In the following brief paper I would like to give a few hints on the actuality of Husserl’s phenomenology and its relevance for the actual interdisciplinary discourse between psychopathology, cognitive psychology and the philosophy of mind. My aim is to point out, that one way into the future of phenomenology maybe lies in the power of its methodological way to tackle some currently discussed psychological as well as philosophical problems. I think that a rediscovery of some Husserlian motifs – especially methodological ones – can be very fruitful for an interdisciplinary exchange between philosophy, psychology and psychopathology.
Some phenomenological themes in the Philosophy of Mind
Husserl’s phenomenology had two major aims. The first one was to cure philosophy of its speculative character and renew it as a “rigorous science.” The second aim was to elucidate the question of the possibility of scientific knowledge in an a priori way. (1) Therefore the idea of philosophy as a “rigorous science” refers to methodological reflections about the a priori relation between the object of a scientific investigation and the investigating subject – a project which had already been enforced by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason 200 years earlier. These considerations lead Husserl – following Franz Brentano – to the discovery of a fundamental feature of our consciousness: to be conscious means in the main to be conscious of something. Every subjective conscious act – experiencing, thinking, hoping, wishing, judging, etc. – is directed on an object. It makes no difference whether this object is an innerworld object, a thought or just a matter of fact of a judgment. Thus consciousness is characterized through intentionality and therefore the distinction between a pure objective and a pure subjective sphere could no longer hold. This paradox that every objective truth is correlated with a subjective act in which it is known requires a systematical explanation. (2)
As a result of these insights Husserl saw the first step of the development of a scientific philosophy in the investigation of the correlative structure of intentionality itself and its meaning for the investigation of the concept of reality. His motto could be formulated as follows: If we want to know something about the reality we live in, we need to take a step backwards from the “what we see” to the “how it is given” for us. This turn from a naïve directedness towards supposed objective facts to an investigation of the correlative structure between these facts and the subjective constitutive act is the main methodological step of phenomenological science. This systematic investigation of the constitutive functions of the subject’s attitude towards the objective world is also of interest in the philosophical discourse today – especially when the topic of scientific investigation and discourse is consciousness itself.
When we focus on consciousness itself the investigated object and the investigating subject are inseparable from one another, i.e., science must deal with the tricky methodological difference between a first-person and a third-person approach to consciousness. In the actual discourse on this topic Husserlian methodological claims are of special interest, above all in the dialogue between the empirical sciences that investigate consciousness and its features (e.g., neurosciences, cognitive psychology, etc.) and the philosophy of mind. David Chalmers points out that although we know a lot about consciousness from a third-person perspective (TPP), at the present stage we have hardly any formalisms to investigate and interpret data from a first-person perspective (FPP). It was one of Husserl’s main contributions that he developed a systematic methodological framework that tries to deal with this difference between a first- and a third-person view.
In the actual debate of the philosophy of mind it is exactly the above outlined subjective dimension and its importance for phenomenal experience which characterizes the main difficulties in theory construction within the project of a science of consciousness. According to Chalmers, consciousness may be understood in two different ways: on the one hand we have a psychological approach in which the mind is characterized by the way it does; on the other hand we have the phenomenal concept in which the mind is characterized by the way it feels. (3) Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl outlines that in the phenomenological tradition consciousness is interpreted similarly: the mind is characterized through intentionality. That implies two aspects of conscious experience: first the directedness on something and second the present living through of the experience which represents that something. (4)
Therefore, consciousness contains two major properties: phenomenal properties which characterize what it is like to be in a specific mental state and representational properties which represent a certain intentional content. A science of consciousness must now deal with the difficult question of what someone refers to when he refers to his mental acts. Because when someone talks about his phenomenological constitution, i.e., how it is for him to experience the world, he refers to his conscious mental states. This reference is different from his reference to any object in the world. Unlike his reference to an innerworld object “via an intention that picks out something that [... he is ...] causally connected to,” he has direct access to his conscious experiences. He can refer to these “via an intention that picks out something that [... he is ...] immediately acquainted with.” (5) This difference in the mode of givenness between an innerworld object and the subjective act directed on an object was — albeit in a different kind of meaning — already emphasized by Husserl: every innerworld object appears in an perspectival manner whereas the subjective act is itself given — so to speak — in an absolute way. (6)
This difference between phenomenal and representational properties characterizes the gap between consciousness and cognition. It can therefore be understood as an expression of the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness, i.e., the problem of integrating phenomenal consciousness in the physical worldview. Maybe to revert to a Husserlian account of this problem can enlighten the debate as he tried to develop a universal framework that enables a systematic investigation of the correlation between mind and world.
Besides phenomenological motifs in the actual discourse of the Philosophy of Mind phenomenological approaches could also be found in the field of psychiatry and psychopathology. Husserl himself was already interested in psychological questions as he intended to substantiate empirical psychology in a phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology. This examination could be found in diverse writings. (7) Currently there are some interesting attempts to work with Husserlian “tools” in the treatment of psychological/psychopathological questions and problems.
In recent years, the impact of phenomena of mental disorders on a scientific understanding of consciousness has been intensively discussed. On this account some authors locate one of the main causes of schizophrenic diseases in the disturbed subjective concept that the schizophrenic has of himself. This disturbance is often mentioned as a form of self-disorder or ipseity disturbance. (8) Therefore the discussion is led by questions like: given that schizophrenia is interpreted as a form of self-disturbance, what is the concept of “self” about? In seeking an answer to this question a phenomenological perspective on mental disorders such as schizophrenia may lead to new insights in the understanding and interpretation of these phenomena.
According to this perspective the experiencing subject is — depending on Husserl’s theory of intentionality — never an isolated pole but a subject who is directed on and related to objects of his world. Therefore, every subject must always be seen and understood in the fundamental and natural correlation with his/her world. In this context schizophrenia — as a form of self-disorder — is interpreted as a disturbance of the mentioned intentional correlation. An analysis of the intentional structure may support the development of a framework that enables scientists a better understanding of schizophrenic diseases like delusions and hallucinations.
After Josef Parnas and his colleagues, there are three major dimensions that seem to be affected in self-disorders like schizophrenia: 1. disturbance of intentionality, 2. disturbance in the realm of self (“unstable first person perspective”) and 3. disturbed dimension of subjectivity. (9) The authors outlines that patients with schizophrenia rather tend to observe their experiences than to “live through” them.
In another publication, Parnas et al. furthermore lay stress on the fact that there is a need for a change in the understanding of the development of the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenic disorders. This development may not be understood as “a contingent, unexpected popping up into consciousness of ‘primary’ (modular) eruptions from a malfunctioning organic substrate” but rather as a “complex temporal vissicitude” of the unstable structure of phenomenal (self-) experience. (10) A similar model for understanding and interpreting schizophrenic symptoms could be found in the psychiatric literature more influenced by cognitive science.
Psychopathological symptoms of schizophrenia, e.g., delusions and hallucinations, are often interpreted as a result of a form of disturbed self-reference (11), which means that a subject is no longer able to refer adequately to his/her own mental states as his/her own mental states which may lead to delusions of persecution, thought insertion or thought control. As I outlined above, according to the cited authors, schizophrenia and its symptoms must be understood as a form of ipseity-/self-disturbance. Again we see the necessity to investigate the phenomenon of our direct acquaintance with our conscious experiences and its relatedness to an objective world.
Maybe phenomenological analysis, i.e., structural analysis of the intentional correlation between the subject and his/her world as well as the interpretation of the distortions of this correlation, enable us to understand phenomena of mental disorders in a more fundamental way.
In this short outline I did not want to develop a concrete idea of how the future of phenomenology should look. I rather wanted to give a few hints of how fruitful an interdisciplinary exchange between phenomenology and the empirical sciences might be.
(1) See Husserl, E., Logische Untersuchungen, Erster Band, Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), pp. 22ff.
(2) See Husserl, E., Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der reinen Erkenntnis (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984) pp. 12-13.
(3) Chalmers, D. J., The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 11.
(4) Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Representationalism and Beyond, A Phenomenological Critique of Thomas Metzinger’s Self-Model Theory” in Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (2) (2004): 88-108, p. 94.
(5) Chalmers, op. cit., p. 202
(6) See Husserl, E., Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch, Allgemeine Einführung in die Phänomenologie (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), pp. 86-89.
(7) See Husserl, E., Phänomenologische Psychologie, Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962); Husserl 1975, op. cit.; Husserl 1984, op. cit.
(8) See Sass, L. A./Parnas, J., “Self, consciousness and schizophrenia” in Schizophrenia Bulletin 29/3 (2003): 427-444; Parnas, J./Bovet, P./Zahavi, D., “Schizophrenic autism: Clinical phenomenology and pathogenic implications” in World Psychiatry 1 (3) (2002), pp. 131-136; Parnas, J., “The self and intentionality in the pre-psychotic stages of schizophrenia: A phenomenological study” in Zahavi, D. (ed.), Exploring the Self. Philosophical and Psychopathological Perspectives on Self-Experience (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 2000): 115-148; Sass, L. A., “Schizophrenia, Self-Experience, and the So-called ‘Negative Symptoms’” in Zahavi, D. (eds.), Exploring the Self. Philosophical and Psychopathological Perspectives on Self-Experience (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, 2000): 149-182.
(9) See Parnas et al., 2002, op. cit., p. 132.
(10) Parnas 2000, op. cit., p. 139.
(11) Cf. Vogeley, K./Bergmann, A./Falkai, P. “Selbstkonstrukt und Schizophrenie” in Nervenheilkunde (21) (2002): 344-350; Frith, C., The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992), p. 80.