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On Transcendental and Non-Transcendental Idealism in Husserl 29 CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Lirias On Transcendental and Non-Transcendental Id ealism in H u sserl: A R esp o n se to D e Palma and Loidolt Ju lia Jan sen KU Leuven* ju lia .ja n s e n @ k u le u v e n .b e * Correspondence: Husserl-Archives: Centre for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy Kardinaal Mercierplein 2 - box 3200 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Metodo. International Studies in Phenomonology and Philosophy Special Issue, n. 1, ch. 2 (2017) 28 Ju lia Ja n s e n Husserl never understood why his championing of a phenom enological “transcendental idealism ” caused such strong objections and, at its m ost extrem e, resentm ents. H e considered the dispute between idealism and realism , w hich ignited over the publication of his Id eas I, « s te rile (unfruchtbar)» and «unphilosophical» 1 (HUSSERL 1 9 3 0 , 5 6 3 ) . A nd yet, it seem s that the reception of H usserl’s work goes through regular cycles of this very dispute. We are therefore left w ith the qu estion: w hy d oes it seem im p ossible to settle this issu e? One answer lies in the very nature of Husserl’s thought. On the one hand, H usserl’s am bitions paralleled those of K ant w ho, as Mendelssohn famously claimed, was a «total crusher (der Alleszermalmer)», refuting rational psychology, philosophical cosm ology, an d ration al theology in on e fell sw oop (an d , in fact, in on e book). O n the other hand, Husserl proceeded m ore like a “total syn th esizer”, con tinu ou sly incorp orating alread y available ideas an d fram ew orks (historical or contem porary) and “turning” them into moments of his phenomenology. This eclecticism, however, was not arbitrary. H usserl seem s to have genuinely believed that the greatest minds of the past and present tended to get it right in certain respects, but that their notions (m ostly because of deeply entrenched prejudices that obscured their view s) w ere still in need of phenom enological clarification, by m eans of w hich the fundam ental insights lying dormant in their positions could be unlocked and put to proper use. It is th erefore n ot at all su rp risin g th at realists an d id ealists sh ou ld both find them selves confirm ed, or, perhaps m ore significantly, con trad icted in H u sserl’s w ritings. That said, the accusation of idealism has always been more cutting and m ore dam ning than that of realism . Being called a “realist” just does not sound like much of an insult – this was true at Husserl’s time, and it rem ains true today. This is no trivial point. H usserl insisted on 1 Unless I give the translation in the bibliography, the English translations of the German te x ts re fe rre d to in th is a rticle a re m in e . Metodo. Special Issue, n. 1, ch. 2 (2017) On Transcendental and Non-Transcendental Idealism in Husserl 29 his idealism largely against realist com m on sense, w hich paradoxically had been, at least in part, responsible for the success of his “realist” Logical Investigations. H ow ever, w h en th e Logical Investigations were first p u b lish e d , p h ilo so p h ica l d isco u rse w a s still m o stly e n ta n g le d in different (even opposing) view s that all could be considered “psychologistic” in the sense that they advocated either a priori m ental or em pirical psychological foundations for logic and the other scien ces. By th e tim e Id eas I was published, the landscape had shifted. Husserl increasingly saw the general attitude of “objectivism”, or “naturalism ”, as his m ain target, as it w as rapidly and relentlessly gaining m om entum in all areas of life. M ore specifically, his “transcendental idealism ” was m eant to deny (as Kant’s had done) the bivalence of the idealism -realism debate, which Husserl dism issed as still m ov ing «o n th e level o f n atu ralism (auf dem natürlichen Boden )» (HUSSERL 1 9 3 0 , 5 6 3 ). T h a t H u sserl’s p ro fessed id ea lism ca n still, m o re th a n 1 0 0 y e a rs a fte r th e p u b lica tio n o f Id eas I, a ttra ct p h ilo so p h ica l interest likely has to d o w ith the fact that tod ay realism reigns m ore pow erfully than ever. That the qualification of idealism by the term “transcendental” has left m any unconvinced of its pow er to eradicate the problem s associated w ith idealism , likely has to do w ith this realism 's n atu ralist ben t, w h ich co n sid ers tran scen d en tal id ealism just as “anti-realist” as idealism sim pliciter. That Husserl claimed the title “transcendental idealism ” for his phenom enology is not at issue, even though he did not wish to have his phenom enology reduced to simply a new version of idealism . As he rem arked sternly, «transcendental phenom enology is no theory merely there to provide answers to the historical problem of idealism” (HUSSERL 1930, 419). Yet, the self-sufficiency of phenomenology notwithstanding, he also insisted that the label “transcendental idealism ” w as not just one of expediency (let’s say, to ease-in the audience, for w hom his phenom enology w as so radically new , w ith con n ection s to trad ition al, m ore fam iliar m od els). It clearly w as no matter of “pedagogy” or “public relations” (and how ill chosen the label w ould have been for that purp ose). Metodo Special Issue, n. 1, ch. 2 (2017) 30 Ju lia Ja n s e n Husserl is genuinely convinced that there is an in trin sic relation between phenom enology and transcendental idealism . In his 1930 epilogue to Id eas I, th a t is , a fte r 1 7 y e a r s o f p u b lic o b je c tio n s a g a in s t h is tra n sce n d e n ta l id e a list p o sitio n , H u sse rl in sists: I m ay n o t h ere n eg lect (… ) to d eclare exp ressly th at I retract nothing w hatsoever as regards transcendental- phenom enological idealism and that I still consider, as I did before, every form of the usual philosophical realism nonsensical in principle, no less so than that idealism which it sets itself up against in its argum entations and w hich it ‘re fu te s ’. (H u s s e rl 1 9 3 0 , 5 6 0 ) In th e Cartesian Meditations (p u blished in French ju st one year later) he is even more adamant and even claims that … (…) phenomenology is eo ipso ‘transcendental idealism’, th o u g h in a fu n d a m e n ta lly a n d esse n tia lly n e w se n se . (… ) T h e proof of this idealism is therefore phenom enology itself. Only som eone w ho m isunderstands either the deepest sense of intentional m ethod, or that of transcendental reduction, perhaps both, can attem pt to separate phenom enology from transcend ental id ealism . (H u a 1, 118 f.) I ta k e it th a t it is p recisely th ese k in d s o f fo rm u la tio n s th a t irk V itto rio De Palma. Why call it “transcendental idealism” if one gives it “a fu n d a m e n ta lly a n d e sse n tia lly n e w se n se ” ? In p a rticu la r, w h y ca ll it “transcendental idealism ” and hence w hy pledge allegiance to som e form of K antianism if the fundam ental differences to K ant’s transcendental idealism are all too apparent? Both D e Palm a and Sophie Loidolt, in their contributions to Metodo (2015, Sp ecial Issu e I/1), identify som e of these fundam ental differences w ith great precision. Loidolt sees Husserl’s transcendental idealism first and forem ost as an idealism , w hich rides on the «radical distinction of the m odes of Metodo. Special Issue, n. 1, ch. 2 (2017) On Transcendental and Non-Transcendental Idealism in Husserl 31 2 being ‘consciou sn ess’ an d ‘reality ’» (LOIDOLT 2015, 117). A lthough Loidolt acknow le d g e s th a t th is d u a lism is « re v e a le d b y th e phenom enological reduction» (IB ID ., 117), she believes that it «can hardly be traced back to a transcendental argum ent, but is [instead] ro o ted in an o n to log ical in sig h t, v iz., rests on on to log ical arg u m en ts» (IBID ., 118 f.). T his assessm ent resonates w ith a relatively w id e-spread perception, one that is shared also by De Palma, nam ely that Husserl’s assertion of the prim acy of consciousness over reality is not part of a “transcendental” register, but in fact betrays «the legacy of Brentano which Husserl never overcame», ultimately a non-transcendental idealism that as such is no m ore than «a residue of psychologism » (DE PALMA 2015, 42).
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