Sacred Heart University DigitalCommons@SHU Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Publications 4-1988 Husserl's Position Between Dilthey and the Windelband-Rickert School of Neo-Kantianism John E. Jalbert Sacred Heart University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/rel_fac Part of the Philosophy of Mind Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Jalbert, John E. "Husserl's Position Between Dilthey and the Windelband-Rickert School of Neo-Kantianism." Journal of the History of Philosophy 26.2 (1988): 279-296. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +XVVHUO V3RVLWLRQ%HWZHHQ'LOWKH\DQGWKH:LQGHOEDQG5LFNHUW 6FKRRORI1HR.DQWLDQLVP John E. Jalbert Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 26, Number 2, April 1988, pp. 279-296 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\7KH-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/hph.1988.0045 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hph/summary/v026/26.2jalbert.html Access provided by Sacred Heart University (5 Dec 2014 12:35 GMT) Husserl's Position Between Dilthey and the Windelband- Rickert School of Neo- Kanuamsm JOHN E. JALBERT THE CONTROVERSY AND DEBATE over the character of the relationship between the natural and human sciences (Natur- und Geisteswissenschaflen) became a central theme for philosophical reflection largely through the efforts of theo- rists such as Wilhelm Dilthey and the two principal representatives of the Baden School of Neo-Kantians, Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert.~ These turn of the century theorists are major figures in this philosophical arena, but they are by no means the only participants in the effort to grapple with this issue. If we broaden our historical perspective, we find that the problematic is actually prefigured in the writings of Plato and Aristotle,' and it continues to be a vital issue today under the influence of works by Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur.~ Despite the long his- Research for this project was supported by grants in 1983 from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society and the Sacred Heart University Research/Creativity Council. My thanks to the Husserl Archives in I_.euven, Belgium and Cologne, West Germany for access to and permission to cite from Husserl's unpublished manuscripts. This article is a revision of a paper presented at the 1985 meeting of the Husserl Circle in Ottawa, Canada. See, for example, Plato, "Statesman" in Plato: The CollectedDialogues, The Bollingen Series 71, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 283c-~85b and Aristotle, Nicomathean Ethics, trans, by H. Rackman, Loeb Classical Library, No. 73 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), I, iii, l- 5. s See especially, Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans, by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 196u); Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975); Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict oflnterpretation: Essays in Hermeneutics, ed. by Don Ihde (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974); and Paul [~79] 280 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:2 APRIL 1988 tory of philosophical attention directed to this question, the debate has to a certain extent engendered the erroneous impression that what is really at stake is primarily an epistemological and/or ontological matter. What has been obscured is the larger, more fundamental problem that spawned the debate in the first place. The main issue, conceived broadly, is an ethical one and con- cerns the possibility of a genuinely human, that is, rational and ethical, life. The philosopher Edmund Husserl makes a significant contribution to the debate which is, unfortunately, not always recognized. Husserl's contribution is significant because, among other things, it attempts to keep the underlying issue, that is, the ethical dimension of the question, clearly in focus. This effort can be seen as early as 191o/1 1 in Husserl's essay Philosophy as Rigorous Science, where he reminds us that it is not the mere "theoretical lack of clarity regard- ing the sense of the 'reality' investigated in the natural and humanistic sci- ences"4 that is at issue, but the impending crisis in humanity, which originates with the tendency of these sciences to fall prey to the prejudices of naturalism and/or historicism. Of course, the crisis with which Husserl is concerned per- tains primarily to the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaflen), for it is the task of the human sciences, not the natural sciences, to provide humanity with the antidote for a spiritual life gone awry.s Both naturalism and historicism "misinterpret ideas as facts and.., trans- form all reality, all life, into an incomprehensible, idealess confusion of 'facts'. ''6 Therein lies their impotence. For Husserl, all life involves taking a position and judging according to norms--norms which, in the hands of sci- ences blinded by naturalism or historicism, are empirically falsified and ren- dered devoid of any ideal validity. In this respect, Philosophy as Rigorous Science anticipates Husserl's later work in the Cr/s/s where he again issues the warning that "merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people."7 While the tone of the Cr/s/s is decidedly more positive toward the human sciences and their role in the guidance of humanity, it nevertheless does not represent a major revision of Husserl's earlier assessment. His position was never one of wholesale condemnation or rejection but, rather, a recognition that the hu- man sciences were being hampered in their task because they lacked a scien- Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays in Language, Action and Interpretation, ed. and trans, byJ. B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1982). 4 Edmund Husserl, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science,"in Husserl: Shorter Works, ed. by Peter McCormick and F. A. Elliston (Notre Dame: Notre Dame UniversityPress, 1981), 193. Hereafter cited as PRS. 5 Edmund Husseri, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Intro- duction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans, by David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 197o), ~7o. Hereafter cited as Crisis. 6 PRS, a93. 7 Crisis,6. HUSSERL'S POSITION 281 tific or philosophical foundation. One of the principal aims of Husserlian phenomenology is to provide just such a foundation. In order to bring this aspect of Husserl's thought into focus, we should recall the positive goals of naturalism and historicism and the price paid to achieve these goals. Naturalism, for example, does strive to be scientific even though its method ultimately results in the falsification and obfuscation of its subject matter. His- toricism, on the other hand, does endeavor to remain faithful to its subject matter but, in the process, abandons the project of science. The problem here is to fuse the two seemingly conflicting but nevertheless positive goals, that is, the goal to be scientific and the goal to be true to one's subject matter. This, then, is the question confronting Husserl: how can the human sciences remain true to their unique subject matter and still lay legitimate claim to the title science? Can there be a science of life that does not in the process alienate itself from and distort its subject matter? As we shall see, the phenomenological methods of eidetic reduction and variation figure largely in Husserl's response to these questions. First, however, let us broaden our historical perspective in order to better appreciate both the problem and Husserrs proposed solution to it. Here the debate between Dilthey and the leading figures of the Baden School of Neo- Kantians, Windelband and Rickert, is relevant. 1. Husserl, Dilthey, and the Neo-Kantians found themselves united in their aver- sion to naturalism and methodological reductionism. One of the questions that required their immediate attention, then, was how and according to what principle the sciences should be distinguished and classified. In the course of his philosophical development, Dilthey proffered several responses to this question. In his Einleitung in ~883, Dilthey distinguishes the sciences on the basis of their subject matter. Sciences that deal with physical reality are natural sciences, and sciences that deal with the realm of mind are human sciences. Dilthey later modifies and refines his position so that in the Ideen of ~894 he suggests that sciences be Classified on the basis of their reliance on inner or outer experience. Human sciences, then, are those sciences that rely on inner experience, and natural sciences are those sciences that rely on outer experi- ence. In the Ideen, moreover, the rudiments of a methodologically based dis- tinction of the sciences are evident in assertions such as, "We explain nature, [but] we understand psychic life. ''8 Building upon this position, Dilthey was then a short step from his final position in which, generally speaking, he 8 WilhelmDilthey, Die Geistige Welt: Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens, GesammelteSchriften 5, Hrsg. Georg Misch (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, 1928), 144. Hereafter