Abstract
Many have deemed ineluctable the tension between Husserl’s transcendental eidetics and his Crisis method of historical reflection. In this paper, I argue that this tension is an apparent one. I contend that dissolving this tension and showing not only the possibility, but also the necessity of the successful collaboration between these two apparently irreconcilable methods guarantees the very freedom of inquiry Husserl so emphatically stressed. To make this case, I draw from Husserl’s synthetic analyses of type and concept constitution as well as his later work on sedimentation and streaming-in and develop a richer modal taxonomy than the one Husserl proposed. I employ this taxonomy in an examination of the structures and conditions for the possibility of transcendental eidetic variation in order to show this method’s reliance on historically sedimented epistemic and normative resources. This reliance brings to light the necessity for a methodological critique, which is precisely what I take to be the work of teleological–historical reflection as Husserl comes to conceive it in the Crisis.
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Notes
I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to the importance of emphasizing the a priori of correlation here once more.
Lohmar rightly points out the import of the conceptual bedrock—especially typification—that phenomenology relies on in its eidetic investigations (Lohmar 2005, pp. 77ff.). However, more needs to be said about the relationship between this bedrock and the engagement of possibilities at work in eidetic variation, especially in light of Husserl’s analyses of sedimentation and streaming-in.
For in-depth discussions of the teleological dimension of Husserl’s historical reflection, see Aldea and Allen (forthcoming).
By “reductions” I mean the epochê as well as the phenomenological, transcendental, and eidetic reductions, which together secure our motivational stance toward grasping the a priori, necessary structures of consciousness as meaning-constituting. Given the scope of this paper, I will not go into further detail regarding the various differences among these reductions. In what follows I will argue that what these reductions accomplish together falls short of a “critical-transcendental” attitude. The collaboration between teleological-historical reflection and eidetic variation alone can supply the “critical” aspect of this stance.
The hermeneutical dimension of Husserl’s transcendental idealism has been interestingly explored by Luft (2011).
For an interesting discussion of tradition in Husserl’s Crisis, see Crowell in Aldea and Allen (forthcoming).
For an in-depth discussion of tradition, style, and historical critique in Husserl’s Crisis, see Dodd (2004).
For an extensive discussion of the normative dimension of Husserl’s account of intentionality as well as the epistemic and philosophical implications of this normativity, see Crowell (2013).
Sowa (2010) offers an account of essences and eidetic variation that departs from Husserl’s view of the universal as “what is in common.” Mohanty (1985, pp. 209ff) argues that eidetic variation is “genesis of meanings” rather than “discovery of eide” (see also Sowa 2007, pp. 103–104). While I agree that eidetic variation unfolds as an examination of concepts (Sowa 2007, p. 89), I will argue for the importance of critically qualifying the freedom and neutrality of this “purification” (Sowa 2007, pp. 95, 100). Because of this, eidetic variation is neither mere falsification (Sowa 2007, p. 102), nor solely fixation of concepts (Mohanty 1985, p. 202). Its critical engagement of concepts is a condition for the possibility of its intuition of (necessary) ideals.
For questions regarding how eidetic variation is able to successfully terminate despite its infinite structure see Lohmar (2005, pp. 77, 79ff).
For discussions of the conditions for the epistemic success of eidetic variation, see Sowa (2010, 2007), Lohmar (2005), and Mohanty (1985). Given my argument here, a comprehensive account of these conditions must also include historical–critical reflection. I am currently in the process of developing such an account.
Husserl used “possibility” and “conceivability” ambiguously, even interchangeably at times; I will draw some important distinctions between them momentarily.
For the purposes of my argument here, I use “conceptualization,” “concept formation,” and “empirical abstraction” interchangeably.
I focus here primarily on types rather than empirical concepts since the former are more pervasive and basic and since what we show about them holds in the case of concepts as well.
This is because, according to Husserl, empirical and eidetic scales of universals are parallel and thus cannot be placed in an instantiation–participation relationship.
I use “modalization” to refer to any process of variation across a system of conceivable possibilities.
This example may be understood as involving image consciousness (Bildbewusstsein), but it need not. For the sake of simplicity, I use pictorial caricature here. “Caricature” can also refer to any attempt to capture core features of non-spatially determined objects, for instance, a pedagogical method. To address a concern raised by an anonymous reviewer: for the purposes of illustrating the structure of abstractive indeterminacy, it matters not whether “caricature” here is pictorially or non-pictorially construed.
I argue elsewhere (Aldea 2012, chapter 2) that all non-positional experience is imaginative, contra the pervasive view that ontic and doxic neutralization can happen independently of imagining consciousness.
Husserl discussed “problematic possibilities” in the positional context. Their “problematic” status, however, is independent of the positional commitment. What renders these possibilities problematic is their appurtenance to a conceptually organized conceivability system, which may very well be non-positional.
Scientific endeavors, which are positional, have their respective conceivability systems. While different in terms of epistemic and normative commitments, both of these classes of conceivable possibilities are ‘problematic’ in Husserl’s sense.
This ambiguity also remains in the literature, which fails to clearly delineate the distinctions among different kinds of possibilities by occasionally collapsing even real and free possibilities (cf. Mohanty 1984).
For an interesting discussion of exemplarity—albeit one that still falls short of qualifying the “purity” and “freedom” of imaginative possibilities—see Ferencz-Flatz (2011).
Husserl himself came close to spelling this out on a couple of occasions in his early 1920 s work on the imagination (cf., Hua XXIII, pp. 547, 563). He could not have taken this thought to fruition, however, without his historical considerations of the 1930s.
Viewing the imagination as merely one presentifying act among many is also the dominant view in the literature (for instance: Marbach 1993, 2013; Jansen 2005a, b, 2010; Elliott 2005; Bernet 2002; Volonté 1997). I argue elsewhere (Aldea 2012, Part I) against this view, and for an understanding of the imagination as a level of consciousness able to sustain all acts apart from external perception.
While able to guide the formation of variants, the type or concept, through the original example, does not alone suffice for the delineation of necessary as opposed to contingent properties. Variation must thus draw from other resources in order to perform the shift to the invariant.
While Husserl discusses typification in the context of natural external perception, passive processes of conceptual sedimentation occur in the scientific context as well.
Because of this, transcendental–phenomenological critique must examine both natural and scientific epistemic styles and sedimentations in their intricate dynamic of transfers across non-theoretical and theoretical boundaries.
Cf., Petitot and Varela et al. (1999).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank David Carr and Steven Crowell for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Many thanks also to Dan Zahavi, Julia Jansen, Dieter Lohmar, Jacob Rump, and Daniele de Santis for engaging and most helpful conversations on these topics.
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Aldea, A.S. Phenomenology as Critique: Teleological–Historical Reflection and Husserl’s Transcendental Eidetics. Husserl Stud 32, 21–46 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-016-9186-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-016-9186-8