Contents

Preface

Introduction

Procedure and ObjectImmanent Critique

Mediating the FirstMathematicizaton

Concept of MethodPromoting the Subject

Persistence as TruthThe Elementary

The Regressive

Philosophy of Origins and Epistemology

System and DebitOpposing Forces in Epistemology

The Drive for SystemDoctrine of Antinomies

NominalismMotivation and Tendency of Ontology

Illusory Concretization and Formalism

New and Old

1 Critique of Logical Absolutism

Philosophy, Metaphysics and Science

Contradiction in Scientificization

Concept of IntuitionHusserl′s Scientism

Dialectic in Spite of ItselfA Head-Start for Science

′Realism′ in LogicThe Logical In-Itself

Presupposition of Logical Absolutism

Essence and Development (Entfaltung)

Calculators, Logic and Mechanics

Reification of LogicThe Logical ′Object′

Autosemantic and Synsemantic Expressions

Logical Laws and Laws of Thought

Aporia of Logical Absolutism

Relating Genesis and ValidityGenesis and Psychology

Thinking and Psychologism

The Law of Non-ContradictionThe Law of Identity

ContingencyAbandoning the Empirical

Phenomenological and Eidetic Motifs

2 Species and Intention

Propositions in Themselves and Essences

Lived Experience (Erlebnis) and ′Sense′

Critique of Singular ′Senses′

Origin of Essential Insight (Wesensschau)

′Ideational Abstraction′Abstraction and τόδε τί

The Primacy of Meaning Analysis (Bedeutungsanalyse)

The Function of the NoemaNoema and εΐδος

Relation Between the Two ReductionsNoema as Hybrid

Essence and ′Factual States of Consciousness′

Antinomy of Subjectivism and Eidetics

′Eidetic Variations′Essence as Fiction

3 Epistemological Concepts in Dialectic

Phenomenology as Epistemology

Positivism and PlatonismHusserl′s Concept of

Givenness′Foundation′ (Fundierung)

Ontologization of the Factical

Thing as Model of the Given

Givenness Mediated in ItselfThe Subject of Givenness

Paradoxia of Pure Intuition

Matter as FulfilmentSensation and Perception

Antinomy of the Doctrine of Perception

Sensation and Materialism

Epistemology as Elementary Analysis′Gestalt′

Intentionality and ConstitutionEnter Noesis and Noema

The Forgotten SynthesisCritique of Correlation Theory

Pure Identity and Noematic Core

The Primacy of Objectifying Acts

Thing as Clue (Leitfaden)Antinomy of the Noema

Critique Dismissed

Antagonism to System

Husserl′s Transition to Transcendental Idealism

Fragility of the System

4 Essence and Pure Ego

Husserl and his SuccessorsPhenomenology

Attempts to Break OutSelf-Revocation

Character of Immanence and the Fetishism of the Concept

′Attitude′ (Einstellung)Fantasy and Body

Categorial IntuitionThe Paradoxical Apex

The Provenance of Logical Absolutism

Fulfilment of Unsensed Moments

′Becoming Aware′ (Gewahrwerdung)

Motivation of Objectivism

Withering Away of Argument

Phenomenology as Philosophy of Reflection

The System in Ruins

Advanced and Restorative Elements

Natural History Museum AbstractIdeal of Security

Infinitization of the TemporalOrigin of the εἶδος Ego

Consciousness, Pure Essence, Time

Transcendental Ego and FacticityEquivocation of ′I′

SolipsismThe Aporia of Transcendental Experience

The End of Idealism

Translator′s Note

Bibliographical Note

German–English Lexicon

Index

For Max

Preface

Portions of an extensive manuscript produced in Oxford during my first years of emigration, 1934–37, have been selected and reworked. For I felt their scope and significance kept them above simple academic dispute. Without sacrificing contact with the subject matter and thus the obligation to argue effectively against a method designed to forego the need for argument, the question I shall broach – by means of a concrete model – is the possibility and truth of epistemology in principle. Husserl′s philosophy is the occasion and not the point of this book. Thus it is not to be presented as a completed whole and then subject to some sort of comparison. As is appropriate for a thought which does not submit to the idea of a system, I seek to organize what is thought around its focal points. The result was a discontinuous and yet most closely connected, mutually supporting set of individual studies. Overlapping was unavoidable.

This book inclines toward substantive philosophy. The critique of Husserl aims across his work at the tendency, which was of such emphatic concern to him and which he felt German philosophizing appropriated much more fundamentally than is currently admitted. The book is, nevertheless, not systematic in the sense of the traditional contrast to history. If it challenges the very concept of system, it also seeks to grasp an historical core inside the substantive question. For the historical/systematic distinction also falls under the critique of this book.

Nowhere do I pretend it is philological or hermeneutic. Secondary literature is ignored. A number of Husserl′s own texts, especially in the second volume of the Logical Investigations, are a densely complex thicket and certainly even ambiguous. Should my interpretation occasionally be in error, I would be the last to defend it. On the other hand, I could not respect programmatic declarations, and had to abide by what the texts themselves appeared to me to say. Thus I did not allow myself to be intimidated by Husserl′s assurance that pure phenomenology is not epistemology, and that the region of pure consciousness has nothing to do with the concept of the structure of the given in the immanence of consciousness (Bewuβtseinsimmanenz) as it was known to pre-Husserlian criticism. How exactly Husserl distinguishes himself from this criticism is just as much a matter of discussion as whether that distinction is binding or not.

My analysis is confined to what Husserl himself published, with preference for the authentic phenomenological writing – on which the restoration of ontology was based – over the later works, in which Husserl′s phenomenology betrayed itself and reverted into a subtly modified neo-Kantianism. Yet, since the revision of pure phenomenology came not from the convictions of its creator, but was rather imposed by its object, I thus felt free to turn to the Formal and Transcendental Logic and the Cartesian Meditations, whenever the drift of the discussion demanded it. All the pre-phenomenological writings have been ignored, in particular the Philosophy of Arithmetic, as well as the posthumous publications. Comprehensiveness was never my aim. The analyses Husserl actually carried through and to which he himself devoted his energy provoked my attention more than the total edifice.

Yet my intention was certainly not the mere critique of details. Instead of disputing individual epistemological issues, micrological procedure should stringently demonstrate how such questions surpass themselves and indeed their entire sphere. The themes which compose such a movement are summarized in the Introduction. The four studies alone, however, are responsible for the cogency of what I have developed.

Three of the chapters have appeared in Archiv für Philosophie. Chapter 4 was published separately as early as 1938 under the title ′Zur Philosophie Husserls′ (Band 3, Heft 4). Chapters 1 and 2 came out in 1953 (Band 5, Heft 2 and Band 6, Heft 1/2). The final chapter in particular has been thoroughly revised since its first appearance.

Frankfurt

Easter 1956