Husserl (Arguments of the Philosophers)

282 Pages·2008·17.61 MB·English

by  David Bell

HUSSERL
The Arguments of
the Philosophers
EDITOR: TED HONDERICH
The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and
history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book
constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher
of major influence and significance.
Plato J. C. B. Gosling
Augustine Christopher Kirwan
?“he Presocrutic PhilosopberJ Jonathan Barnes
Plotinus Lloyd P Gerson
TheScepticJ R. J. Hankinson
&water Gerasimos Xenophon Santas
Berkeley George Pitcher
Descartes Margaret Dauler Wilson
Ho&bar Tom Sore11
Locke Michael Ayers
Spinoza R. J. Delahunty
Bentham Ross Harrison
Hume Barry Stroud
Butler Terence Penelhum
John Stuart Mill John Skorupski
Thomas Reid Keith Lehrer
Kant Ralph C. S. Walker
Hegel M. J. Inwood
Schopenhauer D. W. Hamlyn
Kierkegaurd Alastair Hannay
~ietZJCbe Richard Schacht
l&-l Marx Allen W. Wood
Gottiob Frege Hans D. Sluga
Meinong Reinhardt Grossmann
HUJW~ David Bell
G. E. Moore Thomas Baldwin
Wittgenstein Robert J. Fogelin
RuJJd Mark Sainsbury
William James Graham Bird
Peirce Christopher Hookway
Santayana Timothy L. S. Sprigge
Dewey J. E. Tiles
Bergson A. R. Lacey
J. L. Austin G. J. Warnock
Karl Popper Anthony O’Hear
Ayer John Foster
Sartre Peter Caws
HUSSERL
The Argzlments of he Philosophers
David Bell
London and New York
First published 1990 by Routledge
First published in paperback 1992
Reprinted 1995
This edition reprinted in hardback 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Rot&edge ir an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Grorrp
0 1990 David Bell
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd,
Chippenham, Wiltshire
All rights reserved.N o part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilited in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Catalogtting in Pttbhcation Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congtw Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN O-4 15-20376-7
ISBN O-4 15-20392-9 (set)
Publisher’s note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original book may be apparent.
For Diane, Alex, and Madeleine

Contents
Preface ix
. . .
Abbreviations and References XIII
Acknowledgements xv
PROLEGOMENON: BRENTANO’S LEGACY 3
Introduction 3
Philosophy and psychology 4
Phenomena, mental and physical .7
Zntentionality, primary and secondary 9
Presentations 12
Judgements 13
The analysis of phenomena 17
Self-evidence, self-knowledge, and self-perception 23
PART I NATURALISM 29
I The Philosophy of Arithmetic 31
Introduction 31
Powers of the mind 36
Authentic presentations of number 46
Symbolic presentations of number 53
The nature of numbers 59
Grounds for dissatisfaction 80
II Logical Investigations 85
Introduction 85
The nature of logic 87
Formal ontology 93
vii
CONTENTS
Meanings as objects 101
Categorial intuition 107
Meanings and intentionality 114
Meanings and language 125
Fulfilment and objectivity: experiencing the truth 142
PART II TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM 151
III Solipsistic Idealism 153
Introduction 153
From ‘naturalism’ to ‘rigorous science’ 157
The transcendental reduction: preliminaries 161
The transcendental reduction and subjectivity 163
Transcendental being 168
Structures ,oj consciousness 172
The transcendental reduction and meaning 184
Horizons and essences 188
IV The Indivdual and The Lebenswelt 198
Introduction 198
Harmony and the exploding noema 198
Disembodied egos 203
Conscious bodies 207
Subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and the world 215
Notes 233
Bibliography 252
Index 264
. . .
vu1
Preface
My original intention was to write a short, introductory, critical con-
spectus of Husserl’s philosophical thought as a whole. I still indeed hope
that something of this aim has been realized in what follows; but there
have been many readjustments and compromises on the way. The desire
to be brief, for example, was impossible to reconcile fully with the desire
to be comprehensive; and likewise I found it difficult to be simul-
taneously both introductory and critical, without, that is, becoming
unacceptably dogmatic in the process.
This book is introductory in the specific sense that it presupposes no
acquaintance whatsoever with Husserl’s philosophy on the part of the
reader, but instead aims to provide an account of the content, the context,
and the development of his thought - an account which, it is hoped, may
then itself form the basis for such an acquaintance. The book is not,
however, ‘introductory’ in any sense which implies that it is elementary,
or which presupposes no acquaintance with non-Husserlian philo-
sophical problems, doctrines, concepts, methods, and terminology. And
in this connection I am particularly aware that I have on a number of
occasions invoked or alluded to the ideas of other philosophers - Kant,
Frege, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein, for example - in ways that will
not, perhaps, be perspicuous to those not already familiar with them,
and, moreover, in ways that are often regrettably dogmatic, in that they
assume without defence a possibly problematic or idiosyncratic interpret-
ation of those ideas. In extenuation I can only plead the desirability of
keeping the final size - and, indeed, price - of the book within reasonable
bounds.
The need for brevity has not, however, prevented me from including a
prolegomenon whose subject matter is the early philosophy of Franz
Brentano - and a word needs to be said here in justification of this
apparent digression. Brentano stands to Husserl in very much the same
relation in which, say, Frege stands to Wittgenstein: one can no more
ix
PREFACE
hope to gain a sympathetic understanding of Wittgenstein’s pre-
suppositions, preoccupations, and procedures in ignorance of his inheri-
tance from Frege than one can hope to gain an understanding of Husserl’s
in ignorance of his inheritance from Brentano. And in both cases the
reason is the same: neither Wittgenstein nor Husserl enjoyed a widely-
based, formal education or training in philosophy; on the contrary, their
respective philosophical outlooks were initially formulated in the context
of, and in response to, an extremely narrow set of philosophical concerns
- the concerns, predominantly, of a single philosopher. Husserl’s early
philosophy is Brentanian through and through (though this is not of
course to deny the influence of others on him - Bolzano, Lotze, Stumpf,
Kant, and Frege, amongst others). Nevertheless, the mere fact of Husserl’s
indebtedness to Brentano, however great, would of itself be insufficient
to warrant the inclusion of a lengthy section devoted exclusively to a
consideration of the latter’s philosophy. Rather, that section is there
because without it a large number of Husserlian doctrines, methods, and
assumptions would remain at best arbitrary and unjustified, and at worst
inaccessible. For Husserl himself writes, especially in his early works, as
if for a reader already familiar with what is meant by such Brentanian terms
as, say, ‘psychology’, ‘mental’, ‘physical’, ‘presentation’, ‘intuition’,
‘evidence’, ‘aggregate’, ‘moment’, ‘thing’, ‘intention’, ‘inexistence’, ‘real’,
and ‘phenomenon’. What these terms of art mean is, however, very far
from obvious, and familiarity with them, and with the doctrines that they
are used to articulate, can hardly be presupposed on the part of present-day
readers of Husserl’s works. The prolegomenon, it is hoped, will go some
way towards filling this lacuna.
There is a great deal in Husserl’s thought which I find objectionable. I-
have not always made this disagreement explicit, however, and at a
number of points I have consciously refrained from all critical comment,
no matter how inadequate the ideas under discussion might seem to be.
One reason for this omission is that Husserl himself is in many ways his
own best critic: his philosophical development is characterized by a
number of phases, each of which, with the exception of the first, is
motivated by the need to overcome the perceived shortcomings and
weaknesses of the one preceding it. It is often unnecessary, therefore, to
indicate the ways in which a given doctrine or method is objectionable, or
how it might be strengthened; for in his subsequent work Husserl very
often does just this himself. I should stress, however, that in what follows
absence of explicit critical comment on a particular point only rarely
signifies acceptance of, or agreement with it.
My original intention to write a short work covering Husserl’s
philosophical thought as a whole was an early casualty. It simply proved
impossible to deal adequately with every strand - even every major strand
- of that thought. Two omissions are massive enough to demand mention
X