Edmund Husserl

Born: 1859, Moravia, Austria Died: 1938, Freiburg, Germany

Major Works: Logical Investigations (2 vols., 1900--1; 2d ed., 1913); "Philosophy as Rigorous Science" (1910); Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (vol. 1, 1913); Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology (1913); The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (1954) Major Ideas: The edifice of scientific knowledge must be built up by rigorously securing each step through direct intuitive insight, without presuppositions. Phenomenology provides a founding "first philosophy" for all knowledge by its method of describing the essence of "the things themselves" as they are constituted in consciousness. The ultimate foundation for the constitution of everything that appears in consciousness is the transcendental ego, making phenomenology idealistic and transcendental. Conscious experience is intentional in nature, always having both a subject and object pole. The lifeworld is the practical, everyday world that provides the foundation for all specialized activities and that must be phenomenologically described.

Edmund Husserl is recognized as the founder of phenomenology and as one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century. Quite apart from phenomenology's own status as a distinctive approach to philosophy, it particularly influenced existentialism and inspired movements in psychology, sociology, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion. Standing in the great tradition of attempts at "first philosophy," the attempt to lay foundations for all areas of knowledge, Husserl understood himself as offering a new and much-needed orientation for philosophy. The theme of "beginning" pervades his thought. He desired to find the roots, the proper starting point, with such intensity that he continually -1-

revised his own work. His last four major published works are all intended to be new "introductions," that is, beginnings, to phenomenology. Toward the end of his life, he claimed only to have reached the status of a beginner. This "philosopher of infinite tasks," as one commentator described him, drew people as much by his single-minded devotion to truth as by the concrete results of his method. Husserl was born a Jew in Moravia, part of the Austrian empire. After being educated in Vienna, he went to the University of Leipzig to do work in mathematics and physics, followed by further work in mathematics at the University of Berlin. His focus on mathematics and logic issued in his first work on the philosophy of arithmetic, a psychologistic treatment in the tradition of John Stuart Mill. This approach attempted to place logical truths on an inductive and psychological basis. After criticism by Gottlob Frege, Husserl himself sharply repudiated psychologism and moved toward what came to be called phenomenology in his massive Logical Investigations. Even after the success of that work, he suffered academic and personal frustration in the early years of the century, doubting his ability as a philosopher. He emerged with a more mature conception of phenomenology, taking it in an idealistic direction that surprised some supporters of the realism of the earlier work. These ideas were expressed in a popular essay, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science," and in perhaps his major book, Ideas. After another decade of reassessment, he published Cartesian Meditations and Formal and Transcendental Logic, which represented the height of his idealism. In the waning years of his life, the perpetual beginner began once again and turned in a more realist and historicist direction in two final works, The Crisis of European Sciences and Experience and Judgment. The former of these books was unfinished and the latter was heavily edited by a student, making their interpretation notoriously difficult. Husserl first taught at the University of Halle (1887-1901), then at the University of Gottingen (1901-16), and retired at the University of Freiburg in 1928. He had named Martin Heidegger to be the successor to his chair at Freiburg and as the one to carry on the phenomenological program. At the time of Heidegger's accession to the chair, however, the two clashed on the nature of phenomenology. Under the burgeoning National Socialist regime, Husserl's Jewish status resulted in increasingly repressive measures. After his death in 1938, his works had to be smuggled out of the country to avert their destruction. This was no small task since his unpublished manuscripts amounted to nearly 45,000 pages in shorthand. His thought can be approached in terms of the transcendental phenomenology of the second edition of the Logical investigations and the Ideas, supplemented by later changes represented in the Cartesian Meditations and The Crisis of European Sciences. Transcendental Phenomenology Husserl's passion for rigor led to his desire for a certain foundation of all the sciences. The phenomenological method was elaborated in order to provide the requisite certainty. Like

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Descartes, whom Husserl resembles in so many ways, the measure of true knowledge and of adequate foundations was "apodictic" knowledge, knowledge that is indubitable. The way to such certainty was to turn away from untested common sense, which Husserl termed the "natural attitude," from tradition, and from theoretical speculation. The famous slogan of the phenomenological movement was therefore "to the things themselves." Consequently, phenomenology in Husserl's eyes was understood throughout his philosophical journey as a descriptive science of direct experience. Although sometimes understood in the early years in realist fashion as being concerned with objects of the external world, phenomenology for Husserl was closer to the idealist tradition. First of all, he was not interested in what actually occurs, with empirical facts, but with the nature of what can possibly occur, namely, with the essential structures of experience. Thus he described phenomenology as a science of essences. Second, he was concerned with the way experience is constituted by the mind, or the transcendental ego. Third, he was concerned with the way objects subjectively appear to human consciousnes s, not with an impersonal or behaviorist characterization. For example, Husserl's influential phenomenology of internal timeconsciousness, rather than breaking up time into an objective and sharply demarcated past, present, and future, describes the way people synthetically experience the present as including the "just-past" (retention) and the anticipated near-future (protention). Like Gestalt psychology, which was a parallel development, experiences were not atomistically broken up into their parts but were described in the holistic way in which they appear. Also in the context of psychology, Husserl 's emphasis on conscious experience set his thought against a preoccupation with the unconscious. His philosophy was based on intuition, direct "seeing" of the contents of consciousness. No higher court of appeal was possible than the direct givenness to intuition of what is experienced. At the heart of his philosophy is the appeal to move from inadequate conceptions to their "fulfillment" in adequate intuition. The validity of Husserl's thought stands or falls with the confidence he placed in this capacity to encounter the things themselves in consciousness and to be able to bracket extraneous influences such as the "sediments" of tradition and of language. It was "evidence" in this sense that was his constant point of reference. Husserl never retreated from this belief, although in the period of the Crisis he himself strained it to the utmost. It was this direct insight into the essence of what he termed transcendental subjectivity that caused Husserl adamantly to oppose explanation of experience in terms of historical causes (historicism) or psychological causes (psychologism). He was not opposoed to history psychology, or any of the sciences, but he believed that their methodology presupposed--and left unclarified--what phenomenology had finally uncovered. Indeed, he was convinced that philosophy itself had not even yet begun. Despite such bold claims, Husserl saw his work as only the beginning of what he hoped would be a long line of patient researchers who would step by step build up the edifice of scientific knowledge. One of the first results of his phenomenology was the insight that conscious, active experience is "intentional." This idea, with roots in medieval Scholastic theology and particularly in the thought of his teacher Franz Brentano, became the centerpiece of the

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phenomenological movement. Consciousness is dynamic with a vectorial or from-to orientation. Consciousness is consciousness-of. Several ideas central to Husserl's advanced phenomenological perspective are laid out in Ideas. First of all, with respect to intentionality, he distinguished between the object that is intended and the act of intending. The first he termed the noema and the second he termed the noesis. In perceiving a box, for example, one intends an actual box; the noema, however, is not the actual box. One may intend a box and be mistaken. Furthermore, the noema includes more than what directly appears; it also includes what is "cointended," that is, the sides that one does not see and perhaps the inside of the box. These "inner horizons" form part of the meaning-construct of a box. The "outer horizons," the room, perhaps other boxes, are also cointended. Later, Husserl would speak of the sediments of tradition that go into the background or outer horizon of such a perception. Perceptions also usually involve fringes or shadings, where what is in the foreground becomes blurred. Like Aristotle, Husserl did not want to supp ly any more precision than the subject matter allowed. The noesis is the subject pole that refers to the act by which one intends a noema. One may perceive a box, or imagine a box, or remember a box--different noetic acts but the same noema. Conversely, one could have one type of noesis, imagining, and many different noemata. Much of the focus of phenomenologists was on noeses rather than on noemata, although one cannot actually separate the two. Another major issue in Ideas for Husserl was that of the phenomenological reduction, a concept that he struggled continuously to make clear. One interpreter suggested at least six different meanings of reduction in Husserl. Basically, however, one can indicate two primary types of reduction, which Husserl also called "brackets" or the epoche. The "phenomenological" reduction per se brackets prejudices that arise from the tradition or common assumptions from the natural attitude, as well as any evaluation of the way the thing is "in itself." Husserl was convinced that such suitably "reduced" phenomena opened up a new frontier of philosophical exploration. It is important to note that, unlike Descartes, he did not doubt the existence of the external world, as some have thought. Rather, he set to one side the question of the actual existence of the things in consciousness, neither deciding for nor against. This neutrality is one of the most misunderstood notions of Husserl. On the one hand, his point was that o ne could not properly address the metaphysical question of the existence of some "thing in itself" until one understands how to go about doing so through phenomenological analysis of the relevant acts. On the other hand, it is also true that Husserl virtually collapsed the issue of being or ontology into the arena of reduced phenomena, thus giving rise to the charges of extreme idealism. The second type of reduction, the "eidetic" reduction, reflected Husserl's concern to describe the essential structures of experience. He insisted that phenomenology was not interested in actual experiences, in empirical facts, but in the nature of possible experiences. The eidetic reduction brackets what is accidental to an experience and focuses on what is invariant or what remains common to many such experiences. An important technique in discerning such essences was "free variation" of an experience in imagination in order to "see" it from all possible angles. Husserl's firm belief that one could intuit essences is one of the most controversial of his convictions.

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Cartesian Meditations and The Crisis of European Sciences In the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl went even further in an idealistic direction, elaborating a transcendental study of self. He still spoke of the givenness of the noema, but he emphasized the constructive or "genetic" role of the ego. One could imagine the external world not to exist, but one could not doubt the existence of this transcendental ego, which is the foundation of reality. This Cartesian emphasis on the ego and emphasis on doubt or suspension of presuppositions was rejected by Husserl's most famous disciple, Martin Heidegger, and by many later thinkers who were otherwise influenced by Husserl. One of the great challenges to such an idealist position based on the transcendental ego is the problem of intersubjectivity. Husserl gave an ingenious, if not satisfactory, response to this problem in the Cartesian Meditations. He argued that each self is a monad that constitutes reality, including the reality of other selves. However, each other self is intended as a self that in turn constitutes experience. The other is perceived through empathetic pairing of an inner horizon to the bodily outer horizon. Although continuing to reflect deeply on the issue of intersubjectivity, Husserl rather quickly moved in a different direction in his enigmatic last writings. Experiencing personally the crisis of Europe, suffering the death of a brilliant son in World War I and restrictions on his own movement with the later rise of National Socialism, he called as he always had for a return to rational foundations. In his last book, he took up the issue of history, tradition, and the everyday world in a new way. The very influential Crisis was an unfinished book whose order and meaning is uncertain, making its interpretation perilous. Nevertheless, Husserl's new notion of the lifeworld has been one of his most fecund notions. Perhaps under some influence from Heidegger and other existentialists, he came to see the importance of the lifeworld, the everyday world that forms the foundation for everything people do. As he pointed out, before and after scientists become scientists, they are persons who dwell in an environing pr actical world deeply shaped by tradition. It is possible that at the end of his life Husserl had come to believe that this is the proper starting point for phenomenology, which would provide the necessary first philosophy As part of his studies in this work, he came to see that bracketing history was not as easy as he had earlier envisaged. He saw how the objectification of the sciences had penetrated back into the lifeworld itself and colored its interpretation. So for the first time he suggested the need for an essential historical analysis, which David Carr calls a "historical reduction" in line with the other reductions, that enables one to have the necessary unbiased intuition. Some see this new step as a rejection of all that he had done before. On the other hand, it can be seen as a propaedeutic enabling one to do that which he had always demanded, to turn to the things themselves without bias. Husserl himself said in his last years (in Crisis), "Phenomenology as science, as serious, rigorous, science--the dream is over." This remark has been interpreted as indicating an awareness of the failure of his original program. Most likely, it is not a personal rejection of phenomenology but a sober recognition that what had been a burgeoning program attracting many disciples had fallen to the wayside with its founder, having been overtaken by other philosophical movements.

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It is also true, however, that Husserl was often his own best critic and that he was never satisfied with what he had done, despite his hope that he could lay a foundation on which generations of scholars could build. Key elements that he stressed--foundations, certainty, subjectivity--have come under increasing attack. Nevertheless, his repeated attempts to be a proper beginner have been the fertile source of much of the philosophy of the twentieth century. Further Reading Carr, David. Phenomenology and the Problem of History. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974. A detailed analysis of the whole of Husserl's thought by the translator of Crisis, with special emphasis on the issue of historicity. Lauer, Quentin. The Triumph of Subjectivity: An Introduction to Transcendental Phenomenology. 2d ed. New York Fordham University Press, 1978. A clear critical introduction that stresses Husserl's assimilation of the problem of being to that of meaning and subjectivity. Natanson, Maurice. Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973. An introduction to Husserl that is both sympathetic to Husserl and yet interprets him in light of the existential turn in phenomenology. Ricoeur, Paul. Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology. Translated by Edward G. Ballard and Lester E. Embree. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967. A series of detailed essays on Husserl's thought by one of the most respected French interpreters. Ricoeur stresses the difference between Husserl's phenomenology as a method and as an ontology Spiegelberg, Herbert. The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction. 2 vols. Phaenomenologica, no. 5. 2d ed. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. The standard history of the phenomenological movement with special stress on the thought of Husserl. __________________ This article is by Dan R. Stiver, and is taken from Great Thinkers of the Western World, Annual 1999 p424. COPYRIGHT 1999 HarperCollins Publishers.

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