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B.

THE WAY INTO PHENOMENOLOGICAL TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY FROM PSYCHOLOGY

 

§ 56. Characterization of the philosophical development after Kant from the perspective of the struggle between physicalistic objectivism and the constantly reemerging "transcendental motif."

 

IN THE COURSE Of its development philosophy encoun­ters theoretical situations in which momentous decisions have to be made, situations in which philosophers must reconsider, must place in question, and possibly redefine the whole sense of the purpose of their project and must accordingly resolve to under­take a radical change of method. The authors of the theoretical ideas that create these situations occupy, in the history of philos­ophy, a quite distinguished place. They are the representatives of developments which have a unified meaning because of their work, because of the new universal objectives outlined in their developed theories. Every great philosopher continues to have his effect in all subsequent historical periods; he exerts an influ­ence. But not every one contributes a motif which gives unity to a historical sequence and possibly concludes one line of develop­ment, a motif which works as a driving force and sets a task that must be fulfilled, such that its fulfillment brings to an end [this particular] historical period of development. Those who have

 

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become significant for us as representatives of the philosophy of the modern period are Descartes, who marks a turning point in respect to all previous philosophy; Hume (in all justice Berkeley should actually also be mentioned); and ‑- aroused by Hume -- ­Kant, who in turn determines the line of development of the German transcendental philosophies. (We see, by the way, that the creators of the greatest, most intellectually massive systems do not as such belong in this series; no one would equate Hume and Berkeley in this respect with Kant or, among later philoso­phers, with Hegel.)

In the first series of lectures1 we carried out a deeper analy­sis of the motifs of Cartesian philosophizing which continue to determine the whole modern development: on the one hand, those motifs which announce themselves in his first Meditations and, on the other hand, those which stand in internal contrast with these, i.e., the physicalistic (or mathematizing) idea of philosophy according to which the world in its full concreteness bears within itself an objectively true being in the form of the ordo geometricus and according to which, as interwoven with this (and this must be especially emphasized here), the meta­physical "in‑itself" ascribed to the world involves a dualistic world of bodies and spirits. This was characteristic of the philos­ophy of objectivistic rationalism in the Enlightenment. Then we attempted the analysis of the Hume‑Kant situation, and in the end we could elucidate it only by penetrating into its presupposi­tions and by proceeding from there to pose questions of our own, alien to the period itself, and by making clear to ourselves in a preliminary sketch, through a systematic process of thinking, the style of a truly scientific transcendental philosophy‑"truly scientific" in the sense that it works up from the bottom in self‑evident single steps and is thus in truth ultimately grounded and ultimately grounding. We attempted thereby to awaken the full insight that only such a philosophy, through such a regres­sive inquiry back to the last conceivable ground [Grund] in the transcendental ego, can fulfill the meaning which is inborn in philosophy from its primal establishment. Thus transcendental

 

1. I.e., Part II. It may seem strange that Husserl should continue to refer to the Crisis as a series of lectures. Comparison with the origi­nal lecture shows that this is not a matter of fragments inadvertently left over from Prague. But recall that the Cartesian Meditations, which even in the published French edition was expanded far beyond the scope of the original lectures, retained the references to the talks at the Sorbonne.

 

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philosophy in its first immature forms in the English and in Kant, even though these philosophers hardly accomplished a serious scientific grounding, and even though Hume withdrew into an unhealthy academic skepticism, does not, on the whole, represent a wrong path, nor "one" among other possible paths at all, but the one path of the future which the development of philosophy absolutely had to take in order to penetrate to the fulfilled methodical form through which alone it could be truly scientific, a philosophy working in the actual self‑understanding of the sense of its task, in the spirit of finality, working with an apodictic self‑evidence of its ground, its goals, its methods. This fulfilled form could enter into historical actuality only as the result of the most radical self‑reflections, in the form of a first beginning, a first attainment of the clarified task, of the apodictic ground and the method of access to it, a first beginning of an actual setting‑to‑work, the work of inquiring into the things themselves. As phenomenological transcendental philosophy (but exclusively in the sense prescribed here), this has become a truly living beginning. I may go so far as to say that from now on not only modern physicalistic naturalism but every objectivistic philosophy, whether of earlier or of future times, must be char­acterized as "transcendental naïveté."

Still, with this our task is not [yet] fulfilled. We ourselves, and the ideas we necessarily had to construct in order to evoke a genuine resonance from the ideas of the past, i.e., so that their directedness, as seminal forms toward a final form, would be­come evident‑we ourselves, I say, also belong to the same unity of history. Thus we also have the task of meaningfully explicat­ing the developments of philosophy up to our time and in our present situation. Precisely this is indicated, as we shall soon understand, by the mention of psychology in the title of these lectures.2 The completion of our task does not require a detailed investigation of the many philosophies and particular currents of the subsequent period. Only a general characterization is needed, and this will proceed from the understanding we have attained of the history which has preceded us.

Philosophical objectivism of the modern sort, with its physi­calistic tendency and its psychophysical dualism, does not die out; that is, many feel quite comfortable here in their "dogmatic slumbers." On the other side, those who have been aroused from

 

2. Again, a reference to the original title of the Prague lecture series: "The Crisis of European Sciences and Psychology."

 

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them have been first aroused primarily by Kant. Here, then, originates the current of German transcendental idealisms, pro­ceeding from Kant's transcendental philosophy. The great momentum which earlier, from Descartes on, had animated ob­jectivistic philosophy sustains itself in them and is even renewed with a special force in the new form of the transcendental approach to the world. To be sure, even German Idealism was not fated to endure, in spite of the overwhelming impression temporarily made by the Hegelian system, which seemed to promise its total dominance for all time. The swelling reaction which rapidly took effect soon assumed the sense of a reaction against any sort of transcendental philosophy in this style; and although the style did not completely die out, the subsequent attempts at such philosophizing lost their original force and the vitality of their development.

As for the momentum of objectivistic philosophy, in a cer­tain way it sustained itself as the momentum in the development of the positive sciences. But examined more closely, this is any­thing but a philosophical momentum. Recall the transformation of meaning these sciences, along with their development as special disciplines, had undergone, through which they finally completely lost the important sense which was alive in them earlier of being branches of philosophy. We have already spoken of this, but for the clarification of the situation which arose in the nineteenth century it is very important to go into it‑here in somewhat more detail. What had been sciences in that other sense, the only genuine one, had turned unnoticed into remarka­ble new arts, to be entered in the list of the other arts of higher and lower dignity on the scale, such as the fine arts, architec­ture, and also the arts at lower levels. They could be taught and learned in their institutes, their seminars, in collections of mod­els, in museums. One could display skill, talent, even genius in them -‑ for example, in the art of inventing new formulae, new exact theories, in order to predict the course of natural phenom­ena, in order to make inductions of a scope which would have been unthinkable in earlier times; or, also, in the art of interpret­ing historical documents, grammatically analyzing languages, constructing historical interconnections, etc. On all sides we find great trail‑blazing geniuses who gain the highest admiration of their fellow men and abundantly deserve it. But art is not sci­ence, whose origin and intention, which can never be sacrificed, is to attain, through a clarification of the ultimate sources of meaning, a knowledge of what actually is and thus to understand

 

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it in its ultimate sense. Radically presuppositionless and ultimately grounded science, or philosophy -‑ this is simply an­other expression for the same thing. Of course, this art of theory3 has the peculiar property that, since it has developed out of philosophy (though out of an imperfect one), it has a mean­ing belonging to all its artful products, a meaning which comes from that philosophy but is concealed, such that it cannot be elicited by inquiring into mere methodical technique and its history but can be aroused only by the true philosopher and can be unfolded in its genuine depths only by the transcendental philosopher. Thus there is actually scientific knowledge con­cealed within the art of theory, but access to it is difficult.

We have already spoken of this in our systematic discus­sions; we have shown what is necessary in order to attain knowl­edge ultimately grounded and have shown that the like can be attained only in the universal framework, never as a naïve "spe­cial science" and certainly not with the prejudice of modern objectivism. The much lamented specialization [in the sciences] is not in itself a lack, since it is a necessity within universal philosophy, just as the development of an artlike method is necessary in every special discipline. What certainly is porten­tous, however, is the separation of the art of theory from philoso­phy. However, though the specialized scholars dropped out, there remained among them and alongside them philosophers who continued to treat the positive sciences as branches of philoso­phy; thus the statement is still valid that objectivistic philosophy did not die out after Hume and Kant. Alongside this runs the line of development of transcendental philosophies, and not only those derived from Kant. For there must be added to this a series of transcendental philosophers who owe their motivation to a continuation, or in the case of Germany a revival, of the influence of Hume. In England J. S. Mill is especially to be men­tioned, who in the period of great reaction against the system­philosophies of German Idealism exercised a strong influence in Germany itself. But in Germany there arose much more seri­ously intended attempts at a transcendental philosophy basically determined by English empiricism (Schuppe, Avenarius ), though their supposed radicalism falls far short of the genuine kind which alone can help. The renewal of positivistic empiri­cism is closely allied, though this is unnoticed, with the revivals of earlier and especially transcendental philosophies due to the

 

3. die theoretische Kunst, the art of making theories, as above.

 

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growing urgency of transcendental motifs. By going back to these philosophies and critically overhauling them along lines prescribed by positivistic motifs, some hoped to arrive again at a philosophy of their own. Like Hume and Berkeley, Kant too is revived‑a multicolored Kant, through the multiplicity of at­tempted interpretations and the reconstructions of neo‑Kantian­ism. Kant is reinterpreted even in empiricist fashion, as the historical traditions are mixed and interwoven, creating for all scientists a quasiphilosophical atmosphere involving a widely discussed but by no means deeply or autonomously conceived "theory of knowledge." Alongside Kant, particularly, all the other idealists have had their renaissance; even a neo‑Friesianism has been able to appear as a school. Everywhere, when we also take into account the rapid growth of bourgeois education, erudition, and literature in the nineteenth century, we observe that the confusion was becoming unbearable. More and more a skeptical mood spread which crippled from the inside the philosophical energy even of those who held fast to the idea of a scientific philosophy. The history of philosophy is substituted for philoso­phy, or philosophy becomes a personal world‑view, and finally some even try to make out of a necessity a virtue: philosophy can exercise no other function at all for humanity than that of outlining a world‑picture appropriate to one's individuality, as the summation of one's personal education.

Although the genuine though never radically clarified idea of philosophy has by no means been completely sacrificed, the multiplicity of philosophies, which can hardly be comprehended any more, nevertheless has the result that it is no longer divided into scientific directions, such that they could still seriously work together, carry on a scientific dialogue through criticism and countercriticism, and still guide the common idea of one science toward the path of realization, in the manner of the directions within modern biology or mathematics and physics; rather, they are contrasted as societies of aesthetic style, so to speak, analo­gous to the "directions" and "currents" in the fine arts. Indeed, in the splintering of philosophies and their literature, is it still possible at all to study them seriously as works of one science, to make use of them critically and to uphold the unity of the work done? The philosophies have their effects. But must one not honestly say that they have their effects as impressions, that they "inspire," that they move the feelings like poems, that they arouse vague "intimations"? But is this not done in a similar fashion (sometimes in a nobler style but even here, unfortunately,

 

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all too often in one of a rather different kind) by the many literary products of the day? We may credit the philoso­phers with the noblest intentions, we may even be firmly con­vinced of the teleological sense of history and accord even to their constructs a significance -‑ but is it the significance that was historically entrusted to philosophy, given to it as a task? When one withdraws into this kind of philosophizing, has not something else, something of the highest value and necessity, been sacrificed? Even what we have already dealt with by way of criticism and the exhibiting of self‑evidence gives us the right to ask this question, not as a question of romantic moods -‑ since our aim is to turn all romanticism into responsible work ‑- but as a question of the scientific conscience that calls to us in univer­sal and radical reflection, which, when carried out with the greatest self‑responsibility, must itself become the actual and highest truth.

After what was set forth in the first series of lectures, we hardly need to say what the [above] factual situation had to mean for the existential plight of European humanity, which sought ‑- as the result of the Renaissance, determining the whole meaning of the modern period ‑- to create the universal science as the instrument for giving itself a new rootedness and for transforming itself into a humanity based on pure reason. But our duty here is to make understandable the obvious failure of the great intention to realize gradually the idea of a philosophia perennis, a true and genuine universal science ultimately grounded. At the same time we have to justify our boldness in still daring to give a favorable prognosis (now and for our time) ‑- as can be foreseen in our systematic‑critical presentations -- ­for the future development of a philosophy conceived as a sci­ence. The rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment is now out of the question; we can no longer follow its great philosophers or any other philosophers of the past. But their intention, seen in its most general sense, must never die out in us. For, as I emphasize once again, true and genuine philosophy or science and true and genuine rationalism are one. Realizing this ration­alism, rather than the rationalism of the Enlightenment, which is laden with hidden absurdity, remains our own task if we are not to let specialized science, science lowered to the status of art or tšcnh or the fashionable degenerations of philosophy into irrationalistic busy‑work be substituted for the inextinguishable idea of philosophy as the ultimately grounding and universal science.