Abstract
This article is an attempt to formulate a clear definition of the concept of crisis of Western sciences introduced by Husserl in his last work. The attempt will be based on a reading of the Krisis, which will stress its underlying continuity with Husserl’s life-long concerns about the theoretical insufficiency of positive sciences, and downplay the novelty of the idea of crisis itself within Husserl’s work. After insisting on the fact that, according to Husserl, only an account of the shortcomings of the scientificity of Western sciences can justify the claim that they are undergoing a crisis, it will be argued that the common definition of the crisis of the sciences as the loss of their significance for life rests on a misunderstanding. The crisis of Western sciences will be characterized, instead, as the repercussion of the crisis of the scientificity of philosophy (and, specifically, of metaphysics) on the scientificity of positive sciences. The loss of significance of scientific knowledge for our existence will in turn appear as a further, inevitable consequence of the uprooting of the sciences from the soil of a universal philosophy culminating in metaphysics, and thus, as a phenomenon deeply intertwined with the crisis of Western sciences, but not identical to it.
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Notes
Henceforth Krisis.
The present essay will not attempt a detailed account of this therapeutic Leistung itself.
The question of what is new in Husserl’s last work, first discussed by Ingarden (1972), has been reconsidered by Majolino (2008a, pp. 19–21), who corrects Ingarden’s dismissive judgement by opposing a substantial continuity at the level of materials with Husserl’s new way to reconfigure them and highlight their mutual relations. Majolino also stresses the “sedimentary” character of this work (Ibid.), whose complex genesis has been reconstructed in detail by R. N. Smid in the introduction to Hua XXIX. On this issue, see also Rockmore (1984).
According to the historian Rüdiger Graf, who has very recently done extensive research on the crisis-literature in Weimer Republic, “Between 1918 and 1933, more than 370 books were published bearing the term ‘crisis’ in the title. While the number of these books remained relatively constant during the first years of the republic, it jumped in 1928 and then again in 1931–1932.” (Graf 2010, p. 592). Graf also informs us (pp. 600–601) that the use of the Germanized Greek term “Krisis” instead of the today’s more common “Krise” was very widespread at the time (as has been noted, while preferring the more solemn Greek term, Husserl uses both). Even more interesting is Graf’s thesis that depicting the present as a time of crisis was a widespread rhetorical strategy, especially among political extremists: “By positioning themselves in a period of crisis, Weimer intellectuals and politicians conceptualized the present as a time of decision between two mutually exclusive existential alternatives to motivate other people to bring about the desired option and prevent the undesired.” (p. 614). I cannot but observe that Graf’s analysis applies word for word to the famous closing lines of the Vienna Lecture, where Husserl sees only “two escapes from the crisis of European existence: the downfall of Europe in its estrangement from its own rational sense of life, its fall into hostility toward the spirit and into barbarity; or the rebirth of Europe from the spirit of philosophy through a heroism of reason that overcomes naturalism once and for all.” (Hua VI, pp. 347–348; 1970 p. 298). It seems, thus, that Husserl took from the wider cultural context of the time not only the word “crisis” but also the rhetorical tropes that went with it.
Talk of a more specific crisis of the sciences was also rather common at the time (as Husserl himself says in §1). To take but a few examples, Die Krise der Psychologie was the title of a book published in 1927 by the psychologist Karl Bühler, who was acquainted with Husserl’s work, and who might also have influenced its subsequent development (Orth 1999, pp. 14–16). Much earlier than that, back in 1899, Rudolf Willy had already written a book bearing the title Die Krisis in der Psychologie. Max Planck had spoken of a crisis of physics consisting in the uncertainty affecting both its theoretical principles and its epistemological status (Planck 1931). José Ortega y Gasset had extensively discussed the crisis of sciences in his famous essay The Revolt of the Masses, where he envisaged that, due to their increasing specialization, their progress would come to a standstill. In his view, therefore, the crisis of the sciences would be one of progressiveness (Ortega y Gasset 1964, pp. 107–114). Finally, the historian Johan Huizinga, in 1935, lamented a crisis of the sciences (especially the exact ones) consisting in the fact that their new theories have departed from anything we can intuitively represent and make sense of in terms of our everyday thinking (Huizinga 1936, chapter VI), a theme subsequently echoed by Arendt (1998 p. 3). An analysis of the specificity of Husserl’s own notion of a crisis of Western sciences with respect to those approaches cannot be carried out here for reasons of space.
It is interesting that in the Vienna Lecture the word “crisis” is not yet specifically referred to the generality of positive sciences.
Translating “echte Wissenschaftlichkeit” with “genuine scientific character,” while not incorrect, somehow weakens the reference to the essence of authentic science that is vital not to overlook in this context.
The terms “Aufgabe” and “Methode” do have technical value in Husserl and are used consistently throughout his work. In particular, “Aufgabe” is almost systematically employed in reference to the object of a science.
Philosophy is unscientific because it has surrendered to skepticism, that is, has given up altogether its “inborn” task to be the science of the totality of being, while psychology is unscientific in so far as it tries to be philosophical, that is, it goes beyond its own subject-matter. Also, when a peculiar crisis of psychology is mentioned in §2, it is immediately linked to the enigmas of its subject-matter and method.
Validity that, presumably, equates to “truth” in the case of pure mathematics and “convincingness” in the case of physics.
A still valid overview of the scientific realism debate in contemporary philosophy of science can be found in Psillos (2000).
I will argue elsewhere that some often quoted passages of the Krisis (see, for instance Hua VI, p. 52; 1970 p. 51, where the famous expression “Ideenkleid” is used) have been misunderstood as implying an instrumentalist reading of Galilean physics (see, for example, Rang 1990). Let us also add that Husserl’s claim concerning the validity of the achievements of social sciences such as history and anthropology would be even more puzzling when read in light of the realism/anti-realism dichotomy, which is based in turn on the opposition between predictive success and “literal” truth.
Husserl (1976, p. 9).
“[D]ie Erkäntniss der Natur eine feste Leiter wird, darauf diejenigen, welche die geübteste Vernunft haben, von einem jeden Dinge, es sey dem Absehen nach so schlecht als es wolle, zu Gott hinauf steigen können” (Wolff 1747, §5).
As noted by Gurwitsch (1956, p. 383), Husserl’s account of the cultural attitude towards science predominant at the time reminds us of Weber’s. Gurwitsch also rightly stresses the different attitude of the two thinkers with respect to it (ibid.). However, Gurwitsch wrongly indentifies this situation with the crisis of the sciences itself (ibid.). It should also be noticed that Weber’s aim was to indicate what kind of significance science could have for human existence in spite of its irrelevance for the highest questions concerning sense and value (Weber 1946, pp 151–152). And it was one, we can add, that would not have satisfied Husserl.
See Husserl’s characterization of the subject-matter of a science in Ideen III: “[T]he fundamental essence, the idea of every science of a categorial type and the idea of its method as the ‘sense’ of every science, precedes the science itself and can–and must—be established from the proper essence of the idea of its objectivity, which determines its dogma, that is to say, can be established a priori.” (Hua V, p. 13; 1980, p. 11). Note, further, the purely wissenschaftstheoretish use of the word “Sinn” in this context.
This in spite of the fact that the life-word is described as a universal philosophical problem with respect to which understanding the sense of its scientific objectivation remains only a partial problem (Hua VI, §33).
“[W]hat corresponds to our particular manner of being as scientists is our present functioning in the manner of scientific thinking, putting questions and answering them theoretically in relation to nature or the world of the spirit; and [the latter are] at first nothing other than the one or the other aspect of the life-world” (Hua VI, p. 112; 1970, p. 110). For the rootedness of the object of psychology in the life-world, see for instance (Hua VI, §61).
(Hua I, p. 118).
See also (Hua VII, p. 193): “Spinozas Ethik ist eine rein rationale Metaphysik, die alle besonderen Ontologien in sich schliessen sollte”.
The impossibility of bringing to light the real essence of this enigma before accessing a properly phenomenological problematic is discussed in de Warren (2008, p. 25 and p. 43).
Husserl gives a clear formulation of the lack of value of a truth without its sense in Ideen III: “True statements are not, without something further, intrinsic values, and no more so are methods for the production of such statements.” (Hua V, p. 82; 1980, p. 96).
The reading I have presented here departs from a number of interpretations that either identify the crisis of European sciences with their loss of “meaning” (or significance) for life, or lump together questions concerning scientificity (the sense of truth of the positive sciences) with questions concerning existential significance (the sense of humane existence and of the world in general) without giving a clear account of their mutual relations. I limit myself to a few notable examples. According to Gurwitsch (1956, p. 383): “The crisis of the Western sciences does not concern their technical validity. What is in question is the meaning of the sciences in a philosophical sense and, no less important, their human significance. […] Science, it seems, has nothing to say as to things that matter most for human existence.” In his monumental commentary to the Krisis, Enzo Paci (1972, p. 3) writes: “The crisis of which Husserl speaks, however, does not concern the sciences as such. Rather, it concerns what they have meant and what they could mean for human existence.” As many analyses contained in his work show, Paci is certainly aware of all dimensions of the crisis, including the most technical ones concerning the special sciences and including the complex relation between phenomenology and metaphysics, but he does not carefully distinguish them. According to Boehm (1979, p. 27): “Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften erblickt Husserl im Verlust der Lebensbedeutsamkeit unserer moderner Wissenschaften, den Grund dieses Verlustes im Objektivismus dieser Wissenschaften, der sie unfähig macht, die Lebenswelt in ihrer subjektiven Relativität zu ihrem Thema zu machen.” This passage contains the further incorrect idea that thematizing the relations between, say, Galilean mechanics and the Lebenswelt would bestow upon the former a “Lebensbedeutsamkeit.” Elizabeth Ströker (1988, p. 207) goes so far as to deny that the crisis concerns the scientificity of the sciences: “Diese Krise betraf selbstverständlich nicht die niemals angezweifelte Wissenschaftlichkeit der Wissenschaften, sondern das, was sie, was Wissenschaft überhaupt, dem menschlichen Dasein bedeutet hatte und bedeuten kann.” See also Ströker (1992, p. 107). We have seen, instead, that the crisis does not concern the prima facie scientificity of science only. A better account, in terms of the crisis of philosophy, is given, instead, in Ströker (1996, p. 319). Carr (1974, p. 46) writes: “In spite of its great theoretical and practical successes, there is crisis of science. It consists in ‘the loss of its meaning for life’.” And more recently: “The European sciences trace their origin to a time when these ideas could still be taken seriously, when knowledge was supposed to make us wise and give meaning to life. But now they have been separated from each other, from the guiding ideal of unity represented by philosophy, and above all from the ordinary human life to which they were supposed to give meaning. This is the crisis of European sciences: the loss of their meaning for life.” (Carr 2010, p. 86). A similar account of the crisis of Western sciences is given by Bernet et al. (1993, pp. 220–225). The nuanced reading offered by James Dodd also goes in that direction.
In particular, Dodd (2004, p. 29) locates, as I have done, the actual formulation of the crisis in the beginning of §5, but he still reads it as concerning not “what science intends to accomplish” but “the place, or role of science in human life.” Dodd adds that “science, in its contemporary form, fails to address what needs to be addressed, not in order to be a science, but in order to be a human being.” (2004, p. 30). Let us stress, once more, that the point at issue is not whether, according to Husserl, sciences have lost their significance for life, but whether this fact coincides with their crisis or is another, intimately related, aspect of the uprooting of science from a universal philosophy.
On the other hand, the crisis of psychology runs deeper, for it consists in its chronic inability even to discern the sphere of being which constitutes its real domain, access to which requires a specific epoché whose possibility, according to Husserl, has never been grasped before (Hua VI, §§60–72). For a detailed account of the crisis of psychology and of its central role with respect to all other sciences and to phenomenology itself, see Majolino (2008b).
“In a certain way, every empirical science is a science of what is real. It deals with real things, with their real becoming, with their real relations, etc. Each such science is, therefore, in its way, an ontology.” (Hua XXIV, p. 93; 1984, p. 96).
“In possession of exact mechanics, ac <oustics>, theory of electricity, etc., we are, nevertheless, not yet in possession of definitive knowledge, of ultimate, conclusive knowledge of the essence of nature, and the fact is that nothing of this is changed by the progress in the natural sciences” (Hua XXIV, p. 95; 1984, p. 98).
In the same lectures, there is a parallel treatment of the limited scientificity/rationality of pure mathematics (Hua XXIV, §31). To be sure, the theoretically unsatisfactory character of mathematics is what guided Husserl’s research since the very beginning of his philosophical career.
The interplay between Husserl’s late account of historicity and the problem of mathematization of nature are discussed in Hopkins (2011, pp. 83–94).
Whence the title of Part I of the Krisis: The Crisis of the Sciences as Expression [Ausdrück] of the Radical Life-Crisis of European Humanity.
This scheme conforms to the structure of the fourth part of Fink’s Outline for the Continuation of the Crisis (Hua VI, p. 516; 1970, p. 400). As already mentioned, a detailed account of the way in which transcendental phenomenology can constitute a therapy for the crisis of sciences lies outside the scope of this article. It suffices here to hint at two purposes that the phenomenological elucidation of mathematical physics per se can serve: (1) to turn this science into an authentic science of being, episteme, thus satisfying our theoretical interest concerning material nature; (2) to eradicate the objectivistic misunderstanding concerning the sense of mathematization and, correlatively, the sense of being of material nature. The second task bears indeed, indirectly, a great relevance for the resolution of the crisis of Western cultural life at large, for the reasons sketched in the Vienna Lecture and explained in the Krisis, which we have briefly reconstructed. Overcoming naturalistic objectivism is the precondition for grasping the essence and the mode of being of “spirit,” thus opening up the space for a truly universal phenomenological philosophy, i.e., “a completely new mode of scientific discipline [ein völlig neuer modus von Wissenschaftlichkeit] […] where all conceivable questions—questions of being and questions of norm, questions of what is called ‘existence’ [Existenz]—find their place.” (Hua VI, p. 346, Crisis p. 298).
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Trizio, E. What is the Crisis of Western Sciences?. Husserl Stud 32, 191–211 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-016-9194-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-016-9194-8