A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION A Self-referential, Transcendental Approach to Conceptual Pathology STEVEN JAMES BARTLETT Copies of this Ph.D. dissertation —in print (hardbound or softbound), in PDF format, or microform— are available through ProQuest 789 E. Eisenhower Pkwy. Ann Arbor, MI 48108 734.997.4630 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/orderingres.shtml Please refer to dissertation number 7905583 © Steven James Bartlett, 1970, 2013 This publication is made available by the author as an open access publication, freely downloadable to readers through any non-profit online depository under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder’s written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode Volume I: French Volume II: English A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY A Dissertation submitted to the Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Universite de Paris (X), Nanterre in a double-language format -- French (Vol. I) and English (Vol. II) -- in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Steven James Bartlett, B. A. , M. A. Dissertation Director: Paul Ricoeur Members of the Committee: Jean Ladriere Alphonse de Waehlens Paris, France May, 1970 Defended publically January 19, 1971 PLEASE NOTE: This dissertation was filmed from the original typescript. Some pages in the filmed version occasionally reproduce text with a lack of dis- tinctness, but all of the text should be readable. A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY A Dissertation submitted to the Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, University de Paris (X), Nanterre in a double-language format -- French (Vol. I) and English (Vol. II) -- in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Steven James Bartlett, B.A. , M. A. Dissertation Director: Paul Ricoeur Members of the Committee: Jean Ladriere Alphonse de Waehlens Paris, France May, 1970 Defended publically January 19, 1971 A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY VOLUME II (English) Abstract A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION; A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY Steven James Bartlett The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which can serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread conceptual fault or misconstruction, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii) when remedied, leads to a less controver­ sial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a projective variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self- reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and sketches the direction of the studies which follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for a critique of impure reason. The body of the work is divided into two parts; Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with projective uses of concepts. The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views knowledge as coordination. Section I describes formal structures which possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of identifying reference to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of phenomenological constitution. The "de-projective methodology" developed in Section I is applied to these concepts which have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology. A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self- defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science. The dissertation was presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index. Science is the "knowledge of things possible" - [Vinci Is 20] A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY In the honor of Edmund Husserl, who saw "the infinite'open country of the' true philosophy, the 'promised land1 on which he himself. never set foot"*, and to those who will respect this dedication to the tasks of the Glasperlenspiel. * [ideas I: 29] Es ist schon ein grosser und notiger Beweis der Klugheit oder Einsicht, zu wissen, was man verntinftigerweise fragen solle. Denn wenn die Frage an sich ungereimt ist und unnotige Antworten verlangt, so Hat sie ausser der Beschamung dessen, der sie aufwirft, bisweilen noch den Nachteil, den unbehutsamen Anhorer derselben zu ungereimten Antworten zu verleiten und den belachenswerten Anblick zu geben. dass einer, (wie die Alten sagten)9 den Bock melkt» der andre ein Sieb unterhalt. -[Kant Is B S3] S'il fallait attendre de connaitre en tous ses details la question etudiee, nul nfoserait ecrire le peu qui lui est connu. De temps a^autre, quel<jues verites se revelent, minimes cubes de l^norme mosalque des choses. Divulguons la trouvaille, si humble soit- elle; d*autres viendront qui> faisant recolte8 eux aussi, de quelques parcelles, assembleront le tout en un tableau toujours agrandi, mais toujours ebreche par l'inconnu. -[Fabre li X 119J CONTENTS Page General Introduction .....%. i Section One: Chapter 1.0 Introduction to Section One 1 1.1 The Concept of Coordinate System ... 9 • 1.2 The Concept of Vector 26 1.3 The Concept of Particular 34 1.4 De-projection 63 1.5 Valences 93 1.6 The Logic of Structure of the Space-Time Manifold 104 Section Two: Chapter 2.0 Introduction to Section Two 132 2.1 The Structure of Phenomenological Space-Time 146 2.2 Phenomenological Relativity 195 2.3 Phenomenological Ontology 202 2.4 Truth 221 2.5 Causality 23$ 2.6 The Phenomenological Constitution of the Egological ....... 252 2.7 Statics ..... 269 Bibliography • • 2^2 Terminological Index 303 A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION GENERAL INTRODUCTION GENERAL INTRODUCTION GENERAL INTRODUCTION 0-1 The absence of a unitary methodology 0-2 The quandary of the special sciences 0-3 This study 0-4 The normative nature of science 0-5 The structure of theory 0-6 General tradition behind the present work 0-7 Scientific wisdom 0-8 The limitations of knowledge 0-9 The intuitive and the practical 0-10 Empirical objects as ideal possibilities 0-11 Towards a critique of impure reason 0-12 Zu den Sachen selbst 0-13 This work as a theory 0-14 On the theory of experience 0-15 A note to the reader 0-16 The place of this study in future work 0-17 The organization of this study -i- f 0-1 The absence of a unitary methodology Perhaps the day will [L]a litterature philo- come when philosophy sophique s'est, en effet, can be discussed in accrue d'une maniere terms of investiga­ demesuree tout en man- tion rather than con' quant d'une unite de troversy, and philo­ methode au point .qu'il sophers, like scien­ y a presque autant de tists, be known by philosophies que de the topics they study philosophes. rather than by the -[LFLT Intro 10J views they hold. [Goodman 2: xiv]* Divergence of belief and practice among philosophers engaged in theoretical matters is itself strong evidence that clear thinking on many fundamental problems has not spread very far. An unscientific profusion of incompatible philosophical systems obstructs an integrated comprehension of the world. For more than two millenia a perspicuous grasp of the synthetic nature of the world has been the purpose of philosophy. In its ancient sense, philosophy is a search inspired by love for the architectonic design of things. * For an explanation of the reference style used in this study, consult the Bibliography, pp. 2#2ff. iii In times of fragmentation, in a world where great values are remote, and a chasm widens between conviction and rationality, where "principles and conduct are un­ equally mated", this philosophia.