself leaves implicit in L’Idole et la Distance, he reopens in a sequel,
29Emmanuel Levinas, Totalité et Infini. Essai sur l’extériorité (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1961); available in English as Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans.Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1969).
30Emmanuel Levinas, Autrement qu’être ou au-délà de l’essence (The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1974); available in English as Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence,trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981).
31Jean-Luc Marion, L’Idole et la distance (Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle, 1977), 25.32See Jean-Luc Marion, Sur l’ontologie grise de Descartes (Paris: Vrin, 1975; 2nd
edition, 1981) and Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes (Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1981). More recently Marion has published the third part of his triptych onDescartes’s metaphyscis: Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1986). These works reveal the depth of Marion’s engagementwith the legacy of Cartesian philosophy, an engagement which began a translation andcommentary on Descartes’s rules for the direction of the mind [see Jean-Luc Marion incollaboration with J.-R. Armogathe, Index des Regulae ad directionem Ingenii de RenéDescartes (Rome: Ateneo, 1976) and René Descartes, Règles utiles et claires pour la direc-tion de l’esprit en la recherche de la vérité, trans. with annotations by Jean-Luc Marion(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977)].
469
Dieu sans l’être: what if God does not have to be?33 If God is not constrained to be in order
to love, how—and where—is God revealed? Negatively, God is revealed in the vanity of
vanities described in Ecclesiastes. Positively, God is revealed in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Above all and before being, God comes in the Eucharist as pure gift [donation]—a radical-
ization of the notion of givenness which for Marion constitutes the true significance of the
Husserlian notion of intentionality.34
Other contemporary phenomenologists, such as Jean-Luc Chrétien and Jean-Yves
Lacoste, have followed Marion’s lead in reflecting phenomenologically upon Christian ex-
perience. Chrétien has applied phenomenological methods to the analysis of religious lan-
guage, especially prayer.35 Chrétien calls prayer a “wounded word” [parole blessée] be-
cause the one who prays learns discovers his insufficiency in the act of praying and also his
radical alterity from the one to whom he prays. Lacoste’s study of the phenomenological
horizon of temporality from a theological perspective meanwhile opens new possibilities
for understanding hope in relation to memory while challenging Heidegger’s notion of
being-towards-death as basis for authentic existence.36
Thus, since the 1970s the desire to bring phenomenological methods into the ser-
vice of religious philosophy and theology has reemerged with renewed vigor. It is unfortu-
nately impossible within the scope of the present thesis to evaluate the contemporary revival
of phenomenology in France or to evaluate its present theological reception in light of the
incomplete attempts before World War II. Nevertheless, with Ricoeur and Marion we find
a situation that in some respects parallels the reception of phenomenology in French reli-
33Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être (Paris: Fayard, 1982); available in English asJean-Luc Marion, God without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1991).
34See Jean-Luc Marion, Réduction et Donation. Recherches sur Husserl, Heideggeret la phénoménologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), 11-64.
35See Jean-Louis Chrétien, La Voix nue. Phénoménologie de la promesse (Paris:Éditions de Minuit, 1990), and also “La parole blessée,” in Phénoménologie et Théologie,ed. Jean-Louis Chrétien et al., (Paris: Criterion, 1992), 41-78.
36Jean-Yves Lacoste, Note sur le temps. Essai sur les raisons de la mémoire et del’espérance (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990). See also Jean-Yves Lacoste,“Penser à Dieu en l’aimant. Philosophie et théologie de Jean-Luc Marion,” Archives dephilosophie 50 (1987): 245-70.
470
gious thought prior to 1939. Ricoeur represents the kind of reception that Protestant
thinkers like Héring and Catholic thinkers like Rabeau and Maréchal had envisioned,
namely the appropriation of Husserlian phenomenology as an inherently limited philosoph-
ical method that is best used in conjunction with other methods in the service of a larger
philosophical vision. Marion, on the other hand, represents the reception of phenomenol-
ogy among French academic philosophers, who regarded it as a continuation of the
Cartesian rationalist tradition. Yet, whereas previous generations of Cartesian philosophers
did not concern themselves at all with theological issues, for Marion they take priority.
What accounts for this reversal? Levinas provides a clue, but more remains to be investi-
gated, particularly in light of Marion’s growing appreciation of Thomist metaphysics.37
Because Marion recognizes that Aquinas’s theology does not belong to the type of onto-
theology he rejects, a basis for a fruitful encounter between Thomism and phenomenology
may be more possible now than in 1932. Pertinent to this discussion would also be Jean-
François Courtine, who has distinguished himself not only as a scholar of phenomenol-
ogy,38 but also of German Idealism39 and Suarezian metaphysics.40 The dossier on phe-
nomenology and theology is by no means closed, and it is hoped that the historical per-
spectives which this dissertation has sought to recover might bring additional light to the
intriguing and vital issues it embraces.
37See for example Marion’s “Preface” to the English translation of God without
Being, xxiiff., and more recently and substantially, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et l’onto-théo-logie,” Revue Thomiste 95 (1995): 31-66.
38See for example Jean-François Courtine, Heidegger et la phénoménologie (Paris:Vrin, 1990).
39See for example Jean-François Courtine, Extase de la raison. Essais sur Schelling(Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1990).
40See Jean-François Courtine, Suarez et le système de la métaphysique (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).
471
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