Introduction
For many reasons, ours is an exciting time for Husserl research! To be sure, this excitement is not fueled by the same motives some one hundred years ago, when the first phenomenological societies were formed in Göttingen and Munich, driven by a truly pioneering spirit and an initial zeal of getting back “to the things themselves.” At the beginning of the 21st century, it is rather a sense of endurance, of what remains at the end of the day, now that the movements of post-modernism, post-structuralism — and whatever other “post”-phases might have been declared in the latter half of the 20th century — have swept over us and as the “cold war” between Analytic and Continental philosophers is thawing. Now is the time to see what has been swept asunder in the tides of times, and what remains.
Indeed, taking stock of the last century and taking a look at the current scene in philosophy, it is fair to say that phenomenology, especially Husserlian phenomenology, emerges as a tendency in modern philosophy that is clearly here to stay, and is even becoming stronger in recent years. Surely it is no longer the case that one speaks of a “Phenomenological Movement,” which demands a commitment to this “School” and its “doctrines” and a disavowal of other philosophical doctrines. In this sense, Husserl and his pupils and followers stood in the midst of opposing philosophical tendencies in their time; an opposition whose mutual hostility seem almost incomprehensible today. Today, the “Phenomenological Movement” in its original shape and its organized form is dead. Nevertheless, phenomenology is alive and well in a different sense. Husserl’s phenomenology stands for a type of philosophy, of philosophizing, that has remained intact since its inception a century ago. I believe it is not trivial to point out that this is largely due to the honest nature of Husserl’s philosophical quest, the manner in which he was willing to question the foundations of his thought as well as their consequences and his very approach, always testing new avenues of thought — and not due to fixed results that one could identify as particularly “Husserlian.” What distinguishes Husserl’s philosophy from most other schools is not a commitment to any factual premises or doctrines, but to the very style in which philosophy is carried out. What remains of Husserl’s phenomenology is precisely its sense as a method.
At the same time, Husserl had the philosophical genius that provided us with insights that spawned whole philosophical schools in his aftermath, and be it only that they radically opposed him, developing their own thought motives as anathemata to Husserl. It is this history of effects of Husserl’s phenomenology, which propels him far into the 21st century, not as the dated founding father of a school that has allegedly long moved beyond its inceptor, but instead as watchful guardian, whose warning gaze anybody should feel upon him/herself who believes s/he has found fixed results and reached firm ground. More than anything, Husserl has infused future philosophers with an ethos, a working morale and professional attitude that is, to be sure, not new in the history of Western thought, but is carried out with an unprecedented rigor and all too often forgotten and neglected — and mocked by less serious scholars.
So why is the present time a particularly exciting moment for Husserlian phenomenology? It is so because we are witnessing radical changes in our current philosophical landscape. These changes concern, most importantly, the new openness on the part of Analytic philosophy on the one hand, and the fading away of postmodernism that dominated much of Continental philosophy, on the other. In this tectonic shift continents begin to converge, and a philosophy with its intrinsic character of methodological openness, of searching, of probing and describing — rather than declaring, bold announcing and groundless speculating — is exactly what is called for. This is precisely the spirit of Husserl’s phenomenology, and it is this sense in which, I believe, the time is rife for this ageless philosophy to reassert its role in the present; a present, which is once again ready for inspirations and more than ever open for dialogue.
In what follows, I will briefly lay out the areas, in which I think Husserl can assume a dominant voice in the orchestra of contemporary philosophy. But first I shall give a short assessment of Husserlian phenomenology in the context of 20th century philosophy. This narrative will provide the backdrop before which one can understand its timeless — or timely, depending on how one chooses to see it! — contribution to philosophy; it also helps explain why some aspects of Husserl have faded into the background. In some cases, it is, ironically, precisely those aspects that Husserl considered some of the most important, which, I believe, ought to better be forgotten in order for phenomenology to be “free.” I will conclude with a list of topics that are to be found in more recent volumes of the Husserliana that either complement and expand the known scope of Husserl’s oeuvre, or point to interesting new themes, where phenomenology has traditionally played little to no role. As our knowledge of Husserl’s oeuvre expands and deepens, his genius becomes ever more awe-inspiring and recognized.
Locating Husserlian Phenomenology in the History of 20th Century Philosophy: After Postmodernism
The history of 20th century philosophy is largely a history of “supersedings.” This is to say, many of the great philosophers of the last century defined themselves precisely through their “departure” or “overcoming” of the philosophical “establishment” of their time. Certainly the main target, at least on the European continent, were, besides Husserl, the neo-Kantians, though Husserl was, ironically, oftentimes regarded as one of them as well. Husserl was revered as the founder of a new movement, a new style of thinking, but was dismissed in the same instant as having laid foundations that were, well, just this: foundations, some of which were faulty or misconceived at that. This is the way Husserl was treated most famously by Heidegger, his erstwhile closest pupil, as well as some philosophers in other countries, where phenomenology took hold. Heidegger’s project of a “destruction of Western metaphysics” is probably the most important source for postmodernism and its critique of traditional Western philosophy (e.g., in Derrida, as “metaphysics of presence”). Heidegger’s philosophy inaugurated the many attempts to “overcome” the establishment in philosophy. The result of this move was that Husserl, among others, was mainly seen as a philosopher who, though on to the right thing, was still caught up in “Western” paradigms that were seen as obsolete or (at the very least) in need of redefinition. It was mainly the simplifying label of “Husserl the Cartesian” that accounted for him fading into the background. (1) The result was that Husserl was usually passed over, despite the ongoing publication of the Collected Works (the Husserliana), which betrayed this label with nearly every volume. Husserl’s rather sluggish reception after the War was, furthermore, due to the fact that most books published by him were out of print and the Husserliana did not get under way until the mid-1950s. The shadows of National Socialism, during which Husserl as a Jew was considered non-existent, still lingered after 1945.
Meanwhile, as Continental philosophy developed in the decades after the war, postmodernism — and with this I mean very generally the numerous tendencies of “overcoming” inaugurated by Heidegger — got caught up increasingly in its idiosyncrasies and detached itself from classical discussions in the traditional philosophical canon. Consequently, less and less attention was being paid to it in the philosophical mainstream, especially in North America. While it would be premature to speak of a “collapse of postmodernism” in the way in which one has spoken of a “collapse of Idealism” around the middle of the 19th century, it is safe to say that the heyday of this movement, to which also some analytic philosophers contributed (e.g., Rorty), is history, just as, on the other side, traditional Analytic philosophy in the tradition inaugurated by Wittgenstein is dead. So what has remained?
Both Analytic as well as Continental philosophers have since attempted to reassess their origins and understand their respective roots, some of which before the “parting of the ways” turn out to be identical. This is not especially astonishing but noteworthy nevertheless, especially for Analytic philosophy, which has traditionally been indifferent to history. Here one can mention the Anglo-Saxon philosophers of the Enlightenment (Locke, Hume, etc.) and, on the Continent, the towering figure of Kant. A look at more recent common origins has, furthermore, unearthed thinkers at the end of the 19th century, such as Frege and Brentano, who have shaped the scene upon which Analytic philosophy took a stand in the 20th century. This period now brings us into the vicinity of Husserl. The latter stands squarely in the midst of discussions and topics, which were discussed by Frege, Lotze, and the Brentano School, the latter essentially comprised of philosophers in Austria. In many respects, Husserl synthesized some of their key issues and paved the way for new developments. Here one could mention Husserl’s famous rebuttal of psychologism, his anti-metaphysical stance opposed to traditional speculative theories (the call “to the things themselves” was mainly a battle cry calling philosophers away from transcendental-subjective questions), and finally his sketch of a science of subjectivity informed by the Brentanian (Scholastic) paradigm of intentionality. In many ways, Husserl stood at the end point of developments at the end of the 19th century and at the helm of new ideas that were to become dominant at the beginning of the 20th. This peculiar stance is what made it possible for him to be recognized as the “father” of a new philosophical school. This position has been recognized all along by historians of European philosophy of the 20th century and has been newly discovered by philosophers writing the history of Analytic philosophy (e.g., Dummett). It is as if, as both tendencies retraced their steps in order to understand their respective roots, they arrived at common figures, one of them being — Husserl! To occupy this seminal role cannot be said of other philosophers who might seem more known or “important,” such as Heidegger or Wittgenstein, since they not so much inaugurated novel schools, but instead synthesized existing tendencies into original philosophical approaches or methods. Heidegger and Wittgenstein were, of course, highly influential, but they had no following like Husserl did. It is, I think, in this “inaugural” stance that Husserl stands out, next to Hume, Kant, and Brentano, in modern philosophy.
Now, what are the philosophical issues themselves that render Husserl so foundational for modern philosophy and where Husserlian phenomenology can play a significant role in contemporary thought? Let us first consider Husserl’s vision of phenomenology as a foundational discipline itself.
Philosophy and Science I: Phenomenology as Foundational Discipline or “First Philosophy”
One problem in the reception of Husserl’s thought has been to take Husserl at face value in the way in which he himself conceived of phenomenology as foundational discipline or “first philosophy.” Of course this is only natural in applying the principle of charity to an author at first read. The problem is the position in which, Husserl thought, phenomenology should stand vis-à-vis other (scientific) disciplines. In most of his publications, which are introductions and only touch the surface of his thought, Husserl insists on the fact that phenomenology is “first philosophy” and is “foundational” for all knowledge. Indeed, it is Husserl himself who probably took the neo-Kantians more seriously than they themselves did in posing the problem of “ultimate foundationalism” (Letztbegründung) and insisting that phenomenology be that very foundational discipline upon which all cognition could be grounded. Presenting phenomenology in this manner is, from Husserl’s standpoint, understandable—and yet regrettable. Hardly any philosopher or scientist would go along with this proposal nowadays, and yet this is where Husserl is most adamant about promoting the achievements of his phenomenology. (2) So let us be uncharitable for a moment and consider another sense of “foundationalism,” which is to be found in Husserl as well, though somewhat hidden.
Indeed, the sense in which phenomenology can be “foundational” in a plausible manner is much less emphatic. In many respects, Husserlian phenomenology lends itself as a philosophy of science and provides a plethora of conceptual tools for the internal workings of positive sciences, mainly natural sciences. This type of foundationalism has also been ridiculed — in the context of a critique of the neo-Kantian paradigm — in the phrase of philosophy being demoted to the “handmaiden of the sciences.” This critique, issued by Scheler and Heidegger (and since repeated like a mantra), goes against the neo-Kantian interpretation of transcendental philosophy and targets Husserl as well. In this light, there is a clear alliance between the neo-Kantians and Husserl, but the critique is most unfair and incorrect. What is at stake is not an ultimate foundation of knowledge in some remote, abstract Ego, but a sense in which philosophy can be an ally and partner in scientific progress. It is never about “reducing” philosophy to the role of the handmaiden. Instead, it is one purpose of philosophy to scrutinize and police the sciences for their activities; be it on the level of their conceptual work, drawing the correct inferences and conclusions from their findings; or be it on the meta-level, where scientists’ work is assessed as to its efficacy and moral permissibility. Nobody, especially not Husserl, would have said that this is the only or even main purpose of philosophy; but it is one task of philosophy next to others, and no unimportant one at that. It also conveys a sense of cooperation, solidarity and collaboration standing behind this ideal. Philosophy and science are not and should not be opposites, having no relation to one another — as, e.g., Heidegger and many philosophers in his following have claimed, without ever providing good reasons, as far as I can tell. Instead, philosophy needs to remain informed about the sciences’ progress and current level of research in order to have any meaningful and relevant role in contemporary debates. This is more important today than ever, if one thinks of debates, e.g., about the moral status of stem cell research and other “hot button topics” in the sciences that pervade politics. And the sciences need to be checked, scrutinized and criticized by the “experts for generalities,” which the philosophers are by definition since Western philosophy’s inception. Husserl is committed to this type of collaboration with the “applied” sciences. Phenomenology’s specific focus of foundationalist reflection is, to be sure, on the conceptual work, but more specifically on intuition and evidence as prime “methods” of scientific progress. Phenomenology can help scrutinize scientific insights and evidences as to their veracity, intuitability and intersubjective plausibility. And, it provides the ontological groundwork that supports and informs specific “regional ontologies” in addressing their conceptual issues, such as concept-formation and grounding foundational concepts (Grundbegriffe). Lastly, if one recalls Husserl’s analyses in the Crisis, genetic phenomenology gives an account of how science arises out of the pre-scientific life-world; moreover — given this history — it clarifies how ordinary (pre-scientific) agents and researchers belong together and even need each other in a democratic discourse that respects human nature and retains a sense of origin and destiny that is rationally “authenticatable” (ausweisbar). This is the connection between Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and the notorious topic of the life-world.
Philosophy and Science II: Phenomenology and Cognitive Science
A scientific field that has amassed fascinating results over the last decade and has, consequently, attracted lots of attention lately is cognitive science. While this discipline has arisen out of a positive science — neuroscience — it has become clear that this new and exciting field poses many challenges for traditional philosophy, that attempts to explain the workings of the mind. Several crucial questions arise out of this approach: Is the mind reducible to the brain and its neural structure? Is, hence, freedom an illusion? What do these new findings mean for a “science of the subject” Can we as philosophers seriously continue with the ideal of transcendental philosophy with the claim to a priori findings? Or will our thoughts on these matters forever be reduced to contingent claims about the human brain at a certain state of the evolutionary process? In short, what kinds of challenges does cognitive science pose for what has traditionally been called “psychology”? It is here that phenomenology, by definition a science of subjective lived-experience, has the potential to be of vital importance and can potentially be a partner in this ongoing research. This is witnessed by a whole new field of research that has vowed to “naturalize phenomenology” and has recently founded a journal dedicated to “Phenomenology and Cognitive Science.”
I do not want to comment on the prospect of “naturalizing” phenomenology, but I do think that it is in this scientific discipline that phenomenology must invest and watch closely what new findings are brought to bear on matters of the mind. It seems to me that it is here, more than in any other scientific discipline, that phenomenology’s results, methods and insights can be of methodological help for the science itself on the one hand, and where phenomenological themes and topics culled from reflection and introspection can be cashed out in scientific results, on the other. One must not forget that Husserl studied closely the experimental psychology of his day (through his teachers Wundt and others), and that many of his theorems are direct consequences of these experimental scientists. It is especially in Husserl’s early phenomenology, where he deals with topics such as perception, attention, where his analyses are oftentimes undistinguishable from scientific discussions. It is here that Husserl’s eye for detail and his keen insight into the workings of the mind — be it construed physically as brain or subjectivity on an eidetic level — are exemplary cases of “scientific” analysis. If there is one prime discipline that can aid the development of cognitive science and prevent it from falling into the pitfalls of reductionism, it is Husserl’s phenomenology. It remains to be seen how cognitive science will develop. Yet there is no doubt that the systematic progress it can achieve, both methodologically and in terms of factual results, and the extent to which it will be able to communicate with traditional philosophy will be at least in part owed to phenomenology.
Philosophy of Mind: Towards a Science of the 1st Person Perspective
It was Thomas Nagel’s influential The View from Nowhere that proposed a novel philosophical or, for that matter, scientific discipline, which should stand in opposition to the paradigm of modern science. This was not the first attempt at such a discipline; however, it was an original approach that surprised, especially coming from the tradition in which Nagel stood, namely Analytic philosophy. Modern science, he argued, stood under the assumption, or the ideal, of a truly objective science, a science, in other words, that increasingly eliminate the subjective, human standpoint in order to strive towards a “view from nowhere.” While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an approach, it leaves something missing. Hence, opposed to this ideal he proposed a science of the first person perspective. Only in this manner of consideration will one be able to ascertain “what it is like” to be a subject with a certain viewpoint on the world. This “novel” science of the subjective was greeted by phenomenologists and in general Continental philosophers almost with a sigh of relief, in the sense that traditional Analytic philosophy was finally making steps into the right direction. Indeed, such a science is, especially to Husserl scholars, nothing novel at all. It was precisely what Husserl had in mind all along: Husserlian phenomenology is a rigorous (eidetic) science of the first person perspective; it is decidedly a discipline that takes its starting point from this first person perspective and, while it strives for general results, never abandons this perspective.
It is in this sense that there has been a mutual approach between phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy of Mind. Indeed, the parallels and common themes are astonishing: be they intentionality, perception, or self-awareness, (3) topics, which were part of the traditional canon of Analytic Philosophy of Mind, but that had been dealt with by Husserl and his school at all times, if perhaps under different terms and methodological assumptions. As the editors of a recent volume on Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind assert, one can demonstrate “how work in phenomenology may lead to significant progress on problems central to current analytic research, and how analytical philosophy of mind may shed light on phenomenological concerns. … [T]hese different approaches to the mind should not stand in opposition to each other, but are mutually illuminating.” (4) It is, once more, this sense of collaboration which captures the true spirit of phenomenological philosophizing in the Husserlian heritage. Contrary to Husserl’s view, transcendental phenomenology ought not to have a primacy or play a foundational role in a quasi-Cartesian schema; instead, phenomenology (Husserlian or otherwise) and other methods are called upon to work together on the perpetual issues of the mind and enter the “rich bathos” of problems that can be accessed from different perspectives and with different methods. Phenomenology can offer, with confidence of its abilities and knowledge of its limits, one more voice in a field, which is devoted to what Husserl himself called the “enigma of all enigmas,” the mind and its manifold content. What is nowadays called “Philosophy of Mind” in the Analytic tradition is a continuation of transcendental philosophy in the Kantian tradition, before some Continental philosophers decided to “overcome” the latter. If phenomenology in its original sense of “method of the mind” manages to reassert and reinsert itself into these discussions — which it is destined to do if it adheres to the spirit of its founding father — and if contemporary Analytic philosophy continues to open itself to other traditions and other discourses, the way is paved for a most fruitful discussion and collaboration between philosophy of mind and the Husserlian tradition in the decades to come.
The Complete Husserl: Challenges for Scholarship in the Next Decades
Last not least, one should point to the unpublished and only recently published texts of Husserl, which pose a tremendous challenge for future scholars. It has been a tired trope in phenomenological circles to assert that since the important Husserliana volumes which appeared in the 50s and 60s — tomes that did indeed change scholars’ view significantly — nothing fundamentally new has emerged from the unpublished material. Nothing could be further from the truth. While it is true that some of the texts that appeared in the last two decades “merely” filled in anticipated gaps in rather detailed aspects of Husserl’s work, there have appeared new volumes and texts in the past decade that open up whole new horizons and spheres of phenomenology in the Husserlian style. While some long-lived prejudices about Husserl can easily be shunned at this point—Husserl the cognitivist, the detached theoretician — there are others that can be at least relativized and put in perspective; and, there arise some new images and faces of Husserlian philosophy, which have not been seen at all. Let me, in conclusion, mention some topics where I believe scholars are bound to find a great deal of novel inspiration for the future of phenomenology:
Ethics: Husserl’s ethics has been nearly ignored in scholarship. Just recently Husserl’s ethics lectures of the 1920s have appeared (Hua. 37). These later reflections on ethics are significantly different from those of the pre-war years (Hua. 28). These later thoughts stand in conjunction with questions concerning the state of culture and society in the interim period between both World Wars. While some of these reflections are known through Husserl’s articles written for the Japanese journal “The Kaizo” (published in Hua. 27), these lectures are yet much more detailed and also let us see how Husserl interpreted and criticized other ethical theories in the history of Western thought. Given that common opinion has it that phenomenology, as a purely “descriptive” discipline, has no relation to, or bearing on, moral issues possibly involving normativity, it is to be seen how Husserl imagined phenomenology contributing to moral philosophy. The entirety of Husserl’s thoughts on ethics needs to be assessed and has been studied in detail by only few scholars.
The Nature of the Mental: The first shape of a full-fledged phenomenology that Husserl envisioned was a full account of consciousness on all of its cognitive, volitional, affective etc. levels. Only a fraction of these analyses have appeared thus far. Husserl’s studies on perception, attention, passivity, mood (Gemüt) and willing still await publication and will provide us with a phenomenological account of consciousness as a whole in a breadth that has not nearly been achieved by other phenomenologists. Not only do they fill in many details on the nature of the mental in the Husserlian perspective; they will also yield many insights in areas where other philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists are currently working.
Transcendental Phenomenology and Idealism: It is still an open question in which sense exactly one can speak of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as transcendental idealism and how one has to construe this type of idealism vis-à-vis that of Descartes, Kant and other idealists (Fichte, Hegel). What kind of subject are we talking about that “constitutes” the world? Is it just a mental phenomenon or is it part of this subject to be necessarily embodied? And in what sense is the positing of a transcendental subject that is not part of the world a possibility (conceivability) or a factual necessity? It is these questions that Husserl ponders in his “proofs” for transcendental idealism in recently published texts in Hua. 20/1 and Hua. 36. Anybody interested in the specifically phenomenological sense of transcendental idealism and its similarities and differences to those of Kant and German Idealism will find a wide array of interesting texts dealing with these issues. As the question of philosophy as transcendental idealism is still an ongoing topic of discussion, e.g., in Kant scholarship, one can find fascinating convergences and overlaps concerning this “metaphysical” topic. And, the relation between “critical” and “phenomenological” philosophy is still a topic of interest for scholars on both sides of the spectrum.
The Character of the Life-World: Though Husserl has provided a sketch of an “ontology of the life-world” in the Crisis and other texts of his late philosophy, there has been much speculation of how this life-world phenomenology would actually be carried out in detail. Indeed, many of the texts that Husserl wrote on the issue of the life-world have thus far not been published and will be published shortly. These detailed texts, rather large in quantity, will fill in what is arguably one of the most famous aspects and themes of Husserl’s late thought.
Teleology and Theology: Phenomenology at the Limits. It is another trope that Husserl was so caught up in his own parameters and paradigms that he never questioned the very foundations and limits of his thought. This, too, is an unfortunate mistake, but again an understandable one, judging from the writings published during Husserl’s lifetime. Indeed, already as of the first decade of the 20th century, Husserl penned manuscripts that he himself considered “metaphysical” or “unphenomenological” in the common understanding of the word. These texts were later collected in a section of his Nachlass, entitled “Teleology, Theology and Phenomenological Metaphysics.” In these texts Husserl ponders questions at the limits of his phenomenology, probing these very limits. Here we see Husserl engaged in the kind of speculation that is known from, e.g., mysticism, neo-Platonism or German Idealism — no doubt with the intention of shoring up the impression that he only considered the “dry” issues in the context of his other analyses concerning intentional consciousness. Many of the issues that are being discussed, e.g., today in French phenomenology, as to the question and status of givenness itself and questions regarding other (spiritual) accesses to transcendental life, find their “Husserlian equivalent” here. Speculation was not introduced to phenomenology by, e.g., Fink, but already much earlier by Husserl himself. These texts, also still mostly unpublished, will show Husserl working beyond the limits of what he himself, as he once says to Cairns, found acceptable for public consumption.
Notes
(1) In this context, Landgrebe’s famous article on “Husserl’s Departure from Cartesianism” is an interesting piece, as an article that attempts to show how Husserl, just like Heidegger, said farewell to Cartesianism in his late phenomenology in the Crisis manuscript. This was an almost desperate attempt to relocate Husserl in the philosophical landscape after World War II and is to this day an important piece concerning the history of the effect of Husserl’s philosophy. It also did a lot of damage to the image of Husserl’s phenomenology, which remains to this day. For, Husserl was not a Cartesian in the way that Landgrebe portrayed him, nor did Husserl overcome his own paradigms in his late phase. That Husserl would move close to Heidegger in this last phase is a fatal misunderstanding.
(2) I leave aside highly interesting attempts at transcendental philosophies or theories of science, which have used Husserl’s model of foundationalism for their efforts. One philosopher-scientist who has attempted this was Hermann Weyl, and there was a significant amount of attention paid to these attempts in the early 20th century on the part of contemporary philosophers of science. Here I would like to mention the work of Michael Friedman and Thomas Ryckman.
(3) On the relation between Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, cf. the new volume, ed. by D. W. Smith and A. L. Thomasson (Clarendon: Oxford, 2005).
(4) Ibid., quoted from the back cover.