Grazer Philosophische Studien, 27 (1986), 199207

Barry Smith and Kevin Mulligan

HU SSERL'S LOGICAL INVESTTGAT JONS*

History has not been very kind to Husserl's Logical Investigations.

Matters might have been differen t if Bertran d Russell had actua lly read, and
understood, the copy he had with him in prison in Brixton d uri ng the fi rst
World War, but by and large the work has had practically no effect on exact
philosophy in general or on an alytic philosophy in particular. H usserl
himself is la rgely to blame for this state of affairs, since shortly after
complet ing the work he sai led off in to somewhat muddi er, metaphysica l
waters . His later writings tend to be unclear and to suffer from an excess of
grandiose terminology, so that it is o nl y sporadically that they continue o r
deepen the magisterial analyses and a rgu ments of the Investigalions of
1900/0 I. This state of affa irs is rellected in the history of the editions and
translations of th e book . Findla y's readable bu t imperfect translation - in
itself a considerab le ach ievement - appeared seven ty years after the work
was first published, and the editors of Husserl's works in Louva in have
refl ected the pre vailing philosophical at mosphere on the Continent in tha t,
at least un til recently, they have concentrated their energies on bringing out
editions of Husserl's later writings. Now, however, some twenty volumes of
collected works later, and over eighty years after the appearance of H usserl 's
one true masterpiece , a critical edition of the work is at last avai lable in
completed form .
Ursula Panzer's edition of volume II of the work, which comes nine years
after Elmar Holenstein's edit ion of the Prolegomena to Pure Logic, the
overture with which the six Logica l Investigations proper begin, contai ns the
texts of both the first (A) edition of 1900/1901 and of the second (B) edition
of 1913/ 1921. The two volum es of th e Panzer edition conta in also the
annotations and supplements interlea ved between the pages of H usserl's
own copy of the Investigations, and in her introductio n the editor usefully
summarises the changes Husserl made in this addi ti onal material and also
the differences between the first and second edi tions of the Investigations
the mselves.
*Review of: Edmund Husser!, Logische Un lersuchunf{en , II. Band , l. und 2. Teil (Husse rhana
X I X /], XI XI2), ed . Ursul a Pa nzer, The Hag ue/Bost on/La ncaster: Martinus Nijhoff.
1984, LXVlll + XVIII + 958 pp.

200
and has
fa scinated
concerns th e status and prope r
mind
be

must be
not,
What results
in Husserl's first and in some
more pregnant
For the main text of the addition is that
the easy
of
a lso the intrinsic
second
of the
contrasted with
here. But this
editor may have
interests of
indefinite article

n
first edition - evident also in
fall into two main groups.
Husserl's conviction that he had discovered

ses would somehow have their

come to be seen in a 'new and
and more substantial
and arguments, or assays
A characteristic
its derivatives in
sional removal of the word
and the like. The
such as 'is brought
and indeed most notorious such
. In the first edition Husserl had set
account
accounts that is not reduced to

the
group are those to be
Husser! had ea flier

or substa ntive
of
says, 'occasional' uses of
and his account of
1I1
basis. In a hitherto
the
of a
indexical use of the firs t
use
a proper name,

'these' or 'here' m ust be boun d up

on the pa rt of the
uses with the non-indexical
contexts. We
Another

not of the same order

all occasional or indexica l

such

ou t, each indexica l use of an

intuition'

for 'moment'
, 'element',
rando m . Th is state of atTairs is made still worse in the
'moment ' in the
is confused with 'moment' in
This er ror has

concepts ( 12 of
a n extended discussion
is to be
. This discussion
because it
between the theories of necessary
Husserl and
his teacher Brentaof 1887-91 now
In

material world.
even ts and processes of the
to the third
One felic itous verba l
introduction of the term 'forma l
concerned with
Husserl 's clarification
a nd his still valuable account of
and pure and
mathematics are indeed
a nd
contributions
the
of
at a
official
of moment or 'abstract
Thus for

Brentanian framework one can

between simultaneous
never relate en tities
that Brentano's
structure

world .
The
of the

ent

between the two,

Generalisation
via extension to the
. We shall quote from at
both
reader a
of Busserl's 'Aristotelian'
of his treatmen t, and also because it is absent

translation.
out fi rst of all that

concept of concrete or
exist in isola tion from all other

204

objects, does not coincide with the concept thing. For we find concreta in
this sense also, e.g., in the realm of sensations.
To the unity of the thing there belongs more than the individualised concretum ; there
belongs also (ideally speaking) a possible infinite manifold o f tem porally succeedi ng
concreta of one and the same form, passi ng contin uously into each othe r in the sense
of the concepts of change and persevera nce, this manifold being he ld togeth er (either
for itself or togeth er with other associated manifolds of a similar constitution) through
the unity of causalit y. This means that there obtains a lawflllness in relation to these
manifolds which makes the conc reta co-existing at a ny given poin t in time unilaterally
dependent on those concre ta of a n arbitrarily chosen earlier point in time which are
assigned to it in the sense of change or perseverance. (p. 26 1)

The unity of the thing therefore consists in the existence of a con tinuous
series of temporally instantaneous concrete 'conten ts' or 'objects' - Husserl
uses these terms interchangeably - tied together by a ca usal law.
The re follows a brief form alised treatment of the relation between
successive 'va lues' of a thing at successive instants (a relation later called
'genidentity' by Kurt Lewin), which is followed in turn by an account of
trans-temporal dependence that is manifested in the material world:
As a result of callsality the concreta of a given Iflstant are, whether of themselves or m
consort wi th other co-existing concreta, dependent on those of an earlie r instant and thus in a certain se nse non-self-sufficient. It must however be noted. that thl,'
conce pt of dependence used by us so far was defined only as dependence in ,-.0.
existence .. . It is howe ver easy to generalise the concepts of independent and deper.
conten ts so that one would be able to distinguish between cases of co-exisTence ml!Ii
cases of succession. We need only so extend the concept of whole (and the con'
bound up analytically therewith). that one is allowed to speak not only of h
(unities, connections) of co-existe nce bu t also of those of sllccession . Our concepts
then immedi ately applicab le to things, whereby it is ne<'cssa ry only to
peculiar con te nt wh ich the ta lk of existence and co-e xistence take on when one
things . (p. 262)

Where, therefore , the Brentanian theory of dependence relations can

applied exclusively as a means of el ucidating synchronic structures, H
serl's theory can be applied also to diachronies of various sorts, and
indeed so applied by lakobson in his influential writings o n the implica '
al universals of language acquisition and aphasia .
Two appendices (pp. 837-843 and 850-852) show Husser! grappling
problems in whole-part theory left open in the th ird Investigation:
nature of the relation between an instance of red on the one hand
logical part colour on the other, and the disti nction between this relation
the ordinary relati on of inherence (e.g . of redness in a table ); the notiom'l
relati ve independence and the relation of this noti on to various pheno n
logical examples; the relation betwee n form and matter in a stru
wh ole (whether this be a structured whole of acts or of meanings, or
thing and its pro perties):

205
A whole is not the pa rt s tak en together [das Zusammen del' 1l'iieJ . nor is it the parts
together with the form, but the parts all together in this form. (The form is a concept
tha t uIlltes the whole lt1 question with a manifold of possible wholes). (p. 84 1; compare
Traetallis 2.0124-2 .01 41)

Husserl considerably revised the fourth Investigation, on The Distinction

between Dependent and Indepen dent Mean ings and the Jdea a/Pure Grammar,
the revised ve rsion being one and a half times the lengt h of the original.
Consider , for example , his treatment of the use of a proper name in 3.
Husserl here argues that the meaning-intention with which such a name IS
normally used - a certa in mental event - is simple. The meaning of the
name is therefore also simple, is not e.g. the meaning of any cluster of
definite descriptions. Bu t each such simple mea ning act is necessarily
associated with a variety of presentations [Vorstellungen], a fabric of
presuppositions, reflec ting what it is that the user of the name knows about
its bearer. Thus when we use a proper name , our consciousness of the object
(our meaning-consciousness) is no t such that it is given merely as an empty
somewhat , 'bu t as somehow determ inate and typically determi nable whether as a physical thing, an animal, a human being etc. - even if not
meant in such capacities'. (p . 307) And then , the interest of Husserl's theory
is that he can exploit his apparatus of species and dependence relations as a
means of providing an account of the way in which these presenta tions hang
together with the act of name-meaning in such a way as to con tribute to the
intentional directed ness of this act without being a part of the meaning of
the name itself.
Husserl also puts forward a treatment of modification, i.e. of that family
of syntactic operations which is illustrated in transitions such as that fro~l
(e.g.) 'breath ta king performance' to 'cancelled performance' o r from 'red
elephant' to 'non-existent elephan t', or in the transition from verb-phrase to
no minalisation or from use to mention. Husserl's elaboration of this notion
in B owes something both to Marty and to Reinach (see also ch. 4 of
Twardowski's On the Content and Object of Presentations). Its im portance
turns not least on the fact that philosophy itself, for example when it refers
to existence, or to meaning , or to species, employs a systematically modified
form of la nguage, a form of language which will lead to misunderstandings
- for example to Platonism - if one tries to interpret it in the light of the
presumptions of our ordinary speech .
The fifth In vestigat ion, too, was eonsiderably revised, though most of
Husse rl's changes are of a terminological nature and a re designed to connect
up with Husserl's views in Ideas I about transcendental phenomenology.
Husserl's . extended 80 page argum ent in 22-43 of this Investigation,
dealmg WIth the correct way to understand the connection between propositional force and pro positional content, must be one of the first examples in

206
modern philosophy of the sort of extended, careful argument that has
become the norm - or at least the ideal - in analytic philosophy.
The sixth Investigation was entirely re-written by Husserl and his rewritings are to appear, at some stage in the future, in a separate volume of
Husserliana. Husserl di d not himself bring these revisions to a publishable
fo rm, and therefore a llowed the 2nd edition of this rnvestigation to ap
in 1921 in a version merely 'partially revised'.

III
In recent years, particularly as a resu lt of work by F0l1esdal , Mcln! yr~
and Woodruff Sm ith , the so-called noema theory of meaning set out b,
Husserl in Ideas I has received a considerable a mount of attention . Th
attractiveness of this later theory is due in part to the fact that Husser!"
noemata resemble F regean Sinne, and can indeed be seen as a generalisaf
of the latter. Wha t is less often recorded is that Husser! had already, in the
fi rst edition of the present work, p ut forward another, quite differe nt
of meaning, resting on his twin theories of species and dependen
According to this ea rlier theory each mental event which is an act
language use, either for itself or taken together with other associ ated
upon which it is dependen t, instantiates a species of a certain sort. It is t
th is very species which Husser! identifies as the meaning of the lingui
expression in question .
Thi s (, Arist otelia n') theory of mean ing, which is of course in need
considerable refinement , has a number of immediate advantages. In the
place it yields a simple accou nt of the natu re of linguistic communicaf
(mental acts of com municating subjects may instantiate identical mea
species). It yields also an elega nt accoun t of the relation between Ian u
and thought and of the relation between logical necessity and the contin
fl ux of mental events of judging and inferri ng. Moreover, th is ea rlier th
a ppeals in its ontolo gy onl y to th e relativel y fam iliar relations of instan
tion (between instance a nd species) and intentionality (between act
object) . On the la ter theo ry, in contrast, in which noemata fu nction b I
senses and as (mysterious counterparts of) reference, we have to acce
addition to instant iation and the in tentionali ty of act and object also
further sui generis rela tions between the act and its noema and betwc
noema and its referent. Now it is a st ri king fact that , although the vol
under revie w co ntain a num ber of refe rences to the second theory,
various terminologi cal alterations designed to ease t he transition t
latter, one finds no arguments fo r th is second theory, just as no argu
are to be foun d in Husserl's later writ ings for his change of mind.
It is sti ll unfo rt unate ly the case that the first , second, fourth and

207
Investigations are without any sort of detailed exegesis or commentary, in
spite of the fact tha t the problems th ey deal with are one and all the subject
of great contempo rary interest. The first Investigation contains a number of
distinctions that have since become standard within the p hilosophy of
language , though Husser! draws these distinctions in ways that involve
greate r atten tion to cognitive detail than has been us ual among ana lyt ic
philosophers.
The second Investigation argues that the notions of species and generality
cann ot be made sense of independen tly of an understanding of the notion of
necessary or universal law. The fourth dea ls with the notion of syntactic
c~mpleteness and incompleteness ('unsaturatedness') and presents a theory
of syn tactic and semantic dependence which inl1uenced Lesn iewski in his
developmen t of the first 'categorial grammar'. (Thus consider the relation
between a name, a verb and the sen tence they belong to. Husserl 's acco unt
allows him to distingu ish the relation of unilateral dependence of verb on
na me fro m th e relation of bilatera l nece ssary constitue ncy be tween verb a nd
sentence - every sentence necessarily con tains a ve rb and every verb is
necessarily a part of a sentence.) The fift h In vestiga tio n contains not only
one of the most subtle accoun ts of indexical ity in the lit era ture of philosoph y, but also de tailed accounts of the d istin ction betwee n propos itional and
non-propositional attitudes and of the connection between force a nd
con tent (p hrasti cs and neustics) fo r all mental acts and states.
Panzer's edi tion will, it is hoped , prepare the way for a detailed
commentary on the whole of the Investigations of the sort that already exi sts
in plenty for Wittgenstein's TraC La fus. Now that there is a revisal of interest in
a number of qua rters in just that combina tion of themes that the Investigations de velop so masterfully - cognitive and pe rceptual psychology, fo rmal
ontology and formal meaning-theory and the thorny problems posed by any
atte mpt to give these a un ified treat me n t - such a deta iled co mmentary
wou ld be more tha n welcome .
Kevin MULLIGAN
Barry SM ITH

Universite de Geneve
University of Manches ter