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Husserl's Conception of Experiential Justification: What It Is and Why It

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Husserl's Conception of Experiential Justification: What It Is and Why It Husserl Stud https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-018-9225-8 Husserl’s Conception of Experiential Justification: What It Is and Why It Matters Philipp Berghofer1 Ó The Author(s) 2018. This article is an open access publication Abstract The aim of this paper is twofold. The first is an interpretative one as I wish to provide a detailed account of Husserl’s conception of experiential justifi- cation. Here Ideas I and Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge: Lectures 1906/07 will be my main resources. My second aim is to demonstrate the currency and relevance of Husserl’s conception. This means two things: Firstly, I will show that in current debates in analytic epistemology there is a movement sharing with Husserl the basic idea that certain experiences gain their justificatory force simply from their distinctive phenomenal character. Secondly, I shall reveal the benefits of Husserl’s specific version of this view. Thus, one of my aims is to show that debates in current analytic epistemology could profit from adopting certain Husserlian elements. More precisely, I will defend Husserl’s claim that perceptual experiences are justifiers due to their self-giving phenomenal character as opposed to the cur- rently popular view that it is the phenomenology of pushiness that makes them justifiers. To put it differently, what matters is what is originally given within experience and not how you feel about what is given. 1 Husserl’s Notion of Intuition and Some Epistemological Principles Thanks to the works of phenomenologists such as Dan Zahavi, David Woodruff Smith, and John Drummond, Husserl’s phenomenology plays a considerable role in current philosophy of mind. In current epistemology, however, the situation is quite different. Although Husserl’s phenomenology, especially his conception of intuition, offers a lot to enrich current debates on, for instance, epistemic & Philipp Berghofer [email protected] 1 Department for Philosophy, University of Graz, Heinrichstraße 26/6, 8010 Graz, Austria 123 Husserl Stud justification, evidence, moral perception, and moral intuition, there is, unfortunately, no noticeable Husserlian impact on the treatment of these issues in current analytic philosophy. It is one of the aims of this paper to serve as a starting point for changing this situation and for re-evaluating the relevance of Husserl for current analytic epistemology. The purpose of this paper, to be sure, is not to convince someone who champions a view radically different from Husserl’s to become a Husserlian-style epistemologist. Rather, the purpose is (1) to give a detailed account of Husserl’s conception of experiential justification, (2) to show that in current analytic epistemology there is a movement sharing with Husserl the basic idea that certain experiences gain their justificatory force simply from their distinctive phenomenal character, and (3) to highlight the advantages of Husserl’s specific version of such a phenomenological conception of experiential justification. Between phenomenology and current analytic epistemology, there is a great potential of rich and mutually beneficial synergies, which is why phenomenologists should engage in current debates. Thus, in a nutshell, the objective of this paper is to reveal what a phenomenological conception of experiential justification looks like and how Husserl’s specific version of such a conception is in some aspects superior to current alternative versions. Husserl’s phenomenological conception of experiential justification offers a novel and promising approach towards epistemic justification whose ingenuity, unfortunately, is often overlooked by commentators. By closely connecting epistemology and philosophy of mind, Husserl argues for the following four theses which might be regarded as the cornerstones of a Husserlian conception of experiential justification. E1: Justification-conferring experiences such as perceptual experiences exhibit the phenomenal character of originary givenness. E2: Originary presentive intuitions are a source of immediate justification. E3: Originary presentive intuitions are the ultimate source of justification. E4: Originary presentive intuitions are a source of justification precisely in virtue of their phenomenal character of originary givenness. That epistemology and philosophy of mind are intertwined in the sense that the fundamental epistemic principles are phenomenological principles in the spirit of E1-E4, expressing the basic idea that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenal character of experiences, is a distinctively phenomenological claim and has been largely ignored or dismissed by contemporary analytic epistemology.1 Only very recently have certain philosophers in this tradition picked up this idea, as we shall see at the end of this paper.2 Especially E4 is a rather strong claim and it is the aim of this paper to show (1) that Husserl subscribes to E4 and (2) that current 1 To be fair, however, phenomenologists have also largely failed to make claims such as E1-E4 explicit, to develop them systematically, and to highlight their benefits by engaging with rival views. One of the rare occasions of a current phenomenologist explicitly interpreting Husserl as subscribing to E4 is Erhard (2012, p. 56, fn 25). 2 Among the few analytic philosophers who argue for closely connecting epistemology and philosophy of mind similarly to how it is proposed in the present paper is Declan Smithies whose (2014) convincingly highlights some of the benefits of such a close connection. 123 Husserl Stud debates in analytic epistemology could benefit from adopting E4. But first things first. So, what are originary presentive intuitions? Originary presentive intuitions are intentional acts in which the object/content is presented as ‘‘bodily present’’ (Hua XVI, p. 14), is given in a ‘‘fleshed out’’ manner (Hua XIX/1 1984, p. 458). These acts are contrasted with empty, signitive acts in which what is given to us is not the object in its actual presence but the object as something that is meant only (cf. especially Husserl’s Sixth Logical Investigation). The prime example of originary presentive acts are perceptual acts in which we are perceptually aware of the object in question.3 If you believe that there is a table in the room next to you, this belief is a signitive act. If you go and check and see the table, this perceptual experience is an intuitive act. Two clarifications are in order. First, Husserl uses the term ‘‘originary intuition’’ in a remarkably broad sense. Straightforward sense experiences of physical objects, categorial intuitions of states of affairs, essential intuitions of logical, or mathematical, or phenomenological truths, and introspective intuitions of one’s own mental states are all originary presentive intuitions.4 In his mature theory of value, Husserl insists that even value-ceptions (Wertnehmungen) are originary presentive acts (Hua XXX 1996, p. 287).5 Secondly, according to my reading, hallucinations and illusions can also be originary intuitions.6 This is important because if you have a perfect hallucination of a table in front of you, you are plausibly justified in believing that there is a table. In his ‘‘Principle of all Principles’’ (Ideas I, §24) Husserl leaves no doubt about the central role of intuition7: No conceivable theory can make us err with respect to the principle of all principles: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that everything originarily (so to speak, in its ‘‘personal’’ actuality) offered to us in ‘‘intuition’’ is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there. (Hua III/1, p. 51; 1982, p. 44) 3 An anonymous referee of this journal has rightfully pointed out that while it is true that for Husserl perceptual acts are the prime examples of originary presentive acts, this by no means implies that there is only one type of evidence. In his doctrine of the correlational a priori, Husserl links different types of evidence to different types of objects. Husserl distinguishes between inadequate, adequate, and apodictic evidence. According to my understanding, different types of evidence correspond to different types of originary givenness. We will briefly discuss this at the end of the paper. 4 There are different types of originary intuition and these different types of intuition correspond to different types of objects. This means that ‘‘the precise nature of the intuitive evidence at issue varies in dependence on the respective types of objects or states of affairs that the relating acts are directed towards.’’ (Rinofner-Kreidl 2014, p. 37). 5 Which means that the present paper has also crucial implications for meta-ethics. For the details and significance of a phenomenological intuitionism cf. Rinofner-Kreidl (2015). 6 For the claim that hallucinations also are (originary) intuitions cf. Erhard (2012, p. 57), who confirms this by referring to Hua XVI, p. 15. 7 In the present paper, whenever I use the term ‘‘intuition’’ what I mean is ‘‘originary presentive intuition.’’ This means that, in contrast to Husserl’s terminology, imaginative acts, for instance, do not count as intuitions. Imaginative acts are not originary presentive intuitions because, when I imagine an object O, O is not given in its actual presence. Note that this is only a terminological issue. 123 Husserl Stud While this passage unambiguously reveals the importance of intuition, it seems problematic that Husserl here talks about ‘‘cognition’’
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