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The Significance of Husserl's Log/Cal Phenomenology

The Significance of Husserl's Log/Cal Phenomenology

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL /NVEST/GAT/ONS FOR REALIST PHENOMENOLOGY AND A CRITIQUE OF SEVERAL ' 'HUSSERLIAN' THESES ON PHENOMENOLOGY. In Commemoration oC the 100th Anniversary oC the Publication oC 's Logical Investigations (1900/01-2000/01)*

Josef Seifert"

1. FOREWORD WHAT IS "REALIST PHENOMENOLOGY" AND WHERE DID IT ORIGINATE?

W;th as least as much right as Dostoyevski could say of the Russian "realist" novelists of the 19 th century, "We all come out of the same cloak" (by Nikolai Gogo!), we phenomenologists, and, in particular as well, we realist phenomenologists, for whom this work is the most important of Husserl, state: "We all come out of Edmund Husserl 's Logical Investigations" (1900/01). In the following paper, 1 will use the expressions "realist phenomenology" and "phenomenological realism" without any in meaning. One could, of course, make such a distinction and mean, for instance, with realist phenomenology a form of phenomenology that has

• This text was written originally in German. The original had becn delivered as a Iccture on several occasions in (Russian Academy of ScienceJ, the Czcch Republic (University of Olomuc), and Gaflei (Liechtenstein), and was later presented in English in Chile, in a seminar held in the Faculty of in May 13th, 2003. The text has been reworked for this publication. International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein. 134 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

realist foundations or even non-evident realist, basic COnV1CUOnS or presuppositions - in contradistinction perhaps to a "transcendental phenomenology" that would be considered more critical and presuppositionless 1• This is in no way meant, in any case with regard to the assumption of unfounded realist presuppositions, since we are starting from the conviction that the foundations of philosophical realism and of every philosophy have to show themselves from the things themselves. With "phenomenological realism" we mean even les s a philosophy which maintains the reality of "phenomenological entities" or of phenomenology itself (such as "mathematical realism" which asserts the reality of mathematical objects), which in our case would hardly make any sense. What is meant rather is such a phenomenology of essence and being, the object of which does not result from being posited or constructed, but which shows and reveals itself of itself in its own objective nature or real existence, which may be, in the case of manifold appearances, aspects and perspectives, constituted by the subject but in many cases is entirely independent of the subject and yet shows itself to the subject in its transcendent illtrinsic necessity or real existence. The expression "realist phenomenology" refers further to the philosophy of a large group of thinkers who do not agree with each other on all points, who also do not necessarily all start from the Logical Investigations, but whose "movement" in its earlier and present day forms finds its most prominent starting point, or at least a cJassical expression, in Husserl's Logical Investigations, aboye all in ·the Prolegomena. One must, of course, not fai! to recognize also the pre-Husserlian roots of this movement in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and in the great from Prague who was highly esteemed by Husserl, Bernard Bolzan02, whose logical objectivism and of the "propositions in themselves" had a deep influence on the Logical Investigations that Husserl himself emphasized expressly; and, aboye all, in . Especially Franz Brentano's discoveries of objective, undeniable evidence' and certainty of knowledge; his rediscovery of the intentionality of , which had in principie been recognized already by ; and his fight against every reductionism regarding the of 'good' and 'evil', as well as his fundamentally

cr. Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement. 3rd ed .. part V, The Essentials or the Phenomenological Method, pp. 675-719. 2 cr. . Onmdlegung der Logik (Wissenschaftslehre IIII). Phi\. Bib\. Vo\. 259. Hamburg, F. Meiner 1963; Theory of Science, (Reidel, 1973). JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoG/CAL lNVEST/GATlONS FOR... 135 intense and pOSltlve relation to , and in general to the philosophia perennis. exercised great influence on the development of phenomenology in general, and, in particular, on that of realist phenomenology3, This influence of Brentano on realist phenomenology must be emphasized although one cannot fail to note that, even concerning the achievements of his philosophy that were just mentioned, there are essential differences between Brentano's philosophy and that of realist phenomenologists (not only in its form of the "Gottingen" or " school of Phenomenology"4, but al so in the form in which Husserl defended an objectivist phenomenology in Logical Investigations). For instance, intentionality in the Munich school of phenomenology is no longer claimed as a universal characteristic of the psychic as it is in Brentano's thesis of a perfect congruence of the psychic and the intentional. Husserl already critically modifies this thesis in the Logical lnvestigations by allowing for non-intentional, conscious experiences5. The Munich school of phenomenology also distinguishes itself from other phenomenological trains of thought as well as from Edmund Husserl in that it holds the relation to an 1 interpreted as real subject and real center 01 acting (Scheler) to be a decisive characteristic of the psychic. Precisely the area of problems connected with such distinctions within different phenomenological is presently being investigated in and Liechtenstein6• When one emphasizes the fundamental significance of the Logical lnvestigations for the origin of phenomenological realism, one should

Mainly the following works of Brentano exerted great influence on realist phenomenology: Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, introd. and ed. by Oskar Kraus, unchanged Reprint of 4 th Ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1955); Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Vol. 1-2. ed. O. Kraus. unchanged reprint of the edition of 1924 (first edition 1874), (Hamburg. 1955); Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (Freiburg LB., 1862; reprinted : Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960). The last work al so had a great impact on , as he emphasizes in various passages, for example in his Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (: Klostermann, 51967). For this school names such as , . Alexander Pflinder, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and stand. s We find considerably more on this in and in Dietrich von Hildebrand "Die geistigen Formen dcr Affektivitat", in: Philosophisches Jaltrbuch der Giirres­ Gesellschaft. Festscllrift für Alois Dempf München. 68. Jg. 1960. pp. 180-190; the same author, Tlle Heart (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press. 1977), 2nd ed .• ch. 2, on intentional (spiritual) and non-intentional (non-spiritual) forms of human affectivity. 6 Cf. For example the Masters thesis of Mr. Vitalij Kurennoj, "Die MUnchener PhI1nomenologie" . 136 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA. Vols. 17-18. 2004-2005

further not leave out of consideration the fact that Max Scheler already developed very similar thoughts at the same time as Edmund Husserl, even two years prior to the Logical Investigations, so that a dispute arose between Husserl and Scheler as to who had been the founder of the phenomenological movement: a dispute which it may never be possible to settle entirely, but which, based purely on the dates of their respective works, turns out in Max Scheler's favor, and based on the objective force of analysis and influence is in Husserl's favor. Alexander Pfander also • comes into consideration with his Phiinomenologie des Wollens (Phenomenology of Willing) as a simultaneous co-founder of phenomenology 7. One could also want to discover still older foundations of a realist phenomenology in Vladimir Solov'ev and other Russian thinkers. (Scheler refers to interesting examples of phenomenology in Russian philosophy)8. Added to this is the fact that, as most members of the Gottingen Circle already stressed, it was actually, although he was the pupil of Husserl, more Adolf Reinach through his irresistible clarity and his pedagogical talent than Edmund Husserl who should be seen as the actual teacher and founder of the absolute phenomenological objectivism, and who fundamentally restructured the philosophy of his master and interpreted it in a Platonic-Augustinian sense9• A still more significant help in the attempt to understand the essence and roots of realist phenomenology is the recognition that realist phenomenology, which does. not aim at being a narrow, new

7 Cf. Max Scheler, Die transzendentale und die psychologische Methode. Eine grundsl1tzliche Erlirterung zur philosophischen Methodik (lena 1900. als Habilitationsschrift 1899), in: Scheler. Max. Gesammelte Werke. Vol. I. FrUhe Schriften. ed. by M. S. Frings (Bern/MUnchen: Francke Verlag. 1991). pp. 197-335. Cf. also the re-edition of Alexander Pfl1nder. Phl1nomenologie des Wollens. Motive und Motivation. (1900; MUnchen. 1963); Fenomenología de la voluntad. tr. Manuel Garda Morente. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente. 1931). Max Scheler. "Zur russischen Geschichts- und Religionsphilosophie". Die WeljJen Bliitler. l. 8. 1914. pp. 860-861; and in: Max Scheler. Politisch-Piidagogische Schriften. Gesammelte Werke Vol. 4 (Bern und MUnchen: Francke Verlag. 1982), pp. 611-612. This work is an interesting book-review of a big comprehensive work by Th. G. Masaryk (of 900 pp.). 9 Edith Stein and many others emphusized this. Breda attributed. al a congress in Munich in 1971 entitled "The Munich School of Phenomenology". on the occasion of the 100'h birthday of Alexander Pfl1nder. the Platonic and Augustinian influences within phenomenology chiefly to Reinach and denied that they are found already in Husserl's Logical lnves/igatiolls. While this appears to be u strong exaggeration. certainly it is true that Reinach was more consistent1y Platonic than Husserl. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/FlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL INVESTlGATlONS FOR... 137 philosophical school, but rather a comprehensive philosophia perennis, is in no way exclusively indebted to Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, Max Scheler or other thinkers of our century and the previous one (for instance also to Bernard Bolzano); but is rather built on the philosophical insights which were won in the spirit of such a realist phenomenology by earlier classical and medieval such as , Aristotle, Augustine, , René Descartes, and so on 10. Realist phenomenology strives for nothing other than to be simple, good, objective and methodologically well thought out philosophy which fulfills the eternal task of philosophy: to return to "things themsel ves" and to investigate them without any of reductionism and violation of what is given. Every thinker who has done this, and to the degree that he has done this, belongs to this "school", which actually only represents a newly formulated ideal of "eternal philosophy", that at the same time can be regarded as an ideal picture of realist phenomenology. Balduin Schwarz, the most comprehensive historian among the realist phenomenologists, formulates this ideal, the far-reaching realization of which he ascribes to , in the following way:

It is the incomparable contribution of St. Thomas that he approached the intellectual situation of his time with no other question than the question of truth. In the mere defense of a tradition, with reference to its greatness, to the authorities that stand behind it, such an elementary occurrence as the becoming apparent of new aspects of reality is not to be captured. Thomas .. .loved truth absolutely and was convinced of its unity; and so he began the colossal task of scrutinizing of his opponent, ... the clarification, reshaping, and restructuring of Aristotle; at the same time, however, also a penetrating analysis of the Augustinian teaching, in order to finally fit everything into the unity of one single, great corpus veritatis. Not relinquishing anything of the truth, never thinking of parties and schools of thought, ready to learn from someone else, not forgetting any detail over the whole, and seeing everything in its connection with in­ comparable perception, proceeding with care and magnanimity of spirit, sensitive to every nuance, his gaze directed unwaveringly towards the totum, progressing steadily, never hesitating or getting caught up in par-

10 Por Plato, Reinach pointed this out repeatedly, and I tried to show this in the following works: Josef Seifert, Rirornare a Plarone. 1m Anhang eine unveroffentlichte Schrift Adolf Reinachs, ed .• introd. and transo by Giuseppe Girgenti. Collana Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico. Studi e testi. vol. 138 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA. Vals. 17-18.2004-2005

tial aspects, the genius of the Summa carne to be, a peak of human existence ... 11.

81. (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2000); "Die realistische Phltnomenologie als RUckgang auf Platan und als kritische Reform des Platonismus", Ale/heia VI (Theory of Knowledge and Ethies) 0993-1994), pp. 116-162 (al so "Platón y la fenomenología realista. Para una reforma critica del Platonismo", Anales del Seminario de Me/af(sica 29 (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1995), pp. 149-170, as well as in my "Nachwort des Herausgebers", zu Giovanni Reale. Zu einer neuen Interpretation Platons. Eine Auslegung der Metaphysik der gro'pen Dialoge im Lichte der "ungeschriebenen Lehren", transo L. Ht\lscher, with an introduction by H. Kramer, ed. and with a Poslface by J. Seifert (Paderborn: Scht\ningh, 1993), pp. 541-558, as well as in Josef Seifert, "The Idea of the Good as the Sum-Iotal of Pure Perfections. A New Personalislic Reading of Republic VI and VII", in: Giovanni Reale and Samuel Scolnikov (Ed.), New Images of Plato. Dialogues on the Idea of Ihe Good, (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2002). pp. 407-424. On the influence of Aristotle on realist phenomenology, cf. - besides Brentano's mentioned work Von der mannigfaehen Bedeutung des Seienden naeh Aristoteles (Freiburg LB., 1862; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960) - also Alexander Pntnder, Logik, 4th ed., Philosophy and Realist Phenomenology. Studies of Ihe International Academy for Philosophy in the Principality Liechtenstein, Vol. lO (Heidelberg: UniversiU1tsverlag Carl Winter, 2000); Spanish ed.: Lógica. 2a ed. (la. ed., 1938), tr. J. Pérez Bances, (Buenos Aires - México: Espasa-Calpe Argentina, 1940), and Josef Seifert, Essere e persona. Verso una fondazione fenomenologica di una metafisica c1assica e personalistica. (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1989), especially ch. 5 und 8. Regarding Augustine see Ludger Ht\lscher, The Reality of the . Sto Augustine's Arguments for the Human Soul as Spiritual Substance (London: and Kegan Paul, 1986), German edition at Die Realital des Geistes. Eine Darstellung I/nd phanomenologische Neubegrandung der Argumente Augustins far die geistige Substanlialilal der Sute (Heidelberg: Universitlttsverlag C. Winter, 1999). Regarding Augustine and Descartes, cf. also Josef Seifert, Baek lo Things in Themselves. A Phenomenologieal Foundalion for Classical Realism (London: Routledge, 1987), and Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. Die Trallszendenz des Menschen in der Erkenntnis (Salzburg: A. Pustet, 21976). Regarding Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, cf. also Edith Stein, Elldliches und Ewiges Sein, Versuch eines Aufsliegs zum Sinne des Seins, Edith Steins Werke, Vol. 11, 3rd ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1986); regarding Anselm of Canterbury (Aosta) and René Descartes, cf. al so Josef Seifert, Gott als Gottesbeweis, 2nd revised and enlarged ed. (Heidelberg: UniversiUltsverlag C. Winter. 2000), and the same author, "Kant und Brentano gegen Anselm und Descartes. Reflexionen Uber das ontologische Argument". in Theologia (Athens 1985), 3-30; "Kant y Brentano contra Anselmo y Descartes. Reflexions sobre el argumento ontologico", in Thémala 2 (Universidades de Malaga y Sevilla. 1985). Cf. al so my two lectures given at the 20ieth World Congress of Philosophy in Boston, in which I stress that Anselm was a proto-phenomenologist and al so point out the possibility of a phenomenological unfolding of Kantian and Socratic­ Platonic ethical insights. 11 The German text continues here: Nun aber war wieder ein umfassendes Bild gegeben. in dem alles bisher Erkannte an seinem richtigen Ort stand, sein Gewicht besaB, so wie es ihm zukommt. und in dem es in seiner Verbindung und seinem Anderssein gegenUber allem Ubrigen deutlich war. ... Thomus ... reprllsentiert in der Geistesgeschichte die guten, wahrhaft lebendigen Krllfte, die ein Mensch in sich erweckt. wenn er etwas hineinnimmt in sein Leben, JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LaG/CAL lNVESTIGATlONS FOR... 139

This ideal of fitting all insights into one corpus veritatis -nothing more, nothing less- is the ideal of the movement that is characterized here as realist phenomenology. This movement believes, however, that it has one decisive advantage at its disposal in the accomplishment of this task: a rigorous and deeply worked out method of phenomenological research in the service of the knowledge of "things themselves". 1 have introduced the term "Realist Phenomenology" in place of the earlier and rather purely historical descriptions such as the "Gottingen School of Phenomenology" or "Gottingen Circle", "Munich School of Phenomenology", "Munich-Gottingen-School", "", etc., expressions which are misleading because this school exists in many countries until today and because the geographic origins of the school are not only many, but also insignificant for the nature of this movement and for its own self-understanding 12 . These descriptions impose geographical or temporal restrictions, which do not touch upon the essence of this movement that has existed from 1900 till today and extends over the Logicallnvestigations from Adolf Reinach 13,

was ihm zuniichst als Bedrohendes oder Faszinierendes, auf jeden Fall aber Sprengendes entgegentritt, wenn er in lebensvoller, wacher, bereiter Kraft, KUhnheit und Ehrfurcht paarend, die Linie seines Lebens h1iher fUhrt, nichts Kostbares abwirft, sondern es erstarken laBt, nichts Neues angstlich fortdrangt, sondern sich ihm stellt, seinen Anprall besteht, seine Faszinationskraft bannt, sie in Wahrheitskraft verwandelt und es zu einem Teil seines Selbst und seiner Welt machI. 8alduin Schwarz, Ewige Philosophie. Gesetz und Freiheit in der Geistesgeschichte (: Verlag J. Hegner, 1937), pp. 120-123, 2nd ed., with a Preface of Josef Seifert (Siegburg: Schmitt, 2000). Cf. also Balduin Schwarz, (Paula Premoli/Josef Seifert ed.), Wahrheit. Irrtum und Verirrungen. Die sechs grojJen Krisen und sieben Ausfahrten der abelldliilldischen Philosophie (Heidelberg: C. Winter. 1996). 12 The Munich and G1ittingen phenomenologists might have called themselves objectivists or realists, or could have easily called themselves lhis way, but did not see lhemselves as bound to sorne geographic location or to sorne early phase of phenomenology. Jt seems to me that the term "Munich Phenomenology" does nol only assign to the city of Munich (instead of G1ittingen, Crakow and others) too dominant a role, which is historically speaking incorrect, but that there is also the danger to identify certain accidental features of Alexander Pfander's or Moritz Geiger's method with the essence of this philosophy, as this was done for example in H. Spiegelberg's lecture 1971 during the Congress "The Munich Phenomenology" and also in his well-known work, The Phenomenological Movemenl. Cf. Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement. 2 vol, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976). 13 Cf. Adolf Reinach, Siimlliche Werke. Kritische Ausgabe mit Kommentar, Vol. 1: Die Werke, Part 1: Kritische Neuausgabe (1905-1914), Part 11: Nachgelassene Texte (1906-1917); Vol. 11: Kommentar und Textkritik, hrsg.v. Karl Schuhmann and (Munich and Vienna: Philosophia Verlag, 1989). The edition of the earlier Gesammelte Schriften was published in a new Russian and bilingual series, Realist 140 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

Alexander Pfl1nder l4, Johannes Daubertl5, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, till the present time. For different , other descriptions of this movement are misleading because sorne of them, such as objectivist philosophy, are too broad, others are only fitting for part of this realist phenomenological movement and sound too esoteric, such as the description proposed by Fritz Wenisch in two excellent works: "Chreontology", a methodologically well-founded analysis of necessary essences, as distinct from "Chreontic Philosophy" as a philosophy which actuaUy analyses necessary essences regardless of whether or not it is based on a clearly worked out methodology 16. It seems to me, with regards to the last description l7, that realist phenomenology cfmnot be sufficiently characterized as the philosophy of the objectively necessary (10 chréon), since this does not take into consideration the different existential dimensions of the same, or, at least (if the expression is understood in the sen se of a mere "pars pro toto"), the central importance of existential analysis. Moreover, 1 regard the expression "realist phenomenology" in what is to follow as the description of a philosophical ideal that was only realized in part in its historical appearances. And the following exposition pertains more to this ideal than to its historical realization. Despite di verse critical remarks we are going to make concerning the significance of Husserl's Logical lnvestigations and the works of other thinkers in relation to the origin of the ideal, comprehensive form of realist phenomenology, the importance of Edmund Husserl's Logical lnvestigations, as emphasized at the outset, remains immense. This importance should, of course, not be exaggerated and not at a11 be

Phenomenology, of the lnternational Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtcnstein in Moscow in Russian (2001): Adolf Reinach, (ed. by Josef Seifert and Viktor Molchanov. John F. Crosby und Valeri Ana_viii. (Russian). Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by his students (Halle a.d.Saar: Max Niemeyer, 1921). translated into Russiun by Vitu1y Ku.rennoj, in cooperation with Dmitry Atlas (Moskau:200 1). 14 cr. especially Alexander POl.nder. Logik, cit.. lS Cf. Kevin Mulligan IKarl Schuhmann/Barry Smith. "Question: An Essay in Daubertian Phenomenology", in: Plzilosophy and Phellomenological Research. 47 (1987), 353-384: Cf. also Reinhold N. Smid. HAn Early lnterpretation of Husserl's Phenomenology: Johannes Daubert and the 'Logical lnvestigations· ... Husserl Studies (1985); 2. 267-290. 16 From ti> cllréoll, the necessary (understood as necessary essences). Cf. Fritz Wenisch. Die Pltilosoplzie und ihre Methode (Salzburg: A. Pustet, 1976). 17 Cf. also Fritz Wcnisch, "Insight and Objective Necessity - A Demonstration of the Existence of Propositions Which Are Simultaneously lnformative and Necessarily True?". Aletheia 4 (1988). pp. 107-197. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL lNVEST/GATIONS FOR... 141 understood in a dogmatic fashion as if deviations from Edmund Husserl's own thoughts, even fram those of his early period of the Logicallnvestigations, constitute an abandoning of phenomenology ora kind of disloyalty towards the master. For if the only ideal is the truth, then true faithfulness to Husserl, who likewise only sought the truth, al so ineludes criticism wherever truth demands it. Both the positive significance as weIl as the limitations of the Logical lnvestigations for a true philosophy in this sense can best be established thraugh a short survey of sorne of the most essential elements of phenomenological realism (which 1 understand in the following in its ideal, complete form, which is, of course, not embodied entirely in any individual thinker of this group of philosophers, and incidentally is scarcely recognized, let alone taken into consideration and appreciated in its importance, even by the best known authorities on phenomenology) 18. In the framework of such a sketch of the core of "phenomenological realism", the most essential contributions of the Logical lnvestigations of Edmund Husserl must be taken into consideration.

11. ELEMENTS OF "REALIST PHENOMENOLOGY"

1. "Back to the Things!"

A first and most essential element of phenomenology had already been clearly formulated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, fram whom the expression Urphanomen (arch-phenomenon), which Husserl had probably adopted fram him, stems, is the motto of Husserl: "Back to Things" or "Back to Things Themselves!" Goethe insists that when we encounter an ultimate Urphenomenon, we must not seek to explain it any further by other things but yet have an important work to do in clarifying such archphenomena and work at their elucidation. He complains that authors normalIy fail to do just that, and hence distort these phenomena by their futile attempts at reductionist explanations. Thus he writes:

18 See Herbert Spiegelberg, (TlJe Phenomenological Movemenl, cit.), who, though himself a member of the Pfander-School and a faithful adherent of his master, reduced the significance of realist phenomenology more or less to a few and rather obscure methodological principIes and contributions 10 . See also Robert Sokolowski, Introduclion lO Phenomenology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 211-212. . 142 SEMINARIOS DE PILOSOFfA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

Even if one were to encounter such an Urphenomenon, there remains the eyil that one does not want to acknowledge it as such, and that one is looking behind it and aboye it for sorne other thing, whereas we should 19 confess here that we haye reached the end-point of such 100king •

And elsewhere he adds:

The highest thing at which man can arriye ... is the sense of wonder, and when an Urphenomenon provokes wonder in him, he should be content; for it cannot accord him anything higher than that, and he should not look for anything higher behind it; for here is the limit. But to humans the sight of an Urphenomenon is normally not sufficient, they think, one has to go farther than that, and they resemble children, who, when they haye looked into the mirror, turn it right away around, in order so see what is on the other side20•

The formulation of the character of archphenomena (Urphiinomene), which cannot be explained by anything outside themselves, which the scientist "should allow to stand there in their eternal tranquility and glory" and which the philosopher should let enter into his region21 • makes Goethe a forerunner of the phenomenological method of returning to things themselves22. In writing the following things. he sets up for us a high ideal of a philosophy that is faithful to ultimate data, without attempting to reduce the irreducible phenomenon to anything else:

We believe to deserye the thankfulness of the philosopher for haying attempted to pursue the phenomena up till their original sources (Urque-

19 J.W. von Goethc, Zur Farbenlehre. Didaktischer Theil. Der Farbenlehre polemiseher Theil. Gesehiehte d«r Farbenlehre. Naehtrl1ge zur Farbenlehre. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, SlImmtliehe Werke in 40 Blinden (Stuttgart and TUbingen: J.G. Colta'seher Verlag, 1840), vIs 37-40: Farbenlehre, 11. Abtheilung, Nr. 177, vol. 37, p. 68 (my translation): 20 Goelhes Gesprtiche mil Eckermann (Leibzig: Insel-Verlag, 1921), p. 448 (my translation) 21 Farbenlehre. ibid., Nr. 177, Vol. 37, p. 68. 22 Goethe writes elsewhere (Gesprtiche mil Eckermann. ¡bid., p. 639): "Ein einfaehes Urphllnomen aufzunehmen, es in seiner hohen Bedeutung zu erkennen und damit zu wirken. erfordert einen produktiven Geist. der vieles zu Ubersehen vermag, und ist eine seltene Gabe. die sich nur bei ganz vorzUgliehen Naluren findel". (Cf. al so ¡bid.• pp. 432. 514, 567. 591). JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/FlCANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LOG/CAL lNVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 143

llen), up tilI the point where they do nothing but rnanifest thernselves and are, and where it is irnpossible to explain anything beyond in thern ... 23 . He [the philosopher] ought to forrn for hirnself a rnethod which is ade­ quate to intuition (eine Methode, die dem Anschauen gemii.jJ ist); he should avoid carefulIy to transforrn the intuition into concepts, and the into words, and then to operate with these words as if they were things ... 720 .... the philosopher accepts frorn the physicist's hands sorne last thing which with hirn now becornes a firsl Ihing24 ,

EIsewhere in his Theory of Colors25 , Goethe speaks of the Urphiinomene, saying that they reveal themselves only to an intuitive knowledge and that "nothing on the order of their [self-]appearing lies aboye them"26, It becomes quickly clear, however, that -in spite of the magnificent things Goethe says about the archphenomena that lend themselves to philosophical analysis- for Goethe many phenomena in nature, such as the Granit or the magnet, are archphenomena which in the strict philosophical sense of necessary intelligible es sen ces are not irreducible archphenomena27 . To use a felicitous expression in Heidegger's § 7, we may say that they can only "show themselves from themselves". But Goethe also insists on the same fundamental feature of the phenomenological method which Reinach insists upon: hardly anything is a harder labor than to elucidate these archphenomena, without reducing them to something else. And it is hard work to identify the essential marks of such irreducible phenomena28. The principie "back to things themselves", which intends primarily these urphenomena and directs itself against all premature systematization, against all constructive tendencies of the human

23 Farbenlehre, [bid., Introduction, Vol. 37, p. 9 (rny own translation). 24 Farbenlehre, [bid., V. Abtheilung, Nr. 716,720, Vol. 37, pp. 232-233. 25 [bid., Nr. 175, Vol. 37, p. 67. There are rnany other texts where Goethe speaks of archphenornena. 26 Farbelllehre, ibid., Nr. 175, Vol. 37, p. 67: "Wir nennen sie Urph!1nornene, weil nichts in der Erscheinung über ihnen liegt. .... 27 For exarnple Farbenlehre, ¡bid., Vol. 37, Nr. 247, p. 90, where he calls light and darkness archphenornena. See also this and other texts of Goethe frorn his Farbenlehre and Leisegang's cornrnentary on Goethe's concept of Urphiinomen and Grundphanomen in Hans Leisegang, Goethes Denken (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1932), pp. 157-159; 168 f. 28 See Farbenlehre, ¡bid., Nr. 177, Vol. 37, p. 68. 144 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA, Vo1s. 17-18,2004-2005

intellect29, but especially against the reductionist philosophical theories and, aboye aH. the subjectivist reductionisms in face of the arch given dataJurphenomenon of an objective nature, was developed by Edmund Husserl in a masterly and exemplary manner in the Prolegomena of the Logical Investigations, but al so in most of the Logical Investigations themselves. Let us point out several examples of the realization of this ideal of' "back to things!" Think, for instance, of the discovery of consciousness and the irreducibility of objects of intentional acts to these acts themselves and their immanent real constituent parts; or of the distinction between signs, linguistic "expression", and logical "meaning" in the first Logical Investigation; as well as of Husserl's brilliant refutation of every form of tracing logical laws and principIes, such as the principIe of contradiction, back to psychological ones30. In a similar way, Reinach established that social acts, that is to say the claims and obligations arising out of the social act of making a promise or contract, cannot be traced back to subjective moments like feelings and their objects31 . Promises can al so never be traced back to other acts such as declarations of the will or of intentions32. Similarly, Roman Ingarden fought against every subjectivist and psychologistic reductionism in the interpretation of a and of the values of the same, but al so in the interpretation of being33 , in which are a he was

29 On these and other sources of philosophical errors see the most comprehensive phenomenological study of the problem of error in philosophy: Das Problem des Irrtums in der Philosophie (MUnster. Aschaffenburg, 1934), new edition in preparation 2005. Cf. also Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics, 2nd edn (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press. 1978), Prolegomena. 30 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Text of the 1st and 2nd ed., Vol. 1: Prolegomella ZII eiller reillen Logik, hrsg.v. E. Holenstein, Husserliana, Vol. xviii (Den Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1975); Vol. 11, 1: Untersuchungen zur Phlinomenologie und Theorie der Erkellntnis, 1. Parto Vol. 11,2: UlltersuchulIgell zur Phlinomenologie und Erkellntnis, 2. Part, hrsg. v. U. Panzer, Husserliana, Vol. xix,1 and Vol. xix,2 (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1984). English edition: Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, transl. J. N. Findlay, (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1970). Cf. also Balduin Schwarz, Das Problem des Irrtums in der Philosophie, cil. 31 Adolf Reinach, "Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bUrgerlichen Rechtes", in: Reinach, Adolf, SCimtliche Werke. Texkritische Ausgabe in zwei Blinden. Vol. 1: Die Werke, Partl, 141-278. 32 For an appreciation and critical discussion of Reinach's contributions see John F. Crosby, "Reinachs Discovery of Social Acts". Aletheia III (1983), 143-194, and Josef Seifert, "Is Reinach's 'Apriorische Rechtslehre' more Important for Positive Law than Reinach Himself Thinks?". in Aletheia 3 (1983). pp. 197-230. 33 Roman Ingarden. Das literarische Kunstwerk. Eine Untersuchung aus dem Grenzgebiet der Ontologie. Logik und Literaturwissenschaft (Halle: Max Niemeyer, JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LaG/CAL INVEST/GATIONS FOR... 145

foJ1owed by Hedwig Conrad-Martius34 . With regard to values and the moral sphere, but al so the phenomenon of , abo ve all Max Scheler and Dietrich von Hildebrand demonstrated the absolute untenability of every such reductionism, as it is found in American .emotivism and in di verse forms of value relativism, of love to sexual desires, as well as of values to emotions, etc.35 AIso Scheler's brilliant proof of the impossibility of tracing morality or justice, and especiaJ1y love, and the specific Christian form of love, back to resentment, as attempts, and similar intuitions of Siegfried Johannes Hamburger are to be emphasized here. In a remarkable way, Scheler, in his battle against Nietzsche's false reductionism, simultaneously takes up Nietzsche's insights into pseudo morals which are just disguised forms of resentment, and develops a valid form of reduction that is called for by phenomenology, a reduction of only apparently contradictory moral phenomena?36

1931), 3rd ed., 1972; in translation: The Literary Work of Art. transl. by George G. Grabowicz (Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 1973); the same author: "Essentiale Fragcn". Jahrbuch für Phlinomenologie und phlinomenologische Forschung, VII, Hrsg. E. Husserl (Halle a. S .. 1924), pp. 125-304; Der S/rei/ um die Exis/enz der Welt. Vol. l, Existentialontologie (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1964), Vol. II. 1, Formalontologie, 1st Part (Tübingen, 1965). 34 Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Das Sein (München: K5sel, 1957). 35 Cf. Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertet/¡ik, 5. ed. (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1966); Formalism in Et/¡ies alld Non-Formal Etl!ies of Values, transl. Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk (Evanston: Northwe5tern University Press 1973); Cf. the same author, Vom Umsturz del' Werte. Abhandlullgen und Aufsatze, Gesammelte Werke Vol. 3, 5. Aufl. (Bern and München: Francke Verlag, 1972); the same author. Wesen ulld Formen de,. Sympa/hie, Gesammelte Werke Vol. VII (Bern and München: Francke Verlag, 1973),6. Aufl, pp. 150 ff. Cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand. Die Idee del' sittliehen Handlung in: Jahrbuch fUr Philosophie and phlinomenologische Forschung, 3rd Vol. Halle: Niemeyer, 1916, pp. 126-251; 2nd ed. (unverlinderter reprographischer Nachdruck), with the habilitation thesis, "Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis"- Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgescllschaft, 1969, pp. 1-126; Cf. Dietrich von Hildcbrand, E/hies, 2nd edn (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1978), ch. 9 (Critique of Ethical Rclativism), a work that al50 has been translated into Russian (St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 2001); Cf. al so Dietrich von Hildebrand, Das Wesen del' Liebe; Die/riel! van Hildebrand. Gesammel/e Werke III (Regensburg, 1971), al50 published in Russian in the same series. See also John Barger. J. Barger. "The Meaningful Character of Value­ Language: A Critique of the Linguistic Foundations of Emotivism", J Value Inquiry 14 (1980), 77-91. 36 Max Scheler. Das Ressemimenl im Aujbau del' Moralen, in: M. Scheler, Vom Ums/urz del' Werte (Bern-München: Francke-Verlag, 1955); Sicgfried Johanncs Hamburger, "Kritische Reflexionen über Max Schelers Ressen/imenl im Aujbau der Mora/en ". Ale/I!eia VI (Thevry of Knowledge a/ld E/hies) (1993-1994). Cf. also Siegfried Johannes Hamburger, "KUhnheit der Liebe". in Balduin Schwarz (ed.), Wahrhei/, Wert und Sein (Regensburg: J. Habbel, 1970), pp. 99-106; especially pp. 99-100. 146 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

So there was carried out in realist phenomenology with special methodological stringency what great philosophers of all times, at least in their valid and deepest insights, have embodied: a genuine, rigorous penetrating into the logos of things themselves and a rejection of the "nothing but method", that is to say, of aH attempts to explain an x through an a or a y, ... which is precisely not x.

2. Strict Objectivism and the Absoluteness oC Truth Presupposed by Every Deception and Every Relativism

A second factor of phenomenological realism is connected with the principie "Back to Things Themselves": the strict objectivism of the same, which resists every Kantian tendency to subjectivize the truth, as Adolf Reinach pointed out with particular clarity. This is true, however, of most realist phenomenologists; indeed it constitutes perhaps the most important ground they have in common. Husserl expresses the insight into the objectivity of truth in a magnificent passage in the Logical lnvestigations thus:

What is true, is absolute, is true "in itself'; the truth is identically one, whether it is grasped in a judgment by humans or non-humans, angel s or gods. The logical laws and all of us speak of truth in this ideal unity, as opposed to the diversity of races, individuals, and experiences, if we are not confused, for instance, b~ relativism37.

Husserl begins his criticism of relativism with the insight into the essence of truth, from which the absurdity of someone speaking of truth foHows:

... and, in fact, to speak of truth for this or that person is nonsensical. The possibility which leaves open that the same content of a judgment (we say in a dangerous equivocation: the same judgment) is both true and false according'to who is making the judgment, is absurd38 .

37 Logische Untersuc/¡ungen. Vol. 1, Prolegomena. ch. 7. § 36. p. 125. line 9-15. Cf. also Martin Cajthaml. Analyse und Kritik des Relativismus (Heidelberg: UniversiUltsverlag Winter. 2003). 38 Edmund Husserl. Logische Ulllersuchungen. Vol. l. ¡bid., § 36. pp. 124-125 (Here and in the following, lhe passages from Husserl's Logical lnvestigations are rendered in a new translation). Cf. al so Edmund Husserl. Logical lnvestigations. trans\. J. N. Findlay, (Landon: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1970). JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F1CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LaG/CAL INVESTlGATlONS FOR... 147

Husserl pro ves the absurdity of the thesis that a creature of another species would not be bound by the highest 10gical principles39. "Truth for a species" is in principIe just as nonsensical as "individual relativism", which strives to set a truth for one individual against that for another:

Individual relativism is such an obvious, and, 1 would almost like to say, brazen skepticism, that it, if ever at alI, certainly has not been he Id seriously in more recent times ... The subjectivist ... cannot be convinced if he ... is lacking in the disposition to recognize that propositions, such as the principie of contradiction, are grounded in the bare meaning of truth; and that, according to them, talk of a subjective truth which is one thing foc one person and the opposite for another must be regarded as nonsensical40.

Husserl demonstrates that relativism in every form, incIuding al so "specific relativism" which tries to relativize the truth to man as such, amounts to changing the meaning of the word "truth", yes, to reinterpreting its essence and to contradicting the absolute essence of truth.

Consequently, relativism comes down to totalIy changing the meaning of the word truth, but still makes the claim to speaking of truth in that sense which is established through the logical principies, and which we all exclusively mean when truth is spoken Of41.

Husserl recognizes most clearly in the Logical lnvestigations that the truth of judgments cannot possibly have its source in the constitution of the human species or of any other species. If truth had its roots in the constitution of man, then it would not exist at aH without this constitution. Such an assertion is nonsensical, for the proposition (and here Husserl is completely Augustinian!) "There is no truth" is equivalent to the proposition "The truth exists that there is no truth". The 42 absurdity of the thesis demands the absurdity of the hypothesis .

39 Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1. § 36, pp. 124-125. 40 cr. Edmund Husserl, ibid.• Vol. 1, § 35, pp. 123,2-13. Cf. also ¡bid., § 36, p. 124. 41 cr. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuc/¡ungen, 1, § 36, p. 126. cr. ibid., § 36, pp. 125,9-15. Cf. al so Martin Cajthaml, Kritik des Relativismus, cit. 42 Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. 1, ch. 7, § 36, p. 127. 148 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

In all of this Husserl is also quite Augustinian and Bonaventurian43 . Augustine insists, like Husserl, on the contradiction and absurdity of the negation of the existence of truth44. And so does Bonaventure45, in many stunningly brilliant texts and defenses of his theses46.

43 Cf. also Josef Seifert, "Bonaventuras Interpretation der augustinischen These vom notwendigen Sein der Wahrheit", Franziskanische Studien 59 (1977), 38-52. 44 Augustine, Soliloquia n, n, 2: Ergone interisse veritatem verum non erit? Si non erit verum, non ergo interit. Si verum erit, unde post occasum veritatis verum erit, cum jam veritas nulla est? A. Nihil habeo quid plus cogitem atque considerem. 45 Bonaventura, In Hexaemeron (IV, 1), Bonaventura, Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera omnia. edita studio et cura PP. ColJegii a S. Bonaventura, ad Claras Aquas (Quarracchi) ex Typographia ColJegii S. Bonaventura, lO volumina (1882-1902), V, 349: Lux animae ver ita s est; haec lux nescit occasum. Ita enim fortiter irradiat super animam, ut etiam non possit cogitari non esse nec exprimi, quin horno sibi contradicat: quia, si veritas non est, verum est, veritatem nón esse: ergo aliquid est verum; et si aliquid est verum, verum est, veritatem esse: ergo si veritas non est, veritas est. Cf. also S. M. R. Dady. The Theory of Knowledge of Saint (Washington D.e. 1939), p. 68. 46 "Veritas autem est incorruptibilis ... cum sit talis naturae, quod ipsa negatio veritatis veritatem ponat", Bonaventura, II Sentenriarum (d. XIX a. Iql) 11, 459 11. 12. AIso Bonaventura, De Myslerio Trinitatis V, 48, 5, and Bonaventura, ibid., V 50 ad 5. I Ad ilJud quod obiicitur contra rati.onem Augustini, quod contradictoria non infert suam contradictoriam; dicendum, quod verum est secundum quod contradictoria; sed intelJigendum est, quod propositio affirmativa duplicem habet affirmationem: unam, qua asserit praedicatum de subiecto; aliam qua asserit, se esse veram. In prima distinguitur a propositione negativa, quae removet praedicatum a subiecto; in secunda yero communicat cum illa, quia tam propositio negativa quam affirmativa asserit, se esse veram. Quantum ad primam attenditur contradictio, non quantum ad secundum. Cum yero dicitur: nulJa veritas est, haec propositio, in quantum negat praedicatum a subiecto, non infert suam oppositam, quae est, aliquam veritatem esse. In quantum autem asserit, se esse veram, infert, aliquam veritatem esse; nec mirum, quia sicut omne malum praesupponit bonum, sic falsum infert verum. Et ideo hoc falsum, quod est, nulJam veritatem es se - cum propter remotionem praedicati a subiecto destruat omne verum, et propter assertionem (F affirmationelll), qua asserit, se esse veram, ponat aliquam veritatem esse - ineludit utramque partem contradictionis: ideo utra que ex ilJa potest inferri, et ipsum in se esse falsum et inintelligibile ab intellectu recte apprehendente. Et hoc est quod vult dicere Augustinus. Different logical questions such as to whether or not Bonaventure, as Pfllnder objects to traditional as such, confuses in this passage the assertive function of the copula with the affirmative modality of the assertive proposition, or the question, whether in this passage we find already an anticipated critique of the applicabilily of Russell's Iheory ollypes to the negation of truth, cannot be pursued in this contexto JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F1CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LOG/CAL INVESTlGAT/ONS FOR... 149

Husserl argues in a similar way: If truth were relative to the constitution of a species, it could ensue that the truth that is valid for it would consist in that there is no such constitution47 . Thus there arises out of relativism "absurdities upon absurdities"48. Husserl also recognizes: If truth were relative, then the world would be relative as weH49. Being cannot remain absolute if truth is relative. Then. however, also the "1 am" or "1 experience" is possibly false5o. The thesis of relativism is in conflict as well with the inner evidence of the cogito and of inner perception51 . Logical laws can also not be accidental like mere contingent facts. To assume this is absurd52 and contradicts apodictic evidence. All of these quite foundational insights of Husserl are decisive for the development of phenomenological realismo indeed they can be regarded as its "Magna Charta" since they do justice to the arch­ phenomenon and the primary value of aH scientific research, truth in its objectivity, and defend it profoundly in its absoluteness.

3. The Evidence of Philosophical Insight as "1m media te Cognizance of Truth" and Criticism of Every Form of Skepticism

To this objectivism in the conception of truth as an arch given data in the realm of judgement, of every logical construction which by its essence makes a claim to objective truth, is also inseparably linked Husserl' s teaching of the evidence and scientific character of philosophical knowledge as weH as his criticism not only of the logical, but also epistemological side of every form of relativism, which does not just reinterpret the essence of truth, but also. as skepticism, disputes the evidence of the knowledge of truth. 1 see precisely in his establishing that there is evident knowledge one of the most important contributions of Husserl to the founding of a realist phenomenology: that he has not only refuted in the Logical Investigations the logical absurdity of every form of relativism, but also the epistemological errors of every form of skepticism. and has shown the evidence of the knowledge of truth.

47 Edmund Husserl, Prolegomeni, ibid., p. 127. 48 [bid., pp. 127-128. 49 bid., p. 128. so [bid., p. 128, 15 f.: "Aueh das 'Ieh bin' und .Ieh er1ebe dies und jenes' wltre eventuell falseh ... ". SI [bid., p. 128. S2 [bid., p. 129. 150 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

What Husserl calls the "cardinal question of " (ibid., 3), namely, the question concerning the objectivity of knowledge, can be fully and entirely positively answered, on the foundation of the insight into the objectivity and evidence of truth. We can first agree with Husserl that philosophy as a science aims at knowing and would also have to achieve this in order to be able to make a justified claim to knowledge: "Science, as the name indicates, has to do with knowledge (scire)"53. It has especially to avoid "contravening" "the evident conditions for the possibility of a theory in general"54. One can only speak justifiably of truth or science, as Husserl again expresses in a different way, if the subject finds in the justification of his judgement the lucid certainty of having attained to truth itself. The evidence, furthermore, of being able to recognize the truth or to "possess" the truth itself, is the condition of being able to speak of a theory, or better said of a grounded theory:

If the one judging, however, were at no place and time in the position to experience in himself that distinguishing characteristic which constitutes the justification of the judgement. and to grasp it as such, he would be lacking in aJl judgements the evidence which distinguishes them from blind prejudices, and which gives him the lucid certainty of not merely holding them to be true, but of possessing the truth itself; thus, for him, reasonably establishing and founding knowledge, theory and science, would be out of the question. A theory, therefore, violates the subjective conditions of its possibility as theory in general when, in accordance with this example, it denies every advantage of that which is evident as opposed to blind judgement; it dissolves in so doing that which distin­ guishes itself from an arbitrary, unfounded assertion55.

In a wonderful passage, Husserl describes evidence not as a merely subjective character, as sorne feeling of the subject, but as the "becoming aware 'of the truth" in evident knowledge, or also as a "possession of truth" in knowledge.

53 Logisclle Untersuchungen. Vol. l. Prolegomena, ch. l. § 6. line 34, p. 27. Cf. also Husserl. Logische UntersuchulIgen. Vol. 1, Prolegomella, ch. 7. § 32. pp. 118-119. S4 Husserl, Logische Ulltersucllungen. Vol. l. ch. 7, § 32, p. 118. 5S [bid., p. 119. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LaG/CAL INVEST/GATlONS FOR... 151

The most perfect characteristic of the rightness is the evidence; we can regard it as an immediate becoming cognizant of the truth itself. .. 56 .

"Possessing tfUth in knowledge" is spoken of elsewhere:

In knowing, however, we possess the truth. In actual knowing, to which we see ourselves led back in the end, we possess it as the object of a correct judgment. But this alone does not suffice ... 57.

And Husserl adds:

To this belongs rather -if one is speaking of knowing in the narrowest and strictest sense- the evidence, the lucid certainty that that which we have acknowledged i s, and that which we have rejected i s n o t58 .

The powerful insights of Brentano into evidence as the ultimate criterion of truth, and his criticism of subjectivist and psychologistic theories of evidence undoubtedly form the basis here. Brentano in particular points to the objectivity of evidence and its radical difference from a mere subjective feeling or a mere necessity of thought in his criticism of the subjectivist interpretation of evidence as a mere compulsion of thinking:

The characteristic of insight, the clarity, the evidence of certain judge­ ments from which their truth is inseparable, has little or nothing to do with a feeling of compulsion. It may be that at the moment 1 cannot help but make a particular judgement: the essence of that clarity does not consist in the feeling of being compelled; and no consciousness of a necessity to judge in a certain way could as such guarantee truth. Whoever, when making judgements, does not believe in indeterminism, holds all judgements to be necessary under the circumstances under whi­ ch they are made, but -and with undeniable justification- for that , however, not all for true. Sigwart, while wanting to find the consciousness of insight in a feeJing of compulsion to think in a certain way, maintains that this conscious­ ness of one's own being compelled is at the same time a consciousness

$6 Cf. Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. I. § 6. line 7-9, p. 29. 57 Cf. Edmund Husserl. ibid., p. 28, line 16-18. SS [bid., p. 28, 1ine 21-25. 152 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

of the necessity for all those who think, who have the same underlying reasons ... But why shou1d ... every other thinker ... be subject to the same compulsion? .. What insight one person has, is, of course, for him as for every other person who has the insight in a similar way, certain. Likewise, general validity always belongs to the judgement. the truth of which is grasped in an insight; that is to sayo one person cannot grasp the opposite of the insight another has. and anyone errs who believes the contrary. In addi­ tion .... whoever grasps something as true. recognizes that he is justified in regarding it as true for everyone. But it would mean being guilty of a great confusion of concepts if one wanted to make out of such a conscio­ usness of the truth for everyone. the consciousness of a general compul­ sion of thoughtS9 •

On the basis of these insights, Oskar Kraus right1y emphasizes that Husserl's criticism of the subjectivist theory of epistemology and evidence in psychologism has its foundation precisely in Franz Brentano's insights into the objective character of evidence. (Underlining Brentano's powerful contributions to the clarification of the objective character of evidence60 , does not comprise any agreement with Brentano's evidence theory of truth itself)61. The opposite of evident knowledge is knowing based on probability of varying degrees, and, aboye aH, "blind conviction"62 and "unfounded opinion"63. Evidence means, in contradistinction to such forms of knowing, a havin'g or possessing the truth and the facts corresponding to it in the conscious experience of truth. Therein lies the foundation of aH knowledge, of aH science, and of any theory which distinguishes itself fram arbitrary claims to truth of blind judgements that are robbed of their justification, and which therefore we can also discern as such.

S9 Franz Brentano,' Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. introd. and ed. by Oskar Kraus, identical Reprint of the 4th ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1955). "Anmerkung 27: 'Von der Evidenz''', pp. 66-67. 60 Cf. Franz Brentano. Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. ibid.. pp. 67-68. note 6. 61 Cf. my critique of this theory in Josef Seifert. Filosofie. Pravda, Nesmrtlenost. Toi praúsk1i poedná6ky/Philosophie. Wahrheit. Unsterblichkeit. Drei Prager Vorlesungenl Philosophy, Truth. Immortality. Three Prague Lectures (chech­ German). I?oeklad, úvod a bibliografi Martin Cajthaml, (Prague: Vydala Koestanská akademie Oim, svacek, edice Studium. 1998). 62 [bid .. p. 28, line 26. 63 Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1, Prolegomena. ch. 1, § 6, p. 29, line 5. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN1FlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LaG/CAL INVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 153

4. Intentionality and Cognitive Transcendence in Evident Knowledge -The Insights of the Logical Investigations and a Critique of the Later Husserl's Abandoning Thern- Sorne Reflections on the Motives That Led Husserl Already Since Ihe Logical Investigations lo Ihe Threshold of Transcendental Idealisrn and a Critique of These Motives

We can rightly ascribe to Husserl a full "prise de conscience" of intentionality as that which paved the way to the recognition of the transcendence in knowledge, the foundation of every phenomenological realismo He had likewise emphasized in the Logical lnvestigations the receptive structure of the acts of knowing and the genuine transcendence of man in knowledge which far surpasses mere intentionality; and his own insights will serve as a foundation of the rejection of the theory of the immanentism of intentionality of the later Husserl and as a justification of the objectivist theory of evidence of the Logical lnvestigations. Phenomenology, and within this movement especially phenomenological realism, turns against every attempt to make constructs in philosophy, and thereby not only against Kant's interpretation of the antinomies as an indication that reason is inevitably the victim of contradictory thought constructions64, but al so against every conception of knowledge as a construction or creation of objects. A genuine phenomenological philosophy attempts to track down the sources of knowledge and its evidence; and this is inseparable from the recognition that human consciousness is not a stream of consciousness that is locked within itself and faced only with its own 'contents', but rather goes beyond itself, in fact by seeing and discovering its objects, not by creating, positing or producing them. Without such an elucidation of the receptive transcendence of knowing, any tal k of evidence remains untenable65 . Precisely in this are a of a theory of epistemology adequate to this state of affairs, Husserl 's accomplishment was tremendous: first of aH, because he shed light on the arch-phenomenon of the intentionality of

64 ce. Josef Seifert, Überwindung des Skandals der reinen Ve rn u nft. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit der Wirklichkeit - trotz Kant. (Freiburg/Mtinchen: Karl A1ber, 2001); the same author "Das Antinomienproblem als ein Grundproblem aller Metaphysik: Kritik der Kritik der reinen Vernunft". in Prima Philosophia, Vol. 2, 2, 1989. 65 Cf. Josef Seifert, Erkelllltnis objektiver Wahrheit, cit., 1. Parto 154 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFtA, Veis. 17-18,2004-2005

consciousness, which excludes every picture/image theory of consciousness and its interpretation as a kind of box in which contents of consciousness are found66 , For the real contents and the real unity of consciousness, the conscious experiences, distinguish themselves sharply from the objects that appear in them, which possess completely different characteristics and cannot be reduced to the former67 . Intentional consciousness (and not all consciousness is intentional, as Husserl remarked by way of clarification, Franz Brentano, on the other hand, wrongly assumed)68 goes essentiaIly far beyond its own immanent contents -to the things themselves. Therein líes an amazing transcendence of consciousness! The picture/image theory of consciousness, which Husserl criticizes in a masterly way, in no way does justice to precisely this phenomenon. Through his critique, Husserl shows a certain arch form of transcendence appropriate to consciousness, which this theory fails to recognize, in intentional consciousness as such69. Husserl elucidates the same arch phenomenon of intentionality further through his distinction of the different meanings of the terms "representation" (Vorstellung) and "content of consciousness" (BewujJtseinsinhalt), from which proceeds the radical distinction between immanent real contents 01 the conscious lije 01 the person and the objects which stand opposite to this experiencing as something transcendent7o . But Husserl al so devotes himself to the essentially beholding and discovering structure of knowing, for instance when he writes: '

He also knows that he does not m a k e the objective validity of the thoughts and intellectual connections, of the concepts and truths, as if it were a matter of accidental factors of his mind or the human mind in general, but that he gains an i n s i g h tinto them, he d is e o ver s them. He knows that their ideal being does not have the meaning of a psychical "being in our mind", since, with the genuine ideality of truth and of the ideal in general, all real being, including subjective being, would be di~solved as we1l 71 ,

66 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. 11, 1, LV 5. pp. 352 ff. 67 Cf. Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungell, Vol. 11, 1, LV 5, § 2 ff.• pp. 356 ff.; 380 ff. 68 cr. Husserl. ibid .• V. § 10. pp. 382 r.; 402-410. 69 Cf. Husserl. ibid.. "Beilage zu den Paragraphen 11 und 20", pp. 436-440. 70 Husserl. ibid.• LV 5, ch. 6. § 44. pp. 520-529. 71 Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. 11, l, LU l. ch. 3. § 29, p. 100. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFlCANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LOGICAL INVESTlGATlONS FOR... 155

Here, as also in his theory of the "categorial intuition" in the sixth Logical Investigatíon, Husserl seems not only to see clearly the receptivity and receptive transcendence of knowledge, in the sense of St. Augustine, who says that the human mind does not make such things, hut discovers them 72; but also to maintain the strict validity, which he radically puts into question in his later philosophy, of ideal essential laws for objects and states of affairs in the real world. Knowledge is an arch given datum characterized through receptive transcendence, and every cognition is determined by the object and not by the subject. Only when this is acknowledged, is its arch given essence preserved. Edmund Husserl has also been an absolute pioneer precisely regarding this point in the LogícalInvestigations, as the aboye discussed critique of Husserl of relativism demonstrates. One only needs to think of his poignant refutation of every relativism that is to be found in psychologism, and of his exposition of its necessary contradictions73 •

The most weighty objection that one can raise against a theory, and especially against a theory of logic, consists in saying that it violates the evident conditions of the possibility of a theory in general. To put forward a theory which in its content, be it expressly or inclusively, is in conflict with the propositions which at all ground the meaning and claim to legitimacy of all theories in general - that is not merely false, but entirely wrong ... 74 In the concept of knowledge in the strict sen se there lies a judgement that not merely raises the claim to touch the truth, but is also certain of the justification of this claim and really al so possesses this justification. If the one judging, however, were at no time and place in the position to

72 "Non enim ratiocinator talia facit, sed invenit. Ergo antequam inveniantur, in se manent, et cum inveniuntur, nos innovant". (Augustine, De Vera Religione, XXXIX, 73,205-7). 73 Edmund Husserl, Logische Unlersuchungen, ch. 5-8, in particular ¡bid., Prolegomena, chapter 7, "Der Psychologismus als skeptischer Relativismus", especially § 32, "Die idealen Bedingungen fUr die MOglichkeit einer Theorie Uberhaupt. Der strenge Begriff des Skeptizismus". 74 See also the continuation of the text: In doppelter Hinsicht kann man hier von evidenten "Bedingungen der MOglichkeit" jeder Theorie Uberhaupt sprechen. Fürs erste in subjektiver Hinsicht. Hier handelt es sich um die apriorischen Bedingungen, von denen die MOglichkeit der unmittelbaren und mittelbaren Erkenntnis und somit die Moglichkeit der vernUnftigen Reclztfertigung jeder Theorie abhl1ngig isl. Die Theorie als Erkenntnisbegründung ist selbst eine Erkenntnis und hl1ngt ihrer Moglichkeit nach von gewissen Bedingungen ab, die rein begrifflich in der Erkenntnis und ihrem Verhl1ltnis zum erkennenden Subjekt grUnden. z. B. 156 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFtA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

experience in himself that distinguishing characteristic which constitutes the justification of the judgement, and grasp it as such, he would be lacking in all judgements the evidence of which distinguishes them from blind prejudices, and which gives him the lucid certainty of not merely holding them to be true, but of possessing the truth itself; thus. for him, reasonably establishing and founding knowledge, theory and science, would be out of the question. A theory, therefore, violates the subjective conditions of its possibility as theory in general when, in accordance with this example, it denies every advantage of the evident judgement as opposed to the blind judgement; it dissolves in so doing that which distinguishes itself from an arbitrary, unfounded assertion ... 75 In an o b j e c t i v e respect, talking about conditions of the possibility of every theory is not concerned with theory as a subjective unity of c o g n i t ion s , but rather with theory as an objective unity of t r u t h s, that is lo say pro p o s i t ion s linked together through condilions of cause and effect. The conditions here are all the I a w s w h i c h gro u n d p u r e I y I n t h e con c e p t s o f t h e o r y - more specifically expressed, that ground purely in the concept of truth, proposition, object, constitution, relation, and the sort, in a word, in concepts which essentia11y constitute the concept of theoretical unity. The denial of these laws is, therefore, synonymous with (equivalent 10) the assertion that a1l of the terms in question: theory, truth, object, conslitution, etc., are devoid of a s o lid m e a n i n g. A theory dissolves itself in this objeetive­ logical respecto when, in its content, it violates the laws without which 'theory' would not have any "reasonable" (solid) meaning at a11. The violation of the logical conditions is most acutely apparent when it is constituent of the meaning of the theoretical thesis to deny these laws, upon which the reasonable possibility of every thesis and of every foundation of a thesis is altogether dependent. .. We distinguish, therefore (naturally. nol with any intention lo c1assify): false, absurdo 10gieaI. and noetically absurdo and finally s k e p tic a l t h e o r i e s; referring with the last ·title to alI theories whose theses eilher expressly imply or analytieally inelude in themselves that the logical or noetic eonditions of the possibility of a thesis are false in general. ... (to skepticism) correspond, for example, the antique forms of skeptieism with theses of the kind such as: there is no truth, there is no

75 The text adds: ... [Zur Unterscheidung] wollen wir von ihnen als von noetischen Bedingungen sprechen. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LOG/CAL INVESTlGATlONS FOR... 157

knowledge and foundation of knowledge, and the sort. .. That it belongs to the concept of the skeptical theory to be non s e n sic a l is clear straight away from the definition 76.

Or one regards the brilliant and accurate characterization of evidence as "experience of truth" in the Prolegomena, in which c1early a receptive transcendence of knowledge, a "possessing of truth" is formulated:

Evidence is, rather, nothing other than the "experience" of the truth. The truth is experienced, of course, in no other sense than in that in which something ideal can at aH be an experience in a real act. In other words: T r u t h i s a n i d e a, t h e i n d i vid u a loe e u r r e n e e of which in the evident judgement is an actual e x p e r i e n e e. The evident judgement, however, is a consciousness of original data. The non-evident judgement is to the evident judgment analogous to what the arbitrary positing of an object is to its adequate perception. That which is adequately perceived is not merely something that is meant in sorne way, but rather is given originaHy in the act as what it is meant, that is to say, as itself present and grasped in its originality ... The analogy, which binds together aH experiences that are given in this immediate way, leads then to analogous formulations: one calls the evidence a seeing, recognizing, grasping of the ("true") state of affairs that is given itself, that is to say, in a natural equivocation, of the truth 77.

Edmund Husserl underwent precisely in this point, however, a radical change, which is much more radical than the famous Heideggerian 'Kehre.' He abandoned this objectivism almost entirely and felI into a "transcendental relativism"78, in fact already in 190579. It

76 Edmund Husserl, Logische U/ltersuchungenebd, ch. 5-8, especially ibid., Logische Untersuchungen, Prolegomena, Chapter 7, "Der Psychologismus als skeptischer Relativismus", especially § 32, "Die idealen Bedingungen für die M6glichkeit einer Theorie überhaupt. Der strenge Begriff des Skeptizismus". 77 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1, Prolegomena, ch. 8, § 51, p.193. 78 Cf. Walter Hoeres, Kritik der transzelldentalphilosophischen Erkenlltnistheorie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969); the same author, "Critique of the Transcendental of Knowing, Phenomenology and Neo-Scholastic Transcendental Philosophy". Aletheia (1978) U, 353-69. 79 ef Edmund Husserl. Die Idee der Phiinomenologie (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), p. 23, 81-84, Beilage 11. 158 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA, Vals. 17-18.2004-2005 151

is difficult to comprehend how the same thinker, who SO clearly saw this arch form and condition of transcendence in consciousness in the cognizant going beyond oneself to the ideal and real world, and thereby became a pioneer in the breakthrough to an objectivist philosophy, could so drastically mistake the deeper transcendence of knowledge in his later work. There are different reasons for this surprising turn in Husserl. To begin with. a serious mistake. which is decisive for the later Husserl, as for every form of , needs to be eliminated at this point: the evident truth that no act of cognition is possible and conceivable in which the subject of knowing does not recognize exclusively through his own acts whatever he comes to know, has to be sharply delineated from the contradictory and false opinion that the subject cannot know of anything that it is more than mere/y apure/y intentional object oi consciousness! The starting points of such a confusion, which also goes back to Kant, Fichte. and other representatives of , can already be found in the Logica/ lnvestigations; they give to the intentionality of consciousness, which is expounded in the Fifth Logical lnvestigation and is decisive for all phenomenology, an immanentistic interpretation. lnstead of perceiving in intentionality an initial, but by no mean s sufficient step of transcendence, Husserl commits the mistake of confusing things in the concept of immanence; and, as we saw aboye, denies, already beginning in 1905, every genuine transcendence of man in knowledge. This view of Husserl extends itself in the Cartesian Meditations to a comprehensive, radical immanentism which goes far beyond that of Kant:

Transcendence in every form is an immanent character of being constitu­ ting itself within the ego. Every conceivable meaning, every conceivable being. whether it is calIed immanent or transcendent. falIs in the realm of transcendental subjectivity as that which constitutes meaning and be­ ingBO •.

See also Edmund Husserl. Die Idee der Phlinomenologie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1950)/The Idea 01 Phenomenology, transl. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1964); Cf. Iikewise Edmund Husserl. Ideen zu einer reinen Phlinomenologie und phlinomenologischen Philosophie, 1, Husserliana Vol. 3, ed. H. L. Van Breda. hrsg. v. W. Biemel (Den Haag. 1950). 80 Edmund Husserl. Cartesianische Meditationen ulld Pariser Vortrlige. ed. and intrad. by S. Strasser. in: Husserliana: Gesammelte Werke E. Husserls, auf Grund des JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL lNVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 159

In part, the root of this conception lies in the a1ready mentioned view of Husserl in the Logical Investigations that all real acts (consequentIy, also knowing and the acts of judgement) must be causally determined; only the contents of the judgements are noto In part, however, the basis of this conception of Husserl lies in his view that already the transcendence of consciousness that is found in intentionality, and relates to a Noema that is not identifiable with the conscious act, s u ffic e s to found genuine knowledge, and is enough to refute the immanentistic picture/image theory of knowing. Both of these theses are serious errors of Husserl, which are already found in the Logical Investigations and which blocked Husserl's rigorous path to an actual phenomenological realism. Sokolowski appears in his very brief treatment of realism in phenomenology81, which he himself appears to defend, neither to take seriously the path of Husserl into radical , nor to grasp that the mere indication of the (at best proto-realist) reference of the intentional act to objects beyond itself by no means suffices for a foundation of phenomenological realismo For the recognition of intentionality in this sense is compatible with a radical idealism or even relati vism which reduces all objects of consciousness to purely immanent noemata of conscious noesis. This was also cJearly seen by Hartmann82 . This decisive point of criticism and the essential Iimitations of Husserl 's foundation of a phenomenological objectivism need to be treated here in greater detail. It is cJear, after aH, that the intentional subject-object-relation can also be found in a dream or in the imagination, the objects of which do not possess autonomous existence. lf, therefore, the transcendence of knowing were to consist in nothing

Nachlasses verMfentlicht vom Husserl-Archiv (Louvain) unter der Leitung von H. L. Breda. (The Hague, Nijhoff 1950 - 1962), Vo!. 1, 1950; in English: Cartesian Meditations. trans!. Dorion Cairns, 5th impression (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1973); Cf. also Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phiinomen%gie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). Cf. a critique of this thesis in Josef Seifert, Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. cit.; Josef Seifert, Back to Things in Themse/ves, cit., und Josef Seifert, "Kritik am Relativismus und Immanentismus in E. Husserls Cartesianischen Meditationen. Die Aequivokationen im Ausdruck 'transzendentales Ego' an der Basis jedes transzendentalen Idealismus". Sa/'l.buger Jahrbuch für Pltilosophie XIV, 1970. 81 Cf. Robert Sokolowski, lntroduction to Pltenomenology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 21. 216 ff. 82 Cf. , Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (4th ed.), (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1949).

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more than a trait found in all intentionality, then deception and knowledge would in the end be the same. Or which distinction could we then still make between a deception, an hallucination, and knowledge? Even the things and persons which habitually appear in weird associations before going to sleep and of which we have consciousness, process before our mind's eye and would then be transcendent objects of knowledge. Above all, no distinction between deception and knowledge, and error and knowledge couId be made because also the acts of erring and beliefs based on deceptions are intentional acts. In his main epistemological work83 , Nicolai Hartmann, the phenomenologist who carne from the Neo-Kantian tradition, crosses swords polemically with phenomenology and maintains that "intentional objects" are indeed not "conditions of the 1", and, therefore, not real parts of consciousness; but that they still are immanent "pictures" in an epistemological-metaphysical sense84, For, as the case of deception clearly teaches us, the intentionaI object is distinct from the real object. In fact, Hartmann concludes, the intentional object is not only in the case of deception, but rather never identica1 with the object as it is in itself; it is instead always in one sense "immanent to consciousness". This Hartmann declares to be the "principIe of consciousness": "It beIongs to the es sen ce of consciousness that it is never able to apprehend anything other than its own contents, that it can never step outside of its own sphere"85. This "immanence of positing"86, on the one hand, which is strongly reminiscent of the Iater Husserl of the Cartesian Meditations, and according to which all "intentionaI objects" remain dependent on consciousness and consciousness can never grasp the object itself; and, on the other hand, the "intention of knowledge to attain transcendence", according to which we still always aim through the "picture" (the intentional object) at a transcendent, autonomous. and realIy existing object87 , constitute, according to Hartmann. the "antinomy of

83 Nicolai Haitmann, GrundzUge einer Metaphysik des Erkennens, 1st Part, 3rd Section, ch. lO, pp. 106 ff. 84 Cf. ¡bid., p. 47, b7. 8S [bid., p. 61,4. 86 Ibid., p. 62. 87 One sees here how Hartmann sought to move away from the and Neokantianism of the Marburg School, 10 which he himself belonged. He saw with special c1arity - in contradistinction to the laler Husserl - that moment of the transcendence of knowledge thal is directed to a "thing in itself' (at least as an elemen! in the 'phenomenon of knowing' even though he does not recognize this transcendence as an evident datllm): JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GNIFlCANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoG/CAL INVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 161 consciousness". This antinomy simply presents itself in its contradictoriness and cannot really be rationally sol ved. According to Hartmann, Husserl was guilty, therefore, of a "simplification of the picture problem"88. The fact that the "intentional object" is not a "condition of the 1" makes it by no means into something "transcendent", says Nicolai Hartmann89, but rather precisely into that which is meant with "picture", through which we aim in knowledge at the object that is distinct from the picture, as the case of deception proves. In response to this, it can be said, first of aB, that the autonomous reality of the object is decisive for any knowledge. This autonomous "reality" is different, however, according to the essence of each being that is known. Thus, other persons, for example, presuppose on the basis of their essence a reality that is independent of my knowledge and any consciousness of mine, while colors do not do this. The plans that an optimist has conceived and told me about aBege. again on the basis of their essence, that peculiar "degree of reality" which is typical of such a designo If this "reality-in-itself' of things which corresponds to each of their essences did not reaBy belong to them, and they would rather only be given to us as if they had this reality or as if reality even "consisted" only of "intentional objects" for a (transcendental) ego, then all "intentional objects" would, consequently, only be "constituted" in the corresponding "intentional acts" of this ego, as the late Husserl assumes. But then we would be locked into that radical immanentism which has been refuted in other works90 and which Hartmann so aptly characterizes:

It is an error to understand everything that is immanent as a "condition of the I". Thoughts, fantasies, ideas are not conditions of the 1. They have the character of being an object; ... But because of that they are not yet objects of knowledge. They are lacking in the being in itself, the independence from the intention; they live from the grace of the act ... Transcendent in the gnoseological sense

Die nachstehenden Untersuchungen gehen von der Auffassung aus, daB Erkenntnis nicht ein Erschaffen. Erzeugen oder Hervorbringen des Gegenstandes ist, wie der Idealismus alten und neuen Fahrwassers uns belehren will, sondern ein Erfassen von etwas, das also vor aIler Erkenntnis und unabhangig von ihr vorhanden isl. (l. Satz der "Metaphysik des Erkennens".) 88 Ibid., p. 81. 89 Ibid., p. 115. 90 ef. Josef Seifert. Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, cit., in particular Part JI. 162 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

is only that which is independent of theact ... Thus. intentional objects are, insofar at least as they are merely "intentional". "gnoseologically immanent"91.

As correct as this certainly is in the sense just indicated, there are still sorne objections that need, on the other hand, to be made to Hartmann's theses. First, it remains misleading to conceive of the object of a deception in its merely apparent existence as the "mere immanent image" of an object92• Second. as has been treated elsewhere in detail93 , it is a false dogma that we can never immediately know an object in itself in its autonomous reality and with the exclusion of every possibility of deception. We will still come back to the fact that there are many cases in which the "thing in itself' in our knowledge is an "intentional object". It will also become cIear that we can know sorne things which cannot possibly be an aspect of reality that constitutes itself only for human beings. This we can already recognize on the background of the third and most important objection which must be raised against Nicolai Hartmann:

Third, even for such aspects which only constitute themselves for human beings (for instance, the humane aspect of the outside world), which, however, are objective in another sen se and can therefore be known94, yes even for deception, it is true that there can be no apparent being without a being that is absolute and rests in itself. just as no relation is possible without absolute being. But not just that:

Fourthly. being in itself that is presupposed already for every deception has to be recognized immediately as such and thereby be itself

91 Ibid .• p. 115. 92 Edmund Husserl shows in Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. 11. l. in ch. V. § 11. and particularly in his rejection of the "¡mage theory" of knowledge. pp. 421 ff.. that already for the recognition of an image as image an intentional consciousness of that object itself is presupposed whose "image" we recognize the image lo be; olherwise we would end up in an infinite regress. Moreover. lerms such as "image". "immanent objecl". ele. suggesl lha! one overlooks the unique nature of the inlenlional relation. 93 Cf. Josef Seiferl. Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. cit., Part 2. 94 Cf. Dielrich von Hildebrand, What is Plzilosoplzy? 3rd edn. with a New Introductory Essay by Josef Seiferl (London: Routledge. 1991). ch. 5: "Objectivily and Independence" . JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/FlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL lNVESTlGATlONS FOR... 163

"intentional object" of my knowledge; otherwise, no deception could come about. In order to be able to deceive myself, for instance, about the stick in the water I perceive being broken, 1 must not deceive myself precisely in grasping the state of affairs that I see, that it appears broken to me, and so on. 1 have to grasp this and countless states of affairs in their being-in-themselves in order to be able to deceive myself at aH. The very case of deception, therefore, which Nicolai Hartmann cites as proof for his thesis, refutes his thesis and "principIe of immanence"95. lmmanence of consciousness is shut through with transcendence. and necessarily entails cognitive transcendence of evident knowledge. For even if in many cases the object, about which 1 deceive myself, is not itself (in its being in itself) the immediate "intentional object" of my knowledge, as Hartmann rightly points out against Husserl, every deception presupposes, nonetheless, certain realities, which are both "in themselves" and intentional objects of my knowledge. Without the immediate, deception-free knowledge of them, 1 could not deceive myself at aH. Let us once more emphasize the most important objects of this knowledge that is presupposed by every deception: First, the absolute existence of the one being deceived is presupposed for every deception. Second, it is true in itself that something merely appears ro him to be while not being in itself. Third, it is in ¡tself such that the person, for instance, that I dream about, appears on the basis of her essence to possess a kind of autonomous existence, that she "professes" a kind of existence that she does not possess as a mere figure of a dream. If aH of this and much besides were not "in itself' and were not true, there would not be any deception at al!. Further, in recognizing aH of this, the person dreaming does not by any mean s deceive herself; and this leads us to a distinction that must be made now and that is decisive for every epistemology96. The decisive element in knowing, in contradistinction to every deception, to aH that is merely believed erroneously, is, namely, that the "claim to being" of the object rightly exists and that 1 grasp precisely this datum. As much as the intentionality and receptivity of knowing are present in a deception through a dream or aFata Morgana, the real transcendence and the knowing of the object does not actuaHy lie in the

95 cr. also James R. Mensch, "The Question of Being in Husserl's 'Logical Investigations''', (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1981). 96 cr. Josef Seifert, Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, cit., Part 1. ch. 3; Part 2. ch. 1-3. cr. a1so Josef Seifert, Back to Things in Themselves, cit.. ch. 3-5. - 164 SEMINARIOS DE FlLOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

deception as such because the object only "gives the impression" of being to a mere meaning or perceiving, but does not really exist. Hence, also the real knowing coming into contact with reality cannot take place in the deception or error as such. Only the knowledge of those things and states of affairs that are objectively presupposed for any deception and dream to take place, and that have to be known to the subject as a condition for his being deceived, is truly knowledge and possesses the mentioned transcendence. It belongs essentially to knowing that the object is autonomous in its being and does not only appear to a subject to be, and still discloses itself to the subject. Only where this is present, do we find the transcendence that is characteristic of all knowing - but only in knowledge in the strict and narrower sense of evident knowledge, not in knowledge in a wider sense (that is mixed with beliefs of all kinds) do we find evidence of the cognitive self-transcendence of the subject. Knowing in the strictest sen se is, thereby, to be sharply distinguished from knowing in the broader sense that is connected to 1I believing or interpretation. According to the results achieved till now, one could perhaps be still inclined to assume with Nicolai Hartmann that the autonomy of being of the object of each act of knowledge only supervenes from outside, and that error and knowledge in their inner aspect are acts of a completely similar nature. The question whether this is so, is an epistemologicaI question of greatest importance. Nicolai Hartmann 's attempt at a solution seems to be a serious error. I It was shown just before that there could be no deception at all if I '1 certain things did not exist absolutely in themselves and were not truly recognized by the person deceiving herself. The person must recognize that an object really appears to her to be in such and such way. That has 1: ji to be in itself, and she must recognize it as such; and in this, her knowledge, there can precisely be no deception and no error; otherwise, 1: ~ , no deception at all would come about. If the person deceived then later sees that she has deceived herself, she will speak thus: "1 never knew that the (dreamed) object really existed; I rather only 'believed' it on the basis of the suggestive appearance and with good reasons. Because the object really passed itself off so much as being, it convinced me entirely that it truly was. But when I look more closely, I see that I only recognized this cLaim to being in the full sense of the word; that it rightly exists, I assumed in a (perhaps scarcely noticeable element of) JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LaG/CAL lNVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 165

'belief"'97, It will be confirmed, therefore, that knowledge itself never 98 errs as Plato says in the Gorgias • And when, on the basis of this modest remark, one takes a look at all of our knowledge, one finds largely the same situation. Do we not also speak of "knowledge" where being has disclosed itself to us on the basis of the knowledge of others in our science, where we "know" something because we have "believed" trustworthy people? Most scientists have acquired practically all scientific knowledge through such -barely noticeable- "belief'? How el se could a person study chemistry, geography, or history; how could someone "know" something of the past, if not through "belief'? Edmund Husserl proved already in the Fifth Logical lnvestigation, moreover, that in every sense perception, along with that which is immediately given, a background of knowledge and elements of interpretation, expectation, and completion are contained which go far beyond that which is really grasped in the strict sense, and through which the object actually first discloses itself to uS. It is impossible to go into the interesting question here of which different forms there are of such a going-beyond-that­ which-is-given-and-known, and how much in being discloses itself to man only through such elements of "belief' and interpretation. No one should and could only hold that to be true and existing which he has grasped in the strict sense of the word! But one must nevertheless see that "knowledge itself' is distinct from these elements of belief, that it never lies in knowledge itself for "something to disclose itself to us which is not", but rather these elements of belief, assumption, and interpretation as well as other elements which go beyond knowing and are difficuIt to separate from it are responsible for deception and error; and which understandably, in the case of an insufficient foundation in knowledge, can lead astray. It must be very clearly stressed, however, that often the concept of knowledge is applied to all kinds of "self disclosure of a being" - and in this case it only belongs to the concept of knowing that its object is

97 In Josef Seifert, Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, cit., Part 2, many instances have been adduced in which we recognize this c1aim to objective (intrinsic) being without any rest of faith. 98 If someone asked you, 'lsn'l Ihere a false belief and a true one?' You would. I think, answer 'Yes'? GORGIAS: Yeso SOKRATES: How then? AIso a false knowledge and a true one? GORGIAS: No way. Platon, Gorgias 454.

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autonomous. Then deceptions (which have a foundation in what is known) and the corresponding erroneous beliefs are not different with respect to their inner structure, but are only recognizable from the outside as distinct. When, on the other hand, knowledge is understood in the narrower sense, then one mean s with it that arch given act in which a being discloses itself to us in its autonomous reality and we grasp it itself. Without such knowledge in the narrower sense, that is to say without the grasping of states of affairs which actually are so in themselves and are given to us in this being in itself, no deception at aH would be possible, as has already been shown. In the case of this knowing in the narrower sense, it by no mean s belongs merely to the concept, but rather to the necessary essence of this act, that in it a being discloses itself to us as it iS99 . This deeper transcendence of the act of knowledge was indeed recognized by Husserl in the Logical lnvestigations, but was never seen deeply enough and was more and more rejected in the course of his later developmentlOo. That the faithfulness to the full data of the transcendent, necessary essences does not at al! constitute a forfeiting of the central phenomenological return to what is given, but leads rather to a better phenomenology, has been shown by different thinkers lO1 •

99 Cf. B. Schwarz. Der ¡rrtum. p. 53: "The highest level of givenness ... can therefore not err". ("Die htlchste Stufe des Gegebenen ... kann al so nicht irren".) Plato designated this distinction belween knowledge in the striel sense and belief as Ihe distinclion between dóxa and episréme or also belween p(sris (belief, opinion) and episréme (knowledge), though Plato conceives of epistéme in a different way inasmuch as he ineludes in its content also that its object is an immovable and necessary idea (essence) and further elements. Al any rate, Plato makes clearly a distinction between knowledge in the authentic (strict) sense and knowledge in a wider sense - mixed with moments of belief when he, especially in Ihe Theaitetos (I87b-2IOd) contrasts Ihe (de facto) "correct doxa" (orrhé dóxa) with knowledge. I owe to the PI~tonic analyses of knowledge more than the space of this footnote permits to express. In another way. however. the distinction intended here comes closer to what Aristotle. in contradistinction to Plato. who rejects sense knowledge itself as deceitful, says on the freedom from error of pure receptive sense perception. (CL Aristotle. De ano 427b, 12). See also J. Hirschberger. Geschichte der Phi/osopMe. l. p. 179. These hints have la suffice here. 100 cr. Josef Seifert, Back ro Things in Themselves. cit., ch. 4. 101 cr. John H. Nota. "Misunderstanding and Insight about Edith Stein's Philosophy", Human Srudies. (1987); 10, 205-212. In the most fundamental form Adolf Reinach and Dietrich van Hildebrand ha ve shown this. Ce. al so Josef Seifert. Back lo Thi/lgs in Themselves. und Erkellnrnis objekriver Wahrheit. cit. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LaG/CAL INVESTlGATIONS FOR... 167

s. The Impossibility of Deriving Knowledge, in Particular Knowledge of Essences, from Empirical Facts of a Causally Determined World - Husserl's Serious and Gravely Consequential Error in Asserting an Efficient Causal Determination of AH Real Beings as the· Reason for His Abandonment of Phenomenological Realism

Husserl shows clearly: the constitution of a species is an empirical fact. From empirical facts, only facts can be deduced. It is nonsensical to give truth the character of a fact in this sense. A fact is individual and temporarily determined. Truth, on the other hand. is at most temporarily lO2 determined with regards to sorne of its objects • Causal determination holds for the act of judging, not for the content of the judgmentlO3 • We can only fully and completely agree with Husserl that efficient causal determination, aboye aH, by material and psychical causes, does not pertain to the contents of judgements; and that such an efficient causal determination would destroy the entire objectivity of logic and the laws of logic. Therein lies a fundamental pillar of the foundation of every phenomenological objectivism and realismo We must, nevertheless, adduce a crucial and sharp criticism of part of this last-mentioned view of Husserl, a critique upon which, in my opinion, the justifiability of a phenomenological realism depends. The thesis of causal (efficient causal) determination, namely, does not only not hold for the content of the judgement, for instance, logical judgements and their logical truth-relations -Husserl demonstrates very strikingly the inexplicability of these through efficient causality-; rather, it does not hold anymore so for real knowing and for the rational act of judgement. Knowing, at least in the narrower sense of the word, as well as acts of judgement based on knowledge, presuppose rather a completely different kind of causelO4 • Intentional and rational acts of the mind such as knowing, judging, freely wanting, etc., are not produced by sorne efficient cause in the subject or even determined as regards their content by an efficient cause that would be as such the blind result of other physical, mindless causes or (in the case that not mindless natural causes but a supremely intelligent God would cause knowledge and

102 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1, Prolegomena, ch. 7, § 36, p. 126, line 16-20. 103 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, ibid., § 36, p. 126. 104 Cf. J05ef Seifert, Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, cit., Part 1, ch. 3; and the same author, Essere e persona, cit., ch. 9.

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ideas in our that would objectively correspond to things, as Leibniz and other rationalists thought), still any extrinsic efficient cause of acts of knowledge would produce our acts and their contents completely from outside our conscious relation to an object, in which case any foundation of evident knowledge in the real nature of the object and any true cognitive contact with the object that itself in its own nature is the cause of our cognitive contact with it, and of the content of our knowledge, would be impossible. Hence, Husserl's later idealism would inevitably follow from such a position if one wants to save the objectivity of knowledge. For how would we ever know that the efficient cause that produces directly 'knowledge' in us, produces these immanent acts and ideas in accordance with the real nature 01 the object? This would be entirely unknowable by uso How would we know that the contents produced by efficient causes in our minds resemble the object of knowledge? Even if the object of knowledge (like this tree in·front of me) were the efficient cause of my knowledge, 1 could in no way know its resemblance with its effect in my mind. No, acts of knowledge are rather produced by a specifically spiritual-intentional "causality" of a totally different form, which is of a kind that engenders and motivates the acts from the side of the object and through the meaningful intentional contact with itself. What is in question here is an "intentional-spiritual causality" arising from the object which Husserl mysteriously, despite his discovery of intentionality, completely overlooked by allowing all temporal being to be causally determined, saying: "My judging that 2 X 2 = 4 is certainly causalIy determined ... "105. Every objectivist and realist epistemology which assumes a being determined of real acts of knowledge by their object, through being itself, through the things themselves, presupposes a form of spiritual causality which is radically distinct from efficient causality. Only in this way can the objectivity and rationality of real acts of knowledge be founded. Otherwise. one has with Husserl to presuppose a transcendental 1 that is not actually real or even a constitution of all objects of knowledge through such a pure ego in order to save the evidence and objectivity of knowledge. But, in the last analysis, from such a 'redemption' there

105 Cf. Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. l. Prolegomena. ch. 7. § 36. p. 126. line 30-31: cr. ¡bid.• line 28-32. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFlCANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LOG/CAL INVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 169

foIlows as well a destruction of the transcendence of real knowing lO6 and a "triumph of subjectivity", as Lauer characterizes the development of Husserl 107 . Many interpreters of Husserl either fail to grasp the radicalness of his transcendental turn, which is a historical error on their part,108 or think with him that phenomenology, in arder to be strictly scientific, must foIlow in the direction of such a radical turn to subjectivity lO9. This overIooks, however, the essence of the necessarily real, individual act of knowledge as weIl as the real and individual form of being of the knowing subject, which will be made cIearer in the following segment of this paperllO, Husserl and the transcendental phenomenology that was inspired by him also completely neglect the insights of a realist phenomenology which blossomed especially in Russia 111, and was elaborated by other realist phenomenologists. Realist

106 In the light of the profound things Husserl says in the Prolegomena on evident knowledge as an experience of truth. things are reversed, when Boehm claims that Husserl teaches there apure "immanence of evident knowledge". and that he comes only later, especially in Ideas, to acknowledge a certain transcendence of knowledge. cr. Rudolf Boehm, "Basic Reflections on Husserl's Phenomenological Reduction", International Philosophical Quarterly, (1965), 5; 183-202. 107 In his Preface 10 What is Philosophy?, cit., Hildebrand radically distinguishes his position rrom such an understanding of phenomenology. cr. Quentin J. Lauer, Triumph Of Subjectil'ity: Introduction To Transcendental Phellomenology, (New York; Fordham University Press, 1958). 108 Dalias Willard commits this error, when he interprets also the later Husserl entirely as a realist. Cf. Dalias Willard, "Wholes, Parts, and the Objectivity of Knowledge", in: Barry Smith. ed., Parts and Moments: Sludies in Logic and Formal Onlology (MUnchen, Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1982), pp. 379-400. 109 This error I see in John J. Drummond, "Willard and Husserl on Logical Form", in: Thomas M. Seebohm (ed), Phenomenology and lhe Formal Sciences, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991). 110 On the critique of Husserl's immanentism, see also Josef Seifert, Erkenlltnis objekliver Wahrheit, cil.; the same author, "Kritik am Relativismus und Immanentismus in E. Husserls Cartesianischen Meditationen. Die Aequivokationen im Ausdruck 'transzendentales Ego' an der Basis jedes transzendentalen Idealismus". Salzbuger lahrbuch far Phi/osophie XIV, 1970. For a critique of Husserl's claim of a complete causal determination of all acts of knowing and judging cf. also Josef Seifert. Essere e persona, ibid., ch. 9. 111 Cf. Steven Cassedy, "Gustav Shpet and Phenomenology in an Orthodox Key", Studies in East-European Thought", 1997; 49 (2), 81-108. The very title connects Russian phenomenology and the Orthodox Church, which might suggest that realism would be a consequence of religious faith. which Husserl in his radical search for rational philosophical foundations would have had to exclude. While any Christian, Jewish, or Muslim faith is essentially realist, one must not overlook, however, the purely rational grounds for a phenomenological objectivism and realism and the inner contradictoriness and absurdity of any subjectivism and relativism, including that of transcendental phenomenology. Without a recognition of a purely rational

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phenomenologists, in particular Roman Ingarden, have critically examined and overcome the turn to trancendentalism in Husserl 112 o As little as Husserl grasps these characteristics of the real acts of knowledge and judgement, which are necessary for every phenomenological objectivism and realism, and their sovereign independence from causes that determine them which is given through the transcendence of knowing, so cJearly does he see the untenability of every assertion of a causal (efficient causal) determination of the contents of judgements through human nature or psychical lawso

6. Away from Psychologism! -Discovery of the Objective A priori of Essential Necessity and "Ideal Objects"- Critique of as well as of the Impossibility to Deduce Logical and Other Essential Laws from Empirical Laws of the Real World or from the Psychological Structure of the Human Person - Critique of a Wrong Conclusion that Husserl Draws from This Insight: that There Are No Necessary, Essential Laws for the Real World

Husserl saw cJearly in the Logicallnvestigations that the necessity of logical laws is not the mere necessity of thinking, but rather a necessity that is completely and utterly objective, which grounds in the essence of judgements and their truth. He understood it surely as that which his friend and assistant Adolf Reinach characterizes as a "having­ to-be-so" and "not-being-able-to-be-otherwise". What he is concerned with, therefore, are objective, essential necessities which constitute the a

philosophical cognition of necessary essences and the existing world. however. a realist opposition to transcendental phenomenology would not be what we take it to be: a more critical philosophy that entirely rests on rational evidence. Instead. realism would only be found in religious faith. which would amount to a philosophical position of pure fideism or to a purely theological objection to idealismo In this paper 1 defend the critical and purely rational character of phenomenological objectivism and realism. Cf. also my Russian article. «cPHJIOCOcPHR KaK crporaR HayKa» (Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. Towards the Foundations of a Realist Phenomenological Method -in Critical Dialogue with Edmund Husserl's Ideas about Philosophy as a Rigorous Science), (Russian). Logos 9 (1997). 54-76. 112 Cf. Roman Ingarden. On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendentalldealism. translated by Arnór Hannibalsson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1975); the same author. Das literarische Kunstwerk. cit.; the same author, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt. cit. Cf. likewise Arthur Szylewicz. "Roman Ingarden's Review of the Second Edition of Husserl's 'Logical Investigations .. •• Husserl-Studies, (1993). 10 (1), 1-12. Cf. also Josef Seifert. Back to Things in Themselves. cit.. ch. 4. JOSEf SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoGICAL INVESTlGAT/ONS FOR... 171 priori. The acknowledgement of these does not by any means lead to an absurd concept of ideal objects such as Locke's triangle, which unites the contradictory characteristics of different kinds of triangles in one single conceptional object. No, the eide are objects sui generis l13• While Husserl, however, brilliantly refutes the thesis, which was disproved already in Plato's Parmenides and in the Metaphysics of Aristotle, of a nonsensical hypostatizing of ideas that are contradictory in themselves, and thereby demonstrates the radical distinction between ideal and real essences, he is lacking in a real ontological understanding of the existence of ideal essences and meanings which are independent of all human acts of thought. Because of this, Husserl is increasingly driven into his later subjective. transcendental idealism"4, even though he also marvelously expresses the timeless existence of ideal objects and principIes in sorne passages, especially in the Second Logical Investigation:

Ideal objects. on the other hand, exist reaIly. It evidently does not simply make good sense to speak of such objects (for example, of the number 2, of the quality of redness. of the principIe of contradiction. and the sort) and to introduce them as having predicates connected with them; we rather grasp also by way of insight certain categories of truth which relate to such ideal objectivities. If these truths are valid. so must everything be which their objective validity presupposes. If I intuit that 4 is an even number, that the stated predicate really befits the ideal object, then this object cannot as weIl be a mere fiction, purely a facan de parler, in truth a nothing. This does not exclude that the meaning of this being, and with it the meaning of predication. is here not entirely, not

113 Cf. Roman Ingarden. "Essentiale Fragen". Jahrbuch für Phlinomenologie und phlinomenologische Forschung. VII. ed. E. Husserl et al. (Halle a. S .. 1924). pp, 125-304. Cf. also Josef Seifert. Sein und Wesen. Philosophy and Realist Phenomenology. Studies of the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality Liechtenstein. Vol. 3 (Heidelberg: Vniversit1l1sverlag C. Winter. 1996). ch. 1; an earlier English version of the latter work is "Essence and Existence. A New Foundation of Classical Metaphysics on the Basis of 'Phenomenological Realism: and a Critical Investigation of 'Existentialist .. •. Alelheia 1 (1977), pp. 17- 157; 1,2 (1977), pp. 371-459. 114 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 11. I. LV 2. ch. 1, § 7. p. 128. On another kind of argumentation and further development of the doctrine on the difference between ideal and real essences, see Roman Ingarden, On Ihe Motives which led Husserl ro Transcendentalldealism, cit., pp. 43-65. See also Josef Seifert, "Essence and Existence", cit., ch. 1; and the expanded German version: Sein und Wesen, cit., ch. l. 172 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

specifically the same as in the cases in which a real predicate, its characteristic. is attributed to or denied a real subject. Expressed differently: We do not deny it. but rather stress that. .. a fundamental categorical distinction exists which we make allowance for precisely by differentiating between ideal and real being .... ls

Such texts stand in contrast to others in which Husserl calls logical forms "nothing more" than "forms of intended meaning which have been objectivized to ideal species" and thus makes them relative to man 116. AIso the lack of recognition of real and autonomous being given in the objects of sense perception and also in the objects of categorial intuition. as well as further ideas of Husserl in the V/th Logical Investigation. could be characterized as starting points for his subjective. transcendental turn 117, Not only the necessary, ideal essences which must not -as in the Logical Investigations- be reduced to mere "ideal units of meaning". but also real beings are real in themselves and are not constituted by any real or transcendental subject as mere objects of consciousness, If one takes into consideration here the important investigations of the Second Logical Investigarion. one can. of course, conclude that Husserl is also speaking of "ideal species". and with them of ideal essences; and hence does nol reduce the sphere of the "ideal" to logical units of meaning, but recognizes rather other necessary es sen ces as well, indeed even such which are al so valid for the real world. Husserl appears, though, to reduce even the "ideal species" repeatedly to ideal meanings; and, in defense against the reproach of Platonism leveled against him. to doubt al so their hypostatization, and consequently their actual independence from the subject, and more and more their validity for the real world as well ll8. Still much more untenable than a reduction of necessary essences to necessary conceptual connections or even to the objectively necessary logical es sen ces of units of meaning Uudging - contents of judgements, concepts, and so on) would, of course. be their reduction to mere linguistic factors, as can be elucidated by apure Iinguistic analysis. An

115 Edmund Husserl, úlgisc"~ Unl~rsuc"ung~n, Vol. lI, l. LU 2, ch. 2, § 8. p. 130. 116 Edmund Husserl. ibid.. LU 2. ch. 3, §17, p. 154. 117 cr. Eleulhere Winance, "L'elre el le sensible: Edmund Husserl el Thomas d' Aquin", R~vu~ TIIOI//isle. (1989); 89. 357-404. 118 cr. especially ¡bid., Vol. lI. 1, LU 2. ch. 2. § 8 ff., pp. 128 fr. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F1CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LaG/CAL INVESTlGATlONS FOR... 173

attempt to interpret Husserl in this direction is made by Downes l19, who holds Husserl 's view to be similar to that of Quine, but thinks at the same time that linguistic analysis as the method of analytical philosophical is inferior to that of the "categorial intuition" of essences. How can he justify this claim, however? Should,· for instance, the necessities that are completely independent af all linguistic laws and meanings, as, for example, that movement presupposes time, color extension, or moral values freedam, follow from mere linguistic laws? In this case they would, after aH, cease to apply in other languages or on the basis of other definitions of linguisticaHy expressed meanings, which is absurdo An attempt to reduce necessary essences and essential laws to linguistic factors constitutes a worse form of reductionism with regards to essential necessities than the reduction of all necessary essences to a limited -namely, the purely logical- partial sphere of the same. It is superfluaus here to offer a more detailed criticism of this view, especially since such a critique does not belong to the relevant topic of this paper; besides, such a criticism follows 10gically from the proof that a reduction of all essential necessities (for instance, of those grounding in the essence of movement, color, morality) to meaning-connections and even to purely logical essential necessities is also untenable. Indeed, a reduction of the necessities grounding in the objective essence of things to linguistic factors, regardless of what kind, would contradict their characteristic nature more deeply than their reduction to psychological laws of thought, which does not deny the phenomenon of synthetic necessity in general, but "only" its existence as independent of the subject. But every subjectivist, psychologistic, or even transcendental­ philosophical reduction of essential necessity to subjective necessities af thought must fail as well. For every constitutioll necessarily presupposes the Ihing in itself and its knowledge, an insight which Husserl, on the one hand, brilliantly formulates in the Prolegomena; on the other hand, appears to reject more and more in his later work 120. If, however, the logical laws do not have their roots in empirical laws of human thinking, do they at all have their roots then in psychological laws, in a subjective sphere of necessity of thought? Reinach already puts the having-to-be-so and not-being-able-to-be-

119 Chauncey Downes, "On Husserl's Approach lo Necessary Trulh", Monis/. (1965), 49; 87-106. 120 Cf. See on lhis Josef Seifert. Back 10 Things in Themselves, ch. 4, 5-6. 174 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFfA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

otherwise of essential necessity in contrast to every mere subjective necessity of not being able to think any other way 121. The way back to things. and the careful examination of the kind of necessity which confronts us in an exemplary way in logic. lead to a further insight: The necessary states of affairs and essentially necessary connections. which the philosopher intuits directly or grounds deductively, are by virtue of the inner absoluteness of their necessity al so absolutely independent of the subject, and cannot be created or made by it 122 . They also ground in the nature of the propositions. that is to say in the judgements expressed in them and can therefore impossibly be explained as subjective. psychological necessities of thought. Further. they can just as Httle be reduced to analytical or tautological propositions. but are rather synthetic a priori. In fact, they do nOl originate in a subjective positing or necessity of thought. but rather in the essence of the relevant things themselves. in this case of the logical relation between truth and falsity of judgments (propositions). And their rootedness in the essences of things is valid not only for logicallaws. but also for a11 essential necessities in aU areas 123, They are

121 cr. Adolf Rcinach, "Ober Phllnomenologic", in: Adolf Rcinach, Samtliche Werke, Vol. 1, ibid" pp. 531-550. 'Conccrning Phenomenology,' Iransl. from Ihe German ("Ober Phllnomcnologic") by Dalias Willard, The Personalist 50 (Spring 1969), pp. 194·221. Rcprintcd in Perspeclives in Pllilosophy, ed. Robert N. Beck (New York: Holl, Rei nhart, & Winston, 1961 and 1969). 122 Cf. Adolf Rcinach, "Obcr Phllnomenologie", ibid., pp. 531-550; Dielrich van Hildebrand, Wlwt is Philosoplly?, cit. This work also exists in many Iranslations: for example in Spanish, ¿ Qllé es filosoFa? Tr. Araceli Herrera. Ensayos (167), (Madrid: Edicioncs Encuenlro, 2000); in German (Was ist Pllilosophie? aus dem Engl. Ubers. v. Fritz Wenisch, in: Hildebrand. Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1 (Regensburg/Sluttgart: Habbcl/Kohlhammer. 1976); Russian: Dietrich von Hi Idebrand. Was ist Philosop/¡ie?, 1997, SI. Petcrsburg. Aletheia. elc. Cf. Also Max Scheler. "Vom Wesen der Philosophie und der moralischcn Bedingung des philosophischen Erkennens", in: Scheler, Max, Gesammelte Werke, Vom Ewigen im Menschen, 5th cd. (Bern/MUnchen: Francke. 1968), Vol. 5, pp. 69-99; Josef Seifert, Back 10 Things in Tllemulves. cit.xxx 123 Thot Husserl has recognized such formal-onlological. logical and other objective essential neC'essitie.f in Logicallnvestigalions. other authors have shown as well. Cf. Gianfronco Soldali, "What Is 'Formal' in Husserl's 'Logical Investigations'?", European loumal 01 Philosophy. (1999), 7 (3), 330-338. On the objective and absolule nalure or essenlial neccssity cf. Dielrich von Hildebrand. What is Philosophy? cil., olso in Ihe new translation in Spanish: Dielrich von Hildebrand, ¿Qllé es filosoFa?, cit., ch. 4. cr. also Fritz Wenisch, "lnsight and Objective Necessily - A Demonstration of the Existence of Propositions Which Are Simultoneously Informative and Nccessarily TrueT', Aletheia 4 (1988), pp. 107-197. cr. also Josef Seirert, Erkenntnis objektiver Wallrheit, cit., und the same author, Josef Seifert, Back 10 Thillgs in Themse/ves, cit. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/FlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LoG/CAL lNVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 175 grasped in their objectivity and absoluteness as grounded in the essences themselves. Of these it is shown, precisely through a serious phenomenological analysis, that their inner and absolute necessity prohibits every constitution through the conscious subject: every subjectivism is shattered by the datum of essential necessify.

7. Husserl's Discovery of the Foundation of the Distinction between A priori and Empirical Sciences in Objective Essential Necessity and its Absence in "Independent Parts" - The Greatness and Limitations of the Role of the Logical Investigations for the Foundation of Phenomenological Realism

The overcoming of every subjectivist explanation of the a priori and the discovery of an objective a priori only become fully understandable and possible to ground, however. through distinctions which are lacking in part in Edmund Husserl and almost completely in Adolf Reinach; even if it is Husserl to whom we owe many hints and sorne extremely clear formulations in this direction of distinguishing between those essences in which states of affairs ground a priori from those which can only be investigated with the help of empirical methods - a distinction which is extremely important for the foundation of realist phenomenology. Thus. we find in the Third Logical lnvestigation that dependent and independent parts are distinguished. a differentiation which refers in Edmund Husserl to entirely different phenomena which he does not delimit. This differentiation, however, anticipates in one of its possible interpretations the later distinctions, for example where Husserl writes:

We can imagine aman with two heads, the upper body part of aman combined with the lower body part of a horse. or also individual parts such as a head. a nose, an ear of itself. In contrasto it is impossible ... for example, to separate the "idea" of motion from that of a moved body. Only such parts of an imagined whole. which indeed are in fact united with other parts, but can also really exist without them. can be abstracted in the sense of Lo c k e' s separation ... In looking at c e r t a i n contents. we have the evidence that the change or removal of one of the contents that are given together with them (but are not inc\uded in them) would have to change or abolish them in them­ selves. In the case of o t h e r contents, we do not have this evidence ... : No dependence on other contents grounds in the "n a t u r e" o f t h e e o n ten t i t S e l f. i n i t s ¡de a 1 e s s e n c e; 176 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

it is in its essenee. through the faet that it is. what it is, unconcerned about all others ... in its ideal graspable essence, the content is indepen­ dent; this essence demands through itself, hence a priori, no other essen­ ce woven together with it 124•

Husserl considers objective essential necessity still more clearly, however, when he refers, not to a "subjective necessity, that is to say, the subjective inability-of-being-able-to-imagine-anything-differently", but to "an objective-ideal necessity of not-being-able-to-be-otherwise", which "in accordance with its essence" "becomes ... a given" "in the consciousness of apodictic evidence"12S. Husserl can be credited with a real discovery of the phenomenon of necessary essences and states of affairs, and their distinction from contingent, non-necessary ones; still his discovery of their distinction suffers because of its confusion with the lack of independence of moments of meaning in anal y tic al judgements and with the lack of independence of the accidents that inhere in a thing (a substance). Consequently, the immense significance of the Husserlian discovery cited only reached full fruition through later explanations of the distinctions between different kinds of essences 126. In the Ideas of Husserl, the lack of this fully conscious objective foundation of the a priori is also c1early revealed through Husserl's attempt to make only one procedure and one method on the side of the subject(i.e., of science): namely epoché or the lack of it, responsible for the distinction between sciences about the real world (Realwissenschaften) and a priori sciences. That is why René Descartes,

124 Edmund Husserl, LogisclJe UntersuclJungen, Vol. 11, 1, LU 3, § 2-3, pp. 232-233; § 5, p. 239. Husserl refers in this context as well to the important analysis of the essences of color liS such ond of different color-species in C. Stumpf (ibid., § 4, pp. 234 ff., especially p. 236). In Joscf Seifcrt, Back /O Tllings ;11 Tllemse/l'es. Chapter 2, 2, (HD. I hllve tried to distinguish three entirely different meanings of Husserl's term "dependent pÍlrts", thereby helping to elueidate the full importanee of the Husserlion distnetion between independent and dependent parts IInd its helpfulness in the ottempt to solve the puzzle of a priori knowledge. Cf. on the third Logical Investigatiol/. 0150 Borry Smith, (ed.), Parts alld Momellts: Studies in Logic alld Formal Ol/tology. ei!. 125 lb id. , Vol. 11. 1. LU 3. § 7. pp. 242- 243. The whole paragraph 7 is in this eontext of extreme importance. On IIn analysis of the role played by the Tllird Logical Investigatioll and the teoching on dependent and independent pllrts it contains, see Robert Sokolowski. "The Logic of Parts nnd Wholes in Husserl's Investigntions", Pllilosoplly ane/ Pllel/omenologkal Research, (1968),28; 537-553. 126 Cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand, What is Pllilosophy?, ch. 4. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL INVESTlGAT/ONS FOR... 177 who delimits different kinds of essences from one another. is much more clearly than Husserl to be called the precursor of the distinction that is crucial for realist phenomenology between contingent (morphic) natures. the characteristics of which are not necessarily linked to each other. and the necessary essences 127. . However, it is only the distinction made clearly by Dietrich von Hildebrand between objective essential necessity. that is to say between necessary essences and two otlzer kinds 01 essences. the merely accidental and the morphic-contingent. which makes the method of perceiving essences mentioned programmatically in the Husserlian yearbook. that is to say of the rational intuiting of necessary and objective connections. explainable in the end. Without this distinction. the mere teaching of the epoché as the basic method of philosophy leads almost inevitably either to pure empiricism and the skepticism that follows from it. or to idealism and subjectivism l28 .

8. Husserl's Discovery of the Given Character in Experience of A priori Connections in the Categorial Intuition of Things (Insight into Essences and the Broadening of Immediate Knowledge) - the Retum o/ Husserl wlrich Was Begrm, but Later Abandoned, to the Thing Itself as Noumenon, to Real and Essential Being as Being in Itself and at the Same Time Being that Is Intuitively Given and Intelligible

Connected with this is again the realist interpretation of the return to things as a return to things in themselves that since Kant had been believed to be lost. This step was introduced by Husserl in a certain sen se in the First Editiall of the Logical Investigatiolls in his theory of the "categorial intuition". that is to sayo of an inteIlectual and yet even more immediate form of knowledge than sensory perception (in the Sixth Investigatian). He himself regarded this Sixth Investigatian as "the most comprehensive. practically speaking most developed, and perhaps most successful of the entire book"129. Husserl had made essential steps.

127 cr. René Descartes, Medi/a/iolles de Prima Philosophia. Oeuvres de Desear/es, hrsg. v. Charles Adam & Paul Tannery, Vol. VII (Paris: J. Vrin, 1983), 1-561, Med. 5. cr. al80 Barry Smith, ed., Par/s and Momen/s: SlUdies in Logic and Formal On/ology, cit.; and Joser Seifert, Back /0 Things in Themselves. cit., ch. 2. 128 Cf. Dietrich YOn Hildebrand, Wha/ is Philosophy?, cit., und Josef Seifert, "Essence and Existence", cil.; lhe same aUlhor. Sein und Wesen, cit., ch. l. 129 cr. Edmund Husserl, Logische Un/ersllclzllngen, Vol. 11. 2, "Selbstanzeige", p. 781. 178 SeMINARIOS De FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18. 2004-2005

aboye a11. in the Prolegomena. to recovering the "thing in itself" for knowledge and its being immediately given. but soon gave them up again. Let us recall here only the most fundamental thoughts of the Sixth Logicallnvestigation: It is true of every perception that it grasps its object itse/f or directly. But this direct grasping has a different meaning and character according to whether we are dealing with a perception in the more narrow sense or such a one in the extended sense; that is to say, depending on whether the "directly" grasped objectivity is a sensory or categorical object; expressed differently, on whether it is a real or ideal object. We can characterize the sensory or real objects. namely. as objecrs of the /owest degree of possible intuition. the categorical or ideal objects as the objects of the higher degrees l3o. In his theory of the categorial intuition. Husserl develops the very principie and foundation of an objeetivist and realist philosophy by expounding a direct intuition. which is not obscured by the mere use of images or other intermediaries. of that which is universal as such. The consciousness of the universal is built equally on the grounds of perception and the imagination that conforms with it; and if it is grounded at all. then the universal. the idea red, the idea triangle. is grasped irse/f. is intuited in the one and only way which does not a110w for any distinction between an image and the original... if the universal opinion fulfills itself in an adequate perception. that is to sayo in a new eonsciousness of universality.... The universal object is then not merely imagined and posited. but rather given itselfl31. Husserl emphasizes that something is grasped here inte11ectua11y. as it is. and that it is not distorted. And he applies to this insight his theory of the meaning-intentions and the meaning-fulfillment by pointing out that here as well the meanings which are directed at universal essences are either fulfilled in corresponding categorial intuitions or can remained unfulfilled. The latter is the case precisely when the object of such meanings is only purely abstractly meant in thought but not intuited, but aboye all, when it is a conceptual construction whieh can nol al all be given intuitively. Indeed. the most authentic acts of thinking are "intuitions into states of affairs" and

IJO Edmund Husserl. Logische Unlersuchungen. Vol. 11, 2, LU 6. ch. 6, p. 674. Cf. ibid.• §§ 40 ff., pp. 6S7 ff. 131 Edmund Husserl, ibid., pp. 691-693. Cf. 8150 ¡bid., ch. 7. § S3 ff.; pp. 695, 700. 704-705. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F1CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoG/CAL INVEST/GATIONS FOR... 179

intuitions in general 132• This authentic intuitive intellectual knowing or "intuitive 'thinking' of the intellect" reaches then its clímax in the adequate intuition:

in the adequate intuition we grasp the state of affairs itself and intuit it first i n i t S fuI 1 s e 1 f h o o d 133,

Husserl is very well aware of the fundamental critique that lies therein of Kant's entire philosophy, which is built upon the rejection of every such insight into the universal. This is shown by the additional passage in which Husserl criticizes the central point in Kant's uncritical "critical philosophy" by showing that "the genuine phenomenological concept of the a priori" was missing in Kant; and that Kant "had appropriated" neither the ideation and intuition of the essence. nor the goal of investigating the pure essentiallaws which govern acts according to all their modes as i n ten t ion a 1 experiences ... of the fulfilling constitution of 'true being'i34. By virtue of the investigations in the Third Logical lnvestigation, and of later differentiations made by other authors within the bounds of philosophy, of necessary es sen ces in contradistinction to morphic­ contingent and non-necessary forms of being, we see that this immediate self-givenness, which is not mediated by any image. only holds for necessary essences; and, what is more, not for each instance of their individual existence in real contingent beings, but rather exclusively for them in their ideal, eidetic formo Husserl contributed fundamentally to defining them through his brilliant critique of empiricist and

132 Ibid., § 61. p. 715. § 62 ff .• pp. 719-725. Zum Sachverhahsbegriff Cf. Mariano Crespo. "En torno a los estados de cosas. Una investigación ontológico-forma!". Anuario Filosófico. XXVIII/l (1995). 143-156: und vom gleichen Autor. Para una ontología de los estados de cosas esencialmente necesarios. Tesis doctoral. Departamento de Metafísica y Teoría del Conocimiento. Universidad Complutense. Madrid 1995. Cf. also Josef Seifert. Sein ulld Wesell. cit.. ch. 2-3. Cf. ferner Barry Smith. "On the Cognition of States of Affairs". in: K. Mulligan (Ed.). SpeecJz Act and Sachverlzalt (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. 1989). pp. 189-225: Ihe same aUlhor. "Logic and the Sachverlzalt". in: Tlze MOllist 72 (1972). pp. 53-69. Zu einem Vergleich des Sachverhaltsbegriffs bei Wittgenstein und Husserl und einem Versuch seiner "Rettung". cr. Kevin Mulligan. "Wie die Sachen sich zueinander verhalten - Inside and outside the 'Tractatus· ... Teoria. (1985). 5; 145-174. 133 Ibid .. § 66. p. 731. First edition: "schauen sie selbsl ersl an". 134 lb id.. p. 733. On Husserl's later position. cf. Edmund Husserl. Die Idee der PhiJnomenologie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1950); and Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortriige. cil. 180 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFtA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

nominalístic philosophy as well as through his criticism of that kind of "absurd concept of ideas" as found in "Locke's universal triangle"135.

9. Away from the Confusions of Purely Linguistic and Syntactic Interpretations of Logic! - Towards the Ideal Meanings and Essential Laws as the Sphere of Objects ol' Strict Logical Laws! Husserl's Distinctions of the Ideality of "Units ol' Meaning" from Their Linguistic Expression and the Fluctuating Meanings of Words, as well as His Discovery of "Pure Grammar" as the Foundation of an Objectivist Logic and Phenomenology

One of the most significant contributions of Husserl to logic and a philosophy of language líes in the sharp distinction between concepts and the Iinguistic expression of the same. Only through this distinction in the First Logical Investigation is it possible for Husserl to differentiate clearly between the sphere of the object of "pure logic" and that of empiricallinguistics l36• Only on the basis of this does Husserl also discover those spheres of objects to which alone those necessary logical laws can relate with which the pure science of logic deals, and which concern an essential foundation of all thinking and all truth; since every objective thought. every judgement as well as its truth, as well as every deductive conclusion to necessary laws which logic studies, rest on necessary laws l37• And this sphere of the objects of the laws of logic precisely does not depend on the acts of the subject. ando aboye aH, is not subject to psychic empirical laws. but rather to timeless, ideal laws which alone as a foundation can ground the dignity of logic:

W h a t he uniformly thinks and connects. however. are the concepts and proposilions with their objective relations. To lhe subjective thought as­ socialions there corresponds at the same time an objective unity of me­ aning (Ihal is 10 sayo one which adequately measures itself in the objecti­ vity which is "given" in the evidence) which is as il is. whether someone aetualizes it or nOI in an ael of thinking l38•

m Edmund Husserl. Logische Umusuc/lungen, Vol. n. 1. LU 2. ch. 2, § 9-10. pp. 132-141. 136 cr. Edmund Husserl, Logische UnlersllchulIgell, Vol. 11, 1, LU 1, § 29. pp. 97 ff. 137 cr. Edmund Husserl, Logisclle Untersuchungell. Vol. 11, 1, LU 1, pp. 30-110. 138 Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuc/lIl11gen. Vol. 11. 1, LU 1, § 29. p. 99. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoGICAL IN~'ESTlGATlONS FOR... 181

Only this discovery allows Husserl to grasp the "Iimitlessness of objective reason" and the knowability quoad se ("in itself') of all being 139• We al so have to mention here that Husserl's investigations, which build on the distinction between dependent and independent parts, of the difference between dependent and independent logical meanings, and his discovery of apure or purely logical grammar, is likewise of fundamental significance for laying the foundation of a realist phenomenology in the area of logic and linguistics. Because the scope of this paper was defined by pre-established limits. we cannot go into this bere in more detail 140•

10. The Foundation of an Objectivist and Realist Epistemology Demands the Radical Surmounting ol' the Identification of Husserl and Heidegger of Reality with Temporality and the Realm of Empirical Sciences, as well as an Overcoming of the False Opinion of Husserl that AH Temporal Being Is CausaHy Determined, which Would Represent the Deathblow of Every Form of Realism

Added to the root of the Husserlian immanentism and subjectivism in his immanent interpretation of "intentionality," is Husserl's unfortunate identification of reality with the sphere of temporal being, whicb decisively influences Heidegger and eventually leads him to atheism. This would have shown to be completely unnecessary with a clear distinction between real being and temporality. For who could fai! to see that also irreal and purely intentional objects in dreams or in a drama are temporal and that on the other hand the flux of temporality is an immense restrietion of the reality of a (temporal) being that constantly emerges from and sinks back into non-being, from which it is evident that temporality, while it characterizes all real beings in the world, in no way is of the essence of real being 141 • A further and equally significant root of relativism and transcendental idealism is Husserl's thesis in the Logieal lnvestigations

139 [bid., LU 1, ch. 3. § 28. p. 95. 140 ef. Edmund Husserl, Logische Ulllersuchungen. Vol. 11. l. LU 4, pp. 301 ff. 141 Martin Heidegger. Se in und Zeil (10. unverllnd. Aun.). (TUbingen: Max Niemeyer. 1963). For a critique of his identification see Josef Seifert. Essere e persona. ch. 10. and te same author. Se;n ulld Wesen, cit.. ch. 2: and his GOII a/s GOllesbewe;s. Prolegomena and ch. 6 ff. 182 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSoFfA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

that every real happening such as knowing is to be thought of (deterministically) as brought about by preceding causes, As already mentioned. the variety of causes is not taken into account in this thesis 142 , Therein líes as well a compelling reason for Husserl's later idealism in his Logical Investigations. since. as the logical consequence of this view of Husserl. every achievement of knowledge and evidence becomes impossible in he real world of temporal subjects, For in the case of its causal determination through temporally preceding (for instance. material) causes, knowledge as regards its content would neither be determined by a real object nor by a real subject. nor by essentiallaws which exist in themselves, but rather, as it were, "from the back side of things". through causal chains supposedly belonging to the material world or to a real personal mind extrinsic to human acts. The act of knowing would then. however. be causally determined from the outside of its rational contact to its objects and therefore in a way that would completely exclude it from the essence of cognition; ando consequently, a criterion of evident knowledge would never be possible. since efficient causes which are completely independent of the known object would decide over the content of knowing, Husserl's later immanentism, subjectivism, and in the end also atheism 143 is connected with a weighty thesis in the Logical Investigations: namely. with Husserl's idea that essentially necessary states of affairs not only themselves have to be originally ideal and timeless (even though they are also embodied in contingent real beings. we must add), wherein 1 wholly agree with him -although only with respect to the contingent world and therefore with one mighty exception of a necessary essence that is originally both real and necessary (1)144_ and wherein (with the aforementioned exception) líes a true Platonism of

142 Cf. On this Josef Seifert, Essert I! pusona, ibid., ch. 9; cr. a1so Dietrich von Hildebrand's unpublished studies on causality in Dielrich von Hildebrand, Naclzlaj3, Munich State Librnry and (in copy) at the Inlernalional Academy of Philosophy in Ihe Prindpalily of Liechlensll!in and al PUCO 143 The atheism that easily follows from any position Ihat identifies real being with being-in-time emerges more clearly in Heidegger and especially in Merleau-Ponty. See Vincent P. Miceli, Thl! Gods of Alheism, Foreword by John C. Cardinal Wright, (NY.:Random House, 1970, 1971; New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1971, 4 th Printing. 1975), 144 For precise1y in the case of the necessary di vine essence we must abandon the idea that essential necessity. at least in its origino excludes real existence and has its source in a purely ideal sphere. cr. Josef Seifert. Gott als Gottesbeweis, especially ch. 2; 10 r. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/F/CANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LaG/CAL INVESTlGAT/ONS FOR .. o 183

Husserl 145 , but rather that al! essential laws can only reJer to ideal meanings as the sphere of their applicationo According to this view, that which is real, psychical as well as physical real beings. could not at all be determined by essential!y necessary states of affairs. Precisely for that reason we would have to perform an epoché with respect to the entire world of that which real!y exists and reduce it. as it were. to the level of a "possible world" in order to make philosophical assertions about it. Connected with this, furthermore. is Husserl 's thesis that everything that is real can only be temporal ando therefore, the object of the empirical sciences. This thesis as such would indeed only lead to an objectivist Platonic idealism. But when the essence of knowing as wel! as of intentionality is not recognized as something necessary, this thesis leads either to transcendental idealism or to a philosophical empiricism which excludes al! real being and all reality in principIe from the realm of the objects of philosophy; yeso it leads to the idea that every real knowing would necessarily have to be understood immanentistically. In the end, this view leads to the conclusion that. in a realistically conceived cosmos, man is not at al! capable of attaining objective knowledge. Therefore, according to Husserl. an epistemological realism would have to lead to relativismo If knowing were a temporal happening that is purely determined by efficient causality, as Husserl presents reality. then. in fact, every realism would lead to relativism or skepticism! For this reason, all that remains for Husserl -in my opinion based on these false premises- is the escape into idealism, in which he wants to salvage the realm of strict a priori science. This complete, and phenomenologically unfounded, banishing of the real m of the real into the realm of the empirical, temporal. and deterministical!y caused, is not the last of the factors that lead to Husserl's opinion that that which is real can only be investigated by empirical sciences.

11. The Rediscovery of Real Existence as Object of Philosophy - A Contrast to Husserl

Connected with the identification of reality with temporality that was mentioned is an epoché that is prefigured in the Logical Investigations in the sense of a radical prescinding from every transcendent real existence. This epoché was carried even further by

145 ef. Josef Seifert. Sein und Wesen. cit.. ch. 1. 184 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFtA, Vols. 17-18,2004-2005

realist phenomenologists such as Adolf Reinach. Por Adolf Reinach too, philosophy is "pure science" and one only arrives at it when one leaves l46 real existence out of consideration and concentrates on pure essence . Through a series of decisive developments. realist phenomenology has overcome this "pure essentialism". In reality. namely. one needs to grasp the central ontological significance of real existence. of being and its independence from the subject, and, at the same time, its greatest fulfillment in the real, living, spiritual subject l47 . The crucial steps made in realist phenomenology in the direction of a phenomenology of real existence are the following:

a) The recognition of the applicability of all essential laws and the results of "purely essential knowledge" of absolute. necessary es­ sences to every possible world. but also to the real world - there­ fore, not only to possible worlds, b) An ontological reflection on the meaning of being as real existence as such. on the as a phenomenon which is absolutely l48 not reducible to essence , e) The knowledge of the concrete existence of the indubitably given real 1 and with that of a real being in the world. With this, an explicit rediscovery and further development of the Augustinian­ Cartesian cogito is given as the experience of an indubitable "liule piece of the real world"; yes, as a crucial and exceedingly real experience of the reality of not just a small piece of the real world, which Husserl expressly denies. but rather of the focal point of the

146 Adolf Reinach. "Über Phl1nomenologie", 147 Cr. Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essemia, in: Opera Omnia (ut sunt in indice thomistico udditis 61 scriptis ex aliis medii aevi auctoribus), 7 Bde, ed. Roberto Busa S. J. (Stuttgnrt-Bad Cannstatl, 1980), Vol. 3, pp. 583-587: in English: On Being and Esunce, transl ... introd. and notes by Armand Maurer, 2nd edition (Toranto: Thc Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968); cr. al so Etienne Gilson, Bein,1I ant~ SO/lIe P"ilosopher.~, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1952). An introduction of real existence (esse) into the realm of phenomenology, taking up elemenls both of Aristotle-Thomus Aquinas and of Descartes, was no doubt intended by Stein. cr. Edith Stein, Endliches I/nd Ewiges Sein, cit., Josef Seifert, Sei" l/lid Wesen, cit.. ch. 2-3: cr. al so Josef Seifert, What is Life? On the Originality, Irredl/cibility l/nd Va/ue of Life. Value Inquiry Book Series (VIBS), ed. by Robert Ginsberg, vol 51/Central European Value Studies (CEVS). ed. by H.G. Callaway (Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1997). 148 cr. Thomas Aquinas, De Ente el E.w!IIlia, cit.: Étienne Gilson, Bein8 and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1952). and the critique of this work in "Essence and Existence", cit.; the same author, Seill ulld Wesen, cit.. especially chs. 1-2. JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GN/FlCANCE OF HUSSERL'S LOG/CAL INVESTlGAT/ONS FOR... 185

world, the person, who exists in a more objective and sublime way than all non-personal things l49. d) The knowledge of the real outside world and the justification of the relation of sen se perception to reality 150. e) The analysis of empathy and other forms of grasping other persons as insights into the you, as the foundation of community and as the genuine overcoming of the solipsism that Husserl's Cartesian Me­ ditations did not really surmountl51 . t) The knowledge of the real soul, of the person and her immortali­ ty 152. g) The knowledge of the absolutely real and infinitely perfect being. (New justification of the knowledge of God, in particular of the ) 153.

The last two points are of such fundamental significance that we wish to treat them briefly in a section of their own.

149 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortrllge. cit.. § AIso ibid.• § 7 Husserl sees the being of the world no longer as an obvious faet but only as a "phenomenon of cIaiming ... ". as a "Geitungsph!lnomen". (Cr. Edmund Husserl. ibid.• § 10 ff.) Cf. also Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. 11. l. cit.. "Einleitung". p. 6. Cf. in sharp contrast to all of this: Dietrich von Hildebrand. "Das Cogito und die Erkenntnis der realen Welt. Teilver5ffentlichung der Salzburger Vorlesungen Hildebrands: 'Wesen und Wert menschlicher Erkenntnis .. •• Aletheia 611993-1994 (1994). 2- 27; Cf. also Josef Seifert. Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. Josef Seifert. Back to Things in Themselves. cit.. ch. 9. ISO Cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand. What is Philosophy? cit .• ch. 5-6; . - The Phenomenon 01 Lije. Toward a Philosophical Biology (New York: Harper & Row. 1966; 2001). ISI Alfred SehUtz, different works. , The Mystery 01 Being. transo Rene Hague. 6th ed. (Chicago, 1970); Edith Stein. Zum Problem der Einlühlung. (Halle a.d.S.: Buchdrucheri des Waisenhauses. 1917). Reprint (München: Kalfke. 1980). IS2 Max Scheler. "Tod und Fortleben". Schriften aus dem NachlaB 1 (31986); Dietrieh von Hildebrand, "Die Unsterblichkeit der Seele". in: Dielrich von Hildebrand. Die Menschheit am Scheideweg. (Regensburg: Habbel, 1955); the same author. Über den Tod. Nachgelassene Sehrifl. ed. by the Dietrich-von-Hildebrand-Gesellschaft. (SI. Ottilien: Eos Verlag. 1980; 2nd ed. 1989). Josef Seifert, Das Leib-Seele Problem und die gegenwartige philosophische Diskussion. Eine kritisch-systematische Analyse (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2nd ed. 1989). IS3 Alexandre Koyré. L'/dée de Dieu dans la philosophie de St. Anselme (Paris: Editions ErneSl Leroux. 1923); (Reprise. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. 1984); Josef Seifert, GOtl ols Gottesbeweis (1996). improved and enlarged ed .• with a Peface for the Arabie Reader (Heidelberg: Universitltlsverlag C. Winter. 2000). 186 SEMINARIOS DI! FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

12.

AH of this is connected to the distinct personalism of realist phenomenology, a personalism which Husserl in sorne points even co­ founded. which, however, is decidedly neglected by him in many ways: For one thing, he questions the fundamental datum of a subject that stands in itself, of a unique personal self. Furthermore, he is originally completely influenced, in the First Edition of the Logical lnvestigations, by Hume's dissolving of the personal self and his reducing it to a series of perceptions and states of consciousness l54 ; in the Second Edition, however, he interprets the "1 that he had found in the mean time" in the sense of a transcendental 1 which cannot be called a person because it is lacking in the clear character of the unique individual self155 , Thirdly, Husserl does not achieve the personalism of realist phenomenology because he fails to recognize the absolute superiority of the person in contradistinction to aH purely ideal units of meaning. and with that the fundamental superiority of living and real being and of the real world, aboye all, of the values of the person, over ideal meaning units. Therein líes as well a certain "false Platonism" of Husserl. Within the tradition of realist personalism, phenomenological realism is much closer to Augustine, , Gregory of Nazianz and Clemens of Alexandria, but also to Polish personalismo which shows close connections to Scheler, Edith Stein and phenomenology, than it is to Husserl 156, This personalis~ also was the basis of Dietrich von

154 Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Vol. lIt 1, V, § 6 ff., pp. 369-372, 374. 15' Husserl means many different things with this term of the "transcendental ego". Cf. Husserl. ibid., pp. 367-376. Cf. also Josef Seifert. "Kritik am Relativismus und Immanentismus in E. Husserls Carlesianischen Medilalionen, Die Aequivokationen im Ausdruck 'trnnszendenlnles Ego' nn der Bnsis jedes transzendentalen Idealismus", Salzbugtr Jahrbuchfür Philosophie XIV, 1970. 156 Cf. Karol Wojtyla, The Acling Person (Boston: Reidel, 1979); cf. al so the corrected texto authorized by the author (unpublished). (official copy). Library of the Internalional Academy of Philosophy in Ihe PrincipalilY Liechtensleill, Triesenbergl Vaduz. Cf. also Tadeusz Styczei, Andrzej Szostek. Karol Wojtyla. Der Streit um den Menschell. Personaltr A1Ispruch des Sittlichen (Kevelaer 1979). especially Tadeusz Slyczei, "Zur Frage einer unabhllngigen Ethik". ibid. cr. Ludger H1>lscher, The Reality of the Mind. cil.; cr. also Rocco Buttiglione. 11 Pellsiero di Karol Wojtyia (Milano: Jaca Book, 1982), English: A Philosophy of Freedom: Ihe Thoughr of Karol Wojlyla, Introduclion by Michael Novak. Trans. and Afterword by Paolo Guietti and Francesca Murphy (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 1997). JOSEF SEIFERT: THE S/GNIFICANCE OF HUSSERL 'S LoG/CAL lNVEST/GAT/ONS FOR... 187

Hildebrand's fight against National Socialisml57, in sharp contrast to Heidegger's failure in this direction.

13. Phenomenological Realism and the Rehabilitation of a Philosophy of God

Linked to this personalistic approach to philosophy is al so a revolutionary new introduction of a real and living God who embodies aH pure perfections as a valid object of phenomenological philosophy. This is likewise excluded by the Edmund Husserl of the Logical Investigations and his equivocation of real with temporal being, and logically leads to the atheism and agnosticism of later phenomenologists. Only, therefore, when aH the false presuppositions of Husserl that have been pointed out in the Logical Investigations, and even more so those made in his later works, have been overcome, are all conditions given for establishing phenomenological realism as classical philosophy, al so in the sense of a metaphysics which defends anew not only the proofs of God's existence based on contingency, but the ontological argument as well, and which can also develop an objective philosophy of . The steps which Max Scheler, Edith Stein, and other authors in later works undertook to found such a philosophy cannot be expounded here l58.

14. A New Concept of Philosophy as a Strict Science

A totally different understanding of the scientific nature of philosophy is also interrelated with this. Already in the Logical

IS7 cr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Memoiren und Aufsiilze gegen den Nalionalsozialismus 1933-1938. VerOffentlichungen der Kommission fUr Zeitgeschichte, with Alice von Hildebrand and Rudolf Ebneth ed. by Ernst Wenisch (Mainz: Matthias GrUndewald Verlag, 1994); John F. Crosby and 1 have also devoted books to personalism. cr. John F. Crosby, The Selfhood of Ihe Human Person (Washington, D.e.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996): the same author, Personalisl Papers, (Washington, D.C.: The Catho1ic University of America Press, 2003); Josef Seifert (Hg.), Dietriclz von Hi/debrands Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus (Heidelberg: Universitlitsverlag Carl Winter, 1998); the same author, Essere e persona, cil. ¡S8 Cf. Max Scheler, "Probleme der Religion", in: Scheler, Max, Vom Ewigen im Menschell, 5. Aufl. (Bern und MUnchen: Francke Verlag, 1968), pp. 101-354; in English in Max Scheler, 011 Ihe Etemal in Mall, transl. Bernard Noble (Hamden: Archon Books, 1972). Cf. also Edith Stein, Endliches und Ewiges Sein, cit.; cr. also Joser Seifert, "Schelers Denken des absoluten Ursprungs: Zum Verhliltnis von 188 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFtA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

/nvestigations, Edmund Husserl speaks of the bellum omnium contra omnes (referring as well to the contents of the teachings of these philosophers) and thinks that he can perceive in this intellectual war waged by phílosophers against each other a definite proof of the lack of the scientifíc nature of philosophy, a thesis to which I have attempted to give a critical response l59• In general, Husserl is of the opinion that he can only ground the rigorous scientific nature of philosophy by renouncing realism and the claim to knowledge of a being that is transcendent with respect to the subject. In the face of this, it is clear, if the aboye mentioned foundations of realist phenomenology are correct, that the realm of philosophy as strict science is not something that can be won back only with the help of Husserl, but is rather much deeper and more extensive than Husserl assumed.

IlI. CONCLUSION: REALIST PHENOMENOLOGY AS THE CONTINUATION AND REHABILITATION OF THE GREAT INSIGHTS OF THE LOG/CAL /NVESTlGATlONS

All of the great insights of Husserl, which were only sketched in this paper in a few points, should not only be retained in the framework of realist phenomenology, but must be carried on, developed further, and applied to concrete problem areas. We can thereby fully and wholly

Schelers Melaphysik und Religionsphilosophie zum ontologischen Gottesbeweis", in: Christian Bermes. Wollbart Henckmann. Heinz Leonardy und TUringische Gesellschafl fUr Philosophie. Jena (Hg.). Denken des Ursprungs - Ursprung des Denkens. Schelers Philosophie und ihre Anfiinge in Jena. Kritisches Jahrbuch der Pllilosophie 3 (1998), pp. 34-53. 159 Cf. Edmund Husserl. Logisclle Untersuchungen, § \, pp. 19, 15-17. and further (ibid .. § 1, pp. 20. 6-16). This look al the lack of unity and consensus is regarded by Husserl as sufficient proof for is thesis thal as long as we are faced wilh such a wide lack of consensus in a science (Wissen~chaft) the respective discipline cannot truly have reached the level of a science. Cf. Edmund Husserl. "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft". in: Edmund Husserl. Aufslltze und Vortrllge (1911-1921). Hrsg. Thomas Nenon und Hans Rainer Sepp, Husserliana Vol. XXV (Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: M. Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 3-62. Cf. my critique of this thesis and very different explanation of philosophical dissent in Josef Seifert, "Phllnomenologie und Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft. Zur Grundlegung einer realistischen phllnomenologischen Methode - in kritischem Dialog mit Edmund Husserls Ideen Uber die Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft", in: Filosofie. Pravda. Nesmrtlenost. Toi praúskd poednáókyl Pllilosophie. Wallrheit, Unsterblichkeit. Drei Prager Vorlesungen (lschechisch­ deulsch), Ilbeklad, úvod a bibliografi Martin Cajthaml. (Prague: Vydala Koeslanská akademie Oim. svacek. edice Studium. 1998), pp. 14-50. JOSEF SEIFERT: THf. S/GN/FICANCf. OF HUSSf.RL·S LaG/CAL lNVESTlGATlONS FOR... 189 embrace the valuable remarks of Husserl in the Logical Investigations where he states that the formal object and the conditions of a science are totalIy independent of the scientist. Furthermore, what belongs to the science and what doesn 't, is not a question of arbitrariness. The unity of philosophical science "urges itself upon us". as Husserl expresses himself; and henee there are correet and incorrect determinations and limitations of a science. Husserl's own objectively incorrect restriction of the phenomenological philosophical science to mere analyses of consciousness and investigations of purely intentional objects has to be avoided in particular. Nevertheless, we can retain thereby the magnificent insight of Husserl that the science of philosophy and of logic suffers immense harm when it confuses in psychologism the genuine realm of objects of the philosophical sciences with those of merely immanent psyehical laws. Indeed, in the framework of a realist phenomenology, we can develop especialIy these great, immortal achievements of Husserl in the Logical Investigations still more radically and precisely; defending them primarily, however, in their full significance, while this beca me impossible for Husserl himself through his "transcendental psychologism" and relativismo In this sen se, I regard phenomenologicaI realism, as much as it inc1udes the critique of the elements mentioned in Husserl's Logical Investigations and, aboye al1, of Husserl's later development, at the same time as the redemption of the innermost issues that concerned Husserl in the Logical Investigations: AH spheres of purely subjective psychological necessities of thought have to be radicaHy distinguished from the objective a priori essential laws in aH areas. as they govern logie for example l6o. And, in order to thus rediscover the whole objectivity of being and of truth, with which the Logical Investigations deal, the things themselves, also the existing ones, have to be separated fram aH subjective acts in which they are given. At the same time, however, such an objectivism does not at all prevent us from analyzing aH real forms and dimensions of subjectivity as well, the genuine personal dimensions. but also the false and negatively subjective ones; and contrasting appearances, deceptions, forms of blindness and value deception of aH kinds with the true and deep meanings of human subjectivity.

ltiO Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. l. § 1-2. 190 SEMINARIOS DE FILOSOFIA. Vols. 17-18.2004-2005

In this sense, 1 regard the task of phenomenological realism as that of a comprehensive and classical philosophy which, on the grounds established by Husserl's Logical lnvestigations, approaches again fully and with still greater clarity than in Husserl its occidental origins, especially in Plato and Aristotle; but leads, at the same time, through its methodology and personalism to a living, new beginning of philosophy which aims anew at capturing the eternal truth; which leads to a Seventh Voyage of philosophy, as it was wonderfully initiated by Husserl 's Logical lnvestigations, but unfortunately soon forgotten and in no way continued 161. The task of such a phenomenoIogical philosophy is none other than the old "Back to Things Themselves", the principIe of principIes:

BUl enough of wrong lheories. No imaginable theory can confuse us with regards to the principie of all principies: that every originally given in­ luition is a justifiable source of knowledge, that everything that presents irself to us originally in 'inluition' (so to speak, in its incarnate reality), is simply to be taken as that which it gives itself to be, but also only within the Iimits in which it presents itself. Lel us grasp. after all. that every theory could only draw its truthfrom originally given data l62•

The principIe that guides us in following and criticizing Husserl is none other than diligere verilalem omnem et in omnibus, the same principIe which the molto of the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein also expresses. This great, originally Platonic and also Husserlian principIe compels us to reverently preserve the treasures of insight in the Logical lnvestigations and to appropriate them ourselves; but, at the same time, to contradict the master everywhere where he has distanced himseIf from his own principIe and from the truth. Then the wise old saying will hoId for him as well: amicus Husserl - magis amica veritas!

161 cr. Dalduin Schwarz, Wahrheit. Irrlum und Verirrungen. cit. 162 Edmund Husserl. Ideen z;u einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosopllie 1, ed. Karl Schuhmann. Husserliana, vol. 11111; 1. Duch. text oC 1.-3. edn. l. Duch. l. Abschnitt. § 24.

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