Crisis and Reflection: An Essay on Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences

251 Pages·2005·1.306 MB·English

by  James Dodd (auth.)

CRISIS AND REFLECTION
PHAENOMENOLOGICA
SERIES FOUNDED BY H.L. VAN BREDA AND PUBLISHED
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HUSSERL-ARCHIVES
174
JAMES DODD
CRISIS AND REFLECTION
An Essay on Husserl’s
Crisis of the European Sciences
Editorial Board:
Director: R. Bernet (Husserl-Archief, Leuven) Secretary: J. Taminiaux (Centre
d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-Neuve) Members:S. IJsseling (Husserl-
Archief, Leuven), H. Leonardy (Centre d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-
Neuve), D. Lories (Centre d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-Neuve),
U. Melle (Husserl-Archief, Leuven)
Advisory Board:
R. Bernasconi (Memphis State University), D. Carr (Emory University, Atlanta),
E.S. Casey (State University of New York at Stony Brook), R. Cobb-Stevens
(Boston College), J.F. Courtine (Archives-Husserl, Paris), F. Dastur (Université de
Nice), K. Düsing (Husserl-Archiv, Köln), J. Hart (Indiana University, Bloomington),
K. Held (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), K.E. Kaehler (Husserl-Archiv, Köln),
D. Lohmar (Husserl-Archiv, Köln), W.R. McKenna (Miami University, Oxford,
USA), J.N.Mohanty (Temple University, Philadelphia), E.W. Orth (Universität Trier),
P. Ricœur (Paris), C. Sini (Università degli Studi di Milano), R. Sokolowski (Catholic
University of America, Washington D.C.), B. Waldenfels (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum)
JAMES DODD
Graduate Faculty, New School University
CRISIS AND REFLECTION
An Essay on Husserl’s
Crisis of the European Sciences
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Table of Contents
Abbreviations of Husserl’s works vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Science and Reflection1
Reflection as Besinnung 1
The claim of science 5
Critique and Besinnung 7
The “grip” of meaning 11
Life and world 14
The theme of history 21
Chapter One: The Concept of Crisis (Crisis §§1-7)
Is there a crisis? 27
“Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohltat Plage” 39
A brief history of the concept of crisis 44
Two readings 46
Chapter Two: The Manifold Sense of Foundation (Crisis §15)
Establishment and Sedimentation 61
Ur-Stiftung,Nach-Stiftung,End-Stiftung 72
Chapter Three: Galileo and Modern Science (Crisis §§8-10)
The history of “obviousness” (Selbstverständlichkeit) 79
What Galileo took for granted 87
The strange new idea of nature 91
Technique and induction 98
Galileo’s “fateful omission” 102
Chapter Four: The Origin of Geometry
The indifference of ideality and language 109
Tradition and the problem of the “first acquisition” 120
The primacy of the I and the proto-community of geometers 125
v
vi Table of Contents
Writing and the “seduction of language” 130
The problem of the reactivation of origins 133
The origin of philosophy 140
Chapter Five: The Problem of the Lifeworld (Crisis §§28-34)
The givenness of the world 149
The question of the world 154
Modality, problematicity, apriori 156
The subjectivity of the world 163
Chapter Six: The Phenomenological Reduction (Crisis §§ 35-55)
Epoche, conversion, and still-life 175
Reduction as phenomenalization 188
Difficulties 194
The paradox of subjectivity 197
Conclusion
Summary of the interpretation 207
Some questions: Besinnung, Einströmen, and Innerlichkeit 216
References 225
Index 233
Abbreviations of Husserl’s Works
Published Works
With the exception of Erfahrung und Urteil, all citations from Husserl’s
published works are from Husserliana, and are given in the form: Hua +
volume + page:line. Current English translations of Husserl’s works have
been cited from, whenever possible (see Bibliography for translations
used). If the work is unavailable in translation, I have provided translations
when the quote appears in the main body of the text. If the text is cited in
the original language edition alone, the translation is my own. The follow-
ing abbreviations of Husserl’s works have been employed:
EU Erfahrung und Urteil
EJ Experience and Judgment
Hua III,1 Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und
phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch
Ideas I Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenome-
nological Philosophy. First Book
Hua IV Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und
phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch
Ideas II Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenome-
nological Philosophy. Second Book
Hua VI Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und
transzendentale Phänomenologie
Crisis The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phe-
nomenology
Hua VII Erste Philosophie (1923-1924). Erster Teil: Kritische
Ideengeschichte
Hua VIII Erste Philosophie (1923-1924) Zweiter Teil: Theorie der
phänomenologischen Reduktion
Hua X Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893-
1917)
vii
viii Abbreviations of Husserl’s Works
ITC On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal
Time (1893-1917)
Hua XI Analysen zur passiven Synthesis
Hua XVII Formale und transzendentale Logik
FTL Formal and Transcendental Logic
Hua XVIII Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur
reinen Logik
LU,1 Logical Investigations. Volume One
Hua XIX,1/2 Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Teil I/II
LU,2 Logical Investigations. Volume Two
Hua XXVII Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922-1937)
Hua XXIX Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften.
Ergänzungsband
Hua XXXI Aktive Synthesen. Ergänzungsband zu “Analysen zur
passiven Synthesis”
Unpublished Manuscripts
The following manuscripts are cited in accordance with the index used at
the Husserl-Archiv in Cologne and the Husserl-Archief in Leuven. Page
numbers refer to the original manuscript.
C 3 III (March 1931) “…—Strukturen der lebendigen Gegenwart: passive
Association, Aktstruktur, Wachheit und Unwachheit, Aktmodi […]
Ständigkeit der Konstitution, Sedimentierung und Weckung; Schichten
und Stufen der Zeitigung”
C 6 (August 1930) “Erster Anfang eines methodischen Abbaus der ur-
phänomenalen Gegenwart …”
C 16 I (Ende 1931) “Fundamentalanalyse der lebendigen Gegenwart nach
der Aktstruktur; das Wache (Patente) und Latente (Unbewusste); die
Aktmodi; auch Schlaf und die Synthesis der Wachperioden etc.”
D 1 (1932) “Allgemeines über Theorie der Erfahrung vom ‘Realen’”
D 5 (1917 or 1918) “Zeit.—Dekungssynthesen (Übereinstimmigkeitssyn-
thesen), passiv, und ihre Korrelate.—Zeitmodi und Urteilsmodi.—Glaube
(belief). […]”
D 8 (1918—Bernau) “Individuation, das ‘Tode-ti’”
D 14 (1931-1933) “Wachheit, Schlaf, Unbewusstes”
Acknowledgements
There are a number of persons and institutions I wish to thank for
supporting, and inspiring, my research. The first are my teachers: Erazim
Kohák, whose courses at Boston University when I was an undergraduate
steered me in the direction of serious philosophical research in
phenomenology; and Krzysztof Michalski, whose graduate seminars on
Husserl and Heidegger were of decisive importance to my understanding of
phenomenological philosophy. I also wish to extend my gratitude to Klaus
Brinkmann and Daniel Dahlstrom, both at Boston University, who have
been generous supporters of my work.
The main lines of this interpretation of the Crisis were developed
in a graduate seminar I taught for the Political Science Department at
Boston College in 1999, which was supported by a fellowship from the
Olin Foundation. Further research was pursued in 2000 at the Husserl
Archives in Cologne, Germany, which was supported by the Alexander
von Humboldt Foundation. I wish in particular to thank Dieter Lohmar for
his help in finding my way around Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts, and
Klaus Düsing for his sponsorship of my Humboldt fellowship. During the
preparation of the final draft, I benefited greatly from the opportunity to
teach a lecture course at the Graduate Faculty, New School University, on
Husserl’s Crisis.
But above all, I owe great deal to a long series of philosophical
conversations that I have had with Nicolas DeWarren over the past fifteen
years; there is very little here that did not find its first formulation, and
inspiration, in those discussions.
ix
Introduction
Science and Reflection
What is the value of form in life, the life-creating,
life-enhancing value of form? A gesture is nothing
more than a movement which clearly expresses
something unambiguous. Form is the only way of
expressing the absolute in life; a gesture is the only
thing which is perfect within itself, the only reality
which is more than mere possibility. The gesture
alone expresses life: but is it possible to express
life?
—Lukács, Soul and Form
Reflection as Besinnung
What is the purpose of Edmund Husserl’s last work, the Crisis of
the European Sciences, and what makes it stand apart from his other texts?
On one level, its purpose is the same as all of Husserl’s other published
works since 1913: to provide an introduction to phenomenology. Neverthe-
less, the Crisis is unique among these works, for its approach, for the first
time, is historical, though in a special sense: the sections devoted to the
history of philosophy are not merely an historical prelude, but represent a
reflection on phenomenology itself, on its status as philosophy. History
serves the purpose in these pages of opening the way for a critical introduc-
tion to phenomenology, and its elaboration takes the place of a straightfor-
ward elucidation of concepts and theories. The insight is that there is some-
thing about phenomenology that can be understood best through a critical-
historical reflection. Yet the status of a critical introduction, even one that
makes use of historical reflections, is something the Crisis shares with
other works of Husserl,1 including the first volume of the Ideas. Nor does
the cautious, preparatory character of the Crisis set it apart: one could ar-
gue that an introduction to phenomenology was for Husserl always at the
same time an introduction of oneself into philosophy, which means actu-
1