Back to 'Things in Themselves': A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism

Back to 'Things in Themselves' A phenomenological foundation for classical realism A thematic study into the epistemological-metaphysical foundations of phenomenological realism, a reformulation of the method of phenomenology as noumenology, and a critique of subjectivist transcendental philosophy and phenomenology

Josef Seifert The International Academy of Philosophy

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL New York and London

First published in 1987 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc. in association with Methuen Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY /0001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Set in Times by Inforum Ltd, Portsmouth and printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd, Worcester

© Josef Seifert 1987 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Seifert, Josef, 1945Back to things in themselves. (Studies in classical and phenomenological realism) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Phenomenology. 2. Realism. I.' Title. ll. Series. 142'.7 86-3231 B829.5.S44 1986 British Library CIP Data also available 1SBN 0-7/02-0711-5

With the expression of profound friendship and admiration, dedicated to Agustin Basave Fernandez de la Valle Important philosopher, Rector of the Universidad Regiomontana, Monterrey, Mexico, and Co-Director of the International Academy of Philosophy, on the joyful occasion of his sixtieth birthday

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CONTENTS

Analytical table of contents

IX

Preface

1

Part I: The classical principle of phenomenology: 'Back to things themselves'

5

1 'Back to things themselves:' Rethinking Husserl's maxim and the nature of philosophy

7

2 Critique of epoche

Part II:

The cogito and indubitable knowledge

77

119

Introduction to Part II

121

3 Do Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy deserve for it the title 'critical philosophy?'

123

4 Does Husserl's transcendental phenomenology prove phenomenological realism to be uncritical?

137

5 Indubitable knowledge of real being and of necessary essences in the cogito

181

Part III:

217

Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves'

Introduction to Part III

219

6 What are 'things in themselves?' 7 Can human knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective?'

223 252

8 Beings which claim to 'be in themselves'

282

Contents

9 Indubitable and infallible knowledge of 'things in themselves:' phenomenology as noumenology

303

Notes

325

Index

350

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ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I The classical principle of phenomenology: 'Back to things themselves. '

1 Back to things themselves: rethinking Husserl's maxim and the nature of philosophy. 1 What is phenomenology? 'Back to things themselves' as the principle of the phenomenologicaVphilosophical method. (i)

'Back to things themselves' as opposed to constructions, reductionism, premature systematization or causal explanation, and similar forms of doing violence to the given.

(ii)

Starting out in philosophical analyses with causal explanations prevents the understanding of 'things themselves. '

(iii)

Adequate causal explanations impossible without a return to things themselves.

(iv)

Phenomenology versus reductionism.

(v)

Phenomenology, causality, and metaphysics.

(vi)

Phenomenology is not restricted to philosophy but is also the appropriate kind of procedure in many other disciplines, notably in art and literary criticism, psychology, historiography, and others. Why the primary application of phenomenology still lies in philosophy. The distinctively philosophical 'return to things themselves.' IX

Analytical table of contents

(vii)

2 3

4

5 6

7

Phenomenology as a study of 'things themselves' in contrast to misconceptions resulting from mistaken paradigms and models. 'Linguistic analysis' and clarification of terms as tools for understanding and distinguishing 'things themselves.' The specific philosophical task of a return to things themselves. (i) 'Back to things themselves' versus premature systematizations. (ii) Certain intellectual and moral attitudes as conditions of objective and rational philosophical knowledge. (iii) What are the 'things themselves' to which philosophers should return? The difference between phenomenological intuition and description. Can a presuppositionless philosophical return to 'things themselves' be justified? (i) Further clarification of the method which leads 'back to things themselves:' presuppositions of this phenomenological maxim and their justification through the' given' as eidos of knowledge and insight. Phenomenology as a unique mode of seeing and (ii) learning to see: insight, argumentation, dialogue, and intersubjectivity. (iii) Phenomenology as presuppositionless, and the rational foundation of philosophy. 'Back to things themselves' and the 'thing in itself:' is phenomenological realism possible? Is phenomenology atheistic, or 'mystical' and alogical? Direct seeing or deduction? Phenomenology, metaphysics, proof, and speculation. Phenomenology faced with history, language, and the social: is 'phenomenological realism' naive?

2 Critique of epoche as foundational moment in the phenomenological method: the limited importance of epoche as a methodological element for a philosophical return to 'things themselves' .

x

Analytical table of contents 1 Different meanings of epoche, ideation, and phenomenological reduction. (i) The first sense of epoche (eidetic reduction) - shared with phenomenological realism: prescinding from real existence in the context of essential (eidetic) analysis. (ii) The second sense of epoche: phenomenological reduction as suspension of belief in the 'transcendent existence' of the world (characteristic of the 'natural attitude'). (iii)

(iv)

A third sense of epoche (phenomenological reduction) and the first step of transcendental reduction. Fourth sense of epoche (second moment of transcendental reduction): suspension of transcendence not only of existence but of 'Wesensgesetze' as well.

2 Critique of phenomenological reduction (second and third sense of epoche) as the principle of the phenomenological method. The way 'back to things themselves' demands the proper methods which allow understanding of autonomous objective 'esse' (existence).

(i)

Concrete individual (autonomous) existence as object of philosophy.

(ii)

The unique existential status of the question about 'God.'

(iii)

Critique of epoche as sufficient method for analyzing 'essences. '

Critique of epoche as methodological principle for the exploration of necessary essences. 3 Radical critique of 'transcendental reduction' (epoche) as proper method for knowledge of necessary essences. (iv)

xi

Analytical table of contents Part II The cogito and indubitable knowledge: critique of the motives which led to transcendental philosophy and transcendental phenomenology, and a defense of the transcendence of man in knowledge.

Introduction to Part II

3 Do Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy deserve for it the title 'critical philosophy?' 1 Kant's motives for making the 'Copernican Turn.' 2 A brief outline of some criticisms of the motives which led Kant into transcendental idealism. 4

Does Husserl's transcendental phenomenology prove phenomenological realism to be uncritical? 1 The motives which led to Husserl's 'transcendental phenomenology. '

2

Brief critique of Husserl's motives for developing transcendental phenomenology (idealism). (i)

Husserl's rejection of the 'transcendence of Man in knowledge' uncritical, and contrary to the evidence of 'things themselves.' The achievement of 'transcendence' in knowledge cannot be denied without self-contradiction and is itself given with indubitable certainty.

3

Critique of the idealist interpretation of sense-perception.

4

Critique of Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science.

5

Critique of Husserl's transition from a wrong 'methodological' epoche of the world to the transcendentalontological thesis of its negation.

6

The phenomenological and realist distinction between concept and species.

7

The reversal of the order between meaning-giving and meaning-fulfilling acts. The reversal of the priority of receptivity over spontaneity.

8 Philosophy and the other disciplines and sciences. 9 Critique of Husserl's naturalistic and deterministic

xii

Analytical table of contents

10 11

12

13

14

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conception of the real world as source of transcendental idealism. The receptive essence of knowledge as refutation of the radical transcendental constitution of consciousness. The lack of givenness of an activity of transcendental constitution: the unphenomenological and antiphenomenological character of transcendental phenomenology. Critique of transcendental phenomenology by uncovering ambiguities and equivocations in the notions of 'transcendental ego,' 'pure ego,' and similar key terms. Critique of the inner contradictions in the idea of 'universal constitution,' including 'self-constitution' - which is a concept inseparable from transcendental idealism. Systematic distinction between constituted, unconstituted, and unconstitutable being. Elaboration of evident knowledge concerning 'things in themselves.' Phenomenology of the noumena. The self-givenness of real transcendence in knowledge: absolutely necessary essences and cognition of real existence in the 'cogito argument' as the most rigorous refutation of transcendental phenomenology. Realist phenomenology of noumenal essences and essential necessities.

5 Indubitable knowledge of real being and of necessary essences in the cogito: definitive refutation of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology through the self-givenness of cognitive transcendence. 1 Indubitable knowledge oftruth in the cogito. (i) Indubitable knowledge of real being in the cogito: cogito; ergo sum; ergo esse est. (ii) Knowledge of universal necessary truths implied in skeptical doubt. 2 Characteristics of essentially necessary facts. (i) Essential necessity. (a) Essentially necessary versus contingent facts. xiii

Analytical table of contents

(b) Essential necessity versus formal dominion of general nature. (c) Absolute essential necessity versus necessity of nature. (d) Essential necessity versus aporetic 'seeming' necessity. (e) Essential necessity differs from psychological necessity. (f) Objective essential necessity versus subjective transcendental necessity. (ii) Absolute exceptionless generality and strict formal rule of the universal over the particular. (iii) Timelessness and eternity. (iv) Absolute indestructibility. (v) Immutability. (vi) Incomparable intelligibility. (vii) 'Injudicabilitas' and the foundation of rational knowledge. (viii) Apodictic (absolute) certainty and cognitive infallibility. Part III Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves;' constituted, unconstituted, and unconstitutable being.

Introduction to Part III. 6 What are 'things in themselves?' Is the claim of realist phenomenology to be no urn enology absurd? 1 Can man know 'things in themselves' or is such a claim nonsense? (i) Contradictory meanings of the term 'thing in itself.' (a) Meanings of 'thing in itself' which refer to something intrinsically (metaphysically or logically) impossible. (b) Contradictory meanings of 'thing in itself,' in which the contradiction arises from a relation between the object and subject of discourse. Meanings of 'thing in itself' which make it contradictory for man to claim knowledge of 'things in themselves. ' xiv

Analytical table of contents

(c) Intrinsically impossible kinds of knowing 'things in themselves.' (d) Humanly impossible ways to know 'things in themselves. ' (ii)

Meanings of the term 'thing in itself' which make sense, yet in regard to which any positive and/or comprehensive human knowledge is excluded. (a) 'Thing in itself' as the totality of a thing in all its knowable aspects. (b) Being as in principle accessible to the finite mind, but as inaccessible to the human mind. (c) 'Thing in itself' as that which lies beyond the limits offactual, present human understanding: knowledge of 'things in themselves' as the object of human hope and desire.

(iii)

Important senses in which we can know 'things in themselves;' critique of Kant and Husser!' (a) 'Things in themselves' as the true being (essence and existence) of things and as opposed to the objects of deception and error. (b) A second fundamental sense of 'thing in itself. ' Being which is not constituted as a mere object of intentional acts. (c) The different sources of the claim to ontic autonomy - and ontic heteronomy. (d) Further clarification of 'thing in itself.' (e) 'Being in itself' as the authentic essence of a thing as opposed to merely exterior, superficial aspects ofthe thing. (f) De I'existence aI' etre: being in itself as the true vocation of a being.

(iv)

The goal served by the preceding investigations into 'thing in itself.'

7 Can human knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective?' The many meanings of 'objective' and 'subjective.'

1 Introduction. 2 'Objective' and 'subjective' as ontological categories.

xv

Analytical table of contents 'Object' as unconscious (lifeless) thing, 'subject' as conscious being (person). (ii) 'Objective' as 'real' - 'subjective' as merely imagined by a subject. (iii) Subjective being as 'heteronomous being' and 'objective being' as 'being in itself.' (iv) 'Objective' as 'objectively meant to be' and 'subjective' as 'opposed to the true meaning' of something. (v) Objective being as being which is not produced by a subject. (vi) 'Objective being' as 'neutral being' - 'subjective being' as valuable being: a misleading terminology. 3 'Subjective' and 'objective' as epistemological categories. (i)

(i)

(ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi)

(vii)

Objective knowledge as knowledge of being as it truly is. 'Objective knowledge' as 'episteme' - 'subjective knowledge' as 'd6xa.' 'Objective knowledge' as knowledge which does justice to the pure essence of things. 'Objective knowledge' and universal consensus. 'Objective knowledge' as rationally grounded knowledge. 'Objective knowledge' as 'neutral knowledge,' or as a knowledge which can be attained while remaining in a morally and intellectually 'neutral attitude.' Objective knowledge as a knowledge which does not in any way produce its object and which is in this sense 'independent from the will.'

(viii) Objective knowledge as knowledge free from historical and other conditions of the subject. (ix) Absurd and humanly impossible forms of 'objective knowledge. ' 4 'Objective' and 'subjective' as purely 'functional concepts.' (i) Objective as that which stands over against ussubjective as what is 'laterally given.' xvi

Analytical table of contents (ii)

Existential modes of objective and subjective givenness. (a) Objective givenness as not motivating and affecting our will or heart. (b) Givenness as good or evil for us. (c) Subjective givenness on background of past and other relations. 5 'Objective' and 'subjective' as predicates of attitudes, judgments, or methods. (i) 'Objective' in the sense of 'adequate. ' (ii) 'Objective' as 'neutral attitude.' (iii) Rationalist and empiricist 'objectivity.' 6 'Objective' and 'subjective' as logical categories. (i) Objectivity of the truth of judgment. (ii) Objectivity as validity of an argument. (iii) Objectivity as logically correct method.

·8 Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' as opposed to mindconstituted beings. 1 Objective and subjective foundations of the 'claim to exist in itself' in the first sense. 2 Claim to exist 'in itself;' i.e. independently from the subject. (i) Different sources of the claim of mind-independent being. 3 Constituted beings which do not claim to exist autonomously. (i) Beings which by their very essence do not claim to exist in themselves. (ii) Beings which do not claim mind-independent autonomy because of their way of givenness: imagination and art. 4 Beings which claim to exist 'in themselves.' (i) Beings which claim, by their very nature, autonomous, mind-independent 'being in themselves. ' xvii

Analytical table of contents

(ii)

Beings which claim to exist in themselves by the 'way of their givenness.' 9 Indubitable and infallible knowledge of 'things in themselves:' phenomenology as noumenology. 1 The evident presupposedness of indubitable knowledge of 'things in themselves' for any knowledge of constituted beings. (i) The 'metaphysical' presupposition of unconstituted being in 'transcendental idealism.' (a) The un constituted activity of constitution. (b) The unconstituted subject of any constitution. (c) The absurd denial of a non-constituted subject follows ineluctably from any transcendental idealism. (d) 'Back to things themselves:' back to objective realism. 2 The epistemological presupposition of a knowledge of 'unconstituted being' as condition of the possibility of constitution. Knowledge of the unconstituted being of the act and of the subject of constitution necessarily presupposed for knowledge of constituted objects. 3 Empirical and essentially necessary facts about the constituted beings are not constituted but known. 4 The necessary structure of knowledge as 'receptive' (discovering) and 'transcending' reveals an inner contradiction in transcendental idealism and refutes it. S Immediate evident givenness of 'things in themselves. '

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PREFACE

Towards the end of his important article 'What is Phenomenology?' Adolf Reinach writes: When we wish to break with all theories and constructions in phenomenology and when we aspire to a return to things themselves, to a pure undistorted intuition of essences, intuition is by no means conceived as a sudden inspiration or illumination .... It requires specific and great efforts to leave the distance to things which characterizes our normal approach to them, and to attain to their clear and distinct grasp. It is precisely with reference to this difficulty that we speak of phenomenological method. Here we find a coming closer and closer to things, which is constantly threatened by all kinds of possible deceptions, a threat which accompanies all knowledge. Intuitions into essences also need to be worked out - and this labor stands under the image, sketched by Plato in the Phaedrus, of the souls having to climb up to heaven, with their horse-carriages, in order to arrive at the intuition of ideas.' This quotation states in all simplicity and clarity (albeit with reference only to essences) what we regard as the very principle and core of phenomenological philosophy: the return to things themselves. This book seeks to elaborate, step by step, the meaning of this 'program of phenomenology,' freeing it not only from the restriction to the exploration of essence, as if existence were excluded from phenomenological research, but also from far more significant distortions. In the course of our investigations we shall 1

Preface have to determine, in particular, whether the rigorous program of returning to 'things themselves' is best carried out by means of the phenomenological method as conceived by Husser!. Above all, the problem to be confronted is this: does the program of phenomenological philosophy as characterized by Reinach in the quote above lead to the transcendental (idealist) phenomenology of the later Husserl and the subjectivism which characterizes so many versions of 'phenomenology;' or does this program, when carried out authentically, contradict any kind of subjectivism and help to establish again a rigorous philosophical objectivism and realism? This problem is related to a fundamental question of such magnitude that the fate of all human knowledge, science, morality, happiness, love, and religion hinges on the answer to it. The meaning of human existence itself is at stake. In fact - since man cannot relate to any being outside of himself except by using his very own knowledge - being itself is at stake when this question is raised; being itself, at least inasmuch as man is accorded to gain knowing access to being or even to think of it in any conceivable manner. The question we mean can be formulated as follows: in our knowledge, do we also discover besides the appearances and constituted aspects of things, 'things in themselves,' i.e., entities, essential structures and laws (Wesenheiten und Wesensgesetze) , and existents, which are in no way constituted by human consciousness'? Or is human knowledge confined to an immanent sphere of human consciousness and to a world of objects (noemata) which derive all their meaning and 'being' from human subjectivity, from man's 'being in the world,' from his transcendental, or even his historical consciousness? The different answers they give to this question separate a Hume or a Kant from a Plato or an Aristotle, separate Husserl's transcendental phenomenology from phenomenological realism which holds that 'things in themselves' are truly what Kant calls them: noumena, that is, knowable and intelligible objects of human knowledge, instead of unknowable X's as Kant believed them to be (thereby belying the very meaning of the term 'noumenon' which means 'the intelligible,' that which is understandable or understood). Since the present work is dedicated to the critical foundation and philosophical development of phenomenological realism and of classical realism for which 'things in themselves' have always been 2

Preface noumena, i.e. intelligible; and since the Husserl of the Logical Investigations (LU; 1900-1) was the undisputed 'father' of phenomenology, it is only natural for us to distance ourselves critically primarily from those 'phenomenological' philosophers who, like Husserl himself after 1905, call into question the very meaning of the terms 'phenomenological realism' and 'thing in itself' and not just the possibility of any knowledge of beings in themselves (whereas Kant had held the meaningfulness and necessity of the notion 'thing in itself,' and had only denied the possibili'ty of its knowledge). Nevertheless, although we shall primarily focus on a critical discussion of transcendental idealist phenomenology, we shall also take into account the great thinker who gave rise to German idealism and transcendental philosophy: Immanuel Kant. A brief critical examination of the reasons that led Kant to adopt his transcendental position which denies knowledge of 'things in themselves,' is all the more useful for our purpose because Husserl had studied the Critique of Pure Reason between the time he had finished the Logical Investigations and the beginning of the period during which he advanced his idealist phenomenological position. Our critical historical interest, not in matters of purely scholarly dispute and in nuances of Kant's and Husserl's thought (perhaps reflected in hitherto undiscovered manuscripts available only in some rare libraries), but in the essential core of German idealism as it presents itself to the unprejudiced and careful reader of Kant or Husserl, will not, however, overshadow, the primarily thematicsystematic interest of the following investigations. The ensuing study is, furthermore, simultaneously an epistemological and a metaphysical study. As will be shown, the metaphysical question of what the 'thing in itself' is and the ontological difference between constituted (heteronomous) and nonconstituted (autonomous) being is inseparable from the fundamental problem of epistemology. In this regard, we shall defend a position that is directly opposite to that of Husserl and the majority of phenomenologists who believe that a phenomenology of knowledge must suspend all metaphysical questions and theses notwithstanding the fact that Husserl himself clearly implies a transcendental-idealist ontology of noemata. A thematic-systematic study into the nature of human knowledge in relation to the problem of constitution, and the resulting critil1ue

3

Preface

of Kant and the later Husserl, could still be conducted in many different ways. We shall pursue with relative brevity some of these 'many ways,' and engage in a more detailed discussion of only a few of them.

4

PART I

THE CLASSICAL PRINCIPLE OF PHENOMENOLOGY: 'BACK TO THINGS THEMSELVES'

1 'BACK TO THINGS THEMSELVES': RETHINKING HUSSERL'S MAXIM AND THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY 1 WHAT IS PHENOMENOLOGY? The original maxim of phenomenology had been 'Zuruck zu den Sachen selbst:' 'back to things themselves.' When Husserl addressed this call to the philosophical world of 1900-1, and when he admirably carried out in the Logical Investigations (LU) what this maxim prescribes, his new 'phenomenological' philosophy exerted a tremendous impact on the philosophical community of his time. While Husserl's call 'back to things themselves' has many meanings, it originally indicated a return especially to those objective logical, ethical, legal, and aesthetic laws and values which had been reduced to the sphere of mere subjectivity, and thus falsified, by psycho logism. The call 'back to things' was heard at a time when practically the entire modern philosophical world, mainly under the influence of Hume's empiricism, on the one hand, and under that of Kant's transcendental critical idealism, on the other, was dominated by one form or other of skepticism or relativism. Students of philosophy who had given up hope of ever again reaching the solid ground of objective truth and being were so excited over Husserl's work that many of them left Munich for Gottingen, some even riding their bicycles for hundreds of miles, in order to witness personally the reality of the liberation that Husserl offered, a liberation from a relativistic psychologism which reduced the laws of being and logic to laws of human thinking, and denied man any access to objective and immutable truth. In France during the early years of this century, the philosophical 7

Part I: 'Back to things themselves'

situation was harqly different. It was at about the same time that the young leftist students Jacques and Raissa Maritain studied at the Sorbonne; their philosophy teachers had successfully persuaded them that there was no objective reality and no absolute truth accessible to man's mind. Having despaired of ever finding any objective truth on which human existence could be based, they had already decided on the day on which they would both commit suicide. Like many students in Germany who had been swayed by the powerful influence of psychologistic relativism until they encountered Husserl, the young Maritains must have had a very similar experience to the one Friedrich Nietzsche describes so forcefully in the third Untimely Meditation (Unzeitgemiisse Betrachtung); this is a work which overtly deals with Schopenhauer but, as we know from later letters and works of Nietzsche., really recounts Nietzsche's own experience. There Nietzsche expresses his conviction that every philosopher who takes his starting point from Kant will fall into a skepticism which 'corrodes and smashes everything.' Nietzsche expresses his own feelings in the moving words of the famous German poet Heinrich von Kleist who wrote in a letter that, after having studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, he felt his deepest aspirations and search for meaning had been frustrated, the 'most sacred inner sanctuary of his soul had been deadly wounded,' and 'the highest and only goal of his life had sunk.' The goal referred to by Kleist was his hope to come to know a truth which was not relative to human consciousness and opinion, a truth 'which remains true until after the grave.' Against this background one can better understand why many students reacted so enthusiastically when they encountered Husser!'s philosophy of returning to 'things themselves,' which they rightly saw as a liberation from skepticism, as a return to, and rehabilitation of, classical philosophy as a study of the objective essence and being of things. But - in the opinion of the present author, tragically - after 1905 Husser! himself, and with him many of his followers, turned towards a more radical form of subjectivism and relativism than had been found in any thinker previously. The very notion of an objective, albeit unknowable, 'thing in itself' (still present in Kant, so to speak, as a reminder of some transcendent objective reality) was dismissed by Husserl as an 'absurd notion.' Every meaning and every being are, most explicitly in the Cartesian Meditations, declared to be strictly relative to human transcenden-

8

Rethinking Husserl's maxim tal subjectivity. And Husserl charged that the Munich group of phenomenologists and all other 'realist phenomenologists' who did not follow him in his radical turn towards subjectivity were 'naive: and failed to draw the consequences from the very principles of the phenomenological method of the 'return to things themselves.' This return, he claimed, could only be achieved by an epoche which puts into brackets any transcendent being and subject-independent meaning of 'things in themselves.'

In view of Husserl's self-interpretation as to his path into transcendental phenomenology the question arises: was it really the faithfulness to, or was it rather the radical betrayal of, the phenomenological motto 'back to things themselves' which prompted Husserl's turn towards transcendental idealism and anthropocentric relativism? To answer this question, which is crucial because of its profound implications for the whole of phenomenology and of philosophy itself, it is first necessary to radically and critically reexamine the meaning and truth of the original phenomenological and Husserlian phrase: 'Zuriick zu den Sachen' 'back to things themselves. ' In the following, we are not primarily concerned with the exact Husserlian meaning of this exhortation. Rather, we ask: in what sense should the philosopher go 'back to things themselves?' The final goal of our analysis is nothing less than a realist reformulation of 'phenomenological' philosophy as a method and program for any good philosophy in the past and present. To the extent to which a philosophy is good philosophy, it will be phenomenological both in the original Husserlian sense of 'back to things,' and in another sense which will be explained. As will become more and more clear, however, the term 'phenomenology' is utterly misleading if it is interpreted as implying that we can only reach appearances or noemata which depend on constitution by consciousness. Rather, it will become more and more apparent that the 'return to things themselves' is possible and that philosophy indeed comes into its own only when it grasps the objective essence of things in themselves. These things in themselves will be shown to be truly noumena, that is, intelligible and knowable by the human mind - and not, as Kant thought. unknowable to us. This conviction of Kant should have led him to speak of 9

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' anoumena (unknowables) instead of calling them noumena. We hope to make a modest contribution in this book towards rescuing the authentic meaning of the phenomenological method as an adequate methodological instrument which allows investigation of things in themselves as well as of appearances. (Perhaps, as Fritz Wenisch proposes, another new name should be given to such a philosophy, in order to avoid the subjectivist connotations which the term 'phenomenology' might retain even in the expression, 'realist phenomenology.' He proposes chreontic philosophy - from the Greek word, to chreon, the necessary - which has only two further disadvantages: it sounds unfamiliar and tends to sever this philosophy from Husserl's Logical Investigations and others who spoke of phenomenology; besides, it picks only one object of philosophy, the essentially necessary, as representative for the whole object of philosophy which also includes contingent existence. ) 0) 'Back to things themselves' as opposed to constructions, reductionism, premature systematization or causal explanation The principle 'back to things' is meant first to characterize an approach to philosophy which aims at authentic philosophizing about things. It designates a fresh thinking about the great themes and issues of philosophy, a going back to our own contact with 'things' as they present themselves to each man in the appropriate form of experience (sense-perception, conscious performance of acts, 'categorial intuition,' etc.). In this regard, the call 'back to things themselves' is decisive for any genuine philosophical endeavor, and it may be contrasted, first of all, with a mere study of the history of philosophical ideas, or with anyone of the following attitudes: a certain narrow-minded way of becoming a disciple of one philosophical master whose word and system one puts in a place which truth alone can rightfully occupy (an attitude which keeps one from seeing any truth not contained in the system of one's 'master' and leads one to adopt any error or shortcoming contained in this system); or with a mere eclectic approach to philosophy, an approach in which one agrees with different philosophers even 'accepting' mutually contradictory statements made by them, and, above all, never confronting their opinions and statements with being as we ourselves have access to it in experience. But while this 10

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim

meaning of Husserl's phrase, which calls for philosophizing proper instead of replacing philosophy with historical studies or with blind and possibly ideological discipleships, already has great appeal for, and promises philosophical life to those who have blindly accepted texts and textbooks, or who have gone through 'dead' studies of texts and of the history of thought during which the question of the truth of the studied opinions is never even raised, the phrase 'back to things themselves' has the further appeal of pointing to the proper way of doing philosophy. This way of doing philosophy consists in confronting the essence and content of a being itself, that which truly constitutes a thing in its own identity. The term 'thing' here refers to absolutely everything (even to nothing when it is a question of determining what exactly is meant by 'nothing'). The terms 'phenomenon' and 'the phenomena' as object of the 'phenomenological method' in our sense do not in the slightest way - although the root of the word (in the Greek phainesthai) might suggest otherwise - indicate a mere 'seeming' or 'appearing' of things ('to seem,' 'to appear' being possible meanings of the Greek verb). Rather, the term phenomenon in its original phenomenological sense refers to another set of important meanings of the word phainesthai: 'to show itself,' 'to manifest itself,' 'to shine forth from itself,' 'to present itself from itself.' It is the essence, nature and being of things as they present themselves in their intelligibility from themselves, which are here called phenomena. It is, in other words, the pure, intelligible and undistorted nature, precisely the nature of a being as it is not obscured by mere appearances, by misleading aspects, or by mere seeming; it is the being itself of things which is referred to. The phenomenological method, then, fundamentally consists in absolute faithfulness to the voice of being and in the unrelenting attempt of the philosopher to go back to things themselves as they show themselves as well from their very own being and essence as by the mediation of other things. Philosophers frequently lose sight of 'things themselves' in this simple and yet fundamental sense, and engage in constructions and inadequate explanations. A phenomenological grasp of things themselves ought to be the goal of any good philosophy. The phenomenological method, interpreted in this way, is not a single or a narrow method of philosophy, but the method and the broadest possible method of philosophy w~ich is open to every meaning and being and seeks out 11

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' the appropriate form of givenness, knowledge, experience and so on, in which each being discloses itself. This method opposes itself to any form of distancing one's theories from being, to any failure to listen to the voice of things, to any putting obstacles into the way of their presenting their own intelligibility to our minds. Hence, to fail to proceed phenomenologically in this broad sense (which refers to the valid philosophical methods and contributions of any philosopher) is to fail to philosophize properly. But there are countless obstacles to philosophizing properly, and therefore an explicit reflection on the nature of the proper philosophical method and on its distortions is urgently called for.

(ii) Starting out in philosophical analyses with causal explanations prevents the understanding of 'things themselves' A failure to pay attention to the proper essence of a being can have many different roots. One of the first of these is a precipitous and excessive concern with immediately 'explaining' a thing prior to understanding it. What comes into play here is the tendency of thinkers to trace a thing back immediately to its real or alleged origins and efficient causes, or to its final causes and purposes, without having delved into what the thing itself shows itself to be. Even if the deepest and ultimate explanation of a thing were to lie in its efficient or final cause, one ought first to understand its own nature. For instance, before one even attempts to explain the datum of moral oughtness through its alleged 'end' or final cause, e.g., human happiness or utility, one needs first to investigate morality and oughtness themselves. One ought first to pay attention to their essential characteristics, and to see only later whether these allow for a purely teleological, eudaemonistic, or consequentialist explanation of morality. And any eudaemonism or utilitarian consequentialism will indeed turn out to be utterly unable to explain truly and make understandable what morality and 'oughtness' show themselves to be. Even if one disagrees with this or any other concrete example we might choose to illustrate this point, one can hardly fail to admit the following fact: To look immediately for the efficient causes, effects, ends or relations of a given thing, except to the extent to which these elucidate its essence, from the very outset blocks the way to an adequate understanding of that being. It will be impossible to understand it adequately, if it is not first grasped 12

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim in its own proper nature, if it does not first 'show itself from itself,' to borrow a telling Heideggerian phrase. The general need to investigate a thing itself before searching for its causes applies especially in those cases where the causes are very difficult to determine, where they must be misinterpreted when assumed on the basis of an insufficient understanding of the proper nature of a thing, or where they are so far removed from their effects that they literally contribute little or nothing to the understanding of the intrinsic, inherent nature of the being in question. Thus, for example, the exact study of brain-waves and neural patterns of electro-chemical charges and discharges, as such, does not elucidate in the least the essence of what is frequently interpreted as the effect of these brain-events, such as, for example, feelings of pain and pleasure, or intellectual acts. For these brainwaves are toto coelo distinct from the psychic phenomena whose nature they are supposed to explain; and, as the Platonic Socrates in the Phaedo stated, these brain-events can well be regarded as conditions, without which the rational decision to obey a lawful albeit unjust condemnation could not be made or carried out; but they can in no way be the causes of such a decision which originates in the understanding of justice and in free choice. The proper understanding of a given being 'in itself is in all cases an indispensable, if not the most central, part of knowing a being. An understanding of the essence of a thing can never be replaced by a mere knowledge of its cause as such. The justification for this implication of the call 'back to things themselves' should be evident, for how can one fail to see that any true understanding of a thing has to consider first of all what is 'in that thing' or what that thing is in its own right! Yet although the maxim that any serious philosophical investigation into the truth, and any analysis in general, should go back to 'things themselves' in this sense is evidently true, it is by no means trivial; even less is it followed in practice. Scientists and philosophers, as well as laymen, often fail to grasp the importance ofthis maxim, and the consequences which flow from its truth. They will probably not explicitly deny or reject this principle. But countless times they will not realize how crucial a task and how difficult a labor is involved in understanding a thing and what it is, in attending to its true nature and expressing it adequately in statements. Philosophers may take the understanding of what a thing is for 13

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' granted, and deem it superfluous to unfold its essence more clearly. Thus they may feel quite comfortable dealing merely with causes and consequences of things, while neglecting to focus on what these things themselves are. This problem is seen and acutely formulated in many Platonic dialogues; I am thinking especially of those passages in which Socrates manifests the real meaning of his famous "ignorance' which consists primarily in a deep sense of wondering and of not yet knowing what 'things' such as being, reality, knowledge, friendship, virtue and so forth, are in themselves. While other participants in the dialogue take such a knowledge for granted, Socrates unmasks as an illusion their thoughtless pretensions to possess already the knowledge of the essence of the things they profess to know. He shows that the definitions they offer of virtue (Meno, Gorgias. Republic), ofknowledge-episteme (Theaete(us), etc. contradict the true nature of these things. This 'negative result' presupposes a positive grasp of the respective things even if it may be impossible to express this knowledge right away in statements or in 'definitions.' Socrates has often been called - by Michael Landmann, for instance - a proto-phenomenologist, precisely because he spends much time on unravelling the contradictions and misconceptions which frequently result from not returning to the proper understanding of what things themselves are. The famous 'negative result' of many of Plato's Socratic dialogues could also be interpreted, not as an expression of not knowing a thing, but of the irreducibility of its essence which resists all false reductionist attempts of explaining or defining it through something else, and the ultimate undefinability of the first things and foundations. This impossibility of defining being, knowledge, and so on, should not be interpreted (along the lines of G. E. Moore's philosophy) as excluding any statements which give the essential characteristics of these data and delineate them from other things. In this sense we can 'define' even the most irreducible things. We can, for example, get at the nature of the simplest irreducible datum, being, by unfolding the 'transcendental properties' and the first principles of being qua being. To do so presupposes, and does not attempt to reduce to something else, the irreducible datum of being; without insight into its irreducible character the unfolding of its marks would make no sense.

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Rethinking Husser/'s maxim (iii) Adequate causal explanations impossible without a return to things themselves These observations already lead to the clearer recognition of a further point. If no understanding of a being in its proper self-hood is reached in the first place, it is also impossible to know what kinds of causes and origins can fully account for a given being. For when the essence of a thing is not understood, one is easily seduced into believing that it can be accounted for in terms of 'causes' which in reality can never explain it. To some measure, Aristotle is responsible for this unsound causal explanation of things prior to having sufficiently elucidated their essence, when he defines science as 'knowledge in terms of causes' and metaphysics as knowledge of 'first causes'2 - although of course Aristotle used a notion of 'cause' which was incomparably broader than the one accepted by most contemporary thinkers; above all, he also included among the causes the formal cause or essence (eidos) of a thing. In this regard, he - and Plato too, who emphasized the knowledge and intellectual vision of the eidos - may be regarded as a forerunner of the epistemological and methodological approach of phenomenology sketched here. The impossibility of accounting for a given being exclusively in terms of its extrinsic efficient and final causes applies even to that type of extrinsic cause which is most closely related to what is in a thing: to the exemplary cause. This unique type of cause, the exemplary cause, contains, in a sense, the whole essence of the being which is analogous to it; and yet it simultaneously transcends in its perfection the being itself which embodies its exemplary cause only imperfectly. The exemplary cause contains, as it were, the pure perfections which are only imperfectly and in a limited manner embodied by the analogates which correspond to it. Yet, even in this case, the exemplatum (the analogous datum) has to be known in its own right in order that the exemplar (the archetype; exemplary cause) can both be distinguished from it and understood in its specific exemplary relation to it. But in what follows we may well prescind from this case because we understand 'causality' here in the sense of efficient and final causality only. Although, ultimately, grave errors about things and their causes would seem to follow inevitably from a primary concern with the causes and purposes of things, thereby overlooking them, it is also 15

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' unquestionably the case that such a procedure leads to great progress in the scientific and technical sectors of life as well as in other branches of knowledge which might even be damaged if the disciples of such disciplines were to explore constantly the philosophical question: what is this really, this X? How can we explain this fact? The answer is the following: in the first place, man might possess an excellent pre-theoretical and pre-philosophical grasp of a thing and yet prove quite unable to formulate and explicate his knowledge philosophically and theoretically. The specific prise de conscience which philosophical understanding reaches of the essence of a thing is not necessarily gained by somebody who might well possess the kind of immediate experiential and pre-philosophical contact with that thing which is not only presupposed for any philosophical reflection but is also in itself sufficient for many forms of 'handling' things. Moreover, there are also theoretical or semantic constructs and models through which One can conceive and simultaneously distort reality, without ever actually basing one's theories on the pre-philosophical or philosophical contact with their true essence; and yet one can be quite proficient in dealing with realities from some pragmatic point of view or in some respects. One might be able to gain great proficiency in 'handling' things and in 'predicting shadows,' to speak with reference to Plato's Analogy of the Cave, without ever truly understanding what the object of one's own theory is in its own nature. The progress in knowledge that is achieved when one prescinds from the question of what the very things are which one intends to explain, however, is not only not a progress in philosophical knowledge - because philosophy is concerned precisely with the question. 'Ti estin?' 'What is this, the essence of X?' - but is not really a progress in knowledge properly speaking at all. It usually even implies a certain loss of that knowledge which is contained in our pre-philosophical acquaintance with things. This is not to deny that we may well speak here of a progress in knowledge on a certain plane. It is a progress of understanding things better on a technicaL pragmatic, or practical level, or in a 'denaturalizing' way of symbolization which does not lead to genuine scientific understanding (episteme) of the beings in question and of their exact relation to causes. Developments in modern science altered the ideal of science as 16

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim episteme, i.e., as knowledge of objective being and truth and as a certain knowledge which frees us from mere opinion open to error (d6xa). The new ideal of science, we could say, is precisely a science as d6xa (as mere opinion or even as constructs which explain things in a historically changing way in which the scientist abandons any truth-claim, as Thomas Kuhn and Kurt Hubner conceive of science). In spite of the opposition of Karl Popper and his followers to the relativism contained in Kuhn's philosophy of science. we must say that Popper heightens the earlier empiricist and positivist verdict against an objective truth which would not be relativized to an always open, never-completed verification process. Specifically. a radicalization of the abandonment of the scientific (Euclidean) ideal of indubitable certainty of truth about universal axioms and principles is found in the thesis of critical rationalism (Karl Popper, Hans Albert and others), which identifies any claim of Wesenserkennmis (answering 'what is' questions) or of certainty of knowledge about principles which cannot be falsified by future experience as an enemy of science. Some proponents of this new ideal of science as d6xa even propose - in dogmatic and fascist fashion - the political persecution of groups who disturb the open society by any form of absolute truth-claim. Modern mathematics, and science in general, gave up, in large measure, the classical goal of knowledge in the strict sense of penetrating into the real nature of things. Coherent systems were developed which function in themselves and which 'work' in the sense that they are in 'some' way applicable to reality and bring scientific and technical success in their application. The question of the truth of these theories, however, is deliberately suspended to the extent to which this is at all possible to do. Truth as conformity (adequacy) of statements to reality is often completely replaced by a notion of truth which puts coherence or effectiveness in the place of truth as adaequatio intellectus ad rem. Now of course when we deal with machines or with other technical objects, at least a superficial understanding of what they are, and of what the function of each partof the whole is. can easily be achieved and even taken for granted. Hence, in these spheres of knowledge the immediate tracing back of things to their causes may be legitimate, to the extent that the understanding of the nature of. for example, a machine is not so important and may rightfully in some way already be presupposed. (This is not to deny, however. 17

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' that the good mechanic and engineer will have joy in just understanding the true nature and function of a machine and will not be satisfied with a purely functional mastery of the machine which allows him to use it or to handle it without really understanding in what its nature consists.) At any rate, the prescinding from the question of what these things themselves are is justified in view of the fact that everyone knows what these things are, at least sufficiently to carry out a causal analysis, and to handle them. The ability to make fruitful causal analyses without understanding the essence of more technical things is so obvious that we would be greatly alarmed if the man in our bicycle repair shop were to retort to our question about the cause of the noise in our bicycle wheel: 'I do not yet understand what a bicycle is. What do you mean by this term? What is a noise? Please, let us first sit down and clarify the questions: what is this, 'spokes' and 'a whee!'?' Something similar also applies to concepts such as sickness or health when they are viewed from the perspective of the physician who has to act. Nevertheless, there are philosophical dimensions of these concepts which the physician also has to address and where it becomes mandatory and thematic that he reach a deeper understanding of what health, sickness, or death are. A clarification of these issues is even presupposed for acting rightly. This applies to many life- and death-issues and questions of medical ethics and anthropology. As soon as the deeper spheres of being and value come into play, the knowledge and the theoretical understanding at least of 'what things themselves are,' can no longer be taken for granted. Therefore, any explanation of such things in terms of their causes or effects, coupled with an avoidance of first looking at them themselves, will never lead to a genuine epistemic and even less to philosophical progress in knowledge. Philosophical knowledge, moreover, aims not only at some understanding of an essence but at a grasp of things in such a manner that pragmatic interests as well as other limiting viewpoints are transcended and the respective being in itself, and in relation to the totality, is expected to unfold before our minds. Many philosophers sidestep the data and turn instead immediately to causal explanations, in an attitude opposed to the full philosophical thaumazein (marvelling). Such causal explanations will either be correct but incomplete and shallow, insofar as they fail to reveal the essence of a given being, or they will be false; and this easily happens when the latently presupposed conception 18

Rethinking Husserl's maxim of the essence of the given being is erroneous. An example of a correct but quite incomplete and shallow explanation of something is the procedure of some historians of philosophy. They ask, for example with reference to the phenomenological method, 'Who had conceived of it first?' Which philosophers of the past have influenced it?', and so on, and believe they can historically explain the phenomenological method in this way. Such a purely historical-causal explanation, however, fails to take into consideration the most important factors which led to the development of the phenomenological method: namely certain realities, discoveries, objective differences between things. In trying to explain something like the phenomenological method in terms of purely historical causes one perhaps fails even to address the issue of what exactly is meant by 'phenomenological method.' More importantly, however, such an 'explanation' fails to inquire into the adequacy of this method and thus into the most important explanation it finds only in and from things themselves. Far more important is the warning against the second danger: a false genetic explanation for a given thing which results from the failure to investigate its proper nature carefully, and from erroneous views about its essence. Take, for example, Fichte's philosophy. He wants, at the very beginning of his system, to trace the genesis of the empirical ego and of the world. 3 He does not first investigate what an ego is or what spirit, mind, self are; instead, he immediately locates the cause of the ego in an act of (self-)positing of the ego. He holds, further, that the cause of the world lies in the act of 'oppositing' by which the ego 'opposites' to itself a world. This act of 'oppositing' a world to itself, in turn, is explained by an assumed infinite drive for self-actualization which supposedly characterizes the ego. The ego, however, can realize itself only in morality. Self-actualization in morality, in its turn, requires that the ego limit the world as well as itself. It requires, moreover, that the ego not 'opposite' nature alone to itself as an obstacle to overcome for the sake of self-actualization; it also calls for the positing of other egos. We will not unfold here what might be deep philosophical insights hidden in some of these systematic positions of Fichte. Nor is this the place to defend the position that as soon as one carefully analyzes the essence of the person, of the 'other' person, of community, of morality and love, or of the beauty of nature - which 19

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' Schelling had found to be absolutely inexplicable in terms of Fichte's 'explanation,' namely by a mere tendency to 'opposite' an obstacle to our own ego - one will find that the causal genetic explanations of the ego and of the world offered by Fichte are quite untenable and flatly contradict the essence of the person. Here we only wish to emphasize that, however true or false Fichte's causal explanations might be, his very mode of procedure is radically wrong. For any causal explanation of the world and of the ego, any tracing back of nature or community to its origins, must only be conducted after an analysis of essence has been completed. And such an analysis is wholly lacking at the outset of Fichte's system, which is introduced with the transcendental-causal explanations referred to above that are not founded on any essential analysis of the explicandum (that which is to be explained). Let us add some other famous instances of the kind of philosophical mistake of method we have in mind here, in order to show the relevance of developing the methodological tools that will guard against it. Think of Nietzsche's statements that morality, especially Christian morality, is rooted in ressentiment. Of course, as Max Scheler has shown in his work Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen,4 after a careful analysis of the essence of ressentiment, Nietzsche made important discoveries concerning the role of ressentiment in the genesis of certain moral substitute-codes. But Scheler also renders it quite clear that an analysis of the essence of justice, love, charity, or humility shows the impossibility and even absurdity of locating their cause in ressentiment. Only pseudo-virtue or erroneous conceptions of virtue admit of being explained, in accordance with their essence, in terms of psychological causes like ressentiment. As soon as it is shown that justice implies a free acceptance of a principle of dueness, and a respect for rights or for personal qualities in others because they deserve such respect; as soon as love is shown to be built upon an understanding of the intrinsic value and dignity of a person who 'ought to be affirmed for his own sake,' the Nietzschean genealogy of morals collapses. Nietzsche's theory can at best offer a genetic explanation of pseudo-virtue which may indeed be merely a mask behind which lurks the bitter poison of ressentiment; this could never hold for authentic love and justice which do not merely pretend to be such. 20

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim Or take the Marxist causal explanation of man: that he comes into being by means of productive work, and that all philosophy, culture, art, religion, and the like, may well be explained as a mere suprastructure which would be ontologically dependent on the infrastructure of economic conditions which are, in turn, created by productive work. This genetic explanation put forward by Marx, Engels, and their followers also totally lacks foundation in any serious analysis of the essence of man, of law, philosophy, truth, or religion. Such an essential analysis would reveal how inadequate and untenable it is to explain all of the elements of the so-called suprastructure as ideologies dependent on the base of economic conditions. The untenability of such an explanation does not solely manifest itself through the internal contradiction of this theory, a contradiction which consists in that this theory, if it were true, would itself not be true, at least not knowably so. For from its truth it would follow that it is nothing but the chance effect of material processes instead of being dependent on the nature of things. Then there would be no reason, however, to designate one effect of material events as true and its opposite as false, although the opposing theory would be equally the result of purely material causes. This Marxist theory also claims to be true and purports to depend on the nature of the realities which it wishes to explain, not just on certain economic infrastructures. Apart from this fundamental self-contradiction, the Marxist explanation of all philosophy and culture as ideology reveals itself as false in the light of the given structure of knowledge. To further unfold how widespread are erroneous causal explanations, one could point to the explanation of mind offered by the psycho-physical identity-theory, the explanation of love and art as sublimated libido, and countless other examples. In all the cited, and in many other instances, one will soon come to discover that such causal explanations contain latent misconceptions of the essence of those things which they seek to explain. The reference to several examples of the mistake of false genetic explanations allows the reader, on the one hand, to find at least one example which illustrates our thesis. On the other hand, whether or not the reader agrees with the present author's judgement that a given theory contains a false causal explanation, these examples will show at least that, in all these instances, a careful analysis of the essence of a thing ought to precede the investigation of its causes. 21

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' Finally, the reference to several examples is meant to show how widespread are insufficiently founded and erroneous genetic explanations and, therefore, how significant and rarely followed the phenomenological principle is: 'turn first to the thing itself, only then to its causes.'

(iv) Phenomenology versus reductionism The examples of false causal explanations just cited show a further widespread tendency which is in direct conflict ~ith phenomenology and with any authentic philosophy: the reductionist 'nothingbut' method. This method does not merely give false causal explanations of things. Reductionist explanations also tend to identify the given being with its alleged cause, usually a la baisse: justice is nothing but the ressentiment of the weak against the powerful; love is nothing but libido as unlimited pleasure-seeking. Phenomenology takes issue with all such reductionistic causal explanations. The maxim 'back to things themselves' urges us first to look carefully into what things are and to discern the differences between different things, especially when the same term is employed for them. Only then will one avoid the danger of reducing the given datum to something which it is not. Notice, however, that this sense of reductionism is quite different from, e.g., the sense in which Bonaventure in De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam speaks of reductio, by which he refers to leading a thing back to its highest origin and end. Such a reductio does not in any way deny the irreducible essence of a thing. A very similar notion of 'reduction' is used in Karol (Cardinal) Wojtyla's book, The Acting Person. 5 Reductionism in the sense criticized here implies the thesis that one thing is in reality 'nothing but' another thing. Yet it is not this thesis as such which is opposed by the phenomenologist; rather, it is such an identification when it is inappropriate, i.e., when the datum in question defies its reduction to something else. Where one thing (X) truly is only apparently fundamentally different from another one (Y), the phenomenologist must be the first to point out this underlying identity and the concomitant reducibility of two data. In this case, the grasp of the very essence of a thing allows us to discover it under the many appearances under

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim

which it may hide. Scheler in his essay on Ressentiment gives a brilliant example of both the authentically phenomenological resistance to reductionism - in exposing the untenability of Nietzsche's attempt to reduce morality, specifically Christian morality, to ressentiment - and of a phenomenological reduction. For Scheler shows that there are many codes of morality or secularized versions of allegedly Christian morality which have their common root in ressentiment and which only appear to be different from it. Both Scheler and Hildebrand showed likewise that numerous general types of immoral attitudes (for instance, various forms of pride and concupiscence) may hide under apparently contrary phenomena. And the present writer is not aware of more convincing and lucid analyses of the reducibility of such seemingly op~site phenomena to one identical root than those offered by phenomenologists. If we distinguish, however, a false from a legitimate reduction of different data, the .question arises: how can we ever know when reduction is in fact appropriate and when it is not? We must not let ourselves be guided here by naIve experience. Obviously, at first sight, the statement that whales belong to the same genus as cows or other mammals, or that coal and diamond are in some sense identical in molecular structure, seems absurd. Yet we know that it is not. The explanation for this puzzle lies in the contingency (non-necessity) of the given nature (its lack of absolute essential necessity and of strict delineation from other essences), on the one hand, and on the other, in the fact that the constitutive nature of the one thing, in such cases, is hidden and can therefore be shown by repeated experience to coincide with the equally hidden constitutive nature of another. Yet when we do not deal with some contingent and non-necessary essence whose constitutive nature is hidden from direct experiential access but with a necessary essence, whose constitutive structure is intuitively or deductively accessible, a reduction of one thing to another one which is radically different is indeed evidently absurd. As soon as the objective intelligibility of a nature reveals the fact that its attributes cohere absolutely necessarily with that nature, it is absurd to claim that such an essence is ultimately identical with another one which has evidently quite different or even contradictory characteristics. Thus, it could be brought to evidence that any reduction of the moral goodness of actions to their utility, or of the motivation of moral acts to an egocentric search for pleasure or happiness, is untenable because

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' the two show themselves to be radically different from one another. The reduction of mind to matter, of love to sex, is equally untenable and contradicts the fact that the entities in question are objectively and necessarily quite different and therefore possess mutually exclusive (contradictorily opposed) characteristics. Thus 'reductionism' is any philosophical attempt at reducing the irreducible; 'reduction,' however, indicates the possibly correct demonstration that one thing ultimately is another. The sense of reductio in Bonaventure refers to still another meaning: to trace back, to relate to the origin. In that sense, a reductio would simply lead us to recognize the ultimate source, value, significance, or purpose of a being or sphere of knowledge. Phenomenology as the method which leads us to see essences in what they themselves are, thus enables us to reduce where reduction is necessary, and to unmask all illegitimate forms of reduction by which essentially distinct phenomena are mistakenly identified. In this fashion, Husser!, Pfander, Ingarden, and others overcame the attempts to reduce logic, moral and legal values, the literary work of art, and other irreducible things to psychological data and laws. By means of his rigorous essential analysis of logical laws and of psychological laws, Husser! arrived at the conclusion that it is absolutely untenable to reduce the laws of logic to mere subjective laws of human thinking. In a similar fashion one could expose the errors of many other forms of what I would call 'causal reductionism,' i.e., the mistaken reduction of a thing to its real or alleged efficient cause. Under this rubric, one could well treat the attempt to reduce freedom, knowledge, self-reflection - in short, all consciousness - to brainprocesses, as well as the attempt to explain the coming-to-be of man in terms of evolution. Any body/mind/identity theory and also any attempt to reduce consciousness to a mere epiphenomenon of brain-events is untenable, as has been shown by many philosophers. 6 A different form of reductionism could be called 'effectreductionism' or 'finalistic reductionism.' It is found in attempts to reduce things not to their real or alleged efficient causes but to their relation to reai or alleged effects or ends. For example, one reduces the moral goodness of an action to the mere aptitude of the latter as a means towards pleasure, happiness, or the attainment of extramoral consequences. 24

Rethinking Husserl's maxim Of course, only a lengthier analysis of the very essence of moral goodness, of the 'absoluteness' of the sense in which moral virtues are good, of the peculiar way in which morally good acts are 'called for' by an object, as well as of other essential characteristics of moral values, would reveal the utter untenability of these reductionist explanations of morality. 7 It should be made clear. however, that phenomenology is not at all opposed to an analysis of ends or effects of beings (even if it must be admitted that Husserl himself did not clearly perceive that aspect of the method of 'going back to things themselves' which seeks their origins, causes, and ends). On the contrary, whenever and to the extent to which the cause or purpose of a given being must be understood in order to understand that being fully, we need to ask about its causes or ends in order to reach a more complete understanding of the 'thing itself.' For example. a means cannot be adequately understood without reference to its final cause. Heidegger had some very fine insights into this matter in his analyses of 'Zuhandensein' in Sein und Zeit. Not only means, but personal human actions, too, cannot be clarified without grasping the datum of auto-determination which is a special form of 'causality,' and without grasping the nature of motivation which also implies a form of 'principle: 'cause: 'reason: and purpose of action; albeit the reason, principle, cause, and end of a person's free action are such in an entirely sui generis way.

(v) Phenomenology, causality, and metaphysics

It would also be foreign to a philosophy which remains faithful to its principle 'back to things themselves' to ignore the metaphysical dimensions of being, causality, and finality, for example the problem of whether the world and each being in it require an efficient cause or not, and what kind of cause the world requires, a worldimmanent or a divine, transcendent cause. The answer to these questions as well as to that about an ultimate meaning and end of the world are obviously crucial for any understanding of the 'thing itself the world is. It was only because Husserl turned in 1905 (especially in his lectures The Idea of Phenomenology)"" to an immanentistic epistemology according to which man could not attain to the true objective essence of things, that he could appear to

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' be justified in excluding such metaphysical genetic questions from consideration. He was still acutely aware of the fact that the origin and genesis of a thing must be understood in order to comprehend that thing 'itself.' For this reason he engaged in transcendental genetic analyses, and replaced the metaphysical investigation into the origin of the being of the world by a mere immanentistic genetic analysis tracing the world both as noesis and as noema back to 'transcendental consciousness.' If we can successfully criticize Husserl's transcendental turn, however, we shall no longer be bound by this restriction. Indeed, the question of the very essence of the world is undoubtedly bound up with the question of whether the world is contingent or self-explanatory with respect to the question of causality. Many phenomenologists reject any philosophical investigation into causes, either because they mistakenly believe that all causes are as little related to the essence of things as waves are to colors, or because they think that the reality (real existence) presupposed for causal analysis ought to be bracketed in epoche. For these and similar reasons, they acknowledge only one type of causal explanation: transcendental-genetic explanation of conscious performances (noesis) and of their objects (noemata). Such a rejection of realist causal analysis in the name of a phenomenology of essences cannot, however, be in any way justified by reference to 'things themselves,' as they give themselves to us. On the contrary, a rigorous adherence to the maxim 'back to things themselves' demands a return to the interest of the classical philosophical tradition in the causal origins and final ends of things. Besides, the philosophical exploration of different types of causality in their respective essences is itself an eminent task of phenomenology. For example, the Aristotelian distinction of four types of causes is a masterful example of phenomenological analysis of things themselves, as they give themselves from their own nature. Aristotle discovered here an objective essential difference between radically different types offactors which are occasionally referred to as 'causes,' and which his philosophical predecessors failed to distinguish clearly. We see again that 'return to things themselves' is not, of course, restricted to philosophers who call themselves 'phenomenologists': such a radical break with previous tradition would be most suspicious in itself and would imply that nobody prior to Husserl actually engaged in a careful analysis of what is given. 'Phenomenological philosophy' as a philosophy which

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim investigates 'things in themselves' simply means authentic philosophical analysis of 'things themselves,' wherever and whenever it occurred. The term only signals a more methodic and conscious carrying out of what all great philosophers did when they really paid attention to 'things themselves' as they present themselves in their very own nature. The designation of Aristotle's distinction of the four causes as a masterful phenomenological analysis does not prejudice the question, of course, of whether Aristotle sufficiently and with perfect exactness explored the essence of these four causes and the essential characteristics pertaining to each one of them. Nor do we maintain that only the four causes of which Aristotle speaks, exist and that all existing instances of causality (of one entity being the principle, reason, cause, ground of another) can be subsumed under one or another of the four Aristotelian causes (even if we add 'exemplary causality' as a fifth one). On the contrary, we are convinced that a genuine phenomenological investigation into 'things themselves' shows that there are many equally fundamental and important 'causes' and 'principles of explanation' of beings and events which Aristotle did not consider. Therefore, a rigorous philosophicalphenomenological exploration of causality will lead beyond Aristotle. (We think here of the 'causes' or dependencies between persons and being already mentioned; for example, of the way in which the objects or premises of an argument are 'causes' of knowledge; or of the way in which motives of the free agent himself explain an action; we think, moreover, of principles such as 'hierarchy,' 'superabundance,' and so on, all of which we believe to be incapable of being adequately explained in terms of one of the four types of causes distinguished by Aristotle.) Even the person who disagrees with this claim (which cannot be brought to fuller evidence here) could see the following, however: an anti- or unphenomenological philosophizing (and therefore a bad one, because 'phenomenology' in our sense refers to a prerequisite of any proper philosophizing) takes place when an author immediately proceeds from a first distinction among four different types of causes to an attempt to subsume all instances of causality under one of these kinds of causality, without justifying such a procedure by reference to the given. We have come to see that a phenomenological return to 'things themselves' is perfectly compatible with the metaphysical or

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Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' scientific inquiry into causes. To the extent that causal explanations are based on the highly intelligible nature of a being, these causal investigations are phenomenological themselves in the strict sense of this term. To the extent, however, that causal analyses move away from the essence of things, or merely use a factual empirical method, or operate with symbolic or pragmatic schemata and reduced visions of things in causal explanations, such causal explanations lie outside the sphere of phenomenological investigation into the given; they are not necessarily incompatible with phenomenology, however, and must not necessarily be opposed to a way of proceeding that lets things express their own essence. Phenomenology proper is so far from being opposed to causal explanations of things that it even calls for them. It is only opposed to premature or reductionistic 'explanations' of things in terms of their causes before paying attention and listening to what is seUgiven about their nature. Phenomenology proper is above all opposed to explaining things by such 'causes' as are quite incapable of explaining the realities in question. To postulate such causes as principles of explanation betrays a radical misconception of the essence of the thing to be explained. In order to bring home both the point that causal analyses are quite compatible with phenomenology and are often even a direct manifestation of the phenomenological method, and that genuinely phenomenological investigations into causes can also be conducted by thinkers who do not profess to be phenomenologists or who on other occasions proceed in a radically anti-phenomenological manner, another example may be mentioned: Hegel's superb analysis of the essence of 'romantic irony' in art, and of its historical roots in Fichte's philosophy. 9 This example also proves that a phenomenological way of proceeding is not exclusively found in philosophy, but also in disciplines such as the history of art and the history of ideas.

(vi) Phenomenology is not restricted to philosophy but is also the appropriate kind of procedure in many other disciplines The maxim 'back to things themselves' does not only address itself to philosophers. Rather, authentic knowledge in many areas and disciplines requires that the scholar or scientist take a 'phenomenological attitude.' For whenever the answer to the question, 'What is this, X?,' is neither immediately obvious nor answerable by a

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Rethinking Husser/'s maxim recourse to such things as sense-perception, knowledge laid down in statistics, dictionaries concerning matters of fact, etc., a phenomenological exploration of what these things themselves are is demanded. With greater precision, phenomenology is always called for when the datum in question possesses an essence and intelligibility capable of being grasped in some intuitive knowledge or ot being known mediately (deductively) on the basis of intuitively known premises. Without the phenomenological grasp of what the 'thing itself' is, no knowledge worthy of this name can be achieved in regard to such intelligible objects. Take the example ofthe historian who explores a historical figure or era, or the literary critic who speaks about Shakespeare's Hamlet, or the art critic who deals with the Hellenistic 'Laocoon' or Bruegel's' Blindensturz' ('The Parable of the Blind')]() - each one needs to conduct a phenomenological analysis of the proper content, of the intelligible, intuitively given character and form of these works, epochs, and characters. II If he fails to do so, his studies will ultimately remain sterile and 'miss the point.' The art critic or the literary critic can immediately 'explain' Shakespeare's Hamlet or Bruegel's 'Blindensturz' in terms of real or alleged sources and causes which are presented as if they really and sufficiently explained the given work. Stylistic elements of a given work are detected in earlier sources; perhaps biographical details or general philosophical ideas of the author are said to account for the analyzed work. Yet, important as all of these factors may be, they leave unanswered the most important question about the work: what is the meaning and intelligible character of the given work? What is that polyphonic harmony which makes up the individual character of the work and which makes it a work of art? Any detailed knowledge about 'causes' of the work, about the life and intentions of the artist, about previous sources and stylistic elements which contributed to the formation of the work, will never answer this question. All these causal factors will never tell us what the 'anschauliche Charakter' (intelligibly present character) of the given work is, to use a term coined by Hans Sedlmayr. 12 And only after the intrinsic content and quality of a work of art is understood, can it be decided which of the 'causal' factors are really causes at all, whether they are sufficient causes, and to what extent they can contribute to an understanding of the work. Otherwise, we fall prey to what has been called a 'genetic fallacy.' This term can indicate various mistakes that commonly occur: (1) one projects biographical

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' facts or personal opinions of the author (known through other sources) into the work so as to falsify and misunderstand its own 'message.' Since Plato's (Socrates) Apology we know that poets and artists are usually the least capable of explaining in theoretical statements the meaning of their own work and its basic content. Hence their theoretical statements do not have to harmonize with their artistic intuitions. (2) One might altogether reduce the work of art to being a mere expression of the artist's life or views. Or, (3) one will take superficial similarities between the given work and some prototypes as a sufficient basis for an 'historical' explanation of the work which in reality misses its whole originality and aesthetic significance. Similar things need to be said about the life-sciences in their treatment of life and of evolution. Perhaps no other disciplines, however, stand so clearly in need of an authentically phenomenological foundation as psychology and sociology. In psychology, reductionist and inadequate causal explanations of human behavior and conscious acts are most widespread. Any understanding of genuinely human and psychological problems, however, requires an answer to the difficult question: what precisely is the nature of man and of his different faculties and acts? Having insisted on the fact that phenomenology is an attitude or method which is not restricted to philosophy, we do not deny, nevertheless, that the phenomenological way of proceeding finds a unique application to the specifically philosophical knowledge. In philosophical knowledge the going back to the self-given essence of things manifests itself in a mode proper only to philosophy. For philosophy focuses more thematically than any other discipline on the essence of things. The thematic question, 'Ti estin?,' 'What is this?' - art, knowledge, beauty, goodness, and other fundamental data - is more inseparable from an authentic philosophical procedure than from the kind of knowledge aspired to in other disciplines. Philosophy aims at the fully conscious understanding of the most universal and the most central realities, and it aims at a more thematic and ultimate understanding of what they are than other branches of knowledge. Above all, some objects of philosophy possess an absolute inner necessity and intelligibility which call for a full contemplative delving into and understanding of those essences themselves which appeal to a rational intellectual penetration allowing for a going back to the self-given essence. As will be 30

Rethinking Husserl's maxim discussed at greater length, no contingent (in regard to essence, not only to existence), that is, no non-necessary nature, as it constitutes the subject matter of the empirical sciences, would permit such a rational intuition or insight about which Plato (particularly in Republic Books VI, VII, and in the Phaedo) and especially Aristotle (in the Posterior Analytic and elsewhere) have spoken of as noesis and nous, justly assigning to this immediate form of rational knowledge the highest epistemic rank. The same is found in Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas and other thinkers. Edmund Husserl elaborated admirably on such insights into intelligible essences, even in Ideas. 13 Realist phenomenologists have only deepened the understanding of this kind of knowledge and seen that its rightful realm extends far beyond the few things and 'first principles' to which Aristotelian metaphysics restricted insight, while throwing much light on the essence of immediate insight. 14 The fundamental specific difference in kind and degree of intelligibility of essences found in the objects of philosophical knowledge explains why the phenomenological procedure is especially called for in philosophy. Moreover, in contradistinction to mathematical knowledge, which also has necessary essences as object, only philosophy demands that the penetration and fully conscious understanding of the essence itself is thematic, indeed constitutes the very character of philosophical knowledge.

(vii) Phenomenology as a study of 'things themselves,' in contrast to misconceptions resulting from mistaken paradigms and models Phenomenological knowledge, and more specifically, properly philosophical knowledge, is not merely distinct from reductionistic and premature causal explanations of things but also from any alleged explanation of things which is no(supported by a sufficiently deep delving into their nature. It resists, in other words, the constant temptation of the philosopher to superimpose on the reality of things narrow schemes often derived from analogous data or from altogether misleading paradigms. It is extremely tempting for philosophers and other scholars to answer questions about the nature of an object through recourse to ready-made or universally known paradigms and images, without examining carefully the perhaps irreducible nature of the datum under investigation or the applicability of these ready-made images to the given reality. For 31

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' example, in dealing with human knowledge, one very easily uses analogies taken from the corporeal order, such as that of a container into which the known objects would have to enter and which contains nothing but what is 'inside' of it. Or one compares knowledge either explicitly (as in Lenin's Empiriocriticism and other works of Diamat) or implicitly (as in Leibniz's monadological epistemology) with a sort of mirror in which one does not see things themselves but only images of them. In using such corporeal analogies in order to understand the mind one is seriously misled about the nature of knowledge, as Plato has shown repeatedly, and as recent investigations into the transcendence of man in knowledge have further clarified. 15 Although Husser! himself, in the Logical Investigations, has brilliantly refuted the mistake of the epistemological position according to which the cognitive act is some kind of 'image' of real objects, neither Nicolai Hartmann nor Husser! himself succeeded in freeing themselves completely from the misleading pattern of such mirror-misconceptions of knowledge, when they thought they had to postulate any 'thing in itself' as a radical 'outside' of the human mind and of its intentional objects. (Husserl concluded therefrom that such a 'transcendent thing in itself' had to be rejected altogether.) Here, too, the transcending, knowing contact with reality which is a necessary moment of knowledge and is given as such in epistemological reflection (as we shall see later) is deemed impossible because some corporeal image (which indeed could never explain the mental transcendence of cognition) silently falsifies one's notion of knowledge. The phenomenological maxim 'back to things themselves' is thus also a refusal to cling to such inadequate models of explanation which usually either imply altogether misleading 'false' analogies or at least mistaken applications of (often bodily) analogies for spiritual data. Needless to say, philosophers may well call themselves phenomenologists and still be far from truly going back to 'things themselves.' Yet, the phenomenological ideal 'back to things themselves' invites us to do just this: to look courageously into the very face of things and to free ourselves from the innumerable misleading images and paradigms which allow for an effort-less and simultaneously forced, but evidently inadequate, 'explanation' of things. We shall return to the importance of the avoidance of misleading images for the phenomenological method later in this book. 32

Rethinking Husserl's maxim 2 'LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS' AND CLARIFICATION OF TERMS AS TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING 'THINGS THEMSELVES' Another important question arises: can phenomenology have a positive relationship to linguistic analysis or does it ignore language in an abstract 'seeing' of 'things themselves'? Does it radically differ from analytic philosophy or is it just a brand of it? A great obstacle to truly going back to things themselves lies in misleading terms which often fail to refer clearly to a given datum because they are equivocal and ambiguous. When an author uses such terms as if they were unequivocal, he tends to melt many conceptual meanings into 'one' ambiguous notion and thus to confuse fundamentally distinct questions and issues. The uncritical use of equivocal notions is undoubtedly among the most frequent sources of philosophical errors, as Balduin Schwarz and others have shown. Thus analysis of linguistic meanings and usages of terms has the critical task of uncovering linguistically motivated confusions and errors. 16. On the other hand, language and the distinctions it suggests may constitute a positive inspiration for the philosophical exploration of the given. These two aspects of the use of linguistic analysis should be explained, at least briefly. In order to avoid the philosophical errors and confusions which either result from the use of linguistic expressions the different meanings of which remain undistinguished or which employ equivocal terms in the defense of erroneous or confused theses, the phenomenologist must also be a linguistic analyst. Of course, this term is not used here to designate a specific empiricist philosophical position which is usually what is meant by the name 'analytic philosophy,' but is simply an expression of the activity every good philosopher should engage in: a careful listening to any wisdom and knowledge about the given which language can teach us. Let us illustrate this point by means of some examples of important philosophical issues. When discussing such issues as the possibility of knowing 'things in themselves' (noumena), or the objectivity versus the alleged subjectivity of all human knowledge, the philosopher needs to distinguish the radically different meanings these terms can have. Or again, without distinguishing the diverse meanings of terms like 'being,' 'is,' 'opposites,' 'transcendence,' 'immanence,' 'dualism,' 'dogmatism,' 'idealism,' and so forth, the

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' attempt to gain clarity about the fundamental issues of epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophical anthropology will be a hopeless undertaking. There are, of course, in thinkers of all periods of the history of philosophy, examples of outstanding analyses of different meanings of terms which contributed greatly to the clarification and solution of philosophical problems. There is no need here to reproduce the distinctions concerning freedom, necessity, and chance which Aristotle makes in his Nicomachean Ethics and Physics, and Augustine in De Libero Arbitrio and in De Civitate Dei, or to develop other concrete examples which demonstrate the fundamental significance of terminological clarifications for the philosophical elucidation of the respective issues themselves. The reader will be acquainted with the immense role the terminological distinctions between radically different meanings of terms such as 'thinking' (thought), 'judgment,' 'Vorstellung,' have played in the phenomenological clarification of the subject matter of logic (just think of Husser!'s Logical Investigations or of Alexander Pfander's Logik) and of epistemology. The crucial importance of such terminological clarifications is elucidated by reference to the fact that thoughtless or at least not sufficiently thoughtful application of, and operation with, ambiguous terms is undoubtedly one major obstacle to philosophical knowledge, whether equivocations are used sophistically to deceive others or are uncritically accepted. In either case, the use of ambiguous terms, the different meanings of which are not distinguished, leads to great confusion. A semi-conscious or an intentional use of equivocations is found in the great number of catchwords and slogans which discredit things endowed with value by presenting them in the light of bad things, or in those catchwords which endow trivial or bad things with the glory of positive phenomena to which the same term can refer. As an example of the former tendency consider the catchword 'dogmatism.' This term may be used so as to suggest that any objectivist philosophy about things themselves (about the noumena) is nothing but an unreasoned and uncritical intellectual attachment to blindly held prejudices or that the same philosophy is a pure outgrowth of a fanatic imposition of one's own subjective views on others. Such catchwords are enemies to true philosophy and knowledge of reality because they identify radically different phenomena (in our case, fanaticism of attitude and violation of other people's freedom, objectivist philosophy, and an 34

Rethinking Husserl's maxim uncritical spirit), without undertaking the least attempt to demonstrate the justification of such an identification. The opposite form of abusing equivocal words could be illustrated by the use of adjectives and names which endow a position such as skepticism or subjective idealism with the glory of the predicate 'critical,' without even taking the trouble of showing that the position thus designated (for example, Kant's 'critical philosophy') deserves such an excellent predicate. Unfortunately, the use of slogans and catchwords is not restricted to the sphere of politics, rhetoric, and popular theological discussion, where slogans such as 'modern,' - 'progressive,' 'traditional,' or 'conservative' are consistently used with great art to convey impressions and evaluations which are effective, however far removed from reality they may be. The use of equivocal terms also plays an enormous role in philosophical and pseudo-philosophical sophistical discussions and arguments. There are still more dangerous equivocations than those involved in catchwords and slogans, whether these be used in philosophical or extra-philosophical discourse. The equivocations I mean are found on a far higher intellectual level and are less 'tendentious' than catchwords. In what follows, it will be shown that the systems of such great philosophers as Kant and Husser! are by no means free from radically equivocal terms and from the pernicious intellectual effects that the employment of such terms, the different meanings of which are not distinguished, has for the philosophical discussion. It certainly has to be regarded as an important task of any phenomenological analysis to remove such linguistic and terminological obstacles to going 'back to things themselves.' Far be it from us, however, to attribute to linguistic analysis a mere 'negative' task, or better, only the eminently positive task, of freeing us from negative phenomena: from real and potential confusions and errors which result from the ambiguous use of language in a given author or in common ordinary language. There is also a second and purely 'positive' role exercised by the tool of linguistic analysis. Frequently, a positive philosophical grasp of a thing is mediated by the analysis of linguistic meanings and nuances of meaning. Delving into the various semantic or syntactic meanings of linguistic formations or into the role of a common root or ending in many words and word families often allows the attentive thinker to discern many things which he would not have noticed 35

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' without drawing on the wisdom embodied in language. Likewise, comparative linguistic analyses may be very helpful in this context. Take, for example, the study of the difference in meaning of three related Latin terms in the service of a philosophy of permission and in the service of the same type of phenomenological analysis which Husserl conducted in the Logical Investigations, and A. Piander in his Logik: they distinguished thought as the activity of thinking (psychic datum of thinking), thought as the result or objectified expression of this activity, with which logic is concerned and which has a universal character, and in regard to which we discover ideal necessary structures quite distinct from the psychological acts of thinking, and, finally, 'thought' in the sense of that which is thought about - the states of affairs and objects to which our thought refers. Such distinctions served to overcome the psychologism and relativism into which one will inevitably fall when one fails to attend to those differences. In a lecture presented at The International Academy of Philosophy, William Marra, Jr. has given linguistic hints for quite similar distinctions made by the ordinary Latin language itself. The term permissus, for example, refers to the activity of permitting, to permission as the act of the proper authority which allows something. This permissus differs from the permissio, which means the fruit of such an act, the permission as such, which could be compared to the proposition (judgment) asserted by the act of judging (which can be true or false and which is clearly different from the act of making a judgment). Similarly, the permissio is different from the act of permitting in that it can still exist after that act ceased to exist or even after the person who gave permission has died. Different from both the permissus and the permissio is the permissum, i.e., the activity which is permitted and can legitimately be performed, after it was permitted, by the one to whom permission was given. Without extending this analysis any further, we can see that the differences between the different phenomena of permissus, permissio, and permissum will most likely be overlooked by the philosopher who does not pay attention to the complexities and refinements of meaning which are reflected in language, and specifically to the semantic differences between words of the same root which roughly have the same meaning and which can, in our case, be rendered by the same word in English (,permission') or in German ('Erlaubnis'). 36

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim For the philosopher, the phenomenological philosopher in particular, a careful analysis of multifarious word meanings is, however, not a goal in itself. This is equally true for the case in which it is not a matter of investigating meanings of isolated words but in which the meaning of various complex linguistic data is examined: of syntactic rules and constructions, but also of proverbs and colloquial expressions which deal with love, time, and so forth. The wisdom of language itself, of common sense, and of popular sayings can be made fruitful for philosophy. In regard to such common expressions, of course, the philosopher must be extremely critical and appropriate only those which contain authentic wisdom about things. He has to liberate himself from prejudices which are expressed in common-sensical expressions. Much can also be gained philosophically from linguistic analyses of those unwritten rules of linguistic usage which forbid the employment of statements the legitimacy of which would follow from certain erroneous philosophical theories. There is, as it were, a pre-philosophical contact with the essence of things which governs linguistic sensibilities and permits some expressions while forbidding others the use of which would give rise to linguistic as well as to philosophical absurdities. It is this aspect of language which is philosophically much more reliable and important than 'words of wisdom' and proverbial or colloquial statements. This is so because the less theoretical and more reality-formed contact with things which is reflected in the rules that determine which expressions are acceptable and which are not, is usually a faithful embodiment of man's actual experience of things. A critical or 'negative' use of this aspect of linguistic analysis is at stake when one finds, for example, that certain linguistic formations and statements, which would be perfectly acceptable if an erroneous conception were true, are in fact excluded. For example, if the thesis that truth exists solely in judgments produced by the human mind were true, many perfectly meaningful statements (such as 'he discovered the truth') would not make sense any more and other absurd statements which are forbidden by any linguistic sensibility (such as: 'Aristotle produced the truth about being') would have to be regarded as perfectly sensible. Perhaps it is here, above all, that Wittgenstein's rather confusing notion of the 'depth-grammar' ('Tie!engrammatik') of language takes on its most authentic meaning. Very different are the lessons the philosopher can learn through 37

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' reflection on the syntactic forms of construction of sentences and on various other dimensions of language. Such analyses do not constitute the proper task of a philosophy of language (which has the task of reflecting philosophically on the essence and elements of language) but of a philosophy inspired by the logos, the laws, the concrete wealth of languages, and by their specific relationship to things. Despite the tremendous fertility of language for philosophy it ought to be stressed that any reduction of philosophy to linguistic analysis, in any sense of this term, is untenable. For the philosopher's, particularly the phenomenologist's, goal is not the investigation of linguistic meanings and of ways of conceiving things by means of 'language-games.' His is not the task of determining whether or not a particular 'language-game' is being played or not. Rather, linguistic analysis is for the phenomenological philosopher a means which he uses in order to elucidate either the very essence of language and of its meaning, or the 'things themselves' referred to by language and the differences between them. A consideration of linguistic meanings as such would only lead to a knowledge of 'what men think about things,' whereas it is, as Aquinas put it, the task of the philosopher to explore the 'veritas rerum.' the truth of things themselves. Moreover, the conceptual distinctions themselves which clarify ambiguous terms and which then lead us beyond language to further insight into objective differences between things can ultimately be understood only when one looks beyond conceptual meanings as such at the different realities and data to which these refer. More importantly, only a return to 'things themselves' is philosophy. In addition, however, knowledge of the data themselves is precisely the only solid basis for linguistic analysis because a purely 'immanent' linguistic analysis which prescinds from any consideration of the 'things themselves' is, philosophically speaking, fruitless and even, in the final analysis, impossible. This notwithstanding, it is indeed possible to explore with mastership what Wittgenstein called 'language-games' without philosophizing. Even a computer could, in principle, perform functions which allow us to know which combinations of words are actually used in a language, which other words are offered in explanation of a given term, and so forth. But such an account of the purely linguistic rules and combinations of semantic and syntactic structures has nothing to do with philosophy, 38

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim

not even with understanding the meaning of language. As soon as we take into consideration, however, the specific meaning function of language and the conceptual meanings and meaning-units found in a concrete language, we are forced back into it consideration of the 'things about which language speaks. '17 For the very meanings of terms are ultimately intelligible only in terms of the things themselves which are meant by concepts or at least only in terms of the things as projected by the medium of conceptual meanings. IS In De Magistro Chapter 2, Augustine raises the question which is decisive in this context. Speaking to his son Adeodatus, his partner in the dialogue, Augustine writes: ... surely, you readily observe that you have expounded words with words, signs with signs, things well known by means of things likewise well-known. I wish, however, that you would show me, if you can, the things themselves of which these are signs. In the long and subtle ensuing discussion in the same dialogue, Augustine and Adeodatus arrive at the insight into the need of transcending the whole level of language and even of understanding the meaning of words, in order to go back to a more immediate experience of reality and contact with it. A.: You seek the things, however, which, whatever they are, are surely not words, and yet you also ask me about them by means of words. (Ibid., Chapter 3) Augustine gives the telling example of a wall or of material and sensible objects, which are present and at which we may hint. Augustine points out that the pantomime can go beyond what other signs and forms of pointing to things can do. And yet, it is also true here that: whatever bodily movement the pantomimic actor may use in order to show me the thing signified by the word, the motion will not be the thing itself but a sign. (Ibid., Chapter 3) Another form of pointing to things, discerned by Augustine, consists in actually reproducing or doing the 'thing' referred to by language. In this way, one could explain the meaning of the word 'dicere' (to speak) by actually performing the activity of speaking. Augustine's investigations into the relation between language

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' and things and into the various forms of communication through signs culminate in insights very similar to those which we had reached and expressed above: For we do not learn the words which we know, nor can we say that we learn those which we do not know unless their signification has been perceived: and this happens not by means of hearing words which are pronounced, but by means of a cognition of the things which are signified. (Ibid., Chapter 11) That this very fact applies most of all to philosophical knowledge when it reaches some necessary (eternal) truth, is again forcefully stated by St Augustine in words which seem both to anticipate, and to explain the true meaning of, Husserl's maxim: 'Back to things themselves. ' If he (the pupil) does learn, he learns by means of the things

themselves and from his own senses, but not through the articulated words .... Indeed, when things are discussed which are perceived through the mind, that is, by means of intellect and reason, these are said to be things which we see immediately in that interior light of truth by virtue of which he himself who is called the 'interior man' is illumined, and upon this depends his joy. But then our hearer, if he also himself sees these things with his inner and pure eye, knows that of which I speak by means of his own contemplation, but not through my words. (Ibid., Chapter 12) Scientific studies, and especially philosophical ones, would be impossible without going beyond the interpretation of texts and meanings of linguistic formations. And the going beyond texts and words on the part of the pupil, as Augustine keenly notices, does not proceed to the mind and thought of the teacher (as a psychologistic misunderstanding would have it) but primarily to 'things themselves': For who is so stupidly curious as to send his son to school in order that he might learn what the teacher thinks? But all those sciences which1hey profess to teach, and the science of virtue itself and wisdom, teachers explain through words. Then those who are called pupils consider within themselves whether what has been explained has been said truly; looking of course to that

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim interior truth, according to the measure of which each is able. Thus they learn, and when the interior truth makes known to them what true things have been said, they applaud, but without knowing that instead of applauding teachers they are applauding learners, if indeed their teachers know what they are saying. (Ibid., Chapter 12) Nor is the philosopher interested in things only to the extent to which this is necessary in order to understand language, wordmeanings, and meaning-units and -relations. This would perhaps be the case for the philologist or the language analyst. The philosopher and phenomenological thinker who wants to go 'back to things themselves' will never engage in linguistic analysis for its own sake and for the sake of knowing how languages actually conceive of things. Even less will he analyze things only for the sake of linguistic analysis. While he will consider the essence of language an authentic object (among many others) of philosophical knowledge, he will never accept an immanent conceptual analysis of word-meanings and of their interrelations and relations with the world as a substitute for philosophical knowledge. Nor will he consider it the only safe manner in which to venture philosophical opinions about reality. On the contrary, he will be convinced that the analysis of language must be buttressed by a criticism of misleading and even erroneous linguistic patterns, habits, or errors incorporated in idiomatic expressions and linguistic formations. The need to go back to the things themselves about which language speaks and which clearly differ from it, does not apply only and clearly to the case in which the distinction of different things meant by the same term demonstrates the ambiguity and equivocal character of word-usages. It applies also, n2y especially, to the positive case in which the analysis of linguistic formations, of manifold meanings of the same terms, or of idiomatic expressions, is a positive inspiration for the phenomenologist and uncovers important differences within being. For in order to appropriate to oneself the wisdom embodied in language it is necessary to follow the lead of language and to trace the way back to the things about which linguistic meanings 'speak.' Only then can language be philosophically 'deciphered,' so to speak. Only then can the often tremendously differentiated, natural knowledge and wisdom bestowed by generations of sensibility and common sense which gave 41

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' rise to languages, lead to philosophical knowledge. Most great philosophers of the past and present applied linguistic analysis in this sense and were 'students of language.' Phenomenological exploration of the given itself does not in any way contradict the value of linguistic analysis in the classical sense expounded so well by Augustine. It will thus no longer surprise us to find good and brilliant examples of linguistic analysis in phenomenological treatises. In fact, even those found in analytical philosophers are due to their actual going back to things themselves in all the real differences found among them.

3 THE SPECIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL TASK OF A RETURN TO THINGS THEMSELVES. (i) 'Back to things themselves' versus premature systematizations

The maxim 'back to things' also implies an opposition to the premature systematizations which are among the most frequent mistakes made by philosophers. The ancient type 'Procrustes' embodies an eternal inclination of the philosopher and of man in general. It is enormously tempting for the human mind to press reality into a Procrustes-bed, to cut off what does not fit into the bed and to stretch 'small things' so that they will fit our ready-made bed, as Procrustes is reported to have literally done to his guests. Someone might make a few distinctions between various data or categories, and immediately imagine he has discovered a 'complete list' of categories. He then perhaps thinks of aesthetically pleasing methods of deducing these data or categories from other wellknown distinctions. By way of example, Hume and Kant start out with notions of experience and of the a priori which are quite ambiguous and never subjected to serious examination. Yet despite such lack of clarity, immediate and far-reaching conclusions about what can and what cannot be known on the basis of experience, are drawn dogmatically. Many very elementary questions about experience are not even posed by Hume and Kant, such as whether radically different kinds of objects and intelligibility given in experience do not account for radically different types of 'experiential knowledge,' whether that which is given in experience cannot mediate the 42

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim knowledge of universal essences which are co-given in experience and yet contain objective a priori necessities, and so forth. A premature systematization can prevent access to the most important facts in a given field of investigation. This tendency to tackle issues immediately within the limiting and limited language and context of a given system is remarkably widespread and is often confused with the 'speculative force' of a thinker, almost as if speculative power and originality were manifested only when the philosopher's mind violates the self-given logos of things and engages in systematic constructions. Let us take some examples which may illustrate this point. Fichte's philosophy starts from a few untested and non-evident as well as ambiguous 'principles' with which the reader is confronted as if these principles were indubitable truths. Everything in the world is then viewed by Fichte in terms of these 'principles,' i.e. in the context of ego, self-positing, oppositing of the world to the ego, mutual limitation of ego and world by each other, infinite self-actualization as goal of the ego, and so forth. Or one starts with Hume's and Carnap's not only untested but self-contradictory assumptions that all meaningful statements must be empirically verifiable by means of senseperception, and that all necessarily true propositions must be analytic. (This thesis must be introduced as necessarily true but is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable.) Such a highly premature systematization of logic and epistemology, which is not supported by any evidence, fails to do justice to reality by starting with false and unexamined principles as with the denial that experience could ever give us access to synthetic principles a priori, and by applying methodological principles which are correct for certain objects to issues to which they do not apply (in this case, empirical methods to philosophical issues), thus contradicting what things clearly show themselves to be. If one commits oneself too early to a system, one can no longer truly listen to the voice of being. One hears selectively and only whatever fits into a ready-made apparatus of categories and problems. What is worse, one distorts the things of which one takes note by pressing them into inadequate categories. It should be clear that any systematization of the theory of a thing, prior to a proper investigation of its essence, runs the risk of superimposing structures on reality that prevent us from understanding it accurately. It should also be clear that philosophical knowledge ought to liberate 43

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' itself as far as possible from any premature systematization. Yet, however clear this may be in principle, it is one of the most difficult things in the wor!d of the intellect to refrain from the well-nigh invincible inclination of the human mind to fail to listen carefully to reality, to refuse to think about being itself with a true openness of mind, and to superimpose superficial or premature theories, systems and constructions of all sorts which cannot hold up under closer scrutiny. Phenomenology as a return to 'things themselves' was meant as an ideal of philosophy which would liberate the minds of its adherents from such inadequate systems and constructions which blur our vision of reality. It is a tragic fact that many phenomenologists, not excluding the later Husser! himself, themselves became victims of premature and misleading systematization. They discovered important facts about intentionality, for example, or about the relation between noema and noesis, but they ceased too quickly to look further and more deeply into the data and fell prey to false subjectivist interpretations of this correlation and to generalizations which were in no way justified by 'things themselves.' As a matter of fact, the present writer sees such a deviation from 'things themselves' already in the introduction of the epoche as the basic methodological device for phenomenology. We shall return to this point shortly. What has been said does not deny that there are areas of scientific and technical knowledge where constructions and formations of theories which are only loosely connected with the given as well as systematic structures which are not justified by the given may, nevertheless, be helpful in the progress of scientific explanation and for knowledge in a limited sense of the term. The ground for this possibility of gaining knowledge by spontaneously created constructions which deviate from the true given nature of things cannot be explained here in depth but it is clear that some relationship between a theory and reality is possible even if there does not exist a full adequation of the one to the other. Even in those cases where knowledge is gained by largely constructed models, however, some starting point in the given reality which precedes all constructions, and some later verification, test, or other appropriate form of knowledge which is not a construction, are presupposed. And yet, however fruitful constructions may be in other fields of knowledge, the pure interest of the authentic philosopher in what 'things themselves' are excludes any significant role of constructions

44

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim in philosophy. Philosophical knowledge, which seeks to grasp the essence of things as clearly and consciously as possible, is incompatible with the 'playful' activity of developing interesting possible models of reality which may be quite proper in other disciplines. Legitimate use of philosophical constructions as an important part of philosophical knowledge is also excluded because of the nonpragmatic pure interest in truth characteristic of philosophy and because of the intelligibility and the accessibility to human knowledge of the objects of philosophy. The use of constructions and hypotheses is appropriate in more pragmatically oriented branches of knowledge in which success, too, and not truth alone, plays an important role, and in disciplines the objects of which are not directly accessible or knowable with certainty, but need to be 'guessed' by epistemological trials open to error. In principle, the philosopher may be called upon to use some analogous 'guessing' in those areas of speculative knowledge which are inaccessible to direct or purely deductive knowledge. Think of the use Plato makes of myths when he deals with the content of immortal life and judgment after death. Yet this use of analogies and myths serves an attempt of grasping that which is not self-given in the light of the given. It differs from the construction of models instead of delving into the given, or in violation of it. Indeed, it is the opposite of constructionism, namely the effort of extending the realm of the given speculatively: the fabrication of myths becomes the tool of cognitive grasp of all that gives itself - directly or through the mediation of analogies and metaphors. Another remark should be made here. Phenomenological philosophy in our sense of a systematic carrying out of the program 'back to things themselves' is by no means opposed to systematic knowledge as such, at least not in the sense of a continuously growing 'whole' of knowledge within which the prir.ciples, natures, consequences, and relations of beings are ordered, clarified, and explored, in the context of working towards an increasingly complete and coherent 'whole' of philosophical knowledge. Certainly, phenomenology is opposed to a 'closed system' which would exclude any given because it would not fit into a systematic structure. This is what Scheler has also called the 'positivistic' tendency of phenomenology, an unlimited eagerness and openness in which each experience is taken seriously in terms of what it truly reveals about being. However, phenomenological philosophy in the 45

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' authentic sense is in no way opposed to an 'open system,' i.e., to a systematic structure or body of philosophical knowledge which brings into unity the knowledge gained in the different branches of philosophy. A certain co-giveness of the whole with each part of philosophical knowledge can rightly be asserted. At least some grasp of the whole seems always to be implied in philosophical knowledge. However, a complete system could only be the endresult of an intense philosophical activity and can never be perfectly realized by a finite mind. Nevertheless, the whole of reality can shine already through each authentic 'part' of philosophical knowledge which always carries an orientation to the whole and, in some measure, contains it. We are confronted here with the opposite of what the usual understanding of 'hermeneutical circle' would suggest. It is not the case that each partial knowledge could possibly be error as long as the part is not seen in the light of a complete understanding of the whole, something which is impossible for man as a finite, historical being. It is rather the case that the whole of reality is present, at least negatively, and to some extent positively, in any fragment of authentic knowledge. For any true understanding of reality however partial which faithfully listens to reality and explores it is in harmony with, and contains some positive reference to, the whole of reality. There is thus a universality implicit in each, albeit partial, authentic philosophical knowledge. The 'system' of the whole of things is present - at least negatively - in that no true incomplete knowledge can contradict the whole of truth. It is present - more positively - in the sense that the correct understanding of any 'part' of reality given philosophically contains a certain co-given ness of many other realities, to some extent even of the whole which intelligibly relates to, and is indicated by, each partial truth. These statements, however, have to be 'complemented by another observation which touches on an important element of truly philosophizing about 'things themselves.' Authentic phenomenological philosophy is opposed to giving priority to the concern for coherence, systematic wholeness or elegance of theory, because this could make a thinker fearful of facing honestly a given fact - either because he cannot yet harmonize it with other data or because it throws some of his erroneous systematic assumptions into question. The true phenomenologist, in our sense of the term, the true philosopher, needs both courage and love of truth to

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim overcome this danger. He needs courage in order to face, as J.H. Newman put it, ten thousand difficulties rather than to dispute one single clearly given truth. He needs love of truth in order to adopt an attitude of fully opening himself to every aspect of being that is disclosed to him.

(ii) Certain intellectual and moral attitudes as conditions of objective and rational philosophical knowledge Here the eminent relationship between philosophical knowledge and moral attitudes also becomes evident (Plato - especially in Books VI and VII of the Republic - Brentano, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand and many other philosophers have stressed this strongly). 1'1 Cowardice and a false fear of reality, spirituallaziness and a desire to reach a pseudo-security shielded from reality, a prideful revolt against the claims the goods and truth make upon us, and other such deplorable intellectual and moral attitudes need to be overcome if the specifically philosophical ascent to being is to become possible. These intellectual-moral attitudes, however, - and this is of extreme importance - must not be seen in the light of subjective preferences which the philosopher would have to take somewhat irrationally, as fideism interprets these stances. On the contrary, these attitudes such as reverence and openness to being are evidently the ones which by their very essence are required by philosophical knowledge and indeed by knowledge in general.

(iii) What are the 'things themselves' to which philosophers should return? Another important question poses itself here. What exactly are the data to which the philosopher should return? Certainly, the philosopher's task cannot just be one of describing sense-impressions or similar data of experience. Still less can his task be reduced to describing his own subjective experiences, feelings, or acts. The identification of the objects of philosophy with subjective experience was in fact responsible for that psychologism which the phenomenological maxim 'back to things themselves' rightly criticized.

47

Part I: 'Back to things themselves'

(And yet many phenomenologists, including Husserl himself, later fell into the same fundamental mistake of an - albeit 'transcendental' - psychologism.) But if the objects of philosophy are neither sense-impressions nor subjective feelings, what is it exactly that the philosopher should look at afresh? The ontological question about the nature of the object of philosophy is inseparable from the epistemological-methodological question: By means of which method is the object of philosophical knowledge to be known? Is the term 'description' (Beschreibung) which Husserl frequently uses adequate to refer to the fundamental method of philosophy? Is there something like a phenomenological 'description' of the data? The terms 'given' and 'data' likewise demand further clarification. When we speak of 'data,' this term should not be understood as meaning individual facts or, even more narrowly, facts accessible only to our sense-experience. In ordinary use of language the term 'data' frequently refers to the kind of pure individual 'facts' that statistics deal with. This sense of 'data' is also at issue when we speak of a 'database' in computer programs, of statistical data, of the data report sheets required by medical examinations and the like. We do not have anything of this sort in mind when we speak of the 'data' with which the philosopher should occupy himself. These 'data' must not even be identified with concrete and individual works of great and universal meaning such as individual works of art or with styles as they appear in art or music, or with temperaments, characters, and so forth. For while these entities have a meaning which permits an understanding analogous to that required in philosophy, these 'data' are still susceptible only to an 'understanding description' which analyzes the given facts of a work and style, or the unique factual 'form' of a work, and thus remains occupied with the individual. This always involves an empirical dimension which does not allow for the specific penetration, the intuition and 'pure understanding' that philosophy aims at and that uncovers 'data' of a quite peculiar sort. This is neither to deny that there are many eidetic truths implied by the intelligible forms of such works, nor that the individual work itself constitutes, or imperfectly partakes in, some eternal form or eidetic particularity. But what are the 'data' the philosopher explores? What is the method which is no longer description at all, not even understanding

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim description? Phenomenological philosophy seeks not only the knowledge of certain quite fundamental facts such as that of our own existence and thereby of at least one existing being but it seeks primarily the knowledge of highly intelligible and often absolutely necessary essences and states of affairs rooted in them. The proper method or mode of knowledge that corresponds to absolutely necessary 'facts' that disclose themselves to us is, on the one hand, insight or intuition in the sense of an immediate rational penetration into necessary essences and states of affairs rooted in them; and, on the other, deductive reasoning. The term 'insight' (or 'intuition') here does not designate some feeling or irrational experience; nor does it designate a mystical state. It refers to what Aristotle recognized to be the most rational of all knowledge: immediate knowledge, on which any deduction and proof ultimately rests (nolls, noesis):20 Now of the intellectual faculties that we use in the pursuit of truth some (e. g., scientific knowledge and intuition [episteme kai nous]) are always true, whereas others (e.g., opinion and calculation [doxa kai logismos]) admit falsity; and no other knowledge except intuition [nous] is more accurate than scientific knowledge. Also first principles are more knowable than demonstrations, and all scientific knowledge involves reason(ing). It follows that there can be no scientific [i.e., deductive, demonstrative -l.S.] knowledge of the first principles; and since nothing can be more infallible than scientific knowledge except intuition, it must be intuition (no us) that apprehends the first principles .... Therefore, since we possess no other infallible faculty besides scientific knowledge [episteme] , the source from which such knowledge starts must be intuition [emphasis added - J .S.]. Thus it will be the primary source of scientific knowledge that apprehends the first principles .... Insight means, then, a mode of understanding the necessity of essences and essential states of affairs from 'within: i.e., in their own absolute necessity which allows the mind to penetrate into them and to understand them in a manner in which contingent and non-necessary facts can never be understood. Only that which does not admit of ever being different from what it is and which is immutable because of the entirely meaningful and inner necessity of 49

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' essence admits such an understanding. This rational insight (and deduction based thereupon), the objects of which we will have to explore further and will later identify as a completely objective a priori grounded in the essences of things, differs radically from any description that is in comparison a knowledge 'from without,' an empirical mode of knowledge which notices and observes facts which could in principle also be different, even if they possess perhaps a deep meaning as human or superhuman inventions. They can only be known in their facticity which has to be 'accepted' on the evidence of their being actually real, and not on the unique kind of 'force' of intelligible necessity and of not admitting of possibly being otherwise. The grasp of such a 'must be' of things is what the term 'intuition' designates. It is especially clear in Husserl's Logical Investigations, particularly in the third one, on 'Wholes and Parts' (this has lately played a decisive role in the philosophy of the Manchester circle, especially in the thought of Barry Smith)2! as it is clear, too, in Reinach's and von Hildebrand's works, that the eide which the phenomenologist seeks to discover are timelessly valid and absolutely necessary essential (eidetic) structures, and coincide fundamentally with the classical essences (eide) of which Platonic philosophy spoke, however much Husserl's interpretation of them shuns away from any 'Platonic realism.' They are only understood in a clearer way as the objectively and absolutely necessary essences of things distinct from contingent (non-necessary) 'inventible' natures (wholes). Von Hildebrand in particular delineated them more clearly from 'contingent' essences than Plato and the entire ensuing tradition (although we find some important hints at this difference in Bonaventure and in Descartes).22 Some realist phenomenologists further clarified these eide in that they clearly saw their relation to the essences in the existing things, a relation which Platonism has largely ignored. Thus necessary essences came to be seen both as being 'in things' (as embodied real essences) and 'above (ante, praeter) things,' as timeless eidetic structures, to borrow both Augustinian and Husserlian terminology. (In my essay, 'Essence and Existence,' in Aletheia I, this point is developed more extensively. ) The auth~ntic phenomenological method is, then, essentially a consistent and faithful unfolding of these necessary essences which answer Kant's famous question of how 'synthetic a priori propositions' are possible. They answer this question precisely in the only 50

Rethinking Husserl's maxim

way possible so as to found not only 'necessary propositions' but necessary truths: i.e., by revealing their absolute essential necessity, their 'it cannot and could not be different in any possible world than that. ... ' They answer Kant's question about the possibility of synthetic a priori propositions from 'things themselves' which are noumena - noumena not in Kant's sense of unknowable X's conceived as mere negative limit-notions (which does violence to the very word 'noumena,' the intelligible), but in a completely objective sense the origin of which must not be identified with some naivete of world-belief but is given, as we shall see, to the most critical rational understanding. They give themselves from the things themselves as intrinsically necessary and as transcendent to our minds. If they are subjected to careful phenomenological analysis, the stance taken by Husserl in Ideas, where he dismisses the real transcendence of knowledge as impossible without investigating its self-givenness as real, is seen to be uncritical. How exactly the type of self-given necessity of these essences shows itself to be objective and to differ from any form of merely subjective, historically or sociologically conditioned, or even transcendental-subjective sense of 'necessity' will be shown in the second part of this essay. Although it cannot be brought to full evidence here that an objectivist and realist phenomenology is rationally justifiable, we have to beware from the beginning of interpreting the 'data' we spoke of in the subjectivistic sense given to this term by many phenomenologists and by Husserl himself. An authentically philosophical analysis of the given, the 'phenomenological' character of which must be measured solely by the extent to which the maxim 'back to things' (i.e., to those things which constitute the subject-matter of philosophy) is fulfilled, is far from easy. There is no more difficult task than to uncover, truly and systematically, the objective and necessary essential structures of reality; but the task is still possible and its fulfillment is demanded by the original program of going 'back to things.' For the reasons already set forth, the phenomenological method should neither be called description of experience nor description of the data given in experience. The identification of the phenomenological method with 'description' is a capital mistake made by many realist and idealist phenomenologists. From the point of view of the need for a clear distinction between insight into necessary essential structures and mere descriptions of factual data, the worst moment 51

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' in the history of phenomenology was the discussion between Husser! and members of the Munich circle, called 'Seefelder Gesprache,' in the course of which the example of the exact description of a beer bottle and of what we experience when looking at it, i.e. the careful description of an experience and its entirely contingent factual object, was taken as a model case of what the phenomenological method was to be. Surely, this is not to deny that also the beer bottle partakes in some more general necessary essences such as space, perception, color as such, thing as such. Nor are we to dispute what we have seen to be the case: that there are meaningful contingent essences (think of works of art) of which one can give fine descriptions which deserve to be called 'phenomenological' in that they penetrate into the meaningful wholeness of their objects. It is only half-correct to call this method 'description' and it should rather be designated as analysis of the (intelligible) 'form' (Southern Critics of Literature) or of the intuitively given character 'anschaulichen Charakter' (Hans Sedlmayr). Still, the term 'description' has some justification here because it refers to an unfolding of concrete 'facts' and 'data' in the sense of something that just presents itself in its actuality without possessing an intrinsically and absolutely necessary structure which would permit a mode of understanding that supersedes all 'descriptions' and is in fact an entirely different mode of knowledge. We shall return to this higher mode of rational penetration into intelligible essences which is entirely different from description although it shares with it the discovering and uncovering of that which gives itself.

4 CAN A PRESUPPOSITIONLESS PHILOSOPHICAL RETURN TO 'THINGS THEMSELVES' BE JUSTIFIED? (i) Further clarification of the method which leads 'back to things

themselves' We may ask: Is not the call to 'go back to things themselves' itself burdened by so many philosophical presuppositions that it can in no way serve Husserl's 'Cartesian ideal,' which we have made our own, namely to go back to some apodictically certain and indubitable starting point of philosophical knowledge? Surely, only such a

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim presuppositionless starting point which allows for indubitable knowledge would permit true episteme that would be free from doxa (mere opinion); and this, in fact, is what the Platonic Socrates in Books VI and VII of the Republic demands from authentic philosophical knowledge (noesis as the highest step of dialectics in Plato's sense). But the question is: can the ideal of going 'back to things themselves' really be introduced as something which is presuppositionless and self-evident in its justification? It cannot indeed be denied that the justification of the call 'back to things themselves' presupposes or implies other evidences. It presupposes, for instance, an insight into the essence of knowledge as a receptive discovery of things that are not produced by the activity of knowledge itself. If the activity of knowledge could rightly be construed as one which produces its objects, then the call of a 'return to things themselves' would make absolutely no sense. Likewise, if man were denied any access to things themselves, philosophy could not be described rightly by the maxim 'back to things themselves.' Therefore the possibility of knowledge of what things themselves are, and the character of the knowing activity as a discovery of being, the 'receptive transcendence'23 inherent in knowledge must be seen and recognized in order to understand that the task of the philosopher is not that of a constructor of systems which he imposes on things. Yet this does not imply any supposition which would have to be blindly accepted, for in the very understanding of anything, and especially in the grasp of the validity of the rigorous method of 'a return to things themselves,' the essentially necessary trait of the receptivity of knowledge is co-given. Thus it is also understood that somebody's philosophy should not dependto allude to a famous utterance of Fichte - on what kind of man he is, but on the things themselves, the faithful unfolding of which is the goal and essence of all authentic knowledge. But this decisive feature of knowledge, which must be recognized in order to perceive the legitimation of the maxim that prescribes the return to things themselves, is not illegitimately presupposed. It does not contradict the presupposition less starting point of phenomenological philosophy but is rather itself given as belonging to the necessary essence of knowledge. We can speak of knowing solely to the extent to which the voice of being is heard, to the extent to which that which is is grasped by the mind. Any other activity which would conceive of things in modes different from what these 53

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' things are, would precisely and evidently not be knowledge any more. In that moment in which the spontaneous-constructive activity of the mind deviates from 'things themselves,' invention, error, misconception, but not knowledge, would occur. Let us add immediately that, of course, invention too, especially artistic invention, can be supported by knowledge and involve a discovery of being and that it can lead to such a discovery. Moreover, the objects of creative acts can in their turn become objects of knowledge. Yet this knowledge itself, which precedes artistic invention, or is embodied in it, or consequent upon it, must in no way be identified with creativity but is itself a receptive, transcending participation in 'how things are.' To see that one ought to 'go back to things themselves' also presupposes another equally evident fact which is co-given with the understanding of the justification of the phenomenological maxim, namely, the essence of the truth of judgments (propositions: the normal meanings of declarative sentences). The truth of propositions must be understood as 'conformity between the proposition, on the one hand, and reality (the state of affairs), on the other hand.' A proposition is true when the state of affairs which is posited by it actually obtains, independent of the assertion itself and in the exact manner in which it has been asserted in the proposition. If one were to presuppose another theory of what the essence of truth is, for example a coherence theory of truth as Bradley defends it and as N. Rescher discusses it, then the phenomenological maxim would make no sense. Then the going back to 'things themselves' would have to be replaced by an attending to the immanent structure and coherence of a system and to the compatibility of its basic assumptions with the deduced propositions. Similarly, if the truth of propositions were to lie in the success of their being believed - if, for example, Nazi ideology or Communist and also capitalistic ideologies should be measured in terms not of their accordance with reality but of their success - then the maxim 'back to things themselves' would be wrong. Only the classical theory of truth as 'conformity with being,' albeit in a new and deeper articulation, as it was developed by Alexander Pfander in his Logik, can be the epistemological-logical ground of what Husserl (Ideas, § 24) called the 'principle of principles' of the phenomenological method: that very primordial dator Intuition is a source of authority 54

Rethinking Husserl's maxim (Rechtsquelle) for knowledge, that whatever presents itself in 'intuition' in primordial form (as it were in its bodily reality), is simply to be accepted as it gives itself out to be, though only within the limits in which it then presents itself. (Ibid., p. 83) Is this presupposition of the phenomenological maxim an illegitimate assumption? By no means - the truth of this theory of truth discloses itself as a perfectly valid and evident foundation of any philosophical method. If someone were to deny the correctness and rationality of assuming truth as adaequatio, what could be said in reply? In the first place, any attempt to replace truth as adaequatio by a utilitarian or coherence theory of truth reintroduces the rejected notion of truth as adaequatio. The theory itself about truth claims to explain what truth 'really is.' More significantly still, the un inventible essence of the truth of propositions reveals precisely through the philosophical data, i.e., through the intelligible essences of things themselves, that indeed the truth of this theory as the truth of any other proposition, the fulfillment of the truth-claim which is inherent in each judgment that posits a state of affairs, cannot reside in any other factor or relation except in that of the state of affairs being exactly as asserted in the judgment. This peculiar 'coincidence' in which the things themselves 'behave' as they are said to 'behave' (or in which that which is said to be actually is, and that which is denied to be, actually is not, to put it as Aristotle did) can alone constitute the basis for truth. As with the presupposition of the receptive transcendence of knowledge, we discover here, too, that things themselves justify the claim that the philosopher should go back to them. The essence of truth bears witness to the truth of the phenomenological maxim in its classical interpretation as the principle of all faithful and fruitful philosophizing. For if propositions are true when and only when they are in conformity with things themselves, then the only legitimate method of philosophy (and of all knowledge) cannot but be the one which permits us to go back, with the utmost rigor, to those things themselves which alone can ground the truth of propositions. We do not intend to enter here into further analysis of these and other presuppositions of the maxim 'back to things themselves.' If those moments and marks of knowledge which are presupposed by the phenomenological method are evidently true and manifest 55

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' themselves to be so from the things themselves, then the validity and presupposition less character of the phenomenological method remains unrefuted. Then the return to 'things themselves' discloses itself as a principle which expresses a universal and the broadest possible ideal of philosophy and of philosophical knowledge, an ideal which was not arbitrarily or spontaneously introduced as if it intended only one among many possible types of philosophizing. 24

(ii) Phenomenology as a unique mode of seeing and learning to see: Insight, argumentation, dialogue, and intersubjectivity The observations made thus far lead us to a better understanding of what constitutes the core of the phenomenological method in its classical sense: the learning to see things in their very own original nature, the continued sense of thaumazein (wondering) at things and the understanding of what makes them truly what they are. This 'seeing' which was sought after by Plato and Aristotle, and the tradition inspired by them, is a rational insight into, and an understanding of, beings and necessary facts in their intelligibility. It can thus not be captured by expressions like 'the ease of phenomenological description' but must be recognized to be a most difficult achievement, a victory over prejudices and over an attitude of taking things for granted. The difficulty of such 'seeing and insight' (which uses many methodological devices, to be discussed below) is hidden from the man who is uninitiated in the labor and toil necessary to arrive at insight, and who sees in an essential analysis, the greater its clarity and the more it unfolds what 'is there,' a greater triviality which states nothing interesting but only 'obvious' facts and truisms. This confusion of a phenomenological unfolding of essences with stating the 'obvious' contains the truth that there is some 'obviousness' or Selbst-verstiindlichkeit in accurate philosophical analyses. Each of us possesses a certain acquaintance with things and this prephilosophical contact with reality, which normally lies hidden behind a whole set of prejudices and misconceptions that threaten to distort our o"riginal contact with things, exists prior to theoretical philosophical understanding. Philosophy, when it actually illumines and brings to the level of conscious awareness the object of this pure original experience, regularly elicits a response of 'yes, this is 56

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim exactly how things are' from persons who recognize themselves and their own Sachkontakt (contact with things) in the prise de conscience achieved in the philosophical phenomenological analysis of a datum. This fact lies also at the root of the Platonic theory of philosophy as a 'reminiscence' of what we 'knew all along' and of what even the most uneducated slave will discover when properly questioned. Plato refers also to the role of the philosopher as a midwife who only leads to the birth of knowledge in others, of a knowledge which they have to reach on their own. And the fundamental passages from Augustine's De Magistro already quoted make the same point. In the light of these remarks it is also clear that what is at stake in insight is not a mere matter of linguistic habit (a 'yes, that's what we mean by X') or a common prejudice ('yes, that's what we all think about X'). That it is not a mere matter of linguistic habit becomes clear as soon as we notice that the necessity at stake remains completely intact when we vary the lingusitic expression or the conceptual meaning or definition of the same nature X. It remains even when we say: 'a thing of this unnamed essence necessarily is .... ' An analytic necessity or merely linguistic prejudice would totally collapse if we varied the definition of the word. A 'synthetic necessity a priori' (an essential necessity), on the contrary, remains just as it is regardless of how we name, or conceptually refer to, a thing, provided it is the same nature or structure of natures of which we speak. For example, the necessary proposition that vieillards are old is necessary only in virtue of the definition of the word 'vieillard', meaning 'old man.' As soon as we refer to the vieillard as such with another term, such as 'this man: the necessity disappears and the fact that he is old discloses itself as contingent. Similar things hold about the analytic necessity that bachelors are unmarried, and so forth. In the case of the necessary truth, 'personal guilt necessarily presupposes freedom: however, the situation is entirely different. The thing 'guilt' cannot come into existence without freedom, and the necessity is grounded completely in the essence of the thing in question. That such necessary truths are not common prejudices will be recognized as soon as one actually comes to have the insight that they are grounded in the nature of the beings in question regardless of all subjective factors. We shall return to this point later. 57

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' The questions of how Sachkontakt is verifiable and whether, if someone disagrees with us, this means that he does not possess it, can be answered thus. First of all, the theoretical opinions of a person do not usually coincide with what he learns from his original contact with things. Therefore, one of the most effective ways of convincing another in philosophical dialogue consists precisely in reaching the common basis of Sachkontakt where he himself sees the truth under discussion. The Platonic Socrates uses this method in each Platonic dialogue. The original contact with things and their accessibility to intuition is not the end to dialogue but the beginning of it and the condition of its possibility. For without the possibility of a reference to a common Sachkontakt and to intuition which goes beyond sense-perception, disagreements between persons - at least disagreements in regard to metaphysics, ethics, principles of logic, mathematics, and the like - could never be resolved. Intellectual unity and community is, as Heraclitus stated, possible only because there is 'one logos': it is necessary to follow the common (universal); but although the logos is common, the many live as though they had a private understanding. (Fr. 2, Sextus Adv. Math. vii, 133.) If there were no given reality accessible to the rational insight of all men, which can function as a court of appeal when disagreements arise and to which every rational man can go back, each man would be thrown back into his own subjectivity and opinion, without possibility of mutual agreement, understanding, dialogue. Yet, while the possibility of a common Sachkontakt and participation in one logos render possible intellectual community, it is certainly possible that someone speaks about love or beauty without having the proper Sachkontakt. In this case, rather than continuing philosophical discussions in the abstract, it would be better to take one's point of departure in, for example, a work of art on the beauty of which both agree. From such a shared Sachkontakt one can then work towards an agreement. If one partner in the dialogue, however, has no contact at all with virtue, love, beauty, etc., it would be impossible for the other partner to convey his insights into the respective data. And then indeed their dialogue might have to end. But this does not in any way imply that the one who actually does see a point grounded in the essence of a thing could be refuted by reference to the fact that another person fails to see the same

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim point. There is not even a formal contradiction here, something which would arise if both parties were to claim to have contradictory insights. Not seeing a point is not even a formal argument against (or opposition to) seeing, as Alice von Hildebrand-Jourdain has shown. 25 Even when two contradictory claims to insight clash, however, many further paths of dialogue still remain. The most effective approach of giving evidence of the actual attainment of insight, and of communicating it to others, is the accurate phenomenological unfolding of a given essence in the wealth of its intelligibility. Such an analysis differs sharply from a mere construction or theory that does not tally with reality and lacks a power to convince comparable to that of an adequate philosophical analysis. As stated earlier, the clarity and convincing quality of an authentic phenomenological analysis is not easily achieved. It is as difficult to attain as it is to achieve a truly graceful pose, a difficulty which the great German poet and thinker Heinrich von Kleist describes in his article, Das Marionettentheater. To recover, on the level of art, the simplicity of a graceful natural gesture is a most difficult task. Analogously, it takes painstaking effort to reach, on the level of philosophical reflection, the simplicity and clarity with which things are given in our prephilosophical experience. How much easier is it to develop a complicated and unintelligible construction which is 'entirely original.' The clarity which accompanies a genuine piece of phenomenological philosophy is radically misconceived when one believes that it can be gained with the 'ease of phenomenological insight.' Its achievement is the fruit of a long and often laborious process of searching, comparing, arguing, and above of all of learning how to see, learning how to contemplate and to become silent so that the things themselves can speak to our minds. Moreover, the intellectual process of gaining insight and of conceptually unfolding the intelligible nature of a being, its different features, the ontological and logical connections which obtain between its various moments, and of stating these in propositions, involves the most intense intellectual effort and a far greater alertness and activity than are required for any philosophical construction.

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' (iii) Phenomenology as presuppositionless and the rational

foundation of philosophy The very essence of phenomenological philosophy as a going back to 'things themselves' also implies another element. The phenomenologist cannot rest satisfied as long as the foundational principles of logic or metaphysics or ethics are merely introduced as obvious without being sufficiently explored in their intelligible features and foundations. Likewise, the philosopher who wishes to go back to things themselves, and to the ultimate sources of their intelligibility and rootedness in 'things themselves,' cannot be content with accepting these principles merely in a negative fashion as being inevitably presupposed by man and by any human thought. Of course, such negative arguments which demonstrate the impossibility of 'getting around' assuming the truth of these principles, may be highly successful in defending the results of insights against those who deny them. Such negative arguments which reduce the interlocutor's position to self-annihilating absurdity may also be the only kind of arguments one can offer with reference to the most fundamental principles because there is no way in which primary data and principles can be proven in terms of other premises. For as Aristotle and Plato have masterfully shown, each of those premises already presupposes these first evidences and principles. Yet mere demonstration that we presuppose certain concepts or principles would be completely unsatisfactory for a truly phenomenological philosopher. His objective is to see the data with which philosophy is concerned. This 'seeing' has, in the case of necessary essences that are objects of philosophical knowledge, to penetrate into the innermost character and foundation of evident states of affairs in these essences, and it has to bring to evidence the objective intrinsic necessity of 'it is and must be so.' Nothing that falls short of an actual mental 'seeing and touching' of these archdata and principles will satisfy the phenomenological philosopher. Since philosophers of the past either denied the objective necessity of the foundational principles of philosophy (Kant), or did not make the distinction between the evidence of intrinsic necessity and truth of a principle, and its necessary presupposedness for all thinking, with sufficient clarity (think of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book Gamma), we might regard phenomenological realism as the

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Rethinking Husserl's maxim most articulate embodiment of classical philosophy. For this distinction is the condition of 'classical philosophy.' The greatest contributions of 'classical philosophy' are linked to this discovery. We are reminded, for example, of Books VI and VII in Plato's Republic where Socrates distinguishes between dianoia (mathematical knowledge) and noesis (philosophical knowledge) on the ground that the latter occurs 'without any help of hypotheses and (mere) assumptions.' Augustine's analysis of the indubitable certainty of eternal truths and Bonaventure's exposition of 'cognito certitudinalis' also lead to the same conclusion. Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Metaphysics (Gamma) and other works strongly defend immediate knowledge and its evidence as referring to necessary facts and as the condition of all knowledge obtained by means of proofs. Analogies to what phenomenological realism elaborates on this point are likewise found in Descartes, particularly in Meditations V and in his replies to the objections to the Meditations. Among the phenomenologists, Husserl, Reinach, Scheler, Pfander, Ingarden, and von Hildebrand express this point forcefully. But how is a positive knowledge of these principles as evident possible? How is such knowledge intersubjectively verifiable? And, if this is possible, how and why should the phenomenological method contribute anything special towards the solution of these questions? In answer to this query, we might say first of all that phenomenological realism, in an age of skepticism and relativism under the impact of Hume and Kant, would be perfectly content with once again showing the correctness of those positions of classical philosophy which defend the thesis that all indirect knowledge through proof presupposes a more reliable and foundational immediate knowledge of the ultimate principles. The need to defend these claims which were put forward with greater ease and naivete in ages past, however, already makes their defense and elaboration in the present age something new if not something stunningly foreign to what 'everybody knows' since Hume and Kant: that rational insight into (synthetic) necessary truths is impossible. In addition, the careful study of the 'things themselves' (Wesensgesetze) to which 'synthetic propositions a priori' refer, the full bringing to evidence of the objectively and absolutely necessary character of these necessary essences and essential laws, and of the 61

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' philosophical method through which we grasp them, are a classical achievement of realist phenomenology. To throw this discovery into further relief will constitute the topic of Part II, Chapter 5 of the' present study.

5 'BACK TO THINGS THEMSELVES' AND THE 'THING IN ITSELF': IS PHENOMENOLOGICAL REALISM POSSIBLE? This leads to another decisive feature of phenomenology in its original form, namely phenomenological realism. Many students saw Husserl's Logical Investigations as a great breakthrough, and as a liberation from skepticism and relativism in that form of it which Husserl calls 'psychologism': that is, a reduction of the (strictly necessary and apodictically certain) laws of pure logic, which are objective and grounded in the very essence of logical entities, to (merely probable and roughly general) laws of thinking, which are grounded in the subject's thinking apparatus and not in any objective, pre-given logical essences. Cleary, in the Logical Investigations the 'things themselves' were the objectively necessary essences and Wesensgesetze (essential laws) of things. These laws of absolute validity would hold true in every possible world, to use an expression of Leibniz which Husserl and even Kant employ. Kant reintroduces it - forgetful of his general injunction against such claims - in reference to the principles of the good will. 26 'Things themselves' understood as 'things in themselves' were of course radically rejected by the later Husserl, who even thought that the very term 'thing in itself' was absurd.27 Husserl increasingly came to think (for reasons and motives to be expounded in detail later) that the 'thing in itself cannot be given because of an inner impossibility. The term given was ever more closely associated with the subjective mode of givenness and was regarded as unthinkable without reference to the cogitation of the subject. Phenomenology became a description of the exact mode in which the object (cogitatum, noema) appears and is given to the subject. The Abschattungen and Ansichten (perspectival differences) which are found in sense perception and in which the meaning-relation to intentional objects is fulfilled became the concern of the phenomenologist and not 'things in themselves' 62

Rethinking Husserl's maxim which increasingly appeared to phenomenologists as a naIve objectivist assumption of an 'outside of any sphere of possible givenness.' Again, Husserl's emphasis fell on anticipations, retentions, and the entire internal time-consciousness with its figures and aspects. How could any of this be associated with 'realism'? In response to this question, we will have to turn later to an exact analysis of the very different meanings of 'things in themselves.' On the basis of these investigations, we shall argue that man's knowledge is not restricted to grasping things in the many perspectival aspects and subjectively constituted 'faces' in which they are given but also in what they are intrinsically in themselves. But without prior investigation into the complexity of a great number of meanings of the term 'in itself' our question about the knowability of 'things in themselves' cannot be conducted meaningfully; we cannot even properly ask the question itself. Suffice it to stress at this point in our analysis that 'things themselves' as phenomenological philosophy speaks of them cannot simply be identified with data exclusively as they give themselves in experience. Nor must they be restricted to mere noemata of intentional acts (noesis) which are conceived of as not existing independently from human consciousness. The interpretation of consciousness as constituting its objects must not be assumed from the outset but critically examined. Later, in refutation of this assumption, the givenness (namely the accessibility to our mind) of beings which cannot be reduced to constituted objects and aspects will be brought to evidence. Although the later Husserl does indeed reduce the data of phenomenology to constituted meanings and beings which allegedly depend on transcendental (human) subjectivity, the original Husserlian notion of 'phenomenon' did not suggest such a reduction. While the five lectures of 1907, The Idea of Phenomenology written under the impact of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, deny the given ness of completely objective, intrinsically existing beings, the Logical Investigations clearly assert necessities which 'gods,' men, and angels would have to recognize because they are objectively necessary and evident. And precisely these non-constituted, absolutely necessary, ideal objects constitute the primary object of philosophical intuition. The problem of whether or not this early assertion was naIve and of whether the insistence on intentionality forbids an intentional yet transcendent contact with things in 63

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' themselves, will have to be addressed later. In any case, the 'things themselves' of original phenomenology were understood by many students of Husserl to be the newly rediscovered 'things in themselves' which Kant had declared unknowable but which an objectivist apriorism seemed to have justified anew. 28 The term 'phenomenon' should, in a properly phenomenological philosophy, have the same meaning as 'datum' or 'arch-datum' (,arch-phenomenon'). The terms 'thing itself' and 'given' basically have the same meaning, except that the notion of 'thing itself' does not have any reference to the mode of cognition in which the thing presents itself to the knower. But the 'givenness' as such of a thing does not in any way preclude that that which is thus given is something in its own right, that it is precisely given as possessing an autonomous being in relation to the grasping consciousness. In the context of phenomenological philosophy in our sense, the terms 'thing itself,' 'given,' and 'datum' refer, furthermore, to those entities and intelligible data which it is the task of the philosopher to explore and which have been briefly characterized above. The term 'phenomenon,' too, must be freed from a potential misunderstanding which attaches to it so easily that the term should probably be abandoned entirely. 'Phenomenon' seems to suggest that phenomenology is interested in appearances and modes of givenness only and not in the thing in itself, even if the latter should exist. The expression phainomenon, however, does not, in the original Greek, have only all the meanings of seeming, appearing, etc. which Heidegger unfolded. 29 'Phainomenon' in the sense of mere appearance also emerges in Kant's terminology in which that term means 'the thing-as-given,' contrasted by him with the 'thingin-itself' (the noumenon) which he regards as unknowable. Thus any interpretation of 'phenomenon' in the light of Kantian philosophy leads to a radical misconstrual of the phenomenological term 'phenomenon' which designates by no means the opposite of 'thing in itself.' Hegel, too, uses the term 'phenomenology,' in his Phenomenology of the Spirit, in the transcendental idealist sense in which the idea of being as 'constitutum' of spirit, that of 'epiphany' of gradual self-manifestation, and phenomenology as an investigation of the subject-object-relation in consciousness are intertwined. Finally, the later subjectivistic turn of transcendental phenomenology seems to confirm the suspicion of realists and Thomists that phe64

Rethinking Husserl's maxim nome no logy is utterly subjectivistic and concerned with appearances only, not with the 'really real' of things in themselves. Phenomenology in our sense of the term is, however, utterly misconceived when it is understood as mere description or even as an eidetic analysis of phainomena in the sense of mind-dependent appearances and objects. Rather, all the essential elements of the phenomenological method discussed so far are fully compatible with, and are indeed indispensable moments and instruments of, a metaphysical investigation into things in themselves. Phenomenology, in this book, shall be shown to be a fitting method for ontology in the classical sense, and not merely a fine preliminary description of experience which could at best be a preparation for metaphysics. But in order to present phenomenology in this new way, a very exact examination of the elements which belong to this method is needed, and to this we shall return in a later context.

6 IS PHENOMENOLOGY ATHEISTIC, OR 'MYSTICAL' AND ALOGICAL? There is an entirely different question which poses itself in the context of phenomenology's claim to lead a way back to 'things themselves.' Is phenomenological philosophy interested only in what can be directly and immediately seen, or is it also concerned with indirect knowledge and deductive reasoning? Furthermore, is phenomenological philosophy restricted to the world as it is directly self-given - and uninterested in any speculative thought based on analogy? Must it then be regarded as implicity atheistic, as it was recently designated by a French philosopher, or must it at least be concluded that an infinite, divine Being falls in principle outside the scope of those issues which phenomenological philosophy can turn to? Then phenomenological philosophy would at least have to be methodologically agnostic with regard to God. Another related question could be posed at this point: Is phenomenology a mere propaedeutics to metaphysics, or is it even hostile to ontology, a rejection of any notion of going beyond anything which is directly accessible in experience? In this case, phenomenology would have more in common with positivism than is usually acknowledged, and the connections between Brentano and the Meinong school with the Vienna circle would be far from 65

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' accidental. And this would seem to be reconfirmed by the 'Grazer Schule' and by the mixture of phenomenology and Wittgensteinian thought someone might ascribe to Barry Smith and the Manchester circle. 30 Thirdly, we could ask: does phenomenological philosophy aim at absolute apodictic certainty, and does it therefore exclude any sphere of knowledge (such as sense-knowledge of a real world) which is less than apodictically certain but is held only through what Husser! calls the 'world-belief,' which phenomenology as 'rigorous apodictic science' must 'bracket'? To ask the question more generally still, do the foundations of any faith, nay of any trace of a belief, fall outside the scope of phenomenology and is phenomenological philosophy thus a movement opposed to both an objectivist philosophy of religion and to faith, or at least to all those elements of realism which have to do with trust, commonsense, and belief?3! Certainly, many understand phenomenology in the manner described as anti-metaphysical, unmetaphysical, anti-realist, and antireligious, i.e., opposed to religion in any objectivist sense. But the present writer submits that this is an entirely wrong conception of what the 'return to things themselves' (which is the foundational principle of the phenomenological program) originally meant and objectively implies. As far as the first question is concerned, any form of going beyond the directly and immediately given, any form of speculative knowledge, is fully justified in terms of the phenomenological maxim 'back to things themselves' - but only under one condition. Such a going beyond what is self-given must be grounded in the given, must be justified by the things as they disclose themselves to our knowledge. It may be that the need for speculative thought to be in harmony with the given would be recognized abstractly and in principle by all ontologists, but, as a matter of fact, in their concrete manner of proceeding most ontologists show little awareness of the relation between what is given and what is speculatively known, and little regard for the manifold ways in which their speculations violate the given. All speculations, then, which go against the clear nature and logos of what is self-given, or which only do as much as leaving aside any basis in the given, are anti-phenomenological and simultaneously objectively unfounded. In other words, metaphysical theories and distinctions which can no longer be traced back to

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anything which being itself tells us about -itself in its leibhafte Selbstgegebenheit ('bodily' self-givenness) should not occur in a philosophy which calls itself phenomenological. More difficult is the answer to the question about whether phenomenology as such ceases with the analysis of the directly self-given essences of things, and, while it would not exclude or oppose speculation transcending the immediately given, such speculation would no longer deserve the description 'phenomenology.' With regard to this point, it must be said that certainly the specific genius of the methodic and systematic 'phenomenological' exploration of the self-given nature of things cannot be equally applied to objects which are accessible only by means of speculative thought which soars beyond the self-given and seeks to capture what is hidden from our direct grasp. This is true, in different ways of course, of the knowledge of material substances, immortality, eternity, infinity, pure justice, and of other objects which transcend immediate experiential self-givenness. It cannot be denied that these objects are not self-given in our experience so as to stand open to a direct phenomenological grasp. Nevertheless, not only material substance as foundational of all material qualities we perceive, but even the mysterious and hidden 'absolute being' imposes itself upon our minds, as could be shown by a properly phenomenological metaphysics; we grasp its objective essence, relation to the world, and essential attributes in their necessity through insight that discovers being. Also, the speculative thought which proceeds more indirectly and creatively must be wholly supported by receptive insight in order to be valid. Whereas the intelligibility of immortal life, of 'justice itself,' 'beauty itself,' and above all of the absolute divine being as the ONE who IS these attributes and in whom all immutable predicates are grounded does not directly present itself in our experience, it can only be grasped by means of a faithful attending to the given. There is a speculative form of discovery that starts from experience but opens itself out to transcendent or even infinite objects which lie beyond the scope of all immediate experience. The intelligibility of those objects is mediated through other more directly given natures which are understood to be analogous to them. Further analysis would reveal here a certain mode of mediate self-givenness the exploration of which could still be called phenomenology which reads the given nature in specula. While much furtAer analysis would be required to

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' elucidate this 'speculative phenomenology,' it is clear that the phenomenological analysis of the given must not exclude but rather demands going beyond the given whenever the given beings themselves lead us beyond themselves. Think, for example, of meditating on the nature of time, and of the way in which such an attentive philosophical reflection on time led both Plotinus in Enn., VII, 3, 'On Eternity and Time' and Augustine in Confessions, XI to a speculative grasp of eternity. The speculative grasp of those objects which are known only mediately shares many traits with the knowledge of that which is directly self-given. We must be as receptive as when we analyze the immediately self-given in order to understand that which is not directly self-given but given indirectly through other beings, not positively through what it is in itself but negatively in the mirror of its own opposite. To stay with the image of the mirror: the analysis of whatever a mirror reveals about what lies beyond itself also demands extremely careful attention to what things themselves, by mediation of their images, tell us. Finally, the problem of the relationship between phenomenology and faith is as difficult to answer as the preceding questions. Does human faith with its elements of trust and love, and religious faith go justification in the 'given'? Or does an act of trust and faith go totally beyond anything which could be 'given'? Moreover, do both human faith with its element of trust and love, and religious faith go entirely outside the sphere of anything which could be 'phenomenologically given'? Or do both the objects of authentic human trust and love and those of authentic Revelation confront us with a unique mode of the 'given,' the exploration of which is precisely a task of the phenomenological method in our sense. Even if it turned out, however, that phenomenology is an important method for the theologian, the theological use of phenomenology would be quite distinct from phenomenological philosophy. There might also be a very different relationship between faith and phenomenology in authentically philosophical and phenomenological analyses of necessary essences of religious contents. We will not pursue these aspects of philosophy of religion and of theology here. 32 The notion of 'speculative knowledge' used here needs some further explanation. By this term, we refer to that type of knowledge in which we understand a reality that is not directly given in our experience. By means of analogies, logical inferences (which 68

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are themselves often based on analogies), and the like, we try to understand a being which is not itself given. As has been mentioned, this mode of speculative knowledge can easily seduce us into engaging in constructions and unfounded assertions that are a result of an unwarranted going beyond what is disclosed to us by 'things themselves. ' What has been said so far in response to the first basic question also answers the second one concerning the alleged hostility of phenomenology to speculative metaphysics and religion, i.e., the alleged coinciding of phenomenology with some form of positivism and atheism. Since we shall address the third question in depth, we can make some general statements here. As long as belief is justified by the given, Husserl's radical restriction of phenomenology to the apodictically certain, and his exclusion of all things known to us by belief, violates the maxim of the phenomenological return to things themselves. As Descartes failed against this principle in his quest for absolute certainty alone, in his exclusion of many things because they are less than apodictically certain, so Husser! failed against the principle he had chosen as his own maxim. And he did so much more grievously. For Husser! went radically beyond the Cartesian doubt and dogmatically decided that the world of real beings which the naIve consciousness has to accept in some world-belief, ought not as such be considered an object of philosophy. But why not? Why is faithful attending to the 'given' not compatible with close attention to those 'givens' without which sense-perception, world, love, and so on, cannot be conceived at all, without which their given nature, namely, as real beings, is wholly obscured? On this point Husser! has fallen prey to a rationalism which is not only wholly unfounded in terms of the maxim 'back to things themselves,' but which indeed flatly contradicts it. We shall return to this point at length. In the following chapter the question will be asked whether epoche is an appropriate methodic device for achieving the return to 'things themselves.' On the answer to this question will depend the answer to the central question of this work: Are the things in themselves of the 'really real' world given to us? Is it possible to analyze the essences which are found in, and determine, the real world? Is a phenomenological realism thus possible or is it a contradiction in terms? Moreover, does the grasp of real beings and

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of other objective entities (ideal beings) presuppose some faith and trust or is it possible to know, besides objective essences, at least some real beings with indubitable knowledge? The possibility of certain knowledge about objective essence and existence of thingsin-themselves is decisive for the possibility of philosophy as episteme and scientia in the classical sense of these terms. Suffice it to say this here: the maxim 'back to things themselves' must certainly in no way be interpreted from the outset as a verdict which would force the phenomenologist to abandon any metaphysics of the really real world of things in themselves. Only 'things themselves' can decide whether things in themselves or mere app~arances are given to us. Only 'thing themselves' could render it clear that any realism and any metaphysics of autonomous being is a construction, and that it is impossible to reach a being which lies beyond the self-produced spiderwebs of human thought (Nietzsche) and to attain objective essential principles. Only when an examination of all forms of evidence results in the conclusion that evidence never extends to things in themselves but to appearances only, or to noemata which are constituted correlates of noesis (consciousness) - only then is it justified to dismiss 'phenomenological realism' as naIve and impossible. Only then would it be justifiable to abandon metaphysics as a study of being itself (of being qua being) in the name of a return to 'things themselves.'

7 PHENOMENOLOGY FACED WITH HISTORY, LANGUAGE, AND THE SOCIAL: IS 'PHENOMENOLOGICAL REALISM' NAIVE? When a philosopher's thought becomes the object of debunking criticism or when he himself becomes the object of reproach and 'philosophical name-calling,' he should not immediately feel and plead guilty but should examine the weight and justification of such a reproach. Unfortunately, most of us who teach philosophy today are so afraid of being called naIve that we fail to ask whether there might be some merit in being naIve and whether no worse dangers may befall the philosopher than that of having preserved a direct and unperturbed outlook on reality which we admire as the naIvete of the child. We even fear the reproach when it directs itself not against the refreshing childlike quality of naIve immediacy of access

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to things, coupled with an absence of critical distance from one's own judgment, but when it is applied to critical, yet realist, philosophical knowledge. Lest such hypersensitive fears of being found naIve deter us from the objective inquiry into truth, let us examine with greatest objectivity whether the approach proposed here is culpable of naIvete in any illegitimate sense of the term. The most common form of this reproach is the charge that phenomenological analyses of efde and, particularly, an objectivist and realist interpretation of eidetic structures, naIvely seek to transcend the historical context and perspective in which all human thinking is situated. What else but naIve Platonism could prompt a man to believe that he can reach the timeless and objectively necessary essences of things? How can the subject so radically forget itself as to be convinced that it can find itself confronted with a world of pure objectivity? How could it claim to perform the mystical act, the miracle of attaining the timeless in the midst of time? Cannot such a mystical participation in the transhistorical, such a transcendence of history, be claimed only by someone who completely forgets his condition of being human, his situation in history and time? How can we forget the historicity of human thinking as well as all the linguistic, social, and historical conditions under which it occurs? Thinkers as Hegel and their followers, Marxists and Hegelians alike, would remind us (with Erich Heintel, for example), of the impossibility of attaining an 'unvermitteltes Unmittelbares' (an unmediated immediate); instead, human thinking in history is always restricted to a 'vermitteltes Unmittelbares,' i. e., to a grasp of things mediated through our time and the historical conditions and limitations resulting from a particular phase in world history and in the historical unfolding of the spirit. While Hegel still sought to transcend this historicity of all human thought by claiming to reach the highest stage of the 'absolute spirit' which would manifest itself in the 'absolute system,' after Kierkegaard, and in view ofthe fact that Hegel's complete 'system of absolute knowledge' remained unfinished, even the boldest Hegelians became cautious in putting forward such claims and only 'naIve Marxists' still believe that the ideology of the proletariat coincides with the 'absolute truth.' (Apart from this, it would be very doubtful whether either the philosophy of Hegel or that of Marx-Engels avoids a radical historical relativism - in spite of their claim to absoluteness. For how can 71

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the changing 'spirit of the time,' when it expresses itself in Hegel, or the 'class-ideology,' when it is that of the proletariat, suddenly become 'absolute truth'? The suggestion, implicit in Hegel and Marxism, that their relation to history is radically superior to that of their predecessors is most implausible. Moreover, the grounds for such a superiority offered by Hegel and Marxism are unconvincing.) Thinkers today like those who belong to the hermeneutical school initiated by Heidegger and Gadamer, would remind us of the constantly shifting historical perspectives and horizons, in which thought develops analogously to a game whose rules are never ahistorical or of a fixed eternal structure. One central theme of modern philosophy since Hume and Kant is that human reason is determined by subjective conditions foreign to objective and timeless truth. Whether through language-games, social conditions and milieu, religious belief, philosophical faith, or economic factors which expose all metaphysics to the suspicion of being ideology, we are confronted in a thousand forms with the basically relativistic objection that any claim to absoluteness and indubitability of knowledge of truth is vain and naIve. Can we defend ourselves against this objection which, if it were conceded, would certainly find us guilty - not of the positive virtue of immediacy of contact with things but of a serious error which indefensibly ignores human limitations? A first reply to this charge, answered more fully elsewhere,33 is based on the distinction between the cause and the condition of something. Let us recall the important answer Plato gives to materialism in the Phaedo, where Socrates describes his 'second navigation' (beautifully interpreted by Giovanni Reale as the center of Platonic philosophy).34 Confronted with various pre-Socratic and materialist explanations of his actions, Socrates distinguishes the role of his body and brain as the condition without which his action would not take place, from the reason and cause of his action of remaining in prison which stems from knowledge, reason, and freedom. Similarly, there is obviously a central difference between conditions without which our knowledge would not take place and real or alleged causes of knowledge. On closer al)alysis it would become evident, moreover, that our cognition has origins, and is engendered by intentional objects in a way that differs from efficient causality altogether. This type of 72

Rethinking Husser/'s maxim rational engendering by which being manifests itself to spirit is radically falsified if one looks for 'causes of ideas,' and especially if one identifies these 'causes' with physiological processes. Only false ideas can have more direct efficient 'causes,' precisely because they are not rationally engendered by the intelligibility of things themselves. There is a difference between parents and teachers leading a child to learn and to understand the basic truths of arithmetic or of ethics, and the function of milieu in producing in a child the wrong idea that 'women are worth nothing' or that 'stealing without being caught' is the highest ethical ideal. For obviously, without parents and teachers, a normally gifted child (unlike the young Pascal who discovered many Euclidean axioms and propositions on his own), would not come to understand even a few of the most basic truths of numerical relationships - the difference between odd and even numbers, prime numbers, their infinity, the laws governing triangles, and the like. Analogously, without educators, a child may not understand the disvalue of stealing or lying. But all material, social, and historical conditions of understanding things certainly do not 'produce' mathematical or ethical facts. Though they are indispensable conditions in history and environment on which our knowledge to some extent depends, it would be inadmissible to claim that this undeniable fact gives proof that the objects of this knowledge depend on these historical conditions, and are only fictions produced by them. It would likewise be unjustified to assert that the historical conditions are causes which, on their own strength, could produce true knowledge of the things mentioned, as if it were an irrational belief, rather than a rational participation in the things themselves which teachers and history reveal to us. Perhaps it will be objected that our 'naIve distinction' applies only to such 'trivialities' as elementary mathematical and ethical facts and laws. Yet at different times men hold entirely different beliefs in regard to all basic ethical and metaphysical issues. And they possess no rational or cogent arguments with which to justify the side they take in such disagreements. 'Knowledge' in these spheres, therefore, is relative to historically changing factors and ideas. Let us briefly examine this objection. It cannot be reduced to the following easily refutable argument: 'Men at different times and in different societies hold entirely different opinions about things such as basic issues of morality and metaphysics.' 'Whenever there are, 73

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' at different times and in different societies, conflicting opinions about things, these things are relative to changing historical perspectives.' 'Therefore, basic issues of morality and metaphysics are relative to changing historical circumstances.' (This argument would be valid but not sound because the second premiss is obviously false. People also held that the earth is flat, etc., and yet no reasonable man would hold such things to be mere matters of historical opinion.) Rather, the argument would use at least two additional thoughts. It would claim relativity of a position to changing historical opinions only where there are no objective (intersubjectively verifiable) evidences to support one of various conflicting positions. Secondly, the argument would restrict the claim of historical relativity to such cases in which a rational settlement of the dispute (through logical proof or sense-perception) is impossible. The contention of such a historical relativism could be supported by the observation that there are indeed radical differences of opinion regarding almost everything important in human life. These disputes cannot be settled definitively through rational arguments. It seems hard to explain this fact, and still to hold an objectivist position, without being pharisaical or presumptuous. For any claim to know things which other intelligent people reject, without offering cogent evidences to them which lead to general consent, appears to imply the presumption that either one's own historical or individual conditions are more favorable to the knowledge of truth than those of others, or that our personal intellectual capacities or moral excellencies of character excel those of even the greatest geniuses who contradicted our views. To explain the fact of disagreement except by subjectivity of knowledge seems thus naive or shamelessly arrogant. Yet this alternative is not complete insofar as it overlooks, first of all, that it is not presumptuous but humble to accept the things we see, and we deal with them rather than with ourselves when we know and are convinced; and secondly, that the acknowledgment of differences in conditions for philosophical knowledge does not imply a vain judgment on our superiority but refers to a fact which all of us recognize in countless examples. Is it presumptuous, or does it even include any claim or moral superiority when we regret the fact that a friend makes an entirely foolish decision from which common sense has preserved us? Is it pride which leads Monsieur

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Rethinking Husser/'s maxim Poi rot to recognize that a brilliant yet criminal doctor of medicine is indeed a murderer and fails to observe standards of justice? The greatest philosophers have recognized that there are methodological, intellectual, and moral conditions of philosophical knowledge which Socrates describes in the Republic, Books VI and VII in such terms that one gets the impression that no philosopher adorned with such extraordinary virtue and dedication to the truth as Socrates ascribes to the philosopher has ever lived. Max Scheler and many others have emphasized the countless intellectual and moral obstacles to true philosophizing. The attempt to free ourselves from them in order to be enabled to do what every thinker achieves to some degree, namely to grasp reality, is in no way presumptuous. Moreover, even if there is a great and well-nigh magic power which social and historical trends have on our thought, because man - as z60n politik6n - wishes to live in agreement with others, man can resist such pressures. The influence of society and history on us does not completely blind us, nor are we unable to break out of the spiderwebs of the historically formed world-view in which we live. We can return to things themselves. The evidence of any insight proves this. Any insight into, or understanding of, the simplest matter, for example, of logically correct and incorrect forms of reasoning, bears witness to the fact that in principle man can know truth which is not dependent on subjectivity but is objective. In the present context, let us stress the fact that at every age men and women - like Antigone, Socrates, Plato, or Thomas More have disagreed with the trends of their time. Moreover, we find an astonishing similarity of conviction among philosophers of all times, while there are fundamental disagreements among people who lived in the same historical epoch. How can historical relativism account for this? Moreover, even men who entirely disagree with this objectivist philosophical position, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, in fact uphold many of those things which we regard as eternally true, even in passages in which they attack the very notion of timeless truth and objective knowledge. Thus the community of those who see the same things (consensus) extends not only to 'friends' who are unanimous but to all thinkers, at least with regard to many points which are implicitly used and acknowledged by them even when they are rejected in theory. The art of the Socratic dialogue consists in demonstrating this latter kind of consensus

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' between even the fiercest opponents and Socrates. As for language, we have already pointed out the manifold positive influence its use and its analysis plays in the mediation of our knowledge of reality. This role of language as embodying a more differentiated knowledge of things than would be accessible to us without its mediation belongs to the mediating function of conditions for knowledge which, as we have already seen, does not in any way contradict the objectivity of our knowledge. Language is a condition for the development of any human knowledge and, as such, enables us to see things themselves. Even when language misguides us, however, by suggesting false hypostatizations and by motivating confusions and prejudices, the possibility of freeing ourselves from these is proof of the ability to transcend linguistic meanings towards things themselves and to take a critical distance from language when it conflicts with reality. It is not possible here to develop a full philosophy of history and to critique, for example, Scheler's later development of a Wissenssoziologie, which in fact denied the ability of a transcendence to things themselves in knowledge. In Part II, Chapter 5 of this work, however, a positive analysis of the transcendence of knowledge to 'things themselves' and a critique of some interpretations of epoche will complete our reply to the present objection and bring to evidence the fully critical character of a realist philosophy as one which is not subject to undifferentiated and unfounded prejudices but which goes to the roots of all intelligibility necessarily presupposed even by any transcendental or historicist position.

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2

CRITIQUE OF EPOCHE

In the context of investigating the claim that only transcendental phenomenology rigorously carries out the program of a 'return to things themselves,' we have to examine critically Husserl's thesis that epoche is a universal and necessary principle of any phenomenological philosophy. Of the many meanings inherent in the ambiguous notion of epoche we shall have to pay close attention to the following two in particular: that of 'bracketing' (or putting in parentheses) existence and that of keeping in suspense any transcendent validity of our knowledge-claims. When the philosopher puts the real existence of the world, or better the Realgeltung, i.e., the (objective) reality-claim of the world's existence, in brackets, does he really reach 'things themselves'? Still more fundamental is the question: can only a philosophy which 'brackets' not merely the transcendent reality of the world's existence as thing-in-itself (while acknowledging a 'real world' as a reference point of noesis), but which also brackets any transcendent, intrinsically timeless, autonomous status of eidetic laws (not relative to consciousness), return to 'things themselves'? Even if the notion of epoche did become freed of all the ambiguities which actually attach to it, and if Husserl's views on the methodological foundation of philosophy in epoche wexe in fact to turn out to be correct, one thing is clear. It is precisely and only the analysis of 'things themselves' which can enable us to know whether or not epoche is indeed the sole or even the proper methodic instrument that can guide us back to 'things themselves.' For only by going back to the 'things' which constitute the subject-matter of 77

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our investigation can we discover methods appropriate for their exploration. To proceed in this way alone is also precribed by Husserl himself when he states the 'principle of principles' of phenomenology that we have discussed before. This principle, broadly conceived, applies to all modes of knowledge. Only the objects of our knowledge (inasmuch as they are already known to us in a pretheoretical, prescientific, and prephilosophical manner prior to any theoretical exploration of them) can provide clues for the determination of the methods which are proper to their investigation. This important principle (recently enunciated in Hans Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method) is increasingly recognized by members of various disciplines and is opposed to any reductionist attempt to explore all objects with one and the same type of scientific method. Such a 'monism' of method can be regarded not only as evidently false but also as generally outdated today. Phenomenology in general and Husserl's Logical Investigations in particular (especially Investigation VI and the concept of the 'categorial intuition') contributed to an elucidation of this point. In view of Husserl's acute awareness of the danger of imposing illsuited methods on objects, it is indeed surprising to find Husserl introducing epoche as a universal method of (phenomenological) philosophy without a preceding investigation into the objects of philosophy that would justify this. In the sense in which Husserl used it first (as in 'Seefelder Gespriiche'), epoche designated a prescinding from the existence of objects in order to concentrate on their 'pure' essence. Given the fruitfulness of Husserl's phenomenological essential analyses, Husserl's assumption of the fruitfulness of epoche as a universal method of phenomenology is perhaps easier to understand. But such plausibility does not apply to his radical understanding of epoche (already defended in 1905-7) as implying not only a prescinding from, and suspension of, the natural belief in the real autonomous existence of the world, but also an exclusion (Ausschaltung) of all transcendent validity of any (real or ideal) object of consciousness. Let us cite a text: bei jeder erkenntnistheoretischen Untersuchung, sei es dieses oder jenes Erkenntnistypus, ist die erkenntnistheoretische Reduktion zu vollziehen, d.h. aile dabei mitspielende Transzendenz mit dem

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Critique of epoche Index der Ausschaltung zu behaften, oder mit dem Index der Gleichgiltigkeit, der erkenntnistheoretischen Nullitiit, mit einem Index, der da sagt: die Existenz aller Transzendenzen, ob ich sie glauben mag oder nicht, geht mich hier nichts an, hier ist nicht der Ort, drauber zu urteilen, das bleibt ganz aus dem Spiel.

(Then we arrive at a sufficient and complete deduction of the epistemological principle that) an epistemological reduction has to be accomplished in the case of every epistemological inquiry of whatever sort of cognition. That is to say, everything transcendent that is involved must be bracketed, or be assigned the index of indifference, of epistemological nullity, an index which indicates: the existence of all these transcendencies, whether I believe in them or not, is not here my concern; this is not the place to make judgments about them; they are entirely irrelevant. (I would translate this last clause: 'this whole issue does not enter' J.S.) In this and in many other passages,35 Husserl declares epoche or phenomenological 'reduction' the foundation of any philosophy worthy of the name. Now it is immediately apparent that such a claim can only be justified if the meaning of epoche is clearly delineated and if, in addition, the appropriateness of epoche as methodological instrument for the exploration of a given kind of object is shown. Prior to such an analysis, we will not be able to know whether Husserl's claim of the universal validity of epoche as a philosophical method is correct or not. Nonetheless, from the very outset of our investigation we must be wary of the uncritical manner in which Husserl may have moved from his ideal of a philosophy which returns to 'things themselves' to the notion of a phenomenology according to which any return to 'things themselves' absolutely needs to rest upon epoche, which alone would allow for eidetic analyses of essences or for any philosophical knowledge. Any mere assertion that this mayor may not be the case would certainly be uncritical.

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DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF EPOCHE, IDEATION, AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION

In order to examine this question, let us first investigate the different meanings of epoche. Such an investigation is a necessary prerequisite for any inquiry into the question of whether or not epoche, phenomenological reduction, or ideation is the valid starting point for phenomenological philosophy as a philosophy which should lead us back to things themselves. We cannot unfold here the entire range of meanings which Husserl expresses at different times by means of the word epoche. Instead, we shall content ourselves with considering here only the most important of these meanings.

(i) The first sense of epoche (eidetic reduction)

The most obvious meaning of 'phenomenological reduction' or of epoche, one which played a great role in the work of the Munich (realist) phenomenologists as well as in that of Husserl, and which constituted to some extent the starting-point of the phenomenological method, is the following. When we grasp an essence and the necessary essential laws grounded in it (Wesenheit and Wesensgesetze), then we may do so while 'bracketing' the existence or the question of the real existence of the given essence. In other words, even if (or should we say: only if?) we prescind from the issue ofthe real existence of the being in question, even if we regard this being as possibly a mere product of our dreams, the 'pure essence' (Wesenheit, Idee) of the given object becomes visible. Husserl made this point quite clearly in Ideen, in the context of distinguishing Realwissenschaften (empirical sciences of the real world) which gain cognition that depends on observation of existing facts, from eidetische Wissenschaften (eidetic sciences), which grasp the necessary essence (Wesenheit, eidos) and are never dependent on the actual existence of the observed or imagined instances in which they intuit an essence. Hildebrand, in his What is Philosophy? (Chapter 4), and other realist. phenomenologists justified more rigorously such eidetic intuition and eidetic reduction, as we have seen and shall see later. It is not easy to determine whether Husserl and other early 80

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phenomenologists held that it is in spite of or because of epoche that the analysis of the essence of a thing is possible. It is likewise difficult to say which of these two possible interpretations of epoche is actually true with respect to the knowledge of essences. The answer to the second (thematic-systematic) question which concerns us here has to be differentiated with reference to the kind of object we consider. If our essential analysis refers to any concrete entity regardless of how contingent its individual nature or the type of nature it embodies, the following applies. In spite of prescinding from the real existence of such objects, we can nevertheless know their essence at least as mere 'possibility' of an essence and with regard to those aspects of it which are apparent (excluding, e.g., the 'hidden' constitutive nature of it). There is even a sense in which the a priori knowledge of necessary essences and essentially necessary facts, where we no longer encounter contingent such-beings but immutable necessary ones, is possible not because but although we prescind from the real existence of the entities and examples which serve us as starting points and illustrations. It is at first sight a surprising fact that I can proceed from a concrete instance of matter, will, guilt, etc., and nevertheless know the universal essence of these entities - an essence which is valid both for all my future or possible experiences of such objects and for all these objects themselves, whether they exist in the real, or were to exist in any possible world. 36 This surprising fact, which lies at the origin of the problem of reminiscence in Plato's Meno and of the problem of a priori knowledge as it appears since Kant, manifests itself with especial clarity in the knowledge of 'synthetic a priori truths' which constitute general essential 'forms' of absolute necessity that dictate their laws (Wesensgesetze) to all past, present, and future beings which partake in them in this real or in any possible world. For example, when I grasp the essence of guilt when I read the description of the (fictional) crime of Raskolnikov, I know that the essential moments of guilt (its unique disvalue, disharmony, relation to freedom, to responsibility, to conscience, etc.) apply not only to the world of Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, but to any real and possible instance of guilt. We know that the irreducible datum which we call 'personal guilt' cannot and could not exist, anywhere and at any time, without implying freedom and the other moments which form part of it. Again, Husserl emphasized this point not only in the Logical Investigations but also 81

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in Ideen (Ideas) (§ 3-9) although in this work he destroys the very basis for these assertions which can solely be justified in terms of a realist conception of the objectively necessary (the chreon) - as will become clear. Astonished by the possibility of such knowledge of the essence of something, we say that we know the universal nature of a given being although we prescind from the real existence of the one instance (and all other instances) in which we encounter it in experience. This is surprising indeed. For in most cases of essential knowledge (i.e., of 'morphic unities' or of accidental such-being unities) it is solely by means of an investigation of existing examples of a given species (lions, wolves, etc.) that we can know a general essence. Indeed, the observation of existing beings plays in Realwissenschaften a foundational role for the cognition of essences, as Husserl formulated sharply in the Ideen. Thus, in most cases, the general essence of a thing is not known when prescinding from its real existence but by going through the cognition of a number of existing individuals which are observed under sufficiently rigorous and varied conditions in order for us to know the general nature by some inductive inference. This procedure, which was misinterpreted by the First Vienna Circle as well as by Karl Popper, was very well analyzed by Alexander Ptiinder in his Logik. Pfander showed that induction does not conclude from single observations as such to a universal judgment, but uses the knowledge that the sameness in the observed individuals is due to the nature or kind of being at stake, and from such an empirically gained judgment of kind (species) it infers that other non-observed members of the same species will have the same properties. How can it be possible, then, for us to know the essence of a thing in spite of prescinding from the real existence of the examples of it which served as starting point for our knowledge? Let us now turn to our previous question: do we know a necessary essence because we prescind from existence or in spite of this fact? There are two ways at least in which we know a necessary essence because we prescind from existence. First (and this is often meant by the earlier Husserl) we could intend to say that in cases where we do not know whether the knowledge of a kind or species (which we gain by observing one single instance of it) applies to all individuals of the same type, because the type is contingent, we are nevertheless able to conduct

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a purely essential analysis. As long as we do not claim to speak of the real world at all, we may analyze - even when contemplating one single example of a given essence - the universal essence as possibility, suspending any judgment about the real existing world. Such a 'pure' essential analysis which is possible in each case in which we perform the 'ideation' of an essence, makes sense only on the condition that we prescind from attributing any real existential significance to our claims about essence. When we watch one single elephant, observe his habitat, dissect it, etc., we may speak about its essence and intelligible form. This knowledge does, however, not allow us to determine whether or not all elephants have the same type of color or form, etc. From the observation of one single real elephant no valid cognitive way leads to the certain cognition of the universal species elephant. Similarly, in poetry we may well encounter the intelligible character of nymphs and how they differ from cenotaurs but we cannot know whether such contingent 'essences' apply to any existing beings. We prescind thus not only from the existence of the particular elephant or of the nymph in a particular poem, but also from the question of whether or not the features we ascribe to their essence apply to any existing elephant or nymph. And this applies to all contingent (non-necessary) essences. For here we cannot know any binding essentially necessary laws which we could recognize to be laws to which all existing and possible beings of a certain type must be subject. This is impossible because the 'essence' at stake is, despite its intelligibility, still contingent and could contain other and different moments than the ones which we perceive in a given example. Whether or not the trunk of an elephant, for example, belongs to the essence of the real species elephant, we cannot know by 'eidetic analysis.' Only a possible species or form to which a trunk would pertain can be analyzed while prescinding from existence. Therefore, taking our starting point from one example, only abstraction from existence allows us here to engage in an investigation into (pure, possible) essences. This is not to deny that a scientist may gain a limited intuitive grasp of a contingent essence, or even a subjective certainty about it, from one single observation which 'fits in' meaningfully with the already known nature of things. Yet this knowledge leads to conjectures which are open to future falsification, or to inductive inferences which await experimental verification. This cannot be achieved through induction conceived as a formal logical

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inference, to which indeed Popper's critique of induction would apply, but only through a material logical inference which is based on the rational assumption that a given feature belongs to all observed individuals in virtue of their nature. A more serious defect of a 'purely essential analysis' of contingent essences is the following. Any knowledge of a 'contingent essence' which is not based on experience of existing instances is relatively idle precisely because it does not teach us about the real genus and species of things, although such knowledge, in the context of poetry or music, for example, when the character of nymphs of Wagner's Rheingold should be described, attains great dignity and meaning. With such limitations, and in some cases of fully valid knowledge, then, epoche as prescinding from existence is a condition for this type of essential knowledge of contingent (morphic) essences. (By 'morphic essences' we mean those essences which possess inner meaningful unity but possess the character of an 'invention' human or divine - and lack absolutely necessary unity of their essential moments.) In quite another sense, prescinding from the existence of observed examples is a condition for the knowledge of necessary essences. For here any reliance on the real existence of observed examples can only lead to empirical-inductive knowledge and cannot justify strictly universal claims. Only the attainment of the universal timeless form itself allows us to know the truth of a strictly universal judgment. Here the prescinding from existence manifests not the weakness but the sovereign power and autonomy of this knowledge which does not depend on the observation of an existing example and which permits us to go in cognition beyond anything that could be justified by observed existing examples. It is also necessary here to introduce some further distinctions within the first sense of epoche and bracketing real existence. (1) One can mean that observation of existing beings is not the starting point of knowledge because it is insufficient to justify universal knowledge of contingent (real) natures or of necessary (and strictly universal) ones. (2) One can refer to that prescinding from real existence which lies in the act of abstracting and grasping of any universal. In the very process of concentrating on the general nature of a thing we do not consider, so to speak, the individual instances of it qua individuals. This applies also to that type of universal know84

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ledge which is gained by reliance on really existing examples in inductive empirical modes of knowledge. Even here, the natural scientist, for example (in contrast to, let us say, the historian) looks at the universal species abstracting from individual instances. In this sense, the process of abstraction implies essentially some epoch£!. (3) One can mean by prescinding from existence (bracketing it) the radical suspension of any link of the order of essence to existence. While this might be called for by some 'purely eidetic analyses' of essences which are qua essences contingent, it is neither necessary nor justified in eidetic knowledge of necessary essences. As we shall see, any radical call for epoch£! in this third meaning within the first fundamental sense of epoche leads to one of the fundamental errors of Husserl's phenomenology and of his conception of the role which epoche is called to play in it. It does not seem to be the case that Husserl, when he spoke of eidetic reduction, had sufficiently reflected on either the exact meaning of 'bracketing' or on the different discussed meanings of 'suspending' real existence. Although he acknowledges Realwissenschaften in the ldeen as distinct from eidetic Wissenschaften, and claims for them precisely a foundational role of observation offacts, he does not sufficiently grasp the significance of the grasp of the autonomous reality of the world for empirical sciences when he seeks to base them ultimately on a foundation of 'pure phenomenology.' And he fails, above all, to see that the manner in which the cognition of necessary essences involves epoche does not in any way imply that it must be understood in the (third) sense of radically prescinding from all bearing on real existence. We ought to realize, quite on the contrary, that the power of synthetic a priori knowledge extending to all real and possible existents is the reason for being able to 'bracket' the real existence of the concrete instances in which we grasp a necessary. essence. Thus we have knowing access to all existing cases of the necessary essence and know that no really existing instance of it can contradict it. In contrast, in the case of purely eidetic analyses of (nonnecessary) purely possible natures any such return to statements about all existing examples of an essence is excluded-and eidetic phenomenology of 'pure essences' here is reduced to a study of 'possible worlds.' In the eidetic reduction (epoche) under discussion here, we find a prescinding not only from existence but also from all those 85

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individual and concretizing moments of the object of experience which do not belong to it 'as such' but only to this or that individual case of the given essence. The 'bracketing' of the individual and concrete qua individual and concrete in order to make the universal eidos and essence manifest is another aspect of epoch€? in the first central sense of 'eidetic reduction.'3?

(ii) The second sense of epoche: phenomenological reduction as

suspension of belief in the 'transcendent existence' of the world

Among other things, a failure to draw the necessary distinctions within epoche led Husserl to a second and still far more ambiguous and problematic notion of epoche as a universal putting in suspense the Generalthese der natiirlichen Einstellung (the general thesis of our natural attitude, world-relation), i.e., the thesis of the consciousness- (noesis-) independent existence of the real world. We encounter here Husserl's opinion that a philosophical analysis of essence is only possible after the epoche has been extended to all existing beings and after the world as a whole has been transformed into a 'pure phenomenon.'38 Now, when Husserl speaks of a suspension of all 'Weltglaube' as belief in the real existence of the world, he does not so much bracket the 'phenomenon' of existence as opposed to non-existence but any transcendent autonomous mode of the world's existence which the latter claims to possess in our natural experience and which indeed constitutes, as we shall see, the reality of the world's existence, and is inseparable from its autonomy. This radical and universal prescinding from existence in 'phenomenological reduction' reaches much farther and is more radical than the first type of epoche (eidetic reduction). For the first type of prescinding from existence (even in its third meaning, expounded above, which might be involved in what St Thomas requires from that abstraction which regards the 'nature absolutely considered' wi thou t reference to any existence) is restricted to a particular theoretical act. In all of these forms of abstraction from existence which are basically already known to Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, the philosopher can fully live in what Husserl calls the 'natural attitude.' He can fully philosophize in the context of a really existing world, the same kind of world the non-philosopher and the non-phenomenological philosopher lives in. While he prescinds for 86

Critique of epocbe theoretical purposes from this or that existence by virtue of abstraction, or as foundation of indubitable knowledge, and while he wishes to proceed to the knowledge of necessary essences, or prescinds for theoretical purposes from existence altogether (if this is at all possible) - he fully affirms the existence of himself, of a world as such, of God, and so on. Husserl, however, arrives at a radically new sense of epoche by suggesting that only a world of 'pure phenomena' in his 'revolutionary sense' can provide the starting point for a phenomenological analysis of essences. In fact, the radically new sense of epoche, of bracketing belief in the real existence of the world accepted by the 'natural attitude,' comes to the fore when Husserl claims that the philosopher should even entirely suspend the objective existence of the empirical ego as the ego cogitans which is part of the real world (ein Stuckchen der wirklichen Welt). The basis for this assumption, which shall be examined critically, is in no way obviously justified. In fact, it will turn out to be mistaken and uncritically assumed, rather than seriously reflected on, by Husser!. Moreover, it will be shown that it is likewise questionable whether epoche in the first sense is the appropriate method for a philosophy that carries out the program 'back to things themselves.'

(iii) A third sense of epoche (phenomenological reduction) A third meaning of epoche in Husserl follows easily from the second one. There are frequently occurring passages in Husserl where the real (understood always as autonomous real) existence of the world is not only bracketed but positively denied and excluded, in the sense that Husserl explains the world as a sphere of pure noemata which are ontologically speaking not autonomous and fail to have real (i.e., autonomous real) existence but instead have a mere subject-relative being and meaning as noemata of our cogitations. In this sense, the noemata are constituted in the sphere of 'pure consciousness. '3'1 As Kockelmans aptly observes,4o epoche ceases in this instance to remain a 'purely methodological principle' and begins to become a 'metaphysical thesis' about the mode of being of the world. This third sense of epoche is the 'phenomenological reduction' in a more specific sense and leads to a further sense of epoche as 'transcendental reduction.'

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' (iv) Fourth sense of epoche (second moment of transcendental reduction)

Finally, we must distinguish a fourth and radically different meaning of epoche. In this sense, the term no longer merely refers to the existence of the real world and of all objects in it (bracketing it in some cases, or universally, or even denying it as autonomous real being). Rather, this fourth sense of epoche refers to the eidetic structure of pure a priori essences as well. It implies that we have to bracket or even deny any claim that the Wesensgesetze contained in these efde possess any objective ideal existence independent of human consciousness. While Husserl's position in the Logical Investigations was characterized as 'Platonic,' Husserl's later view is radically anti-Platonic and anti-realist. Here the very objectivity and autonomy in relation to man's consciousness, as well as the absolute validity of the eidetic laws and essences, is denied - as well as any being and meaning which would not depend on consciousness for its constitution. At least from 1907 on, epoche begins to take on this additional sense, which goes far beyond a mere prescinding from the real existence of things which we accept in 'naivem Weltglauben' (nai've belief in the objective existence of the world). Besides these meanings of epoche, Husserl uses others that are of lesser interest here. 41

2 CRITIQUE OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION AS

THE PRINCIPLE OFTHE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD The limits within which eidetic reduction (epoche in the first sense) is part of a ph,enomenological method have already been discussed briefly and the possibility of eidetic knowledge (and epoche as one of its elements) shall be discussed in detail later. We turn now to the problem of whether epoche as 'phenomenological reduction' and suspension of naive belief in the really transcendent existence of the world is a legitimate moment of the method which uncovers 'things themselves.'42 This element of Husserl's method was clearly inspired by Descartes' methodic doubt. The great difference between Descartes' methodological doubt and Husserl's 'phenomenological reduction' (epoche in

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senses 2 and 3), however, consists in two principal elements. In the first place, Descartes remains quite open to the possibility that there are really and concretely existing beings in the wor!d which are known to us with immediate and indubitable certainty, while Husserl's phenomenological reduction is general and also suspends belief in the autonomous (real) existence of the ego cogitans. Husserl even assumes right away that only this absolutely universal epoche does justice to the fact that it is impossible to justify any real transcendence of the intellect to things in themselves (to a transcendent sphere of being which could not be reduced to noemata of noesis). Moreover, Husser! does not see, as does Descartes, in the sum cogitans an indubitable autonomous reality which we discover, a 'Stuckchen der wirklichen Welt' (as he puts Descartes' view of the cogito often). Descartes, on the contrary, sees with St Augustine that even the most radical quest for indubitable certainty which might suspend the conviction that any being in the wor!d exists independently from our cogitations, must stop at the ego cogitans and that here it encounters reality and existence in themselves with unshakeable certainty. That Husser! rejects this claim can also be established from his praise of Hume's skepticism as a door to critical phenomenology.43 The second fundamental difference between Descartes and the later Husserl regarding their interpretation of the givenness of existence, lies in the former's conviction that even that autonomous existence of the world which is not directly and immediately given as it is 'in itself' (such direct immediate givenness applying only to my own being) can be known indirectly via the evidence of the senses and their mutual confirmation and, above all, via the veracity of God and the impossibility of the 'spiritus malignus' as author and ruler of the universe. Husser!, on the contrary, regards epoche and phenomenological reduction of the wor!d's being and existence as a necessity and as a permanent state of prescinding from, and suspending of, the transcendent real existence of the world. In fact, he believes that only the 'phenomenological reduction' which reduces the entire world and ego to a sphere of mere phenomena, the real autonomous being of which remains doubtful and suspended, can allow critical knowledge and 'pure analysis' of essences, which according to him are the task of phenomenology. As Kockelmans rightly observes, Husser! even denies any such autonomous existence of the world, and regards its 'realist' assertion as a meaningless

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' claim, and thus makes the transition from a mere principle of method to a metaphysical thesis, and, as we might add, to a definitive epistemological thesis as well. 44 He says in effect that any knowledge of an objective autonomous existence of the world (directly or indirectly through proofs) is radically impossible and goes on to say that an autonomous existence of the world is to be rejected. He thinks, however, that nothing will be lost once the impossible task of a transcendence of knowledge to things in themselves is given up because the world of 'pure phenomena' retains, as it were, everything the old 'real world' as object of naive Weltglauben contained, excepting its autonomous existence and transcendence. In introducing epoche (in the second and third sense of phenomenological and transcendental reduction of the world of real beings as given in naive experience) as a methodological principle of phenomenology, Husserl clearly defends a starting point for phenomenology which is - at least formally - radically different from the principle 'back to things themselves.' And Husserl, as far as I can see, never makes a critical attempt to justify this completely different foundation of phenomenology in epoche (except for his explicit rejection of the real transcendence of knowledge as inexplicable and mysterious, and for some other, mostly implicit, motives for his turn to transcendentalism which we will have to study in the next chapter). Thus it must appear unjustified to make the transition from a philosophy which allegedly returns to 'things themselves' to a philosophy which rests entirely on epoche in the second and third sense. For it is clear that only if things themselves show that a return to the transcendent autonomous real existence of world and of ego is impossible, can phenomenological and transcendental reduction be an adequate methodological foundation for philosophy. Yet, even before extensively criticizing Husserl's problematic transition from the 'return to things' to epoche, it should be noted that there are many philosophical theses which are presupposed as a justification for phenomenological reduction. These theses and the methodological foundation based on them cannot, as we have already expressed, in any way make a claim to be evidently justified, as the need to go 'back to things themselves' can be justified. Let us mention some of these theses and presuppositions. To hold that epoche (in the first as well as in the second and third

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sense of 'phenomenological reduction') is an absolutely indispensable part of the philosophical method, and that any philosophy which goes 'back to things themselves' has to follow this methodic device 45 presupposes in the first place that philosophy is exclusively 'analysis of essences.' At least to the extent that eidetic reduction (in the first sense of epoche) is regarded by Husserl as a necessary step in philosophical investigation, he presupposes that ('pure') 'essences,' and not esse or existence, constitute the object of philosophical knowledge. In addition, epoche in the sense of phenomenological reduction is, according to Husserl, presupposed for eidetic reduction. Not only does eidetic reduction concentrate on pure essences and not on esse, but so does phenomenological reduction which precedes, according to Husserl, eidetic reduction. To the extent that (as in Cartesian Meditations) the eidetic reduction recedes into the background of Husserl's interest, the phenomenological reduction which suspends any autonomous existence of the world and of the ego (or even denies it) presupposes that this being as esse and existence is not given to us or at least does not constitute an object of philosophical inquiry. Husserl presupposes not only that essences - from whose (autonomous) existence one prescindsare the primary objects of philosophy, but that they are the exclusive ones. Neither the assumption that essences are the primary, nor the thesis that they are the exclusive, objects of philosophy, however, can be defended without extensive and subtle metaphysical and epistemological reflection. Moreover, even in those texts in which Husserl deals extensively with the problem of the 'objective' and 'actual' (existing) world - such as in his analyses of senseperception and of the mode in which the world as a whole and particular objects are given in perceptual and experiential evidences, retention, unfulfilled and fulfilled anticipations, syntheses, harmoniously combinable experiences, etc. (as in Cartesian Meditations § 26 ff) - his interest in understanding of the actual world as such seems to be subservient to an eidetic analysis of perception as such, object as such, etc. (This-becomes clear at ibid. § 34.) Husserl's analysis of the givenness of the 'real world' moves in the context of phenomenological epoche as suspension of any belief in the transcendent autonomous existence of the world. Thus existence, as esse and as intrinsic actuality of being, seems to be entirely excluded from philosophical consideration in Husserl's phenOf\lenological program which is based on epoche in its various steps. 91

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' If esse, 'to be,' real existence, however, are among the most prominent objects of philosophical investigation, then epoche (both phenomenological reduction as suspension of any belief in the transcendent autonomous existence of the world, and eidetic reduction as a path to analysis of universal essences) cannot be an exclusively valid starting point for a phenomenological philosophy in its attempt to go back to 'things themselves.' For then philosophical analysis of esse and of the world in its existing actuality (i.e., significant parts of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology) would not be essential analysis (eidetic analysis), nor could phenomenological philosophy be reduced to the analysis of the world as 'pure phenomena,' the autonomous existence of which has been bracketed. One decisive task of the philosopher would consist in the exploration of existence, precisely as it is accepted in the 'naIve' natural attitude. Philosophy would elucidate this reality and explore it, with the unique actus essendi (actuality of being), and not exclude it from philosophical consideration. Even the 'eidetic' analysis of esse as it is found universally in every existing being would be eidetic analysis in a radically new sense. It would throw into relief the radical ontological difference between essence and existence, and between entities and their existence. Such a philosophy and metaphysics of existence, which neither employs phenomenological reduction nor eidetic essential analysis in Husserl's sense, would be a crucially significant part of phenomenological philosophy as a true 'return to things themselves.' And such an investigation of actuality and existence would not merely remain - as it seems to remain, at best, in Husserl-a first subordinate step towards a universal eidetic analysis. It would reveal, too, that the interpretation of existence within the immanence of transcendental constitution does not do justice to the existence of the world which gives itself as autonomous, and does not answer (positively or negatively) the fundamental philosophical questions which pertain to the very meaning of existence as such. The entire problem of essentialism in Husserl and the need for an analysis of existence in its irreducible difference from, and correlation to, essence, have been investigated, however, in other works.46 If it were exclusively the universal meaning of to be which would occupy the philosopher, it could still be said that epoche - at least in the sense of eidetic reduction - would be the basis for all phenomenological philosophy, although the meaning of epoche here

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Critique of epoche would be very different from that of eidetic reduction in Husserl's sense. Epoche would not, then, refer to a bracketing of existence and of concrete individual traits in order to speak of universal essences. And yet, however problematic such a mode of speaking would be, one could still say that philosophy uses eidetic reduction in order to get, not at this or that existence, but at existence as such, and thus at the 'essence' of existence. 47 For in such an analysis of esse (existence) the philosopher does indeed abstract from the concrete occurring of existence (as it is found in the world and as it is intended by what Husserl calls 'naiven Weltglauben'). Yet the philosopher would not, of course, prescind from existence altogether. Thus, already under the assumption that philosophy deals only with existence as such and in general, and not with concrete actual existence, the meaning of epoche (phenomenological and eidetic reduction) would have to be radically revised. For Husserl originally implies in epoche precisely a prescinding from existence in order to concentrate on a world of 'pure essences' (to which eidetic reduction leads), and on a world of pure phenomena as it is disclosed by phenomenological, and not by nafve, experience. 48 Yet the experience of existence as autonomous 'real' existence is originally given only in that type of experience of the world which Husserl calls 'the naIve experience.' Husserl believes, furthermore, that the existing world is accessible solely by mediation of the 'naIve world-belief.' And this world-belief has to be radically suspended according to him and its object, autonomous being and existence, can therefore never function as object of philosophical inquiry. The meaning of esse as existence as it is intended here, however, is likewise given in specifically critical, philosophically purified experience. In addition, as will be shown in the context of an analysis of the cogito, existence is given with indubitable certainty in its autonomous actuality 'in itself' (and not exclusively in some unjustified 'belief' in a transcendent world). Moreover, real autonomous existence is interesting for the philosopher not only when it is accessible with infallible certainty in the cogito, but also when it is given in a less indubitable mode which belongs to human experience and which is dependent on an element of trust in the validity and objectivity of our senses and in less than indubitable experience as giving us access to a truly transcendent world. Also this experience of the transcendent world, which Husserl himself calls 'natural 93

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world,' and the existence given only in its objects, should not by any means be ignored by the philosopher who turns back to 'things themselves.' But this is precisely what Husserl himself does, mainly motivated by his attempt to establish philosophy as an apodictic rigorous science. Other motives for Husserl's denial that philosophical knowledge concerning autonomous existence of beings in themselves is possible shall be dealt with later. At any rate, neither epoche understood as eidetic reduction nor epoch£! as phenomenological reduction can help the philosopher reach his goal of focusing on the meaning of existence, specifically, the real autonomous existence of beings. For in the purely phenomenological experience of a 'bracketed world' the datum of this existence does not appear; it appears only in the 'natural' world. Furthermore, eidetic reduction prescinds from individual concretion and existence to concentrate on the universal essence of a thing and thus cannot be an adequate method by means of which we can explore precisely what is distinct from essence, namely existence. While such an investigation of existence as such would indeed prescind from the existence ofthis or that individual object, it would still concentrate on what it means to exist, wherever such existence actually occurs. Such a philosophical inquiry would focus on the unique actuality and interior actualization of being (esse), and how this differs from the essence of a being. If the abstracting from concrete individual existence is still called 'epoch£!,' which undoubtedly it is in some sense, one introduces a notion of epoche which is radically different from eidetic epoche (although closest to it). This kind of epoche could never have led to a total suspending of belief in the real autonomous existence of the world, and even less to a denial thereof, because epoch£! in the sense of prescinding from individual existence in order to concentrate on existence as such would have left the 'natural world' experience fully intact. It would have used this experience as a starting point and would have focused precisely on something which the eidetic· essentialism of Husserl overlooked, and which the radical introduction of 'phenomenological reduction' as starting point took away (instead of having laid it free for philosophical inquiry): esse as such, the real interior and unique actuality of existing. The criticism of epoche in the sense of phenomenological reduction (and eidetic reduction) is, however, not radical enough as long as it objects to Husserl that he overlooked esse as such. For it will 94

Critique of epoche become clear that it is not only the general meaning ('essence') of existence which is the genuine object of philosophical knowledge, but also concretely existing beings and their individual concrete existence. If this point can be successfully defended, both Husserl's treatment of existence and actuality and Gilson's discussion of the general meaning of 'to be' involve a false 'essentialism' and are not existentialist enough in an authentic sense of this term. This is a position which the present author has argued elsewhere. 49

(i) Concrete individual (autonomous) existence as object of

philosophy There are a number of issues which involve concrete individual existence and which any authentic philosophy must face. The question which Leibniz, then Scheier, and later Heidegger asked and regarded as the most fundamental question of metaphysics: 'Why is there something rather than nothing?', can mean many things and could be interpreted as referring to any kind of being and even to possibility. But one meaning of the question is: why does any real being in the world actually exist? (a meaning which is especially apparent when we consider the phrase Leibniz added: 'since it would be much easier that nothing existed than that something is').50 What is the explanation of the real existence of anything? Why is it that all beings in the world did not remain mere possibilities? The question 'Why does something exist?' in the sense sketched here presupposes the positive answer to a more fundamental question which Gorgias is supposed to have answered in the negative: 'Is there something rather than nothing or do we mistakenly believe that any being really exists?' Now this fundamental philosophical question can only be answered by going beyond the problem of what it means in general 'to exist.' This is so because in order to answer the cluster of questions surrounding the problem of whether and why some things do indeed exist, the philosopher cannot prescind from concrete individual existence altogether. He has to show that at least one concrete being exists. Of course, the philosopher qua philosopher (in contradistinction to the man, friend, lover) will not be interested in the individual being whose existence he knows as this individual 95

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being, as Peter or Paul, but as this being and therefore one being which concretely exists. (Indirectly, of course, the philosophical answer to the question about concrete existents refers to any and all of them and thus does concern the individual qua individual.) Another decisive question the philosopher has to ask, and which pertains to concrete individual existence, is not only whether some beings surely exist, but whether we can know for sure that a personal being, an 'I' or 'self' exists. This question is as important as the first one. For if it is true that all material and all living things are like mere 'dust and ashes,' in comparison with the being of the person, the question of whether a person really exists is a far deeper philosophical question than whether just some being (that could also be apersonal) has existence. Now this question has of course been recognized as central in classical, medieval, and early modern philosophy (particularly by Augustine and Descartes); it is central, too, in transcendental idealism especially in Fichte, and likewise in Husserl in whose Cartesian Meditations, for example, this question is dominant in some sense both with regard to the ego cogitans and the possibility of 'solipsism,' and (as in Cartesian Meditations, IV) with regard to other egos, other persons, and intersubjectivity. Yet Husserl does not recognize the fact that neither phenomenological reduction nor eidetic reduction allows us even to pose this question, let alone to answer it. As we shall see in Part II, Chapter 5 (and Part III) of the present work, Husserl's treatment of the problem of knowledge of existence and of things in themselves remains radically insufficient both in terms of the ego and in terms of others. Historically speaking, it is clear that Descartes' cogito, (ergo) sum and the si failor, sum argument of Augustine were meant to answer our first two questions about existence at once. We shall return, in great detail, to this question because it remains the decisive point of contention between phenomenological realism, which seeks to carry the return to 'things themselves' back to 'things in themselves,' and transcendental phenomenology. There are other questions about actual concrete existence which the philosopher must ask and these questions are not less crucial for philosophy than those about essence. No analysis of essences can ever answer them. There is, for example, the question of whether knowledge exists at all, and whether man can know the answer to this fundamental problem of epistemology. This question is entirely different from that about the essence of knowledge and of certainty;

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Critique of epoche and yet, epistemology must also raise the issue of the fact of knowledge and certainty. Similarly, it is not just the essence of freedom (which is, for example, not denied by many determinists such as Calvin), but also the existence of human freedom which is an important issue in philosophy. Can we know not only what freedom would consist in but that we actually are free? No single one of such questions can be answered simply by reference to what constitutes the essence of freedom or of knowledge. Of course, in the case of knowledge there is a necessary correlation between the answers to the two questions. For if we can know what the essence of knowledge is, we can do so only by actually possessing knowledge, at least the knowledge pertaining to the essence of knowledge. Thus, from certain knowledge of the essence of knowledge certainty about the existence of knowledge can be derived. Despite their necessary correlation in the case of knowledge, the two questions (about the essence and about the existence of X) are quite different from each other. In raising the issue of whether knowledge actually exists or of whether man actually possesses it, a decisive new step is taken which leads beyond the knowledge of what constitutes knowledge. This is even more clearly the case with freedom where the knowledge of its essence does not presuppose knowledge of its existence. Here the decisive difference between the questions about essence and about existence is clear, because two philosophers might agree exactly about what freedom is, while disagreeing about whether it exists at all: one could affirm this, the other doubt it. An agreement on what freedom is, coupled with disagreement about its existence, is psychologically possible, and, too, the affirmation of the essence of freedom does not logically imply that of its existence, whether on the basis of laws of formal logic or of material logic. And even while the existence of human freedom is denied, that of divine freedom can be held, as is the case in Calvinism. In view ofthis last possibility, we see that the existence both of freedom as such (whether human or divine) and that of human freedom constitute a decisive existential issue of utmost concern for philosophy. Similar remarks could be made about morality, love, beauty, etc., for in all these cases the knowledge which informs us about their existence differs from that about their nature. The answer to these and similar questions about concrete existence, however, is of no less central impact for philosophy than 97

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issues concerning essence. For it makes a decisive difference whether we know these essences as mere possibilities, intelligible essential plans and ideas - or whether we know, too, that these things really do exist. For, to stay with the example of freedom, without any knowledge of whether freedom (and also human freedom) actually exists at all, the essential analysis of freedom would remain abstract and purely theoretical. Thus the very significance of the question concerning the essence of freedom would, to some extent, disappear if it remained completely uncertain whether freedom does in fact exist. There are many other decisive existential questions the philosopher has to raise: Does the material world exist? Do other persons really exist? What is the type of existence these realities claim to possess? And what are the various modes of givenness in which they are given? Here, certainly, a rigorous method of going back to things themselves must not restrict such knowledge to apodictic cognition but must explore each and every kind and mode of givenness, of knowledge, its validity, degree of certainty, legitimation, etc. Many central issues of philosophy, such as those that have been raised by Berkeley, Kant, Fichte, and many others, Husserl in particular, and especially questions centering on the issues of community, intersubjectivity, solipsism, and also on the foundation of morality, are at stake here. Another crucial issue in philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, and theodicy has to do with existence: Do evils in fact exist? If they exist, can their existence be reduced to that of pure negativity and privation or do they have some positive 'being'? Will the good ultimately triumph in being over evil, or vice versa (as is held by metaphysical pessimism a la Schopenhauer)? When we think of Schopenhauer and Leibniz as being at opposite poles in this controversy between metaphysical optimism and pessimism, we cannot fail to perceive the philosophical significance of this question. It is equally obvious that this question can be answered, and even be posed, only if we know the really existing world and can gain certain knowledge about it. Many other philosophically relevant issues such as that of the immortality of the soul presuppose or imply questions concerning real existence, real life, and so forth. All of the existential issues touched upon thus far (with the exception, perhaps, of the problem of the triumph of good or evil in the world) relate to the question of real existence in the following

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Critique of epoche . two ways. On the one hand, these questions ask about the existence of at least one individual being of a certain kind (knowledge, person, freedom, contingent being, evils, goodness, etc.), and about the possibility of certain knowledge about its existence. On the other hand, they are related to a whole sphere of existing beings (all free agents, knowledge, persons, the external material world, etc.), and thus the establishment of one existing exemplar of a certain kind (one act of knowledge or of freedom) is indirectly relevant for knowledge about all existing beings of the same kind. This exemplary and 'representative' significance of the knowledge of the existence of one particular individual of a given nature (as of one free being and of one act of knowledge) for the entire sphere of respective existents, can be derived from various sources. It can be seen in the case of the cogito, for example, that knowledge of my own being, i.e., of one person, justifies in principle the knowledge each and every person can gain in reference to his own being. There are still other possible ways in which the individual existent being can open the way to a whole region of beings. It may also be the case that knowledge about a whole sphere of existing beings of a certain kind comes at once and is not less but more certain than knowledge about one individual instance belonging to that region of being. This happens, for example, with reference to the external material world, the universe at large, or social reality.

(ii) The unique existential status of the question about 'God' There is, however, one unique question pertaining to individual existence which does not just inquire into the individual being in a quasi-anonymous manner and with a moment of epoche (in another sense) as 'just one being of a certain kind,' as one 'instance' of a whole class of real existents. This unique existential issue is the question of an infinite, divine being. Here the metaphysician takes interest in the existence of one being of which there is and could be one alone. And the concrete-individual existence of this one being is of utmost importance because of its infinite value and, indirectly, because of its foundational role for all other beings. When we think of the tremendous role this question plays in the pre-Socratics and in Plato and Aristotle, in whose works philo-

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sophical theology makes up a central chapter of their philosophy, when we think of the importance which the question of God has in Anselm, Thomas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, as well as in contemporary atheism, we grasp its central philosophical significance. The ontological argument makes us especially aware of the difference between questions of essence and of existence. For different philosophers may agree entirely on the content of the concept of God or on what God is (or would be), if he is, but one might deny and the other affirm his existence. Some, like the earlier Findlay, might assert God's existence as incompatible with the nature (concept) of God as necessarily existing, while others may argue that God's existence is inseparable from his essence as God. Still others might hold that, at least as far as our knowledge is concerned, the jump from the idea (nature) of God to his existence in the ontological argument is indefensible. This entire controversy would make no sense if the absolutely central impact of the question of divine existence (as different from that of essence) were not recognized. Moreover, especially with reference to God's Being, it becomes clear that the question of existence is at least as significant as that of essence. Thus we might feel inclined to say that, while the vast majority of philosophic problems concern the essence of things (including the essence/meaning of existence), issues of real existence are as important for philosophy as questions of essence. Consequently, the validity of epoche as a fundamental principle of philosophic method largely depends on the question of whether or not it is an adequate methodological tool for knowing existence. It has been shown, however (and this issue will be taken up again in the treatment of knowledge of things in themselves), that epoche in the sense of eidetic reduction, in the two senses of 'phenomenological reduction,' or in the sense of transcendental reduction, cannot explore either the general meaning of real esse (to be) or (this even less) the concrete existence of those beings whose existence is of crucial concern for philosophy.51 Thus epoche has to be rejected as a universal principle of a philosophical program of 'returning to things themselves.' Even if epoche is only understood as eidetic reduction in the sense of a momentary prescinding from existence and individual properties in 100

Critique of epoche order to grasp universal essences, it is by no means a sufficient or the only valid method of philosophy. If absolutized as the only philosophical method, epoche will lead the philosopher away from an understanding of central metaphysical, anthropological, and other philosophical issues. Once it has been brought to evidence that questions about concrete existence are crucial issues for philosophy, it becomes obvious that it would be radically false to claim that philosophy can return to 'things themselves' by radically 'bracketing' existence. It will also be argued (in Part II, Chapter 5) that existence can be known with certainty. But if the concrete, real, autonomous existence of the ego cogitans and of other beings can be known with certainty, it follows that neither phenomenological and transcendental epoche (reduction) nor eidetic reduction can be universal moments of the authentic philosophical method. Yet at this point in our investigation we are even more concerned with a strictly methodological point which remains untouched by any material disagreement on whether or not issues of real autonomous existence, as they are banished by Husserl to the sphere of 'natural' Weltanschauung, should be studied by philosophy. For, whether one adopts the standpoint of 'phenomenological realism' in our sense, or the viewpoint of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology, one thing should count as agreed upon. The original phenomenological maxim 'back to things themselves' must never be uncritically identified with a philosophy that takes its starting point in epoche. Although this should be evident, Husserl himself and most phenomenologists who follow him identify a philosophical return to 'things themselves' with the adoption of epoche, and they do so without arguing for such an identification - and, above all, without bringing to evidence its justification. Yet this is an uncritical procedure because any critical identification of a philosophy which turns back to 'things themselves' with a universal adoption of epoche as method would presuppose an extensive epistemologicalmetaphysical investigation which should, in turn, show that 'things themselves' lie open to epoche. In reality, however, an investigation such as the one conducted in Parts II and III of this book, will refute the claim that epoche is an adequate method for a philosophical reconquest of things themselves. In Husser! we do not find, as far as I can see, even a trace of an attempt to render evident that there are no 'things themselves' (accessible to 'naturliche Einstellung') which

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Part I: 'Back to things themselves' would require a method different from epoche in all the senses discussed thus far.

(iii) Critique of epoche as sufficient method for analyzing 'Essences' Husserl's notion of epoche has also to be criticized insofar as it relates to the realm of essences. This is not to deny that essential analysis occupies a legitimate and prominent part within philosophy as a whole. Nor is it to deny that epoche as eidetic reduction plays a perfectly legitimate, and indeed necessary, role within the method of essential analysis. One has to examine carefully, however, the justification and limits, and even more importantly the exact meaning, of epoche as a principle of essential analysis. The first question which arises in this context is the following. Will the mere 'bracketing' of existence or phenomenological reduction in all cases allow valid knowledge of universal essences? Will it be a method sufficient for the specifically philosophical mode of analyzing essences? This question poses itself with reference to the entire phenomenology of Husser!, but especially in view of the famous 'Seefelder Gesprache' (which took place in Seefeld, Tirol, Austria, a few years after the publication of Logical Investigations, II), in the course of which Husserl used the example of beer bottles in order to show that we can 'bracket' the existence of any object, and on the basis of such an epoche arrive at a phenomenological description of the essences of any given object. Now, in the entire context of the phenomenological discussion of formal versus material a priori laws we find numerous attempts to delineate somehow those 'parts' (moments) of essences which belong necessarily to other 'parts', from those which do not. An important attempt in this direction was made by Husser! himself in his whole-part theory (theory of dependent and independent parts), developed especially in the third Logical Investigation. The distinction between dependent and independent 'parts' was recently acknowledged as an important contribution by Barry Smith, and the Manchester Circle largely founded by him.52 In the context of the whole-part theory Husserl distinguishes dependent from independent parts. He uses the terms 'part' and 'dependence/ independence' in an extremely broad sense. An 'independent part' 102

Critique of epoche would be characterizable mainly as a moment of an essence which can stand on its own and, at least theoretically, is separable from (thinkable in separation from) the other moments with which it appears. A dependent part, on the contrary, would be a moment of a being or essence which cannot be isolated from that on which it is dependent. Such a dependence can be one-sided or reciprocal. Barry Smith characterizes this 'universal ontological difference' (Husserl) of the dependence/independence opposition as follows: To say that a content can be presented 'in isolation' clearly cannot mean that it 'can be freed from all fusion with coexistent contents, can therefore ultimately be torn out of the unity of consciousness altogether' (LV, III, § 5) - for all mental contents are inseparable in this sense; all presentations are presentations against some co-presented background or other. Isolability, Husserl concludes, can only mean something like: capable of being held constant in presentation under conditions of absolutely free variation, within the limits set by the nature of the content in question, of all contents associated with it, so that it should indeed in the end, but only in principle, remain unaffected by the very elimination of such contents. Barry Smith (ed.), Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Miinchen, Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1982), p. 38. A content which in its ideally graspable essence or nature is bound to other contents, which cannot be if other contents are not there together with it, he calls dependent (unselbstiindig). With this shift from talk of 'possibilities of separate presentation' to talk of intrinsic essences or natures (intrinsic structures) of the contents involved, Husserl has eliminated from his definition of dependency all reference to the conscious subject, except incidentally - the conscious subject is someone who may potentially grasp by a process of imaginative variation the essences in question. And all the references to 'differences in modes of presentation' have also been eliminated. Husserl has .... moved much more closely to the position of the scholastic realists, to the concept of independence as an objective character of contents capable of existing in isolation from other contents. Simply by substituting the word 'object' for 'content' in this 103

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account it now becomes possible to effect an immediate generalisation of the dependence/independence opposition beyond the purely psychological sphere to apply directly, in reflection of what Husser! calls a 'universal ontological difference' (§ 9), to all entities whatsoever. Just as a presentation of colour cannot exist in isolation from a presentation of space, so a reconciliation, say, cannot exist in isolation from prior disagreement ... Such dependence relations amongst parts correspond, we shall argue, to systems of a priori truths. [In a note Smith adds the cautious remark:] At least some of these truths are, we shall argue, not only a priori, but also synthetic. We do not however wish to rule out the possibility that others may belong to the realm of the analytic a priori as this is delineated by Husser!. (Ibid., pp. 39, 97.) The theory of dependent and independent parts was, in many respects, deepened in the Ideas. 53 Yet, great as Husserl's contributions on 'part' and 'whole' are, they are nevertheless insufficient to elucidate the basis of those essences and 'material a priori relations' and 'truths' which Husser! himself and other phenomenologists, especially of the Munich-Gottingen circle, have discovered. 54 For, as is also evidenced by some very interesting studies by Smith and his colleagues in their recent book on the part-whole theory, which builds on Husserl's Logical Investigations, III, Husserl's concepts 'dependent' and 'independent' lack clarity because they merge into one entirely different ontological and logical relations. The primarily logical-linguistic relation of analyticity by which one conceptual meaning of a term contains conceptual dependent 'parts,' may be what is meant by the term 'dependent part.' The same term can, however, also refer to the relationship of inherence of classical Aristotelian substance philosophy. And thirdly, it can designate the material a priori necessity in which one content necessarily implies another one. These and other relations can rightly be characterized as dependence-relationships, while their opposites may be characterized as relations of 'independence.' What is called 'dependence' in the three cases mentioned, however, is entirely different. When we say, for example, that 'head' is selbstiindig (independent) because we can imagine it as 'something which is in itself' (etwas ill sich Seielldes),55 and because there is 104

Critique of epoche nothing else 'by whose grace it would exist' (von dessen Gnaden sozusagen es existierte) , then Husserl refers to the dependence/ independence which obtains between accident and substance. Yet the dependence of an accident like color on the thing whose accident it is, and which supports it in being (by whose grace it exists) - is by no means an essentially necessary relation. (Of course, the general relationship of accidents presupposing substances, and substances of a certain kind, is essentially necessary.) The relation between a given white color and the being which bears it (a lawn chair) is an entirely contingent relation and the ontological dependence of white on the supporting substance (which is not present in the content 'head' that Husserl gives as example of an independent part) is in no wayan essentially necessary relationship. This, however, is the second meaning of 'dependent part.' In § 7 of the third Logical Investigation Husserl gives one of the most powerful formulations of the objective Wesensnotwendigkeit (essential necessity) that can be known with 'apodictic evidence' (certainty) and is distinct from any 'subjective necessity, i.e., a subjective impossibility of not being able to imagine (experience) differently' but is an 'objective-ideal necessity of not possibly being different.' It is an 'a priori necessity' which, as Husser! emphasizes, is grounded in the 'objective essences' (den sachlichen Wesen) and implies a 'non-empirical, strictly universal lawfulness (Gesetzlichkeit).' No dependence on empirical existence is found here, as such a dependence even exists with regard to the laws of nature (Naturgesetze) which are different from essentially necessary laws (Wesensgesetze) , precisely on account of their dependence on factual non-necessity (contingency). Both Smith and Husser! himself do not sharply delineate analytic from synthetic propositions. 56 Husser! writes: 57 Dass beispielsweise die Existenz dieses Hauses die seines Daches, seiner Mauern und seiner sonstigen Teile einschliesst, ist ein analytischer Satz. Denn es gilt die analytische Formel, dass die Existenz eines Ganzen G (a,b,c ... ) uberhaupt die seiner Teile a,b,c . .. einschliesst. The problematic character of Husserl's view that the difference between analytic and synthetic propositions rests upon the distinction formal/material (content-related) shall not be discussed here (I think that this foundation of the analytic-synthetic distinction is 105

Part I: 'Back to things themselves' untenable)5t<. What is of interest to us here, however, is the fact that Husser! also uses examples of analytical propositions as examples of whole-part relationships, although he claims elsewhere that only synthetic relationships are involved in the whole-part duality:59

Die Natwendigkeiten ... , welche irgendwelche Klassen von Unselbstiindigkeiten definieren, grunden . .. in der wesentlichen Besanderheit der lnhalte . .. Es ist nun ahne weiteres klar, dass aile zu den verschiedenen Arten von Unselbstiindigkeiten gehorigen Gesetze, bzw. Natwendigkeiten sich den Sphiiren des sYllrherischen Apriari einardnen. However, insofar as Husserl also includes analytical relationships in the whole-part duality, he speaks of a necessary but purely conceptually grounded 'inclusion' of dependent parts (partial meanings) in the whole (tne identical meaning of which the meaning-moment is 'part'), as 'every given whole includes its parts.' While at the root of these analytic (non-informative) necessities lies the essentially necessary (synthetic) formal principle of identity in its ontological and logical sense, 6() the single 'necesssities' here are not at all grounded in the respective essences and things themselves (which could have other parts), but in the conceptual unification of meaning-elements in a given concept, and in the fact that if these are united in a given concept they must also be parts of it. Given the background of the fact that Husserl fails to distinguish the three radically different senses of 'dependent parts' discussed, we can appreciate the contribution of various later realist phenomenologists, most of all von Hildebrand,61 in having made the decisive breakthrough which allowed the central notion of 'essential necessity' at which Husserl's analyses ultimately aimed, to be elaborated clearly and to be distinguished from those other relations. This breakthrough had undoubtedly been rendered possible only through the investigations of Husserl himself, of Reinach, and of Scheler, but it must mainly be ascribed to von Hildebrand, whose distinction between necessary and contingent (morphic) essences also introduces an entirely new step of clarification of the phenomenological-philosophical method and of a realist position. In the light of this clarification we must conclude: epache in the sense of 'phenomenological reduction' and as 'ausser Aktian Setzen' (de-actualizing) the 'Generalthesis' (founding claim) of the natural attitude, of the autonomous existence of the world, is neither a 106

Critique of epoche necessary nor a sufficient methodological foundation for philosophy. Only with regard to certain objects is it necessary and meaningful to bracket their existence and Realgeltung in order to grasp their pure essence. That is, this is meaningful and necessary only in those cases in which a given essence possesses its necessity and validity independently of any empirical and autonomous existence. There is only one kind of essence, however, which satisfies this condition and which differs from other 'contingent' (morphic) essences that must be explored, for example, by 'natural sciences.' The essences in regard to which eidetic reduction yields authentic knowledge are characterized as absolutely necessary and incomparably intelligible essences. Only they lend themselves to being understood by insight (intuition) and by deductive proofs based on self-given and ultimately evident premises and essential data. It is only with regard to such necessary essences that leaving out of consideration of existence will indeed lead to valid knowledge of general essences. In all other cases, 'ideation' would only lead to an analysis of pure possibilities and possible essential unities which, however, lack serious scientific or philosophic interest. The contingency of essences of this sort forbids that epoche be meaningfully applied to them. For this reason the difference between eidetischen Wissenschaften (eidetic disciplines) and Tatsachenwissenschaften (sciences of factual nature) that was recognized by Husser!, is not identical with the difference between those sciences which rest on the 'natural attitude' and those which are based on epoche. Instead, the difference is founded on the fact that only in the case of necessary essences is eidetic reduction possible and meaningful, not in the case of meaningful but purely 'morphic essences' (the use of this term in the present sense stems from Jean Hering, Roman Ingarden, and later, in a new sense, from Dietrich von Hildebrand). Because of the essential (and not only existential) contingency of the essences of works of art, cultures, art-styles, characters, the biological-anatomic structure of the human body, the species of animals and plants, waves and micro-particles and the like, these objects cannot be validly studied at all by any science or discipline, except on the firm basis of real existence and of the wor!d as an object of the 'natural attitude.' For these objects and essences are non-necessary, contingent, and the objective 'synthesis' in which they combine various dependent and independent 'parts,' could be 107

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' different from what it actually is. To apply epoche as a method to the exploration of such contingent, non-necessary essences is not going 'back to things themselves' but leaving 'things themselves' and entering an empty sphere of mere fictions or pure possibilities which lack the serious interest that only pre-given essences can possess. 62 A historian of art who did not make sure that the paintings he analyses are real rather than merely dreamt or imagined, authentic rather than forged, would not be taken seriously as a representative of his discipline. The same holds for all other disciplines which deal either with concrete historical realities or with transhistorical species of beings which can only be known through singular existing individual beings. And this is so not because of the specific methodic points of view of the respective disciplines, but because of the very nature of their objects. Moreover, no philosophical analysis of objects such as cows, species of beetles, or the causes of cataract, is possible because these data lack the intelligibility and inner necessity which is presupposed for the validity of eidetic reduction and epoche. We cannot prescind from the issue of reality, bracket the existence of all observed beetles of a given species, be indifferent to whether they exist or are merely imagined - and yet obtain valid philosophical or scientific knowledge about them (except of course knowledge about their nature as being, as living). Many well-taken criticisms of Husserl'~ phenomenology arose among empirical scientists precisely on the basis of this observation, which Husser! failed to make at least when he demanded a foundation of all sciences in phenomenological and eidetic reduction. This criticism also remains in force if one adopts Husserl's view about the 'natural attitude' and interprets real existence of the world as a mere 'givenness' and the naive realism of the 'natural attitude' as mistaken. For even then eidetic analysis remains impossible and one has to rely on the facticity of this 'mode of giveness' of really existing objects in order to grasp their essence. Husserl himself points at this.63 Reinach and, with much greater precision, von Hildebrand developed the epistemological-methodological foundations for necessary criticism of Husserl's conception of phenomenological philosophy, criticisms which are called for by the distinctions which have been mentioned. Epoche must no longer be introduced as a general bracketing of the 'Generalthesis der naturlichen Weltanschauung' but eidetic reduction, and the moments phenomeno108

Critique of epoche logical reduction implied in it, have their rightful place only with reference to absolutely necessary essences. Only when we are confronted with an absolutely necessary essence can it be justified that the radical bracketing ofthe question of the existence of objects (epoche) is activated and we are still led to perfectly valid knowledge of the intelligible essence of objects, and to a knowledge the results of which also apply in the really existing and, in fact, in any possible world. This fruitfulness of epoche can only be explained in terms of the utter impossibility of a given necessary essence being other than it actually is.

(iv) Critique of epoche as methodological principle for the exploration of necessary essences Yet when we are faced with the necessary essences, we can ask several important critical questions about the adequacy of epoche as a methodic moment capable of bringing us into contact with eide (necessary essential plans, rationes). Is it really the epoche as such which is a necessary and complete methodological tool for eidetic knowledge? The following observations call into question the exaggerated significance given to epoche, even for purely essential analysis, by phenomenology. Some of the following reflections can also be found in certain passages in Husserl, but they shall be pursued here independently of him. In the first place epoche is not really the starting point and ground of the knowledge of necessary essences: the sole entrance door to phenomenological experience, for the first time opening up the horizon of pure essences, etc. Rather epoche, understood both as bracketing the concrete existence of objects and as prescinding from their concrete individual marks, is a moment of - perhaps even a result of - insight into the essence of the object in question. Whether the knowledge of the essence in question is intuitive or deductive, epoche is given as grounded in the knowledge of the essence rather than vice versa. Secondly, the experience required for a philosophical analysis of necessary essences is an absolutely unique mode of experience, and of getting acquainted with something. We do not experience concrete justice and then bracket its existence and prescind from other 109

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contingent moments of it by means of eidetic reduction, thus proceeding to the necessary essence of justice. Rather, the experience and datum of justice is only mediated by but not contained in the experience of concrete just acts. We grasp here in a highly rational and cognitive 'experience' the immutable efdos and essential plan of justice which is above and beyond the concrete instances of justice. These are - Plato's theory of reminiscence stays closer to the datum here than Husser!'s theory - merely occasions and examples which allow our intellect to transcend them; they are not sufficient sources of eidetic knowledge if epoche is applied to them. Thus it is proposed here to introduce the term eidetic experience as a new kind of experience and a 'discovering contact' with being in which the universal and necessary efde are themselves given. As has been shown in another work,64 acquaintance with such necessary essences cannot be obtained from a mere 'bracketing' of the general thesis of the natural attitude or by a process of generalizations built upon epoche (eidetic reduction built upon phenomenological epoche), as Husser! suggested. Perhaps out of an unjustified fear of being charged with Platonic realism, Husser! becomes too empirical and Aristotelian in this respect, really finding a sufficient origin of eidetic experience in the natural experience once the various steps of abstracting, bracketing and generalization are applied to it. Husserl hardly catches sight of the entirely new sphere and mode and object of experience at which the philosopher aims. It is not being denied here that 'bracketing' of autonomous existence may be a moment in the process of philosophical ascent from the concrete stream of experience of the efde which are the specific object of philosophical knowledge' and eidetic experience. But in order also to bracket all impurities and distortions which we find in concrete human realizations of justice or love, we must transcend natural experience in a much more radical way than Husser! admits. The philosophical knowledge, then, is some form of ascent to an unchangeable and immutable efdos which - at least in the case of justice or love - is far more perfect than the examples of these realities which we encounter in experience. In fact, the purity of these 'pure essences' exceeds in content, meaning, and sublimity, all possible embodiments and realizations which we could encounter in this or any possible world of finite goods. This has been seen by Plato, Augustine, Bonaventure, and others, far more deeply than by Husser!. 65 The efde or rationes (as also the ideas and ideal 110

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objects which can be distinguished from them) are in many ways quite different from the concrete essences of objects of our experience. There is a certain crude naturalism in the thought that philosophical knowledge attains to necessary essences by just bracketing the phenomena given in our experience - a process which would leave the world as it is and 'Only bracket it. Husserl himself frequently became aware of this fact and expresses it, especially in his statements on eidetic analysis of various degrees and regions of generality of essences. 66 Yet his remarks on this matter are insufficient to take into account the radical independence which the efde as object of philosophical knowledge have from the objects of concrete experience of which we might not even be certain whether they embody the analyzed essence at all - as in the case of ethical analyses. Although in the first edition of the Logical Investigations Husserl certainly intended something like a rehabilitation of the PlatonicAugustinian and also Cartesian insight that the human mind gains access to 'objective and immutable necessary essences' and 'forms' of things which reside as unchangeable 'rationes aeternae' above and beyond individual things, Husserl has not sufficiently explained this eidetic method of getting at these necessary efde. He leaves us with the impression that the essences which the philosopher investigates can be attained by merely concentrating on the essences of concrete objects of experience, while bracketing their existence and performing various steps of abstractive and categorial intuition. This, however, is a radical misunderstanding of the eidetic analysis which Husserl himself often masterfully practiced. It could be objected that we introduce here an Augustinian notion of 'rationes aeternae' which presupposes the whole metaphysics of the absolute and of creation which Husserl had to bracke~, and that a religious notion of experience of the eternal logos, as it is found in Bonaventure, is certainly not conducive to clarifying the purely philosophical method of phenomenology which rests on the 'principle of principles' that Husserl described in Ideen as follows: 67 that every (the English text mistakenly reads 'very' instead of every) primordial dator Intuition (jede originiir gebende Anschauung) is a source of authority (Rechtsquelle) for knowledge, that whatever presents itselfin 'intuition' in primordial form (as it were in its bodily reality), is simply to be

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Yet this objection misses the point that it is precisely the application of the 'principle of principles,' which is a reformulation of the radical 'return to things themselves,' that discloses the nature of the eide and of eidetic knowledge as we have described them. It is not a metaphysical-religious construction but an epistemologicalmetaphysical investigation into the self-given nature of synthetic a priori knowledge of objective essences which shows eidetic cognition from itself to be what it is. The metaphysical implications of these insights for the characteristics of the eide (their timelessness, eternity, and others) should also be examined so as to determine whether the neo-Platonic or the Augustinian or other philosophies of eide are most adequate. In what we have said, we claim, nothing is contained which would go beyond what gives itself. If what gives itself leads us more into a Platonic or Augustinian metaphysics of immutable eide than to a Husserlian pure phenomenology, we must follow the path of the given, regardless of all modern verdicts against 'Platonism' or 'naive realism.' Moreover, neither Augustine nor Bonaventure thought that the participation in eternal divine ideas which they saw in knowledge of what we call 'synthetic a priori knowledge of essences' or that 'divine illumination' was a religious phenomenon or a mystical experience of being enlightened by divine grace. Instead, Bonaventure, for example, insists so much on the complete naturalness of the knowledge of eternal reasons (essences) that he says such infallible knowledge of necessary truths belongs to the essence of the person, good and evil would be impossible without it, and hence even the devil (deprived of all grace and religion) would still possess such indubitable knowledge of eternal truth. Thus, historically speaking, the Augustinian view of illumination has nothing to do with fideism. Yet a full phenomenological account can be given 68 of the facts which Plato and Augustine mention so often: that the indubitable certainty about the object of eidetic knowledge can never be derived from the knowledge of individual essences in things. While we can be certain of the' essence of justice or kindness, an individual instance of friendship with its kindness, or the justice of a friend cannot be known with absolute certainty, as Augustine points out. 112

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Similar things hold for other essential characteristics of eidetic intuition and its object: they cannot be explained through the act or object of concrete experience of concrete individual beings.

3 RADICAL CRITIQUE OF 'TRANSCENDENTAL REDUCTION' (EPOCH£) AS PROPER METHOD FOR KNOWLEDGE OF NECESSARY ESSENCES Epoche in the fourth sense distinguished above, namely transcendental reduction and the theory of constitution, calls into question any real transcendence of human knowledge, as we have seen. The following, and by far the most radical, criticism of epoche as method which would lead back to 'things themselves' is directed against this sense of epoche which also suspends the validity of knowledge (Triftigkeit der Erkenntnis. as Die Idee der Phiinomenologie formulates) of necessary essences. Husserl calls into question as early as 1907 (but even before) the capacity of human knowledge to enter any transcending contact with being beyond the sphere of the noemata of noesis, of the conscious experience. In his Crisis, Husserl explicitly cites David Hume's radical skepticism concerning knowledge of objective reality as a step on the way to his phenomenology. He writes, for example, with reference to Hume's scepticism :69

Now at last it was possible and necessary to become aware of the fact ... that the life of consciousness is a life of accomplishment: the accomplishment, right or wrong. of ontic meanings, even sensibly intuited meaning, and all the more of scientific meaning. Descartes had not pondered the fact that. just as the sensible world, that of everyday life, is the cogitatum of sensing cogitationes, so the scientific world is the cogitatum of scientific cogitationes; . ... The thought was quite remote from him that the whole world.could itself be a cogitatum arising out of the universal synthesis of the variously flowing cogitationes and that, on a higher level, the rational accomplishment of the scientific cogitationes, built upon the former ones, could be constitutive of the scientific world ... Through Berkeley's and Hume's revival and radicalization of the Cartesian fundamental problem, 'dogmatic' objectivism was, from the point of view of 113

Part 1: 'Back to things themselves' our critical presentation, shaken to the foundations. But how is this most radical subjectivism, which subjectivizes the world itself, comprehensible? The world-enigma in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the enigma of a world whose being is through subjective accomplishment, and this with the self-evidence that another world cannot be at all conceivable that, and nothing else, is Hume's problem. For the transcendental philosopher, however, the totality of real objectivity ... has become, a problem, the enigma of all enigmas .... All real mundane objectivity is constituted accomplishment in this sense, including that of men and animals and thus also that of 'souls.' While Husserl acknowledges 'immanent transcendence' of all noemata of consciousness as intentional objects which stand over against the conscious experience and are not part thereof, he rejects 'transcendent transcendence' of objects of consciousness, and holds the fundamental relativity of all meaning and being, including eide and 'pure essences,' to transcendental human consciousness. This justifies entirely Walter Hoeres' description of Husserl's position as 'transcendental relativism. '70 Husserl's 'transcendental relativism' clearly contradicts the phenomenologically given and self-given character of the necessary essences precisely as transcendent to any human consciousness. Adolf Reinach elucidated this transcendence and showed that any givenness of essential necessity qua essential necessity implies a transcendence of man in knowledge from the order of thinking to an order of einem notwendigen So-sein-Mussen (,being-so-bynecessity'), to an intrinsically immutable ratio, as Augustine would say. Von Breda, quite interestingly, charged Reinach during the International Conference, 'Die Miinchener Phanomenologie,' in 1971, with having introduced a form of Augustinianism into phenomenology. Only 'things themselves' can reveal whether this had to be reproached to Reinach, as Breda suggested, or praised. Reinach writes: By contrast, Plato does not start with words and significations. He aims at the direct view of the ideas (Ideen) , the unmediated grasp of essences as such . . . . Of essences laws hold true, and these laws are incomparable with any fact or factual connection of which sense 114

Critique of epoche perception informs us. The laws in question hold of the essences as such, in virtue of their nature (Wesen). There is no accidentally-being-so in essences, but rather a necessarilyhaving-to-be-so, and an essentially-cannot-be-otherwise. That there are these laws is one of the most important things for philosophy and - if one thinks it out completely - for the world at large .... Experience refers, as sense perception, to the singular, to the 'that-right-there,' and seeks to grasp it as this. The subject tries, as it were, to draw to itself what is about to be experienced. Sense perception ... is essentially possible only from some point of view ... With the a priori, by contrast, we have to do with the viewing and the knowing of essences .... Here we are involved with intuitional acts of a wholly different sort ... not only - as is often said - does one need to perceive merely a single case in order to apprehend the a priori laws involved; in truth, one also does not need to perceive or 'experience' the single case. One need not perceive at all. Pure imagination suffices. Wherever in the world we find ourselves, the doorway to the world of essences and their laws always stands open to us. But right here at this undeniable point, the most harmful misunderstandings have set in. What does not, as it were, enter into us from the outside by means of sense perception appears necessarily to be present 'on the inside.' So a priori knowledge is marked as ... something innate .... One corollary of this view is the doctrine of the consensus omnium as the indubitable guarantee for the highest axioms of knowledge. A further corollary of it is the talk of a a priori knowledge as necessities of our thought, as an emanation of having-to-think-so and of not-being-able-to-think-otherwise. But all of this is fundamentally false and wrong .... We must totally reject the idea of thought-necessity being the essential earmark of the a priori . . . . Certainly necessity has a role to play in the a priori, but the necessity is not one of thought. Rather, it is a necessity of being .... The straight line is the shortest connection between two points. Here it makes no sense to say that matters could also be otherwise. It is grounded in the nature of the straight line as straight line to be the shortest line of connection ... 'states of affairs' obtain (bestehen) indifferently of what consciousness 115

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apprehends them, and of whether they are apprehended by any consciousness at all. In and for itself, the a priori has not even the least thing to do with thinking and knowing. That admits of clear insight .... What is grounded in the essence of objects can be brought to ultimate givenness in essence intuition. 71 We shall see that one of the main motives which prompted Husserl's turn to transcendental subjectivism was his negative answer to the problem of the 'transcendence of knowledge' which plays a crucial role from the time of The Idea of Phenomenology (1907). We will return in greater detail to this decisive issue later in this book.72 As we shall see, Husserl, while he overcame the mirror-image theory of knowledge in asserting the 'immanent' transcendence of reaching beyond the stream of consciousness to the noemata and the intentional objects of thought, denied any given ness of the real transcendence of knowledge, i.e., the capacity to grasp mindindependent intrinsic 'things in themselves' and absolutely necessary essential structures beyond all human subjectivity. We shall show that this position is not only self-contradictory but that it also contradicts the implication of the 'principle of all principles' as formulated by Husserl. Not only the self-transcendence of knowledge to 'things in themselves,' but also the absoluteness by which Wesensgesetze (essentially necessary laws) distinguish themselves from any purely subjective necessities, be these rooted in an empirical, social, historical, or in an alleged transcendental subjectivity, are given. One of the most serious objections to Husserl's later philosophy consists in pointing out his failure to unfold phenomenologically the self-given structure of knowledge and the datum of essential necessity. The characteristics linked to necessary essences which refute any transcendental idealism will be shown (in Part II, Chapter 5) to include the following: (1) Absoluteness of necessity as an 'it is absolutely impossible that things be otherwise;' a necessity which is not relative to transcendental consciousness but absolute and independent of any constitution, condition, or thinking. (2) A groundedness in the order of being, in the essence of the object, not in the subject and its inability to conceive of things or to experience them otherwise. 116

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(3) The features 1 and 2 also include the absolute impossibility of any conscious or unconscious constitution of essential necessities even when these refer to appearances such as colors. (4) Indubitable evidence with which these laws can be known as transcendent to our minds. It is this transcendence, which Husserl denies in the five lectures on The Idea of Phenomenology (particularly in Appendix iii), that shows itself here. (5) In contradistinction to the indubitable empirical evidence of our own existence, of our own n6esis and conscious acts, the evidence of essentially necessary laws possesses a luminosity which is founded in the objective supreme intelligibility of the object and which in turn flows from the absolute not-possibly-otherwise of the object that, when perceived, renders possible a unique mode of intellectual insight into essences and deductive knowledge derived from it.

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PART II

THE COG/TO AND INDUBITABLE KNOWLEDGE

INTRODUCTION TO PART II

Our first critique of transcendental phenomenology, and our first attempt to lay the positive methodological foundations of critical phenomenological realism and of any philosophy adequate to its objects, took its point of departure in a reflection both on the meaning of the call 'back to things themselves' and on the proper method for actually achieving a return to 'things themselves.' It was in this context that we also presented a critical investigation into the nature of epoche and into the problem of its adequacy as a principle of the phenomenological method. A second and completely different route can be chosen, however, for a critical examination of transcendental phenomenology. The foundational motives of transcendental idealism in general and of transcendental phenomenology in particular, can be examined critically and the issue can be raised as to whether they justify the adoption of 'transcendental idealism,' or whether the alleged justification of a 'transcendental turn' by no means holds up against closer scrutiny. The term 'motive' is taken here in a very broad sense and encompasses the great variety of reasons responsible for the adoption of transcendental idealism. Some of these reasons are general philosophical convictions and assumptions which, with greater or lesser cogency, lead to transcendental idealism and transcendental phenomenology; others are philosophical problems which seem solvable only by means of some subjectivist or transcendental idealist position; still others are attitudes or personally chosen goals a philosopher has set for himself. 121

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Now, the value and critical character of transcendental philosophy certainly depends in large measure on whether or not some or all of the assumptions which underlie the genesis of this philosophy are correct or mistaken. In order to examine the value of transcendental philosophy critically it is, furthermore, of decisive importance to know whether or not some of the problems which transcendental philosophy undertakes to answer are badly or ambiguously formulated, and whether, once they have been stated with precision, they can be solved on the basis of a realist epistemology and, perhaps, only seemingly answered by transcendental idealism. And finally, insofar as the attitudes a philosopher adopts or the goals he sets for his philosophy are concerned, the question needs to be asked whether these attitudes and goals are appropriate and conducive to the philosophical discovery of truth. Thus the plan of the following part of the present book is this: After briefly expounding the reasons which led Kant and Husser! to the adoption of transcendental idealism, the claim of Kant, Husser!, and other thinkers that transcendental idealism alone can solve certain important philosophical problems which any realist position is unable to solve, will be tested. At least some of the problems which transcendental idealism purports to solve need first to be stated unambiguously; and once they have been posed with greater precision and in the way demanded by 'things themselves,' it might turn out that they can either be solved on a realist basis, or that in fact the appearance of their insurmountability disappears altogether. Such questions need to be asked critically, and it is sheer prejudice to believe that simply because Kant named transcendental philosophy critical philosophy, it is ipso facto critical. Likewise, only the prejudiced would hold that the mere fact of Husser!'s attaching the label 'naive' to the position of phenomenological realism actually did make it naive. The philosopher, the man who looks for the truth of things, for episteme and not for d6xa, must liberate himself from opinion and prejudice and be solely concerned with the truth about a critical foundation of philosophy, and he must critically confront the three kinds of motives which have just been mentioned: assumptions (convictions); the claim to offer the only tenable solutions to great problems; and attitudes and goals. What, then, are the major reasons, why first Kant and his followers, and later Husserl, adopted transcendental idealism? 122

3 DO KANT'S REASONS FOR TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY DESERVE FOR IT THE TITLE 'CRITICAL'? 1 KANT'S MOTIVES FOR MAKING THE 'COPERNICAN TURN' (1) In the first place, Kant thought that (synthetic) a priori knowledge, in the sense of an apodictically certain knowledge of necessary and universal facts (laws), is absolutely inexplicable and indeed unreachable for man, if it has its origin in experience in any manner, or if it is anchored in the object of knowledge as it gives itself. For, according to Kant, experience could never give us strictly necessary facts, nor could apodictic certainty about universals be explained in terms of experience. Since Kant was, moreover, convinced, and rightly so, that a priori necessities are not only the condition of the possibility of all experience but that their knowledge (for example, in mathematics) is an indisputable fact; and since he also rejected Plato's theory of reminiscence as well as (more implicitly than explicity) all the other traditional attempts to account for the fact of a priori knowledge (indubitably certain knowledge about universals), he came to the conclusion that the only possible ground for a priori principles lies in the subject. Without offering any strictly cogent argument, he concluded, moreover, that the only way in which the subject can conceivably originate the principles of a priori knowledge, would be by means of some spontaneous activity of the subject: some act or synthesizing activity by means of which a mysterious 'transcendental' - and not an empirical - subject 'produces' the contents of a priori knowledge. Thus the a priori origins and conditions of all experience and knowledge must, according to Kant, lie in the subject; and being, as 123

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it is 'in itself' (i.e., independent of all positing or constituting synthesis of the subject), is totally unknown, and unknowable for us.7 3 (2) Furthermore, Kant was struck by the observation that a priori principles and necessities are not only 'facts' which we encounter in our thinking activity, but are also the laws to which the objects of our experience are subjected. These laws are the conditions of the possibility of all experience, both of experience itself and its objects and of all scientific knowledge, specifically of pure (a priori) science which lies at the foundation of all empirical (synthetic a posteriori) science. No science which achieves a theoretical grasp of the objects of experience would be possible without (synthetic) a priori principles. Consequently, the actual existence of science, especially of a priori science, will give evidence of its necessary conditions, i.e., a priori principles. Therefore, since pure mathematics and physics are of course real and hence possible, and since Kant had demonstrated that science cannot take any step without relying on some necessary and apodictically certain logical and other a priori principles, the existence of science seemed further proof to Kant of the truth of transcendental idealism. Of course, this 'proof' presupposes the first motive for Kant's adopting transcendental idealism, i.e., his conviction that a priori principles and a priori knowledge can only be explained along the lines of critical transcendental idealism - in terms of the subject. Thus the second motive is not independent of the first argument for transcendental idealism, and must be regarded as the application of this argument to the fact of synthetic a priori knowledge as condition of the possibility of science. A distinction can nevertheless be made between the first and second motive in that the first alleged evidence for transcendental idealism can take its starting point in any instance of a priori conditions of experience or a priori principles of logic, whereas the second specifically refers to science and is thus supported by the whole authority and general acceptance of science. (3) Morality, too, Kant argues quite convincingly, requires some apodictically certain and, more important, absolutely necessary, principle(s) at its foundation. The absoluteness of the moral (categorical) imperative, of moral obligations, cannot be accounted for at all in terms of empirical knowledge about consequences or other uncertain modes of empirical knowledge. And this principle cannot

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Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy be analytic-tautological but must be synthetic a priori. Kant thought that such a practical synthetic a priori principle cannot be provided for by experience, for the same reasons which forbid that other forms of 'theoretical' synthetic a priori knowledge have their origin in experience. Now since according to Kant morality (the moral imperative) is an indubitably given, and since a priori synthetic necessities can only be grounded transcendentally, he concluded that morality could likewise be justified only in terms of transcendental idealism. Any other system of ethics (because it could not explain synthetic a priori truths) would inevitably falsify morality, would water it down deplorably in the fashion of eudaemonism, hedonism, utilitarianism, consequentialism, and the like; and would thus deprive morality of its entire seriousness and of the categorical absoluteness of the moral imperative. (4) There is a further reason - according to Kant - why only transcendental idealisms can explain morality in a satisfactory manner. If it is assumed with Kant that causality between two events necessarily entails the concomitant mark that one event follows upon the other in time and 'according to a necessary law,' freedom and morality would be impossible if the world of bodies and psyche, which is dominated (like the whole order of nature and temporal events) by the law of causality, existed in itself. For such a world would, deterministically, have to be conceived as a closed network of causes and effects in which each cause would call for a preceding one; in such an unlimited chain of causes and effects, each cause would depend on a preceding one in accordance with a necessary and general law (of nature); and such a world could clearly not contain any freedom because everything in it would be strictly determined by past facts and by the necessary causal laws according to which it would follow from those facts. Hence, if all of these things are true, freedom and morality can only be saved if they are not part of a world which is inescapably determined by the principle of causality and simultaneously by strict causal laws; but such a totally determined world is precisely the world of our experience as given to our senses and conceived of in human thought. Therefore, only the transcendental idealist thesis that this completely determined world, a world mercilessly dominated by causal laws of nature, is mere appearance, can open up the new world of the transcendental ego and of the noumena in which alone is freedom possible. Only

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Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge the division between the world of appearances and of 'things in themselves' creates the spiritual (non-natural) 'space' of the 'things in themselves' in which space and in which world alone is freedom possible and even thinkable. We understand thus why Kant believes that only transcendental idealism can save and retain freedom. And since morality, and with it freedom (for every moral ought presupposes a corresponding free 'I can'), are most evidently given, Kant infers that the truth of transcendental idealism is further established by morality as 'a fact of pure reason.' (5) This last motive for Kant's creation of the transcendental idealist system of philosophy is inseparable from another one which Kant, in a letter to Garve, claimed was the weightiest reason behind the critique of pure reason: the problem of the 'antinomy of pure reason.'74 Kant held that not only reflection on causality and freedom, but also the philosophy of space and time as the fundamental condition of the possibility of all objects of experience, the philosophy of the divisibility of matter and of indivisible parts thereof, and finally, reflection on the foundation of the contingent existence of the world, lead inexorably into antinomies. Antinomies are contradictions of such a nature that each side of a pair of contradictory states of affairs can be proven by means of perfectly sound arguments, proceeding from indubitable premises. Kant speaks of these antinomies as 'the scandal of pure reason,' because they would constitute an inner contradiction into with human reason falls by necessity when, and precisely when, it applies itself to the said problems. Kant thought that these distressing antinomies, which call into question the validity of all human reason, could be solved exclusivelyon the basis of transcendental idealism. This is perhaps the strongest argument in support of transcendental idealism - in itself, and also in the eyes of Kant. For Kant's attempt to show that human reason leads inescapably to utter contradictions when it reflects on the ultimate data underlying all experience, is powerful indeed. The reflection of reason which, in Kant's opinion, gives rise to these antinomies, seeks the totality of the world, the totality of extension, of division, of causes, of non-necessary existents, and the absolute conditions of these cosmic totalities. If reason, however, is really led into contradictions whenever it seeks these totalities (and not to seek them would be impossible for actualized human reason, and 126

Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy quite irrational, too), then Kant has a strong case indeed. He argues that in no way can these anti nomic contradictions be traced back to arbitrariness in assumptions or to any fault of logical reasoning. They are a result of the very nature and activity of human reason itself and its object: the world as totality. The recognition of such inescapable antinomies must lead the 'dogmatic' nontranscendental thinker either to a radical skepticism or to a repression of certain truths, and to a dishonesty wherein he tries to conceal the force of these antinomies by means of superficial or prejudiced thinking that attempts to 'solve' the antinomies by disputing them away, using stubbornly one-sided arguments. The existence of such antinomies would not only discredit any realist philosophy but would also positively confirm the truth of transcendental idealism. If Kant's firm conviction were right that the only way to avoid or, rather, to solve these antinomies is to embrace transcendental idealism, We should all be transcendental idealists. Kant claims that the ability of his philosophy to solve the antinomies is the decisive criterion (Probierstein) of its truth. 75 . Kant holds that transcendental idealism can solve, in two fundamentally different ways, the four antinomies he recognizes and which he deems to be the only ones. The 'dynamic' antinomies (the third one regarding freedom and causality which would imply that the two are both necessarily implied by, and exclusive of, each other; and the fourth one which would show that the contingent existents in the world both demand a necessarily existent being in the world and refute it) would be solved - and this is only possible by means of the transcendental turn - if one relegates one 'side' of the antinomy (the impossibility of freedom and of a necessary existence in the world) to the world of appearance, while the other side (the contradictory proposition asserting freedom and necessary existence) would apply to 'things in themselves. ' Thus one could also say that these antinomies are, in the final analysis, no real antimonies and contradictions of reason, but only seem to be such as long as one does not recognize, with transcendental idealism, the two radically distinct spheres with which we are dealing here: the phaeinomena and the noumena. The remaining two antinomies (the first and the second one, which both prove and disprove a beginningless time-world and the infinite divisibility of matter), according to Kant, can be dissolved as soon as one recognizes the illusory or even absurd character of a 127

Part If: The cogito and indubitable knowledge spatio-temporal world existing in itself. When this world of our experience is viewed as existing in itself, and when not only space and time (the subjective forms of intuition and sense-perception) but also the categories (particularly causality and necessity) are illicitly extended beyond the sphere of appearances into the domain of things in themselves, then (and only then) we fall prey to inevitable and insoluble antinomies. Therefore, only transcendental idealism, which reveals the character of the world as mere appearance and traces it back to its origins in transcendental consciousness, can convincingly explain the fact that such antinomies do arise whenever we think about the totality of the conditions of the spatio-temporal world. Far more important, only transcendental idealism can solve the antimonies. Even if it does not free us of the inevitable illusion of such antinomies, it explains and, by means of this explanation, solves them by revealing the selfcontradictory character of the illusion of a world which exists in itself, independent from human subjectivity. All the reasons responsible for Kant's position that have been given so far are referred to by him as important grounds or arguments for his position. The first three have their common root in the conviction that a priori principles and knowledge can never be explained in terms of the objects of thought and experience, and on the basis of experience. The fourth and fifth are both founded on the assumption or conviciion that the different facts of the world (causality and freedom, etc.), specifically when they are seen in the light of the ultimate conditions of their possibility, are contradictory. There are two further major reasons why Kant found or may have found transcendental idealism an attractive philosophical position. These reasons are clearly expressed by Kant but he does not explicitly give them as reasons for the development of his transcendentalist position. Still less would Kant see in them any ground for a critique of his positions, as we shall. Kant 'evaluates' these reasons as something positive and regards them as mere discoveries of what is demanded by the nature of human reason or the dignity of morality. (6) Kant explicitly states that all questions posed by pure reason must allow for an exhaustive rational answer that does not leave unexplained apy mystery or aspect of the problem at stake. This rationalistic conviction of Kant, again quite explicitly, rejects any unsolvable or inexhaustible dimensions of the objects of human 128

Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy reason that would transcend full comprehensive rational penetration by man's reason.7 6 Certainly holding to this conviction is a strong motive for adopting a transcendental-idealist position. For if in regard to God, world, soul (the three transcendental 'ideas of reason' in Kant's philosophical system), causality (freedom), necessity, contingency, reality, existence and all other categories, no dimensions of being are admitted which cannot be solved or known to the perfect satisfaction of the knowing subject, then any realist position must be rejected. For, as Kant himself notices, from a realist point of view these objects of pure reason are, despite all their intelligibility, also profoundly mysterious. 77 For an infinite being, to choose the clearest example, which exists in itself, contains infinitely more being and depth of value than any finite mind could ever fully comprehend. If. on the contrary. the Infinite is only a transcendental idea of reason that is wholly produced by reason itself, and for its own clearly definable tasks. then it is possible that these objects of human reason are lucidly comprehensible through and through. This position can. at least, be held with some plausibility. even if the origin of the a priori in the subject may. contrary to Kant's own assumption of the complete intellectual self-transparency of human reason to itself, still be largely unintelligible to us. so that the defense of a subjective origin of knowledge does not yet justify Kant's rationalist claim (as we shall see). This motive for Kant's transcendental turn is certainly. at least partially. rooted in the radical rationalism of the age of Enlightenment of which Kant remained a son. (7) Another motive for Kant's transcendental idealism can be designated as his 'anthropocentric' conception of the world. Kant holds, for instance. that the whole purpose of the idea of God (which. according to him. is produced by human reason) is to serve man himself.78 Likewise. according to Kant. religion can have no legitimate meaning apart from serving man's moral goodness.7 9 And in his conception of morality lies. perhaps. the deepest reason for Kant's autonomistic understanding of man. Man's autonomy and dignity are only preserved according to Kant. if the principle of moral goodness springs solely from man himself. and if the source of moral (as well as religious) goodness of man lies nowhere except in man himself.

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Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge 2 BRIEF OUTLINE OF SOME CRITICISMS OF THE MOTIVES WHICH LED KANT INTO TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

(1) One can easily admit that, once Hume's concept of experience has been accepted, it becomes absolutely impossible to ground a priori knowledge in experience. For according to this notion of experience, we are only given sense-impressions which give rise to simple and complex ideas (they are also the ultimate root of 'ideas of reflection') and these are only unified by rules of association. If experience were of such a nature (we leave it open here whether or not this interpretation of Hume's notion of experience is incorrect, as Adolf Reinach sought to show)!lO it would become absolutely impossible to ground apodictically certain knowledge about necessary facts in it. This notion of experience, however, must not be accepted uncritically, but must, on the contrary, be examined critically. Such an investigation shows that there are very different types or dimensions of experience and that Hume's conception of experience does not do justice to all, maybe not even to any, form of experience of objects. The empiricist concept of experience with which Kant admittedly operates81 collapses totally, however, in the face of absolutely necessary and highly intelligible essences or efde which are objects of a distinct kind of experience. It has been shown by a number of authors and in a variety of publications!l2 that there are fundamentally different kinds of experience. Besides the experience of factual existence and the experience of 'essences' and 'such-beings' which unite their constitutive moments in a merely factual way (albeit sometimes in a very meaningful manner but without absolute necessity of essence, and without grounding strict universal laws that would apply to any real or possible world), there is also another type of datum which is free of any contingent non-necessity of nature. There is an experience of essences which are both necessary and incomparably intelligible in themselves. These essences impose strict laws on the really existing and on any possible world. The intelligible and rational manner in which a priori knowledge finds its foundation in this kind of experience and especially in this kind of object of experience, namely necessary essences, has been shown 130

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elsewhere. 83 Such an experience not only, to use Kant's words, makes 'synthetic a priori knowledge possible,' but it also provides the foundation for knowing, with indubitable certainty, the necessary truth of such propositions which speak about the essence of 'things-in-themselves. '84 Yet, if these results hold up even against the closest scrutiny, Kant's 'Copernican turn' and subjectivistic explanation of the principle of a priori knowledge becomes unnecessary and is, indeed, according to his own concessions, false. For Kant himself introduces the transcendental idealist thesis as a mere transcendental hypothesis and submits it to a test in imitation of similar experiments in natural science; the rationale for such an hypothesis and 'experiment of pure reason,' however, ceases to apply if synthetic a priori knowledge can be explained on the basis of a realist epistemological foundation. 85 If it can be shown that synthetic a priori knowledge goes back to the objectively and absolutely necessary essences of 'things in themselves,' it also follows that Kant's fundamental problem in the context of a 'transcendental deduction' of the 'concepts of pure reason' and of the schematism of 'pure reason' is a pseudo-problem (Scheinproblem), as Reinach has shown. 86 For then the problem of how subjective categories of thought can be applicable to objective appearances disappears because the synthetic a priori propositions refer to objective essences of things themselves and of 'things in themselves,' and are known as such. Thus the fundamental Kantian problem - which re-emerges in Nicolai Hartmann's theory of a partial coincidence of categories of thought with categories of being - does not exist any longer. (2) If a priori knowledge can be explained in terms of its necessary and intelligible object and if acquaintance with this object is understandable in terms of mediation of experience, then the second motive for Kant's adopting transcendental idealism also loses all argumentative weight. For then it may be fully granted that neither experience nor science would be thinkable without a priori principles. But if precisely these a priori elements are known in their objectivity as pre given to any empirical or transcendental human mind, the existence of science and the a priori conditions of all experience do not in any way contain a confirmation of transcendental idealism. (3) Similarly, if a priori principles have an objective foundation in the essence of things, the undoubted fact that they provide the

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foundation of ethics is no longer an argument in support of transcendental idealism. 87 (4) In holding the position that a realist (non-idealist) philosophy cannot explain the compatibility of freedom and causality, Kant fails to distinguish four radically different issues which were discussed elsewhere at greater length. 88 There is first the principle of causality which can be formulated thus: any change as well as any non-necessary being requires an efficient cause (efficient causes) through the power of which it is brought into existence (brought about), and through which it is preserved in being. This principle of efficient causality must be clearly distinguished from the principle of sufficient reason which can be stated in the following manner: each being and each event (whether necessary or contingent, eternal or temporal, immutable or mutable, etc.) must possess - either within itself or outside of itself - some reason or explanation which accounts fully for that being's existence as well as for its essence, and which accounts for each and every aspect of it; this sufficient reason cannot lie in nothing, nor can anything be without such a reason (or reasons) as would fully account for it. The principle of sufficient reason is much broader and far more fundamental than the principle of (efficient) causality. It refers to all types of causes and explanations which are necessary to account for a being. It refers not only to all the other causes (besides efficient causes to final, material, formal and exemplary causes, motives, intentional objects as engendering acts, etc.) but also to the inner necessity of a being which does not need any efficient cause because it exists by inner necessity. The principle of sufficient reason applies likewise to freedom which implies an absolute beginning of causality which can never be derived and explained sufficiently through prior causes outside the spontaneous self-positing and selfdetermination of the free subject because there is no causa fatalis (Cicero, Augustine) for freedom. The person himself, and his power of freedom, are among the sufficient reasons for a free decision. While the principle of causality does not refer to all beings (this would indeed lead to an absurd infinite regress, as Hume and Kant noticed), the principle of sufficient reason is an absolutely universal principle that also holds true for a necessary being and essence, whose nature and existence find their fully sufficient ground of explanation within that being itself. 132

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Again quite different from both these principles are the general causal laws of nature and concrete instantiations of them. These laws refer to particular phenomena (such as gravity, free fall of bodies), and state not only that they need a sufficient and a determining cause, but that one phenomenon 'follows upon the other according to a (general) law (rule),' as Kant put it, misapplying this formulation to the principle of causality as such. In reality, 'causality according to a general law' is only one possible type of efficient causality: the type of causality which makes it necessary for a given being, once certain conditions are objectively fulfilled, to produce a certain effect. This is the causality which we encounter in nature and which is subject to 'necessary' (although not strictly necessary) and general causal laws. (Let us even presuppose that these are recognized as such and not interpreted as merely statistical. ) Finally, all of these really given but distinct data and principles related to reason and causality ought to be distinguished from the merely alleged 'universal causal law' which Kant proclaims - mixing all the phenomena that have been distinguished into one confused 'principle.' Kant suggests that this alleged universal causal law (Kausalgesetz) holds true for every being - at least for every being and succeeding state in time - i.e., that each being and appearance must have an efficient cause which accounts for it and which implies that one state (being) follows upon another according to a law of a kind with 'laws of nature.' This Kantian conception of causality and the mistaken formulation of the 'principle of causality' has indeed the consequence of denying freedom and also leads to the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason. 89 But both these consequences are far from being necessary results of admitting the principle of causality in the context of a realist philosophy, provided that the above distinctions are made. (5) In order to examine the justification of Kant's transcendental turn, Kant's claim that every non-transcend~ntal philosophy inevitably involves itself in antinomies will also have to be critically investigated. If the four antinomies which Kant pr~sents in the Critique of Pure Reason can be resolved on the basis of a 'realist philosophy,' the strongest argument in favor of Kant's position, which is that it alone is able to solve the problem of antinomies, the 'experiment of pure reason,' the positive result of which is supposed to prove the truth of 'critical philosophy', loses its force. Such a 133

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge refutation of Kant's argument from antinomies has been presented elsewhere. 90 It is also shown there that Kant's own transcendental philosophy offers untenable and partly self-defeating solutions to the problem of antinomies. Moreover, in most cases the very appearance of an antinomy in Kant is due to a lack of critical phenomenological distinctions regarding the basic concepts and data involved in the four 'antinomies of pure reason.' (6) Kant's rationalistic claim that pure reason cannot pose any question which it cannot itself answer in a totally satisfactory manner, could also be questioned. Why is this the case? Is it self-evident? Does it not presuppose Kant's idealist position? If so, it is no argument in support of it. Even if we assume that all a priori concepts and principles originate in human reason (or in some transcendental infrastructure of human reason), however, why should man (especially man as conscious individual ego-philosopher) necessarily be able to understand all workings of his own intellect by means of philosophical reflection? Do not men, even in regard to their empirical psychological life, often show signs of gross ignorance about their own minds? Did not Thales of Miletus, the first known Greek philosopher, rightly state that nothing is more difficult than to know oneself? On what basis, then, could it be asserted that if the world and the transcendental questions have their origin in some hidden non-experienced layers of the ego, this necessarily implies that these questions are fully and exhaustively understandable and answerable by human reason? Is it not evident, moreover, that even if the world were solely a product of human transcendental consciousness, it would still continue to contain such depths of meaning that no human mind could claim to know comprehensively and perfectly even the nature of a single color and of all the interrelations of colors and their aesthetic values, let alone those issues and problems which surround consciousness, freedom, morality, substance, and so forth? (7) Again, the motive for Kant's transcendental turn which consists in his anthropocentric autonomism can be critically approached in different ways. First, it could be shown that the ultimate issue at stake here is epistemological and metaphysical. Is there an absolute divine being distinct from man, and is man capable of knowing such a being? Or is God a transcendental idea produced by his reason alone? Kant asserted the latter on the basis 134

Kant's reasons for transcendental philosophy of his transcendental philosophy in general, and in consequence of his attempt to refute all cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for the existence of God. But did he succeed in showing that these arguments are flawed? In order to answer this question, it would be necessary to examine critically the basic assumptions which underlie Kant's epistemology, and especially his positions on the antinomies and the arguments for God's existence. If Kant's philosophy in regard to these issues turns out to be true, his anthropocentric view of religion and morality is a necessary consequence and should be adopted. But then Kant's anthropocentrism and autonomism - in the sense that he makes man the absolute (moral) being-ought to be the result of his philosophical position rather than a motive which leads him to adopt it. If, however, his assumptions in regard to philosophical theology are false and the proof of an absolute divine being can be furnished, Kant's anthropocentrism contradicts the real order of things. A second way of examining the issue of Kant's ethical and religious anthropocentrism would consi~t first in asking whether he believed that any theocentric ethics wo'~ld violate man's dignity, and that the latter could only be preserved if any heteronomous source of moral obligations is excluded, and if man's own goodness and being are the ultimate purpose of his life. If it can be shown from the texts that Kant's motive here was indeed his concern for the dignity of man and his conviction that man's autonomous dignity as person could only be preserved if any transcendent orientation of his life towards a real God and to his service were taken away, then the truth of this claim would have to be investigated. It could perhaps be shown that Kant arrived at this view precisely because of various errors about the manner in which moral acts are related to their objects. If the moral act is in no way degraded to a mere means to eudaemonia or to good effects, but if the person awakens precisely in his free autonomous dignity when he submits to the absolute good and gives the due response to it, then Kant's concern for the dignity of the person would be perfectly compatible with realist philosophy and the 'autonomist' motive for transcendental philosophy would lose its strength. If the view that the dignity of the person demands that he himself be the source of all obligations, and that there be no transcendent 135

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being and God - but only a God and religious objects derived from the subject, and which are in its service - is corrected, then one of the basic arguments for transcendental philosophy would be refuted. It would be shown that the pure motivation of morality, the autonomy and freedom, and dignity of the person are lost precisely in an anthropocentric ethics and philosophy of religion, and safeguarded in one which recognizes the reality and transcendence of God. A third way to approach Kant's antropocentrism critically would consist in a psychological and moral critique of the roots of German Idealism in Kant as philosopher and as man. Such an analysis and 'psychological-ethical' critique of a philosopher's motives is certainly possible in principle, for example with reference to Nietzsche's positions on truth, morality, and God. Yet such a critique of the human and ethical attitudes which underlie a philosophical position (as Max Scheler presents them in his book on the ressentiment),91 such an attempt to uncover the irrational and false absolutization of man by Kant, will not be attempted here. For an investigation of this nature would make it necessary to expand the present analysis unduly, and it is not strictly called for in view of the main topic of the present inquiry.

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4

DOES HUSSERL'S TRANSCENDENTAL

PHENOMENOLOGY PROVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL REALISM TO BE UNCRITICAL? 1 THE MOTIVES WHICH LED TO HUSSERL'S 'TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY' It is noteworthy that Husserl's motives for his transcendental phenomenological position are at least partly quite different from Kant's. Roman Ingarden has investigated some of them at great depth. while he overlooks others. Let us briefly state some of the most important motives for Husserl's transcendental turn. (1) The problem of the transcendence of knowledge undoubtedly became a central issue for Husserl very early. In 1907 Husserl writes in his first lecture on The Idea of Phenomenology:92 the perceiving is simply a mental act of mine. of the perceiving subject. Likewise. memory and expectation are subjective processes; and so are all thought processes built upon them and through which we come to posit that something really is the case and to determine any truth about what is. How do L the cognizing subject. know if I can ever really know. that there exist not only my mental processes. these acts of cognizing. but also that which they apprehend? How can I ever know that there is anything at all which could be set over against cognition as its object? Dallas Willard has treated the crucial role of the problem of objectivity and of transcendence in Husserl in a recent article. He 137

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shows that there are three apparently objective aspects of acts of knowledge according to Husserl: 'transcendence toward an independent object; conformity to general order or law; and a certain community of what is cognized. '93 The general problem appears as to how the subject can go outside of itself towards objects. Willard shows how important this problem was for Husserl from 1891 to 1894 during the time he wrote the Philosophie der Arithmetik and 'Psychological Studies.' Even at that time he found the transcendence of knowledge a deep, 'astonishing' puzzle. In the 1907 text, The Idea of Phenomenology, Husserl declares: ' ... transcendence is both the initial and the central problem of the critique of cognition. '94 Perhaps because of the impact of Nicolai Hartmann's critique of Husserl's attempt in the Logical Investigations to overcome the image-theory of knowledge, the real transcendence of knowledge again becomes a decisive problem; in other words, Husserl sees that the mere 'immanent transcendence' of intentional objects which stand over against the intentional acts of noesis does not prove any 'transcendent transcendence,' i.e. any reaching out to being in itself as it is independently from being object of our acts.9 5 'Intentional direction is a wholly immanent matter, on Husserl's view,' as Willard puts it. 96 This author sees a solution to the problem of transcendence in Husserl's elaboration of 'categorial intuition,' and in those passages from the Ideen (1913) in which the intuition of ideal law connections (wesensgesetzliche Verbindungen) of whole/ part structures is assertedY7 We do not, however, find any reference in Willard's article to Husserl's clearly stated later opinion which denies authentic transcendence of knowledge and solely affirms 'immanent transcendence' towards beings and meanings which are entirely dependent on consciousness. Husserl's answer to the problem of transcendence ultimately becomes a radically negative one. All intuitions and acts which refer to 'any conceivable meaning or being' reach nothing but noemata that are constituted by sUbjectivity. This motive of transcendence also plays an important role in Kant's Prolegomena and in the Critique of Pure ReasonYH (2) Husserl's second motive for turning to transcendental idealism derives from his remarkable phenomenology of perception and this theory of the perceptual constitution of objects (a constitution 138

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology which is prior to its transcendental idealist interpretation). Husserl made important contributions to the philosophy of perception by rigorously showing that there is, in principle, an infinite number of points of view, an infinite number of vantage points in which visible (sensible) objects can be given, and that they can only be given from such vantage points. This implies that there are also infinitely many potential views, aspects, perspectives and appearances under which the objects of perception (notably vision) are given to us. Most of them are never actualized and fulfilled. Moreover, our knowledge of any sensible object is 'built up' from the growing number of the aspects under which we observe it. The object of sense-knowledge thus appears as constituted by the manifold aspects. Yet such a constitution can never be completed because of the infinitely many Abschattungen (views) of any given object of sense-perception. Moreover, these views of the object of perception (most of which are 'held in readiness' but no longer, not yet, or not ever actually given) are never simply identical with the object of perception in such a way that the whole object could ever become accessible to perception. Also, it cannot be denied that many of these aspects depend on the subject's perceptual apparatus, and that 'the same' object could present entirely different aspects to other perceivers. Husserl generalized this fact of the innumerable aspects of the objects of sight which are (co-)constituted by the subject of perception, and came to the conclusion that ultimately all noemata and objects of consciousness are constituted in noesis. And indeed, the objects as known always seem to emerge from the multitude of aspects (Abschattungen) and varying horizons against which they are given, and thus to be constituted by conscious acts. (3) A third basic motive responsible for Husserl's embracing transcendental phenomenology lies in his ideal of philosophy as 'rigorous science' or rather in the peculiar interpretation he gave to this ideal. (One could discover an analogy between this ideal of Husser! and Kant's claim that all questions posed by pure reason must be perfectly answerable by reason.) Husserl thought that nothing except what is apodictically and absolutely certain should have a rightful place among the objects of philosophical knowledge. Hence he concluded that neither the existence of the material world as the man of the 'natural attitude' accepts it, nor any really existing being, should have a rightful pla.ce within the sphere of legitimate objects of philosophical 139

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investigation. For he thought that no really existing being ('piece of the real world') is given us with apodictic certainty. The existence of the world and of things as autonomously real has to be accepted in a fundamental Weltglauben (belief in - the existence of - the world). (4) A fourth important motive for Husserl's turn to idealism remains unmentioned by Ingarden. Husserl aims at getting at the essences of things. First, eidetic analysis of essences, then genetic phenomenology uncovering the constitution and origin of essences, is his goal. Husserl believes that he has found a relatively simple methodological tool to achieve this: phenomenological reduction, the bracketing of the autonomous existence of the world and the transformation of a real world of natural world-belief into a sphere of pure phenomena. This bracketing of the reale Seinsgeltung (validity of the being of the world as real) seems to be a sufficient starting point both for eidetic and for genetic analysis of essences. In other words, we have only to give up the Weltglauben, the naIve belief in the autonomous existence of the world which all of us have in our natural attitude. Then the 'pure essences' which the phenomenologist may investigate will appear before us. While we have seen above 99 that there are much deeper attempts at founding eidetic knowledge in Husserl, the lack of any clear distinction of necessary and contingent essences and of the methods appropriate to each leads Husserl away from seeing that the necessary essences allow for apodictic knowledge about 'things in themselves,' but not the contingent essences (in reference to which apodictic knowledge can only refer to possibilities or individual existents). In striving for apodictic certainty and in applying what is true for contingent essences to all essences, Husserl can consider the 'pure essences' to which phenomenological reduction gives us access, as mere 'possibilities.' Because the contingent 'pure essences' to which 'ideation' leads us fail to be binding for any autonomous and really existing world, distinct from the 'pure inhibited phenomenon,' the philosopher has to do one of two things. He has to give up any claim to a knowledge about autonomous reality and to move within pure possible worlds distinct from the real world of experience (then philosophy becomes a somewhat idle speculation which loses, in any case, any interest in the eyes of those who care about the problems of the real world), or he denies a really existing world outside the phenomenal world and identifies the phenomenal world with 'reality' and tries to explain it in terms of constitution through 140

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology the subject. But even this solution of the problem is not viable because there is no way of getting around the facticity of the world of our experience. Whether its existence is understood as objective autonomous being or merely as a moment of resistance to our arbitrariness, the non-necessary natures of beings in the world can only be known by means of some contact with existing exemplars of the various kinds and species of being which have to be observed in their facticity in order to arrive at any knowledge about them. Hence a phenomenology of essence based on epoche in these cases would still only deal with purely possible worlds. (5) A further important motive for Husserl's transcendental turn is the manner in which he relates meaning-giving (bedeutungsverleihende) and meaning-fulfilling (bedeutungserfullende) acts. Instead of seeing the acts of perception and receptive knowledge of objects as the foundation for all spontaneous acts of meaning, Husserl's terminology seems to give a certain priority to the meaning-intentions which, through the act of meinen, spontaneously intend objects. As meaning-giving acts, the spontaneous acts of the mind appear to precede those acts in which the meaningintentions are fulfilled. From such a priority of bedeutungsverleihenden Akten one could at least be inclined to think that the spontaneous meaning-positing, meaning-creating, meaning-bestowing activity of mind precedes the fulfilling of such meaningintentions. While many theses of Husserl about intuition, about perception, about passive synthesis (as opposed to active synthesis) contradict any such interpretation, it has at least to be stated that Husserl never saw the radical way in which receptive meaningreceiving acts completely precede any meaning-bestowing acts of the human intellect. Had he clearly seen this, and the fundamental receptivity of the mind, his theory of constitution would hardly have been proposed in the way it was in his later work, while at least the terminology and perhaps also the thoughts of Husserl about the receptive acts of minds only 'fulfilling' (instead of foundi.eg) meaning-intentions could prepare the way for an idealist position. (6) Another instance of lack of clarity in Husserl's Logical Investigations might also have contributed to his later idealism. Husserl never distinguishes clearly between species (essence) and concept. He presents the species as if they themselves were concepts. And while he thought in Logical Investigations that concepts themselves have ideal existence and a timeless mode of being, 141

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge concepts are nevertheless also formed by the mind and depend on abstraction; they correspond to meaning-intentions of the mind which uses the concept in order to refer intentionally and spontaneously to objects. The species as essences, however, is completely discovered and in no way formed and produced by the mind. Hence the fact that Husserl fails to distinguish clearly between concept and essence, through the ambiguity of his notion of 'species' in Logical Investigations, could, logically, have prepared the way for idealism. (7) Finally, perhaps the most important purely philosophical reason for Husserl's idealism lies in his sharp division between ideal being and real being in the Logical Investigations. There not only does he see them distinguished by the mark that ideal being is timeless, while the real world is temporal, but he goes on to say that all temporal and real beings are subject only to empirical laws, that each event in the real world is caused by other events, that the real world cannot be known with apodictic certainty. 100 Such statements separate the two worlds in so radical a fashion that it seems unthinkable that the real acts of thinking of empirical subjects could ever attain the sphere of the ideal and that Husserl's insight could be justified on this ground: namely that insight and evidence is not a mere psychological feeling but is 'the experience of truth' (Logical Investigations, Prolegomena, Chapter 8; § 51). This is possible only if the real act of knowledge is dependent on the object which is ideal, if the real conscious life of the subject is not determined by preceding causes but participates in the order of timeless truth. This, however, can hardly be reconciled with Husserl's statements on the sphere of the psychological and the real. Hence, when Husserl seeks to save the rationality of knowledge and evidence, it is easy to understand that he could not ascribe knowledge to the real subject but has to introduce an entirely different 'pure' ego and 'pure' consciousness which alone would be akin to the sphere of intelligible ideal objects and essences. 2 BRIEF CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL'S MOTIVES FOR DEVELOPING TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY (IDEALISM) In the remaining portion of this chapter, we shall develop briefly the main criticisms of Husserl's phenomenological idealism. Later, we will discuss some of them in greater depth and detail. 142

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology (i) Husser/'s rejection of the 'transcendence of ma,! in knowledge'

In his five lectures entitled The Idea of Phenomenology ,101 Husserl writes:

In allen ihren Ausgestaltungen ist die Erkenntnis ein psychisches Erlebnis: Erkenntnis des erkennenden Subjekts. Ihr stehen die erkannten Objekte gegeniiber. Wie kann nun aber die Erkenntnis ihrer Ubereinstimmung mit den erkannten Objekten gewiss werden, wie kann sie iiber sich hinaus und ihre Objekte zuverliissig treffen? Die dem natiirlichen Denken selbstverstiindliche Gegebenheit der Erkenntnisobjekte in der Erkenntnis wird zum Riitsel. Cognition in all of its manifestations is a psychic act; it is the cognition of a cognizing subject. The objects cognized stand over and against the cognition. But how can we be certain of the correspondence between cognition and the object cognized? How can knowledge transcend itself and reach its object reliably? The unproblematic manner in which the object of cognition is given to natural thought now becomes an enigma. It is quite clear that 'because our lack of clarity about cognition implies that we cannot understand what it could mean for something to be known in itself yet in the context ofcognition,'102 Husserl arrives at a negation, amply testified to by the passages quoted below, of any real transcendence of knowledge to the 'an sich' (in itself) of 'things in themselves.' It is highly surprising to find such a denial of transcending knowledge of 'things in themselves' in a thinker who had so strongly insisted in his Logical Investigations and in subsequent works that most forms of consciousness are 'intentional acts,' and thereby achieve some 'transcendence' in that each act of perception or knowledge is directed towards an object which is not a real part of our conscious experience itself. Even when the object of consciousness is merely fictional, Husserl asserts, it stands clearly over and against the stream of our conscious life. Zeus, or a house which we perceive in a dream are not part of our conscious life; we will never find their properties as properties of our own conscious acts. Our conscious life does not have windows, doors, or color - as does the house we dream about; nor are Zeus and his lightning and thunderbolts 143

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immanent parts of our consciousness. From this important insight into the intentional character of consciousness which always achieves a 'transcendence' towards intentional objects, it would seem that Husser! should not have experienced special difficulty in solving the problem of the 'transcendence of knowledge.' Yet, made aware by Nicolai Hartmann of the fact that this 'transcendence' of each intentional act, as such, does not imply anything except 'immanent transcendence,' Husser! saw the problem of how knowledge can achieve 'transcendent transcendence' as insoluble: K6nnte nicht ein allmachtiger . .. Lugengeist meine Seele so geschaffen und so mit Bewusstsehlsinhalten versorgt haben, dass von all den in ihr vermeinten Gegenstandlichkeiten, soweit sie irgend ein Ausserseelisches sind, nichts existierte? Vielleicht sind Dinge ausser mir, aber kein einziges von denen, die ich fur wirklich halte. Und vielleicht sind uberhaupt keine Dinge ausser mir . ... Haftet der Wahrnehmung eine Evidenz an fur diese Leistung der Transzendenz? Aber eine Evidenz, was ist sie anderes als ein gewisser psychischer Charakter. . . Transzendentes ist nicht in Immanentem impliziert . .. Das Transzendente ist . .. prinzipiell nicht erfahrbar.

Could not an omnipotent ... liar-spirit have created my soul in such a way and given it such contents of consciousness, that of all the objects which it intends, insofar as they are (claim to be) an extra-mental reality, nothing would exist? Perhaps there are things apart from me, but none of those which I take for real. And perhaps there is nothing at all outside of myself ... Does perception possess any evidence for this achievement of transcendence? But any evidence, what else is it except a certain psychic character ... something transcendent is not implied in the immanent. ... The transcendent ... can in principle not be experienced. 103 Unklar ist die Beziehung der Erkenntis auf Transzendentes. Wann hatten wir Klarheit und wo hatten wir sie? Nun, wenn und wo uns das Wesen dieser Beziehung gegeben ware, dass wir sie schauen k6nnten, dann wurden wir die M6glichkeit der Erkenntnis (fur die betreffende Erkenntnisartung, wo sie geleistet 144

Husser/'s transcendental phenomenology ware) verstehen. Freilich erscheint diese Forderung eben von vornherein fur aile transzendente Erkenntnis unerfiillbar und damit auch transzendente Erkenntnis unmoglich zu sein. The relatedness of knowledge to something transcendent is unclear. When would we have clarity about it, and where? Well, when and where the essence of such a relatedness would be given to us, so that we could intuit it (sie schauen), we would comprehend the possibility of knowledge (for the respective type of knowledge in which it would be achieved). Obviously this condition (i.e., for the evidence about transcendent cognitive contact with being in itself) seems to be a priori unfulfillable and thus transcendent knowledge impossible. 104 Husserl's thesis is clearly this: 'Wie Immanenz erkannt werden kann, ist verstandlich, wie Transzendenz, unverstandlich' ('How immanence can be known is understandable, how transcendence, unintelligible'. 105 It is equally clear that one of the decisive reasons. for Husserl's turn towards transcendental subjectivism and for epoche lies here. In fact, epoche receives an even more radical meaning here than the fourth sense of this term distinguished earlier. It comes to mean a radical doubt of all transcendence of knowledge in the sense of there perhaps being absolutely nothing outside of cogitation and cogitata: 106 Although the epoche, which the critique of cognition must employ, begins with the doubt of all cognition, its own included, it cannot remain in such doubt. ... If it must presuppose nothing as already given, then it must begin with some cognition which it does not take unexamined from elsewhere but rather gives to itself, which it itself posits as primal. This primal cognition must contain nothing of the unclarity and the doubt which otherwise give cognition the character of the enigmatic and problematic. . . (emphasis mine - J. S.). But why did Husserl accept it as clear that the 'immanent transcendence' of the intentional objects as well as the 'immanent' being of consciousness can well be grasped and explained, whereas any 'going beyond the act of knowledge' toward the 'things themselves' in their 'real transcendence',is taken by him to be inexplicable and impossible? 145

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge This step in Husserl's reasoning toward transcendental idealism is entirely unwarranted, as can be shown in the following ways which will only be sketched out here and will be treated more extensively in Part II, Chapter 5, and Parts III and IV of the present work: (1) Husserl's thesis clearly implies a self-contradiction because knowledge of 'immanent transcendence,' e.g., of a purely fictitious intentional object such as the house in a dream, necessarily presupposes knowledge of truly 'transcendent facts,' such as the fact that I am dreaming, that the house which appears in the dream has four rather than three windows, and so on. If it were not 'really so' that I am dreaming and 'really so' that I dreamt of a house with five windows instead of one with only four, then the fiction could not be constituted. Thus the knowledge of facts which are truly transcendent to my mind is the condition of the possibility of any knowledge of merely 'immanently transcendent' objects of the sort Husserl has in mind. Hence his rejection of the possibility of such a truly transcendent knowledge, while at the same time retaining the assertion of a knowledge of immanently transcendent objects, is itself absurd, and this absurdity does not attach to the assertion of a truly transcendent knowledge, as Husserl believes. We shall return to this point later. This point is no less evident than the one Husserl himself made so clearly, namely, that any image-theory of knowledge presupposes precisely what it denies: a knowledge which grasps not only a subjective image of reality but the reality itself in the light of which alone the image could be recognized as image. This case is objectively quite different from ours because transcendent knowledge is in no way a mere subjective character or image the coincidence of which with the transcendent reality would have to be known. Nevertheless, Husserl rejects the claim of transcendent knowledge by likening it to some sort of 'intentional image' (as Hartmann earlier suggested in his critique of Husserl's critique of the image-theory of knowledge) the correspondence of which with reality could never be known. But this conception of transcendent knowledge is no less inadequate than the image-theory as characterization of the intentionality of consciousness, and can be refuted with arguments very similar to those which Husserl had employed in Logical Investigations against the more primitive image-theory that distorts the structure of intentionality. It shall be brought to evidence later that any knowledge of 'immanently transcendent' intentional objects to be possible at all presupposes the knowledge of 146

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology 'transcendently (truly) transcendent' objects. And knowledge of transcendent objects is not only a precondition for the formation of the very concept of 'immanent transcendence,' but is also presupposed in any concrete case of knowing an immanent intentional object. Without knowledge of things or facts which are truly 'transcendent' and not dependent on pure consciousness, no 'immanent intentional object' could ever be known. For example, without knowing the transcendent objective fact that I see an object and live, I could never know the purely immanent object of a dream. It is astonishing that a man of Husserl's genius, who had brilliantly shown this in Logical Investigations, came to overlook such an obvious fact. (2) What was said in the context of uncovering the selfcontradiction implied in any denial of really transcendent knowledge already implied one fact and one being which is known by us and which could never be just constituted by our consciousness or be a mere object of our consciousness: namely, our own conscious life. Husserl admits this, but interprets this 'I' as identical not with the empirical and real existent ego, but with a transcendental ego. Whether this ego and consciousness are declared transcendental or empirical, however, the fact that I know its existence and that no possible doubt can be thrown upon it cannot meaningfully be denied. But, if this is so, it is here that I touch upon a 'really transcendent' being, my own objective reality. I know: cogito, sum (Descartes); si enim failor, sum (Augustine); ergo esse est. There is no good reason offered by Husserl for rejecting the real transcendence of this knowledge which attains a being that cannot be constituted by my consciousness. Since truly transcendent knowledge, which Husserl calls into question, is therefore both real and possible as self-given and as the condition of the possibility of any knowledge of immanently transcendent intentional objects, the rejection of a knowing grasp of being as it truly is in itself shows itself as not only self-contradictory but as running counter to the evidence of transcendent knowledge, an evidence which is even part of the evidence of cognition admitted by Husserl, the cognition of pure intentional objects. (3) Moreover, any instance of our knowledge of necessary essences and Wesensgesetze disproves the claim that we only know immanent intentional objects and can never attain certainty about objects which are truly 'transcendent' to human consciousness. For,

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Part 11: The cogito and indubitable knowledge in the knowledge of necessary truths we grasp something of which it is precisely evident that it is absolutely necessary and not necessary only relative to our minds. We grasp that 'in itself' guilt cannot exist without freedom, rights cannot inhere in a material being, and so on. But in truly grasping the absolute necessity of such facts, we understand, by the same token, that these essential laws apply to all possible and real beings of a certain kind and that our knowledge here grasps the truly 'transcendent' structures of 'things in themselves. ' (4) Certainly, this capacity for knowledge of something really transcendent to our consciousness is 'astonishing,' as Husserl calls it, and worthy of being marvelled at. But this does not mean it is impossible. On the contrary, it discloses itself to be both given and possible. The philosophical wonder at the arch-datum of the transcendence of man in knowledge, a datum which is so fundamental that it is necessarily presupposed by any attempt to deny it, is no argument against the datum. It is likewise false to hold that this amazing character is found only with regard to truly transcendent knowledge and that the knowledge of 'immanent' objects raises no problems, while the knowledge of 'transcendent' ones does. No, both are clearly possible, and the one admitted by Husserl necessarily implies the other. And both are 'astonishing' data, the (immanent) transcendence of each intentional act to its object and the full transcendence of knowledge. (5) With reference to the problem of bringing the Leistung (achievement) of transcendence itself (of a relating of the act of knowledge to the transcendent) to evidence, it is not true to say with Husserl that the achievement of transcendence defies a priori its being brought to evidence. For not only do we perform transcending cognizing acts, but the fundamental feature of 'transcendence' can itself be known with indubitable certainty and is itself given due to the peculiar reflective structure of cognition which the Scholastics (Thomas Aquinas and others) emphasized so much, following the lead of ancient philosophy (particularly of Plotinus) and early medieval thought (especially Augustine). Wherever an act is both knowledge and accompanied by evidence (this cognition has been termed 'knowledge in the narrower sense' by the present author in an earlier work), 107 the knowing subject does not merely 'go' and 'look' out of himself at a being or essential law which he understands to be independent of his consciousness. He also returns, to speak 148

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figuratively, from the object known to himself and becomes aware afthe achievement of transcendence. Thus, this knowledge of the transcendence (which is part of the evidence of transcending knowledge), too, answers Husserl's difficulty. It implies the selfgivenness of the transcendence of knowledge. In performing transcendent knowledge we become laterally aware of its existence and nature which is mirrored also in the 'reflective dimension' of consciousness. 108 It can then be made the object of explicit reflection and, above all, of knowledge of the universal essence of transcendent knowledge. The instances of indubitably certain knowledge of which we have spoken, make it clear both that such transcendence in knowledge is in principle possible and what its essence is, as well as that it is actually achieved in a particular instance (e.g., the si enimfallor, sum which grasps our own being and a universal truth). The fact that we find here not only the transcendence of knowledge itself, but also the evident givenness of it as a transcendent grasp of 'being in itself,' makes the knowledge of our own being and the knowledge of necessary essential facts two Archimedean points for human knowledge. In these Archimedean points we touch upon the foundation of ultimate certainty of knowledge. We shall return to this decisive point in Part II, Chapter 5.

3 CRITIQUE OF THE IDEALIST INTERPRETATION OF SENSE-PERCEPTION (1) In the first place, the important discovery Husserl makes with regard to sense-perception, namely that we find constituted and co-constituted aspects here, should be fully recognized and pursued much farther than Husserl has done. The question of how many aspects and views are encountered even in the profoundest spiritual and personal spheres (think of the 'aspect' of a person as 'thou') should be investigated - aspects which do not characterize a being in what it is 'in itself' but which are dependent on that being's mode of givenness to another subject. Along the lines of Husserl's investigations in the Crisis and von Hildebrand's analyses of the 'objective validity' of the 'human aspect' of the material world, one should go further in investigating the fascinating worlds of constituted aspects and beings. The latter investigation has also been admirably 149

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge furthered by Roman Ingarden, especially in his The Literary Work of Art. \09 Far from considering all constituted 'immanently transcendent' objects as mere illusions, their full human and metaphysical meaning and axiological weight; as well as their 'objective validity,' should be recognized. (2) After the successful completion of such analyses, one ought to conduct a systematic investigation of the differences between those beings the nature of which is to be constituted by human subjectivity or at least by a personal subject, and those entities which claim by their very nature to possess being 'in themselves.' We shall return to this point later, noting again that the most extensive ontological investigations in this direction were done by Ingarden.l \0 It would then have to be demonstrated that each and every constituted being or aspect necessarily presupposes a nonconstituted being 'in itself.' Finally, it would have to be known that there is evident knowledge of noumena, of 'things in themselves.' These topics are too central to be treated at length in the context of a brief initial answer to Husserl's motives for his transcendental phenomenology. We therefore defer further investigation of them to a later point. (3) Another fundamentally different way of dealing with Husserl's analyses of perception and perceptual 'constitution' of objects through Abschattungen would be the following. There is an important datum which Husserl has uncovered but which objectively has nothing to do with transcendental idealism and does not offer any argument for it, although both Kant and Husserl (who refer to this datum under the name of 'synthesis' or 'constitution') regard it as confirmation of idealism. Let us distinguish the phenomenon we refer to from a creation and constitution of appearances and even more from an alleged radical transcendental constitution of the world and of all noemata through knowledge. The datum seen by Husserl (and to some extent by Kant) consists in the important fact that in all sense-perception, and also in thought, we find a process of 'unification' of a manifold of perceptions, of thoughts, cognitions, and experiences. This synthesis or constitution from a manifold of experiences has also to do with the temporality of human perception and thinking, with memory, as well as with the processes of retention and protention elaborated by Husserl. l1l Perhaps it is more adequate to speak of a unification, 150

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology not on the level of experiences and perceptions, but with reference to the object of experience and perception (acts of cognition). That there is such a process of synthesis on the level of senseperception has long been recognized by medieval philosophers in their highly interesting discussions of the so-called sensus communis. This 'common sense' would achieve a synthesis of many sense-perceptions and relate them all to the same object. This unification is certainly necessary to render sense-experience possible and it is a special achievement (Leistung) which deserves close attention from philosophers. The need for some such unification must be seen even in animal perception in that all the external (and some internal) sense-experiences give one and the same object and allow both for actions and reactions of other sense-organs to objects (such as listening after a moving object has been seen). In a fundamentally different and higher way, a process of unification of sense-experiences reoccurs through the mediation of the knowledge of universals and concepts, on the level of judgment and thought, in the sphere of inference and relating many different judgments. Kant and Husserl were keenly aware of this problem and referred to it by the terms of 'synthesis' and 'constitution.' Certainly, an empiricist or positivist account of this unification as being mere causal connections between ideas (which are denied in principle by Hume but presupposed in his account of the genesis of different ideas from sense-impressions), or as being mere associations, is not tenable. Il2 Yet one must wonder whether 'synthesis' and 'constitution' are not also misleading concepts, in the context of a theoretical explanation of the unification of experience. In any case, a sharp distinction has to be drawn between transcendental or creative constitution which gives rise to intentional objects or to aspects of constituted appearances, and between the fundamental unifying moment in all perception and knowledge. Both cannot be called 'constitution' without falling into abysmal ambiguities. For the grasp of a unified being and object which presents itself under myriads of different 'aspects' is a purely epistemological achievement which has no implication whatsoever in regard to the genetic thesis of constitution. To grasp one and the same form-principle of a horse in an endless variety of views under which that horse presents itself to our perception, is a Leistung of perception which can be fully recognized in the context of a realist theory of cognition and 151

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge perception. This process involves a gradual and growing understanding of the unity of a nature or form, and of the identity of a given individual being. Both with regard to the awareness of the objective unity of things and with reference to the awareness of the unified character of subjective experience (how one experience emerges from countless single acts) the accomplishment of conscious perception can by fully studied in a realist context, as Karol Wojtyla, for example, has done. l13 Husserl, as well as realist thinkers like von Hildebrand, have laid great emphasis on the mutual complementarity of different sense-experiences, on the 'network of experience which possesses logical and meaningful coherence,' and which bears witness to the objectivity of experience. The unity of objects is indeed 'built up,' or better, reveals itself gradually through different temporal acts, as is best exemplified by the hearing of a melody or musical movement. Yet these facts are entirely intelligible without reference to anything like a 'transcendental constitution.' In fact, a closer look at this 'perceptual constitution' of objects rather contradicts transcendental-genetic constitution. For, as Husserl's own analyses of perception should have revealed, there is an object, for example, of sight which cannot be dissolved in any manner into those manifold constituted aspects in and through which it is clearly disclosed. The horse we perceive is given as not identical with the myriad of such aspects; and if it were built out of them in the transcendental sense, we could not even speak of a horse but of an unattainable X which would result from all aspects and experiences. Moreover, there would not even be one transcendental object outside all aspects in which it is given. For the grasp of such a unity implies precisely a (fully rational) transcendence over the manifold aspects and a penetration to the unity which gives itself precisely in and through the aspects and which we perceive as this man or as this horse. (4) Furthermore, as Ingarden has pointed out, it would be philosophically quite unjustified simply to generalize results gained by the analysis of sense-perception. 114 A strikingly illegitimate use of such a comparison is found in the thesis that the 'things in themselves' can· never be given to the intellect because the 'things in themselves' of sensible objects can indeed never as such be given to the single senses alone. For intellect and intuition of essences or mental grasp of our own being and existence must not be confused 152

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology with sense-perception, and non-sensuous intuition does indeed, as close investigation reveals, possess an entirely new access to 'things in themselves' never encountered in sense-experience. Husserl himself has stressed this difference and Ingarden has treated it at length .115 Another illegitimate jump from certain results of an analysis of sense-perception to their illegitimate extension is found in Kant's view that because some qualities of sensible objects are admitted by many philosophers to be mere appearances, all qualities of material bodies and these bodies themselves could just as well be mere appearances. 116 Any such transition is entirely unphenome no logical and unjustified. For it can be the case that the being of bodies themselves and of some of their properties reveals itself as 'being in itself,' while other properties are appearances and aspects. This will be shown later. It can be brought to evidence, too, that the analogies which do indeed obtain between sense-perception and all other knowledge in regard to horizons, aspects, and so forth, are very limited, and that understanding and intuition in this respect go beyond all sense-perception: in that they perceive beings, while not grasping them in their totality, still truly in their 'being which they possess in themselves.' This shall emerge ever more clearly.

4 CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL'S IDEAL OF PHILOSOPHY AS A RIGOROUS SCIENCE The following remarks address themselves to Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science and to his ensuing conviction that the 'naive world-belief' (naiver Weltglaube) has to be absolutely suspended and even denied in epoche; and, furthermore, to his view that philosophy as a rigorous science is only possible as transcendental idealism which conceives of the world and of all intentional objects of consciousness as grounded in transcendental genesis. (1) The first assumption which underlies this bracketing of the really existing world in the name of philosophy as 'rigorous science' is, of course, the thesis that no really existing being qua autonomously existing, can be known with apodictic certainty. There is no cogent argument for this position. The present writer is not even aware of any developed procedure of bringing this claim to evidence or of any argument which Husserl would seek to offer in support of his repeated assertions of the radical need for 'bracketing' real 153

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autonomous existence of the world, and in support of his criticism of Descartes whose realist interpretation of the cogito he treats in a rather condescending manner. He nowhere refutes, however, Descartes' claim to have actually discovered an indubitably certain knowledge of the real existence of the ego cogitans. In reality, Husserl is simply wrong about denying apodictic certainty about a really existing being. In evidence of this claim we refer to the absence of any counter-evidence against Augustine's and Descartes' claims which Husserl ought to have provided, since he takes issue with their realist version of the apodictic certainty accessible in the cogito. We also refer to a far more positive evidence to be unfolded later on in this essay.117 In examining Augustine's and Descartes' insights, it becomes clear that the subject who is a necessary condition for any deception and conscious activity, is, in point of fact, a really existing person, an ens rea lis who cannot in any possible way be merely constituted or merely appear to be or seem to be. Thus an apodictically certain knowledge about a really existing person (cogito, ergo sum; ergo esse est) is giveri and is also presupposed by any other knowledge, as well as by any illusion, delusion, appearance, or doubt. This result will be corroborated in later chapters. Other authors, especially members of the realist phenomenological movement, have shown how this result of Augustine'S and Descartes' investigations refutes any form of transcendental idealism, including Husserl's 'transcendental phenomenology' - instead of having been overcome by transcendental philosophy.118 Husserl's claim that the apodictic certainty about the ego cogito does not refer to an 'Endchen der wirklichen Welt' (to part of the real world) is not only presented without argument but also contradicts the evidence that the indubitably certain knowledge gained by the cogito does indeed uncover a subject whose real existence is indubitable, and whose really existing personhood is precisely that being which is necessarily presupposed by any deception or doubt. Moreover, Husserl's claim that the ego which is uncovered as the necessary condition of all consciousness is not the empirical ego but a 'transcendental' one, suffers from great ambiguities which attach to the term 'transcendental ego.' It has been shown elsewhere that some of the meanings of this term in Husserl exactly coincide with the 'real ego.'119 Finally, the radical consequences which Husserl drew from his transcendental idealist position, namely that the ego 154

Husser/'s transcendental phenomenology is self-constituted and self-constituting - an idea which can be traced back to Kant's conception of the transcendental-synthetic apperception and to Fichte's thesis of the self-positing character of the ego - is not only far from providing a deeper philosophical understanding of the origins of consciousness than Augustine's si enim failor, sum argument, but the idea of a 'self-constitution' of the subject itself turns out to be a self-contradictory notion. This thesis will be brought to evidence later. 120 Another dimension of this first basic criticism of Husserl's transition from an ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science to transcendental idealism can be derived from a challenge to Husserl's denial of apodictic certainty about the 'really real' world on a second score. The scope of apodictically known really existing being has to be broadened beyond just the sum cogitans. Though this critique cannot be developed sufficiently in the context of this essay and remain reserved for another work,121 one thing is clear. If the existence of an absolute and really existing being can be proven with apodictic certainty, Husserl's denial of apodictically certain real existence would also be refuted by the apodictically - albeit deductively - certain existence of God. (2) The second basic criticism in this context refers to the Husserlian understanding of philosophy as a rigorous science (Wissenschaft) itself. It is clearly unphenomenological to start out with a conception of philosophy as restricted to apodictically certain knowledge. Such a conception of philosophy as a discipline which admits solely of apodictically certain facts would have to be substantiated by reference to the given; and such a justification of restricting philosophy to apodictically certain knowledge is just what is lacking in Husser!. What is more, the data themselves do not at all justify the restriction of philosophical knowledge to apodictically certain knowledge. The issue of the real existence of the 'external material and social world' is a crucial philosophical question even if this question cannot be answered with apodictic certainty in such a way that no shadow of doubt can possibly be thrown upon the reality of the world's autonomous existence. Even if the origin of our conviction that the world of our experience really exists, includes elements of 'faith' or of 'belief,' this does not exclude the issue from the field of philosophical investigation. That this is so becomes clear when we consider that the real existence of the world is presupposed for the meaning of the most central human

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acts of love or hope, and of community with other persons. It is also presupposed in sense-perception and in the 'rational' interpretation of the objects of sense-perception as real. Such a realist interpretation of the objects of sense-perception is, in fact, inseparable from human sense-perception. Moreover, only if the world is real, does there exist a field of being within which alone the eidetic laws (Wesensgesetze) that the phenomenologist investigates can be fully realized. Proper phenomenological investigation of the essence of morality or of love, for example, reveals that only existing examples of love and of morality actually possess the features that are found in these essences. Also only autonomously existing beings can be the proper objects of these acts. Hence the question of whether the world can be known to exist really, is intimately connected with the question of the meaning and impact of phenomenology even as a purely eidetic science which uses essential analysis as its method. That the real existence of the world is also presupposed for other decisive issues of philosophy is a point that has already been discussed in the context of a critique of Husserl's view that all philosophy should be based on epoche. A more extensive treatment of the relationship between essence and existence would be required to come to a fuller understanding of this. 122 Even if one admits that the philosopher should never assume as absolutely certain something which is not so, it does not in any way follow that it is below the dignity of the philosopher to investigate objects and modes of knowledge which are less than absolutely certain. The ensuing analysis implies a critique not just of Husserl's claim that philosophy ought to be a rigorous science which restricts itself to apodictic knowledge, but also of similar claims made by other philosophers - claims which date back to Plato's image of the 'divided line' in Book VI of the Republic, and to the Platonic interpretation of this image. 123 One should begin a criticism of the attempt to narrow philosophy down to the investigation of solely apodictically certain truths by asking the following questions. Why should it not be an important task of the philosopher to show how elements of faith and belief playa crucial role in sense-perception, in our experience of the world at large, and, especially, in our experience of other persons and in love? Why should it not, moreover, be an important part of ethics to investigate the degrees of knowledge and of certainty in knowledge, and the influence which mere probability of various 156

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degrees has on the moral quality of actions and on the kind of obligation which is at stake in a given type of action? Is it not clearly a task which the philosopher alone can perform to unfold the various degrees and kinds of probability in knowledge and to unfold the justification, reasons, and effects of 'beliefs'? The significance of philosophy taking into account the sphere of less than apodictically certain knowledge emerges from a further consideration. An adequate philosophy of man and metaphysics of the finite person are inseparable from a grasp of the limits of man's knowledge. Just as Socratic wisdom comprised (among other things) a knowledge of what man does not know, so the philosophical grasp of human wisdom and of the very essence of man involves coming to terms with modes of knowledge which are central to man but which do not attain to indubitably certain and apodictic knowledge. These observations show the radically un phenomenological character of the approach which absolutizes the nature of philosophy as 'apodictic rigorous science' by falsely restricting not only philosophical knowledge itself to the sphere of indubitably certain cognition but also by restricting any valid objects of philosophy in human experience to those aspects in them which can be substantiated by apodictic evidence. (3) This latter criticism could be strengthened by pointing out that the investigation into the varying degrees of certainty of knowledge can itself reach absolute certainty. To know which forms of knowledge allow for apodictic certainty, and which do not, is itself the subject-matter of apodictic knowledge. Thus, even the sphere of philosophical knowledge which contains only apodictic knowledge remains incomplete as long as it fails to engage in an analysis of those modes of knowledge that, for various reasons, are important in man's life and do not permit absolute certainty. (4) In the light of this last point, it might also be said that Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science which includes nothing but absolutely certain knowledge is an inhuman idol of philosophical knowledge and may imply an attempt to turn philosophy into the kind of 'absolute knowledge' that Hegel may have striven for when he called philosophy the monologue of the worldSpirit (God) with Himself: a knowledge about all things which is absolutely infallible. Husserl writes, for example: 124 Philosophy ... is essentially a science of true beginnings ....

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The science concerned with what is radical must from every point of view be radical in its procedure. Above all it must not rest until it has attained its own absolutely clear beginnings, i.e., its absolutely clear problems, the methods preindicated in the proper sense of these problems, and the most basic field of work wherein things are given with absolute clarity. But one must in no instance abandon one's radical lack of prejudice, prematurely identifying, so to speak, such 'things' with 'empirical facts.' To do this is to stand like a blind man before ideas, which are, after all, to such a great extent absolutely given in immediate intuition .... Thus the greatest step our age has to make is to recognize that with the philosophical intuition in the correct sense, the phenomenologicili grasp of essences, a limitless field of work opens out, a science that without all indirectly symbolical and mathematical methods, without the apparatus of premises and conclusions, still attains a plenitude of the most rigorous and ... decisive cognitions. The rationalism implied in this ideal seems to be strongly opposed to phenomenology as a humble investigation of everything which discloses itself about being. The Platonic Socrates in Book VI of the Republic presents precisely this ideal of philosophy to us, the love of all truth and with regard to everything. That means we should cling to any lesser or greater evidence pertaining to the ultimate questions investigated in philosophy. The rationalistic ideal of philosophy made up only of indubitably certain and absolutely evident theses is reminiscent of Kant's previously discussed claim that pure reason should not ask any question which it cannot fully and comprehensively answer. Our preceding critique of this Kantian reason for adopting transcendental idealism in part also applies to Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science and the role that this played in Husserl's adoption of transcendental idealism. Roman Ingarden mentions with particular emphasis the role played by the ideal of philosophy as a 'rigorous science' in Husser!'s exclusion, in general, of any really transcendent object of senseperception and perception. I25 It is worth noticing here that Descartes, whom Husser! in Cartesian Meditations and in other works seeks to imitate in some way, proposed a more modest and far less rationalistic goal of philosophy as a 'rigorous science' when he introduced his famous 'methodic 158

Husser/'s transcendental phenomenology doubt.' He only wanted to find out whether any knowledge proved to be apodictically certain and, if so, how much of our knowledge was indubitably certain. Certainly, in Descartes' methodic doubt, too, we find a suspension of belief in anything which is less than apodictically certain. But this Cartesian epoche is merely methodic. Descartes did not personally or universally suspend the general thesis of the 'natural attitude,' but rather defended it for the level of human existence and common-sense. It was his purpose not only to find apodictically certain knowledge but to find as sure a knowledge as possible regarding the real existence of the world which we know on the basis of our senses. His doubt allowed him to return to the world of common experience, even when this world was given with less than apodictic certainty. (5) Above all, Descartes carefully and critically avoided the wholly unwarranted transition which we find in Husserl under the guise of a more thorough criticism: the transition "from the doubt of whether or not the world (as object of our 'natural attitude') exists, to the ontological assertion that the world does not have any mindindependent existence. We can refer here back to the investigation of the various meanings of epoche. 126 The transition from a mere methodological position relative to absolutely indubitable apodicticity of knowledge, to farther-reaching ontological theses in Husserl has been forcefully criticized by Ingarden.127 (6) In addition, Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science which is wholly based on apodictic certainty, is not entirely restricted to philosophy although it was originally developed by means of a distinction between philosophy and science. 128 Husserl strives to give to all sciences an apodictic foundation, not only in the sense (with which we wholeheartedly agree) that no empirical science is possible without some a priori foundation but also with the implication that all the sciences should be developed from a new apodictic foundation and their results restricted to what is assigned to it by purely phenomenological experience and epoche .129 This Husserlian conception at least partially renews Hegel's ideal of 'absolute knowledge' and of a dialectic of history and historical understanding which proclaims that everything we consider as contingent can be made rationally knowable in the light of a priori facts and a priori deductions. 130 The present writer does not claim that Husserl intended a priori explanations and deductions of contingent facts along the lines of, e.g., Fichte's 'transcendental 159

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deduction of marriage' , 131 or along the lines of an a priori construction of all concrete objects of history and of the life-world which we find proposed on the most grandiose scale by Hegel in his philosophy of history. Nevertheless, Husserl comes remarkably close to attempting something similar and, more explicitly still, he proposes an ideal of a philosophical foundation of all disciplines which tends to exclude any purely empirical factual and 'transcendent' datum. Such an 'ideal' of philosophy and human knowledge, however, constitutes an absolutization of human knowledge which is rationally unsound because it makes the counter-evident claim that human knowledge is unlimited and that it can be restricted to apodictic rigorously evident cognition. Rather than finding here the methodological requirements of philosophy as rigorous science, we are confronted with a revolt against the limitations inherent in human knowledge and against the entire cognitive-metaphysical condition of man. In this regard, Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel's aspirations to the 'absolute system' might turn out to be equally perceptive as an implicit criticism of Husserl. 132 (7) Moreover, Husserl must not exclude a rationally justifiable existential belief in the real autonomous existence of the world, or a common-sense standpoint, as the foundation of philosophical knowledge of the external world. More importantly, it could perhaps be shown that a certainty can be achieved about the real autonomous existence of the material world and of other persons which is great enough to deserve the ambiguous designation of 'apodictic knowledge,' even if this knowledge does not possess exactly the same kind and degree of indubitability which is found in the 'Archimedean points' that the primary indubitable philosophical knowledge is able to reach: the knowledge of the real and unconstituted existence of the ego cogitans (and thereby of one objectively and really existing being: cogito; sum; ergo esse est); and the cognition of necessary essences and of the facts grounded in them (Wesenssachverhalte).133 The certainty of the material world and of other persons as objectively and autonomously existing could be unfolded by means of an exploration of the following elements: A The type of (phenomenal) indubitable evidence that senseperception itself possesses; B The kind of claim to mind-independent autonomous existence found in various objects of the experience of the world, especially in other persons; 160

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C The factors in our experience of the world and of other persons which make this experience and its reference to an objective autonomously existing world trustworthy and which exclude any reasonable doubt of its transcendent existence. Such factors include the inner logos and meaning of the whole of experience, and the various meaningful and logical links and connections which tie together the whole network of experience. These elements were explored by Hildebrand and Husserl himself. Another element which is important for justifying the objective reality ofthe external world is the kind of 'resistance' to acts of perception and to actions which Scheler emphasized and which constitutes the major reason for Kant's assumption of 'things in themselves .. The elements which 'demonstrate' the reality of the world also include the value of the world as a whole despite the chaotic and disturbing evils which occur in it, and the phenomenologically given difference in character between the real and the dreamt world. Against the Cartesian doubt expressed in the 'spiritus-malign us argument' and the position of various Arab philosophers that it would even be impious to deny that an omnipotent divine being could deceive us by a dream-world which we would be bound to take for an autonomous real world, a new reflection on Descartes' reply to this objection from the 'veracity of God' would have to be developed. For if the true and the good and the real must ultimately coincide, and if the mere illusory 'maya-character' of the world contradicts the essence of its givenness as autonomously existing. it cannot be true that the world of material and living beings, and of other persons, is only some form of n6ema of acts of consciousness or constituted by human subjectivity. Such a full development of the immediate evidentiality of the world and of the mediate metaphysical reasons supporting its existence can lead to an indubitable certainty about the world's existence 'in itself - i.e .. its autonomy in relation to human consciousness. A full working out of this program can even meet. at least in a peculiar fashion, Husserl's quest for apodictic and absolute certainty about the autonomous and non-constituted reality of the objects of perception and experience. 134 Should this program be carried out successfully. there would be absolutely no reason - not even under the Husserlian assumption of philosophy as a purely rigorous science (i.e., as only admitting apodictically certain knowledge) - to bracket or to exclude the really and autonomously 161

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge existing world from the sphere of philosophical knowledge. Yet those existing beings which cannot be known with apodictic certainty but have to be accepted in various forms of belief must not be excluded from philosophical investigation, as we have seen before. In fact, man as man cannot be understood philosophically without taking into consideration many things, such as history or the character of friends, which are known with less than apodictic certainty.

5 CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL'S TRANSITION FROM A WRONG 'METHODOLOGICAL' EPOCH£; OF THE WORLD TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL-ONTOLOGICAL THESIS OF ITS NEGATION Husserl makes a striking and never warranted transition from the mere 'methodological' bracketing of really and autonomously existing beings in the world and from the thesis that the real world as autonomously existing is merely believed in the uncritical 'natural attitude,' to the entirely different ontological thesis that there is no existence and world except as 'phenomena' constituted by transcendental consciousness. This implies, in effect, the denial of the real world as it is held to be real in the 'natural attitude.' Ingarden has very acutely analyzed the nature and unjustified character of the Husserlian transition from epoche as a methodological prescinding from the real autonomous existence of the world (bracketing this existence with the methodological motive of searching for absolutely indubitable knowledge of 'philosophy as a rigorous science'), to the ontological assumption and thesis that there is no such autonomously existing world, but only a world as heteronomous n6ema constituted by (human) transcendental subjectivity. Husserl carefully analyzes the absolute certainty of what he calls 'immanent perception' (i.e., that perception which simply consists in the conscious awareness of objects, whether they are given in dreams, hallucinations, etc.). He expands this notion of 'immanent perception' extending it beyond the sphere of sense-perception to all forms of conscious 'having of objects' and claims that this immanent perception grasps intentional objects solely as objects of consciousness. 135 He contrasts this 'immanent perception' and its indubitable evidence with 'transcendent perception' as we assume it 162

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology in the 'natural attitude.' This transcendent perception would refer to objects as existing really and autonomously, i.e., independently from our perception 'in themselves. ' Husserl claims that this transcendent perception can never possess indubitable evidence. Thus far he merely expounds, whether correctly or incorrectly, an epistemological position concerning perception. But from this point Husserl proceeds to make an ontological assumption. No longer does he simply state that phenomenological philosophy as apodictic rigorous science should not occupy itself with 'transcendent' (and dubitable) existing beings. He holds, rather, that the superior certainty of immanent perception and its objects (the objects given in 'immanent transcendence,' as he puts it in Cartesian Meditations) 136 entitles him also to the assertion of an ontological dependence of the objects (noemata) of 'pure consciousness' on the acts of consciousness in which and in which alone they are given - with indubitable certainty. Without giving any cogent reason for this transition, Husserl most likely was again motivated by his conception of philosophy as a rigorous science when he declared that any transcendent existence of objects 'in themselves' should not only be (for purely methodological reasons in the quest for absolute certainty) prescinded from, but is absurd. 137 It is probable that he felt it to be incompatible with the project of founding an absolutely certain philosophy and of seeing all other sciences built upon a phenomenological foundation, if a scientific problem remained unsolvable by means of apodictic knowledge and even an important object of philosophical knowledge (real existence of an autonomous world) remained obscure and knowable only indirectly. The denial of such a world, i.e., Husserl's ontological thesis, seemed thus to be the only way to preserve the entirely 'pure' ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science. Husserl's claims with regard to this issue can be summarized thus: (1) No object of consciousness is given as transcendent in an absolute sense (transcendently transcendent) but only as 'immanently transcendent,' i.e., as the objective correlate of intentional acts. (2) This being so, one is justified in denying such dubitable transcendent objects 'in themselves' (which it would ultimately be utterly impossible to ascertain epistemologically). One is thus justified in denying any being which would exist absolutely 163

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independently of our conscious awareness of it. 138 The only things there are are thus the indubitably given 'conscious acts' (which must also be interpreted not as part of the 'real world,' 'Stuckchen der wirklichen Welt,' but as 'pure consciousness') and the equally indubitably given 'immanent objects' of these acts which are their necessary correlate: the sphere of 'immanent transcendence.' This transcendental-ontological thesis of the dependence of all possible meaning and being on consciousness, however, involves Husserl in a variety of utterly untenable consequences. In the first place, Husserl thereby gives up (instead of radically retaining, as he believed) his own ideal of philosophy as rigorous and indubitably certain science. For even if the real existence of a world which is autonomous in relation to human consciousness, as the 'natural attitude' accepts it, is doubtful (as Husserl asserts), then both sides of the pair of contradictory states of affairs to which the doubt refers are equally doubtful: i.e., whether the world does or does not really exist. Therefore Husserl's denial of an autonomous world is at most as little justified by apodictic philosophical certainty as its assertion. In fact, the denial is even more uncritical according to Husserl's own criteria of a rigorous science and according to his own admissions, because it contradicts the belief of the 'natural attitude' and experience without offering any convincing reason for such a contradiction. Hence, instead of achieving the realization of philosophy as a rigorous science, transcendental phenomenology makes an uncritical and, at least, dubious ontological assumption (instead of leaving open what is dubious). It assumes, namely, the mind-dependence of every meaning and being. Secondly, Husserl uncritically identifies a mere epistemological kind of dependence of our access to being on consciousness with an ontological dependence of the being of the object itself and in itself on consciousness. While it is evident that no being whatsoever can be given to us except in and through conscious acts, it is in no way evident that these, our conscious acts, cannot transcend themselves to a 'really transcendent' object and thus reach beyond themselves to a being that discloses itself from itself as existing independently of the act of grasping in which we discover it. We shall return to this crucial point of the self-givenness of transcendent beings and objects in their transcendence. Thirdly, Husserl's thesis is not only less than absolutely certain

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Husser/'s transcendental phenomenology but evidently false. (On this, see the critical comments above on Husser!'s ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science and Part II, Chapter 5.)

6 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND REALIST DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONCEPT AND SPECIES Although it is hard to prove that the failure to distinguish clearly between concept and species in the Logical Investigations was a major reason for Husser!'s adoption of transcendental idealism, it seems clear to the present writer that it did play some role in its formation. More important, however, is the fact that only on the basis of a clear distinction between concept and essence (species) can a realist philosophical position be maintained. For if the 'forms,' in the sense of concepts or categories as unities of meaning, are identified with species and thus with essences as we find it in Husserl,139 two entirely different things are in the first place being confused with each other. For concepts (unities of meaning)140 precisely perform the function of meinen (meaning) something beyond themselves; species or necessary essences do not but 'rest in themselves,' as it were. Concepts are meaning-units which can only be actualized and grasped in thought, essences are 'ontological units' which can be embodied in real entities and beings. Concepts as unities of meaning are like spiritual 'vessels' or 'pointing-sticks' which, by means of their meaning, intend something entirely other than themselves, the being or essence in question, the sun, earth, or the qualities of light and warmth in genera!. These objects, in virtue of their essences, have entirely different predicates which the concepts can never possess, namely warmth, light. color. etc. Thus even if we assume with Husserl- and we agree with him within important limits on this point l41 - on the 'ideality' of these concepts and meaning-units taught in Logical Investigations, 142 we must still radically distinguish concepts with their being ordained to spirit, with their role as forming propositions, etc. from the essences and species which are meant by them. It is surprising indeed that Husser! did not make a distinction as elementary as this - one which Alexander Pfander, for example, made very clearly in his Logik which was dedicated to Husser!. 143 Now while Husserl originally thought of concepts as ideal 165

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge meaning-unities which are characterized by timelessness, and while such concepts may exist - for example as bearers of truth as such 144_ concepts are nevertheless also formed by the mind, defined, etc. This applies especially to the imperfect and limited concepts with which man operates. Propositions are made by man; for example, men assert false propositions. In other words, there is indeed a creative productive role of the human mind relative to concepts and higher unities of concepts (propositions, chains of syllogisms, etc.), which is not at all found in relation to species and essences, and is absolutely excluded in relation to necessary essences. Hence if concepts which (in spite of the ideality of 'pure concepts') the human mind forms or which originate in the spirit (as Husser! gradually came to recognize himself)145 are identified with the forms or species (i.e., essences) of things, then the latter, too, will be declared as 'formed by the mind.' A careful analysis of this thesis would of course have to deal with the extremely complex Husser!ian analyses of meaning (Bedeutung), species, Vorstellung, Anschauung, kategoriale Anschauung, bedeutungsgebende and bedeutungserfullende Akte, abstraction, and so on. Such an analysis would show that Husserl indeed frequently makes, and from entirely different points of view, distinctions between essences and conceptual meanings. In the first Logical Investigation 146 Husserl distinguishes the objects (Gegenstiinde) from the empty meaning-intentions (Leere Bedeutungsintentionen) and yet, in the same place, he obscures this distinction by calling the species or essences meaning-unities, albeit 'intuitively fulfilled' meanings (anschaulich erfullte Bedeutungen). When Husser! speaks of the 'ideality' of meaning-units he calls them interchangeably species, 147 and in the entire second investigation the 'ideal unit' of the 'species' and of the 'concept' seem to be more or less used interchangeably. Concepts are also called 'ideale Gegenstiinde' which further blurs their distinction from ideal essences .148 Similar results can be obtained by a careful study of Logical Investigation VI. And while Cartesian Meditations § 34 speaks of eidetic analyses (reducing them to a world of pure possibilities and applying them to all kinds of essences) and of 'essential necessity' as their object, § 38 of the same work and § 40 (until the end of the Fourth Meditation) claim that the essences are not discovered in what Husserl terms 'passive synthesis' but constituted by a 'specifically active synthesis,' and that numbers (in counting), collections 166

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(in collecting), predicates (in predicating) are constituted as 'new objects originally' and thus actively formed by the ego. 149 The identification of the active formation of concepts (or at least of word-meanings) which actually occurs with active synthesis of species and essences, even of necessary essences, must be explained as a consequence of Husserl's original failure to distinguish with sufficient clarity between concept and species. For if the species are understood as concepts and categories of meaning which are in some sense really 'formed' or at least actively used by the mind, and are not clearly distinguished from the species as essences of objects, it is understandable that they are viewed as products of mental activity. To the extent, at least, to which concepts are not regarded as Platonically pre-existing meaning-units of ideal nature but are regarded as formed by the mind, species as essences of things will also be interpreted as a result of some active synthesis if they are identified with concepts. But this is, as we shall discover more clearly, an entirely wrong position when necessary efde are at stake. For while contingent natures and ideas can be the product of creativity or active synthesis, and while all concepts can in some way be brought forth by the mind (even if there are other 'purely ideal' concepts which we discover), the necessary essences of things are totally unproduceable and unconstitutable. Another consequence of the confusion between concept and essence is the opinion that considers any realist position to be unfounded. We must ask, without prejudice: are species or the general essences of things identical with word-meanings (Ingarden) or with concepts? We have found that clearly this is not so. To repeat the central point again, the distinction between essence and concept is decisive for our topic because (at least as soon as one does not hold a theory of ideality and eternity of meaning, according to which concepts are simply there to be discovered, but recognizes some spontaneous active role of the mind in the constitution of meaning-units and concepts) the failure to make this distinction clearly leads one perforce to deny that the species and essences of things are independent of mental constitution. If one recognizes, on the other hand, their radical difference, it is quite possible to acknowledge the receptive discovery in which species or essences disclose themselves to the mind, and nevertheless to acknowledge the creative role of the mind in forming those mental tools which should, of course, 'reflect' the essences of things but which the 167

Part /1: The cogito and indubitable knowledge person forms in order to refer - in the act of meinen - to the species or essences of things.

7 THE REVERSAL OF THE ORDER BETWEEN MEANINGGIVING AND MEANING-FULFILLING ACTS The entire discussion of knowledge-acts in the Logical Investigations seems to be confined to discussing them insofar as they 'fulfill' the meaning-intentions of acts of forming and applying concepts to things. This suggests that the original sphere of intentional acts are those which Husserl names 'meaning-giving' acts. But these acts seem also to be the spontaneous acts in which the human mind originates meaning rather than finding and discovering it. Hence, if the receptive cognitive acts are conceived of as following upon the others, they seem secondary to them and the origin of the entire intentional process seems to lie in an originating of meaning and ·intentions in the subject. In this view consists precisely a transcendental idealist position. A careful examination of the relationship between meaninggiving and meaning-receiving acts, however, shows that the given facts are quite different. Man's activity of forming meaning-units and of giving meaning may, of course, in countless particular cases actually precede the cognitive and intuitive acts which then only follow the meaning-giving acts and, in such cases, may well be regarded as meaning-fulfilling acts in relation to the acts of meaning something. Yet, in no way can this relationship between meaninggiving and meaning-receiving acts be regarded as the original one, nor can receptive cognition be understood primarily as meaningfulfilling. The relationship in which the cognitive receptive acts fulfill prior acts of meaning-intentions is, on the contrary, a later and secondary one, compared with the opposite relation in which the cognitive receiving of objects is the absolute foundation of any meaning-giving act. If we turn our attention to the origins of acts of 'meaning something,' we are easily convinced of this fact. In order for us to mean something like 'red' or 'blue,' we need already to possess some knowledge of these colors. But the only way to gain this knowledge initially, is by means of some necessarily receptive cognitive act in and through which these 'things' (essences) are disclosed to us. The origin of any spontaneous spiritual, intellec168

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tual, mental activity of meinen necessarily lies in receptive cognitive acts, in which the object (species, essence) 'speaks' to us and we are listening. To understand this is of crucial importance for the understanding of the true nature of knowledge. Such an emphasis on the receptive origin of all knowledge should not be confused with the view that knowledge is basically something passive. For there is a receptive activity involved in knowledge which is essentially an active appropriation to ourselves of what being 'speaks to us.' The highest forms' of man's activity, indeed, are receptive. We may, therefore, criticize this root of Husserl's transcendental idealism because it does violence to the phenomenologically and philosophically given essence of knowledge. In the light of an adequate epistemology, the role of cognitive acts as bedeutungserful/end is seen only as a subordinate role of cognition. The role of cognition as a condition of the possibility of bedeutungsverleihende Akte (meaning-giving acts) must be recognized as the primary role of knowledge in relation to the entire sphere of the logical and conceptual spontaneous activity of man.

8 PHILOSOPHY AND THE OTHER DISCIPLINES AND SCIENCES Far be it from us to deny the crucial role of philosophy for all other sciences and disciplines in exploring principles and foundations which underlie all other disciplines and in thus establishing, so to speak, the firm ground upon which all other disciplines rest. Husserl rightly speaks often of this foundational role of philosophy with regard to other disciplines. ISO Husser!, however, suggests a radically different sense of philosophy as establishing the foundation of other disciplines - in the sense that all other disciplines should be erected from this point onwards on the basis, not of the 'natural standpoint,' but of the phenomenological epoche which transforms the entire world in 'pure phenomena' and which prescinds from the 'reale Seinsgeltung' of the world. lSI This would seem to imply the view that the informative role not only of real autonomous existence is eliminated from philosophy as well as from the other sciences but the informative role of fact and contingency as well. The latter point does not follow from an idealist position of the Kantian type. For the 169

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge undeniable datum of real existence also remains under idealist assumptions, and thus/act and contingency play an informative role according to Kantian philosophy of science, because it is not claimed that all sciences should be based on epoche in which the 'reale Seinsgeltung' of the world is to be suspended. And it is indeed clear that, from Husserl's radical interpretation of epoche, it follows that the value of scientific knowledge must also be radically reconceived. If philosophy eliminates existence from its consideration and is simultaneously conceived, in the Husserlian fashion, as foundational for the sciences, it will be hard, first of all, to retain any real place and validity for the informative value of contingent and real scientific facts. Secondly, how can one, with these assumptions, allow for any original contact of the empirical sciences with 'things in themselves,' a contact and a source of information which would be autonomous with reference to philosophy? For now autonomously existing real beings, and thus any fruitful cognitive contact obtained through them, have been excluded from the sphere of philosophy and from the new 'bracketed' world of mere 'immanent transcendence.' In his analysis of the Existenzhinweis contained in sense-perception, Reinach criticizes this point. 152 In fact, not only does the grasp of the reality of beings, which constitutes a source of knowledge non-derivable from a priori philosophical knowledge, become an illusion, but it also follows that the contingency of any fact of experience becomes a great problem for Husserl's philosophy. The only possible solution to this problem from the mistaken assumptions of Husserl's system is to assert the contingency and historicity of the 'transcendental ego' too - in order to give any explanation of temporal contingent facts. This thesis of the temporality and historicity of the transcendental ego which founds all eidetic knowledge is found in different versions in Hegel, in Heidegger, and in Husserl himself: 'The ego constitutes himself for himself in, so to speak, the unity of a "history." , Husserl also ascribes in this passage from § 37 'all the constitutions of all the objectivities existing for him, whether these be immanent or transcendent, ideal or real,' to this historical subject for whose 'egological genesis' time is 'the universal form.'

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9 CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL'S NATURALISTIC AND DETERMINISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE REAL WORLD AS SOURCE OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM In his profound critique of the psycho logistic reduction of logical essentially necessary laws to mere psychological empirical laws, Husser! shows that this psycho logistic prejudice would indeed destroy logic, change the meaning of the first logical laws, transform them from laws about ideal meaning-units and logical propositions into laws about sUbjective thinking, denying their strict universality and explaining them as mere empirical laws which can have exceptions. Husser! likewise demonstrates the radical relativism inherent in psychologism.153 Yet in his attempt in Logical Investigations to preserve the pure necessity of logical laws and to separate them from mere psychological laws, he commits a serious, twofold mistake which might indeed inevitably lead to idealism. First of all, he sees the reason for the merely empirical factual character of laws of thinking in the fact that these laws refer to the real world instead of seeing it in the fact that they are not grounded in a necessary essence, whether this necessity belongs to the real or the ideal sphere. The ethical necessity that guilt presupposes freedom belongs to the real sphere and speaks of real acts, and yet is just as necessary as any logical law. Secondly, Husser! radically separates the real world from that of timeless ideal necessities and truths and presents the real wor!d as if it were without relation to the ideal world and as if all beings in it were determined by causal laws. He goes so far as to state: Die psychologistischen Logiker verkennen die grundwesentlichen und ewig unuberbruckbaren Vnterschiede zwischen Idealgesetz und Realgesetz, zwischen normierender Regelung und kausaler Regelung, zwischen logischer und realer Notwendigkeit, zwischen logischem Grund und Realgrund. Keine denkbare Abstufung vermag zwischen Idealem und Realem Vermittlungen herzustellen. (LV Prolegomena § 22, p.68 (emphasismine-J.S.) )

The psychologistic logicians ignore the fundamental, essential, never-to-be-bridged gulf between ideal and real laws, between

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normative and causal regulation, between logical and real necessity, between logical and real grounds. No conceivable gradation could mediate between the ideal and the real (Logi.cal Investigations, p. 104.) A closer study of the relevant texts 154 reveals that Husserl implies that all real beings are temporally determinate, are dominated by 'Realgesetze,' which would be eo ipso empirical laws only, and follow causally from preceding temporal events. Consequently, as the text quoted above states, there 'is no mediation between the ideal' (which is free from all of these conditions) 'and the real.' Husserl emphasizes frequently that acts of thinking (in contradistinction to logical propositions, meaning-units, and the like) are real entities. Now, of course, Husserl speaks of evidence and of the experience of truth and of ideal essential laws. But he never notices that the claim that the real human intellect participates in timeless truths contradicts his naturalistic and deterministic-empiricist general characterization of the real world. Hence it follows that, in order to justify evidence and knowledge of timeless truths, he has to deny ultimately that it is real individual subjects and their acts which participate in those timeless ideal laws. For if this is the case, some mediation and actual relation between the ideal and the real is possible, and the real is formed and dependent on the timeless structures and laws which it knows and which would form the act and content of knowledge, instead of being determined by causal laws and preceding temporal events. Thus the act of knowledge requires a transcendence which Husserl can in no way justify. We shall see, however, in the last section of this critique, that Husserl's claims in this regard are entirely unjustified and that there are not only absolutely necessary essential laws which apply to the real world, but the individual and real mind can attain the selfgivenness of eternal truths and essential states of affairs which present themselves in their timelessness to the temporal mind. Only a rejection of this prejudice - that the temporal act of knowledge could not participate in an eternal timeless order of essential truths - can prevent Husserl's deep insights into the possibility of knowledge of timeless essences from becoming an inevitable reason for transcendental idealism. We must see that the absolute universality of logical laws is in no way founded on the fact that they do not deal with real temporal

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beings, such as acts of the person (for about each act of the person there are equally strict necessary laws). It lies, rather, in the fact that essentially necessary laws radically differ from empirical factual laws from which a single case can be an exception. Moreover, the real being of the mind is in no way a causally and empirically determined X which follows from preceding temporal events Xl, X2, etc. The individual concrete act of cognition participates in knowledge in something entirely different from its temporality, an ideal timeless order of essential necessity. We shall return to this point shortly and bring it to evidence in the context of a discussion of indubitable knowledge of essentially necessary facts.

10 THE RECEPTIVE ESSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE AS REFUTATION OF THE RADICAL TRANSCENDENTAL CONSTITUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS By its very essence, knowledge is not only intentionally (i.e., consciously and meaningfully) related to objects but it is also characterized by active receptivity and transcendence. Knowledge is a discovering activity insofar as it sees, perceives, or understands a being as it is and because it is the way it is. The activity of the act of knowing, if it is to remain knowing and not to turn into something entirely different, cannot itself constitute (actively or passively) its object because it must transcendentally grasp that something really is the case and what it is. Thus the constituting activity which transcendental phenomenology and transcendental idealism ascribe to consciousness cannot really be ascribed to knowledge itself but only to some unconscious or transcendental activity which precedes knowledge itself, as was shown elsewhere. For example, the knowledge that everything would be constituted by consciousness, would itself have to discover that it really is the case that consciousness constitutes its object. This knowledge would have to grasp the real fact and receptively partake in it. If it only posited it, it would not know it and it would not actually be knowledge. Thus transcendental idealism and transcendental phenomenology commits one of two errors. Either it fails to recognize the most basic nature of knowledge, as when it leads to statements such as the following one: 173

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge one recognizes that all that exists for the pure ego becomes constituted in himself; furthermore, that every kind of beingincluding every kind characterized as, in any sense, 'transcendent' - has its own particular constitution. Transcendency in every form is an immanent existential characteristic, constituted within the ego. Every imaginable sense, every imaginable being, whether the latter is called immanent or transcendent, falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being. The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge ... is nonsensical ... an outside is precisely - nonsense. The thought expressed in this passage 156 contradicts itself, however, because the knowledge that this is so would have to go 'outside' itself and reach the fact that this is the case in itself and not only for thinking subjectivity. Or, if transcendental idealism acknowledges the essence of knowledge as discovery of what is and thus opts for the second alternative, the reality of the act of constitution and of nonconstituted objects has to be admitted as something which has being prior to the conscious acts of knowing. But this thesis again dissolves transcendental idealism because it introduces a being in itself which is not constituted by cognition but is pregiven and 'in itself.' Thus transcendental phenomenology, like any other form of transcendental idealism, turns out to be necessarily self-contradictory, and contradictory to the true nature of knowledge .157

11 THE LACK OF GIVENNESS OF AN ACTIVITY OF TRANSCENDENTAL CONSTITUTION When one returns to 'things themselves' and investigates what is given about the conscious life of the ego and about the conscious thinking of the subject, one can ask whether any universal process of constitution which would occur in all human consciousness is ever given in experience or is purely postulated. Is there anything which we discover in our experience or at its root, which would be like a transcendental, trans-mundane subject or ego? Is such a thing ever 174

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology given in experience? Husserl will certainly admit that it is not given in any manner like the immediately given objects of consciousness or of perception. Nor can it be given to us laterally as our own acts of desiring, hoping, knowing, or perceiving. But here the question arises: is the transcendental ego given in any other manner or not at all? One decisive difference in the transcendental idealism of Kant and Husserl or Fichte (who holds that 'intellektuelle Anschauung' immediately intuits the constituting activity)15~ lies in the following point. Husserl and Fichte claim that transcendental sUbjectivity is in some manner given in acts which attend merely to the experience of consciousness, while Kant introduces the transcendental structures of consciousness on purely deductive and hypothetical grounds which he claims to prove only on the basis of his whole system. 159 Thus the question must be posed: ho~ are things in fact? Is any transcendental constituting activity (as underlying all consciousness) ever given in experience? After long and extended reflection on, and attention to, consciousness the present writer can only say that he absolutely fails to experience anything like a worldconstituting activity and thus concludes that the existence of such an activity is only postulated. This follows even more clearly from the evident impossibility and self-contradiction implied in postulating such an activity. Thus, Husserl's theory of transcendental constitution is in no way directly justified through any datum and is at best inferred as a metaphysical speculation. But then transcendental phenomenology is precisely one of those theories which were allegedly abandoned once and for all by a phenomenology which truly returns to things themselves as they give themselves in experience from themselves. Thus transcendental phenomenology is anti-phenomenological because it introduces 'transcendental subjectivity' and 'transcendental constitution' - of which Husserl claims that they alone lead to ultimate understanding - as its most basic notions though these do not refer to anything which is given in any real or possible experience. In fact, the wholly transmundane character of the transcendental origin of consciousness and of its objects would even forbid, as Mohanty has argued forcefully, that any such 'name' as history, language, subjectivity, ego, and the like, which are taken from our mundane experience, be seriously used in order to refer to transcendental subjectivity which seems to be as 'nameless' as the 175

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge transcendent reality is according to the great Indian philosopher Shankara and others. 16u Thus it becomes a question whether Husserl as phenomenologist has any right to speak of a transcendental ego's constituting activity if this constitution is in no way given and beyond any experience of our acts and their relation to objects. An even more clearly anti-phenomenological trait of transcendental phenomenology reveals itself if it becomes clear that some features of the given conscious experience and, above all, of their objects, clearly contradict the claims of transcendental phenomenology. Then the theory of the transcendental constitution of all meaning and being is not only unphenomenological because it lacks any justification in terms of the given but antiphenomenological because it contradicts the given. In the following pages we shall see more clearly than we have through the preceding arguments that this is precisely the case.

12 CRITIQUE OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY BY UNCOVERING AMBIGUITIES IN THE NOTIONS OF 'TRANSCENDENTAL EGO; etc. Another way of criticizing transcendental phenomenology, which will only be indicated here and which has been developed elsewhere,161 starts by unveiling the fact that the terms 'transcendental ego,' 'pure ego,' 'constitution,' and so forth possess radically different meanings and thus not only render the foundation of transcendental phenomenology unclear and ambiguous, but are also the necessary condition for the apparent cogency of transcendental phenomenology; this seeming cogency disappears once these equivocations are uncovered. First, it can be demonstrated that the various attributes which Husserl ascribed to the 'transcendental ego' at different places clearly contradict each other. Husserl's notion of transcendental ego refers in some passages to the single individual ego of the philosopher who lives his being, performs acts, and so on. In other passages the 'pure ego' or 'transcendental ego' is identified with the ego whose real existence has been 'bracketed: and thus with a mere 'phenomenon' in Husserl's sense, one which cannot possess any of 176

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology the features of a living thinking subject that performs acts but is the pure object of the act of epoche and only an object of a very artificial intellectual methodic device. In still other passages it becomes clear that the 'transcendental subject' in Husserl's sense is not only an absolute being in the sense of a being which exists through its own activity but is also absolute in the sense of constituting all being and meaning. The absolute transcendental ego is also identified with an 'intersubjectivity' that is an intrinsically impossible anonymous subject in which the distinctions between persons are dissolved. To this absolute ego and absolute 'transcendental intersubjectivity' are ascribed features which can neither be found in the individual subject of the philosopher nor in the pure phenomenal ego. and which thus imply an entirely new meaning of 'transcendental ego' that is inapplicable to those 'subjects' designated as transcendental subjects in other contexts of Husserl's work. If the theory of the transcendental constitution of the world and of the self is built. however, upon an ambiguous and intrinsically contradictory notion of 'transcendental ego,' it cannot be a true account of the world and of the ego. Still other contradictions are contained in transcendental idealism. These contradictions are essentially and not accidentally linked to the position of transcendental idealism in any of its forms. In Kant, some of these contradictions - inherent in any transcendental idealism, yet assuming different forms- are especially striking and have been immediately noticed by his critics and even by his students. While all categories are restricted, according to Kant's 'critical philosophy,' to the world of phenomena and cannot be applied to transcendental subjectivity, Kant nevertheless appliesand is bound to apply, considering his starting point - the categories of negation, existence, reality. causality, unity, etc. to the 'noumena' and to the transcendental subject. The same type of contradiction is found earlier in the history of philosophy. for example in Shankara's attempt to postulate a brahman that would be totally beyond predication. and to which he is nevertheless bound to apply predicates. It is not possible at this point to undertake an attempt to show that similar ambiguities and contradictions can be found in all actual and conceivable systems of transcendental idealism. But if such an attempt should be successfuL and if it can be shown that such ambiguities and contradictions as are found in Husserl's transcendental 177

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge phenomenology result not from a lack of conceptual clarity in Husserl but are, in some form and to some extent, inherent in any transcendental idealist system - this would constitute an important criticism of transcendental idealism which would be shown to be intrinsically contradictory and inevitably to imply some confusion of entirely different things.

13 CRITIQUE OF THE INNER CONTRADICTIONS IN THE IDEA OF 'UNIVERSAL CONSTITUTION,' INCLUDING 'SELF-CONSTITUTION' It seems clear that any rigorous transcendental idealist philosophy

has to cope with the crucial problem whether or not all being or at least all objects of consciousness and experience, including our own subjectivity as empirical (experiencing and experienced) worldly ego, are constituted by what is called 'transcendental' (transmU.ndane) subjectivity. As soon as it is recognized that any being simply is, and is discovered by the conscious subject as existing independently from its conscious activity, transcendental idealism in its strict sense is abandoned. In this respect we agree with Fichte who pointed out that Kant's assumption of 'things in themselves' prevented him from really being an idealist; for this reason Fichte called Kant a 'Dreiviertelskopf' (three-quarters of a mind). In his opus postumum, Kant, like Fichte, gave up his claim that there are 'things in themselves.' The idea of a radical constitution of all meaning and being, however, necessarily leads to the idea of the self-constitution of the subject. For if the subject is an objectively existing being who discovers and finds his being as being there prior to any positing or constituting on his part, we are confronted with a form of realist philosophy, (albeit a solipsist realism), and have abandoned strict transcendental philosophy. But it is precisely here that the question, which we shall pursue in the third and fourth parts of the present work, of whether the idea of a universal constitution of objects and, above all, the idea of self-constitution, does not entail inescapable inner contradictions, arises. The being of the activity of constituting, at least, cannot be regarded as being itself but the object of some constituting act. If it, too, were constituted, it would send us back to a metaphysically prior act of constituting which would be responsible for it. Apart 178

Husserl's transcendental phenomenology from the existing act of constitution itself, the essence of constitution, its subject, and some general principles of being (such as the principle of contradiction) which govern the activity of constitution and give it its ontic structures and lawfulness, must remain unconstituted for any meaningful talk about constitution to be possible. Thus, unconstituted (real and ideal) being and meaning can be called the ontic condition of the possibility of any constitution. This evidence can also not be convincingly restricted to a world of 'mundane experience' from which the sphere of the transcendental and its constituting activity could be exempt. The essential necessities, as we shall still have occasion to show, govern every possible meaning and being, and thus every possible constitution. It is an absolute necessity which excludes the possibility that any transcendental or non-transcendental constitution, any appearing, any seeming, etc., could exist without coming under essentially necessary laws. 14 SYSTEMATIC DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONSTITUTED, UNCONSTITUTED, AND UNCONSTITUT ABLE BEING The central criticism of Husserl's position which is based on a careful analysis of constituted being and of the various meanings and dimensions of 'thing in itself,' cannot be expounded in a few words. Therefore, for this criticism, which requires an ontology of 'being in itself' and appearance that reveals that no appearance and constituted aspect of being is possible outside of the ontic context of 'beings in themselves,' we refer the reader to Part III of the present book. One crucial part of this criticism will be contained in Chapter 5 of this part. 15 ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY ESSENCES AND COGNITION OF REAL EXISTENCE IN THE 'COGlTO ARGUMENT' AS THE MOST RIGOROUS REFUTATION OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY The essences (eide) and essential necessities (Wesensgesetze) which playa decisive role in Husserl's phenomenology (and an even greater role in phenomenological realism) had been discovered 179

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originally not by Husserl but by Plato. Aristotle, Augustine, Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Descartes are only a few of those philosophers who have acknowledged and elaborated the datum of necessary essences. Moreover, these great philosopherphenomenologists of the classical tradition have returned to the 'things themselves' which these necessary essences are, whereas Husser! (notwithstanding some passages of singular clarity on Wesensnot wendigkeit in Logical Investigations ) failed really to penetrate into the structure and predicates of this essential necessity - at least in his later works. In what follows, an attempt will be made to unfold the indubitable knowledge of both real existence and of timeless essential necessities as founding the possibility of even the most radical doubt. We shall see how from these 'things themselves' the classical thinkers just mentioned took those essential marks and features (of absolute and intrinsic necessity, timelessness, and so forth) that they ascribed to these essences. A further systematic inquiry into the nature of these essences, however, will bring to evidence even more forcefully that it is absolutely impossible for any transcendental idealist position to account for the type of necessity and absoluteness we encounter in them.

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5 INDUBITABLE KNOWLEDGE OF REAL BEING AND OF NECESSARY ESSENCES IN THE COG/TO

1 INDUBITABLE KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH IN THE COG/TO In De Trinitate (X, X, 14) St Augustine formulates, with great precision, the manner in which the human mind, even when it finds itself threatened by the most radical skeptical doubt, can reach an indubitable certainty of knowledge which is immune to any possible skeptical objection because it reaches that which is both evident in itself and which is presupposed by any skeptical doubt. He writes: Vivere se tamen et meminisse, et intelligere, et velie, et cogitare, et scire, et judicare quis dubitet? Quandoquidem etiam si dubitat, vivit; si dubitat, unde dubitet, meminit; si dubitat, dubitare se intelligit; si dubitat, certus esse vult; si dubitat, cogitat; si dubitat, scit se nescrire; si dubitat, judicat non se temere consentire oportere. Quisquis igitur aliunde dubitat, de his omnibus dubitare non debet: quae si non essent, de ulla re dubitare non posset.

On the other hand who would doubt that he lives, remembers,understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? For- even if he doubts, he lives; if he doubts, he remembers why he doubts; if he doubts, he understands that he doubts; if he doubts, he wishes to be certain; if he doubts, he thinks; if he doubts, he knows that he does not know; if he doubts, he judges that he ought not to consent rashly. Whoever then doubts about 181

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge anything else ought never to doubt about all of these; for if they were not, he would be unable to doubt about anything at all. (St Augustine, The Trinity, translated by Stephen McKenna, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970.) In this and in many other formulations, Augustine takes his sole starting point in doubt, more radically even than Descartes, and he overcomes this radical doubt in a more grandiose fashion than Descartes, by showing that the reality of doubt itself necessarily presupposes what will turn out to be two types of indubitable knowledge. On the one hand, I gain the certain knowledge that I myself am, and that thus at least one being and person really exists (who knows vivere se). On the other hand, inseparably linked to this knowledge, we also gain insight into the necessary essence of doubt and of all those acts (of cognition, knowing, willing, and others) which are necessarily entailed by doubt. The starting point for this most fundamental philosophical knowledge (that we can know with certainty) is nothing more than - the doubt about everything. How is it possible that the most negative destructive thought, the radical skeptical doubt of all knowledge, should lead to indubitable certainty? In what· follows we shall use the text quoted and other texts of Augustine, Descartes, and Leibniz as guides to our own discovery that indubitable knowledge of truth is indeed the condition of the possibility of radical doubt.

(iJ Indubitable knowledge of real being in the cogito Even if I doubt the reality of everything, in this act I still discover with absolute certainty that I live and that I am conscious as subject. This Augustinian discovery of the indubitable knowledge of my own being was also made anew by Descartes and expressed most forcefully in Meditations II (3), starting, too, from the most radical doubt: But I was persuaded that there was nothing in all the world, that there was no heaven, no earth, that there were no minds, nor any bodies: was I not then likewise persuaded that I did not exist? Not at all; of a surety I myself did exist since I persuaded myself of something [or merely because I thought of something].

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Indubitable knowledge of real being But there is some deceiver or other, very powerful and very cunning, who ever employs his ingenuity in deceiving me. Then without doubt I exist also if he deceives me, and let him deceive me as much as he will, he can never cause me to be nothing so long as I think that I am something. So that after having reflected well and carefully examined all things, we must come to the definite conclusion that this proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive of it. (Rene Descartes, Meditations 11,3, translated by Haldane and Ross, Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 150.) At first, we have to marvel at the datum of the immediate experience of myself as knowing existing subject which is an experience of such an original structure that it is entirely irreducible to anything else. To begin with, this knowledge of myself is in no way arrived at by mediation of other premises, but it is immediate and not the conclusion of a logical argument. Descartes has put this well: When someone says, 'cogito ergo sum sive existo,' he does not deduce existence from thinking by means of a syllogism, but he knows something known through itself (per se notum) through a simple intuition of the mind (mentis intuitu) ... otherwise he would have to know first 'everything that thinks exists.' But it is not so: For it is the nature of our mind that it derives the general propositions from the knowledge of the particular. (Rene Descartes, Reply to Second Objections to Meditations, 189. (My translation - J .S.) Leibniz formulated the immediacy of this knowledge still more clearly:

On peut tousjours dire que cette Proposition: j' existe, est de la derniere evidence, estant une proposition, qui ne sauroit estre prouvee par aucune autre, ou bien une verite immediate. Et de dire: je pense, donc je suis, ce n' est pas prouver proprement [' existence par la pensee, puisque penser et estre pensant est la meme chose; et dire: je suis pensant, est deja dire: je suis .. c'est une proposition de fait, fondee sur une experience immediate. (G.W. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, IV, vii; Die 183

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge philosophischen Schriften, V, ed. C.I. Gerhardt, Hildesheim, 1965, pp. 391-2.)

One can always say that this proposition: I exist, is of ultimate evidence, being a proposition which could not be proven by any other one, or an immediate truth. And to say: I think, therefore I am, does not properly mean to prove existence by means of thinking, for to think and to be thinking is the same thing; and to say: I am thinking already implies: I am . .. (this) is a proposition of fact which is founded on an immediate experience. (My translation - I.S.) But it is not enough to characterize the inescapable givenness of my own being in indubitable knowledge by referring to the immediacy of the cognition of my being. We have to add that our own being is accessible to us in an entirely interior fashion - by being consciously lived from within. There is no more immediate and interior givenness of a being than this self-awareness of the person. It is decisive to see with Augustine that my being is not given here like an object over against me of which I would be conscious, as this occurs in explicit reflective self-knowledge (se cogitare). I know myself already prior to any such objectifying as it occurs in conscious reflection - in which my being becomes an object of which I gain consciousness and to which I return - in what Plotinus and Thomas Aquinas called a reditio perfecta mentis in seipsam. Augustine distinguishes the immediate self-awareness of my concrete individual being which I constantly possess and identifies it as nosse se. He contrasts it in another famous passage with the cogitare (cognoscere) se, saying that only in such a cogitatio can a full thematic cognition of the mind itself happen: Tanta est tamen cogitationis vis, ut nec mens quodam modo se in conspectu suo ponat, nisi quando se cogitat: ac per hoc ita nihil in conspectu mentis est, nisi unde cogitatur, ut nec ipsa mens, qua cogitatur quidquid cogitatur, aliter possit esse in conspectu suo, nisi seipsam cogitando. Quomodo autem, quando se non cogitat, in conspectu suo non sit, cum sine se ipsam numquam esse possit, quasi alia sit ipsa, aliud conspectus eius, invenire non possum. Hoc quippe de oculo corporis non absurde dicitur: ipse quippe oculus loco suo fixus est in corpore, aspectus autem eius in ea quae extra sunt tenditur, et usque ad sidera extenditur. Nec est 184

Indubitable knowledge of real being oculus in conspectu suo; quandoquidem non conspicit seipsum, nisi speculo objecto, unde jam locuti sumus: quod non fit utique quando se mens in suo conspectu sui cogitatione constituit. Numquid ergo alia sua parte aliam partem suam vidit, cum se conspicit, sicut aliis membris nostris, qui sunt oculi, alia membra nostra conspicimus, quae in nostra possunt esse conspectu? Quid did absurdius vel dici potest? Unde igitur aufertur mens, nisi a seipsa? Et ubi ponitur in conspectum suum nisi ante seipsam? Nwn non ergo ibi erit ubi erat, quando in conspectu suo nOll erat; quia hic posita, inde ablata est. Sed si conspicienda migravit, conspectura ubi manebit? An quasi geminatur, ut et illic sit et hic, id est, et ubi conspicere, et ubi conspici possit; ut in se ipsa sit conspiciens, ante se conspicua? Nihil horum nobis veritas consulta respondet: quoniam quando isto modo cogitamus, nonnisi corporum fictas imagines cogitamus, quod mentem non esse paucis certissimum est mentibus, a quibus potest de hac re veritas consuli. Proinde restat ut aliquid pertinens ad ejus naturam sit conspectus ejus, et in eam, quando se cogitat, non quasi per loci spatium, sed incorporea conversione revocetur: cum vera non se cogitat, non sit quidem in conspectu suo, nec de illa suus formetur obtutus, sed tamen noverit se tanquam ipsa sit sibi memoria sui.

But so great is the power of thought that not even the mind itself may place itself, so to speak, in its own sight, except when it thinks of itself. And consequently nothing is so in the sight of the mind, except when it thinks of it, that not even the mind itself, by which is thought whatever is thought, can be in its own sight in any other way than by thinking of itself. But how it is not in its own sight when it does not think of itself, since it can never be without itself, just as though itself were one thing and its sight another thing, I am unable to discover. For it is not absurd to speak thus of the eye of the body, since the eye itself is fixed in its own proper place in the body, but its sight is directed to those things that are without, and reaches even to the stars. Nor is the eye in its own sight, for it does not see itself, except when a mirror is placed before it ... ; and certainly this is not done when the mind places itself in its own sight by thinking of itself. Or does the mind, then, but one part of itself see another part of itself when it sees itself by thinking, as with some of our 185

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members, the eyes, we see other members which can be in our sight? What can be said or thought that is more absurd than this? For by what, therefore, is the mind removed except by itself and where is it placed in its own sight except before itself? Hence, it will not be there where it was when it was not in its own sight, because it is put down in one place after it is withdrawn from another place. But if it has wandered away in order to be seen, where will it remain in order to see? Or is it, as it were, doubled, so that it is both there and here, that is, both where it can see and where it can be seen: in itself in order that it may see, and before itself in order that it may be seen? When the truth is consulted, it does not give any of these answers, since when we think thus, we think only through the feigned images of bodies, and that the mind is not such is absolutely certain to the few minds that can be consulted for the truth about this matter. It remains, therefore, that its sight is something belonging to its nature, and the mind is recalled to it when it thinks of itself, Rot as it were by a movement in space, but by an incorporeal conversion; on the other hand, when it does not think of itself, it is indeed not in its own sight, nor is its gaze formed from it; but yet it knows itself, as if it were a remembrance of itself to itself. (Augustine, The Trinity, XIV, vi, 8) Here we see that the vivere se, our own conscious being, life, and acts, are known to us more immediately than by reflective thought: in the very performance of consciousness itself. We are our own conscious being and live it, and, in living it, it is given to us in a most interior fashion prior to any objectivizing reflection in which we think of ourselves (cogitare se). Moreover, our actions, so we may interpret Augustine's philosophy of consciousness in the light of important contributions of Karol Wojtyla, are reflected by our consciousness, even after they have passed, in a memoria which is again prior to any explicit act of reflection. As it appears clearly in moral conscience, we remember ourselves prior to thinking about ourselves, as occurs in explicit reflection and self-knowledge. In fact, as Augustine puts it audaciously in the text quoted above, it is 'as if we were the memory of ourselves.' Our acts are reflected, illumined, and judged in some fashion prior to their becoming explicit objects of reflection. 186

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Nevertheless, this immediate, pre-objectivizing acquaintance with our own being, in spite of its indubitable immediacy, is not yet what occurs in the cogitatio sui ipsius. For only when we make our being an object of acts of reflection and thought, can it be known fully by us. Tanta est tamen cogitation is vis - for so great is the power of objectivizing thought that even the mind, which knows itself most immediately and by which we know everything else, can know itself only when it places itself, as it were, in front of his own thought. While on the level of such objectivizing thought about our being and life many errors and distortions, which do not exist on the two more immediate forms of self-acquaintance mentioned before can occur, the philosophical knowledge of the se vivere is no less evident and is absolutely indubitable. It is indubitably certain because it makes the evident and immediate cognitive contact with our own being the starting-point of the knowledge: sum. The philosophical cogitatio sui ipsius grasps the concrete fact of our own being with indubitable certainty. It might be objected that this is a merely subjective knowledge that we (I) exist, and does not refer to the objective reality of the material world explored by science, the object of our senseperception and social relations. We reply: far from establishing any merely 'subjective' knowledge, the thrust of Augustine's insight is precisely that not only is the I just as objective a reality as all the trees out there, and all the stars, and the entire material world, but the mind is also far more wonderful than all the mountains, trees, and material beings. Thus in our own being we touch one objective and real being, and one which is far more important and real than the whole material universe. Therefore we can interpret Augustine with Hildebrand and say that the point of the cogito really is: 'I am; therefore one objective entity is; therefore being itself is.' Cogito; (ergo) sum; (ergo) esse est. In this indubitable knowledge of real facts 1 not only grasp that I as subject exist, but also that 1 doubt, that 1 do not know, etc. Hence, each and every act of mine is given to me with a certainty similar to the one in which 1 grasp the reality of the sum in self-knowledge in the strictest sense. And in knowing the vivere me as well as the existence of all the acts in me 1 grasp also the truth, the truth that 1 am, and that 1 think, doubt, lack certainty, judge, and so forth. This indubitable discovery of truth in the Cogito is explicated by Augustine in another important passage: 187

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge Deinde regulam ipsam quam vides concipe hoc modo: Omnis qui se dubitantem intelligit, verum intelligit, et de hac re quam intelligit certus est. Omnis igitur qui utrum sit veritas dubitat, in se ipso habet verum unde non dubitet; nee ullum verum sine veritate verum est. Non itaque oportet eum de veritate dubitare qui potuit undecumque dubitare. Ubi videntur haec, ibi est lumen sine spatio locorum et tempo rum et sine ullo spatiorum talium phantasmate. Numquid ista ex aliqua parte corrumpi possunt, etiamsi omnis ratiocinator intereat aut apud carnales inferos veterescat? 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)

Then conceive the rule itself which you see, in the following way. Everyone who knows that he is in doubt about something, knows a truth, and in regard to this that he knows he is certain. Therefore he is certain about a truth. Consequently everyone who doubts if there be a truth, has in himself a true thing of which he does not doubt; nor is there any true thing (verum) which is not true by truth. Consequently whoever for whatever reason can doubt, ought not to doubt that there is truth. Where this is seen, there is a light without the spaces of place and time, and without the deceiving imagery associated with such spaces. Can these truths in any way corrupt, even if every thinker were to die or would long be in the grave? For the thinker does not make such (truths) but he finds them. Therefore also before he finds them, they remain in themselves; but when they are found, they renew us. (My translation - 1.S.) The truth of these facts, the truth of the proposition that I exist, and that I doubt, is likewise discovered in the indubitably known fact that I exist. More than that, Augustine says that each of these facts and truths implies infinitely many others which follow from it: Sed si talia sola pertinent ad humanam scientiam, perpauca sunt; nisi quia in unoquoque genere ita multiplicantur, (ut) non solum perpauca non sint verum etiam reperiantur per infinitum numerum tendere. Qui enim dicit, Scio me vivere, unum aliquid scire se dicit: proinde si dicat, Scio me scire me vivere; duo sunt jam; hoc vero quod scit hae dua, tertium scire est; sic potest 188

Indubitable knowledge of real being addere et quartum, et quintum, et innumerabilia, si sufficiat. Sed quia innumerabilem numerum vel comprehendere singula addenda, vel dicere innumerabiliter non potest, hoc ipsum certissime comprehendit ac dicit, et verum hoc esse, et tam innumerabile, ut vere ejus infinitum numerum non possit comprehendere ac dicere.

But if such things alone belong to human knowledge, then they are very few; unless it be that they are so multiplied in each kind that they are not only not few, but are even found to reach an infinite number. For he who says: 'I know that 1 live,' says that he knows one thing; if he were then to say: 'I know that 1 know that 1 live,' there are already two things, but that he knows these two, is to know a third thing; and so he can add a fourth and a fifth, and innumerable more, as long as he is able to do so. But because he cannot comprehend an innumerable number by adding one thing to another, or express a thing innumerable times, he comprehends this very fact and says with absolute certainty that this is both true and so innumerable that he cannot truly comprehend and express its infinite number. Augustine applies this same knowledge also to our knowledge that we desire happiness or that we do not want to err. He writes: Item si quispiam dicat, errare nolo; nonne sive erret sive non erret, errare tamen eum nolle verum erit? Quis est qui huic non impudentissime dicat, Forsitan falleris? cum profecto ubicumque fallatur. falli se tamen nolle non fallitur. Et si hoc scire se dicat. addit quantum vult rerum numerum cognitarum, et numerum esse perspicit infinitum. Qui enim dicit, Nolo me falli et hoc me nolle scio, et hoc me scire scio; jam et si non commoda elocutione, potest hinc infinitum numerum ostendere. (Augustine, De Trinitate XV, xii, 21)

Likewise if someone were to say: 'I do not will to err,' will it not be true that whether he errs or does not err, yet he does not will to err? Would it not be the height of impudence of anyone to say to this man: 'Perhaps you are deceived,' since no matter in what he may be deceived, he is certainly not deceived in not willing to be deceived? And if he says that he knows this, he adds as many known things as he pleases, and perceives it to be an infinite 189

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge number. For he who says, 'I do not will to be deceived, and I know that I do not will this, and I know that I know this,' can also continue from here towards an indefinite number, however awkward this manner of expressing it may be. (Translated by McKenna, ibid., pp. 480-2) Thus, from the indubitable truths of fact about my own existence and acts infinitely many other factual truths about my knowledge follow. This fact also discloses the access to number, to infinite number, with all the necessary lawfulness of numbers explored by arithmetic, as contained in the indubitable knowledge which is given with, and is the condition of, even the most radical skeptical doubt. Yet this leads us already to a new point to which we shall instantly return: the cognition of universal necessary truths contained in the cogito. In the thoughts discussed thus far, Augustine and Descartes show the immediacy and indubitability of the cognition in which my own real being and life as well as the acts performed by me are given to me. I know them from within in performing them and in the 'memory of myself' which I, as it were, am and in which my being and acts become known to me also before I turn them into objects of thoughts. Finally, I know myself indubitably in the objectifying thought, in the cogitare se in which my being becomes the object of my self-knowledge. In philosophical reflection on all of this, moreover, I become aware of the indubitable certainty and truth with which my existence, life, willing (to avoid errors), and innumerable other facts about my being and acts are known to me and the infinitely many truths which follow from them.

(ii)

Knowledge of universal necessary truths implied in skeptical doubt

Yet all of these things could not be known by me, had I not also some knowledge of universal facts, of veritates aeternae. In the omnis contained in the passages quoted Augustine already refers to this fact. Indeed, without knowing such strictly necessary and universal facts, I could also not know the individual facts of the vivere me and all the others discussed thus far. Let us explain this, following again the lead of Augustine's and Descartes' texts. 190

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The reality of my own conscious existence and life (the vivere me) is known indubitably precisely because I understand that my being cannot just appear or seem to me but is real and is in itself. For every 'seeming' to a subject, every 'appearing' to him, presupposes the real subject to which something appears or seems. And this subject of deception cannot again be an appearance. This is a universal essentially necessary fact, which I grasp in a synthetic a priori knowledge that is founded on the objective essence of appearing, seeming, and being. Augustine expresses this in another important passage, and best known form of his cogito-argument, which closely resembles the one from Descartes' Meditations II cited above: sine ulla phantasiarum vel phantasmatum imaginatione ludificatoria mihi esse me idque nosse et amare certissimum est. Nulla in his veris Academicorum argumenta formido dicentium: Quid si falleris? Si enim failor, sum. Nam "qui non est, utique nee falli po test; ac per hoc sum, si fallor. Quia ergo sum, si failor, quo modo esse me failor, quando certum est me esse, si fallor? Quia igitur essem, si fallerer, etiamsi fallerer, procul dubio in eo, quod me novi nosse, non fallor. Consequens est autem, ut etiam in eo, quod me novi nosse, non fallar. Sicut enim novi esse me, ita etiam hoc ipsum, nosse me. Eaque duo cum amo, eundem quoque quiddam tertium nee imparis aestimationis eis quas novo rebus adiungo. Neque enim fallor amare me, cum in his quae amo, non fallar; quamquam et si illa falsa essent, falsa me amare verum esset. Nam quo pacta recte reprehenderer et recte prohiberer ab amore falsorum, si me illa amare falsum esset? Cum vera illa vera atque certa sint, quis dubitet, quod eorum, cum amantur, et ipse amor vere et certus est? Tam porro nemo est qui esse se no lit, quam nemo est, qui non esse beatus velit. Quomodo enim potest beatus esse, si non sit? (St Augustine, De Civitate Dei XI, xxvi)

But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived as to my 191

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existence? For it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since therefore I, the person deceived, would be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For as I know that I am, I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a third thing, namely my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not want to be. For how can he be happy if he is nothing? (Translated by M. Dods, Basic Writings of Augustine, vol. II, New York, 1948) My own being and my acts can never be only an irreal object of conscious acts, without really being in themselves. Noemata of the form of seeming and appearance have no other being except the 'thin' existence which they possess as pure object of our consciousness. Augustine's and Descartes' insight is precisely that it is impossible that our own being and acts only appear to be. They are real existing beings and part of my real being. Any possible deception, any error in which we are duped by seeming facts that are not, presupposes this absolute Archimedean point of the real being of the subject who is deceived and who therefore cannot be deceived in the cognition that he exists. Any form of theory which interprets the being of the subject as a merely constituted object of some transcendental consciousness (which would also constitute itself) falls into the same untenable contradiction pointed out by Augustine, and denies the eternal truth which Augustine uncovers: that any possible object of thought and constitution presupposes the non-constituted reality of the subject, and therefore of one real being. Yet, with equally indubitable evidence, I find, says Augustine, that I cannot doubt without remembering what I am doubting about. Again, this fact is not just found in myself as the individual fact of my own doubt discussed above. Rather, I grasp from the very 192

Indubitable knowledge of real being essence of doubt that no man, no thinking subject in any possible world, could doubt without having some awareness and cognition of the object of his doubt. This intentional structure of doubt as necessarily going beyond an immanent state of consciousness towards something which is doubted, is disclosed as belonging to the very essence of doubt itself. Moreover, we can see that this obj ect of doubt must possess a certain structure, that is, it cannot be simply a man, a rose, etc. which I doubt. Rather, only a 'state of affairs: the 'being-b of an A' can be the object of doubt: only that something exists, or that something has or does not have a certain predicate. can be the object of doubt. I doubt not simply the one state of affairs but I doubt whether or not it obtains. This 'whether or not' which characterizes the complex object of doubt reveals another essentially necessary fact about the object of doubt. In doubt we always regard at least two contradictorily opposed states of affairs (Sachverhalte): that something is or is not X. Thus the radical doubt of all truth implies that it is not certain, whether or not there is truth. I doubt all truth. that is. I am uncertain of whether or not it is. But if this is the case. Augustine explains in an earlier version of his cogito, I grasp at the foundation of doubt also the universal principle which Aristotle calls the 'first and most certain of all principles: namely the principle of contradiction. For if it were not impossible that one and the same thing. A. possesses and does not possess existence. or a predicate b. then the meaning of doubt is undermined. Doubt. in order to be meaningful at all, presupposes the absolute validity of the principle of contradiction. I grasp that either there is truth or there is no truth. but both cannot occur. If the\' could both be, A and its contradictory opposite. then doubt would not make sense any more. In Contra Academicos. the early dialogue of Augustine which is the first purely philosophical writing of a Christian and which presents a critique of skepticism. a view Augustine himself had once adopted. he shows that again infinitely many true disjunctive propositions follow from the truth of the principii' of contradiction: Count, if you can how many there are: ... if there is one sun (only). there are not two: one and the same soul cannot die and still be immortal: man cannot at the same time be happy and unhappy; '/ .. we are now either awake or asleep: either there is 193

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge a body which I seem to see or there is not a body. Through dialectic I have learned that these and many other things which it would take too long to mention are true; no matter in what condition our senses may be, these things are true of themselves. It has taught me that, if the antecedent of any of those statements which I just placed before you in logical connection were assumed, it would be necessary to deduce that which was connected with it. ... (St Augustine, Contra Academicos, II, xiii, 29.) Hence the most radical skeptic sees that a thing cannot be and not be in the same sense and at the same time. The unfolding of this knowledge would make us understand how many additional evidences it implies, and how all the things Husserl's Logicaiinvestigations and PHinder's Logik unfold about the essence of the principle of contradiction, about the distinction between its ontological and its logical sense, about the difference between the principle of contradiction and a mere psychological law, about the immediate knowledge in which it is given, about the difference between its evident objective truth and its mere presupposed ness by thinking, and so on are contained within and are implicity recognized in the most radical doubt. They form part of the nucleus of indubitable truth without which the person cannot live and perform any conscious act at all, including doubting. Moreover, everybody who doubts also understands (intelligit) that he doubts. This implies the truth that no apersonal unconscious being could ever doubt. Doubt presupposes not only the directedness towards an intentional object of doubt but also the selfawareness and self-consciousness which permits the unique act of reflection, the intellectio that I think and doubt. A being which would be totally absorbed in objects and which could not take the step back involved in reflection, a being which could not bend back over itself in what Augustine calls an entirely immaterial conversion over itself and in what Thomas Aquinas called the reditio mentis camp/eta super seipsam, also could not doubt. This fascinating act, in which the subject is both subject and object of reflection, is again necessarily implied - at least as a possibility - by doubt. The type of consciousness which suffices for feeling physical pain, which animals undoubtedly have, would not suffice for doubt, because doubt presupposes a higher mode of personal consciousness that permits 194

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the intelligere se dubitantem. Moreover, not only do I understand that I doubt but I also know that I do not know. This scit se nescire refers again to the absolutely universal fact that in order to doubt I have to know that I do not know. First of all, when I doubt, at least in the sincere doubt which is not just a pretext and a rejection of knowledge, I actually do not know the fact of which I am doubting. For it is impossible for me to doubt the indubitable truths which I have just discovered. I can only doubt if my knowledge is uncertain in virtue of some deficiency, and if there is, for this reason, some dubitability in my conviction about a Sachverhalt. But the mere lack of (certain) knowledge is not sufficient for doubt. Rather, I also have to know that I do not know, in order to doubt. This is another reason why doubt necessarily presupposes a subject that is capable of the act of reflection and of grasping the absence or limits of knowledge. Another essentially necessary fact which is presupposed by any act of doubts is the will to be certain and to avoid error. Any genuine doubt presupposes the desire for knowledge. This implies again a whole world of related facts. In seeking to know, the one who doubts also understands what knowledge is, and that only a receptive-discovering contact with being, in which that which is the case manifests itself to the spirit, is knowledge, not any mere assuming or positing that does not coincide with that which is. Thus, the nature of truth is also discovered in doubt, the nature of truth as a unique sort of conformity between judgments and the states of affairs posited in them. Along with the nature of truth which I wish to attain, the essence of the error which I wish to avoid in doubt is also known. For I could not doubt if I did not wish to avoid error. Then it would make no sense to doubt. Thus knowledge, conviction, judgment, truth, error, certainty, uncertainty - all of these are given in the act of doubt, and countless further essentially necessary facts about each of their natures can be brought to evidence simply by carefully attending to the act of doubt. Insofar as doubt contains the question about truth, one could also unfold the necessary essence of the question both as act and as thought, and show that the latter cannot be true or false, and so on. Insofar as nobody doubts who does not prefer knowledge to error and to doubt, I also perceive that some axiological knowledge is gained in doubt. The value of knowledge and truth when compared to falsity and error, the superior value of knowledge when 195

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compared to doubt, are known in doubt. Likewise, the difference between the purely intellectual disvalue of error as opposed to the moral dis value of the person who does not even seek truth or who lightly claims its possession, can be known by delving into the nature of sincere doubt. One can also see that, apart from their intrinsic value as a positive importance which they possess in themselves, knowledge and the desire and love of truth are goods for the person who possesses them and error is an evil for him. In order that genuine doubt be possible, also hierarchical gradations of values and goods for the person must be known. The doubting subject must understand that it is a greater evil to err than to doubt, for, otherwise, he would have no motive to doubt rather than putting forth blind claims. He must understand that his doubt differs from a cynical rejection of truth as well as from an untrue hypocritical claim to certainty where it is lacking. Finally, everyone who doubts judges that he ought not to assent rashly. In this again the doubting subject has to make at least two judgments: that he does not possess sufficient knowledge to give his assent to a proposition, and that he ought to abstain from judging if he possesses insufficient knowledge to warrant the judging assent. The doubt is then recognized as the response due to this situation and as preferable to the blind assent of the one who judges lightly. The existence and essence of time - in the transition from the moment in which I doubt to that in which I gain certainty, and in the impossibility of doubting and being certain about the same thing and in the same sense - can also be known by grasping the essence of doubt. 'If these things were not, he could not doubt of anything,' formulates Augustine. The objective necessity which is found in these and other universal facts, however, needs some further explanation. Do these universal truths really possess objective necessity? Could we not be confronted here with a mere linguistic necessity or with a mere necessity of thought, a mere subjective necessity which is incorrectly projected into these 'things themselves'? At this point, we have to delve into the structure of the veritates aeternae and of their foundation in the essences of things, unfolding again what Augustine and his followers, particularly Bonaventure, have already seen. For we have now discovered that the knowledge of the factual truths of my existence and acts discussed before in one sense also 196

Indubitable knowledge of real being depends on the cognition of universal truths and principles. This is of the greatest importance. The lack of a clear recognition of universal necessary truths is one of the reasons why Descartes' Cogito and his inference of God have often been accused of turning into a vicious circle. For at times Descartes says that all necessary truths could be changed by God and that only the knowledge of the veracity of God would guarantee human knowledge of these necessary truths. Yet in order to arrive at the knowledge of the cogito itself and of the existence of God, we already have both to depend upon and use logical truths and many other necessary universal principles. Descartes writes: perhaps a God might have endowed me with such a nature that I may have been deceived even concerning things which seemed to me most manifest. But every time that this preconceived opinion of the sovereign power of a God presents itself to my thought, I am constrained to confess that it is easy to him. if He wishes it, to cause me to err, even in matters in which I believe myself to have the best evidence. (Rene Descartes, Meditations II, ibid., p. 158) Other passages are even more radically voluntaristic, making the necessary truths themselves dependent on an act of divine Fiat. Certainly, Descartes' position, his extension of doubt to the necessary truths which we found to be as certain as the cognition of the fact of my existence, and to be presupposed by the latter. is mitigated by many passages in which he seems to hold that this evidence of universal necessary truths is on a par with that of the cogito, sum. In the text from Meditations III quoted above, he continues: on the other hand, always when I direct my attention to things which I believe myself to perceive very clearly, I am so persuaded of their truth that I let myself break out into words like these: Let who will deceive me, He can never cause me to be nothing while I think that I am, or some day cause it to be true to say that I have never been, it being true now to say that I am. or that two and three make more or less than five. or any such things in which I see a manifest contradiction. (Translated by Haldane and Ross, ibid .. pp. 158-9) In Meditations (V, 15) and Second Reply to Objections (189) 197

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Descartes makes the point that the immediate evidence of necessary essences and necessary truths is absolutely indubitable when I fix my intuitive look upon them and that he meant solely to extend the doubt to them, when they were inferred from previously established and not presently intuited premises (d. also Fourth Reply to Objections, 344). And there is a great number of other texts of Descartes, in Meditations V and elsewhere, in which he emphasizes the uninventable and absolutely necessary character of these 'true immutable esences,' which we discover 'without the slightest production of our mind, from their own nature, in which they (their marks) are linked with each other.' Nevertheless, Descartes' position on these rationes aeternae and necessary truths is quite confusing and he does not sufficiently recognize that their evidence is equal to that of the sum and even greater as condition of the former. Because of the absolutely crucial role of these necessary essences for all philosophy and indubitable knowledge of truth, their nature has to be explored further in a way that has become possible through 'phenomenological realism,' and refutes any form oftranscendental German idealism or Husserl's own later 'transcendental relativism.'

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF ESSENTIALLY NECESSARY FACTS (i) Essential necessity

(a) Essentially necessary versus contingent facts The essentially necessary facts which we discovered, such as that nobody can doubt without existing, differ, first of all, from contingent accidental facts, such as the fact that I exist. The first difference between these two facts is that one is individual (ego sum), while the other one is universal: 'nobody (in no possible world) can doubt without existing.' A second and deeper difference between the two facts consists in this: in the first state of affairs we find a necessary link between the two terms (the being that is meant by the subject-term and the predicate); aliter esse non potest, as Bonaventure puts it. The second state of affairs is characterized by a contingent link: I exist; I could also not exist (aliter esse potest). In fact, in gratitude for my being I discover that the fact of my existence is a surprising 198

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event, which is not necessary at all. That the second difference between the two types of facts is still more important than the first can also be shown in another way. The necessary link between subject and predicate in the first type of states of affairs is found both in the universal fact and in the individual application of it. That my doubt presupposes my existence (although it is something individual) is as necessary as the universal fact that every doubt presupposes the existence of its subject. That Socrates' justice presupposes his freedom is not less evident than that justice presupposes freedom in general. Although essential necessity (as long as we deal with beings whose existence is contingent) is always grounded in the universal essence (eidos) and state of affairs, the necessary bond between the various moments of the essence is also found in the particular instance. One could say that the general (essentially necessary) law is of absolute necessity and of non-conditional necessity. It simply is necessary. The necessity of the individual instance of the universal law, in contrast, is conditional in regard to existence: ifsome person X exists, his doubt necessarily presupposes his existence, etc. Of course, the essentially necessary facts are unconditionally true too for his possible being and for all possible individuals and worlds. If we speak, however, of the absolute necessity of the essentially necessary fact in the existing individual, then his reality and contingent existence are presupposed for this necessity to obtain actually. An additional fact corroborates our finding that the absence or presence of an absolutely necessary connection between subject and predicate in our two sets of states of affairs is more important than the difference between the general nature of the first type of fact and the individual nature of the second. Many general facts (such as that man has ten fingers) are not necessary. This proves that necessity is not the same thing as generality and that it is not even implied by it. (b) Essential necessity versus formal dominion of general nature This further becomes evident through the following consideration. The essential necessity which we encountered with Augustine and which is inherent in the essence of doubt, knowledge, truth, appearance-versus-being-in-itself, and other data, is completely different from what Hildebrand aptly calls the mere 'formal dominion of the universal nature over the individual case.' Of course, 199

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge there is such a necessity. Hit is true that all men are going to die, and that Socrates is a man, he is going to die, too. If it is assumed as true that all crows are black, and this bird is a crow, it must also be black, and so on. This necessity of the dominion of the universal over the particular, however, differs profoundly from essential necessity. It is, first of all, restricted to the relation between genus or species (the general nature) and the particular. The necessity here refers exclusively to this relation and is neither found in the universal fact as such nor in the particular relation between this bird and its being black. The essential necessity which we discovered with Augustine, however, is not at all restricted to the relation between the universal and the particular. It characterizes both the universal state of affairs as such and the individual state of affairs as such. Moreover, only when there is essential necessity (and therefore not in the case of the crow or of the necessity of dying) can one say that the relationship between the universal nature and the individual case is strictly necessary. For if there is no essential intrinsic necessity, any absolute necessity of the formal dominion is purely analytic, quite similar to that of tautological propositions. If it is grounded in a contingent nature, the formal dominion is not absolute. Thus, (synthetic a priori) essential necessity alone can found the strict necessity of formal dominion of the general nature over the individual instance.

(c) Absolute essential necessity versus necessity of nature Apart from differing both from individual contingent (nonnecessary) facts, on the one hand, and from the necessity of the formal dominion of the general nature over the particular instance, on the other, essential necessity differs also from the necessity of the so-called laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, or the biological law that the human organism needs to have a heart to stay alive, or that a virgin cannot conceive without any relationship with man. There is certainly some kind of necessity here, at least the kind Aristotle requires in the Posterior Analytics in order for any science to be possible. But this type of necessity differs radically from essential necessity, as Dietrich von Hildebrand, above all, has shown in the ground-breaking Chapter IV of his What is Philosophy? In the first place, this necessity is not absolute. This can be seen a

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Indubitable knowledge of real being posteriori from the fact that exceptions to such laws of nature occur as a matter of fact. Such strange phenomena as 'black holes,' 'anti-matter: and the like prove this. Likewise, miraculous events, the facticity of which no one can seriously challenge, even if he rejects their religious interpretation, bear witness to this fact. Philosophers like David Hume and atheistic scientists would agree with this fact. Modern physics even wants to go so far as to assign to laws of nature only a statistical necessity. But even if this position is rejected by a 'classically minded physicist: the 'necessity' of laws of nature is still not absolute. The idea of exceptions as well as that of miracles at least remains possible in regard to this 'necessity of nature.' Its contingency is also confirmed by its epistemological reflection in that experiments are required in order to know these 'necessities;' they cannot be grasped by the mediation of one experience only, and experience can also show deviations of individual events from these laws of nature. In distinguishing four types of necessity (and impossibility) Bonaventure calls the necessity of nature (necessitatem propter limitationem naturae) one which does not imply absolute impossibility and of the opposite of which it is therefore not true that it cannot in any manner be (nullo modo potest). Rather (in his Commentary on the Sentences L 744 ff), Bonaventure says that the impossibility which corresponds to this necessity of nature means that the opposite can only happen with difficulty (as exception: difficulter fit). The necessity of natural laws, Bonaventure says, can definitely be suspended by omnipotence. So far we have used only a posteriori empirical arguments for the non-absoluteness of this necessity, from exceptions, and other real and possible deviations of events from laws of nature. There is, however, a deeper knowledge at the basis of the assertion of the non-absoluteness of this necessity than the fact that we experience or believe that exceptions from these laws have actually occurred. We can gain a philosophical insight into the datum of the contingency of essence, into the non-absoluteness of the necessity of these facts. There is nothing intrinsic to these facts which would, absolutely speaking, forbid their being otherwise. They are contingent on the order of essence itself, not only on that of existence. The essential necessities, on the contrary, which Augustine unfolds as conditions of doubt, are absolute and are given as being absolute in such a manner that no possible exception or power (in 201

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any possible world) could suspend them. While this absolute necessity is never conditioned by some fact or will or power, it can be conditional or non-conditional in another sense. That moral goodness presupposes freedom, and deception real existence, is of absolute non-conditional necessity. But that an act of promise gives rise to a moral obligation to fulfill the promise, is conditioned insofar as it depends on other factors - whether or not this essentially necessary natural consequence of promising actually comes into being or is suspended by other factors. The absolute essential necessity can refer, furthermore, either to the order of being (such as that doubt presupposes life) or to oughtness, such as that we ought not to give our assent to a proposition rashly. Another decisive difference between the essential necessity and the necessity of nature consists in the fact that the a priori necessity is grounded intelligibly in the essence of the respective being, whereas the natural necessity does not flow simply and in a fully intelligible way from the essence. It does not possess the supreme ('incomparable') intelligibility of essentially necessary facts. (d) Essential necessity versus aporetic 'seeming' necessity Essential necessity differs also from what Bonaventure calls 'seeming absolute necessity,' 'secundum limitationem intelligentiae nostrae.' Such a necessity just appears to be absolute, for example that one and the same identical body cannot be simultaneously in two different locations, or that a free act cannot be engendered by a being which is totally caused by God. Similarly, it seems absolutely impossible that an infinite being creates finite beings which do not add 'more being' to it, and so on. This impossibility (propter limitationem intelligentiae nostrae) refers especially to what the present author has, in a previous work, called 'an apory' and differs from absolute impossibility (that is founded in essential necessity) mainly in that it only seems to be impossible; that is to say, it presents itself to our mind in such a way that we fail to comprehend how it could be otherwise. There is an incomprehensibility of 'things being otherwise' and the impossibility which corresponds to this apparent necessity is given as related to the limitation of our comprehension. We have no apodictic certainty of the absolute objective impossibility of it being otherwise. We fail to comprehend any 'otherwise' as possible. But this lack of seeing is not on a par with positive insight into necessity or impossibility; and such a

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positive insight is not present here. More importantly, in this case there is - accessible to our experience - a dependency of this 'necessity' and 'impossibility' on the limitation of our mind. In other words, this necessity is not clearly given as rooted in the essence of the object in question. In some cases the doubt may, of course, arise as to whether the object itself is not in this way necessary or impossible but no positive insight into necessity/impossibility is reached. In other cases (like in many apories concerning freedom and its compatibility with foreknowledge, first cause, and other metaphysical and anthropological facts) both terms of the mysterious relation are given and thus also the actual existence (and freedom from contradictions) of the apparently impossible relation; the non-givenness of absolute necessity here is thus clearly known. In this case we know indirectly that it is possible though it appears to be impossible when we look at it directly. It is decisive to see how such an 'appearing impossible,' in virtue of the limits of our intellect and of the lack of sufficiently penetrating the nature of the respective object, differs from an insight into an essential impossibility. To realize this is to acknowledge one of the ways, in which ignorance, of which Socrates speaks as a distinctive mark separating the philosopher from the sophist, belongs indeed to philosophy. To repeat, any impossibility of comprehending and any seeming of necessity/impossibility is clearly distinct from the datum of a positively given impossibility/necessity. (e) Essential necessity differs from psychological necessity There are two types of psychological necessity and of corresponding impossibility. Both are different from essential necessity in general, and from essential necessities about psychological data (such as that each act of will presupposes the cognition of the willed object) in particular. There are first empirical psychological necessities such as that man cannot pay full attention to five different activities at the same time. These have the character of a 'necessity of nature' related to the human psyche, and differ from essential necessity in the ways spelled out above. The second type of psychological necessity/impossibility is present when there is an immanent reason within our psychic life for having to think or not to think, to imagine or not to imagine, and so on, something 'objective.' This necessity may project some merely subjective psychological connection into the objective world. In this 203

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way, a man who is told that he can make gold out of dust only if he never thinks of white bears, may never be able to turn dust into gold, if only for no other reason than that, psychologically, he can no longer fail to think of white bears whenever he intends to make gold. This type of necessity is, first of all, not absolute but empirical, and even as empirical necessity it is less strict than that of the laws of nature. Exceptions are not only possible but it is clearly understood that there is no absolutely necessary bond between the terms which I associate or think together with psychological necessity. White bears are in no way given as necessarily connected to gold, although the man always thinks of the one with the other. With this example, the difference between a psychological inability to imagine or to think differently is given in its distinctness from essential necessity. Secondly, this necessity is in no way given as rooted in the object in question (e.g., in a connection between white bears and gold) but the necessity appears clearly on the subject-side and is experienced as a subjective lack of ability to think or to imagine except in accordance with such a psychological necessity. Since the most serious 'subjective competitor' of objective essential necessity is not psychological necessity but what Kant and transcendental idealists call 'transcendental necessity,' and since all arguments against the identification of objective essential necessity with subjective transcendental necessity will also apply to the refutation of more empirical versions of psychologism, we move to this decisive theme. (f) Objective essential necessity versus subjective transcendental

necessity A transcendental necessity would not be a mere empirical psychological necessity/impossibility of perceiving or thinking but an absolute necessity/impossibility of us to think or experience something differently from how we actually experience or think it. Kant interprets the synthetic a priori elements presupposed by all experience as transcendentally necessary conditions of all possible experience which we find already in our consciousness 'im Gemuthe bereitliegen.' Heinrich von Kleist gives a very telling image of transcendental necessity by comparing it, on the level of mind, to the case of sense-perception in which we would be wearing green glasses and would have to see all objects green without being able to

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Indubitable knowledge of real being ever detect whether this green color which we inevitably perceive in objects belongs to them or only to us. ' Transcendental necessity of thought, which Kant confuses with essential necessity, differs from that absolute necessity because it is only a necessity of 'our having to think that ... ,' 'having to experience this or that connection.' Just as the green color is in no way given as growing out of the essence of the objects which we see, so a mere transcendental necessity of our thinking certain things could in no way coincide with an objective essential necessity which is discovered in the object of thought, in its very essence. Moreover, the transcendental necessity presents itself as a 'fact of pure reason,' as factually present. There is no intelligibility here in the object of thought which would explain that and why the necessity flows out of the object's structure. In this regard, to which we shall momentarily return, essential necessity is quite different from transcendental necessity; it comes 'from the front,' i.e., it is perceived in the nature of the object in question, whereas transcendental necessity comes 'from the back,' from the subject's own structures of thought and imagination from which it cannot escape. For this reason, transcendental necessity also cannot be given as absolute but only as something relative to our nature. We, as subjects of a certain transcendental structure, can only perceive, imagine, and think in a certain way. How persons of another nature would think and perceive, we do not know. Something like a 'transcendental necessity' in this sense actually exists. There are 'transcendental forms of intuition' in the sense that we have to perceive objects at the same time only from a certain vantage point, in certain perspectives, and so on. Essential necessity (synthetic a priori necessity), however, is given to us precisely as dependent not on our subjective constitution but on the essence of a being independent from anyone's consciousness or constitution. The unique datum of essential necessity which Kant failed to analyze properly, by quickly explaining it through reference to a radically different type of necessity (thus explaining it away) is brought to evidence more clearly by analyzing its further marks.

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Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge (ii) Absolute exceptionless generality

This mark of necessary essences and of essentially necessary facts has already been discussed. We saw earlier that an absolutely exception less (synthetic) necessity with which the universal nature rules each individual case is only grounded in essentially necessary facts as such; it is a consequence of the strict essential necessity.

(iii) Timelessness and eternity

Although essential necessity is also realized in concrete individual entities, its source lies in the general necessary essence of things. Thus even if one says with Thomas Aquinas that essential necessity belongs to the 'nature in absolute consideration' and neither to the individual essence qua individual nor to the general qua general, one has to admit that this truth does not cancel the fact that the source of the necessity does not lie in the individual temporal being but in a universal and atemporal essential form of the thing. And the absolute necessity of the general state of affairs is also timeless. This timelessness, interminability (without end) and beginninglessness (agenes), this timeless 'eternity,' and endlessness follows necessity if absolute essential necessity is given. It is its concomitant.

(iv) Absolute indestructibility

The essentially necessary facts are timeless not only as a mere fact but they are absolutely indestructible. No power whatsoever, on earth or in heaven, could destroy an essential necessity, as we have already seen.

(v) Immutability

Plato, Augustine, Bonaventure, and other philosophers have perceived that if there really is essential necessity, this necessity is also unable to be subject to any change and alteration, not only to any change in time but even to an 'eternal having been different' such as

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if God's free will to create would not have been given from eternity.

(vi) Incomparable intelligibility

By far the most important feature of essentially necessary facts, besides their essential necessity itself, is the unique mode of intelligibility they possess. In the broadest sense, everything that is intelligible, is a verum transcendentale, as Edith Stein has brought out afresh by means of her phenomenological method. But this know ability (capacity to be known, openness to intelligent minds) of all being has many degrees and steps. There are irrational and rational forms of human behavior. The latter are intelligible in a far superior mode. Within intelligibility, in general, the type which is open to intellectual insight and proof differs decisively from others, and merits the name 'intelligibility' in a fundamentally new way which may be called 'incomparable intelligibility.' However, accidental facts and merely factually linked 'unities' possess intelligibility only in the sense that we can know them precisely as 'brute facts.' It is impossible here to understand them 'from within.' While it may be possible to understand some reasons which led to such contingent or accidental facts, it is impossible to understand them 'from within,' through the datum in question itself. 'Morphic unities' and meaningful natures of natural objects and works of art we can understand much more properly 'from within.' Nevertheless, here too, we cannot reach an ultimate understanding of why the object is - in the way in which this can be attained in the knowledge of essentially necessary facts. With reference to the essentially necessary fact that being and not being of the same thing, in the same respect, exclude each other, we can gain insight, we can truly intima rei intus legere (read the innermost nature of the thing within). Such an insight differs radically from the mere observation of facts. The reason for the unique intelligibility and understandability of essentially necessary facts lies in the absolute essential necessity of these facts and could not be grounded in any other thing besides essential necessity. One could even go as far as to say: this unique intelligibility is the same thing as the absolute essential necessity of the intelligible facts, except under another aspect. The 207

Part ll: The cogito and indubitable knowledge objective necessity under the aspect of its allowing the knowing mind to grasp it in a unique kind of penetration 'from within' is the incomparable intelligibility. This intelligibility is, as it were, the objective necessity itself emerging as a light for the mind and illuminating man's understanding. Not only does this necessity allow for a grasping of 'yes, this is actually the case' but it also renders possible an understanding that something must be and could not be otherwise. We understand 'why' it is - from within, from the fountain of its intrinsic necessity itself. Incomparable intelligibility, then, characterizes the essentially necessary data in themselves, although not in themselves as such, but with reference to a possible understanding. Since this intelligibility has reference to understanding only in principle but not to actual (human) understanding, objective intelligibility could reside in a being without that objective intelligibility (quoad se) implying its actual accessibility to our mind (quoad nos), which Aquinas distinguishes from the former in the context of his critique of Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence. Once we understand this unique mode of intelligibility we see that it can only be found in essentially necessary facts because only these can make it possible for the mind to grasp their absolute necessity from within - and their incomparable intelligibility consists in that. The necessity of the mere formal dominion of the general nature over the individual instance either has no such intelligibility at all (for a contingent nature does not have strict dominion over each individual instance; there could be exceptions to it) or this dominion is interpreted in the sense of a non-informative analytic necessity which goes back to the principles of identity and contradiction. It only says that each X, as long as it has all general properties of the nature of X, will necessarily have these properties. Only when the necessity of the formal dominion of the universal nature over each individual instance of this nature is grounded in objective essential necessity (beyond that of the principles which ground the truth of non-informative propositions), does it have absolute (and informative) necessity itself: Laws of nature could never possess this kind of intelligibility precisely because they are not absolutely necessary and must not absolutely be the way they are. They are contingent upon some facts (or upon divine freedom), allow in principle for exceptions, and can

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Indubitable knowledge of real being therefore never render possible the kind of rational penetration into an absolute: 'it cannot be different than ... ,' that is rendered possible only by the incomparable mode of intelligibility linked to essential necessity. 'Laws of nature' are here understood as those laws which go back to the contingent essences in nature. We do not rule out at all that absolutely necessary essential laws also apply in nature, matter, movement, time, and so on. Mathematicians deal with them; and when physicists define speed as 'distance divided by the time-unit,' they seek to get at an essential trait of the speed of objects which move spatially, however imperfect this 'definition' is. philosophically speaking. The incomparable intelligibility which is inseparable from essential necessity and can only be founded in it, constitutes an ultimate refutation not only of psychologism (which seeks to explain the a priori necessary facts as mere subjective necessities of thinking) but also of transcendental idealism. For a mere necessity of thinking or a necessity grounded in our human way of perceiving objects could never account for the incomparable intelligibility which is rendered possible by essential necessity when it is perceived by the mind. Any psychological or transcendental necessity could only consist in some experience of an empirical or transcendental 'fad of 'being unable to think otherwise than in the forms of thought and intuition to which all our experiencing and thinking is bound.' Transcendental necessity by its very nature would never permit the understanding that things are so and that they must be so and absolutely cannot be otherwise. But this is exactly what is understood when intelligible essential necessity is grasped. and thus Kant's explanation of synthetic a priori knowledge through reference to an alleged transcendental necessity replaces the datum of essential necessity with an entirely different type of necessity. This is certainly due to Kant's failure to go back to 'things themselves.' to his failure to explore the type of necessity which we encounter in these a priori facts. He assumes that he understands this necessity by just noticing that it is necessary and apodictically certain without taking the pain of carefully investigating the exact nature of this necessity and of its intelligibility. Only in this way is it explicable that a mind of his stature could fail to see the radical difference between an entirely unintelligible transcendental necessity rooted in the subject and a supremely intelligible necessity rooted in the nature of the object of thought. It is very significant 209

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge that Kant never mentions this intelligibility which we undoubtedly encounter in the experience of knowing essentially necessary facts. For had he attended to this intelligibility, he would also have found that in it the objective necessity of the things themselves and in themselves becomes as it were a light which discloses this necessity to our minds as filled with inner truth and uninventable objectivity. In it the transcendence of the human mind in knowledge becomes indubitably certain. The mind partakes in the objective intrinsic intelligibility of things. Regulae istae mentibus rationalibus insplendentes (these rules whose splendor shines into the rational minds) says Bonaventure, laying his finger on this unique intelligibility in which the necessity of these rules themselves shines into our mind. He says again that we read these indubitable and necessary truths in libra lucis illius quae veritas dicitur ('in the book of that light which is called truth'). The images of reading in truth and light refer to the absence of mere facticity and the true and uninventably necessary character of the essentially necessary facts which the later Husser! and any form of transcendental idealism fail to recognize properly. The intelligibility of these facts is linked to another one of their features.

(vii) 'Injudicabilitas' and the foundation of rational knowledge The characteristic of injudicabilitas referred to by Bonaventure and Augustine (De Libero Arbitrio II) can mean at least two things both of which are true about essentially necessary facts. It can mean, first, that essentially necessary facts cannot be judged to be bad, ugly, or in any way different from what they ought to be. This is impossible in part because of their absolute necessity and in part because there is absolutely no other higher standard of jUdgment above them. In our context, however, we are more interested in a second meaning of injudicabilitas of the essentially necessary laws. As a consequence of their intrinsic immutable necessity and incomparable intelligibility, there is no criterion outside these essentially necessary facts themselves in the light of which we could judge our knowledge of them as true or untrue; there are no standards outside these facts themselves which we could invoke as criteria of confirmation of the validity of our knowledge of them. Far more 210

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important, there is neither any possibility nor any need for any higher criterion in the light of which we could judge the validity of our knowledge of essentially necessary facts. For these essentially necessary facts are in their own intelligibility themselves the highest criterion for truth. Spinoza's famous words apply here: verum est index sui et falsi ('truth is the index both of itself and of falsehood'). This does not exclude, of course, that some essentially necessary facts are not known directly through themselves but proved indirectly by others through logical arguments. When we deal with those essentially necessary facts which can be directly perceived themselves as grounded in a necessary essence and in its incomparable intelligibility, then those intelligible objects are themselves 'injudicable' and are the highest criterion for the validity of our act of knowledge. Von Hildebrand puts this very well: These 'necessary' intelligible unities are so filled with ratio and with intelligibility that their objective validity no longer depends upon the act in which we grasp them. We saw before that if in a dream the such-being of a triangle, of red, or of willing were clearly and unequivocally given to me, the essence itself would not be merely dreamt ... We must now advance still further. With respect to the evident states of fact, which are necessarily rooted in these essences, any possibility of an invalidation through a distortion, or insufficiency of our mind, is excluded. Here it would be senseless to say, 'Perhaps all these states of fact are not valid, perhaps the insight that moral values presuppose a personal being as bearer is only due to a distortion of our intellect, such as craziness or idiocy' .... For the luminous intelligibility and rationality of such insights precisely proves that we are neither crazy nor idiots. Indeed the extreme form of insanity would be to affirm that dogs are just, or that stones are charitable, or that Mars both exists and does not exist ... The unities in which these necessary states of facts are grounded stand entirely on their own feet. All attempts to make these insights relative are dashed to pieces by the meaningfulness and power of the such-being in wbich they are rooted. If they are univocally and clearly given, they do not need any criterion for the integrity of the act that grasps them, but, on the contrary, they themselves justify the grasping act as not contaminated by 211

Part II: The cogito and indubitable knowledge error. (D. von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy? Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1960, pp. 115-16.) We find here the irreducible datum of evidence, which Husser! rightly described as not being a subjective psychological character of cognitive experience, but as being the 'experience of truth.' This evidence does not need any proof and does not admit any proof, not because of any lack of rationality but rather because it constitutes the foundation of all rational knowledge. This knowledge and the evidence which it possesses are immediate in the sense that no other means or indirect criterion of knowledge is necessary to test the truth of this knowledge. Against the skeptical argument that no criterion for knowledge is possible because such a criterion would either have to lie in the subject (in which case it would not help in comparing subjective knowledge with the objective world) or in the object (in which case the subject could not attain it in knowledge) or between the two (in which case it would neither be graspable by the subject nor lie in the object), we can give the following response. The criterion here lies in the transcending contact of the mind with its intelligible necessary object. The mind sees this object and goes beyond itself to its own uninventable and objective necessity and it knows that it reaches this objective necessity which itself is the criterion and is accessible to the act of cognition. This evidence is immediate also in the sense that nothing else can be known more directly so as to 'test' in its light the validity of the knowledge of essentially necessary facts. Empirical methods of verification or falsification are likewise unnecessary here because the insight grasps the object in its absolute necessity, and once this is really known, it does not need to be confirmed in an external manner through perceptions and empirical methods - all of which already presuppose a priori insights. Since the object of knowledge determines the mode of our knowledge (this is a principle of epistemology), it is quite irrational, as Aristotle pointed out in Posterior Analytics, to look for indirect verification and proof for objects which can only be known directly and on the immediate knowledge of which all proofs depend. The injudicability of these essentially necessary facts means that nothing apart from them can be known with equal or greater certainty and that, therefore, we need not judge our knowledge of these truths in terms of any higher evidence. These truths 'innovate' 212

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our mind, as Augustine puts it, and prove to our mind that we are sane - at least insofar as we understand these necessary facts. Thus these necessary truths are the judge and criterion of our minds, not vice versa. They are the source of all criteria or correctness. Their light cannot be judged by any other light - only our knowledge can be judged in their light. The correctness of our thinking can be established in an ultimate form only by their verdict. They are the ultimate foundation of all correct judgment. Wolfgang Stegmiiller is right when he says in Metaphysik, Skepsis Wissenschaft that there is no possibility of refuting insight because any such attempt presupposes it already and is self-contradictory; he is also right when he states that there is no proof for it because any such proof would be circular and would, likewise, already presuppose insight. He falsely infers from this, however, that there is no rational criterion for insight, and that insight would therefore have to be accepted blindly in an act of irrational faith. No, the mind's transcending grasp of essential necessity and its reflective return to itself contains the fullest possible rational justification, that of evidence itself given through insight and its object.

(viii) Apodictic (absolute) certainty and cognitive infallibility

Bonaventure rightly calls the 'rationes aeternae' a lux et veritas infallibilis (an infallible light and truth). With apodictic certainty we reach a new characteristic that lies more on the side of the subject. Whereas essential necessity (as immu tabili ty, generali ty, and other characteristics) is a feature of the objects themselves (of the essences/eide or the states of affairs grounded in them), intelligibility is a characteristic of the object in its relation to mind and mental grasp rather than in itself. It signifies the respective 'openness' of a being to understanding as does the injudicability (at least in the second sense). Absolute certainty, however, is a feature of the knowledge itself. not of its .object. More exactly, it is a characteristic of our knowledge in its relation to the object and insofar as it reaches its object truly. The kind of indubitable certainty reached here (as opposed to that in which the sum of the ego cogitans is grasped) presupposes that the object itself is necessary and 'certain' in a metaphysical 213

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sense inseparable from essential necessity. The certainty of knowledge is grounded, in other words, in the fixed and intrinsically 'certain' being of essentially necessary facts, as Bonaventure in particular has noted. The absoluteness of this certainty implies also that our knowledge (or rather the judgment in which it is expressed) is not just probably true. Indubitable certainty dIffers from a mere d6xa (opinion) which is most likely in harmony with reality. Rather we find here real knowledge in the strictest sense, knowing that the object of knowledge exists not only probably but certainly, that our judgment is not only probably but certainly adequate to the facts. Since this certainty refers to universal (general) facts, it also implies that the universal essence itself and in its universality is unambiguously self-given. Absolute certainty equally presupposes that our relation to the object is so 'ultimate' and complete that no deception or error is possible in this act of knowledge. This is what Bonaventure called infallible contact with being and truth. In principle, this dimension of absolute certainty can also extend to empirical facts such as our own existence which is not necessary but is so immediately and directly present to us that any deception is excluded. Finally, the absolute certainty is opposed to dubitability. Doubt is excluded except for possible psychological or moral obstacles. Doubt is repelled by the light of intelligibility and evidence. To repeat, it is of decisive importance to see that this absolute certainty is not a mere subjective feeling or character in our act of cognition. Such merely immanent subjective feelings are found in 'false' certainty but they differ from objective evidence. Objective certainty about essential necessities is also quite different from a mere being certain of how we are going to experience things (Kant). It also differs profoundly from the certainty of trust and faith which is a form of 'moral certainty' that goes beyond the data and implies the moment of acceptance of that which is not seen. The rational certainty that stems from a seeing of necessary facts and from the insight into them is, so to speak, a 'banquet of the spirit,' something in man which is as god-like as his freedom. To describe absolute certainty further, we may say that it is inseparable from the transcendence of our knowledge, i.e. from its trait of going beyond the subjective experience itself and seeing that the things themselves are intrinsically so and so and that they must be 214

Indubitable knowledge of real being as they are. The absolute certainty also implies a moment of reflection, a grasping of our own knowing as reliable, of our knowledge as attaining the necessity of the thing itself. This indubitable certainty, moreover, is totally based on the incomparable intelligibility and necessity of the object. And as Bonaventure stated beautifully, such infallible knowledge is absolutely presupposed by any knowledge and doubt, by any good and evil in the person, and thus it belongs inseparably to the dignity of the knowing subject, of the person qua person.

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PART III

OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF 'THINGS IN THEMSELVES'

I I

I I I I

I I I I

I I I I

I I

INTRODUCTION TO PART III

The last part of this work will be dedicated to a further critique of transcendental phenomenology and to a systematic investigation into the problems of constitution and the modes thereof, with reference both to an ontology of constituted versus non-constituted being and to an epistemology of the act of knowing 'things-inthemselves' (noumena). Of the 'phenomenological realists' Roman Ingarden went furthest in the direction of the following investigations, especially in his opus magnum, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, as well as in his study, The Literary Work of Art. Our ensuing investigations, however, are largely independent from those of Ingarden. For the most part, they may be regarded as complementary to his analyses; in some respects they obtain similar or identical results, in others they disagree with Ingarden by allowing for a more rigorous rational foundation of phenomenological realism than Ingarden had deemed possible. A detailed comparison between the position expounded in the following and Ingarden's view is not necessary here. Only where direct references to his analyses are made will his works be quoted. The ensuing investigations will first clarify the nature of constitution and of constituted being, as well as of the different modes and types of constitution. The analyses to be offered will place special emphasis on the problem of the relation between constituted and non-constituted being. Only a rigorous investigation into this relationship can bring to light whether constituted being could be the only being there is or whether it is, metaphysically speaking, 219

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' necessarily 'situated' on the firm ground of non-constituted being. In carrying out such an investigation, the following analyses will reveal a lack of clarity in the basic notions which are employed in the discussion of transcendental phenomenology: such as 'thing in itself,' 'transcendence,' 'constitution,' 'self-constitution,' 'genesis,' and others. To remove ambiguities and equivocations which surround these terms will be another properly phenomenological achievement and will secure the basis for a meaningful discussion of the entire issue of constitution. Whereas the questions mentioned thus far primarily regard what could be called the 'ontology of constitution,' there are also decisive epistemological problems related to constitution, the most important of which is the following which we have already treated in its fundamental outlines. Is philosophy in the sense of a 'phenomenological realism' with its strict orientation toward the given capable of providing cogent evidence for the fact that there actually exists knowledge concerning non-constituted being, that philosophical knowledge about 'things themselves' can actually be achieved and that the existence and essence of 'things in themselves' become evident to us? If this question can receive a positive answer which is neither based on some arbitrary 'realist assumptions' nor on mere assertions, but which is critically founded in the self-given things themselves, then both transcendental idealism and empiricist relativism can be overcome. Our question shall be: can we attain evident knowledge about the truth of propositions concerning 'things in themselves,' or are we confined to subjectivity, viz. to knowing perspectives and other noemata which are constituted by our subjective or intersubjective 'ego-life,' by the stances we take as human beings, or by the attitudes which are ours as members of a given historical epoch? Before this question can be answered meaningfully - and in fact even before it can be posed properly - two preliminary investigations have to be carried out successfully. In the first place, the different and often confused meanings of terms such as 'thing in itself,' 'objectivity,' 'objective knowledge of reality,' and so forth, as well as of notions such as 'appearance,' 'perspective,' 'subjectivity,' and others need to be clarified. Such a conceptual and terminological analysis will be simultaneously more than that, namely an investigation into different 'things' in 220

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question. Completely different data will become manifest the elucidation of which will indeed constitute the focus of our main interest. The immediately ensuing investigation will thus not be merely linguistic but also metaphysical, epistemological, and anthropological in nature. Secondly, one cannot answer the above question without first carefully examining which beings (data, phenomena) make a 'claim,' inherent in their very nature, to exist 'in themselves' in a particular sense, in contradistinction to other beings which do not make such a claim. Only if there are beings which - for various reasons - objectively 'claim' to exist 'in themselves,' can it be recognized that our question is centrally significant or even meaningful. If Heidegger were correct in holding that the being-inthe-world of man not only necessarily includes a reference to a world (which is undoubtedly true), but that to ask about the latter's 'objective reality' is embarrassing non-sense (because no other 'objectivity' than that which man's 'being in the world' always implies is of interest), our problem would be irrelevant or neurotic. Again, if Husserl were right in assuming that all objects of consciousness have a sufficient mode of being proper to their essence being noemata and nothing more, then our entire question would appear idle or absurd. The successful completion of the two preliminary investigations mentioned and of the chief problems of the third part of this essay will also answer Husserl's notorious charges that his realist Munich and Gattingen disciples were na·ive and held an absurd and selfcontradictory view when they claimed knowledge about things-inthemselves. We shall find that there are indeed several senses of 'thing in itself' which would render absurd any human claim to know them but that, when the term is taken in other crucially important senses, the assertion to know things-in-themselves does not entail any absurdity whatsoever. Rather, the absurdity is on the part of the transcendental phenomenologist's position denying such a possibility because it is not only given that man possesses knowledge of 'things in themselves' but this is also necessarily presupposed by any transcendental position. We hope to show the thoroughly critical character of phenomenological realism which does not at all consist of just a set of uncritical religious and metaphysical assumptions. It shall be shown

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' that critical distinctions and the uncompromising attempt to go back to the roots, objects, and subjective conditions of all thought and experience, lead the philosopher to adopt a r~alism which is phenomenologically founded in the given and in the light of which any possible form of transcendental idealism shows itself as both erroneous and uncritical.

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6 WHAT ARE 'THINGS IN THEMSELYES'? 1 CAN MAN KNOW 'THINGS IN THEMSELVES?, (i) Contradictory meanings of the term 'thing in itself'

There are, first of all, meanings of the term 'thing in itself' which refer to self-contradictory objects. This does not prevent some philosophers from positing such 'things in themselves' and others from caricaturing the legitimate meanings of 'thing in itself' by means of such absurd notions. Many of the passages in which Kant or Husserl reject the knowledge of 'things in themselves' evoke these intrinsically absurd notions. And while they reject these rightly, they use them wrongly in order to discredit the whole search for a knowledge about 'things in themselves.'

(aJ Meanings of 'thing in itself which refer to something intrinsically impossible In a first sense, the term 'thing in itself' refers to 'a thing which has absolutely no relation, metaphysically or epistemologically speaking, to any other being or to any constituent of itself.' There cannot be any absolute, totally 'unrelated,' object in this sense. We need not prove here that neither the absolute being nor any finite being can - in the sense indicated - lack any relation whatsoever. Suffice it to state that we hold that such a notion of 'being in itself' is intrinsically absurd and we shall definitely not engage in investigating it. A second notion of a 'thing in itself,' which might at least prove absurd, is that of a being which would not be known to any mind. Certainly, a materialist metaphysics assumes that there are perhaps even infinitely many atoms or a potentially unlimited number of beings which existed at a point in time when no mind knew them. 223

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' Since man definitely did not exist at the time of the formation of the earth and of the universe, and since the materialist metaphysics excludes angelic or divine minds, it does not hold a 'thing in itself' in this sense to be absurd. In order to show that a being separated from any knowing mind could not exist, one would have to demonstrate the necessary dependence of matter on mind for its creation and the existence of a divine infinite mind who knows everything. For, of course, there are many beings and aspects of being which are unknown to any human (finite) mind. One could also interpret this dependence along the lines of transcendental phenomenology, as Husser! puts it in Cartesian Meditations (IV, 84): The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is nonsensical. Although we cannot give here our reasons for holding that it is philosophically speaking impossible that there be a 'thing in itself in this sense, we wish to stress that we concur with Kant and Husserl when they deemed such a notion of 'thing in itself' meaningless and intrinsically impossible. When Husser! speaks disparagingly of the 'thing in itself,' he seems at times to have this meaning of 'thing in itself' in mind. Our reasons for rejecting 'things-in-themselves' in this sense, however, are different from those of transcendental idealists. Husserl believes that the 'being-more-than-a-noema-of-intentional-acts' makes such a notion absurd. We think that it is rather the objective intelligibility and the fundamental openness of being to a mind, on the one hand, and the necessary actual existence of an omniscient mind (which can be demonstrated philosophically), on the other hand, which make a 'thing in itself' in this second sense impossible. It is of decisive significance to realize that the opposite of 'thing in itself in the two senses of the term discussed so far does not imply any relativity of a being to a mind, not even any objective relatedness of every being to the human mind. Yet every being stands in objective relations to itself and/or to other beings. These relations 224

What are 'things in themselves'? include also the relation of the known to the infinite knower (an 'epistemological' relation).

(b) Contradictory meanings of 'thing in itself,' in which the contradiction arises from a relation between the object and subject of discourse There is a third sense of 'thing in itself' which is not intrinsically absurd but which excludes that man can meaningfully speak about 'things in themselves' or, more precisely, which refers to 'things in themselves' in a sense which forbids man to form any true propositions about them with the exception of grasping that the existence of 'things in themselves' in this sense might not be impossible. 'Thing in itself' in this sense designates a being which cannot in any possible manner become known to the human mind, in other words, a being to which man has absolutely no knowing relation whatsoever. Such a 'being in itself' is neither a contradiction in terms nor is the assumption of such 'things in themselves' intrinsically absurd. We are not confronted here with a metaphysical impossibility as in the first two cases. Yet it is impossible for man to know anything about such things in themselves, to assert their existence or even their real possibility. The only statement justified here is that man can understand that it is in principle possible that there could be such 'things in themselves.' Hence a contradiction arises as soon as a man makes any knowledge-claim about the actual existence, nature, or even the real possibility of such things in themselves. For in order to assert the existence of a thing or in order to make statements about its nature, man must know something about it. The claim to know something about a 'thing in itself' in this sense, however, clearly contradicts its definition as something about which man knows absolutely nothing. One of the senses of 'thing in itself' actually posited in Kant's philosophy is precisely this one. And insofar as subsequent philosophers such as Fichte or Husserl (and Kant himself in his opus postumum) have rejected the claim to know even the existence or real possibility of 'things in themselves,' they have been right. (Notice that this statement refers exclusively to the knowledge of the 'thing in itself' in the present sense.) Kant may have had a similar point in mind when he states in the Critique of Pure Reason

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Part Ill: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' that the notion of 'thing in itself' must remain purely 'negative' and 'problematic' and does not allow one to make any positive assertion about the existence or real possibility of such a 'thing in itself.' Only the 'possibility of its possibility' may be legitimately asserted. When Kant puts the notion of the 'thing in itself' to use in his idealist philosophy, however, he claims to know many things about it: that it is not only possible that such a 'thing in itself' exists, but that it actually does exist (through which assertion Kant's system distinguishes itself from other idealist systems), that it affects our senses, that and why we know about it, and so f<;>rth. The contradiction which arises from any statement and knowledge-claim about a 'thing in itself' in this sense is comparable to the inner contradiction of the skeptic's position who says: man cannot know any truth. This statement that 'man cannot know any truth' is not intrinsically - absolutely speaking - absurd, even if it is actually false; for there are beings which do not know anything (a stone) and there is nothing intrinsically absurd about the assertion that man would belong to this class of beings. Therefore, the contradiction here arises not from the inner meaning of the statement itself, nor only from the nature of the intended object, but rather from the clash between the content of this thesis and the necessary presuppositions which are made when a man utters or thinks it: namely the assumption that the man speaking does know the truth of the statement he is just making as well as of additional supportive statements which he needs to adduce in order to make the skeptical thesis plausible - while he cannot know anything if his skeptical thesis is to be true.

(c) Intrinsically impossible kinds of knowing 'things in themselves' There are also intrinsically absurd notions of 'knowing the thing in itself.' Some philosophers, consequently, believed that any knowledge of 'things in themselves' is absurd because there are indeed some kinds of knowledge of 'things in themselves' which are absurd. The first absurd notion of a knowledge of 'things in themselves' is that of knowledge of a 'thing in itself' which would imply that there be only the thing which is to be known but no subject of such a knowledge. Equally absurd would be the concept of a knowledge of the 'thing in itself' which would imply the radical effacement of the knowing subject which, according to this view, would disappear so as to leave only the identity of the 'thing in itself,' without the 226

What are 'things in themselves'?

subject being in any way related to the 'thing in itself,' without any person being 'present to' the thing to be known so as to know it. Similarly contradictory would be the claim of a knowledge which would in no way be dependent on the cognitive/intellectual faculty of the knowing subject. Kant uses just this truly absurd notion of knowing 'things in themselves' in order to discredit any claim that we know what being in itself is: If our subjective constitution be removed, the represented object ... is nowhere to be found, and cannot possibly be found. (Critique of Pure Reason, B 62.)

The notions described of a 'knowledge of things in themselves' are absurd in virtue of denying one necessary term of any knowledge: the knowing subject and its powers to know. The 'ideal' of 'knowing things-in-themselves' in this sense cannot even be applied to an absolute mind. For it is an absolutely necessary truth about all knowledge that there must be a knowing subject, a person - and that this subject can know solely by means of his sUbjective (i.e. personal) acts and of his intellect. Knowledge could never occur if only the object were left and if the knowing subject who looks at the object or reaches out to it were cancelled, as some (for example, Professor Wilhelm Josef Revers of the University of Salzburg) claim it to be a condition for 'objective knowledge.' Yet all these patent absurdities do not in any way render absurd, as we shall see, the capacity of the subject's knowing what being is in itself - i.e., independently from, and prior to, being known. (d) Humanly impossible ways to know 'things in themselves' It is also, humanly speaking, impossible to know any being without

any process of learning or without any historical past development. The impossibility here is only an empirical one; for it is not impossible to conceive of a human being's knowledge as occurring prior to any learning process, by means of entirely unmediated evidence or of 'infused knowledge.' But while this is abstractly speaking possible and could actually happen in some instances, it is empirically impossible. The sociologist Peter Berger regards this as an argument for relativism and for the impossibility of man knowing things as they are in themselves. Also Gadamer's rejection of a knowledge of 'things in themselves' in Truth and Method is partly based on the same observation. 162 . 227

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' We certainly do not wish to deny this 'mediation' of all human knowledge through learning, history, language, etc., but hope to show that man can nevertheless know 'things in themselves' in the sense of beings which are independent from any human consciousness. Largely because of an absence of the necessary distinctions between various meanings of 'thing in itself' in their work, Kant, Husserl, Gadamer, and others deny that man can know things in themselves. But such a denial of man's capacity to know beings-as-they-arein-themselves does not at all follow from the acknowledgement of the historical conditions of human knowledge. For the process of historical mediation of knowledge does not in any way - as such concern the content or the objectivity of knowledge. The fact that someone needs a teacher in order to learn, for example, that two plus two equals four does not prevent him in the least from understanding that this is objectively so in itself. To understand that 'something truly is the case' does in no way involve a necessity that such an understanding be free from any historical conditions or presuppositions. Nor does such a dependence on historical conditions which render possible some evident knowledge make our knowledge any less certain or objective, or relativize the object of our knowledge to history or to our act of knowing. In the same way, even if it is true that philosophers had to work for centuries to come up with such a highly differentiated account of causality as we find in Aristotle's distinctions of four causes; even if mathematicians had to search for millenia in order to come to know all the Euclidean axioms, propositions, and theorems about triangles, squares, spheric geometric bodies, prime numbers, and so on; even if it took many discoveries and historical developments for Augustine and Descartes to reach their understanding of the cogito - all of this by no means automatically implies any lack of knowing the respective objects 'in themselves,' i.e., as they are independently from any constitution by subjective or historical consciousness. The role of history in the mediation of knowledge must not at all be identified with history's alleged role in the constitution of objects. We exclude in the following investigation all those meanings of 'things in themselves,' as well as all those claims of possessing a knowledge of the 'thing in itself,' which the preceding analyses have revealed to be impossible, contradictory or outside the reach of human knowledge. Thus the partner in our discussion is asked not

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to mistake the claim we shall make to possess a knowledge of things in themselves with the absurd or contradictory claims which we have treated until now.

(ii) Meanings of the term 'thing in itself which make sense, yet in

regard to which any positive and/or comprehensive human knowledge is excluded (a) 'Thing in itself' as the totality of a thing in all its knowable aspects There is first a meaning of 'thing in itself' which refers to the totality of all aspects, dimensions, relations (respects) of a being which are intrinsically knowable. If taken in this sense of the term, an omniscient being alone could know the 'thing in itself,' for clearly no other being could know an object under all aspects under which it is knowable. Such a knowledge would involve a perfect grasp of the essence and existence of a thing, and of all the unlimitedly many relations each given being has to other beings. If one took 'thing in itself' to mean this, one could not help agreeing with Gadamer in Truth and Method, when he says that the claim to know 'things in themselves' is luciferic. 163

A person who sets this being-in-itself over and against these 'aspects' must think either theologically - in which case the 'being-in-itself' is not for him, but only for God - or else he will think in the manner of Lucifer. It has nevertheless to be granted that we know something positively about things-in-themselves in this sense, at least, that they exist and that they can be known by an omniscient being; and that we know negatively that we cannot know them (in their fullness and concrete plenitude of intelligibility which is objectively found in them 'in themselves'). In fact, we know that no finite mind whatsoever can have a (comprehensive) knowledge of things-inthemselves in this sense. We know also the reason why this is impossible: any finite knowledge is incomplete and falls short of infinite perfection. Yet infinite perfection of knowledge would be required in order to know a being under all aspects under which it is knowable, and in all respects and relations in which it stands with t~.e whole of Being - finite and infinite. It must be emphasized in this context, however, that the incom-

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' pleteness of all finite knowledge should not be wrongly identified with a relativity of knowiedge or with an absence of knowing with certainty distinct properties of a given being, or properties which belong to that being quite independently from our knowing them. (This is what happens in the sentences of Truth and Method preceding the text quoted above.) Incomplete knowledge is nonexhaustive but authentic knowledge. Non-exhaustive knowledge can be true and exactly correspond to real facts; it has therefore to be sharply distinguished from any error which ascribes something to being which is not actually found in it, or which denies some real property of it. Incomplete knowledge must also not be seen in the light of any relativity in virtue of which its object would totally depend on the subject of knowledge or would be constituted by it. No incomplete knowledge as such can know being quite well as it is in itself, and as it is quite independently from any constitution by the subject of knowledge - as our analyses of the cogito in Part II, Chapter 5 have shown. This is not to deny, of course, that there is some aspect of things which is dependent on a finite mind and which is, in a sense, constituted by, and rooted in, its finitude. This 'relatedness' to which the classical saying refers: omnis intellectio est secundum modum intelligentis (each cognition depends on the measure of the knower), refers not only to 'finite mind in general' or to the different 'kinds of finite minds,' but also to the individual and developmental differences and stages of intelligent beings. This constituted 'aspect' of being qua imperfectly given is certainly not independent of the finite mind. It is precisely the 'way things present themselves to him,' the face which they show him, a 'face' which contains a particular mixture of clarity and obscurity and which certainly belongs solely to being as perceived by the human understanding, and not to things in themselves. This kind of constituted 'aspect' is of a unique kind. It belongs to those 'aspects' which are grounded in the essence of the subject and of its relationship to objects that shall be distinguished later from appearances. Yet, certainly, the aspect of being when seen through a finite mind cannot be ascribed to beings as they exist independently from finite understanding.

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What are 'things in themselves'? (b) Being as in principle accessible to the finite mind, but as inaccessible to the human mind If we assume - and this must be granted at least as a possibility - that there are persons of higher than human intelligence who are nevertheless limited in respect to their knowledge (Muslims, Jews, and Christians believe this of angels), we can well conceive of those spirits as knowing many aspects of being which are wholly inaccessible to the human mind because of its peculiar limitations. Granted this possibility, undoubtedly we would have to ascribe to these minds a knowledge of things-in-themselves in a sense in which man does not possess it. 'Thing in itself' would then no longer refer to the totality of beings and truth, but only to everything which lies in principle beyond the limit of human intellect but could be open to higher finite minds. 'Thing in itself' in this sense would not, as in the sense of the term used just before, have an absolute and non-relational sense. Rather, 'thing in itself' would be a concept essentially related to the measure of human understanding: everything which lies beyond the grasp of man's understanding due to its structural limits is called 'thing in itself.' Kant refers to this sense of 'thing in itself' when he writes in his Critique of Pure Reason: But if we understand by it (the noumenon) an object of a non-sensible-intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess and of which we cannot even comprehend the possibility ... there may also be intelligible entities to which our sensible faculty of intuition has no relation whatsoever. ... (B 307-9) In order that a noumenon may signify a true object. distinguishable from all phenomena, it is not enough that I free my thought from all conditions of sensible intuition; I must likewise have ground for assuming another kind of intuition, different from the sensible, in which such an object may be given. (A 252)

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' (c) 'Thing in itself as that which lies beyond the limits of factual present human understanding: Plato writes in the Phaedo (64a ff.) that 'those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead' (64a) because only after death can their hope to possess 'pure knowledge' be fulfilled. Only then can the philosopher see pure 'things in themselves' face to face (hauton kilt' hauto): justice itself, truth itself, while such a pure vision of absolute truth cannot be achieved in this life. Thus 'one of two things must follow, either it (knowledge, i.e. phronesis) cannot be acquired at all or only when we are dead' (66E). What is more, the Christian longs to see God face to face, as He is in Himself. This religious hope is expressed in Scripture when it is written that we shall then 'know God as we are known.' Man on earth knows that there are things and dimensions of being which are presently beyond the reach of his understanding but which are not in principle beyond the power of the human spirit's ability of understanding (whether this higher human understanding is part of his natural but presently limited power of intellect and contemplation of truth, or whether it is a faculty of cognition which can be actualized only through some supernatural aid). Furthermore, independently from any elaborate philosophic hope as Plato justifies it in the Phaedo on the basis of his body-soul philosophy, and from any specifically religious hope, man has some natural awareness of this fact - whenever he hopes or desires a fullness of knowledge which transcends in principle the factual (non-essential) limits of his present understanding. An insight into this notion of things in themselves is presupposed by the meaning of hoping for a 'fullness of wisdom and knowledge.' And it is from such a desire that philosophy has received its name as a 'desiring love' of wisdom. Through faith, and also through ethical reflections on justice as they are unfolded in Plato's Phaedo, Gorgias, or The Republic (Book X), man can even know something about such things which, while their full knowledge lies beyond the scope of his present understanding, are not Qeyond the scope of a higher knowledge for which he longs. It is not even possible for man to ignore totally 'things in themselves' in this sense. Man is always, as Daniel, a 'vir desiderii,' a man of desire for 'things in themselves' which lie beyond the scope of his present experience. In regard to this sense of 'thing in itself' (unlike the ones

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What are 'things in themselves'? discussed before) it makes perfect sense for man to hope for a knowledge of 'things in themselves.' Nevertheless, any claim to possess in this life an adequate knowledge of things in themselves in this sense (except by some supernatural mystical grace) would be untenable or arrogant. Hegel's philosophy of the absolute spirit unfolding in history, particularly in philosophy as 'soliloquy of the absolute spirit with himself' is guilty of this metaphysical arrogance of claiming a historical knowledge of things in themselves in this sense. We wish to make it perfectly clear that we do not assert a philosophical knowledge of things in themselves in any of these three senses when we claim to attain, in this life, a philosophical rational knowledge of things in themselves. But what then is our claim?

(iii) Important senses in which we can know 'things in themselves';

critique of Kant and Husserl In the following section, we intend to investigate those meanings of things-in-themselves in regard to which we hope to bring to evidence that man can know the thing in itself.

(a) 'Things in themselves' as the true being of things 'Being in itself' can simply refer to any being whatsoever, to any state of affairs. Things in themselves are not then contrasted with non-being or nothing as such. On the contrary, 'real' nQ'n~being or nothing, e.g. that a certain fact really does not exist or that nothing really was that from which the world came, can be included under the sense of 'thing in itself' considered here. 'Thing in itself' in the sense presently considered is, instead, contrasted to any direct object of deception and error in which something is believed to exist or to be so and so, without actually existing or being of the nature posited in the respective beliefs. If we attribute existence to a thing which does not exist or ascribe to a being a nature which is different from the one it actually possesses, then we move away from things in themselves in our sense. Thus things in themselves in this sense can be contrasted with objects or states of affairs which are posited in lies, errors, illusions, delusions, and deceptions - as they are posited in these acts.

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Thomas Aquinas seems to make a similar distinction when, in De Ente et Essentia, he distinguishes one meaning of being in which being is divided into the ten categories, and a second sense of being in which this term can also refer to non-being and privations. Thomas says that all true propositions refer to being in the second sense. Being as the correlate of true propositions coincides with 'being in itself' in the present sense - albeit only partially because the direct object of propositions can only be states of affairs and not objects or things strictly speaking. Also objects and things (or their absence) which cannot be the direct referend of true propositions (the object of which are not things per se but states of affairs) are encompassed in 'being in itself' in our present sense. What is not a 'thing in itself' in the present sense is not at all. This remark appears to be puzzling because all objects of human thought seem to have some being - namely at least as objects of human thought, at least as 'purely intentional objects' of thought. Yet, if one puts this thesis forward, one forgets a tremendously significant point, a strange capacity of the human mind, namely the capacity to think something that does not exist at all, that is not at all in the way in which it is being thought. In virtue of this capacity, man can err and be deceived. When man thinks of man as radically determined in all his actions, or when he believes that the sides and the diagonal of the square are commensurable, then the 'radically unfree man' or the 'commensurabilty of the sides and hypotenuse of the rectangular triangle' have 'being' as objects of this man's thought. Otherwise he could not think of them or affirm them. This is certainly correct . Yet one forgets that the man who is in error conceives of, and posits, a 'being' which is quite distinct from the kind of being these objects possess as being objects of his thought. He asserts, namely, that the states of affairs about which he makes judgments actually obtain. And in this, and only in this, he is mistaken. Thus, in error, man can truly conceive of what 'is not,' of what is opposed to all being in any sense of this term. Parmenides' point about the unthinkability of 'what is not' suffers, among other things, from a lack of distinctions which makes him fail to grasp clearly the nature of error, which is just this: to hold that something is which is not or that something is not which is. (This does not exclude that the objects of error - as mere objects of the erring man's mind - indeed have being; but not the being man 234

What are 'things in themselves'? ascribes to things in error, which is not.) When we deal with 'being in itself' in this sense, every being whatsoever is 'in itself,' even the objects of dreams and hallucinations, and in fact, even the 'being' which the objects of errors do indeed possess as objects of a mind. Only that which is posited in false statements without being at all (as posited) falls outside 'thing in itself' in this sense. To clarify this sense of 'thing in itself' further, we might say that there is no act of knowledge whatsoever which does not grasp being in itself in this sense. The notion of a 'being' which would be, but not be 'in itself' in this sense, is indeed a contradiction in terms. This would be exactly as contradictory as the notion of a truth which would not be objective but only exist 'for someone.' In Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, the present writer attempted to show that all knowledge in the narrower sense of the term (i.e., as not mediated by belief and opinion) grasps being 'in itself' by its very nature, not only be 'definition.' Knowledge in the wider sense, however (i.e., knowledge mediated by belief), refers to 'being in itself' in this sense by definition only, as it were, not by essence. We can, however, say: every object of knowledge, every correlate of true propositions, every appearance and constituted aspect of a being still has being in itself in this sense. . Neither Kant nor Husserl ever seem to have paid attention to this meaning of the term 'thing in itself' and to the absolute untenability of denying that 'being in itself' in this sense can become object of our knowledge. They did not notice that it is absolutely impossible that anything that is (including all noemata or appearances) is only 'for me' in a manner that would constitute the opposite of thing in itself in this sense. When Kant wants to speak about the true nature of appearances, of the subjective forms of intuition or of the categories of thought which are restricted to the world of phenomena and cannot reach the sphere of the noumena, he always presupposes that he knows 'being in itself' in the important sense under consideration here. He clearly implies that 'things really are that way' and that he discovers in his knowledge how they are. The same is true about Husser!' Yet they never bring this to evidence philosophically. Kant fails to notice how this point alone suffices to refute his thesis of the spontaneity and constitutive character of all knowledge. He fails to notice that a discovery of 'being in itself' at least in

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this sense implies the basic receptivity and transcendence of knowledge, a discovery of how 'things really are' as opposed to erroneously believing 'what is not.' (b) A second fundamental sense of 'thing in itself When we speak of 'thing in itself,' we can also have in mind, not any being which can be the object of true propositions, but something which is not constituted as the mere object of an observer. 'Thing in itself' in this sense is being as it is not created or shaped by 'just' being the object of intentional acts. 'Thing in itself' in this sense is thus distinct from objects of mere dreams, illusions, distortions, delusory or illusory images of reality, as well as from all aspects, views, appearances, and so forth which are constituted by the observer. That which is not 'in itself' in this sense is constituted by the subject. By no means are all beings which we rightly call real things in themselves in this meaning of the term. Colors, views, and perspectives are real and playa crucially important role in being. Thing in itself in this sense does not even necessarily imply a superiority in value over that which is constituted being. Rather, the decisive mark of things in themselves in this sense is that they have what Ingarden calls 'ontic autonomy.' 'Being in itself' in this sense does not in any way exhaust itself by being the object of human, superhuman, or even divine acts of consciousness. 'Thing in itself' in the sense, then, can be negatively defined as not constituted by being merely the object of conscious acts. It can be characterized positively as having an 'ontic autonomy' (in contrast to the 'ontic heteronomy' of those things which are nothing in themselves but possess being only in virtue of being objects of consciousness) . 'Thing in itself' in this sense does not at all presuppose that a being be altogether ontically autonomous in the sense of having no causal or other metaphysical relation to a mind as a condition of its existence. To be created or produced by a spirit does in no wise contradict the ontic autonomy meant here. Otherwise, only absolute Being could have 'being in itself' in this sense. The autonomy we have in mind here refers only to being irreducible to being the object of a mind's consciousness and knowledge. It means that a being's reality is not just constituted by (consisting in) being 'thought of' by some conscious being. For example, the Baptisterio in 236

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Florence depended on artists and workers for its creation; yet its being cannot be reduced to being an object of those minds which created it. (i) Distinctions within constituted and unconstituted being in this sense Within this basic sense of 'thing in itself,' as well as within the corresponding group of constituted beings, many distinctions need to be drawn. There are some beings which are - or at least which we take to be - either wholly mind-dependent or quite autonomous. An object of an illusion or a merely dreamt personality or event which has no reality 'outside of the dreamworld' would be most radically minddependent or constituted in this sense. A substance or person, on the other hand, if it or he really exists as substance or person, is radically independent from being just the object of a person's consciousness. (Even a wholly irreal object of dreams may of course stand in some relation to reality, as any dream-interpretation presupposes. But this symbolic relation of dream-contents to reality does not change the fact that the merely dreamt being as such does not have any being apart from being consciously experienced as the object of a dream.) In between the extremes of total dependence on mind, on the one hand, and total independence, on the other, there are many degrees of partial dependence and independence from being the object of consciousness. For example a merely imagined or dreamt illusory object is less 'real' than an illusion which 'actually exists.' For example, compare the case of just imagining an oasis in the desert, and of actually seeing it on the basis of an hallucination. Or again, consider delusory aspects of real things (such as the famous 'broken stick' in the water) as compared to 'pure illusions.' In the former case, the 'actuality of seeing' and its immediate sensory intuitiveness and presence of its objects gives it 'more' reality than that possessed by the objects of mere imaginations. In the latter case, the 'embeddedness' in reality accounts for that 'surplus' of reality. Or should we say that in one sense the illusory or delusQry aspects of real things conflict more radically with reality than the objects of phantasy and imagination, because the latter do not make the same 'claim to reality' as the former? We shall return to this point shortly. Also their 'embeddedness' in reality and their reference to the

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sphere of autonomously existing reality makes illusions or delusions about real things conflict more sharply with reality, whereas in the pure object of imagination there is 'no reality' which it would contradict. (ii) Appearances Radically different from illusory or delusory things or aspects of existing things are appearances. The notion of 'appearance' includes, above and beyond the mind-dependence, the fOllowing moments: (1) An appearance does not contradict that which is 'in itself' (thereby it differs from illusions and delusions which make an unfulfilled claim to being 'in themselves' and thus contradict the sphere of the 'things in themselves. ') (2) Appearances are the ways in which beings which do have 'being in themselves' look. In this sense, the notion of appearance seems necessarily correlated to that of the 'thing in itself.' Kant recognizes this when he writes: Now we must bear in mind that the concept of appearances ... already of itself establishes the objective reality of noumena and justifies the division of objects in phaenomena and noumena . ... For if the senses represent to us something merely as it appears, this something must also in itself be a thing. (Critique of Pure Reason, A 249) Thus appearances do not clash with reality but are 'friendly' and complementary in relation to 'things in themselves.' (3) Appearances, because they are 'faces,' ways in which a thing 'looks,' are both from the object and from the subject 'prefigurated. ' Husserl deals with this - at least on the purely phenomenologicallevel - in his analyses of perception and of the Abschattungen. The views and aspects depend, of course, not only on the nature of the object but also on the sensory constitution and viewpoint (vantage point) of the subject. Think of the result ofthe Husserlian investigations that the perceptual object 'holds in readiness' infinitely many possible views, that we can predict them partially before we actually perceive them, and so on. As much as the innumerable views and aspects which we experience when we approach a distant mountain peak depend on us, these aspects are prescribed by the encounter of object and subject.

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What are 'things in themselves'? (4) An even more characteristic distinctive trait of appearances is that they ought to be as they are. Appearances are, as it were, ways in which a being should look (at least with reference to a given type of subject). This also gives to the sphere of appearances a dimension of 'universality' not characteristic of illusions. They are 'objectively valid' (a trait which von Hildebrand has investigated thoroughly in Chapter 5 of What is Philosophy?). Appearances have a deep meaning; they are beings, yes, only constituted beings, but beings nevertheless, in a much deeper sense than- completely fictional objects. We will see, however, that there are different sources responsible for making a constituted being a genuine being. (5) Appearances, so it seems, are not only ways in which 'things in themselves' look, but they presuppose also some knowledge of the 'thing in itself.' Their embeddedness in.'things in themselves' forbids that this 'thing in itself,' which appears, be wholly unknown. Otherwise it seems impossible to distinguish appearances from mere illusions. Kant, in his treatment of phaenomena and noumena, seems to overlook the second and fifth of these marks of appearance in particular. He writes: All our presentations are, it is true, referred by the understanding to some object; and since appearances are nothing but representations, the understanding refers them to a something, as the object of sensible intuition. But this something, thus conceived, is only the transcendental object; and by that is meant a something=X, of which we know, and with the present constitution of our understanding can know, nothing whatsoever. (Ibid., A 250) Appearance can be nothing by itself, outside our mode of representation. Unless, therefore, we are to move constantly in a circle, the word appearance must be recognised as already indicating a relation to something, the immediate representation of which is, indeed, sensible, but which, even apart from the constitution of our sensibility, ... must be something in itself ... the noumenon. It is not indeed in any way positive, and is not a determinate knowledge of anything .... (Ibid., A 252) In countless other passages, simply by declaring the entire sphere of objects of consciousness and thought appearances, Kant over-

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looks the fact that many of his so-called 'appearances' fail precisely to be such because by their very essence they make a claim to possess 'ontic autonomy.' Hence they are either illusions or things in themselves, but can never be appearances which do not make any such claim. Even within appearances one ought still to distinguish quite different kinds of mind-dependence. Views and aspects of a colored wheel, e.g., are certainly dependent on motion, distance, sensory constitution, and the like. But they are exactly views of a thing. Tones and colors themselves, which are either beings (appearancebeings, i.e. tones) or sensible predicates of things which belong to them much more objectively than the perspectives and views of color, are different. (This reflects itself in the different styles in the history of art which either emphasize or ban such more subjective 'views' of things, let alone illusions.) (6.) Another distinctive trait of appearance concerns its relation to the 'thing in itself.' Appearances manifest and show the things themselves. They do not lead us astray but in quite a positive way make the reality of the being in question appear. Nevertheless, appearance remains not only constituted or coconstituted by the subject. It even presents - despite its friendly complementarity to it - a certain contrast to 'being in itself.' Appearing and being seem to remain separated because the appearance has still a somewhat unintelligible relation to the 'thing in itself.' This may have to do with the dependence of appearance on our senses and with the world of its own which the sphere of appearance, as it were, represents in itself. The relation of appearance to 'thing in itself' is still loose when compared to another form of 'consituted being.' Before we turn to this even more significant form of minddependent being, we should distinguish various types of appearance and see how in some of them the general essential characteristics of appearance are modified or are lacking altogether. (iii) Pure appearance We have described music and tones as 'pure appearances.' These pure appearances possess the first characteristic of appearances in that they do not in any way, like illusions, contradict the world of the things in themselves. They do not make an unfulfilled claim to exist in themselves. The second characteristic of appearances men-

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tioned above, however, needs to be rethought in the light of the 'pure appearances.' Certainly, 'pure appearances' also possess that complementarity to things in themselves which is the opposite of the clash between illusion and thing in itself. There is no claim to on tic autonomy or a clash with objective reality in music. But what is lacking here is the correlation between appearance and things in themselves which we found in appearances in the visual sphere and in the full sense of the term. The necessary connection to a noumenon is not found here in the same sense. At least, the things in themselves which underlie these 'pure appearances' remain hidden and manifest themselves only quite vaguely, not clearly. The appearance itself is here the authentic being of the thing. Correspondingly, the third characteristic of appearances is also modified here. The intelligible correlation between subject and object, in virtue of which the object 'holds in readiness' the various appearances, is not present here. Surely, in the appearance itself the distance or vantage-point modifies the tone, but this cannot be compared to the case in which a given being itself appears from different vantage points as in the case of the temple and its aspects. The decisive fourth trait of appearances is fully given here, that they ought to be as they are: the objective validity of appearance. The fifth mark of appearances is not present in the 'pure appearance' because there is no being (in itself) strictly speaking which appears here. The character of 'pure appearance' consists just in this: that here we do not any longer find a being of which the tone is an appearance. The 'pure appearance' simply appears, but is not the appearance of something. Of course, even here we are confronted with a threefold relationship of appearances to things beyond appearances: (1) the relation to the waves and the like which are responsible for tones. This is a unique 'casual' relationship in which the appearance, as it were, 'absolutizes' itself, 'breaks loose' and emancipates itself from its source in such a way that the latter does not really appear in the appearances but disappears behind the music it serves. Thus the 'thing in itself' is here subservient to the appearance which constitutes the really significant being in this case. (2) The second relation is to the instrument or voice and thereby to the being from which the tone proceeds. The relationship is likewise quite different from that of appearance to a being which appears. Involving another sort of manifesting itself than appearing, the tone is not the appearance of the human body or of the 241

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person; it is his voice and perhaps manifests his soul. Simultaneously it is a 'world of its own,' not appearance of the body as color. (3) A third relation the 'pure appearances' of tones may have to a reality beyond appearance is that of 'speaking of' something higher. But this relationship (which is also found in visual forms and beauty) is again quite different and has been analyzed elsewhere. 164 The sixth characteristic of appearance is also missing in 'pure appearances. ' (iv) Mere appearances and misleading appearances Appearances in the full sense, as discussed above, also differ from what could be called 'mere appearance' or misleading appearance, which is, of course, also mind-dependent. It also differs, on the other hand, from illusions in that it does not itself claim to possess a being which it does not possess. We think for example of the case of a red color of a face which suggests sickness. This color does not itself pretend a being which it would not possess, because the face is really red (whereas illusory or delusory objects pretend themselves a being which they do not possess). Yet the misleading appearances seem to manifest (make appear) something which is not present -(sickness). They are misleading in that they falsely hint at something absent, as if it were present. We might prefer to speak of signs rather than of appearances here. Inasmuch as mere appearances suggest another being 'in itself' which does not exist, they could also be called illusions or at least give rise to them. (v) False appearances Yet another case is that of 'false appearances' in the sense of such appearances which only seem to be there but are not, such as the red color of a face which seems to be there but is not there. This is a sort of illusory appearance which clashes with the real being of appearances. Even false appearances, however, can surprisingly possess objective validity in those cases in which the claim to 'being really there' disappears and the appearance nonetheless retains its full aesthetic meaning (such as the blue color of mountains which appears only from a distance but is not really the color of the mountain, in contradistinction to the 'red rocks' in Sedona, Arizona).

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(vi) Subject-dependent aspects of reality which possess higher dignity than appearances There is also a sphere of aspects of beings which constitute not so much a 'world of their own,' but which are 'intelligible aspects' and 'spiritual faces' of reality which have a higher dignity than appearances, but are still constituted by the subject's relation to a being. I mean the sphere of aspects of being such as the 'thou-character' or the 'I-character' of the same person, the 'inner aspect' of marriage as distinct from the 'outer,' the inner aspect of any community as distinct from the face a community presents to people who are not its members, and the like. Here we are confronted with a more metaphysical dimension of 'looking' and of 'aspect' which must not be called 'appearance,' because the constituted aspect does not even stand in that kind of contrast to 'being in itself' as appearances. Nevertheless, the different 'faces' of one and the same being, to which we refer here, are utterly different from each other and are clearly dependent on the particular vantage-point or better, on the ontological relation a being X has to itself or to another. The relation between being and 'aspect' is here much closer and more intelligible than in sensible appearances. The objective nature of a being manifests itself in these 'subjective' aspects much more. What it is to be a person, for example, cannot be understood without taking into consideration the unique face the being of the person presents to himself; or better, the unique interior aspect which is not a 'face' but an '/nnenschau' of a very different kind. The objective reality of the person's having an I and consciously living himself from within and possessing himself cannot even be considered without simultaneously taking into consideration how this being presents itself 'from within.' Due to personal consciousness, an interiority accompanies this aspect which, too, forbids us from speaking here of appearance. The constituted aspect of the person as ego melts here with the objective being of that same person. And yet, when we consider, for example, how the despairing person experiences despair from within, we notice something strange. On the one hand, the 'inner aspect' of despair belongs essentially to the very being of this act and yet - the inner aspect of despair is by no means more adequate than the one which presents itself to the non-despairing man. The 'thou-character' of a person, for example, which does not belong as directly to the ontic nature of the person as the character

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of an ego (which constitutes itself in relation to himself) is also far more than an appearance. The 'thou-aspect' ofthe person, which is implied in any communion and love between persons, although it is entirely constituted by the relationship of the person to the other, is more than an appearance because the other person is a Thou for me, and does not only appear so. We shall gain a far deeper understanding of this later. There is another extremely interesting kind of heteronomous object, namely the consciously intended world of fiction. In order to understand it, we must first embark on a brief enquiry into radically different sources of the claim to ontic autonomy. (c) The different sources of the claim to antic autonomy-and antic heteronomy We have already noted that colors, tones, and the like, in their own mode of being as well as in their meaning, remain fully intact even if they depend on conscious subjects or are no more than an intersubjective 'possession' of many persons. Their constituted being does not contradict the dignity of their being as appearances but throws into relief the dignity of the person who can originate or co-constitute the fascinating and meaningful world of appearances. Constitution and mind-dependence take on a negative character only in the case in which there is some kind of 'clash' between the heteronomy of being of something and its inherent objective 'claim' to possess ontic autonomy - a 'claim' which is by no means arbitrary but which flows from the essence of a thing. The negative character of constitution appears precisely when the mere heteronomous being of a thing invalidates the claim to mind-independent being of the thing in question. This claim to objectivity has at least two distinct sources. One of these sources is always given when there is any claim to ontic autonomy. We refer to the very essence or nature of a being which implies that, in order for it to be real, it must have a certain type of mind-independent being. By their very essence, some beings call for a being which is irreducible to, and different from, being just as object of consciousness. Perhaps in contemplating th~ essence of a being and the ordination between the kind of being and its mode of existence (a theme central to Edith Stein's Endliches und Ewiges Sein) we are led to the recognition of this essential claim to autonomous existence. 244

What are 'things in themselves'?

We grasp, for example, that a person, in order to be real, must exist in itself and cannot be a mere object of our conscious acts. For example, the knowledge which this person possesses is only knowledge if he is a subject in his own right and not just constituted by me. His freedom as his self-possession and self-governance is incompatible with his being and freedom just constituting themselves as objects of our acts, and so on. Thus we grasp that it belongs to the very essence of some entities to exist 'in themselves' (nonconstituted) or not to exist at all! This applies also to all living beings, substances, and many predicates of them. This claim to autonomous mind-independent being is discovered as grounded in the essence of a given being and it is grounded therein with essential necessity. It can be understood as belonging just as much to the essence of a being as any of the other characteristics of this essence. For example, a tree is only a tree, is only alive, if its being is not only that of an object of consciousness. The life by its very essence implies a dynamism, a mode of reality which can only actually occur in a being which stands on its own feet and which is not just an object of somebody's consciousness. The same is true of innumerable other things. This claim to autonomous existence is by no means restricted to substances but is also found in predicates which are not 'in themselves' in the sense of substance but inhere in a thing: freedom of will, free deeds and actions, suffering, happiness, unhappiness, and so forth make the same claim to possess a being which is more than our, or the other person's, object of consciousness. The insight into such a claim to mind-independent existence is even one of the most important dimensions of the knowledge of a being's essence. Hence we can say that Husserl fails to conduct an authentic essential analysis of things because he fails to investigate this dimension of their essence. On the other hand, as we saw before, tones and innumerable other aspects of beings do not make such a claim to exist totally independently from the subject's vantage point or from the person who perceives an appearance. A second source for the claim to independence is not found in the essence of a thing but in the special manner of presenting itself. For example, in a dream the persons about whom we dream make a claim to independent being due to their mode of givenness and the striking similarity between the experience of dreams and of reality. 245

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' The vividness of perception in the dream, the total unawareness of being spontaneously active, and so on, account for this. In contrast, a theatrical play or our own imagining of a story are experiences in which no similar claim is being made. Therefore the objects of these experiences may be called fiction but not illusion because they do not pretend a being which they do not possess; they introduce themselves as fiction. Of course, there is some form of 'illusion' which Thornton Wilder, Paul Claudel and other modern authors seek to eliminate by making it more manifest that the play is not real and by breaking the illusion. But the 'illusion' here is very limited and accompanied by the awareness of the fictional character of objects. Therefore it is comic when Cervantes lets Don Quixote enter the puppet stage and attack the 'evil puppets' as if the act of the drama were reality. The causes of such irreal objects which do not claim autonomy of being because of their mode of givenness, may reveal the reasons for the absence of any claim to ontic autonomy. The 'quasijudgments' of which Ingarden speaks and other modifications of fiction may account both for a certain 'illusion' and for the introduction of a world of fiction as fiction and not as real. For this reason, even those purely 'fictional' beings which by their essence (the first source of claim to autonomy of being) claim independence, may still have a fully valid being as fiction, if the mode in which they are presented and the meaning of the world of fiction account for such validity of fiction. This peculiar mode of presentation is not guaranteed by the conscious act of intending to present fictitious objects and facts. For this occurs also in lies, the objects of which do not possess a valid mode of being as fiction. There are some objective 'rules' and 'conditions' which must be met in order for a being to make no claim to autonomy of being and in order for it to have full validity (as merely intentional object) despite being heteronomous. We cannot pursue this point further without introducing a new set of painstaking analyses which shall not be developed here. The preceding brief remarks are not meant to be an exhaustive investigation but are only an indication of further problems and modes of mind-dependent aspects which cannot be reduced to appearances in the full sense we have discussed. One result of the preceding investigations is that one could distinguish many further meanings of 'beings in themselves' in

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What are 'things in themselves'? correspondence to the many forms of mind-dependent (and partially mind-independent) beings which we have distinguished. One could, for example, speak of a real and irreal appearance and call the former 'in itself.' One could speak of a real fiction (drama) as opposed to an illusory non-existent one, etc. More important still is the recognition that 'thing in itself' in the second basic meaning of this term refers to a being which is (claims to be) wholly independent of being the object of a person's consciousness. We saw the central weight of 'being in itself' in this sense. Another result of the preceding investigations is a further differentiation within the concept of 'heteronomous' or 'minddependent' being. In the light of the second source of the claim to mind-independent being (or its absence) we can understand fiction as a mode of heteronomous being which radically differs both from appearance and illusion. Moreover, within the mind-dependence of objects of fiction we would still have to distinguish with Ingarden between the 'purely intentional objects' of simple intentional acts and the 'derived purely intentional objects' of meaning-units. 165 Since Ingarden has investigated this mode of heteronomous being with great mastership and clarity, it would be superfluous for us to repeat his analyses here and we refer to his work. On the other hand, it might be useful to clarify the second sense of 'being in itself' by using some of Ingarden's distinctions. 166

(d) Further clarification of 'thing in itself (i) Seinsautonomie und Seinsheteronomie An object exists autonomously if it has within itself the foundation of its own being. It has in Ingarden's sense of Seinsautonomie (distinct from Conrad-Martius' sense of Daseinsautonomie) the foundation of its being in itself if it is in itself something 'immanently determined.' 'The full immanence of a being's determination' is regarded by Ingarden as the most important feature of autonomy of being. Both real and ideal beings can be autonomous in this sense. Therefore ontic autonomy is not as such characteristic of the mode of being which can be called real, although it is of crucial relevance for the nature of real being in that ontic autonomy is both the condition of real being and achieves in it alone its full impact and meaning. Those beings which are extrinsically determined - specifically by

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intentional acts (as in the case of 'purely intentional objects') or by meaning-unities (as in the literary work of art) - are ontica/ly heteronomous. Those purely intentional objects which do not directly depend on intentional acts but on meanings of words and sentences, are called 'derived purely intentional objects' by Ingarden. A monism of being which denies that there are purely intentional objects as heteronomous beings usually leads to a misinterpretation of certain heteronomous beings as psychic beings. Purely intentional objects are not simply nothing, yet their ontic heteronomy consists in this that something is ascribed to them which they cannot 'immanently' (from themselves) fulfil1. 167 (ii) Seinsursprunglichkeit und Seinsabgeleitetheit This distinction of Ingarden is close to the traditional one between esse a se and esse ab alio. A being is 'self-original in its being' if it coincides with its being and has the source of its being within itself; it is derivative in its being, if the origin of its being lies outside itself. Ingarden points out that his distinction as such does not say yet whether the ens a se is identifiable with God, and whether the relation of dependence of the derivative being must be thought of as one of efficient causality.

(iii) Seinsselbstandigkeit oder Seinsunselbstandigkeit Independence of being in Ingarden's sense 168 characterizes something that does not essentially need another entity which would have to be united with it in the context of a 'whole.' Objectivities such as 'redness' etc. which are moments in colors are 'dependent.' Also the 'red color' of a red object is dependent in this sense; one dependent being can also be in another dependent one. Ingarden here takes up the important discussion of 'wholes and parts' opened in Husserl's Logical Investigations (III), which has received new attention in the 'Manchester Circle' and which we have already discussed, and shows that this distinction remains ambiguous. He decisively clarified the distinction between 'dependent' and 'independent' (parts). This clarification he achieved by bringing to evidence the fact that we find five fundamentally different types of dependence/independence within the more general Husserlian distinction seinsselbstiindig/seinsunselbstiindig. This distinction. however, clearly goes in a radically different direction from the distinction

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between autonomy and heteronomy of being which is the most significant pair of opposites in the context of the discussion of the 'thing in itself' (in the second sense which coincides with Ingarden's 'ontically autonomous being'). (iv) Seinsabhangigkeit und Seinsunabhangigkeit It is quite possible that a being is independent in its being (seinsselb-

stiindig or also ontically autonomous) and yet depends on other things outside itself for its existence. Thus absolute independence of being is more than 'Seinsselbstiindigkeit.'

(v) Absolutes - relatives Sein Ingarden conceives of this opposite as implying on the side of absolute being Seinsautonomie, Seinsursprunglichkeit, Seinsselbstiindigkeit, and Seinsunabhiingigkeit. Relative being is given in each entity the marks of which include an opposite to any of these characteristics. We shall not follow Ingarden into his complicated eight groups of solutions to the problem of the relation of the being of the world to consciousness, each of which group comprises several subdivisions within itself, nor shall we follow him when he distinguishes various 'mixed forms' of these solutions. 169 Instead, we shall concentrate in the following on being in itself in the sense of what Ingarden calls 'autonomous being,' i.e. in the sense of a being which does not coincide with 'being the intentional object of consciousness' but which possesses some being 'in itself.' This 'being in itself we can now distinguish from the other six characters pointed out by Ingarden. The limited scope of this work does not permit a detailed critical discussion and substantiation of Ingarden's distinctions. 170 (e) 'Being in itself as the authentic essence of a thing as opposed to merely exterior, superficial aspects of the thing

The following distinction cuts across the distinction between minddependent (heteronomous) and mind-independent (autonomous) beings. Let us take the example of a man who knows that it is clearly unjust to pass a sentence of condemnation on another man, on the basis of an indictment made up of lies and slanderous unfounded

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accusations. Let us assume further that the person described identifies justice with just this particular case of justice. He will then ascribe features which do not belong to justice as such and in itself but only to the concrete case he has in mind, to justice itself. Thus he does not understand 'justice itself,' the true essence of justice. We can identify the essence of justice, which grounds the demands of justice in the instance mentioned, as 'justice itself.' And we can distinguish justice itself, and the core of justice, from those facts and aspects which belong to justice only accidentally or with reference to concretizations of justice but not to the essence of justice itself. Thus the 'thing in itself' is here understood as the true and universal essence of the thing in question. Augustine uses a similar albeit slightly different sense of 'thing in itself' when he says that no being is known as long as its substance remains unknown. 'Thing in itself' signifies here the essence and the constitutive being of a thing, as opposed to accidents and other features which are consequent upon that true essence which is really the given 'being itself.' (f) De I' existence

a l' etre 171:

being in itself as the 'true vocation' of a being When we think of a being's essence as something 'not yet realized,' when we think more precisely of its 'vocation,' or of its 'utopic being' which lies in the 'not yet' of the future (Bloch), then we arrive at still another meaning of 'thing in itself.' Then 'being itself' is the perfect being of a thing when all of its hopes and promises are fulfilled. This sense of 'thing in itself' shall not occupy us here nor is it necessary for the present essay to relate this sense of 'being in itself' to the other senses. 172

The goal served by the preceding investigations into 'thing in itself

As already indicated, our investigation concentrates mainly on 'thing in itself' as ontically autonomous being (that being which is not constituted by human empirical or transcendental consciousness), or, rather, on the epistemological question of whether we can know beings which are not constituted as 'purely intentional objects' of consciousness.

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What are 'things in themselves'? The distinctions among different meanings of 'thing in itself' proved indispensable in order to pose and answer the question about the knowability of the noumena (of the things in themselves). For as long as an ambiguous or even absurd notion of 'thing in itself is being used, the rejection of its knowability is entirely justified. On the other hand, the rejection of knowing autonomously and really existing beings which are 'in themselves' must not be based on surreptitiously replacing the authentic and extremely important sense of 'being in itself' on which this work concentrates, with impossible or absurd notions of 'thing in itself.' Such a procedure dishonestly discredits a classical topic of philosophical knowledge: the problem of the objectivity of human cognition and of philosophical realism. The preceding investigations thus open the way for us to ask in a more explicit manner than in Part II, Chapter 5 of this work whether man can know 'things in themselves.' Before we turn to a more definitive solution of this question, however, we need to examine also the various dimensions of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' of objects and of knowledge. For the question of the possibility of a knowledge of 'things in themselves' can be answered in the affirmative only if the objectivity of human knowledge is guaranteed, against the view that all human knowledge is only 'subjective' and grounded in the subject and its a priori mental structures. Thus any thorough investigation into the possibility of a knowledge of being as it is in itself has to take into consideration the problem of the objectivity as opposed to the subjectivity of human knowledge.

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7 CAN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF 'THINGS IN THEMSELVES' BE 'OBJECTIVE'? 1 INTRODUCTION It can hardly be doubted that the problems surrounding 'subject'

and 'object,' viz. their relation, are of central significance for epistemology as such, but especially for the discussion of transcendental idealism and transcendental phenomenology. We have already spoken of Husserl's and Kant's struggle with the problem of the transcendence of man in knowledge, of whether the subject can, as it were, look beyond itself and leave itself in order to go out to 'things themselves.' While we have already attempted a defense of the real transcendence of man in knowledge in Part II Chapter 5, we shall have to return to the question of the transcendence of human knowledge after having conducted our preceding analyses into the meaning of 'thing in itself' and after completion of the ensuing discussion of the 'objectivity of human knowledge.' We have seen that Husserl deems any true transcendence of man in knowledge impossible and restricts the transcendence implied in knowledge to the sphere of 'immanent transcendence' in the sense of intentional objects which, while standing over against our consciousness, nevertheless derive all meaning and being from consciousness. This position of Husserl places not only the problem of 'thing in itself' as opposed to constituted being but also the problem of the subject/object relationship in the center of his philosophy. Let me quote some texts: But as soon as - instead of transiently exercising a phenomenological epoche - one sets to work, attempting in a

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? systematic self-investigation and as the pure ego to uncover this ego's whole field of consciousness, one recognizes that all that exists for the pure ego becomes constituted in him himself; furthermore, that every kind of being - including every kind characterized as, in any sense, 'transcendent' - has its own particular constitution. Transcendency in every form is an immanent existential characteristic, constituted within the ego. Every imaginable sense (meaning), every imaginable being, whether the latter is called immanent or transcendent, falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being. The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is nonsensical. They belong together essentially; and, as belonging together essentially, they are also concretely one, one in the absolute concretion: transcendental subjectivity. If transcendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely - nonsense. But even nonsense is always a mode of sense and has its nonsensical ness within the sphere of possible insight. ... Genuine theory of knowledge is accordingly possible (sinnvoll) only as a transcendental-phenomenological theory, which, instead of operating with inconsistent inferences leading from a supposed immanency to a supposed transcendency (that of no matter what 'thing in itself,' which is alleged to be essentially unknowable), has to do exclusively with systematic clarification of the knowledge-performance, a clarification in which this must become thoroughly understandable as an intentional performance. Precisely thereby every sort of existent itself, real or ideal, becomes understandable as a 'product' of transcendental subjectivity, a product constituted in just that performance. This kind of understandable ness is the highest imaginable form of rationality. All wrong interpretations of being come from naive blindness to the horizons that join in determining the sense of being, and to the corresponding tasks of uncovering implicit intentionality. If these are seen and undertaken, there results a universal phenomenology, as a selfexplication of the ego, carried out with continuous evidence and at the same time with concreteness. Stated more precisely: First, 253

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a self-explication in the pregnant sense, showing systematically how the ego constitutes himself, in respect to his own proper essence, as existent in himself and for himself; then, secondly, a self-explication in the broadened sense, which goes on from there to show how, by virtue of this proper essence, the ego likewise constitutes in himself something 'other,' something 'objective,' and thus constitutes everything without exception that ever has for him, in the Ego, existential status as non-Ego. Carried out with this systematic concreteness, phenomenology is eo ipso 'transcendental idealism,' though ... not psychological idealism ... Nor is it Kantian idealism, which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting concept, the possibility of a world of things in themselves. (E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations IV, 41)173 It is evident from these texts that phenomenological transcendental idealism rests on the assumption that the conscious subject can solely be related to (intentional) objects of his consciousness qua objects of consciousness. This position, which Husserl identifies with 'phenomenology' as carrying out the call 'back to things themselves,' an identification which we challenge with this essay, posits a radical constitution of all possible being and meaning by the conscious subject, as the lengthy quoted passage makes clear. The objects of consciousness, according to this view, not only necessarily presuppose the subject in order to become objects of his consciousness and thought, which is clear, but are also constituted by the transcendental ego. Consequently, any 'pure objectivity,' any being or meaning which is entirely independent from subjectivity and still known by the subject, is declared to be nonsensical by Husser!. The crucial passage from Cartesian Meditations just quoted thus proves that the issues of the objectivity of human knowledge and of a cognition of 'things in themselves' are inseparable. In order to solve the problem of an objective reality which is not constituted by the subject, and in order to examine critically transcendental phenomenology, therefore, an investigation into the crucial meaning and nature of 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity' of knowledge is necessary. The need for such an analysis is also evident from the nature of intentionality itself. For each intentional relation is a subject-object

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relation. Does this subject-object relation which is inseparable from all intentional cognitive acts imply that 'object' and objective' are relative terms only and that nothing can become 'object' which would not depend on the subject? Does the nature of the n6esisn6ema (subject-object) relationship truly imply, as Husser! believes, that there can be no reality, meaning, being, or object which would not depend on the subject?

2 'OBJECTIVE' AND 'SUBJECTIVE' AS ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORIES 'Objective' and 'subjective' can first be taken as ontological categories, indicating types or modes of being. Within such an ontological use of these categories one can still contrast 'objective being' with 'subjective being' in radically different senses.

(i) 'Object' as unconscious (lifeless) thing, 'subject' as conscious being (person)

First, the terms 'object' and 'objective' can refer to unconscious, lifeless being. If one then contrasts to this the 'subject,' one means by this term a conscious being, more specifically, a person. Usually, one does not call plants and animals 'objects' because of their life and, in the case of animals, their sensitive nature. One does not call them 'subjects' either, however, despite the perceptional consciousness which animals possess. This shows that the pair of opposites 'subject-object' is not contradictory but admits of a middle position. It also shows that 'object' as ontological category for lifeless and unconscious things can be contrasted not only with subject but also with living or with sensitive being. Nevertheless, subject in the sense of person constitutes its strongest opposite. Subject in this sense, then, has almost the same meaning as person. By calling the person a 'subject' one indicates, specifically, the fact that the person is both aware of his own being and conscious of other beings besides himself. With this term, one might also hint at another way in which the person is different from an unconscious thing as well as from plants and animals: namely, by freedom. Freedom implies self-possession of one's being, a certain autonomy,

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the power of self-determination and self-governance, with all the rights, duties, and obligations pertaining to this. Being free, the person differs from those beings and natures which are entirely fixed and dependent on their structure. Corresponding strictly to these meanings of 'subject' and 'object' respectively, we can form the concept 'objective' as referring to the sphere of impersonal things, and 'subjective' as that which 'belongs to the person.' This sense of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' is certainly one of the many senses of these terms found in Kierkegaard and other existentialist thinkers. It is more than understandable that, in the light of this ontological distinction, subjectivity is to be preferred to objectivity. Yet, while we wholeheartedly agree with the recognition of a hierarchy of being within which the person ranks higher than inanimate 'objects,' we do not wish to infer from this fact any prejudice which prefers other senses of 'subjectivity' over 'objectivity.' It would certainly reveal philosophical confusion, were one to hold that the 'subject' in the first sense is less important metaphysically speaking than what is 'objective' in the first sense. Such a confusion becomes understandable when one fails to distinguish the first and quite positive sense of subjectivity from other negative senses of subjectivity. This amounts to sheer prejudice, however, a prejudice from which not even Aristotle's Metaphysics is totally free. Such a prejudice is at work, for example, when one forgets that a metaphysics of the person qua person is a far more important metaphysical task than an investigation into substance or general types of causes. For the metaphysician's quest for understanding being qua being as being in the most proper sense of the term is only fulfilled in a metaphysics of the person (and, finally, of absolute being). To content oneself, moreover, within a metaphysics of finite being, with only those categories and distinctions which Aristotle draws and which refer to 'objective being' as well as to persons, implies a great limitation that can only be explained by the prejudice mentioned earlier.

(ii) 'Objective' as 'real' - 'subjective' as merely imagined by a subject If 'objective' has the meaning of 'real,' we are confronted with a

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completely different pair of ontological categories. 'Objective' can then still have a broad variety of meanings: it can refer to something which really exists, to something which is autonomous in being (but - like ideal objects - perhaps not really existing), or to something which 'objectively is' in the first sense of 'thing in itself.' 'Subjective' then denotes something which is only assumed by a subject to be (in errors, deceptions, lies) without 'objectively' being in any sense. Depending on what kind of 'reality' is possessed by the 'objective' reality at stake, 'subjective' refers to something which is contrasted to the respective reality and has no being at all but is merely believed to be. We have already shown that any being whatsoever is objective in this sense. All knowledge in the narrower sense necessarily has 'objective being' in this sense as its object; knowledge in the broader sense refers to it 'by definition' only. When we take 'objective being' in this sense, then there is no (seriously and sincerely pronounced) human judgment nor any discipline which would not strive for knowledge of 'objective reality' in this understanding of the term. For even dream-analysis would be concerned with the objects of dreams (as well as their structure and meaning) insofar as they are objective (have being). Also inasmuch as objects are really dreamt about, they have the sort of objectivity which corresponds to the first sense of thing-in-itself. That which is subjective in this sense (the object of error. for example) strictly has no being at all. Husserl seems to recognize precisely this when he deals with the irreality of some objects of real conscious acts but he fails to distinguish two quite different meanings of reality when he opposes reality to subjectivity. m

(iii) 'Subjective being' as 'heteronomous being' and 'objective being'

as 'being in itself

A third important sense of the metaphysical categories of 'objective' and 'subjective' coincides with the meaning of the categories 'heteronomous being' (,subjective being') and 'autonomous' ('objective') being which were analyzed in the preceding chapter.

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Part Ill: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' (iv) 'Objective' as 'objectively meant to be' and 'subjective' as 'opposed to the true meaning' of something Another distinction has to do with the objective 'meaning of being' of a given entity. That which is 'objective,' then, is that which a thing is really meant to be, not only in the sense that the person who originated the thing really intended that the thing be understood in a certain way, but also, and more importantly, in the sense that the objective meaning and value of a thing is meant to be a certain way and that the thing would not truly be itself (un etre in Gabriel Marcel's sense) without fulfilling this meaning-vocation. The decisive point here is to see that 'subjective realities' in the second sense (such as the valid aspect of the sensible world presented to man) can, too, possess this kind of 'objectivity.' This is one of the marks in which appearances differ from distorted and delusory 'purely subjective' aspects of things. In the Crisis, 175 Husserl has elaborated well that this 'objectivity of meaning' belongs to many aspects and appearances which clearly depend on a conscious subject and which obviously constitute themselves in some sense in relation to it. Nevertheless, these aspects are by no means invalid. Dietrich von Hildebrand l76 has analyzed the deeply significant mode of being which subjectdependent appearances (such as 'above' and 'below') possess. He speaks of the 'objective validity' of the human aspect of the material universe. We could expand this notion of the objectively valid aspects by allowing that in principle all persons (not only humans) and in an analogous sense animals too - constitute some subjectdependent 'aspects' of reality; also we must not restrict aspects to those of the material universe. Fully agreeing with the results of the philosophical attempt of Husserl and Hildebrand (as well as with the similar project of R. Ingarden in Der Streit), to 'save the appearances,' we recognize the 'saving of appearances' or the rendering to 'subjective appearances' their full weight of being as an important task of phenomenology. Without doing justice to this task, one lives in a 'fictitious "objective" world,' i.e., in a world which only appears to be objective (because it reduces the material universe to 'things in themselves,' for example, sound-waves, lightwaves) but which is really an illusory fiction engendered by modern scientific theories. This myth, in the worst sense, consists in the belief that everything which does not exist wholly independently

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from the conscious subject does not possess any objective being in any sense and that it therefore ought to be disregarded and put on the same level with illusions, deceptions, and so on. An idol of 'objectivity' of this sort would require to relegate the entire human aspect of the material world and of many other beings (the categories of 'above' and 'below,' music, colors, perspectives, views of all sorts) to a sphere of 'purely subjective' things which neither deserve serious interest nor possess any objectivity. This, of course, would be a radical error. Works of art, for example, are mostly 'built' of 'subjective beings' in the third senseand nevertheless have aesthetically significant qualities and a fully objectively valid being which, while depending on a subject, is still objectively valid. Only when one recognizes this important sense of objectivity does one become aware of the fact that, for example, listening to Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor does not expose us to a sphere of subjective appearances which would compare unfavorably with the 'objective' reality of waves. Rather, the truly objective being of music and its true objective meaning is found precisely in the 'heard music.'

(v) Objective being as being which is not produced by a subject If 'subjective' refers to all beings which are made or produced by

man, 'objective' would only refer to nature or to reality as it exists free from the influence of any (human) person. This sense of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' is irrelevant to our discussion. For there might well be objects which are produced by man (and are in that sense 'subjective') and yet possess being 'in themselves.' Dialectical Materialism with its use of the term 'idealism' to designate both a creationist view of the world (as ontically depending on a personal being) and subjectivist transcendental or psychological idealism confuses two entirely different meanings of 'objective'/ 'subjective.' In reality, subjective realities in this sense have absolutely to be distinguished from 'subjective' being in the other senses of the term discussed. They must also not be confused with constituted appearances or with the object of errors and illusions. Otherwise one would also have to call material beings like buildings, machines, tables, and so on, 'subjective' in the sense that they are

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purely objects of consciousness, a thesis which would be rejected by Dialectical Materialism itself.

(vi) 'Objective being' as 'neutral being' - 'subjective being' as valuable being: a misleading terminology

When 'objective being' means 'neutral being' - being as not endowed with value and meaning - one almost inevitably implies a philosophical theory, according to which value and meaning do not belong to 'being in itself.' This theory, according to which objective reality and things in themselves do not possess value and meaning but simply have value arbitrarily assigned to them, can be shown to be radically false. It is based on various versions of relativism and subjectivism, empiricism and positivism which regard any value and 'ought' as non-derivable from any 'is' and as incapable of any rational justification. We cannot refute such theories here but may refer to works which contain a refutation of value relativism and subjectivism from various points of viewY7

3 'SUBJECTIVE' AND 'OBJECTIVE' AS EPISTEMOLOGICAL CATEGORIES With the terms 'subjective' and 'objective' one can also refer to very important aspects and differences related to the sphere of knowledge.

(i) Objective knowledge as knowledge of being as it truly is

In a first sense, 'objective' knowledge would simply mean a knowledge which grasps things as they 'truly are,' and would thus be contrasted to error, illusion, and so forth. Any real knowledge is ipso facto objective in this sense. The first sense of 'thing in itself' as well as of 'ontological objectivity' corresponds to this sense of 'objective knowledge.'

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? (ii) 'Objective knowledge' as 'episteme' - 'subjective knowledge'

as'd6xa' 'Objective knowledge' in a second sense implies some (ideally absolute) certainty on the part of its subject that it actually reaches being as it is in itself. In this sense, objective knowledge as episteme would be contrasted with all doxa, even inasmuch as the latter is knowledge in some sense. Also orthe doxa (correct opinion) must be distinguished from knowledge in the fully objective sense, as this is done in Plato's Theaetetus and in the Republic, Book, VI. 178 The ideal of objective knowledge in this sense is that of an absolutely certain knowledge, such as Plato intends it when he distinguishes dianoia from noesis and says that, while the former still presupposes some assumptions and hypotheses, the latter is free from assumptions and, being certain knowledge in the truest sense, reaches 'being itself. '179 The relation between this knowledge and genuine faith based on Revelation cannot be explored in this context. Such an investigation would, however, involve the attempt to settle the disagreement between the views of Plato and most medieval philosophers on this matter. According to Plato, pistis (belief) is a lower precursor of knowledge, whereas, according to most medieval thinkers, fides is the highest form of knowledge. While the present writer agrees in some respects with Ingarden's critique of Husserl's ideal of philosophy as rigorous science, it seems clear that Husser! is right at least in this respect: philosophy must aim at absolutely certain knowledge. Without reaching it, it would not attain its very foundations and the foundations of all knowledge. On the other hand, Ingarden sees rightly the wrongness of any absolutization of the quest for certainty in such a way that either the scope of indubitable human knowledge is unduly expanded beyond its limits or less certain forms of knowledge are simply excluded from the sphere of knowledge because they are less certain. For while the quest for absolute certainty of knowledge seeks the indispensable foundation of all human knowledge, man should always strive only for that knowledge which an object can meaningfully be expected to allow for. The philosopher especially should, like Socrates, remain aware of the limits of human knowledge and of the dignity of less than indubitably certain modes of knowing. 261

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' (iii) 'Objective knowledge' as knowledge which does justice to the pure essence of things A third meaning of 'objective knowledge' refers not to the certainty or to another moment on the part of the subject, but to the question of whether or not the essential nature of a given object is grasped. 'Objective knowledge' in this sense would differ from the knowledge of non-essential characteristics of a being; it would especially be opposed to those forms of knowledge which relate to aspects of a being that evoke interest only because of some arbitrary viewpoint or because of some pragmatic limitation. Knowledge as 'filtered' through pragmatic limitations would be unobjective in this sense. Theoretical scientific knowledge would in this way be more objective than applied scientific knowledge. Philosophical knowledge would be even more 'objective' than pure science inasmuch as the latter still entails some pragmatic limitation of interest. The more a given knowledge occurs sub specie aeternitatis and the more it pays attention to the proper nature and ultimate meaning of things, and the more purely it aims at the very core of a being, the more objective it is. Even if one were to disagree with what we said about philosophic versus scientific knowledge in terms of its objectivity, he could agree with our distinction as such. Often 'subjective' knowledge as narrow and limited pragmatic knowledge is taken to be the embodiment of 'objectivity.'

(iv) 'Objective knowledge' and universal consensus A radically different concept of 'objective knowledge' claims that the latter is only given when it is agreed upon. Thus only facts which everyone will recognize or would easily recognize are reckoned to be in the domain of objective knowledge. Subjective knowledge would then be any private knowledge or any kind of knowledge which would be conditioned by certain features that only some or few persons possess. Objective knowledge in this sense could also be termed 'intersubjective knowledge. ' There really is a difference between a type of knowledge the object of which is accessible to everyone (such as many forms of sense-perception and empirical knowledge) and a knowledge which

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? can be reached only by few persons. Within the type of knowledge that is reached only by a few, the need for this restriction can have at least two different reasons. First, it can be the case that the experience which leads to knowledge is in principle restricted to only one man or to a few persons: such are the secret thoughts in our own minds or the secrets which someone freely shared with us but not with others. Here the nature ofthe object and ofthe access to it is the ground for the 'subjectivity' or 'privacy' of this knowledge. Another quite different reason for a restricted accessibility to knowledge lies in the differences between subjects with regard to fulfilling the conditions necessary for a given knowledge. These differences can include differences of talent, differences of education and time spent in some field, or diff~rences which result from moral stances and attitudes a man takes. None of these differences, however, jeopardizes the objectivity of knowledge in the sense that it can truly reach its object as it is in itself. Hence it is a sheer prejudice which lurks behind this use of the terms 'objective' and 'subjective.' I mean the wholly unwarranted assumption of a sort of 'democratization of knowledge' according to which truth must be accessible to everyone in an equal measure. This is obviously an unfounded prejudice. For nobody can earnestly think that those mathematical facts which require special talent or education to be discovered are any less objectively real than facts which every man can comprehend. And nobody should overlook the fact that different moral attitudes are not on the same level and do not predispose men to mere neutral subjective differences of opinion. Rather, virtues such as love of truth, commitment to bear the consequences of a truth in our lives, enable one man to see much truth which another person who is proud and conceited will easily overlook. To discredit knowledge about private matters because this knowledge is not accessible to all is likewise unfounded. The objectivity of our own know lege that we are envious of another is not affected in any way by the fact that only we know about our envy. Clearly, it is a widespread practice in contemporary philosophy (especially in empiricism) to identify objective and scientific knowledge with only those forms of knowledge which are intersubjectively accessible and about which consensus can be reached. Even if one expands this notion, as Karl Popper does, so as to include also 263

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those forms of knowledge-claims which cannot themselves be verified or falsified but which nevertheless are related like hypotheses, paradigms and so on to the sphere of falsifiable claims and can be proven useful for the prediction or explanation of empirical observable facts, one remains trapped in the idol of objectivity earlier mentioned. (It could even be shown that the consensus- and falsification- hypotheses of truth and knowledge lead to radical subjectivism.) With reference to value knowledge, we have critically examined this position elsewhere .180 Most important among the forms of knowledge which are not empirically verifiable are perhaps those forms which the Scholastics called 'knowledge by connaturality.' An instance of a knowledge by connaturality would be the interior acquaintance the virtuous man has with virtue. To discredit the objective truth of such knowledge because it has a condition in the subject is, however, clearly untenable because, evidently, there are things which cannot be understood objectively in their true nature if the subject does not open his mind to them. In what we have said so far we presupposed a notion of truth as an adaequatio intellectus ad rem. We have tried to bring to evidence the fact that 'objective knowledge' as knowledge which corresponds to 'how things actually are' does not presuppose universal acceptation. The limited access to some kinds of knowledge does not at all diminish the well-founded character of their claim to objective truth. The most famous private knowledge lies in the cogito previously discussed. The knowledge of individual facts contained in the cogito is necessarily restricted to my own person and thereby to the knowledge of one person. Nonetheless, this restriction does not exclude the objectivity and indubitability of my knowledge at all. Something analogous applies to knowledge about difficult mathematical theorems or to ethical knowledge. Someone could, however, also imply another theory of truth, for example, a coherence theory of truth, or a pragmatist theory of truth. He could either identify truth with coherence of a set of propositions or he could take coherence not as a definition of the essence of truth but only as criterion for truth. Or he could imply that truth consists in the practical usefulness of propositions, and the like. Then it would even become questionable whether those propositions, which many empiricists declare to be the only forms

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? of objective knowledge, are objective knowledge at all. For why should a useful proposition (politically useful assumptions of the past include for example many racist prejudices) be true in the sense of being in conformity with reality? Further, why should coherence of a given set of propositions be a sign of their truth in the sense of their adequacy to reality? As has been attempted to show more fully elsewhere,181 it belongs to the evident nature of truth that the truth of a proposition lies in the conformity or 'coincidence' between the positing of a judgment in regard to a state of affairs and the actual 'Selbstverhalten des Sachverhalts' (the way in which the facts actually are).

(v) 'Objective knowledge' as rationally grounded knowledge Another sense of objective knowledge is at stake when this term refers to the rational and intellectually well-founded character of knowledge. Then the term 'objective' places the emphasis on argument, cogency, critical defense of knowledge-claims, and the like. One could then imply that an insight and arguments which cannot in any way be communicated to others would not be 'objective knowledge.' Of course, all depends here on the criterion of rational groundedness of knowledge. Is the criterion again 'communicability' and consensus, or is it simply the rational well-foundedness of knowledge as such, of which one merely expects that its rational objectivity will also make it more readily accessible to others? The latter must have been Husserl's meaning when he wrote, speaking of the state of philosophy to this day, in Philosophy as Rigorous Science (72-75): Thus philosophy, according to its historical purpose the loftiest and most rigorous of all sciences, representing as it does humanity'S imperishable demand for pure and absolute knowledge ... is incapable of assuming the form of rigorous science. Philosophy, whose vocation is to teach us how to carry on the eternal work of humanity, is utterly incapable of teaching in an objectively valid manner. Kant was fond of saying that one could not learn philosophy, but only to philosophize. What is that but an admission of philosophy's unscientific character?

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' . One cannot learn philosophy, because there are no such insights objectively grasped and grounded ... , because here the problems, methods, and theories have not been defined conceptually, their sense has not been fully clarified ... Here [i.e., in natural science and mathematics] there is, by and large, no room for private 'opinions,' 'notions,' or 'points of view.' To the extent that there are such in particular instances, the science in question is not established as such ... Each and every question is herein controverted, every position is a matter of individual conviction, ... of a 'point of view.' 'Subjective' knowledge would then be a knowledge which is naive, ill-founded, incommunicable and so forth, a knowledge of which one cannot say that the knowing subject is able 'to give an account' (ton logon didonai), as Plato puts it in the Republic, Book VII. Objectivity in this sense is given only to the extent to which all available means of rational tests and defense of knowledge-claims have been used. One could of course ask whether the objectivity of methods, tests and so on, as such, suffices to guarantee the objectivity of knowledge in this sense, or whether the additional moment of the adequacy of knowledge to reality must be given to make knowledge objective. The decisive question here can be formulated thus: is adequacy to reality always given when all proper methods of defending knowledge-claims have been applied? But this is, for more than one reason, more than doubtful. Perhaps, for the purpose of this discussion, 'objectivity' of method has to be distinguished from objectivity of knowledge. Objective knowledge or better, 'objective claims to knowledge' would then be such claims which cannot easily be contested but can be defended by distinctions, arguments, dialectical refutations of opposed theses, and so on. Such knowledge or knowledge-claims would also be communicable to others, their reasons could be understood; and even if the general public or the 'community of scholars' remain unconvinced, they cannot easily refute such 'objective' knowledge-claims. Within this notion of 'objectivity of knowledge(-claims)' there is room for a wide range of philosophical positions with respect to what exactly is meant by objectivity in this sense or what constitutes it. Someone could imply, for example, that only indubitably certain knowledge is 'objective knowledge' in this sense and that, since

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? errors can never be fully rationally justified through evidence, only indubitable knowledge can be 'objective' in this sense and eo ipso adequate to reality. Others might hold that while, at least in empirical science, all 'objective methods' can still lead to error, it should be regarded as a mere matter of definition that only genuine knowledge that is adequate to reality is called 'objective' in this sense; in other words, there would be no intrinsic difference between knowledge and error but only an extrinsic one. Finally, someone could hold that if the subject uses all the appropriate means of gaining, and communicating, knowledge, whether he errs or not, his knowledge is 'objective.' This sense of 'objective knowledge' is certainly a meaningful one. It identifies objectivity of knowledge not only with the adequacy of knowledge to reality but it sees cognitive objectivity in a critical and rational correspondence with what is the case. Thus objective knowledge is distinct from merely accidentally correct opinions (orthe d6xai) which, while they may actually be in conformity with being, were arrived at only through subjective guesswork. Of course, the question arises here whether this is the only alternative, and whether there is not a knowledge which is intuitive and quite adequate without disposing of the more intellectual apparatus of critical justification which might lead others to the same evidence. If this question has to be answered by affirming that the wellfoundedness of knowledge cannot indeed be identified with the intellectual and critical defense of it, then the well-foundedness of knowledge (as opposed to mere prejudice) must be distinguished from the intellectual and critical ability to defend a knowledge-claim adequately. Adequate rational evidence for knowledge-claims must again be distinguished from the mere intellectual ability to argue, which a Sophist also disposes. Another question is whether the indubitability and (rational) certainty of knowledge is necessary for its character as 'objective.' Of course, indubitable knowledge possesses a unique form of objectivity and it contains a reflective awareness of this objectivity. But it would seem that other forms of evidence and well-foundedness differ from the indubitability of intellectual or experiential knowledge. In accordance with this fact, there might be different types of 'objective knowledge' in intellectual and philosophical, in scientific, in experiential, and in religious knowledge - and each of these might possess its proper codes and standards of well-foundedness; 267

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' all of them are opposed to prejudice, albeit in essentially different degrees of radicality. If one assumes that (broad or total) consensus is needed to constitute objectivity in this sense, then our arguments above must be applied against this position. But, of course, the 'objective,' well-founded character of a knowledge which distinguishes it from arbitrariness, makes it in principle accessible to others. And this objective accessibility of the truth, which makes possible wellfounded knowledge of reality, constitutes indeed an important dimension of objectivity. There is an 'openness' of authentic knowledge to others which unfounded or less founded knowledge-claims do not at all possess, or possess to a lesser degree. From this immanent 'objectivity' of knowledge we could again distinguish the communicability of knowledge, or the actual ability of a person to communicate it. The teacher, for example, strives for an objectivity which the scholar, who possesses a better founded knowledge, may well lack.

(vi) Objective knowledge as 'neutral knowledge' Objective knowledge has quite another sense again when It IS identified with a knowledge for the attainment of which no intellectual or moral attitude of the mind or the will of the knowing subject is presupposed. Objective knowledge would be agreed upon by people who take radically different stances toward life. For example, atheists and theists, communists and conservatives, good and evil men will agree on the number of legs of insects, on the actual facts concerning the stock market or depression in a country. There are many mathematical, technical, scientific and linguistic, geographic and historical facts the knowledge of which satisfies this condition. Yet the term 'objective' to designate this knowledge, and the corresponding term 'subjective,' to designate all other forms of knowledge, is highly misleading. (A better term for it would be neutral knowledge or simply knowledge which is not dependent on interests and attitudes of the will and the mind.) For when one calls this knowledge objective, one implies that all other knowledge is a mere matter of opinion and personal preferences. This would involve a grave error, however, which will best be seen when we compare this sense of objective knowledge with the next one.

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? (vii) Objective knowledge as a knowledge which does not in any way produce its object and which is in this sense 'independent from the will'

There is, of course, a voluntaristic conception of knowledge which would totally dissolve the latter's objectivity. If one sees in knowledge itself an activity of the will, or if one thinks that the object and content of knowledge are dependent on attitudes of the will. then one adopts a notion of 'subjectivity' of knowledge which contradicts its essence as knowledge altogether. Objectivity in the sense of independence of object and content of knowledge from the will is indeed an important characteristic of any authentic knowledge. Only errors and ideologies in the strict sense allow for such dependence on the will that the content of 'knowledge' is determined by the will and whims of the subject. Even when mere products of the will or the imagination become themselves objects of knowledge, they do not qua objects of knowledge depend on the will. The content of genuine knowledge must depend on the object, not on the subject. Furthermore, the objectivity of knowledge presupposes a certain primacy of the intellect over the will in the sense that the first beginnings of knowledge (of value, etc.) cannot already depend on attitudes of the will. For in order that a valid attitude of the will can even be taken, some cognition must already precede it in the sense of the Scholastic dictum: nil volitum nisi praecogitatum (nothing can be willed if it is not first conceived). But all these facts do not at all imply that as soon as an attitude of the will is necessary as a condition of knowledge itself, such knowledge is no longer objective. To assume this is sheer prejudice. For the independence of object and content of knowledge may well go hand in hand with a dependence of the discovery of reality on a certain attitude of the will and mind. Moreover, such attitudes as render knowledge possible (for instance, openness, love of truth, reverence) are quite intelligibly linked to knowledge. It is evident that and why these attitudes are necessary precisely for objective knowledge in the sense of a knowledge adequate to reality. It is quite evident, for example, that and why a man who only desires victory in discussion and who does not care about truth, will not attain knowledge of objective reality. Therefore, the identification

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' of objectivity in sense vii with objectivity in sense vi proves to be a disastrous error. Likewise, the first and second meaning of 'objective knowledge' must not be confused at all with the previous sense of objective knowledge as 'neutral knowledge.' Philosophers from Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, to Scheler, Pieper and von Hildebrand, have clearly seen that this would be an idol of 'objectivity' and that for the knowledge of objective truth, at least for the deeper forms of knowledge of reality, certain attitudes of the subject are necessarily presupposed. The idea that every man is equally equipped to know the truth, and that knowledge presupposes at best education and proper talent rather than calling equally for a 'purification' of the intellect through love of truth, sincerity, intellectual honesty, and so forth, may be regarded as a prejudice which begins with Descartes and dominates many rationalist modern philosophies (while other irrationalist philosophies of our time make even the content of knowledge dependent on the will of the SUbject). Thus we now see in which sense knowledge must be independent from the will and in which sense the separation of intellect from the will is at odds with universally recognized facts. It is quite clear, for example, that self-knowledge and recognition of our faults cannot occur objectively without a certain attitude of the subject of such knowledge.

(viii) Objective knowledge as knowledge free from historical and other conditions of the subject An unfounded requirement of 'objective knowledge' would also lie in the notion that any other conditions in the subject besides moral and intellectual ones would jeopardize adequate (objective) knowledge. According to this opinion, the historical and social conditions of all human knowledge are proof of its social and historical relativity. Certainly, human knowledge depends on many personal and social, historical conditions. Objective knowledge builds upon what parents, ancestors, predecessors, contemporaries and past ages have seen and what teachers disclose to us. As We have already mentioned, this condition does not in any way

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exclude the fact that the Pythagorean theorem or the infinite number of prime numbers and so on are actually discovered by us as they are - although our discovery has not only moral but also historical conditions. We repeat, on the other hand, that any dependence of the content and object of our knowledge on historical and social circumstances can never apply to authentic knowledge (to truth), but only to errors which indeed may be determined in their content by social and historical circumstances, rather than only depending for their existence on history (as knowledge) .. Of course, not all knowledge can depend on historical conditions. Otherwise experience and therewith history itself would be impossible. For if there were not a direct experience gained through our senses and our internal experience and cognition, neither the knowledge of history nor history itself would be possible. The original perceptions of things in each individual child and in the first human beings cannot themselves depend on historical conditions but constitute the beginning of our experience, a beginning which first makes it possible to gain access to historical reality and is presupposed by the coming to be of history. 182

(ix) Absurd and humanly impossible forms of'objective knowledge'

We should not neglect mentioning some absurd or at least humanly speaking untenable forms of 'objective knowledge.' An absurd notion of 'objective knowledge' would be one which does not imply the subject of knowledge: knowledge as an abstract 'cognitional being present at being' without such mental grasp of things being a subject's presence to things. Some Eastern philosophers and Husserl, too, primarily reject this absurd notion of 'objective knowledge.' This becomes clear when they speak of the intrinsic impossibility of eliminating the subject of knowledge, or when they insist on the intentionality of knowledge as an involvement of the subject whenever 'objects' are given. These philosophers wrongly infer, however, that this presupposedness and presence of the subject to whatever being becomes an object of knowledge implies some ontic dependence of the object on the subject. (This does not exclude, certainly, that the object-position of a thing depends on the subject and is in a sense constituted by it; but its being may well be 271

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' understood as precisely independent from the subject, as we shall see.) A humanly impossible form of 'objective' knowledge would be an exhaustive comprehensive and unlimited knowledge - like the previously discussed knowledge of things themselves under all the aspects under which they are knowable. Relative or suhjective knowledge would then be anything which falls short of the ideal of the infinite knowledge of an omniscient being. In this sense (perhaps implied by Hegel's absolute knowledge), the claim to objective knowledge would be both lunatic and luciferic; and certainly we exclude the possibility that man might ever possess objective knowledge in that sense.

4 'OBJECTIVE' AND 'SUBJECTIVE' AS PURELY 'FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS' The notions 'objective' and 'subjective' may also refer to the manner in which something is given to us in our experience or knowledge. There are again many possible 'purely functional' meanings of 'objective' and 'subjective.'

(i) Object(ive) as that which stands over against us - subjective as

what is 'laterally given' Object and objective can first mean what stands 'over against' our conscious life. It would then be contrasted with the 'suhjective' as everything which is given in us, 'from within,' laterally, as part of our consciousness. Objective knowledge or object would then refer to what Husser! identified as intentional objects or as noemata of noesis. Brentano and many other authors dealt with this peculiar object-directedness of intentional consciousness. It is quite clear that our ego-life, our own consciousness, is given to us in a radically different mode of givenness - from within. Within this basic distinction there are still many differences of frontal and lateral given ness of things. An object may stand over against us in one sense when we focus our whole attention on it: like 272

Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? when we consciously see or hear a thing or think about it. These 'objects' are given quite differently when they constitute, as it were, the horizon or background of our conscious life and stand before us in an unthematic, semi-lateral way. Whereas these are modifications of the 'object-consciousness: there are also similar differentiations of the subject- or lateral consciousness. Our acts of thinking or of love are 'situated' in the center of the person and given in a distance-less sphere of interior subjectivity. They are given quite differently than experiences such as physical pain which is on the subject-side, but in a quasi 'halfobjective' or 'semi-lateral' manner. Many further distinctions could be made here. These distinctions have to do also with the modes of 'having' versus 'being' our conscious life, of which Gabriel Marcel and others have treated. 1X3 It would in my opinion clearly contradict the evidence of experience to deny with Scheler that persons too (and even our own life in acts of reflection) can stand over against our consciousness like 'objects' in this sense. 'Object' indicates here nothing about a mode of being but only a mode of givenness as standing over against one's own conscious life. The problem of empathy and many other problems are linked to this question. It would seem correct to say that all beings (including our own) can be given frontally as standing over against us, but only our own being and acts can also be (and are primarily) given 'laterally.' Now it is clear that this 'object-position' of a thing is given to it by its relation to our consciousness. We cannot claim at all that a being is in itself an object in this sense. Thus one could say that its 'object-character' is constituted by its relation to our consciousness. But this must not be misconstrued or identified with the thesis (as is done by Husserl) that the whole being of the object is constituted by consciousness or that it is even distorted by this 'unnatural' (object-) position which is not 'in itself.' It is well known that many Eastern philosophies, and Zen Buddhism in particular, regard (as Heidegger does) this object-position of a thing as a distortion of reality and as something which ought to be overcome. Now it is certainly correct that when we think of beings we should recognize in our knowledge the kind of being they have independently of their position as objects of our consciousness. It would be a sort of egotistic approach to things to consider them only as they appear on the stage of our consciousness. Man 273

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can transcend this meaning of beings as objects of his thought· and reach out to what they are prior to being objects of his thought. In this sense being is 'beyond' its object-position relative to me as subject. And in this sense the subject-object distance ought to be, not overcome (which is intrinsically impossible), but transcended. This does not imply in any way that we can ever jump outside of the subject-object situation or that this would be desirable or more adequate to reality. In the first place, this object-position vis a vis my mind does not in any way ascribe to the being in question properties which it would not actually possess or not possess in itself. In this sense it is problematic to apply even the notion of constitution for the object-position as such. This object-position is either a necessary outgrowth for the sphere of cognition of the non-identity of beings with each other and of the reality of their difference, or a fruit of the power of objectivizing thought (tanta est tamen cogitationis vis) which does not even allow the mind to thematically know itself except by placing itself as it were vis-a-vis (as object of) itself in reflection and self-knowledge. We shall return to this point. As far as the first reason for the 'naturalness' of the subject-object situation is concerned, it presupposes, of course, the acknowledgment of real. actual differences between beings, of the reality of non-identity. Here we touch the metaphysical roots of the view in Eastern philosophy that the subject-object situation as such implies a distortion. This view is grounded in some sort of pan-identity philosophy. In the light of such a pan-identitism, the object-position of other beings distinct from me easily appears as distortion. If we can understand, however, that another person, for example, is actually and really and necessarily distinct from us, then his givenness on the object-place of consciousness is no distortion at all. The dependence of this 'place' on the relation to our consciousness goes hand in hand with a dependence of this object-position in relation to our consciousness on the metaphysical fact of our difference! Since the real distinction between persons and things is clearly given, no dichotomy is implied in this subject-object relation. There is another reason why this view of the subject-object relation as a distortion of reality is false. This view also ignores the fact that even our own being, as Augustine remarks in the passage quoted above, can only be fully known when we make it an object of our consciousness and attain true self-knowledge. Similar insights

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have been developed in Wojtyla's The Acting Person.IH.t The subject-object distance must not be viewed as something necessarily negative. It can either simply be the result of the objective difference between the being of subject and object (and the difference between individual persons and beings involves a great wealth of being), or it can have the positive character of a purely 'mental distance' in which we take, as it were, a step back in order to look mentally at something, even at our own being. This distance which is the opposite of just living something or 'in something' is not only a necessary condition of explicit knowledge, including selfknowledge (tanta est tamen cogitation is vis), but instead of divorcing the subject from its objects, it also allows a deeper knowing union with them. This is clear on the level of sense-experience, especially sight, the union of which with an object (for example, a painting) demands that one take some distance. Analogously, 'distance' on the level of mind is also called for in the sphere of knowing penetration of things.

(ii) Existential modes of objective and subjective givenness

There are also 'existential modes' of given ness which can be designated as subjective or objective. (aJ Objective givenness as not motivating and affecting our will or heart Something neutral can be given 'objectively' to us in that it does not involve our will or affections. Objective given ness and distance then means an existential separation between subject and object. The object leaves the subject entirely 'cool' so that it can be looked at with a neutral interest. This may be an adequate mode of given ness for neutral objects. Quite different is the case when such a neutral distant mode of experience refers to beings which ought to motivate our will and heart. Then such a neutral givenness of them is totally opposed to adequacy of our knowledge or relation to them. If 'objectivity' means adequacy to an object, then such a neutral objectivity is radically inadequate and 'subjective' in a negative sense ofthe term. Subjective givenness of a thing as involving our will and interest as well as our affections may be objectively adequate if the respec275

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tive being calls for these emotions. If it does not call for them or if they are inadequate to their object, then subjectivity, in a negative sense, sets in. (b) Givenness as good or evil for us Another sense of subjectivity in an existential sense is at stake when the character of a thing as good or evil addresses itself in a peculiar way to us by being good or evil for us. This is quite another sense of 'subjectivity' in an existential and perfectly legitimate sense. Other authors have investigated this sense of subjectivity in detail. They have also distinguished this 'subjectivity' of the objective good for the person from the subjectivity of the purely subjectively satisfying. lK"i These also involve different modes of constitution or subject-dependence. (c) Subjective givenness on background of past and other relations Things can also take on subjective significance in the sense that someone who has had certain experiences with an object or is related to it, will experience it in quite another way, and the object will take on quite another significance for him (like souvenirs or other objects related to our past or to that of beloved deceased persons), than it possesses for other people. The qualities of things which result from all sorts of relations between them and ourselves are also highly interesting. For example, our home has such an importance for us. It would be quite wrong to deny the role of the subject in all of this. Likewise it would be wrong to overlook the fact that there are objective relations which underlie the assumption of such qualities by things. In spite of the subject-dependence of such aspects, it would not in any way be justified to put those qualities of beings which arise from their relations to a subject on a par with mere illusions. 1H6 There are many other senses of existential subjectivity and objectivity which we cannot investigate here.

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? 5 'OBJECTIVE' AND 'SUBJECTIVE' AS PREDICATES OF ATTITUDES, JUDGMENTS, OR METHODS

(i) 'Objective'in the sense of 'adequate'

An act of knowledge or an attitude can be called 'objective' when it is adequate to the being in question, when it corresponds to it in the way in which it ought to correspond to it. Adequacy or objectivity in this sense possesses a fundamental value. Acts would be subjective in a pejorative sense of the term if they did not correspond to the being or situation in question but were dictated by subjective motives foreign to what is called for by the being or situation at stake. In this sense of the term, knowledge as well as love, enthusiasm. and the like. are objective to the extent to which they are in conformity with the real nature, with the value or the disvalue of a thing or person. 'Subjective' would then mean inadequate. It is decisive to distinguish clearly the involvement of the subject and his emotions from the subjectivity which results from inadequacy to an object. A false neutral objectivism teaches that any involvement of the emotions of a person is an indication of lack of rationality, inadequacy, subjectivity. This presupposes that there are no affective responses which are in full harmony with the objective nature of things, for example. 'tears which are adquate to their object' (one possible translation of the famous 'hic sunt lacrimae rerum' of Virgil's Aeneid).

(ii) 'Objective' as 'neutral attitude' To this idol of neutral objectivity corresponds a radically different and misleading sense of objectivity, which simply refers to an absence of any personal commitment of the subject. The laboratory attitude in which a nurse counts the number of blood cells. or some surgeons might look at a wound without any compassion. would then be called 'objective' as opposed to the compassionate wife's or friend's experience of these same wounds. It should be clear by now that. while a neutral attitude may be 'objective' (in the sense of adequate) in the laboratory context or in relation to certain other professional duties and themes of 277

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' situations, it would not all be objective in the sense of adequate to take a neutral attitude towards those objects which call for the full commitment of the person. An attitude of neutrality towards truth, morality, a beloved person and other high goods would be indifference and non-objectivity rather than objectivity in any praiseworthy sense. A journalist who reports atrocious crimes with a neutral voice is not the least bit more 'objective' than a King Oedipus who reports them with utter terror. There is an idol of objectivity in this sense which Kierkegaard often rejects and rightly regards as wholly inadequate to matters of morals and religion. Subjectivity as an engaged and committed relation to things, in accordance with their true nature and the call they issue, is itself the objectivity called for by things. It is an idol of objectivity which confuses neutrality of approach with objectivity in the sense of adequacy .liP

(iii) Rationalistic and empiricist 'objectivity' Another sense of objectivity would characterize an attitude which refuses to go beyond what is rationally given. Such an attitude would absolutize in a wrong way the great ideal of objectivity in the sense of the certainty or well-foundedness of (philosophical or empirical) knowledge and refuse to accept modes of knowledge which are not rigorously established by means of purely rational or scientific methods. One form of this 'objectivity' consists in restricting-knowledge to absolutely certain knowledge, as we have encountered this in Husserl's idea of Philosophy as a Rigorous Science .IRR A sort of monism of method or absolutization of the quest for certainty makes persons who adhere to this idol in one form or another (many philosophers including Kant, Hegel, and Husserl) recognize only this one type of objectivity. A rigorous adherent of such a rationalist ideal would fail to make the leap of faith or in love to go beyond indubitably certain rational evidences. In so doing, however, he would not in any way be more 'objective' and do justice to being and reality. Rather, this pseudo-objectivity of strict rationalism completely fails to do justice to persons who call precisely for the submission in trust and for a response which, like love itself, goes beyond what is evidently rationally given. Only a,n apparent pluralism of method is found in the 'school of

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? critical rationalism' defended by Karl Popper, Hans Albert, and others. This position, descending from the Vienna Circle of positivism and from David Hume, reduces evidence and 'objectivity' to falsifiability by means of empirical observation. A philosophy dominated by such an ideal of method would reduce all trust in persons and other elements of 'life-world' (Lebenswelt) as well as scientifically sound theories to pure 'hypotheses' which are 'not yet falsified' and can therefore be tolerated in the world of scientific discourse and in 'rational society,' while it would exclude any apodictic principle of being, truth, or ethics. Yet, like any general assumption gained through empirical observation, it could - according to its own assumption - not even be taken to be 'probably true.' This view constitutes not solely an empirical exclusion of indubitably certain knowledge but is based on a fundamentally mistaken concept of science. 189 Any philosophy worthy of its task must be able to present the understanding and the rational justification of the trust and faith without which community among persons is impossible because we do not possess infallibly certain knowledge of other persons. These and other forms of perverse 'objectivities' result from overlooking the overriding role of objectivity in the sense of adequacy to reality and to the truth about things. For the only way 9f authentic objectivity is to follow truth in everything, to give everything its due, to recognize both the importance of indubitable philosophical knowledge as well as the legitimate place of empirical knowledge, and of a trust which transcends all purely rational certainty.

6 'OBJECTIVE' AND 'SUBJECTIVE' AS LOGICAL CATEGORIES There are three main logical categories of objectivity. These are at the same time closely linked to the epistemological meanings of objectivity and subjectivity.

(i) Objectivity of the truth of judgment

Judgments in the sense of propositions, as Ptiinder showed in his Logik, aspire to an objectivity in the, sense that they necessarily

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' make a claim to truth as to an adequate relationship in virtue of which the positing claim of the judgment that something is the case coincides with what actually is the case. This objectivity which each judgment claims is actually realized only in the true judgment which is then also the objective judgment. The notion of 'objective truth' is then, strictly considered, a truism; for truth would eo ipso be objective. The notion of objective truth nevertheless has its legitimate function because it points out precisely this often forgotten essential characteristic of truth that it must be in conformity with reality. The various coherence, pragmatist, pragmaticist and vitalistic or consensus-theories of truth amply prove that the notion of 'objective truth' is not repetitive or a truism. For a modern critical justification of the adaequatio theory of truth the reader is referred to other works.Il)O

(ii) Objectivity as validity of an argument In relation to the logical validity of inferences one can also speak of objectivity in the case in which an inference is valid. Objective reasoning would then be logically valid argumentation in contradistinction to 'purely subjective' arguments without logical validity. As is well known, validity of an argument is radically different from truth and does not in any way guarantee the truth of premises and conclusion of an argument. It guarantees the truth of the conclusion only if the premises of the argument are true. Correspondingly, the objectivity of 'valid reasoning' is different from that of truth.

(iii) Objectivity as correct logical method To logic in a broader sense also belongs the sense of objectivity which lies in methods that are appropriate to their respective objects. It is a sign of an illogical mind (in the sense in which the greatest formal logicians can be illogical) to apply methods of induction or empirical verification and falsification procedures to objects of philosophy or art criticism that call for a radically different methodological approach. The widespread tendency to identify objectivity or the scientific character of a thesis with its

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Can knowledge of 'things in themselves' be 'objective'? conformity to a model of scientific methods which are proper in natural science is a typical expression of a lack of objectivity. For methods are dictated precisely by the respective objects and fields of reality which they are supposed to help explore. Therefore an a priori monism or limitation of method and any automatic transposition of methods which are valid in one sphere to another is typically unobjective, however successful the respective methods are in relation to certain domains of reality.

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On the basis of these reflections on the many senses of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' the kind of objectivity we seek to achieve and the pseudo-objectivities we try to avoid can easily be determined. We hope that as a consequence of this clarification of the issue of objectivity as opposed to subjectivity of being, methods, or knowledge, a series of misunderstandings which surround the notions of thing in itself and of objectivity/subjectivity will have been eliminated. The clarifications reached will allow us to answer the question of whether - and. if so, in which sense - the subject can know objective reality. and of whether man can indeed gain knowledge about 'things in themselves.' Prior to answering this question fully, a further investigation of the different claims to autonomous existence must be undertaken.

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8 BEINGS WHICH CLAIM TO 'BE IN THEMSELVES'

In order to give a rationally well-founded answer to the question about knowledge of 'things in themselves,' an issue that was raised previously has to be taken up anew and to be treated more systematically: namely, the question of various types and sources of the 'claim' of a being 'to exist in itself,' and the various types of 'constituted being.'

1 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FOUNDATION OF THE 'CLAIM TO EXIST IN ITSELF' IN THE FIRST SENSE When we think of the sense discussed earlier (see Part II, Chapter 6) of 'being in itself' - in the sense of the opposite of what is merely 'thought to be' in errors or deceptions - it is clear that each and every object of knowledge claims to be either that something is really in itself or that it is not in itself (which implies again a 'negative state of affairs' which obtains 'in itself). Thus the 'being in itself in this sense is claimed by every object of knowledge. We are reminded of the result obtained earlier, namely that even the object of error and delusion qua 'being thought' is 'in itself - an object of thought. Yet insofar as the object of error rs thought to exist independently from being thought of, in other words in the way in which it is conceived to be in error, it is not in itself. Every true proposition refers to objective 'reality' in this sense. Even every false proposition, by the very essence of the judgment, makes a claim to refer to 'being in itself' (or to 'not-being in itself')

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in this sense. As we have seen, 'being for someone' like 'truth for someone,' when understood to mean that a being and a truth could be given and yet not 'be in themselves,' in the sense presently considered, is absurd. Within this very general claim to 'be in itself,' however, various distinctions have to be noted. First, the positive case of a 'being in itself' differs from the negative case of an 'in itself not being of X' (which is the reality in contrast to the claim made in error that something exists or a state of affairs obtains 'in itself,' when in fact they do not exist or obtain). A second distinction was made by Adolf Reinach between positive states of affairs and negative states of affairs (both of which obtain 'in themselves'). 191 In regard to this Reinachian distinction we find, on the one hand, the completely different degrees of 'rootedness' in being which both positive and negative states of affairs can possess so that Ingarden's critique of Reinach's claim to the autonomous existence of negative states of affairs perhaps does not apply.192 On the other hand, we are confronted with a different 'reality' of 'bestehen' which characterizes negative states of affairs in contradistinction to positive ones, and which Ingarden's criticism rightly points out. Thirdly, another specific problem exists as regards the inherent indeterminacy of the 'merely possible' and the positive or negative states of affairs which refer to it. The solution to this problem is of considerable consequence for the problem of the applicability of the principle of excluded middle to everything including possibilities. While everything that is 'in itself' in this sense and while even the object of error and deception claims to be in itself in the present sense of the term, we find a clash in errors and deceptions between the claim to be in itself in the first sense and an actually 'not being in itself' of that which is thought in error. Thus Parmenides is proved to be wrong when he claims that 'that which is not' (in this sense) is not and cannot be conceived. The claim of a thing to exist 'in itself' in this first sense can have either of two different roots. It can be made 'purely objectively,' as it were, by beings themselves. Or it can be made by persons who err, who lie, or who are formulating their illusions or deceptions. As far as the first type of (objective) claim is concerned (and as long as the first sense of 'being in itself' is invoked), every beingeven that which is merely dreamt about - claims objectively to be 'in itself' in the sense under discussion. The question poses itself 283

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' whether the case ever can arise in which such an objective claim to be 'in itself' is absent from an object of thought. This question should be answered in the affirmative. Such is the case when the mind uses its unique capacity to conceive consciously of what is known not to be or not to be so. One can conceive of characters, persons, and so on, one can create what Ingarden calls in The Literary Work of Art a 'habitus of reality,' while knowing that the 'being in itself' suggested here is not to be found. Whenever one conceives of things which simply are not and which it would be an error to assert, in forging, lying, or playing with one's imagination, the objects of such acts do not claim to be at all- at least not to the given subject of these acts. They do not claim to be at all in the manner in which they are conceived. (Notice the complexity of this case. They certainly claim that 'being in itself' which consists in being objects of thought, but they do not claim that different being or the mode of real being which is conceived in them but known not to be found in them.) The fact that these things which man can conceive although they do not have 'being in themselves' in the first sense, fail to make the claim to do so - with reference to the subject of the aforementioned acts only - shows that such a claim always addresses itself to one or more persons (analogous perhaps also to animals which may be deceived, taking, for example, an image in the mirror for another animal). The 'claim to being in itself' is never solely found in a being itself but always addresses itself to a subject confronted with a being. Thus when two persons are faced with the same object, one may be confronted with the claim to 'exist in itself,' the other not. Within what we call the objective claim to exist (that is, one which is issued by the object as it is given to us and not by a person's statements about it) various distinctions can be made. The claim can be made by the very nature of a given being or by the concrete way in which it is given in perception or by a seeming illusory or delusory aspect in which it presents itself to us. Balduin Schwarz speaks in this context l93 of objektivem Schein (of 'objective seeming'). The reason why an object gives itself to us as 'being in itself' in the first sense may also have its root in certain distortions in the subject which account for a certain givenness of objects to him. It may stem from prejudices or arbitrary assumptions on the part of the subject which he reads into the phenomena given him. The second kind of claim arises in a more simple fashion from

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' forms of behavior, statements (lies), etc., through which one person makes another believe what is not. H we prescind from the source of such a claim as is based on the very nature of the object at stake, it is clear that we can be confronted with 'claims to be in itself' in cases where such claims remain unfulfilled by reality. The source of claims that conflict with what really is the case can lie in ourselves, or in objectively deceiving appearances (which, however, are never the sole ground of error), I <j4 or in other persons who claim that something is the case. Thus it is clear that the claim to be in itself as such is distinct from its fulfillment.

2 CLAIM TO EXIST 'IN ITSELF,' I.E., INDEPENDENTLY FROM THE SUBJECT In the context of the present work, we are far more interested in a radically different sense of 'claim to exist in itself' which corresponds to the 'thing in itself' understood as an autonomously existing entity which is independent from constitution as noema of noesis. This autonomy of being does not consist in the opposite of having been made or created by persons. (This is suggested by the confused meaning of 'idealism' on which the official textbooks of MarxismLeninism rest and in which subjectivist idealism and the doctrine of the origin of being in a Creator-spirit are identified as 'idealism,' thus suggesting, without offering the slightest evidence for the truth of this suggestion, that subjectivism follows from any nonmaterialist metaphysics.) For many beings which were created by minds (art, works of architecture and craftsmanship, language, books, culture) possess a being which does not in any way exhaust itself in being the object of minds, while they were clearly brought into being by persons. Thus this type of real constitution or creation of beings by persons is not our problem here. Our problem can be raised both with regard to metaphysical entities and 'beings of nature' which are independent from any human creation, as well as with regard to beings produced by man which, however, possess an autonomous reality of their own that cannot be reduced to 'being only as object of minds.' Nevertheless, in order to take up the clearest instance of our problem, we turn to those beings which claim to exist in themselves, entirely independent from any subjective 285

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' constitution. At least in what Husserl calls the 'natural attitude' they are given as making such a claim. Think of beings such as the earth, history of man and nature (the time that elapsed before our birth), the sun, the stars, the planets, the material universe as a whole. Think of human persons above all, of immutable essences and necessary essential laws, and of God. If we were to say that those beings are dependent on the mind, we would certainly not claim that man could produce them as real entities. Instead, we would claim that the entities in question had no reality independently from being conceived and thought of by man. We would say that. while these beings claim to possess mind-independent autonomous being, they actually are nothing but objects of our consciousness, irreal in themselves.

0) Different sources of the claim of mind-independent being As in the first sense of the claim of 'being in itself,' discussed previously, so here too we find different sources for such a claim. Two entirely different types of a claim to autonomous being in this sense can be distinguished. By their very essence, some beings make the claim to 'be in themselves.' Their general essence is such thatthey can only be real if they have a being that is not constituted as the mere object of human (empirical or transcendental) consciousness, or as the object of any possible consciousness. A stone, a plant, a person, for exari1ple, all make such a claim, whereas particular perspectives under which an object presents itself to us do not make such a claim. Some beings by their very essence require for their full reality a mode of existence which is independent from being an intentional object of consciousness. This is an entirely objective claim or better, a metaphysical fact which does not address itse"lf to a person but is totally given 'in itself.' A second type of claim presupposes that we are confronted with a being which by its very nature calls for mind-independent being for its full reality. Nevertheless, this second type of claim to 'be in itself' is not sufficiently guaranteed by the fact that a being calls for mind-independent reality by its very essence, if it is to be real. The second dimension of the claim to mind-independent existence issues from the concrete ways and circumstances in which and

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' under which a being presents itself to a person. It depends on whether or not in a concrete instance the being is encountered as embodying the full reality rendered possible by its essence. For example, when we dream of a monster from which we flee or of a beautiful girl whom we intend to marry, we will believe in the dream that these beings are real. How else could we explain the relief or disappointment we experience when waking up from the dream? (This claim may be 'weaker' in the dream than in reality, because of the half-conscious, incoherent dream-world which does not give itself exactly as reality.) Even more clearly such a claim, albeit cruelly unfulfilled, is found in the story of E. T.A. Hoffmann, 'Der Sandmann,' in which the puppet 'Olivia' is taken to be a real person. The young man who is in love with her therefore falls into despair when he discovers that his beloved girl,is only a puppet. Furthermore, when the claim to autonomous existence is fulfilled, of course, beings give themselves concretely as being in themselves. They make us believe that they indeed possess the mind-independent reality which alone can fully and really embody their nature. The situation is radically different when we merely imagine a person, or when a character appears in a play and the audience is less forgetful of being in a play than Don Quixote is when he destroys the puppet theater - taking it to be reality, and defending innocent ladies against evil-doers. The purely intentional correlate of what Ingarden elaborates as quasi-judgments contained in the literary work of art does not make the claim that these 'persons' be real. The absence of this claim is in no way conditioned here by the essence of the beings at stake (persons, etc.), but rather by the mode of givenness.

3 CONSTITUTED BEINGS WHICH DO NOT CLAIM TO EXIST AUTONOMOUSLY (i) Beings which by their very essence do not claim to exist in

themselves Many beings, while claiming to be 'in themselves' in the first sense of the term, do not claim a being in itself in the second sense of the term - because of their very nature which is that of constituted being. We have already discussed appearances, both objectively

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valid and subjective ones. We have seen that all of the Abschattungen, views of objects that depend on a certain vantage point, do not claim mind-independent being 'in themselves.' They give themselves as constituted or co-constituted by the subject. An enormous scope of aspects of being - which mayor may not be grounded in objective relations - includes the moment of subjectivity decisive here. The ancients and medievals did not experience themselves as ancient or medieval. The givenness of an object as distant does not belong to that object itself but depends on the subject's relation and consciousness of it. The entire human aspect of the external world is of such a nature. 195 'Subjective' aspects of being reach into the sphere of the person and personal relations and refer to the mode of givenness in which the 'I' or 'thou' character of objectively the same person in love is constituted. Even many characteristics of the Holy, its tremendum and fascinans as explored by Otto,196 contain such constituted moments. The deeper 'aspects' which we discussed before are certainly rooted in the objective essence of a being (for example in the self-givenness of the person in the ego) or in the objective nature of the relation (such as in the I-thou relation). These 'faces' of being also reveal its true essence. They are in no way divorced from what being is 'in itself' or opposed to it. Whether they fall outside or inside what the being is 'in itself,' they are as objectively valid and meaningful as they are subject-dependent. By no means can they be regarded - as Heidegger's and Zen Buddhist opinions on the falsification of being through the subject-object dichotomy suggest - as distorting aspects of being. Husser! in the Crisis and, in a far less ambiguous way, von Hildebrand in What is Philosophy? have vindicated appearances and made the necessary distinctions. The Lebenswelt (life-world) understood as those aspects constituted by subjects is part of the objective meaning and being of things. By their validity, authentic appearances radically differ from false and misleading appearances, as we have seen. Such appearances as the human aspect of the world which constitutes itself in relation to me, do not only belong to a being in the sense that it will be given to a subject (person) inevitably in a given way when approached by the subject from his vantage point. It is often even so (in the.I-experience) that a being implies by its very essence certain aspects of its self-givenness. In other cases a

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being ought to be given under certain aspects of its self-givenness. This is even more clearly true about those deeper aspects of being which are more than appearances, yet still 'faces' and 'aspects' of being. They necessarily presuppose a person to constitute themselves; and they constitute themselves for this person (or a group or community of persons). Yet the character of these aspects as constituted does not abolish their objective validity and the fact that in them what the appearing beings are in themselves also becomes manifest. We could speak here of an essential link between valid appearances and aspects of being with 'being in itself which gives them an 'ontological weight' that neither false nor misleading appearances possess. Neither colors nor sounds, nor the deeper T or 'thou' character of a given person for a given person must be falsely 'subjectivized' when their mind-dependence is recognized. Rather, the whole sphere of constituted appearances and aspects sheds light on the dignity of the person as conscious subject for whom a whole world of its own, namely aspects and appearances, constitutes itself. a world which would be unthinkable without the being and presence of persons. The truly important point in our context, however, is not only that there are in fact appearances and aspects but that there are entities which are full of meaning and metaphysical significance, and which are essentially related to things in themselves, and which nevertheless do not make any claim to exist in an unconstituted fashion.

(ii) Beings which do not claim mind-independent autonomy because of their way of givenness: imagination and art

As has already been stated, it is possible that persons (who by their very essence claim to be more than mere objects of consciousness and to exist independently of being objects of consciousness) do not claim such an autonomous existence because of the concrete way in which they are given. When we imagine characters as 'purely intentional objects' (in Ingarden's even more precise terminology in The Literary Work of Art as 'originally purely intentional objects'), they do not present themselves as being independent of our thinking them. Although we realize that these imagined persons cannot have reality unless they had autonomous existence (this is so because of the very essence of the person), we are nevertheless

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' aware of the fact that since these characters are given to us as originating solely in our fantasy (on the object-side possibilities and some ideal entities are presupposed), they do not pretend to possess a being which would still remain if we ceased to think of them and to create them in our fantasy. Similar points could be made in reference to what Ingarden calls 'derived purely intentional objects.' He means those objects which depend, not on individual psychic acts of imagining, but on objective meaning-unities and wholes of meaning, such as literary works of art. Here we find a relative independence of those purely intentional objects from any individual person's acts of imagining. For these objectivities are projected, as it were, by the stratum of meaning-units of the literary work of art, and these meaning-units (meanings of individual words, whole sentences, stories, and so forth) possess some being which is independent from individual acts, as Ingarden has brilliantly shown. In spite of this 'independence' from individual conscious acts (this does not yet imply 'ideal existence,' as, again, Ingarden has convincingly argued), these (derived purely intentional) objectivities are still dependent in their being on intentional acts and on meaning-units in literary works. At any rate, the persons which figure in dramas or novels do not possess any autonomous existence in themselves which could be separated from the world projected by language. They do not even claim to possess such an autonomous existence. The fact that 'persons' and events occurring in literary works do not claim such an 'autonomous existence' is highlighted by the comical situation which results in Cervantes' Don Quixote precisely from the fact that Don Quixote, the errant knight, takes seriously the dramatic events in a puppet-show he is watching, as if they were objectively real events, and acts accordingly: to the distress of the puppet-owner he punishes the puppet-wrongdoers as if they were real persons. The obvious misunderstanding of the work of drama implied in this shows that what is claimed in the literary work's 'objects' is only a habitus of reality (as Ingarden puts it) and not real autonomous existence.

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' 4 BEINGS WHICH CLAIM TO EXIST 'IN THEMSEL YES' (i) Beings which claim, by their very nature, autonomous, mind-

independent 'being in themselves' Having granted that there are many beings, or objects and aspects of being, which do not even pretend to exist independently from being objects of conscious activity (independent from being 'noemata' of human 'noesis'), it has to be stressed with even greater emphasis that there are also many beings, and among them the most important ones, which do claim to 'exist in themselves.' Before clarifying whether this claim can ever be substantiated by human knowledge, one has to investigate whether there are any beings which do claim to exist in themselves. We turn first to the question of whether there are beings which claim to possess autonomous being independent of their being objects of intentional acts - in virtue of their very nature. To begin with, it seems absolutely evident that in regard to each constituted or mind-dependent object there are also facts which are in no way exhausted by being the object of constituting consciousness. When we deal with a character in a fiction, for example, we are justified in saying that this character, say, Hamlet, has been created by a mind. There is a virtually unlimited number of such mindindependent facts about each fictional hero such as Hamlet: that he was constituted not as Othello but as 'Prince of Denmark'; that he possesses these and these qualities; that he speaks such and such lines, and so on. These facts are in no way reducible to being 'objects of consciousness.' While the imagined things and the states of affairs which obtain 'in them' are not real, it is really so that we have dreamed this and this, invented that and that. All these states of affairs are not themselves 'parts of the fictional world' but real facts correlated though they are to the fictional world. Although they would not obtain if the imagining or fiction would not have taken place, they themselves do not exhaust themselves in being conceived of or being the object of conscious acts. Each fiction and fictitious state of affairs is anchored in reality by being accompanied and surrounded by real facts and states of affairs. Another fact is not less clearly given: all general laws and essentially necessary states of affairs which are presupposed both for fiction as for reality must not be regarded as constituted by

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human consciousness; they have shown themselves in Part II, Chapter 5 as uninventable and uncreatable. These eide and ideal rationes have emerged as timeless, immutable, absolutely necessary, and thus as unconstitutable and uncreatable. We discovered the futility of any attempt to make these necessary essences and essential laws dependent on human consciousness or any conscious performance; they 'rest in themselves,' as Augustine puts it. These necessary essential plans and eide would certainly not be what they are, if they were constituted by human consciousness. Such a constitution contradicts their very essence and would reduce them to something entirely different from what they give themselves as being. Subjective transcendental genealogy and deduction of necessary essences was found to violate the phenomenological method of really allowing things to speak their own essence to us. Any claim of their just being 'categories of thinking' or 'forms of intuition' or 'objects of human consciousness' attempts to reduce necessary essences to something entirely different which they are not. Furthermore, their containing the eternal reasons and essential laws for all things would be unmasked as illusory if these eidetic necessities and essential laws were only to apply to appearances or to a world of noemata constituted by n6esis. They clearly claim to be applicable to the essences of things themselves, and in themselves. In the light of the preceding analyses of the cogito in Augustine and Descartes we recognize the untenability of the total agnosticism and even nihilism which would result from a position that denies the mind-independent being of these eide and eidetic structures. Besides real facts that correspond to each fictional fact and besides essentially necessary eidetic laws all real beings in the full sense of this term, all things (substances) and persons, as well as many of their fundamental attributes, claim to be more than just objects of human consciousness, of individual consciousness of this or that person or of that of mankind. Real material beings and lifeless substances, plants, animals, persons, causal relations, freedom, virtue, knowledge, and above all God - all of these beings demand by their very essence that they possess a 'being in itself' which is not reducible to being object of some subjects' consciousness. If these beings should not truly possess this ontic autonomy, they would not be what they are but mere fiction. They would lose any reality of their own. Let me try to elucidate this point in terms of an example. Take a

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' friend of yours and ask yourself whether you do not see the following to be true: if his freedom and responsibility, his love and his life, are not independent of being objects of our or anyone else's consciousness, this friend does not exist at all. His very being (involving both his essence and existence) claims to be more than an aspect under which we view reality, more than just the object of our thought or of anybody's thought or of 'pure transcendental thought. ' Even if God and all finite persons were to experience and to think of this friend and see him before their consciousness, he would still be nothing in himself and would not exist at all, if he had no being in himself. If his being did not belong to his very self but were simply 'borrowed' from the intentional acts whose n6ema he would be, his being would in fact be destroyed. Neither Kant nor Fichte, neither the late Husser! nor Heidegger seem to have become philosophically aware - at least not fully - of this fundamental datum: the claim of many beings to exist in themselves. Certainly, Husserl had been partly aware of this problem in his struggle to overcome the solipsistic position which he correctly saw as an inevitable threat to any transcendental-idealist position. If Husserl had not realized that other persons claim by their very nature to be more than mere objects of someone's thought, he would not have attempted to overcome solipsism. Fichte's solution of intersubjectivity seems'to be less aware of the depth of this problem when he simply posits an ego which opposites to itself non-egos, mainly for ethical reasons of self-actualization. Neither Husserl nor Fichte could have regarded their alleged 'solution' to solipsism a real solution, however, if they had come to realize fully that the being of a person collapses into a mere seeming if this person does not possess being in himself, independently from being the object of thought or experience. We are confronted here with a paradox in positions such as Fichte's and Husserl's. On the one hand, these thinkers realize that solipsism is an untenable position and that a human life without any contact with real 'others' is impossible. Some belief in the reality and autonomous existence of the wor!d and, in particular, of other persons is inseparable from our experience of the world. In this experience of the world, and even more in the realization of other persons as 'thous' and as members of a community from which our individual existence cannot be separated, both Husser! and Fichte encountered and implicitly acknowledged the fact that a person

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' claims by his very nature to be more than a noema of consciousness. On the other hand, these thinkers - whether for reasons of logical consistency with their idealist starting point, or whether for other reasons - are satisfied with an explanation of intersubjectivity according to which the other 'thou' is 'opposited' by the ego himself to himself or is constituted as noema of the transcendental ego. They fail to realize that this 'explanation' does not in any way solve the problem posed by other selves to their philosophical starting point. according to which the act of knowledge does not receive an autonomous being as it is in itself but constitutes it. For if the individual or an anonymous 'transcendental' ego constitutes other 'selves' as knowing, willing, entering relations with us, and so forth, these other persons (selves) will not be truly what they claim to be. No such constituted person whose being is nothing but to be object of consciousness and conscious relations, will actually know or be free or susceptible of happiness or love us. No constituted 'self which is only noema of a transcendental subject can actually be a subject-person himself. Purely constituted persons can no more be capable of actually performing such acts than persons whom the artist constitutes in art or literature. To be able to perform any personal act and to ground truly inter-subjective (rather than innersubjective) relations, it is absolutely necessary that the 'other selves' be really distinct from my 'empirical' or 'transcendental' ego, and be nOR-constituted 'things in themselves.' The most striking case of a claim to autonomous, mindindependent existence is that of the absolute, divine being. By his very essence, God as absolute being and origin of all beings - if He exists - claims to exist independently of all human consciousness and to possess infinite life, blessedness, reality, being 'in Himself.' before and apart from all human consciousness. When Kant holds that God is a mere transcendental idea (or postulate of practical reason) and 'entirely produced by our reason,' he fails to recognize clearly that such a 'God as idea' constituted by human consciousness totally violates the essence and the very meaning of God himself and the claim made by his very nature - even regarded in abstraction from the question of His actual existence - to either be not at all or to exist independently from any man's ideas and thought. Of course, Kant also recognizes this claim to some extent when he speaks of what he calls the inevitable 'transzendentalen Schein' (the inevitable 'transcendental illusion'), which consists in

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' man's always ascribing in his thought real transcendent existence to his transcendental ideas (God, world as totality, soul), while these are in fact mere immanent objects of his thought. Very similar to Kant's conception of God as mere 'transcendental idea of reason' and as mere 'postulate of practical reason' is the transcendental phenomenological explanation of God as pure 'n6ema of transcendental consciousness' in Husserl's transcendental phenomen010gy.197 Here it is not the question yet as to whether we can know the truth about God's existence or non-existence. The issue at hand is much rather whether or not the said philosophies take into account the intrinsic 'ontic claim' made by the very essence of those beings which we found to present themselves as 'things in themselves': God, human persons, living things, essentially necessary facts, are either complete illusions or they possess being in themselves. Nietzsche made a great contribution to philosophy by unveiling the secretly atheistic implications of German idealists and by proclaiming clearly that his own thesis of the historical-social genealogy of the idea of God is atheistic. Thus Nietzsche recognizes that 'God' claims to be infinitely more than an object of consciousness and therefore that the declaration that he is no more, is the proclamation of atheism. The thesis that man is responsible for the 'death of God' or for the murder of God draws the consequence of the thesis that God is no more than the object of human consciousness. Nay, even more, if God's 'life' depends on human consciousness, it is not only possible that such a God-idea-of-man dies by losing historical intersubjective existence as object of human thought with the growth of atheism, but it also follows that even the proclamation of such a purely historical or transcendental subjective 'life' of God is itself the proclamation of his 'death' and of 'atheism' - because a God whose being is nothing but being object (n6ema) of trans.cendental consciousness is no God at all.

(ii) Beings which claim to exist in themselves by the 'way of their

givenness' Even when we deal with beings which, in view of their essence, claim to have being above and beyond being objects of conscious activities, it is still possible, as we have seen before, that these 295

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beings are given in our experience as products of our fantasy as far as their concrete embodiment is concerned. In other words, persons can appear in novels, paintings, imagination, day-dreams, and so forth, without there being any question of belief that these 'persons' would exist really and independently of human consciousness. One could even say that in their literary or imaginary modification, these persons no longer claim to have being independent of being objects of consciousness (or of being 'derived purely intentional objects'). The same applies to God or a god such as Apollo when he appears in a poem that does not make assertions about the objective reality of God. In such instances persons or gods are depicted 'as if they were real,' in a certain sense close to Kant's and Vaihinger's famous 'als ob.· Yet any intimation that the habitus of reality or the quasireality of the world of objectivities in literature possesses actual independent being is absent. This case is different both from the real given ness of objects as autonomously existing, and from the case in which an object is given in experience or thought 'as if' it existed autonomously, while this claim is just unfulfilled - as is the case in deceptions, illusions, delusions. hallucinations, and so on. The question poses itself as to which moments are present when such a 'concrete claim' to existence 'in itself' is made through the mode of givenness of an object. This question may be answered more easily if we also ask the negative question: which moments must be absent in the concrete mode of givenness of an object so that a claim of 'being in itself' not be made? In answer to this question the following must be said. If a 'being' (object of intentional acts) presents itself as clearly originating in acts of thinking and imagining on our part, and more precisely, not only as having their cause in them but also as existing exclusively through their grace, then the object of such acts will not be given with any claim or pretension to having any being in itself which would be independent of the weak being bestowed on it by our imagining, thinking, and so forth. Conversely, for a being to present itself concretely as 'being in itself,' it is required that the entity in question introduce itself as possessing a reality which is not given to it by our own acts of imagining or thinking. It has to present itself as endowed with a being which is not bestowed upon it by its being an object of our conscious acts.

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' Secondly, in order for an object to introduce itself to us as 'existing in itself: it must also be clear that this being has not been invented by someone else by means of his fantasy and imagination in such a way that its whole being consists in being the object of his acts or in the mode of the 'derived purely intentional objects' which Ingarden has investigated; these are objects of embodied meaningunits as they occur in literature, which possess a certain independence both from our own conscious acts and from the original intentional acts. The literary work projects and 'contains' a world of objectivities by means of creative quasi-judgments and other elements of the stratum of meaning-units, a world of objectivities which confronts us with a habitus of reality yet without any claim to autonomous 'being in itself.' An object introduces itself as 'being in itself' when we experience it (ideally with indubitable certainty) as leibhaft selbstgegeben (as 'bodily' self-present) as in perception and, in the mode of categorial intuition, in mental intuition into an essence, or also when we are informed about historical facts, other persons, scientifically established facts, and so forth, by other persons as of something really existing or autonomously being. Thirdly, for a being to present itself concretely as existing in itself. it is required that it be in harmony with the whole order of essentially necessary laws, and to some extent (this restriction leaves room for possible exceptions or miracles) with the contingent laws of nature which are not absolutely and essentially necessary but constitute a meaning that must not be thought to be arbitrarily and meaninglessly suspended. In dreams we often find objects which fail to present themselves as existing in themselves because they contradict either other known facts or essentially necessary laws. Similar deviations from essentially necessary truths or known facts may occur in reports of parties on persons or events. It was in this way that Daniel, as the Bible tells us, proved the falsity of the allegations of the two old men who calumniated Susanna. One could speak here of a criterion of consistency and coherence (both in itself and with other known facts) which is a condition (albeit not a sufficient condition) of all truth; absence of such a coherence is a sign of falsity. The accordance of experienced facts or events related by others with the laws of nature in a context of the meaning of the Lebenswelt, and of the contingent meaningful structures of beings, even

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Part Ill: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' goes beyond coherence in these two usual senses because it does not involve a direct relationship of something which presents itself as real in itself with strictly speaking known facts (absolutely universal or particular facts), but with less rigorous rules concerning the meaningfulness of particular beings, characters, or of the universe as a whole. It is with 'coherence' in this third and much looser sense that a detective or lawyer frequently operates. A further related moment which we can introduce here is the organic and meaningful relatedness of single events and objects of experience with the whole of our experience. This is perhaps only another aspect of the preceding point which we could designate as that of the 'logic' of experience. The network of experience in which objects are usually given is of course realized on many different levels. One can refer to the logical network and totality of any single experience of an object through the various senses. One can also think of the meaningful whole of the experience of one hour, one day, one year, one life. When, for example, we meet a person and talk with him and then find that what he says on the next day is wholly out of character with what he said before, we may doubt the identity of this person although it gives itself by means of his appearance. A detective might even observe slight deviations of character in this sense and from them infer forgeries, false identities, and so forth. In another dimension, the unity and network of experience also has an intersubjective communal aspect. It is the experience of a family, a nation, of the whole of mankind which forms a unity. We experience a glimpse of such an intersubjective experience, in which different individual experiences mutually corroborate themselves and their objects, in a legitimate form of consensus and meaningful wholeness of those individual experiences which not only accord with each other but complement each other and converge. Think of the conversation we may have w'ith another person about a country or a third person, in which the same fundamental picture of a character emerges and is complemented by new and yet coherent elements which 'ring true' because they are in some meaningful connection and harmony with what we experienced ourselves. Consensus alone can of course never prove truth because it is evidently often found in error and false ideologies, calumnies, images of things distorted by resentments, and so on. But in conjunction with the access to reality found in a given experience,

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Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' its concurrence with the experience of others and meaningful complementation with that of others, is a valid criterion for truth and 'existence in itself.' Whole sciences are largely built on this, such as historiography and examination of the plausibility and credibility of historical sources. Without applying this criterion specifically to the claim to exist 'in itself,' Husserl, von Hildebrand, and other phenomenologists have contributed much to the understanding of this 'network' of experience. I ,!8 Finally, there are some moments which characterize the givenness of a being as 'being in itself' and to which Max Schele.r, in particular, has pointed. I'!'! He has emphasized in particular the moment of 'resistance' of reality to our will or arbitrary imagining. This moment was also one main motive for Kant's rejection of radical idealism which denies any 'thing in itself. '2(X) This resistance is especially encountered in the sense of touch and (as Fichte noted, without drawing from it any realist consequences) feeling. When we touch and grasp a material thing, we are confronted with its autonomous being by means of its resistance to us. If it completely changed under our hands or were wholly inaccessible to touch although it could be seen, and would in no way resist touch, albeit presenting itself as an autonomous solid object, we would normally doubt its reality. Such a doubt cannot be justified by reference to empirical experience only but by taking into account the intelligible and necessary connection between the reality of material objects and their resistance to our touch and experience. The same applies analogously to all other forms of resistance to our will, whims, desires, conscious imaginings, etc., with which the real world counters our subjective world, at times cruelly oppressing us and 'disobeying' all our desires or refusals to accept realities, acts which prove impotent to change the nature of things which impose themselves upon us in unbending resistance to our subjective wishes. In yet another radical form, essentially necessary universal facts 'resist' any attempt to alter them. They impose themselves upon our minds, not by a brute facticity but by their lucid intelligibility. Here, as we have seen in Part II, Chapter 5, we touch on the cogito, with indubitable certainty, the intrinsic autonomous and absolute necessity of things in themselves as something entirely autonomous in relation to our minds and as accessible only to a receptivediscovering activity which is the foundation of all knowledge and of

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the intrinsic dignity of the mind. For without such a seeing how 'things themselves' and 'things in themselves' are, no person nor the dignity of the person, nor any truth would be possible or knowable. As we have seen before, the insight into the claim of mindindependent autonomous existence discovered in essentially necessary essences and essential laws is inseparable from the insight into the substantiation of this claim. When we grasp that something truly presents itself leibhaftig selbstgegeben as essentially and absolutely necessary, and when we grasp it in this its inner absolute necessity, we also grasp that it is truly not dependent on being thought by any human mind and could not even be changed by the divine mind. We encountered already, and shall study anew, a similar and yet profoundly different evidence of the justification of the claim to autonomous existence in itself with reference to the individual real beings which are given in the experience of the cogito. We shall not discuss here the more difficult question of whether other persons or real contingent events, too, can present themselves as indubitably real in virtue of certain criteria such as the inner truth, originality of nature and coherence. Nor shall we inquire at this point into the even more difficult question of whether the Platonic mistrust in the givenness of historical reality and events and their divorce, as object-sphere of doxa, from that of epis((!me and noesis is justified. This question is also crucial for the method and scientific character of theology, especially of scriptural scholarship. Are there historical characters and events which are so imbued with the uninventableness of something eternal and divine that their reality becomes immediately manifest to us? Kierkegaard frequently discusses this crucial question, particularly in his Philosophical Fragments and in Book Adler, where he points out the untenability of making an act of faith, even though it embraces historical truths, dependent on the latest results of historical scholarship. Does the way in which such historical facts and events and the trustworthiness of historical witnesses become accessible to us in no way depend on the historical and critical methods of verifying the historicity and reality of events which are necessary to substantiate 'ordinary claims' to autonomous existence ma.de by historical or other empirical facts? If this question could justifiably be answered in the affirmative, the strict barrier between the order of eternal essences and that of empirical facts which Plato erected, and which would exclude any religion such as Christianity or Judaism claiming absolute authority (not 300

Beings which claim to 'be in themselves' necessarily mediated by the methods appropriate to other empirical historical facts) and faith relative to contingent facts, would dissolve. Historical facts and realities belonging to the objects of Revelation would then possess a substantially different character from that of historical events that belong to profane history. The complexity of this issue and its wide theological ramifications force us to leave it here with the few suggestions we have made. In contrast to the moments of plausibility and inner truth in virtue of which contingent events and facts also make to justify their claim to autonomous existence, we find in other instances of reports on certain claimed events, miracles, revelations, or in historical documents, too, an inner implausibility or even metaphysical falsity which are opposed to onotological autonomy and truth and show that we face a mere unjustified claim to 'being in itself.' On the basis of such criteria for the invalidity of a claim to autonomous being we frequently dismiss such claims as invalid. The last two moments which we have seen to account for the claim to autonomous existence 'in itself,' and for the justification of such a claim, presuppose a certain rationality of being, and some dimensions of them not only presuppose the non-contradictory character of being and its obedience to essentially necessary laws, but also a dominion of reason over being. If one denied the unity of goodness, truth, and being, one could not recognize some of the dimensions of the claim to autonomous being and its justification, while other dimensions would still remain acceptable even for the atheist or nihilist. (In another work we hope to show that the autonomous reality in itself of the divine being is accessible to natural human reason with indubitable certainty; such a certainty would suffice to justify the acceptance of the world as ultimately dominated by reason and thus also justify the acceptance of those criteria for autonomous mind-independent being which presuppose this meaningfulness of the world. Another important distinction, needed in view of the KierJ(egaardian themes we discussed, would concern the difference between those claims to autonomous beingand their substantiation - which address themselves solely to human reason as such and those which appeal also to faith.) Another problem in this context concerns the question of whether solely universal abstract essences and essential laws can present themselves as autonomously and necessarily being in themselves or whether necessary autonomous being can also refer to real 301

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' existence. Different again is the question of whether the necessity of real existence can only be inferred from contingent existents or also more directly, as Parmenides, Plato, and the Platonic tradition, and later Anselm and the defenders of the ontological argument from Anselm to Hegel hold. A defense of the ontological argument which would substantiate such a direct claim, and its substantiation, of necessary autonomous and real existence cannot be undertaken within the limited scope of this essay. . We shall indicate only briefly here the moments which account for the third type of claim to autonomous being distinguished above: that which is communicated to us by witnesses or other persons. Suffice it to say that such a claim depends on many factors and finds its substantiation in other moments. For the claim itself to arise it suffices that a person explicitly or implicitly suggests or communicates events to others, for example, by reporting them. The well-foundedness and justification of such a claim depends on the trustworthiness of the given person through whom the claim is made. This trustworthiness can be known through the given ness of his character and free attitudes (particularly with reference to his truthfulness) as they are accessible to us by means of the actions and words of persons and our own past experiences of verifying his claims. It can also be corroborated through other witnesses and reliable reports. In some cases, the only and most significant criterion for the trustworthiness of a report is the inner truth and plausibility of the reported message itself. This is also the most significant criterion that would allow us to grasp the reliability of historical facts directly, without having to rely on the results of historical-critical methods, the application of which is necessary in order to gain cognition of historical facts of lesser inner truth.

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9 INDUBITABLE AND INFALLIBLE KNOWLEDGE OF 'THIN GS IN THEMSELYES'

Based on the preceding investigations, we are now in a position to answer in a more final and critical manner than in Part II, Chapter 5, the crucial question of this work: is man able to achieve a knowledge of 'things in themselves' in the sense of being as it is independent of any constitution by the subject? And if so, how is knowledge - and specifically a knowledge which phenomenologically goes back to 'things themselves' - of unconstituted being possible?

1 THE EVIDENT PRESUPPOSEDNESS OF INDUBITABLE KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS IN THEMSELVES' FOR ANY KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTITUTED BEINGS One of the most forceful arguments for the existence of evident knowledge about non-constituted beings (things in themselves) is the following:

(i) The 'metaphysical' presupposition of unconstituted being in

'transcendental idealism' (a) The unconstituted activity of constitution In the first place, the metaphysical insight that any constituted being in general presupposes necessarily non-constituted being possesses indubitable truth. To have shown this is precisely the philosophical 303

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' achievement of St Augustine's si enim failor, sum and of Descartes' cogito, (ergo) sum which we dis..:ussed in Part II, Chapter 5, above. Husserl, out of an increasing and unintelligible fear of being branded a 'Platonist' and 'naive objectivist realist,' failed to recognize the indubitable truth and significance of the transcendent knowledge of being that is objectively implied in the cogito. Husserl's and any other form of transcendental idealist assumption of a radical constitution of all being and of all meaning is strictly speaking absurd, because any appearance, any seeming, any heteronomous being which is constituted by subjectivity presupposes a being which is not seeming, not appearance, not constituted. How can this be brought to evidence? It is absolutely impossible, in the first place, that the act of constitution be itself constituted by itself. It is onto logically , speaking impossible that the activity of constitution be a causa sui and constituted by itself. This is not only impossible by virtue of the necessary essence of efficient causality and of being 'the origin of something' in any conceivable manner. It is also impossible by the intentional structure of the conscious act of constitution and by the specific mode in which the consciousness of a s.ubject may constitute objects. The act of constitution itself can never be the subject's activity and simultaneously only the object of its own constituting activity. The activity of constitution at least, of which Husserl claims that it is the origin of the ego itself as well as of all its noeses and noemata, cannot be constituted itself. Selfconstitution in this sense makes absolutely no sense metaphysically speaking. It would be no more possible for Husserl (who, as far as I can see, never clearly addresses this issue of the ontological status of the activity of constitution itself but only the problem of the self-constitution of the ego )201 to make such a concept of an activity of constitution which constitutes itself intelligible than that anyone could understand an intelligible object of the concept of a 'straight circumference of a circle' and the like. It is strictly and evidently absurd that the very same act which does - according to Husserl's and any transcendental idealism - the 'constituting' simultaneously brings itself into being. One must also ask of Fichte, according to whom the' Tathandlung' of the T which posits itself is allegedly the origin of the being of the I, whether this action of positing itself is 'posited' or purely subjectively constituted in such a manner that it has no being except as 'object' that owes its being to constitution? Such a claim would clearly be absurd because it would go against the

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essentially necessary structure of any conscious activity of constitution and of any genesis. It is not necessary (and would in fact prove a lack of education) to demand a demonstration that this is so (as Aristotle repeatedly showed). For as it is impossible to 'prove' the principle of contradiction and other evident principles of being, so it is generally impossible to prove indirectly what is accessible to the kind of direct and immediate knowledge the rationality of which provides the basis for all proofs and arguments. It is precisely such an immediate insight which allows us to gain access to the fact that the activity of constitution itself cannot be constituted. This insight underlies many classical expressions of the impossibility of a self-creation from nothing in medieval and classical authors.202 (b) The unconstituted subject of any constitution A second, and likewise a metaphysical fact is no less evident, although its evidence demands more than the recognition of the unconstitutable nature of the act of constitution. I refer to the being of the subject of constitution. Any act and also any activity of constitution in the transcendental idealist sense presupposes a subject, a personal subject whose being can impossibly be owed to its own act. The scholastic dictum esse praecedit agere also applies here and refers above all to a fact which fulfills all the requirements of a phenomenological' Wesensgesetz' accessible to rational insight. Fichte and Husser! - while neither of them addresses, as far as the present writer can see, the problem of the act of constitution as unconstituted - claim that the ego, the subject of consciousness is not there metaphysically prior to its activity of constituting, but that the subject precisely owes its being to constitution. Goethe's Faust's translation of the first sentence of the Prologue of the Gospel according to St John - '1m Anfang war die Tat' ('In the Beginning was the deed') - becomes fully intended philosophically in Fichte and also in Husser!. In a perceptive passage, Nietzsche shows that this direction of philosophy of constitution which Kant had already taken (when he had spoken of the 'transcendental synthetic apperception') is not a consequence of Descartes, but a revolt against him and against the soul, and thereby against the basis of Christianity. Nietzsche writes:

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and indeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedure - an attentat has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old conception of the soul, under the guise of criticism of the subject and predicate conception":' that is to say, an attentat on the fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine ... Formerly, in effect, one believed in the 'soul' as one believed in grammar and the grammatical subject: one said, T is the condition, 'think' is the predicate and conditioned - to think is an activity for which one must suppose a subject as cause. The attempt was then made, with marvellous tenacity and subtlety, to see if one could not get out of this net - to see if the opposite was not perhaps true: 'thing' the condition, and T conditioned; 'I,' therefore, only a synthesis which has been made by thinking itself. Kant really wished to prove that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved - nor the object either: the possibility of an apparent existence of the subject ... may not always have been strange to him ... 203 Now it can be clearly seen that the 'think' as origin of the T is absolutely impossible. First of all, take the activity of constitution or any other act. What sense does the very word 'act' make without a subject, an agent? Otherwise one could at best speak of an impersonal and subject-less 'activity' such as 'it is raining.' But while it could be shown that even here there are some subjects or agents from whom the impersonal 'activity' proceeds in some fashion, it is clear that these impersonal activities are not 'acts' like 'constitution.' Wherever we speak of an act (such as constitution) it is clear that there can be no act without an agent; that an act is, to speak with Aristotle, an accident or possesses no independent being in itself but requires some other being (substance) which stands in itself and to which it owes its being. 204 It is the necessarily 'dependent' and 'in-being nature' of acts and, specifically, of the act of constitution which forbids that this act give rise to the being of its subject rather than presupposing the latter. This Aristotelian insight into the duality of beings which can exist solely 'in others' and beings which stand 'in themselves' in the sense of substance is clearly phenomenologically grounded in the essential character of being. Within being we encounter this intelligible difference between what stands 'in itself' and what is 'in another.' And this difference also applies to the sphere assumed by Husserl 306

Phenomenology as noumenology of a 'transcendental subject' and of 'transcendental consciousness.' Here, too, evidently the activity of conscious performances cannot occur in a metaphysically empty space but needs to be founded in the subject of such conscious acts. This Wesensgesetz is violated if Husserl claims that it is the conscious activity of constitution which gives rise to the being of its subject and constitutes the latter. The subject could only be constituted by consciousness if there were another subject of constitution which would project the (empirical) ego as object of itself. But the subject which is evidently required for constitution itself cannot be constituted by the act of constitution. A different road to the recognition of the unconstitutable nature of the subject of whatever constitution there might occur lies in the evident impossibility - which is no less evident than the facts just discussed - that the subject to whom things may appear to seem, and by whom they are constituted, be itself mere appearance or seeming. This is quite another metaphysical impossibility than the one that conscious acts cannot occur without a subject - an impossibility which Aristotle emphasized. Now we are dealing with the impossibility that the subject which is objectively presupposed by conscious acts, might be constituted as mere 'object' of these acts. The two impossibilities are closely related but nevertheless different. Both insights refer to the 'unconstitutable nature' of the subject of constitution. Augustine's si enim failor, sum argument refers to this metaphysical fact as does Descartes' 'cogito, (ergo) sum' argument. It is precisely this evident fact of the unconstitutable nature of the subject of any constitution which is denied in Kant's idealism, according to which the transcendental synthetic apperception is a 'Tathandlung' of the mind through which the subject is constituted; in stronger terms this fact is denied in Fichte's claim that the T has no being except the one it 'posits' itself. The subject of worldconstitution posits itself. The same thought recurs in Hegel and in the later Husserl who claims that there is a universal constitution which leads to the constitution of the self as well as of the world.

(c) The absurd denial of a non-constituted subject follows ineluctably from any transcendental idealism Although we think that this thought is strictly speaking unthinkable or rather unintelligible in that the object of this thought of the self-constitution of the subject is nonsensical in the sense in which

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Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves-' Husser! thought a realist notion of thing in itself is - it is not surprising to find this idea in transcendental idealism. It is indeed an ineluctable consequence of the latter's basic assumption that all being which we know is constituted by subjectivity. For if the evident fact that at least the subject and act of transcendental constitution is 'in itself is recognized, then the idealist position collapses. Then it would be precisely recognized that there is a 'being in itself' which is independent of constitution and autonomous in Ingarden's sense. This being of the transcendental subject would then 'really be there' and thus represent a 'realist moment' which would call into question the entire system of transcendental idealism.

(d) 'Back to things themselves': back to objectivist realism However, a serious attitude of going 'back to things themselves' requires precisely that we do not wish to save the system of transcendental subjective constitution by denying the evident selfgiven fact that transcendental idealism really contradicts evident data and contradicts itself by presupposing what it seeks to deny: that there is an unconstituted being which is the condition of the possibility of constituted being. The claim of a self-constitution of the subject according to which the ego 'posits' or 'constitutes' itself must face the evidence of the absolute impossibility of conceiving of the act and subject of constitution otherwise than as 'existing in themselves.' And this impossibility of 'conceiving otherwise' is not another subjective constitutive function of consciousness but is grounded in the impossibility of 'it being otherwise' than that any constitution whatsoever requires the non-constituted character of both the constituting activity itself and of its subject, has Husser! showed so splendidly in his arguments against psychologism in the Logical Investigations. This position does not lead us away from the phenomenologically 'self-given.' Quite on the contrary. It is an essentially and absolutely necessary truth (a Wesensgesetz in the strictest sense) that the constituting conscious activity and its subject (which originates the activity and which is itself present in any activity of consciousness in a self-given way) possess a non-constituted being. And this fact discloses itself to our mind in its intrinsic necessity; it cannot possibly be a non-fact, i.e., a mere product of constituting imagina308

Phenomenology as noumenology tion which would only think that the alleged absolute positing and synthesizing activity which is assumed to do all constituting and synthesizing could be nothing but an unconstituted being. No, this fact simply is so and is not merely thought to be so. Let me quote a passage from the Husser! of the Logical Investigations which applies just as well against his own later transcendental idealist position as it applies against the 'psychologism' he criticizes: 205a

Was wahr ist, ist absolut, ist 'an sich' wahr; die Wahrheit ist identisch Eine, ob sie Menschen oder Unmenschen, Engeloder Gatler denkend erfassen ... Nach dem Relativismus kannte sich auf Grund der Konstitution einer Spezies die fur sie gultige Wahrheit ergeben, dass solch eine Konstitution gar nicht existiere ... Wir bewegen uns offenbar in Widersinnigkeiten. Der Gedanke, dass die Nichtexistenz einer spezifischen Konstitution ihren Grund habe in dieser selben Konstitution, ist der klare Widerspruch; die wahrheitgrundende, also existierende Konstitution soil neben anderen Wahrheiten die ihrer eigenene Nichtexistenz begrunden ... Die Relativitiit der Wahrheit besagt, dass, was wir Wahrheit nennen, abhiingig sei von der Konstitution der Spezies homo und den sie regierenden Gesetzen ... Die Relativitat der Wahrheit zieht die Relativitiit der Weltexistenz nach sich . . . Das wird nun manchem trefflich passen; aber bedenklich mag er wohl werden, wenn wir darauf aufmerksam machen, dass zur Welt auch das Ich und seine Bewusstseinsinhalte geharen. Auch das 'Ich bin' und 'Ich erlebe dies und jenes' ware eventuell falsch; gesetzt namlich, dass ich so konstituiert ware, diese Siitze auf Grund meiner spezifischen Konstitution verneinen zu mussen ... Der wesentliche Kern dieses Einwandes besteht darin, dass der Relativismus auch in evidentem Widerstreit ist mit der Evidenz des unmittelbar anschaulichen Daseins. (Prolegomena, vii, § 36) 1 ... What is true, is absolutely, intrinsically true: truth is one and the same, whether men or nonmen, angels or gods apprehend and judge it. ... 5 On a relativistic view the constitution of a species might yield the 'truth', valid for the species, that no such constitution existed. Must we then say that there is in reality no such constitution ... ? ... We are obviously talking nonsense. The 309

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notion that the non-existence of a certain constitution should be based on this very constitution. is a flat contradiction: that the truth-conditioning. and therefore existent constitution should condition the truth (among other truths) of its own nonexistence .... The relativity of truth means that, what we call truth. depends on the constitution of the species homo and the laws which govern this species .... 6 The relativity of truth entails the relativity of cosmic existence .... This may suit some, but it becomes dubious once we point out that the ego and its conscious contents also pertain to the world. That I am, and that I am experiencing this or that, might be false if my specific constitution were such as to force me to deny these propositions. And there would be absolutely no world. not merely no world for this or that one, if no actual species of judging beings in the world was so constituted as to recognize a world (and itself in that world) .... The essential core of this objection lies in the self-evident conflict between relativism and the inner evidence of immediately intuited existence, i.e., with the evidence of 'inner observation' in the legitimate, indispensable sense. Apart from the necessary self-contradiction which Husserl notes here in any possible theory of universal constitution of 'all truth and all being,' and apart from the evident absurdity and falsity of any denial of the evident objective truth of the existence of the subject and Ns acts, psychologism and transcendental idealism alike contradict the evidence of 'essentially necessary laws' and 'essences' which give themselves to rational intuition as intrinsically necessary. Husserl shows 205 that any form of psychologism and transcendental idealism attempts to make the laws that pertain to the essence and meaning of truth, propositions, object, law, etc. dependent on some fact of the nature of constitution or of the constituting subject. He demonstrates, moreover, that any such attempt relativizes the essentially necessary laws and thus contradicts their selfgiven essence. Hence any such attempt at deriving the essentially necessary laws from factual laws contradicts itself and cancels itself. In his critique of Sigwart's logic,200 Husserl shows that all talk of 'objective truth: as long as it is not entirely independent from time and some given subjectivity, cannot conceal the underlying relativism of theories of universal constitution of truth and being. The 310

Phenomenology as noumenology ideal and eternal and intrinsically necessary structure of Wesensgesetze remains in itself what it is: 207

Aber jede Wahrheit an sich bleibt, was sie ist, sie behalt ihr ideales Sein. Sie ist nicht 'irgendwo im Leeren, ' sondern ist eine Geltungseinheit im unzeitlichen Reiche der Ideen. Sie gehort zum Bereich des absolut Geltenden, in den wir zunachst all das einordnen, von dessen Geltung wir Einsicht haben ... Die Wahrheit durch Beziehung auf die Gemeinsamkeit der Natur bestimmen, heisst ihren Begriff aufgeben. Hatte die Wahrheit eine wesentliche Beziehung zu denkenden Intelligenzen, ihren geistigen Funktionen und Bewegungsformen, so entstande und verginge sie mit ihnen, und wenn nicht mit den Einzelnen, so mit den Spezies. Wie die echte Objektivitatder Wahrheit ware auch die des Seins dahin, selbst die des subjektiven Seins, bzw. des Seins der Subjekte. Wie wenn z.B. die denkenden Wesen insgesamt unfahig waren, ihr eigenes Sein als wahrhaft seiend zu setzen? Dann waren sie und waren auch nicht . .. Freilich setzt die Relativierung der Wahrheit doch wieder ein objektives Sein als Beziehungspunkt voraus - darin liegt ja der relativistische Widerspruch. Each truth, however, remains in itself what it is, it retains its ideal being: it does not hang somewhere in the void, but is a case of validity in the timeless realm of ideas. It belongs to the realm of the absolutely valid, into which we fit all cases of validity into which we have insight . ... To define truth in terms of a community of nature is to abandon its notion. If truth were essentially related to thinking intelligences, their mental functions and modes of change, it would arise and perish with them, with the species at least, if not with the individual. With the genuine objectivity of truth, the objectivity of being, even the objectivity of subjective being, would be gone. What if, e.g., no thinking being were capable of seriously postulating its own being? Then such thinking beings would be and also not be . truth cannot be relativized, while the objectivity of being is maintained. The relativization of truth presupposes the objective being of the point to which things are relative: this is the contradiction in relativism. 111

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' It is incomprehensible why Husser! failed, from 1950 on, to see that these insights apply equally to any form of constitution and transcendental idealism, including transcendental phenomenology. The longer one thinks about constitution and constituted being, and the more seriously one tries to overcome all prejudice and to go back to the sources of all experience of 'things themselves' and of the essential necessities founded in them, the clearer it becomes that any activity of actual constituting presupposes the unconstituted being of both this activity itself and of its subject. Any mental productivity that produces something not only in imagination but also in actuality is itself an un produced act of producing; and creation is itself an uncreated act of creation (or an act of creation which is not created in the same sense in which it creates), and so forth. This necessity is evident in itself in its objective truth and it is simultaneously necessarily presupposed by any system of transcendental idealism. Therefore any denial of such an unconstituted subject and activity of constitution contradicts itself. Thus the transcendental idealist position breaks down in terms of its inner contradiction in that it necessarily presupposes what it denies: the metaphysical evidence of the impossibility that the subject and conscious activity of constitution could itself be merely the product of such constitution.

2 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITION OF A KNOWLEDGE OF 'UNCONSTITUTED BEING' AS CONDITION OF THE POSSIBILITY OF CONSTITUTION At this point, however, we wish to draw the reader's attention to a further point which brings our thesis to further evidence and simultaneously uncovers a second and purely epistemological presupposition of 'transcendental idealism' and of any other thinking about processes of constitution. It is this evident necessary epistemological truth which is likewise inevitably presupposed by transcendental phenomenology and which will justify our speaking of noumenal phenomenology.

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Phenomenology as noumenology Knowledge of the un constituted being of the act and of the subject of constitution necessarily presupposed for knowledge of constituted objects There is not only an objective metaphysical necessity that any activity including the activity of self-constitution. which the later Husserl posits, objectively presupposes that the constitutive act and subject cannot themselves be products of constitution and cannot owe their own being to the latter - as the Husserl of the Logical Investigations had clearly recognized. 2w, What we are faced with here is even more than the possibility of bringing this metaphysical fact to evidence and of knowing it. which knowledge. too, would justify the claim that 'things in themselves' (the noumena) can be known by us and are self-given, and would thus suffice to make possible a noumenal phenomenolog}·. Rather these facts and unconstituted beings must be understood by anyone who meaningfully speaks about constitution or who constitutes objects. In other words, it is most evident that Husserl in holding that the transcendental ego constitutes the world as well as itself presupposes not only as metaphysician of constitution that this is a fact which really is the case. i.e .. not constituted. He not only presupposes the ontic fact that the activity of constitution. the subject of constitution as well as the fact (state of affairs) that there is constitution are not and cannot be constituted themselves but must be unconstituted. He also presupposes the epistemological truth that he knows the unconstituted act of constitution. And he presupposes this not only as philosopher of constitution but also as constituting subject. Philosophizing properly about the activity of constitution. he cannot fail to see that the latter necessarily implies cognitive contact with non-constituted being. Already the philosophical knowledge of the fact that all constituted being presupposes ontically the unconstituted beings referred to is remarkable and contains a refutation of the claim of universal transcendental constitution. Moreover. the insight into the presupposition of unconstituted being for constituted being which is found presupposed by him. too. implies important epistemologicalfacts. It is strictly correlated. above all. to the fact that if there really was a universal process of constitution. such a radical constitution could itself only then be discovered and known if it were simultaneously discovered that the process of constitution is not itself a product of 313

Part lll: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' constitution, is not itself a constitutum, but an un constituted constituens. The evidence of the metaphysical fact that all constituted being presupposes unconstituted being, and of the correlated epistemological fact that the discovery of such constitution could never itself in turn be a spontaneous position and constitution but would have to be precisely discovery, is significant and is certainly presupposed by Husser\. Husserl, of course, would object and reply to the 'one-fourth phenomenologist' of the 'realist brand' that such a realism is false, and that any position which claims knowledge of unconstituted being lacks the rigor of transcendental phenomenology in failing to recognize precisely that there is absolute, self- and worldconstituting activity. But in the moment in which we were to grant to Husserl that there is such an absolute world- and self-constituting activity, either we as constituting (empirical) subjects or another 'transcendental' subject of constitution (the transcendental ego) or the constituting activity itself would still have to be granted (by Husserl and by us) to oe indeed given as performing this constitution. And this constitution itself would have to 'occur actually' and its performer would have to exist really, i.e., both would have to 'be in themselves.' Without this taking cognizance of the actual occurrence of this constituting activity it would, moreover, not only be impossible to speak meaningfully about the very existence of a transcendental ego and of the alleged fact of its self- and world-constitution. Ratherand this leads us to the main point we wish to make here - without such knowledge of the actual being of constitution as not itself constituted by our consciousness, even the conscious activity of constitution itself would be absolutely impossible. For there is no conscious act of creating noemata (in passive or active genesis) which could occur without its subject noticing (at least in a prereflective manner) the actual occurrence of this constitution. This fact has been brought to evidence by a great number of authors: St Augustine, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Karol Wojtyla, and others. 20<) Two objections could be immediately levelled against this claim: (1) Is it not the case that in every dream as well as in every error the subject is unconscious of constituting objects? If this is true, it would, also seem that the conscious genetic activity by no means necessarily implies a self-awareness in its subject that he is constituting. 314

Phenomenology as noumenology (2) This argument could be strengthened by reference to the fact that at least in Kant and perhaps also in the later Husserl this genetic constitution of world through the subject is not any activity of the empirical ego, of which this empirical ego as this individual could be aware. Rather, the transcendental subjectivity dwells in unconscious and hidden recesses behind all empirically given conscious performances. Moreover, it is a sphere of intersubjectivity which we find here, a 'subject' which is prior to the distinction into 'I' and 'thou,' 'we' and 'you.' Hence it would be a naive misconception of transcendental idealism to assume that it is the empirical ego which could experience the transcendental achievements of constitution. Since the transcendental ego is wholly divorced from our concrete empirical ego, as if it were another being or at least a transmundane part of our being which does the constituting, it would be naive indeed to expect some I>ort of empirical experience of transcendental subjectivity. If we assume this and prescind for the moment from the doubtfulness of the claim that Husserl had such a 'trans-experiential' subject in mind when he spoke of the 'transcendental ego,' then it would of course not be we as (empirical) conscious subjects who would constitute anything. Then even the transcendental ego would not really be an ego in the sense of a self-conscious subject who would also be intentionally related to the world. But then where would constitution take place? It would probably be fair to say that it would take place in the empirical subject but through the presence of the 'logical structure' of ego which is the 'transcendental subjectivity.' The 'trans.::endental ego' - concerning which Mohanty pointed out (in investigating similarities between Husserl's and Indian philosophy) that it is absolutely transmundane so that even words such as 'ego' do not strictly apply to it - would be a 'reality' which would either be actually (substantially or at least as a distinct entity) different from us or it would be an unconscious 'structure' in ourselves. 210 If it were such an impersonal 'structure of subjectivity' or 'origin of subjectivity,' then it would not experience itself nor would we experience it, but it would have to be real 'in itself' in the manner described above. Nevertheless, under this assumption, the activity of constitution (given the fact that it involves necessarily consciousness and the production of objects of consciousness) would not 315

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really be an impersonal IT's activity, but an activity of ourselves as subjects that would happen in virtue of transcendental structures (a transcendental X) which would determine our consciousness. But if the transcendental ego is really identical with some innermost hidden structure of our own ego, and if the latter - through its transcendental structure - constitutes the world, and if, furthermore, transcendental reflection understands our ego's transcendental world-constitution, then this cannot occur at all if our ego and its activity of constitution are not given as non-constituted facts. Whoever is the subject of transcendental constitution and whoever has awareness of anything at all, must experience himself also as a subject whose being and whose activity (of constituting other objects) are not constituted. He may not reflectively and even less philosophically know this, but we can understand the essentially necessary fact that any experience of constituted objects presupposes the simultaneous experience of a conscious activity which is not constituted. This is a classical case of a Wesensgesetz. Against this conclusion the above argument does not have any force: namely the argument that in erring and dreaming we constitute objects without having any consciousness of constituting them. If this is readily granted, does it follow that the dreaming or erring person must not necessarily experience his own conscious being and activity? And does he therein not experience a being which, as Augustine, Descartes, and others have shown, cannot possibly be itself a mere product of error or an object of a dream? And this ego and conscious life which any error, deception, appearance, illusion and the like presuppose, must not only be there, but must also be experienced and known by any subject which constitutes in any sense of the term. In whatever way the transcendental phenomenologist or idealist may turn himself or his theory (this essay attempts to refute not only transcendental phenomenology but transcendental idealism in any form or shape), there is no escape from the ineluctable fact that he will first have to introduce some thing in itself: whether it is an unconscious structure of his own consciousness, another ego, a transcendental 'transmundane X' which is discovered by the empirical ego as working in and through his conscious life or as giving to the empirical ego both its own 'appearance-reality' and its objects; whether it is an impersonal 'pure' activity of constituting or positing; or whether it is our (empirical) conscious activity as many 316

Phenomenology as noumenology passages In Husserl suggest. There is simply no way around a foundation of constituted beings upon un constituted being. Secondly, the most subtle and sophistical turns of mind can never liberate the transcendental idealist from·making sense only if he assumes what his position attempts to deny: that the subject or constituting activity is given in experience and known by us in order for constitution to occur at all. Without givenness of some unconstituted being and fact no givenness of constitution can occur at all. But then the transcendental idealist himself cannot remain in the prison of a world in which he would be cut off from any being 'in itself.' Any activity of (conscious) creating or constituting, or any activity of constitution of intentional objects of consciousness (noemata) can occur only when linked with the knowledge of some being in itself. This holds true for all imaginable sorts of constitution and in virtue of an essential necessity: on the level of so-called transcendental subjectivity just as much as on the level of experienced forms of creativity in art or fiction. Conscious acts of creating objects are inseparable from the inner awareness and givenness of the conscious activity of creating and producing or at least of experiencing objects; and this conscious activity is known as being in itself and as not constituted. When Shakespeare invents Hamlet or when an actor recreates this character on stage, the process of such creativity or constitution is inseparable from the awareness of acts and of his own being which are not constituted and are known as unconstituted. Of course, this 'known as' does not mean that we know in philosophical knowledge that this is so; but when we attend to the pre-philosophical immediate givenness of any conscious or unconscious creativity, we find as philosophers that in such activity the creative subject always and necessarily is in contact with some autonomous 'being in itself.'

3 EMPIRICAL AND ESSENTIAL NECESSARY FACTS ABOUT THE CONSTITUTED BEINGS ARE NOT CONSTITUTED BUT KNOWN Apart from the non-constituted beings of the act and of the subject of constitution (non-constituted being on the subject-side) there is also non-constituted being on the object-side of the noemata which is not only ontically presupposed but also cognitiveiy given to us as 317

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' non-constituted: in such a way that the constituted objects could never be known by us without our knowing all these non-constituted facts about them. There are in the first place all the Wesenssachverhalte, without which no understanding of the world of constituted seeming or appearance could take place. Think of the experience of colors; this experience as one formed by human understanding (and this is the form in which the human experience of color occurs) would not be possible without the understanding of the essentially necessary fact that colors presuppose extension; that orange lies between yellow and red in the order of resemblance among colors, and so forth. Likewise, the experience of the world of fiction presented to us in a literary work of art is impossible without the pre-philosophical understanding of countless essentially necessary states of affairs about persons, consciousness, moral facts, and innumerable other realities. We shall shortly address the tas~ of demonstrating the unconstitutable character of such essentially necessary laws. It will then become apparent how another dimension of knowledge of non-constituted and non-constitutable being becomes known to us here. One does not even need to think, however, of these necessary facts about appearances and all sorts of constituted beings, in order to grasp the presupposedness both of non-constituted being on the 'object-side,' and of the knowledge of this unconstituted being, for any constitution and for any knowledge of constituted being. It suffices to remind ourselves of the countless empirical facts and states of affairs which refer to the world of constituted fiction, in order to see that their knowledge presupposes the grasping of non-constituted beings or at least of non-constituted states of affairs. For example, the fact that Collodi is the author of Pinocchio, as well as the fact that this great children's novel begins with the description of Master Antonio's discovery of a piece of wood, that this piece of wood was not of a luxurious type of wood; that the wood began to cry and to laugh; that Master Antonio and Geppetto began to fight; that the latter alone was referred to as 'polenta' etc. - all of these countless facts about the world of fiction are not themselves fiction at all. They are states of affairs (and true propositions) about the world of fiction; and the latter is absolutely unthinkable and impossible without the facts about it not being fiction and hence not being constituted. 318

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The question whether there is also a third and more important way in which many constituted beings (especially appearances and deeper 'aspects' of being) presuppose things in themselves in the sense of the entities of which they are appearances, will be addressed later. Since this fact is also necessarily presupposed by any meaningful talk about transcendental subjectivity, we encounter here not only an intrinsically necessary and intelligible fact but are also faced with an inner contradiction in any idealist position.

4 THE NECESSARY STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE REVEALS AN INNER CONTRADICTION IN TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM AND REFUTES IT At this pointin our investigation we have also to note the essence of knowledge as further evidence against the thesis of radical (absolute) constitution. Knowledge itself is, namely, by its essence a 'discovering' and not a 'constituting' activity. Wherever we have knowledge, this knowledge itself cannot be the activity which produces and constitutes objects; rather it finds them and discovers them. Thus, in order for the transcendental idealist to know that his consciousness constitutes himself and the world, he must find in knowledge that this really is so. And at least this discovery of the fact that we constitute all noemata of our ego-life cannot itself be constitution. If it were, it would lose all its meaning as knowledge. If I only posited that I am constituting without actually doing it, and if consequently the thesis of transcendental idealism were no longer an assertion about the actual fact of universal constitution but a constituted product of constituting consciousness, then any claim to knowledge it might possess would collapse. Thus the essence of knowledge as transcending and discovering activity refutes transcendental idealism's claim that all consciousness is constituting. For even if there are countless appearances and other aspects of being which are constituted by us, the knowledge of them and of their constituted status is not itself an act of constitution. This receptive finding gesture of knowledge, as reaching being 'as it really is', and as not altering, creating, or constituting it, is necessarily presupposed by the transcendental idealist, despite his 319

Part III: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' theoretical denial of the receptivity of knowledge. Although he may wish to claim that human knowledge is - in active or passive synthesis - 'productive imagination,' or that all meaning and being and even the subject itself are 'constituted' by cognition, the transcendental idealist cannot help but acknowledge that the act of knowing this constitution is a finding of what really is the case and of what dogmatists and realists, in his opinion, fail to grasp. Let me quote a passage in which von Hildebrand states this point forcefully: 2 I I The idealistic interpretation of taking cognizance of something as a spiritual building up out of an amorphous stuff and a creation of the object of knowing is, therefore, equivalent to denying knowledge. Moreover, the misunderstanding of the basic meaning of taking cognizance of something necessarily travels in a vicious circle. Let us see why this is true. Transcendental idealism interprets taking cognizance of something as a construction (constitution) of the object and thereby denies that we are able to grasp a real object such as it is. Yet it claims that philosophy describes the real nature of knowledge. It is perfectly clear that transcendental idealism does not consider its own interpretation of knowledge as a mere construction and that it claims it to be the disclosure of the authentic nature of knowledge. With this claim it tacitly presupposes and silently reintroduces the real nature and true notion of taking cognizance, namely, the grasping of an object such as it is, and not the constructing (constituting) of an object. This intrinsic contradiction in transcendental idealism is, however, inevitable. For the genuine datum of knowledge and taking cognizance of something is so elementary that every attempt to deny it or to interpret it as something else necessarily leads to a vicious circle. Taking cognizance, as the genuine receiving and grasping of a being as it is, is really so elementary and inevitable a fact that it silently comes back into the picture and regains its rightful place even when a person tries to explain it away as something else. Th,is passage also clearly shows how the call 'back to things themselves' can only be fulfilled by phenomenological realism, and how any true going back to the 'thing of knowledge itself' uncovers not only an inner contradiction in any transcendental idealist posi320

Phenomenology as noumenology tion but also a failure to do justice to the given nature of knowledge. Husserl's transcendental idealist interpretation of knowledge as part of universal constitution is a type of 'transcendental reductionism' which seeks to trace back the clearly given essence of knowledge to something radically different. namely, to some form of creation. construction. or constitution of objects.

5 IMMEDIATE EVIDENT GIVENNESS OF 'THINGS IN THEMSELVES' A further, fundamentally different way of reaching evidence about non-constituted being is no longer concerned with pointing out inner contradictions in the transcendental idealist position. or with showing that a non-constituted being. and a knowledge thereof. must be presupposed by any theory of transcendental constitution. Rather. one can also refer to the immediate and mediated evidence with which non-constituted being is given to human knowledge. To reach the point of such a direct evidence concerning non-constituted being. as we have attempted to show. is the deepest way of refuting the transcendental idealist claim that nonconstituted 'beings in themselves' are never given or do not even exist. For the most foundational form of rational knowledge is not any indirect mode of knowledge. or the proof of logical inconsistencies in an opponent's position. The arch-form of rational knowledge is the immediate knowledge of evident truth. Moreover. all other forms of rational knowledge would be left hanging in the air if there were no ultimate irreducible data which are known. in their reality and truth. by means of immediately evident knowledge. We have attempted before to elucidate this decisive epistemological fact. 2lZ We have seen that an unfolding of the intelligible essence of doubt and of the cogito reveals two unshakeable 'Archimedean points' of all human knowledge. On the one hand. the existing reality of the living subject and of his acts imposes itself ineluctably and with indubitable evidence to our knowledge. On the other hand, we come into contact with absolutely necessary and supremely intelligible essences and essential 'rationes' of things which can never be reduced to, or explained by. transcendental structures of consciousness. We found that any form of transcendental idealism is a reductionism that fails to do justice to the 321

Part Ill: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' absolute necessity and other features of necessary essences and of essentially necessary laws (Wesensgesetze). It is here that the transcendence of man in knowledge, his capacity to go beyond his own mind and truly reach 'things in themselves' becomes manifest with infallible rational certitude. We shall not repeat here the argumentation already offered to bring this to evidence. 213 In the light of the immediately preceding investigations into the meaning of 'objectivity' and 'thing in itself,' however, it becomes clear that it is truly unconstituted 'things in themselves' that are grasped by our intellect here, that phenomenology is indeed noumenology, knowledge of 'things in themselves' which were falsely declared unknowable (Kant) or even absurd (Husserl). Moreover, the new title we propose for such classical phenomenological investigations, phenomenology as noumenology, is justified only if we do not introduce here a mere belief, or a religious faith, or even metaphysical speculations beyond the given, as ways to reach 'beings in themselves.' No, one does not have to leave phenomenology as the rigorous return to things themselves to come to the cognition of 'things in themselves.' Beings and essentially necessary facts give themselves as they are in themselves, entirely independently from human consciousness. Subjectivist or transcendental idealist deductions of all objects of experience from structures of the subject are not the consequence of a rigorous program of phenomenology as a return to things themselves. These theories are a betrayal of phenomenology, a betrayal of the faithful analysis of what gives itself. For both the existence and the noumenal essential structures of 'things in themselves' give themselves in what they themselves are and resist any philosophical theory that 'reduces' them to mere unknowable noumena (i.e., Xs about which we do not know anything), or to mere phenomena. It is a new form of classical philosophical realism that emerges as the only critical philosophy, and it is transcendental subjectivism in all of its forms that shows itself to be uncritical. It is not philosophical realism that is afflicted with antinomies and contradictions or that introduces an absurd notion of 'thing in itself,' as Kant and Husserl assert. On the contrary, the theory according to which the origin of all knowledge lies in a spontaneous synthetic transcendental apperception, in a Tathandlung des Geistes (Kant), or in a universal transcendental constitution (Husserl), is strictly absurd because self-contradictory. 322

Phenomenology as noumenology Hence the result of a rigorous return to 'things in themselves' is a rehabilitation of classical philosophy and metaphysics, and not a transcendental relativism or skepticism. Yet this return to classical philosophy and metaphysics does not imply an abhorrence of Descartes's cogito and of the interest in consciousness and in the person that characterizes modern philosophy. On the contrary, it was precisely the real return to the subject, to consciousness, even in its most radical temptation to subjectivism, it was the careful investigation of skeptical doubt itself that led us back to a rigorous objectivism. Because of his prise de conscience of personal consciousness as an objective reality of central metaphysical significance, Augustine's philosophy is perhaps of greater importance today than Aristotelianism and Thomism. For in Augustine's cogito and in his studies of the person we find as keen as, nay, a far profounder vision of the fundamental significance of being as person and as conscious being than in modern and contemporary thought. Yet, simultaneously, Augustine leads the way to a more rationally grounded and irrefutable realism and objectivism than any philosophy provides which, in the name of 'objectivism,' seeks to eliminate or downplay the reality of personal consciousness. A personalistic metaphysics, towards which the preceding investigations aim, is, in its full recognition of the sphere of consciousness and of the conscious spiritual subject (soul), even more soundly 'objectivist' than the apparently more 'realist' Aristotelian philosophy according to which knowledge is gained by means of abstracting forms from sensible things. Such sensible objects could, indeed, because of various sources of error and deception to which sense-perception can be subject, and because of its body-dependence, give rise to skeptical doubts concerning all knowledge. It is well-known how David Hume, empiricists and positivists base their skepticism on their call for 'verification' (or checking) of all knowledge-claims in sense-perception. While we do not rule out by any means that the Aristotelian and Thomistic theory of cognition and of the soul as form of the body contains valid insights and truths complementary to Augustinianism, and while we do not exclude the possibility of certainty in our knowledge of the external sensible world, 214 we do indeed hold that such a certainty, though it precedes all others in time, can be established in its objective validity only by mediation of that knowledge and evidence in which the two 'Archimedean points' of 323

Part Ill: Objective knowledge of 'things in themselves' the real existence of the subject and of absolutely necessary intelligible essences (rationes) and essential laws are known. Thus we present the results of these investigations as an attempt to make a philosophic-methodological recuperation of classical 'metaphysical' philosophy, but in its personalistic form which does not - because of its turn to 'things in themselves' - shrink away from the reality and significance of personal consciousness and from the cogito. Our investigations into various meanings of objectivity and subjectivity have prepared the way for seeing that there is not the slightest contradiction between emphasis on the subject-person and realism. On the contrary, any authentic realism and objectivism calls for a 'personalistic' foundation and for a consideration of the conscious receptive transcendence of the knowledge of 'things in themselves.' Considered from another perspective, this study constitutes a radical rethinking of the phenomenological method which, in repudiating and critically overcoming subjectivist transcendental phenomenology, follows the phenomenological 'principle of principles' 'back to things themselves!' in its integrity, and with an acceptance of its rigorous and ultimate philosophical consequences: a phenomenological realism as a return to reality, existence, objective truth and value, and absolute essential necessity - conditions of the dignity and transcendence of the person.

324

NOTES

2 3

4

5

6

Adolf Reinach, Was ist Phiinomenologie? (Miinchen: Kosel Verlag, 1951), p. 71. (My translation); compare also Adolf Reinach, 'Concerning Phenomenology,' translated by Dallas Willard, The Personalist 50 (Spring 1969), 194--221. Reprinted in Perspectives in Philosophy, ed. Robert N. Beck (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1961 and 1969). See Giovanni Reale, Storia della Filosofia Antica, II, Platone e Aristotele, 4th edn. (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1981), 262 ff., 267 ff. See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794; 1802), Fichtes Werke, ed. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1971), (reprint of 1845--6 edn; 1834--5), vo!. I, 91 ff. See Max Scheler, Vom Umsturz der Werte, Gesammelte Werke, II. ed. Maria Scheler (Bern: Franke Verlag, 1955), Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen, 33-144; see also the English translation of this work, Ressentiment, ed. Lewis A. Coser, translated by William H. Holdheim, 2nd printing (New York: Schocken Books, 1962). Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, The Acting Person, ed. Anna~Teresa Tymieniecka, trans!' A. Potocki (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Reidel, 1979). In the meantime, revised editions of this work have appeared, in German and in Italian, which represent a more authentic version of the text. An improved (2nd) English edition will soon be published. See on this, Karol Wojtyla, Person und Tat, translated by Herbert Springer, with a 'Nachwort zur deutschen Ausgabe' by Andrzej Poltawski (Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 1981). In the United States, it is Paul Weiss in particular who has criticized the reductionism inherent in various forms of materialism .. See Paul Weiss, Beyond all Appearances (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Illinois University Press, 1974). See also Josef Seifert, Das Leib-SeeleProblem in der gengewiirtigen philosophischen Diskussion. Eine kritische Analyse (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,

325

Notes

7

8 9 10 11

12 13

1979; 2nd edn, 1987) with reference to the critique of materialist reductionism found in the work of John C. Eccles, Karl R. Popper, Hans Jonas, Reinhard Low, and many others. Classical utilitarianism was very forcefully criticized by Shaftesbury who made the decisive point that, upon utilitarianist principles, impersonal causes of goods would have to be designated as morally good because they have the same effects as personal actions. In our century. G.E. Moore presented in Principia Ethica, 15th edn (Cambridge University Press, 1968) an excellent critique of the hedonism inherent in classical utilitarianism but he defended in Chapter v of Principia Ethica a radical consequentialism. For a critique of utilitarianism in its hedonistic 'classical' version. and especially of its use in the explanation of love and of the principles of ethics, see also Karol Wojtyla. Love and Responsibility, translated by H.T. Willetts, 2nd edn (New York: Farrar. Straus & Giroux, 1982),25-44. Among the most rigorous critics of utilitarianism, in its modern form of 'Giiterabwiigungsethik' are Tadeusz Styczen, John Finnis, Robert Spaemann, Germain Grisez, Andreas Laun, Carlo Caffarra, and others. See also my article, 'Absolute moral obligations towards finite Goods: Anthropos I, 1 (1985), pp. 57-94. Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, transl. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, 'Einleitung in die Asthetik,' III B 3, 'Die Ironie.' Hans Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke I (Mittenwald: Maander Kunstverlag Itzelsberger, 1977), Studienausgabe, 'Pieter Bruegel: Der Sturz der Blinden,' 319-57. See Hans Sedlmayr, Kunst und Wahrheit. Zur Theorie und Methode der Kunstgeschichte (Mittenwald: Maander Kunstverlag Itzelsberger, 1978), especially Chapters iv, vii. See also Louise Cowan, The Fugitive Group. A literary history (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959); and by the same author: The Southern Critics (Irving: The University of Dallas Press, 1972). The philosophical work which contains the notion of form by which the literary theory of A. Tate and especially of L. Cowan was decisively influenced is Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry, Bollingen Series XXXV (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1953, reprinted 1977). See note 11. See Edmund Husser!, Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie I, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana, vol. III/I; I. Buch, text of 1.-3. edn, I. Buch, 1. Abschnitt, ~ 7:

E.s gibt reine Wesenswissenschaften, wie reine Logik, reine Mathematik, reine Zeitlehre, Raumlehre, Bewegungslehre, usw. Sie sind durchaus, nach allen ihren Denkschritten, rein von Tatsachensetzungen; oder was gleichwertig ist, in ihnen kann keine

326

Notes Erfahrung als Erfahrung, d. i. als Wirklichkeit, als Dasein erfassendes, bzw. setzendes Bewusstsein, die Funktion der Begriindung iibernehmen ... Daher ist es gleich, ob er (der Geometer) dabei halluziniert oder nicht, und ob er statt wirklich zu zeichnen, sich seine Linien und Konstruktionen in eine Phantasiewelt hineinbildet. Ganz anders der Naturforscher. Er beobachtet und experimentiert, d.i. er stellt erfahrungsmassiges Dasein fest, das Erfahren ist fiir ihn begriindender Akt, der nie durch ein blosses Einbilden ersetzbar ware. Eben darum sind ja Tatsachenwissenschaft und Erfahrungswissenschaft aquivalente Begriffe. Fur den Geometer aber, der . .. Wesensverhalte erforscht, ist statt der Erfahrung die Wesenserschauung der letztbegriindende Akt. So in allen eidetischen Wissenschaften. Auf die in unmittelbarer Einsicht zu erfassenden Wesensverhalte (bzw. eidetischen Axiome) grunden sich die mittelbaren, die im mittelbar einsichtigen Denken, und zwar nach Prinzipien, die durchaus unmittelbar einsichtige sind, zur Gegebenheit kommen. Jeder Schritt mittel barer Begriindung ist danach apodiktisch und eidetisch notwendig. (§2 7).

1st nun aile eidetische Wissenschaft prinzipiell von aller Tatsachenwissenschaft unabhangig, so gilt andererseits das Umgekehrte hinsichtlich der Tatsachenwissenschaft. Es gibt keine, die als Wissenschaft voll entwickelt, rein sein konnte von eidetischen Erkenntnissen. (§ 8) . . . . Man erkennt nicht, dass auch jedes urteilende Einsehen, wie insbesondere das unbedingt allgemeiner Wahrheiten, unter den Begriff gebender Intuition fallt, der eben vieler!ei Differenzierungen, vor allem den logischen Kategorien parallellaufende, hat (ibid., § 21; Husserl also refers there to Logical Investigations, II, 6.) Doch genug der verkehrten Theorien. Am Prinzip aller Prinzipen: dass jede originar gebende Anschauung eine Rechtsquelle der Erkenntnis sei, dass alles, was sich uns in der 'Intuition' originar, (sozusagen in seiner leibhaften Wirklichkeit) darbietet, einfach hinzunehmen sei, als was es sich gibt, aber auch nur in den Schranken, in denen es sich da gibt, kann uns keine erdenkliche Theorie irre machen. Sehen wir doch ein, dass eine jede ihre Wahrheit nur aus den originaren Gegebenheiten schopfen konnte. (§ 24). The English text of the Ideen is available in two entirely different translations. The first one was introduced by Husser! himself and made by his friend, Professor Gibson. See Edmund Husser!, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, translated by W.R. Gibson (1931), 2nd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1967). See also the second translation: Edmund Husser!, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book,

327

Notes translated by F. Kersten, XXIV, 401 pp., (The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982). While this new translation corrects some mistakes in Gibson's translation (such as the confusion between 'der Moment' and 'das Moment,' it was criticized by Barry Smith in 'Phiinomenologie und angelsiichsische Philosophie,' (to be published in PhLA) for following Husserl's German style and grammatical constructions too slavishly. 14 Aristotle develops insights about the indubitable immediate cognition of necessary principles that are very similar to those of Husserl (see note 13). See Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 71 b 20: Now if knowledge is such as we have assumed, demonstrative knowledge must proceed from premises which are true, primary, immediate, better known than, prior to, and causative of the conclusion .... Syllogism indeed will be possible without these conditions, but not demonstration; for the result will not be knowledge. See also ibid., 72 b 25 ff. in which both the contention that all knowledge is demonstrable and the thesis that there is no knowledge at all because this condition is unfulfillable are described and rejected: We, however, hold that not all knowledge is demonstrative; the knowledge of immediate premises is not by demonstration. It is evident that this must be so; for if it is necessary to know the prior premisses from which the demonstration proceeds, and if the regress ends with the immediate premisses, the latter must be indemonstrable ... Indeed, we hold not only that scientific knowledge is possible, but that there is a definite first principle of knowledge by which we recognize ultimate truths. (72 b 2~5) We have observed above that it is impossible to reach scientific knowledge through demonstration unless one apprehends the immediate first principles ... (Ibid., 99 b 20 ff.) Now of the intellectual faculties which we use in the pursuit of truth some (e.g., scientific knowledge and intuition) are always true, whereas others (e.g., opinion and calculation) admit falsity; and no other kind of knowledge except intuition (=nous) is more accurate than scientific knowledge (=episteme). Also first principles are more knowable than demonstrations ... and since nothing can be more infallible than scientific knowledge except intuition, it mllst be intuition that apprehends the first principles .... Thus it will be the primary source of scientific knowledge that apprehends the first principles .... (Ibid .. 100 b 5-15) Aristotle, who calls noUs an intuitive faculty of rational immediate and infallible knowledge, epistemes archen (foundation of all [scien-

328

Notes

15

16 17 18 19

20

tific 1knowledge), defends a position which is strikingly similar to that of Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen (see also note 13, above). The difference between Husserl's Logical Investigations and Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Book Gamma of the Metaphysics lies, among other things, in Aristotle's lack of clarity concerning the fundamental nature of first principles. This lack of precision concerning the foundation of all philosophy, a point to which we shall return later, manifests itself especially in Book Gamma of the Metaphysics. in reference to the question whether these necessary principles are in themselves necessary and known to be such or whether they are only necessarily presupposed in our thinking. (See below. Part II. Chapter 5, and Part III. Chapter 9, of the present study.) Of course, Husserllater (in The Idea of Phenomenology and after 1905-7) turns radically away from a clear conception of intrinsically necessary truths to a 'transcendental subjectivism' which will be subjected to an extensive critique later in this work. and compared to which Aristotle's fundamental conception of first principles is incomparably superior and more 'objectivistic.' See Dietrich von Hildebrand. What is Philosophy? 2nd edn (Chicago: Fransciscan Herald Press. 1973). Chapter iv. See also. on the transcendence in the knowledge of essentially necessary facts. Josef Seifert. Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. Die Transzendenz des Menschen in der Erkenntnis. 2nd edn. (Salzburg: Universitatsverlag Anton Pustet. 1976). See likewise Walter Hoeres's demonstration that the abandoning of a receptive transcendence of knowledge led the later Husserl to a 'transcendental relativism': Walter Hoeres. 'Critique of the Transcendental Metaphysics of Knowing. Phenomenology and Neo-Scholastic Transcendental Philosophy.' Aletheia (1978) 1.1, 353-69. See also by the same author. Kritik der transzendentalphilosophischen Erkenntnistheorie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. 1969). See Balduin Schwarz. The Role of Linguistic Analysis (Washington. DC. 1960). See note 16. See Seifert. Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit. Part I. Chapter 3. See Max Scheler. 'Vom Wesen der Philosophie und der moralischen Bedingung des philosophischen Erkennens:: Max Scheler. Yom Ewigen im Menschen. 5th edn (Gesammelte Werke. V). (Bern: Francke Verlag. 1954). 61-99. There Scheler rightly insists on the autonomy and absolute objectivity of authentic philosophical knowledge. while simultaneously emphasizing the moral conditions that enter the 'philosophical ascent" (den philosophischen Aufscllwlmg). These moral conditions are only conditions of objective knowledge. not subjective prejudices and sources of distortion. Later. however. Scheler defended relativistic ideas similar to those expressed in Karl Mannheim's Wissenssoziologie. Aristotle. Posterior Analytics. II. xix (100 b 5 ff.): 71 b 20 ff. See also the quotes from Aristotle and Husserl in notes 13 and 14. above.

329

Notes See Barry Smith, ed., Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Miinchen, Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1982). 22 Rene Descartes speaks in Meditationes V in particular, as well as in many of his replies to objections, about the indubitable evidence concerning essentially necessary facts which are rooted in 'immutable natures' and which are in no way 'imposed on things by our minds' but 'discovered in things themselves.' Similar classical positions on Wesenserkenntnis can be found in Bonaventure, Quaestiones Disputatae de Scientia Christi, IV, and in other passages in his work. 23 We shall quote later the passages in which Husserl calls the problem of the 'transcendence' of knowledge the central epistemological problem. See also Seifert, Erkenntnis. 24 Adolf Reinach, Was ist Phiinomenologie?, pp.69-71, analyzes convincingly the absolute non-arbitrariness of the phenomenological method. 25 See Alice von Hildebrand-Jourdain, 'On the Pseudo-Obvious,' in Wahrheit, Wert und Sein. Festgabe fur Dietrich von Hildebrand zum 80. Geburtstag (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1970), 25-32. 26 Think of the opening sentence of the first section of Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (With Critical Essays), ed. Robert P. Wolff, translated by Lewis W. Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976),11:

21

Nothing in the world - indeed nothing even beyond the world (emphasis added) - can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will. 27

See Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, transl. Dorion Cairns, 5th impression (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1973) § 41 (p 84): The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally ... is nonsensical. See also ibid., pp. 85 ff.: the ego constitutes himself ... as existent in himself and for himself ... the ego likewise constitutes ... everything without exception that ever has for him, in the ego, existential status as non-ego ... Nor is it [i.e., Husserl's transcendental phenomenology] a Kantian idealism, which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting concept, the possibility of a world of things in themselves.

28

See also J. Seifert, 'Kritik am Relativismus und Immanentismus' in E. Husserl's 'Cartesianischen Meditationen,' SJPh, XIV (1970), 85109. This is the reading of the Logical Investigations, in their first edition, which suggests itself to the unprejudiced reader who does not interpret Husserl's Logical Investigations in the light of the author's later

330

Notes

29 30 31 32

33

34

35 36

37

38 39 40

self-interpretations (see note 27). This is also the way in which the Logical Investigations were interpreted by such eminent thinkers as Adolf Reinach, Alexander Pfiinder, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Edith Stein, and others. See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 10th unrev. edn (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963), § 7, pp. 27 ff. See Barry Smith, Parts and Moments. See the discussion of this issue in Part II, Chapter 4, of the present study. particularly the critical examination of Husserl's ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science. Inspired by St Paul's 'phenomenological characterization' of the virtue of caritas. and by other spiritual texts, numerous philosophers have investigated the intelligible essence of specifically Christian virtues such as charity, humility, repentance (the latter in its specifically Christian form). or more general religious phenomena such as the 'holy.' I think here of Augustine, Blaise Pascal, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Rudolf Otto, and others. See Josef Seifert, 'Truth and History: Noumenal Phenomenology (Phenomenological Realism) Defended against some Claims made by Hegel, Dilthey, and the Hermeneutical School,' Diotima 11 (1983), 16-81. See the admirable work of Giovanni Reale, Storia della Filosofia Antica, II, Platone e Aristotele, 4th edn (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1981), 35 ff. This work is to be published soon in English (SUNY Press). See Edmund Husser!' The Idea of Phenomenology, Lecture II, 31. The famous Leibnizean phrase about the validity of necessary truths in every possible world harkens back to phrases and thoughts that occur in ancient philosophy. See Giovanni Reale, Storia della Filosofia Antica II, 41 ff. See also Part II, Chapter 5 of the present study. See likewise George Nakhnikian's 'Introduction' to Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, pp. xvii-xviii. There the aspect of 'bracketing' existence and its validating function is not seen. Only the prescinding from the particular essence in its particularity is stressed. Gabriel Marcel frequently spoke (in his Vendredi-Soir lectures in Paris, 1964) of' a phantom world' to which Hussserl's radical epoche leads. Husserl expresses this point most unambiguously in Cartesian Meditations § 41. See note 27. See also Ideen, I, 160 ff. See Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed., Phenomenology. The Philosophy of Edmund Husser! and its Interpretation (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1967). See especially in this work, Kockelmans, 'Husserl's Transcendental Idealism,' 191. Kockelmans himself and many of the contributors to this volume, such as Marvin Faber, defend the ideal of philosophy as a presupposition less science in the sense of an entirely non-metaphysical analysis and thus fail to see, with sufficient clarity, the transition in Husserl from a purely methodological principle of bracketing (which could in no way justify any purely ontological

331

Notes

41 42 43

thesis about constitution) to a metaphysical meaning of epoche in which a world-constituting (transcendental causal) role is ascribed to the epoche. See note 27, above. See Ideen, III, 1; I, 56 ff. A fifth sense of epoche is used by Husserl in Ideen, I, 39: a suspension of any exclusive validity of traditional philosophy. See Husserl, Ideen, I (Husserliana, 11,1),56 ff. See Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, translated by David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), especially §§ 23 ff., 86 ff. Think of some passages in which Husserl declares that Hume's radical subjectivism and skepticism was fully justified as rejection of any objectivism and of 'things in themselves': Through Berkeley's and Hume's revival and radicalization ofthe Cartesian fundamental problem, 'dogmatic' objectivism was, from the point of view of our critical presentation, shaken to the foundations. This ... was also true of the general objectivism which had been dominant for millennia. (§ 24, 90). Hume had shown that we naively read causality into this world and think that we grasp necessary succession in intuition. The same is true of everything that makes the body of the everyday surrounding world into an identical thing, with identical relations, properties, etc. .. (Emphasis added - J. S.) (§ 25, 93) The world-enigma in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the enigma of a world whose being is being through subjective accomplishment, and this with the self-evidence that another world cannot be at all conceivable - that, and nothing else, is Hume's problem. (§ 25, 97)

See ibid., §§ 18 ff. (pp. 78 ff.); §§ 58 ff. (pp. 203 ff.). See Ideen I, pp. 101 ff. See Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, § 34. See my essay, 'Essence and Existence,' Aletheia, 1 (1977), and 1,2 (1978) which contains extensive references to Thomas Aquinas and Gilson. 47 This is not to ascribe essence as distinct from esse (existence) to existence. See Seifert, 'Essence and Existence,' Aletheia, 1 (1977), Chapter 1; and Aletheia, 1,2 (1978), pp. 379 ff. 48 See Husserl, Ideen, I, § 31, pp. 61-66. 49 See Seifert, 'Essence and Existence,' Aletheia, I, Chapters 1 and 3; Aletheia, 1,2, Chapters 5-7. There it is shown that Gilson's position contains a certain essentialism in that it does not consider sufficiently the concrete existing objects of philosophical knowledge but restricts existence as an object of philosophy to an ambiguous 'esse as such.' 50 This formulation of the famous question only applies to beings the 44 45 46

332

Notes 51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71

existence of which is non-necessary. See also Seifert. 'Essence and Existence: which investigates the radical insufficiency of epoche as an adequate methodological principle for a philosophy of the relationship between essence and existence. See Barry Smith, Parts and Moments. See Ideen, I, §§ 3-22. especially § 15. See the reflection of Barry Smith and Kevin Mulligan in Barry Smith. Parts and Moments. pp. 45 ff. Husser\, Logische Untersuchungen, III, § 6. p. 238. See Fritz Wenisch. 'Insight and Necessity: Aletheia IV (1987). See Husserl, LU, III. § 12. p. 255. See note 56. See also von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy? Chapter 4; Seifert, Erkenntnis, Part II. Husser\, LU, III. § 11. pp. 251-2. Alexander Ptiinder has shown in his Logik. 3rd edn (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 1963). Part III. pp. 182 ff.. that the first logical principles are necessarily grounded in ontological principles. See von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy? Chapter 4. Husserl, Ideen, I, §§ 56 ff. Ibid., § 62. especially 'Anmerkung' (note) at the end of § 62. See Seifert, 'Essence and Existence.' This kind of experience is of extreme importance for any metaphysics which goes back to 'things themselves: especially for a phenomenological elaboration of the so-called 'pure perfections' and for a phenomenological-critical solution of the controversy between Scotists and Thomists on the issue of the analogy versus the univocity of being. Plato had hinted at this experience although he interprets it as reminiscence; yet in some places he speaks of it as a genuine vision and experience. The history of the philosophical elaboration of this experience includes Augustine's philosophy of eternal truths and of divine illumination, Bonaventure. Henry of Ghent, Descartes's philosophy of infinity (particularly Meditations. IV), Scheler. Edith Stein, Jean Hering. von Hildebrand. and others. Husserl hardly recognized this mode of experience of the pure essences in their ideal perfection. while other phenomenologists have made important contributions towards the elucidation of such an experience. In a forthcoming book. in Italian, Verso una Fondazione Fenomenologica di una Metafisica Classica e personalistica (Milan: Vitae e Pensiero. 1987), and in a German book on the ontological argument. this experience will be further elaborated. See especially Ideen, I, § 6. See Ideen, § 24. See 'Essence and Existence: Chapter 1. See Husserl, Crisis, § 24 ff .. especially pp. 90,96-7.204. See Walter Hoeres, Kritik der transzendentalphilosophischen Erkenntnistheorie. Adolf Reinach, 'Concerning Phenomenology: translated by Dallas

333

Notes Willard, The Personalist, X,4 (7,1981), pp. 184-221. Dallas Willard has recently published an excellent article on the overarching role of the problem of transcendence in the genesis of Husserl's phenomenology. He has shown that the rejection of the possibility of such a transcendence played a decisive role in Husserl's turn to transcendental phenomenology and that the elucidation of the transcendence of human knowledge is of central significance for the justification of the objectivity of human cognition. See Dallas Willard, 'Wholes, Parts, and the Objectivity of Knowledge,' in Parts and Moments, pp. 379-400. 73 See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, especially B 295 ff., 288 ff., 697 ff. 74 Kant has expressed this root of the 'entire critique of pure reason' repeatedly, especially in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason and in his correspondence with Garve. See Josef Seifert, Das Antinomienproblem als ein Grundproblem der 'Kritik der rein en Vernunft' und der Philosophie iiberhaupt (Ms to be published). 75 Kant calls the ability to solve otherwise inevitable contradictions of reason (i.e., the unavoidable antinomy of pure reason which he also calls the 'scandal of pure reason') the 'only touchstone' of the validity of the critique of pure reason. See note 74. 76 See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman K. Smith (Toronto, New York: Macmillan and St Martin's Press, 1929, 1965), pp. 430 ff. (B 504 ff.): 72

To profess to solve all problems and to answer all questions would be impudent boasting, and would argue such extravagant selfconceit as at once to forfeit all confidence. Nevertheless there are sciences the very nature of which requires that every question arising within their domain should be completely answerable in terms of what is known, inasmuch as the answer must issue from the same sources from which the question proceeds. In these sciences it is not permissible to plead unavoidable ignorance; the solution can be demanded .... Now I maintain that transcendental philosophy is unique in the whole field of speculative knowledge, in that no question which concerns an object given to pure reason can be insoluble for this same human reason, and that no excuse of an unavoidable ignorance, or of the problem's unfathomable depth, can release us from the obligation to answer it thoroughly and completely. That very concept which puts us in a position to ask the question must also qualify us to answer it, since, as in the case of right and wrong, the object is not to be met with outside the concept ... the question (i.e., which arises out of the cosmological ideas - J. S.) must therefore be capable of being solved entirely from the idea. Since the idea is a mere creature of reason, reason cannot disclaim its responsibility and saddle it upon the unknown object. Kant distinguishes from these questions of pure reason, which must

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Notes be entirely solvable, the empirical questions of natural science, which require, in order to be answered, some external affection of the senses and thus cannot be expected to be answered 'completely': For the natural appearances are objects which are given to us independently of our concepts, and the key to them lies not in us and in our pure thinking, but outside us; and therefore in many cases, since the key is not to be found, an assured solution is not to be expected. (Ibid., p. 433, B 508-9.) From this the apparently absurd consequence follows that any question about a fly or the sand in the ocean is more mysterious and impenetrable for human reason than all the questions of rational cosmology and of natural theology, including 'religion within the limits of pure reason.' See the next note. 77 The following passage is most revealing in this respect. It also throws light on the texts quoted in the preceding note. Only under the assumption of a radical rejection ·of the classical idea of a transcendent God, can the Kantian position of the complete intelligibility of the objects of natural theology appear to be tenable. Unconditioned necessity, which we so indispensably require as the last bearer of all things, is for human reason the veritable abyss. Eternity itself, in all its terrible sublimity, as depicted by a Haller, is far from making the same overwhelming impression on the mind; for it only measures the duration of things, it does not support them. We cannot put aside, and yet also cannot endure the thought, that a being, which we represent to ourselves as supreme amongst all possible beings, should, as it were, say to itself: 'I am from eternity to eternity, and outside me there is nothing save what is through my will, but whence then am!?' All support here fails us; and the greatest perfection, no less than the least perfection, is unsubstantial and baseless for the merely speculative reason, which makes not the least effort to retain either the one or the other, and feels indeed no loss in allowing them to vanish entirely. Many forces in nature, which manifest their existence through certain effects, remain for us inscrutable ... Also, the transcendental object ... is and remains for us inscrutable ... we can have no insight into its nature [i.e., of die Sache selbst: the thing itself, J .S.]. But it is quite otherwise with an ideal of pure reason; it can never be said to be inscrutable. For since it is not required to give any credentials of its reality save only the need on the part of reason to complete all synthetic unity by means of it (emphasis added, J .S.); and since, therefore, it is in no wise given as a thinkable object, it cannot be inscrutable in the manner in which an object is. On the contrary it must, as a mere idea [emphasis added, J .S. J, find its place and its solution in the nature of reason, and must therefore allow for investigation. For it is of the very essence of reason that we should be able to give an

335

Notes account of all our concepts, opinions, and assertions .... (Ibid., pp. 513-14, B 641-2.) 78

In various passages Kant emphasizes, in the Metaphysik der Sitten, in the Religion innerhalb der Grenzen reiner Vernuft, and elsewhere, that the ultimate purpose of the transcendental ideas and categories is 'man alone.' He deduces from this, in the Metaphysik der Sitten, that we have no religious duty towards God but only towards ourselves because we produce the idea of God entirely in our reason and for the purpose of promoting our own moral being. See, for example, the expression of the thought of the purely anthropological immanent purpose of all transcendental ideas in reference to the highest of all transcendental ideas, that of the transcendental ideal, i.e., God: The ultimate aim to which the speculation of reason in its transcendental employment is directed concerns three objects: the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. In respect of all three the merely speculative interest of reason is very small. . . . We have therefore in a canon of pure reason to deal with only two questions, which relate to the practical interest of pure reason, and in regard to which a canon of its employment must be possible - Is there a God? and, Is there a future life? ... since all things have their origin in the absolute necessity of the one primordial being, that principle connects them in accordance with universal and necessary laws of nature. What use can we make of our understanding, even in respect of experience, if we do not propose ends to ourselves? But the highest ends are those of morality ... It was the moral ideas that gave rise to that concept of the Divine Being which we now hold to be correct ... Thus it is only always to pure reason, though only in its practical employment, that we must finally ascribe the merit of having connected with our highest interest a knowledge which reason can think only, and cannot establish, and of having thereby shown it to be, not indeed a demonstrated dogma, but a postulate which is absolutely necessary in view of what are reason's own essential ends .... Moral theology is thus of immanent use only. It enables us to fufil our vocation in this present world. . . a transcendent employment of moral theology ... , like a transcendent use of pure speculation, must pervert and frustrate the ultimate ends of reason. (Ibid., B 826-7, also B 631-47.) On the same topic, see also Critique of Pure Reason, B 708. See the even more telling passage in Metaphysik der Sitten, A 109, in which Kant expressly denies that the Religionspflicht be a 'duty towards God' for the reason that 'that idea (i.e., of God - I.S.) entirely proceeds from our reason' (da diese Idee ganz aus unserer eigenen Vernunft hervorgeht) and 'is made by ourselves' (von uns selbst

336

Notes 79 80

81

82

83 84 85 86 87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

gemacht wird). The same position is maintained in CPR, B 396. This is Kant's well-known standpoint in his work, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der reinen Vernunft. See Adolf Reinach, 'Kant's Auffassung des Hume'schen Problems," Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Hedwig Conrad-Martius and Edith Stein (Halle a.d.Saar: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1921). pp. 1-35. (New edition to appear in Philosophia Verlag, 1987.) It is Kant's fundamental thesis that synthetic propositions a priori. on the justification of which the fate of metaphysics depends, can never be justified in terms of experience. For a critical discussion of this assertion, see Josef Seifert, Erkenntnis objektil'er Wahrheit, Part II, in particular pp. 161 ff. This fundamental discovery which underlies L. U., III and VI (especially Husserl's analysis of 'categorial intuition'), and which was developed further by Max Scheler, found its precise philosophical expression in Dietrich von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy? Chapter 4. A number of other authors (Fritz Wenisch, Josef Seifert, John Crosby, Juan-Miguel Palacios, and others) have considered the distinction between empirical experience and experience of necessary essences and essentially necessary facts as a foundation of their philosophy. See notes 81-2. See Part II, Chapter 5, of this work. Besides the works quoted in the preceding notes (81-4) see also Walter Hoeres, Kritik der transzendentalphilosophischen Erkenntnistheorie. See Adolf Reinach, Was ist Phiinomenologie? It is interesting to note that Kant is oblivious of his own claim that experience is restricted to phenomena only and that no synthetic proposition a priori can be founded on experience, when he speaks about the essence of the good will. See note 26. See note 74. See note 74. Ibid. See Max Scheler, Ressentiment. Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, p. 16. See Dallas Willard, 'Wholes, Parts, and the Objectivity of Knowledge.' (Ibid., p. 381.) See Ibid., p. 388. See Part II, Chapter 5, of the present essay. See Dallas Willard, ibid., p. 389. Ibid., p. 397. See Kant, Prolegomena, especially § 13. Concerning the relationship and difference between Kant's and Husserl's notion of 'constitution,' see the learned article of Richard T. Murphy, 'The Transcendental "A Priori" in Husserl and Kant: Analecta Husserliana III. ed. A.-T. Tymieniecka, The Phenomenological Realism of the Possible Worlds (Dordrecht, Hd/Boston, USA: D. Reidel. 1974), pp. 66-79. See

337

Notes likewise, on the new meaning of 'constitution' in Husserl as compared with Kant's theory of transcendental constitution, Edmund Husserl, Formale und Transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft (Halle a.d.S.: Max Niemeyer, 1929). On the development of Husserl's theory of constitution, see Robert Sokolowski, The Formation of Husserl's Concept of Constitution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964). See also note 201. 99 See above, Part I, Chapter 2. 100 Husserl, in his Logical Investigations, particularly in the Prolegomena, fails to distinguish two radically different issues: on the one hand, the difference between empirical and absolutely necessary laws pertaining to essences or natures of things; on the other hand, the difference between laws that pertain to purely 'ideal meanings' or entities, such as propositions, and laws that refer to real beings. Husserl at times falsely identifies laws that govern real beings with purely empirical laws and thus restricts the validity of absolutely strict necessary laws to an ideal sphere. While it is true that logic does not deal with essentially necessary laws that pertain to real acts of subjects, it is not at all for this reason that logic is not an empirical science. To suggest this would banish all real being (and in the last consequence, also human knowledge) into a sphere to which only empirical and inductive laws would apply and which would be subject to causal determination. Husserl writes: Derartige Absurditaten sind unausweichlich, wenn man den fundamentalen Unterschied zwischen idealen und realen Objekten, und dementsprechend den Unterschied zwischen Idealund Realgesetzen nicht beachtet. (Ibid., 'Prolegomena,' LV ch. iv, § 24 (77) Es ist ein wesentlicher, schlechthin uniiberbriickbarer Unterschied zwischen Idealwissenschaften und Realwissenschaften. Die ersteren sind apriorisch, die letzteren empirisch. Entwickeln jene die idealgesetzlichen Allgemeinheiten, weIche mit einsichtiger Gewissheit in echt generellen Begriffen griinden, so stellen diese die realgesetzlichen Allgemeinheiten und zwar mit einsichtiger Wahrscheinlichkeit fest, weIche sich auf eine Sphare von Tatsachen beziehen .... (Ibid., ch. viii, § 48, p. 178). If this were true, there could not be essentially necessary facts in relation to acts of knowledge, psychology, or to any real being. The spheres of the real (psychological, acts of cognition, etc.) would be hopelessly divorced from the sphere of ideal essential necessities. There could be no possible contact between them. Husserl himself transcends this view often, especially in his superb analysis of evidence as 'experience of truth', ibid., § 51. Yet against this, there are too many passages in which Husserl designates all real beings as (1) causally determined, (2) necessarily temporal, (3) not subject of essential necessities. This explains why he creates a radical

338

Notes split, not only between the ideal and the real sphere but, concomitantly, also between the empirical ego and the transcendental ego (which alone can perform the higher mental function and corresponds in some important fashions, explained elsewhere, to the traditional notion of 'soul'). The radical division Husserl postulates between the real and the ideal (and between the empirical and transcendental) sphere reminds us, in significant respects, of Kant's distinction between phenomena (that are causally determined and in which no freedom is possible) and a sphere of noumena, although of course Husserl does not regard the 'ideal sphere of essences and laws' as either free or unknowable. At any rate, if the sphere of real being were not subject to essentially necessary laws and if real acts of cognition could never partake in immutable ideal essential laws but were subject of causal determination by preceding temporal events, as Husserl clearly suggests in many places, his transcendental idealism would follow for very similar reasons to those which prompted Kant's Copernican turn. For then the subject of evident knowledge could not be the temporal, empirical, and causally determined ego, but only another 'transcendental' and 'intelligible' subject who alone could enter into direct contact with the intelligible and timeless essential necessities. See also Seifert, Das Leib-Seele-Problem in der philosophischen Diskussion der Gegenwart. While the division of the ego in an empirical and a transcendental one follows from Husserl's restricting view of 'reality' as temporal, causally determined, etc., the theory of constitution has further presuppositions to which we shall turn later. 101 Husserl, Die Idee der Phiinomenologie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), p. 20; The Idea of Phenomenology, p. 15. 102 Die Idee der Phiinomenologie, II, 23-3:

wei! die erkenntnistheoretische Unklarheit es mit sich bringt, dass wir nicht verstehen, welch en Sinn ein Sein haben kann, das an sich und doch in der Erkenntnis erkannt sei. 103 104 105 106 107

108

The Idea of Phenomenology, 2nd lecture, p. 29. Die Idee der Phiinomenologie, Beilage II, ibid., pp. 81-2. (Translation mine; this text is not contained in the English edition.) Ibid., Beilage III, p. 83 (translation mine). Ibid., p. 84 (translation mine). See German text, ibid., p. 39. See Erkenntnis objektiver Wahrheit, Part I, Chapter 3. Apart from the passages on the transcendence of man in knowledge from A ugustine's work quoted there, see Ludger Holscher, The Reality of the Mind. Saint Augustine's Philosophical Arguments for the Human Soul as Spiritual Substance, Boston, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. See Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, See also Josef Seifert, 'Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) as Philosopher and the Cracow/Lublin School of Philosophy,' Aletheia II (1982).

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Notes 109 See Husserl, Crisis, especially the analyses of the 'subjective' lifeworld, ~~ 28 ff.; and for instance, § 34 d, pp. 127 ff. See also von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. On the 'aspects' and their role for the givenness of objects, see Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art, translated by George G. Grabowicz (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), Part II, Chapter 8, The Stratum of Schematized Aspects,' pp. 255 ff. See also his important work, The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans!' Ruth and Ann Crowley, and Kenneth R. Olson (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), especially § 12 (pp. 55 ff.), and Chapter 2, §§ 15 ff., pp. 94 ff. 110 See note 109. See also Roman Ingarden, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, Bd. I: Existentialontologie (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1964); Bd. 11,1: Formalontologie, l. Teil (ibid., 1965); Formalontologie: 2. Teil (ibid., 1965). 111 See Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal TimeConsciousness, ed. Martin Heidegger, translated by James S. Churchill, introd. Calvin O. Schrag (Bloomington, London: Indiana University Press, 1964), especially § 8 (pp. 44 ff.); § 11 (pp. 50 ff.); § 24 (pp.76 ff.); § 29 (pp. 84 ff.). 112 Association, Kant shows, can never explain thinking. Husserl demonstrated rigorously in the Logical Investigations that processes of associations of sense-impressions could never explain the process of abstraction, the formation of concepts, the act of judging, the purely ideal and essentially necessary laws and objects of philosophical logic, the first logical principles, and so forth. 113 See Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person; Seifert, 'Karol Wojtyla.' See also, for a realist discussion of the sphere of appearances, von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. 114 See Roman Ingarden, On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism, translated by Arn6r Hannibalsson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), pp. 13-28; and, in particular, pp. 43--{j5. 115 See Roman Ingarden's treatment of the object of eidetic cognition, Aletheia IV, 1984. 116 See Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena, § 13. 117 See Part II, Chapter 5 of this work. 118 See Seifert, Erkenntnis, and the quotations found there in Part II, Chapter 3, from von Hildebrand's course on epistemology held at the University of Salzburg in 1964. 119 See Seifert, Erkenntnis, Part II, Chapter 3. See also Seifert, 'Kritik am Relativismus und Immanentismus in E. Husserl's "Cartesianischen Meditationen".' 120 See Part III, Chapters fr8, of this work. 121 See Roman Ingarden's piece on the object of eidetic cognition in Aletheia IV. 122 See Seifert, 'Essence and Existence,' and Verso una Fondazione Fenomenologica di una Metafisica classica e personalistica. 123 Plato there relegates to the subject-matter of philosophy, within the

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Notes sphere of objects of episteme, only that part which is accessible to noesis (dialectics), excluding the objects of the lower sphere of epistl?me (duinoia). He likewise, and even more clearly, disregards the entire domain of doxa, with its spheres of eikasia and pistis (including their objects) as subject-matter of philosophical knowledge. This restriction of philosophical knowledge to a sphere of pure apodictic knowledge which is presuppositionless, however important this sphere of indubitable knowledge of truth is for philosophy (see especially Part II, Chapter 5, of the present work), is untenable and unphenomenological. For the very act of pistis, of the natural belief in realities that cannot be demonstrated rigorously, is important for the understanding of man, of love, of many forms of sense-knowledge and historical knowledge, as well as for the entire domain of religion. Thus man cannot be understood philosophically without taking into account the sphere of pistis besides that of noesis. In addition, philosophical knowledge of the world, if it seeks wisdom and truth about reality as a whole, must not arbitrarily make the standard of infallible and indubitable intuition one that prevents the philosopher from the recognition and analysis of realities which he cannot know by means of such rigorous evident knowledge, while they still give themselves clearly. In this sense, Husserl's radical rejection of Descartes' argument to the objective existence of the material world and other persons by the detour of the veracity of God does not seek so much to point out a particular circularity in Descartes' mode of reasoning but to dismiss less than immediately or deductively (i.e., indubitably) evident knowledge from the objectsphere of philosophy, to the great damage of the latter and in an entirely arbitrary fashion that excludes the fundamental phenomenological principle that each object, also within philosophy, must be studied as it gives itself to human cognition and with the methods adequate to its peculiar nature. This 'phenomenological principle of all principles' (Husserl) ought to be applied also to such fundamental data as the sensible world, its reality, belief as element of love, value-dimensions in persons which can only be known by the mediation of moments of trust, etc .. Not only the pure a priori essences of these acts and of their objects belong to the subject-matter of philosophy, not only the exploration of the acts in which less than apodictically certain objects are known, but also their positive justification belongs to the tasks of philosophy as well as the study of their objects. These objects, such as the real world, accepted in the 'natural attitude,' must be accepted also by the philosopher as they give themselves, and ought not to be 'bracketed' for the sake of an inhuman idol of universal apodicticity of all cognitions. 124 See Edmund Husserl, 'Philosophy as a Rigorous Science,' in Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, translated by Quentin Lauer (New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 146 ff.

341

Notes 125

126 127 128 129 130

131

132

133

134 135 136

Roman Ingarden criticizes well the prejudice which results from such an idol of philosophy as rigorous science that denies the transcendent existence of the real world when it is not given in infallibly evident immediate cognition. See Roman Ingarden. On the Motives, pp 8-11; pp.34-8. See Part I, Chapter 2, of the present study. Ingarden, On the Motives, pp. 38-43; pp. 43-71. See Husserl, [deen, I, § 7. See Husserl, Crisis; see also Roman Ingarden, Motives pp. 9 ft., 13 ff., 38 ff. This isone fundamental purpose ofG.F.W. Hegel's Enzyklopiidie, of his Logik, and of his Die Phiinomenologie des Geistes. These and similar attempts to construct empirical facts a priori fail against the very contingency and facticity that are actually found in these facts and are always more or less arbitrary and unconvincing. Hegel's transcendental dialectical deductions of the succession of different art-styles or epochs, as well as Fichte's 'transzendentale Deduktion der Ehe' etc., bear the sign of untenable attempts to rationalize the contingent, i.e., to turn the world of non-necessary facts and developments into eidetic essentially necessary facts. Although Husserl did not go this far in his attempt to give to all sciences a 'rigorous' philosophical foundation, he too fails to do justice to those epistemological methods which are required by the facts and objects of sense-experience or of historical experience. See Fichtes Werke, III, Zur Rechts- und Sittenlehre I (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1971), Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre, 'Erster Anhang des Naturrechts,' 'Grundriss des Familienrechts,' Erster Abschnitt, 'Deduction der Ehe' (§§ 1-9), pp.304-17. Soeren Kierkegaard's philosophical work, insofar as it grows out of the critique of Hegelian philosophy, has fundamentally the goal of showing that being contains moments of freedom and of fact, of contingency and of mystery (paradox) which can never be deduced a priori or become known by an alleged 'absolute system.' The very title of his Unscientific Postscript seeks to dispel the illusion of an absolute science in which all parts of reality could be known a priori and with apodictic certainty. See Part II, Chapter 5, of this study; see also Adolf Reinach, Was ist Phiinomenologie? See also by the same author, Zur Phiinomenologie des Rechts [Die apriorischen Grundlagen des biirgerlichen Rechts, 1913) (Miinchen: Kosel, 1953), in English translation by John F. Crosby in Aletheia III (1983). See von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 4. See Ingarden, Motives, pp. 43 ff. The Husserlian thesis that we can gain access solely to an 'immanent transcendence,' i.e., only to intentional objects (noemata) which are transcendent in relation to our conscious experiences (acts), but never to the transcendent transcendence of objects as they are in

342

Notes themselves and as non-constituted by noesis, is found already in The Idea of Phenomenology and finds its most radical expression in Cartesian Meditations. 137 See note 27. 138 See Ingarden, Motives, pp. 13 ff., 28 ff., 43 ff. 139 Such a lack of distinction between concept (allgemeine Bedeutungseinheit) and essence (Spezies) is found especially in Logische Untersuchungen, I (II,l), § 31, (pp. 99 ff.), for example in the following text: Ich sehe endlich ein, dass, was ich in dem genam:zten Satze meine oder . .. als seine Bedeutung auffasse, identisch ist, was es ist, ob ich denke und bin, ob uberhaupt den ken de Personen und Akte sind, oder nicht. Dasselbe gilt fur jederlei Bedeutungen, fur Subjektbedeutungen, Priidikatbedeutungen, ... usw . ... Diese wahrhafte Identitiit, die wir hier behaupten, ist nun keine andere, als die Identitat der Spezies: So, aber auch nur so, kann sie als ideale Einheit die verstreute Mannigfaltigkeit der individuellen Einzelheiten umspannen ... Die mannigfaltigen Einzelheiten zur ideal-einen Bedeutung sind naturlich die entsprechenden Aktmomente des Bedeutens, die Bedeutungsintentionen. Die Bedeutung verhiilt sich also zu den jeweiligen Akten des Bedeutens ... , wie etwa die Rate in specie zu den hier liegenden Papierstreifen, die dieselbe Rate 'haben. ' ... Die Bedeutungen bilden, so konnen wir auch sagen, eine Klasse von Begriffen im Sinne von 'allgemeinen Gegestanden. ' ... (ibid., § 31, p. 100, § 32, p. 101.) Here the confusion is twofold. The species as the general essence of objects of concepts is being confused with the meaning-unit (Bedeutung), the conceptual meaning that can be expressed in words. It should have been clear to Husserl that the attributes which he rightly sees as proper to concepts and meaning-units (such as 'true' or 'false,' 'precise' or 'imprecise') can never be attributed to the species as essences of the objects of Bedeutungen, whereas the distinction between 'general' and 'singular' applies primarly to the latter. (See ibid., § 31. p. 100.) The other confusion occurs when the conceptual meanings are identified with the Aktspezies, the general essences which would be embodied in individual acts, as the 'red as such' is realized in single red objects. This is a confusion of entirely different things and not a consequence of a laudable principle of 'economy' (Smith, 'Phanomenologie'). For the meaning of the concept 'red,' for example, is not the same as the essence of the act of meaning 'red.' The essence of the act includes, for example, that each act of meaning must be act of a person, while the concept 'red' necessarily excludes that red could be embodied in an act as its essence or as any property of it. This confusion remains throughout the first logical investigation and can also be traced in LU, II, III, and VI. Occasional references 343

Notes

140

141

142 143 144 145

146 147 148 149

150 151 152

and distinctions of Husserl, such as in LV, I § 33 (pp. 102 ff.), where Husserl distinguishes between' Bedeutung" und ' .. Begriff' im Sinne der Spezies' are insufficient because Husserl distinguishes there only between two types of 'meaning-unit' (Bedeutung) and two types of 'species.' He fails to recognize the difference in principle between the essence or Aktspezies and the conceptual meaning (Bedeutung). Husserl's expression 'Bedeutungseinheit(en), can refer to simple concepts as well as to meaning-unities 'of a higher order,' as we could call them. adopting a terminology of Alexius Meinong. These meaningunities of higher order include propositions. syllogisms. and other unities. See especially Ingarden's discussion of the 'stratum of meaning-units' in the literary work of art: Roman Ingarden. The Literary Work of Art, The Stratum of Meaning Units' (Part II. Chapter 5), pp. 62 ff. See Josef Seifert. 'Is the existence of truth dependent upon man?' Review of Metaphysics 35, 3 (March 1982), pp. 461-81. See also Seifert. 'Konnte die Wahrheit nur durch den menschlichen Geist Bestand haben?,' in: Vom Wahren und vom GWen. Festschrift fiir Balduin Schwarz zum 80. Geburstag. ed. Edgar Morscher. Josef Seifert, Fritz Wenisch (Salzburg: Verlag St Peter. 1982). pp. 9-34. Husser\. Second Logical Investigation. Alexander Ptiinder, Logik. See note 60. above. See note 141. In the LV (see text quoted in note 139) Husserl often speaks of them as entirely independent of any personal consciousness. This is due. in part. to his identification of Bedeutung with Species. In !deen and Cartesian Meditations he emphasizes the constitutive formative role of the mind in the origin of concepts without recognizing any 'ideality of meaning,' at least in the sense of timeless meaning-structures that are independent of any human consciousness. In the articles quoted in note 141, we seek to find a solution which recognizes both the active formative influence of mental acts in the genesis of concepts and those 'ideal' concepts which are in no way dependent on human consciousness and which guarantee the ideality and timelessness of truth itself. LV, I, §§ 8 ff.; 14 ff. See note 139. See LV, II. §§ 2; 7; 8; 19 a. Husserl distinguishes in Cartesian Meditations. §§ 34 ff. between active and passive synthesis (genesis). See also my article. 'Kritik am Immanentismus und Relativismus' and Miguel Garcia-Bara Lopez. Fundamentos de la Critica de la Raz6n L6gica. £nsayo Fenomenol6gico. Tesis Doctoral 113/83 (Madrid: Ed. de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 1983). pp. 233-41. Husser\. Ideen; Crisis. See. for example, Cartesian Meditations. § 64. Adolf Reinach. 'Vom Wesen der Bewegung,' Gesammelte Schriften. pp. 408 ff.

344

Notes 153 LV, Prolegomena, Chapter 7. 154. See note 100. See also LV, Prolegomena. §§ 21 ff. Compare the English text, HusserL Logical Investigations, translated by l.N. Findlay (from the second edition of LU), vol. I and II [1970]. 2nd edn. (London. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), pp. 98 ff. 155 Seifert, Erkenntnis. pp. 129 ff. 156 See note 27. 157 See Part III of this work. 158 Whereas for Kant 'intellektuelle Anschauung' (intellectual intuition) means something which man does not possess, namely a direct intuition of the intelligible essences of the nOllmena. Fichte means. with the term, something we do possess: not an intuition into nO/lmena (the existence of which Fichte denies) but a direct intuition into the constituting activity (das Setzen) of the transcendental subject. Kant denies that we have such an intuition but believes that we have, by means of the 'experiment of pure reason: based on the solution of the antinomies, an indirect proof that we must postulate such a constituting 'transcendental synthetic apperception.' 159 Cf. note 98 and the works quoted there. Richard T. Murphy, in 'The Transcendental" A priori" in Husserl and Kant: seeks to explain the self-givenness of the activity of constitution. I cannot perceive any evidence of success of this endeavor in his article. Of course, within the limits within which constitution actually occurs, as we have seen, it can be brought to evidence (directly or indirectly, by means of arguments). But, contrary to Husserl's and Murphy's claim to universal constitution, a direct and immediate experience of universal constitution of all appearances or of allnoe,nata (intentional objects) is not only not gil'en but both the opposite of this assertion is given as evidently true and the assertion itself is given as internally contradictory, as the present essay seeks to show. See on this also notes 74. 158, 201. 160 See l.N. Mohanty, Phenomenology and Ontology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970). 161 See notes 15 and 27. 162 See Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and Method (New York, Seabury Press, 1975: original title: Wahrheit and Methode, Tiibingen: l.CB. Mohr, 1960), pp. 414 ff., pp. 397 ff. There we find a certain relativization of truth to language, or - rather - an identification of truth with what is given in 'language.' In pp. 91 ff .. on play, and likewise in pp. 235 ff., the historicity of all understanding is presented as an element of the hermeneutical principle. Also the idea of a universal hermeneutics which prescinds from any 'being in itself is elaborated there, ibid., pp. 431 ff, and pp. 460-91. 163 See Truth and Method, p. 406. 164 See Dietrich von Hildebrand, Asthetik, L Gesammelte Werke, V (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1977), pp. 202 ff. 165 See Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art, pp. 117 ff .. 125 ff. 166 See Ingarden, Der Streit, pp. 79 ff.

345

Notes 167 168 169 170

171

172 173 174 175 176 177

Der Streit, pp. 84-5. Ibid .. pp. ll5 ff. Ibid., pp. 130-90. One could examine Ingarden 's distinctions critically and also add new ones. For example, 'absolute being' - in a further sense of 'being in itself - also contains absolute infinity of being and of all pure perfections. Ingarden does not mention this meaning of 'absolute being.' He sees 'absolute being' in a very limited fashion as a combination of autonomy of being, independence, and the like, and fails to state with precision this new and absolute sense of 'being in itself and 'being itself which plays a crucial role in Plato, in the great Western tradition of philosophy, particularly in Plotinus's great work, Ennead, III, 7, On Eternity and Time. Thus, besides the two main meanings of 'thing in itself' (A and B, above), in similarity to Ingarden's distinctions (2-5), we have distinguished four further senses of 'thing in itself.' If we include the last mentioned sense of 'being in itself' as 'absolutely perfect (infinite) being,' we have distinguished seven senses of 'thing in itself' thus far. But, as we have said, of the distinctions made until now, the most important one for the topic of this work, is Ingarden's first one and our second one, B. This is the title of Roger Troisfontaines's penetrating study, De I'Existence aI' etre. La philosophie de Gabriel Marcel II volumes, 2nd edn (Paris-Louvain: Nauwaelaerts, 1968). In Gabriel Marcel's terminology, 'etre' designates something superior to existence and actuality. This makes sense, and corresponds to a philosophical insight which goes back to Plato, because only the existing being as truly fulfilling its ideal, its vocation, it truly being. Therefore, Le Refus a I'invocation (the title of another work of Marcel), the refusal to obey one's vocation, is the fundamental threat to the true being of the person. It is also in this context that Marcel's negation of an original and 'first' (immediate) intuition of being, in the sense of the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, must be interpreted. For he does not intend 'being' as most abstract transcendental 'ens' but as being in its integral fullness which discloses itself gradually and through the mediation of experience. See Seifert, 'Essence and Existence.' Translated by D. Cairns, 5th impression (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), pp. 83-6. See Roman Ingarden, Motives. See Edmund Husserl, Crisis. See also note 109. See von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. For a refutation of general skepticism and relativism, see Husser!, Logische Untersuchungen, Prolegomena, Chapters 5, 8; J. Seifert, Erkenntnis; and Part II, Chapter 5 of the present study. For a specific refutation of value relativism and ethical relativism see Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1972), Chapter 9; Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg, Grundlegung der

346

Notes

178 179 180

181 182

183 184 185 186 187 188 189

190 191

192 193 194 195 196

197

Ethik (Stuttgart, Berlin, Koln, Mainz: Kohlhammer: 1969), pp. 1121; Fritz Wenisch, Die Objektivitdt der Werte (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1973). See on this difference also Giovanni Reale, Storia della Filosoffa Antica, II, Platone e A ristotele , pp. 95-107. See also Seifert, Erkenntnis, Part I, Chapter 3. See Plato, Republic, Book VI. See the discussion between Edgar Morscher and Josef Seifert concerning the rationality or irrationality of the foundations of ethics, in Vom Wahren und vom Guten, 'Josef Seifert - Edgar Morscher: Ober die Grundlagen der Ethik - Ein Dialog,' ibid., pp. 102-22. See Alexander PHinder, Logik; see also Josef Seifert, 'Is the Existence of Truth dependent upon Man?' (compare note 141). See Josef Seifert, 'Truth and History, Noumenal Phenomenology (Phenomenological Realism) defended against some claims made by Hegel. Dilthey, and the Hermeneutical School,' Diotima, 11 (1983), pp. 160--81. See especially Gabriel Marcel, Etre et avoir (Paris, 1935). See The Acting Person, pp. 36 ff. See Hildebrand, Ethics, Chapter 3. Hildebrand, Das Wesen der Liebe, Gesammelte Werke III (Regensburg-Stuttgart: Habbel-Kohlhammer, 1971), Chapter 8 ff.; see also of the same author, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. See What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. Husserl, Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. This concept is embodied especially in the philosophy of science called 'critical rationalism' which is being defended by Karl Popper, and was developed further by Hans Albert. See especially Hans Albert, Traktat iiber kritische Vernunft, 5th edn (Tubingen: J .C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1980). See the classical work of Alexander Pfander, Logik, which represents a subtle and thorough modern phenomenological elucidation of the meaning of 'truth as adaequatio.' See Adolf Reinach, 'A Contribution toward the Theory of the Negative Judgment,' translated by Don Ferrarri, Aletheia, II (1981), pp. 15-64. See also the introduction to the article by John Crosby and Josef Seifert, ibid., pp. 9-14. See Ingarden, Der Streit; Barry Smith, Parts and Moments. See Balduin Schwarz, Der [rrtum in der Philosophie (Munster i.W.: Verlag Aschendorff, 1934), especially pp. 61 ff. See Seifert, Erkenntnis, I, Chapter 3. Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 5. See Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige (Breslau, 1917). In this famous work, Otto introduces the specifically religious idea of the Holy and of its essential moments, analyzing them in a very phenomenological manner; yet he reduces them ultimately, under the influence of neoKantianism, to subjective religious categories. See notes 27, 43, 136. See also Part II, Chapter 4, of this work. 347

Notes 198 The 'network and mutual corroboration of experiences' is a notion introduced into the epistemology of the cognition of the external world by Husserl, Scheler, von Hildebrand, and others. 199 Max Scheler sees (in this respect not entirely unlike Kant) one main criterion for the reality of the material world in the datum of 'resistance' of the world to our wishes and experience, which occurs on the level of sense-perception, especially in the sense of touch. 200 See Kant's justification for retaining the notion of 'thing in itself' in the Critique of Pure Reason and in the Prolegomena. Compare Part II, Chapter 4 of the present essay. 201 Cf. note 98. See also Sokolowski, The Formation of Husserl's Concept of Constitution. Sokolowski seeks to diminish, and almost to deny, the importance of the controversy between idealism and realism. In reality, as a philosophical reflection on the various senses of 'thing in itself' and on the essential claim to be in itself of crucially significant beings and objects of our experience shows, the problem of the transcendence of human knowledge to 'things in themselves' deserves to be called one of the few key-problems of all philosophy. Since all other decisive problems of philosophy (of value and the foundation of ethics; of the human person-soul and immortality, of the absolute being, and others) depend on this one and must be answered radically differently depending on the answer to the problem of realism/idealism, this problem deserves to be called the fundamental problem of philosophy. On the development of Husserl's philosophy of constitution, see also Walter Biemel, The Decisive Phases in the Development of Husserl's Thought,' in The Phenomenology of Husser!, ed. R.O. Elveton (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), pp. 148-73. Biemel explains well (p. 152) the roots of Husserl's theory of constitution, which he rightly calls the key problem for Husserl's phenomenology, in the psychologistic interpretation of numbers as products of the psychic acts of counting, an interpretation found in Husserl's Die Philosophie der Arithmetik. Biemel seeks to interpret (ibid., p. 158) the notion of constitution, along the lines of a letter of Husserl to Hocking, in the 'innocent' sense of constituting acts being only those acts in which certain objects become present to us. Constitution, if it has no other meaning, would be the wrong designation for such an attribute of conscious acts, because every realist philosophy will certainly recognize that any possible object can become present to the intellect or to the experience only by the mediation of certain acts. Yet this is certainly not the meaning of Husserl's thesis of constitution, as the many quotes in this essay demonstrate. See on this also Joseph J. Kockelmans, 'World-Constitution. Reflections on Husserl's Transcendental Idealism,' Analecta Husser!iana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, ed. A-T. Tymieniecka (Dordrecht, Hd: D. Reidel, 1971), I, pp. 11-35. Cf. also Alwin Diemer, Edmund Husser!. Versuch einer systematischen Darstellung seiner Phiinomenologie (Meisenheim a.G.: Anton Hain, 1965). Quentin

348

Notes

202

203 204

205 205a 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214

Lauer has also given a fundamentally subjectivist interpretation to Husserl's phenomenology, and to phenomenology in general. Cf. Quentin Lauer, The Triumph of Subjectivity. An Introduction to Transcendental Phenomenology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1978). For a summary on some main tenets of Iso Kern's interpretation of Husserl and of Husserl's own theory of constitution in Erste Philosophie and in Formale und Transzendentale Logik, see the article of Kockelmans, quoted in this note. For a critical elaboration of the problem of constitution and of the meaning of 'transcendence' in the context of this discussion, see also Roman Ingarden, 'Die vier Begriffe der Transzendenz und das Problem des Idealismus in Husserl.' Analecta Husserliana, I. ibid .. pp. 36-74. The idea of self-constitution or self-genesis (-creation) was rejected by most classical and medieval philosophers, from Parmenides (who gives reasons for the untenability of a self-creation of being from nothing), Plato, and Aristotle on to Descartes and Leibniz. See, for example, the particularly subtle and brilliant text of Anselm of Canterbury on this topic, Monologion, Chapter 3-9. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Bose (Beyond Good and Evil), ff. 54. For a defense of this point against Kant's argument, from the alleged 'paralogism of pure reason,' against rational psychology's reasons given for the existence of a substantial simply soul. see Seifert, Leib und Seele. Ein Beitrag zur philosophischen Anthropologie (Salzburg: Universitatsverlag, A. Pustet, 1973), pp. 45-60; Erkenntnis, Part II, Chapter 2, especially pp. 269 ff. Kant's argument is found in Critique of Pure Reason, B 409-10 (406-13). Ibid., §§ 37, 38. See Husserl, LV, Prolegomena, § 36, pp. 140--3. Ibid., § 39. Ibid., § 39, English text, op. cit., pp. 149-51. See the preceding notes and the corresponding quotes from Husserl in the text. See Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person. See also Rocco Buttiglione ,II Pensiero di Karol Wojtyla (Milano: Jaca Book, 1982). See Mohanty, Phenomenology and Ontology. See also notes 98,159, 201, of this work. See von Hildebrand, What is Philosophy?, Chapter 7, p. 16. See Part I. and Part II, Chapter 5, of the present study. See on this, Part II, Chapter 5, of the present study. See note 123, above.

349

INDEX

a priori.42, 50,104,115,123,124, 125,128,129,130,131,132,148, 159,160; essence, 341; necessity, 105 Abschattung, -en, 62, 139 absolute: being, 177. 249,345; certaintv, 162,163,189,213,261; essentia'i necessity, 200-2; knowledge, 272; necessity, 200, 202,299,300 absolutely necessary, 148,292 abstraction, 85 accident. 306 act/s, 186, 190,306; of judging, 36 active synthesis, 141, 166,344 adaequatio,55 Adeodatus,39 adequacy, 266,278, 279; of knowledge to reality, 266; to an object, 275 adequate, 277; to reality, 267 agnostic, agnosticism, 65, 292 Albert, Hans, 17,279,347 alogical, 65-70 Alston, William P., 326 ambiguity/-ies, 176 analogy/-ies, 45, 65, 333 analytic/-ai, 105, 106,200; necessity, 57,208; philosophy, 33 animal/s, 284, 292 anoumena, 10

anschaulichen Charakter, 52 Anselm of Canterbury, St, 100,208, 302,349 Ansicht/-en, 62 anthropocentric autonomism, 134 anthropocentrism, 135, 136 Antigone, 75 antinomy/-ies, 126, 127, 128, 133, 134,322,334,345 anti-phenomenological, 175, 176 apodictic: -certainty, 123, 142, 154, 155,159,162,202,213-15; evidence, 105, 157; knowledge, 140,163,341 apodictically certain, 155 Apollo,296 aporetic 'seeming' necessity, 202 appear, 192 appearance/s, 9,10,11,70,153, 154,192,235,236,238-40,242, 243,244,245,246,247,258,259, 285,287,288,289,292,298,304, 307,316,318,319,335 appearing, 11, 179, 191 Aquinas, St Thomas, 31,38,86, 100,148,184,194,206,208,234, 270,332 Archimedean points, 149, 160, 192 argumentation, 56-60 argument/s, 265 Aristotelianism,323

350

Index Aristotle, 2,15,26,27,31,34,37, 49,55,56,60,61,99,180,193, 200,212,228,256,305,306,328, 329,349 art, 29, 30, 289-90 as if. 296 aspecUs, 149, 150,230,236,238, 240,243,246,249,258,259,288, 289,293,319 assertion, 54 association, 130,340 assumption/s,61 atheism, 69, 295 atheistic, 65-70 attitude/s, 268, 269, 270, 277-9 Augustine, St, 31, 34, 39, 40, 42, 57, 61,68,89,96,110,112,114,132, 147,148,154,155,180,181,182, 184,186,187,188,189,190,191, 192,193,194,196,199,200,201, 206,210,213,228,250,270,274, 292,304,307,314,316,323,331, 333,339 Augustinian, Ill, 112 authentic essence, 249-50 autonism, 135; anthropocentric, 134 autonomous, 299; being, 3,237, 286; existence, 287, 289, 290 autonomy, 249; of being, 285 axiological, 195

318,321; qua being, 70; real, 142,

181-215,182, 190, 192, 247; the object, 297 belief. 162,322 Berger, Peter, 227 Berkeley, George, 98,113,332 Biemel, Walter, 348 blind assent, 196 Bloch, Ernst, 250 body, 185,202 Bonaventure, St, 22, 24, 50, 61, 110,111,112,180,196,198,201, 202,206,210,213,214,215,330,

333 bracketing, 77, 153 'Bradley, Francis Herbert, 54 brahman, 177 brain-events, 13 Breda, Ludwig von, 114 Bretano, Franz, 47, 65,272 Bruegel, Pieter, 29,326 Buttiglione, Rocco, 349

'Back to things themselves', 7-117, 7,9,10,11,13,22,25,52-6,90, 308-12 be,192 Beck, Lewis W" 330 Beck, Robert N" 325 being/s, 8,10,11,12, 14,94, 174, 178,192,253,293,295-302,297, 298,301; absolute, 177,249,345; autonomous, 3, 237, 286; autonomy of 285; heteronomous, 3,304; ideal, 142,311; in itself, 153,249-50,282,284,287,289, 292,296,297,345,345-6; in themselves, 282-302; itself, 11; non-constituted, 3,150,219,220,

351

Caffarra, Carlo, 326 Cairns, Dorion, 330,346 Calvin, John, 97 Calvinism, 97 Carnap, Rudolf, 43 Carr, David, 332 Cartesian, 52, Ill; doubt, 69,161 categorial intuition, ](), 138,297 categorical imperative, 124 category/ies, 43,128, 129, 131,165, 167, 177, 234; of thinking, 292 causa sui, 304 causal, 18; determination, 339; explanation, 10-12, 12-14, 1522,30; laws of nature, 133; relation/s,292 causality, 25-8, 125, 127,132,133; efficient, 132, 133; principle of, 132,133 cause/s, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21,22,24,25,26,27,28,29,72, 73, 132,133,228,256;four,26,27 certain, 191; knowledge, 261 certainty, 17,69,89, 101, 148,157,

Index 160,161,164,182,187,196,230, 267,323 Cervantes, Miguel de, 246, 290

173,174,175,178,184,186,192, 193,194,205,224,228,249,250, 252,254,272,273,286,288,289, 292,293,294,295,296,315,316,

character!s, 298 chreontic philosophy, 10 Christianity, 300, 305 Churchill, James S., 340 Cicero, 132 claim: of mind-independent autonomous existence, 300; to exist in itself, 282-5, 285-7; to exist 'in themselves,' 221,293; to truth,280 Clarification of terms, 33-42 clarity, 59 classical philosophy, 8 Claudel, Paul, 246 closed system, 45 co-constituted, 149,288 cogitatum, 62,113 cogito, 154, 179-80, 181-215, 190, 193,197,299,300,304,307,321, 323,324; argument, 191 co-given/ness, 53, 46 cognition, 138, 143, 145, 173, 182, 184,190,193,197,339 cognitive, 168; acts, 169; infallibility, 213 coherence,17,46,264,280,297, 298,300; theory oftruth, 54, 55, 264,280 Collodi,318 color,318 common sense, 37 communicability, 265,268 communist, 54 computer, 38 concept/s, 141, 142, 165-8,343 condition/s, 72, 73,126,204,264 conditional, 202 conjecture/s,83 connaturality,264 Conrad-Martius, Hedwig, 247,337 conscience, 186 conscious: acts, 164; being, 186: subject, 289 consciousness, 9, 63, 70,114,134, 144, 146, 147, 149, 154, 155, 164,

317,319,321,322,323,324,330, 344; transcendental, 134, 162, 192,295,307 consensus, 75,262-5,265,268,298; theory oftruth, 280 constituted, 63,146,147,149,150, 154,161,162,174.178,179,219, 236,237,240.250.253.271,273, 286,288,289,292,294,304,308, 310,316,318; being/s, 3, 239, 287-90,303-12,308,312,314, 317-19; object/s, 192,316 constituting, 178,309,312,319; subject, 310 constitution, 9, 88,140,150,151, 170,174,176,177,178,192,205, 219,220,228,230,238,239,240, 244,254,285,286,292,303,304, 305-7,306,307,308,309,310, 312,312-17,317,318,319,320, 321,322,331,337,338,339,348; transcendental, 152, 173-4, 1746,321; universal, 178-9,310.345 constitutive being, 250 constitutum, 64,138,140,167 construction/s, 1. 1().... 12 , 43.44, 59, 69,320,321 constructionism, 45 content, 103 contingency. 170,201.342; of essences, 107,201 contingent, 84,198,200; essences, 106 contradiction/s, 21. 126, 127,177, 192,225,226.319-21,322 contradictory meanings of 'thing in itself,' 225 correspondence, 267 Coser. LewisA .. 325 Cowan. Louise. 326 creation. 285. 312. 321 criterion/a. 127.210.211.212.213. 297 critical, 35. 51. 123-36; philosophy.

352

Index 133; rationalism. 17.347 Crosby. John F .. 337,342,347 Crowley. Ruth and Ann. 340 Daniel, 232. 297 datum/a. 48. 64 death. 232; of God. 295 deceived. 191. 192 deceiver. 183 deception/s. 191 . 192. 282. 283. 296 316 deduction. 50. 292 deductive: knowledge. 117: reasoning. 65 delusion/so 154.296 demonstrative. 328 dependence. 104: independence. 102.103.104. 105 depth-grammar. 37 derived purely intentional objects. 247.297 Descartes. Rene. 50. 61. 69. 88. 89. 96.100.113.147.154.158.159. 161.180.181.183.190.191.192. 197.198.228.270.292.304.305. 307.316.323.330.333.341,349

description. 48. 51. 52. 56 dialectical deduction/so 342 Dialectical Materialism. 259. 260 dialogue. 56. 58 dianoia. 61.261.3-10

Diemer. Alwin. 348 different sources of the claim of mind-independent being. 286-7 dignity. 135.324 Dilthey. Wilhelm.331. 347 disagreement/s.58 discovery. 167.271.314 discovering. 319 divine illumination. 333 Dods. M .. 192 dogmatism. 34 dogmatist/s.320 Don Quixote. 287. 290 Dostovevskv. Fvodor. 81 doubt~145.j54~180. 181. 182.187. 188.190-8.192.193.194.195.

196.197.198.199.201.214.215. 299. 321. 323 d6xa. 17.53.214.261. 300. 340 dream/so dreaming. 245. 297.314. 316 dubitability. 195 Eastern philosophies. 273 Eccles. John c.. 326 eclectic. 10 efficient causality. 132. 133 ego.43.89.154. 160. 167.170.174. 175.178.253.254.288.304.307. 315.330.339: empiricaL 315. 316.338: transcendental, 147. 170.176.313.314.338 egological genesis. 170 eidetic. 48.107: analvsis. 108.140: cognition. 112: experience. 110: intuition. 80.113: knowledge. 88. 109.112.140: laws. 77: method. Ill: necessities. 292: phenomenology. 85: reduction. 85.86.88.91.93.94.96.100.101. 108. 109: science/so 80.156 eidos/e. 15.50.71. 86.109.110.11 1. 112. 114. 130.292 eikasfa.340

Elveton. R.O .. 348 empathy. 273 empirical, 50. 84. 85. 131. 147.334. 339: ego. 315. 316.338: experience of transcendental subjectivity. 315: laws. 142: methods. 212: necessitv. 204: sciences. 80.338 . empiricism. 260 empiricist. 17: objectivity. 278: rationalism. 278 empty meaning-intentions. 166 Engels. Friedrich. 21. 71 Enlightenment. the. 129 epistcme. 16.17.53.70.261.300. 340

epistemology/ical.3.164 epistemological category/ies. 260 epoche.44.76.77-117. 100. 106.

353

Index 108,113,121. 141. 145, 156,259, 162,169,170,177,331,332 err. erring, 189, 197,316 error/s.45.46, 54,195,196,230, 234,259,260,269,282,283,285, 298,314,316 esse,91,92,93,94 essence/s, 1. 8, 9,11,12,13,14,15, 16,18,19,20,21,22,23,25,43, 49,50,56,57,59,71,83,84,86, 87,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98, 100, 101,102,103, 107,108, 112, 114,115,116,130,131,140,141, 142,152,156,158,165,166,167, 193,250,286,287,293,295,297, 310,333,338,343; essentially necessary, 10, 106, 195; eternal, 300; general, 343; ideal, 166; necessary,49,50,52,61,62,106, 107,109,109-113,110,113-17, 131,147,160,165,166,167,171, 179-80,181-215,182,198,292, 322; necessary intelligible, 324; objec!ive, 191; of existence, 93; of the world, 26; pure, 333; universal, 199 essential: laws, 300; necessities, 51, 57,105,106,114,166,173,179, 198-205,204-5,209,312,338 essentialism, 92, 94, 332 essentially necessary: essences, 300; facts, 198,295,317-19; laws, 297, 301,310,322,339; universal facts, 299 eternal: essences, 300; truths, 192, 333 eternity, 68, 206 ethics, 125, 132,347 every possi ble world, 331 evidence, 60, 117, 172, 197, 198, 212,213,300,310,313,338 evident knowledge, 339 evil/s, 98,161,196; for us, 276 exception less generality, 206 exemplary cause, 15 existence, 10,49,91,92,93,94, 95-9,97,98,99,100,101,102, 107,117,155,160,183,184,190,

191,192,198,199,293,331,333; autonomous, 287,289,290; essence of, 93; ideal, 141; real, 80,154,156,170,179-80,301-2; transcendent, 86, 295 existential, 98; subjectivity, 276 existing, 50; being, 49; in itself, 297 experience, 42, 43, 47,84,93,109, 115,123,124,125,126,128,130, 131,151,161,176,183,204,232, 298,316,333 experiment/s, 201 eye/s, 185, 186 Faber, Marvin,331 facets, 288, 289 fact/s, 170, 192,342 factual truth/s, 190 faith, 68, 279, 300, 301, 322 false, 192; analogies, 32; appearances, 242 falsification, 83 fantasy, 290, 296, 297 Ferrari, Don, 347 Fichte, Immanuel Hermann,325 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 19,20,28, 43,96,98,155,159,175,178,225, 293,299,304,305,307,325,342, 345 fiction, 246, 247, 292 fideism, 47,112 Findlay,J.N.,100,344 finite, 129,229 Finnis, John, 326 first logical principles, 340 first principles, 328, 329 form,48,52 formal dominion of the universal nature over the individual case, 199 formal/material, 105 forms of intuition, 292 foundation/s, 261 four causes, 26, 27 free, 202,339 freedom, 57, 97, 98,125,126,127, 132,133,134,148,199,245,255, 292,293,342

354

Index functional concepts, 272-6 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 72, 78, 227,228,229,345 Garcia-Bar6 Lopez, Miguel, 344 Garve, Christian, 126,334 genealogy, 295 general, 199; causallaw/s, 133; essences, 343 genesis, 26, 220, 314, 344 genetic fallacy, 29 genetic phenomenology, 140 genus, 200 Gerhardt, c.J., 184 German idealism, 3 Gibson, W.R.,327, 328 Gilson, Etienne, 95, 332 given,44,45,48,51,62,67,69 giveness, 63, 64, 174,296,317 God,89,99-102,100, 129,134, 135, 136,155,197,202,208,248,292, 293,294,295,296,335,336,341 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, v, 305 good for us, 276 goodwill,337 goodness, 301 goods for the person, 196 Gorgias,95 Grabowicz, George G., 340 Grisez, Germain, 326 guilt, 57, 81,148 habitus of reality, 290, 296, 297 Haldane, Elizabeth, 183, 197 Haller, 335 hallucination/s, 237, 296 Hannibalsson, Arn6r,340 happiness, 189 Hartmann, Nicolai, 32,131,138, 144, 146 Hegel, Georg W.F., 28, 64, 71,72, 100,157,159,160,170,233,272, 278,302,307,326,331,342,347 Heidegger, Martin, 13,25,64,72, 95,170,221,273,288,293,331, 340 Heintel, Erich, 71 Hengstenberg, Hans-Eduard, 346

Heraclitus, 58 Henry of Ghent, 180,333 Hering, Jean, 107,333 hermeneutical circle, 46 heteronomous being, 3, 304 heteronomy, 249 Hildebrand, Dietrich von, 23, 47, 50,61,80,106,107,108,149,152, 161,187,199,200,211,212,258, 270,288,299,314,320,329,331, 333,337,339,340,342,345,346,

347,349 Hildebrand-Jourdain, Alice von, 59,330

historical, 73, 74, 301; conditions, 270; events, 301; facts, 302; relativism, 74, 75; scholarship, 300 historicist, 76 historicity, 71,170,300,345 historiography, 299 history, 10, 11,70--6,75,175,228, 271,347 Hocking,348 Hoeres, Walter, 114,329,333,337 Hoffmann, E.T.A., 287 Holdheim, William H., 325 Holscher, Ludger, 339 holy,288,331 hope, 232, 233 Hiibner, Kurt, 17 human aspect, 288 Hume, David, 2, 7, 42, 43, 61, 72, 89,113,114,130,132,151,201, 279,323,332,336 Husserl, Edmund, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10,11,24,25,26,31,32,34,35, 36,40,44,48,50,51,52,54,61, 62,63,64,66,69,77,78,79,80, 81,82,85,86,87,88,89,90,91, 92,93,94,95,96,98,101,102, 103,104,105,106,107,108,109, 110,111,113,114,116,117,13780,142-9,153-62,162-5,171-3, 194,198,210,212,221,223,224, 225,228,233,235,248,252,254, 255,257,258,261,265,271,272, 273,278,286,288,293,295,299,

355

Index 304,305,306,307,308,309,310, 312,313,314,315,317,321,322,

326,327,328,329,330,331,332, 333,334,334,337,338,339,340, 341,342,343,344,345,346,347, 348,349 Husserlian,112 hypothesis/es, 61,264 impossibility, 201,202,203 in itself, 124, 149, 191,284,288 incomplete knowledge, 46 incorporeal, 186 indefinite, 190 independence, 103 independently from the subject, 285-7 indeterminacy, 283 indirect knowledge, 65 individual, 198, 199; ego, 176 indubitability, 190,264,267 indubitable, 53, 187, 195; certainty, 161,213,297,299, 301; evidence, 163,330; intuition, 341; knowledge, 162, 180, 180--215, 267,303-24,341; truth, 194 indubitably certain knowledge, 279 induction, 82, 83, 84 infallible, 213, 328,341; knowledge, 303-24 infinite, 129, 189,229; number, 189 infinitely many truths, 190 infinity, 346 infrastructure, 21 Ingarden, Roman, 24, 61,107,137, 140,150,152,153,158,159,162, 167,219,236,246,247,248,249, 258,261,283,284,287,289,290,

308,339,340,341,342,344,345, 346, 347, 349 injudicabilitas,210 I, 190,288,304, 306,307; am, 191, 192; character, 243; exist, 188; -thou relation, 288 ideals, 112,334; of God, 336 ideal, 171, 172,338, 339; being, 142, 311; essences, 166; essential laws, 172; essential necessities, 338;

existence, 141; objects, 142; of pure reason, 335 idealism, 140, 141, 142-9,171,259, 285,299,348; (see a/so 'transcendental idealism ') ideality, 166 ideation, 80--8, 83,107 ideology/ies, 21, 54, 72, 269, 298 ignorance, 14,203,334 illusion/s, 154,246,247,259,260, 276,295,296,311 image/s, 146, 186, 191 image-theory, 146 imagination, 237,289-90,297 immanent, 174,336; objects, 164; perception, 162; transcendence, 114,138,145,146,164,170,252, 342 immediacy, 190 immediate, 183, 187,212,346; experience, 184; insight, 31,305; premisses, 328; truth, 184 immutable, 292 inner contradictions, 178-9 inner truth, 300, 301 inner-subjective, 294 innumerable, 189 inscrutable, 335 insight, 49, 50, 56, 59, 75,107,109, 117,202,203,265,311 intellect, 270 intellectual: attitudes, 47; community, 58; intuition, 345 intelligible: aspect/s, 243; necessity, 50 intelligibility, 31,56,207,211,213 intentional, 138,304; acts, 143, 144, 148,163,168,249,290,291; object/s,72,116,146,147,162, 194,249,252,317,342; structure, 193 intentionality, 44, 63,146,253,254, 271 interior, 184 inter-subjective, 294, 298; existence, 295 intersubjectivity, 56--60, 96, 177, 293,294

356

Index intuition, 1. 49, 50, 58, 63,107,116, 141,152,158,183,231,328,345, 346: categoriaL 10, 138,297: eidetic, 80,113: forms of, 292: indubitable, 341: intellectuaL 345 intuitive knowledge, 29 invention, 54 irrationality, 347 irreaL 192 isolation, 103 Jon,as, Hans, 326 Judaism, 300 judgment/s, 36, 54, 55,151. 196, 277-9,279,280,282 justice, 20,110,199,250 justification of the claim to autonomous existence, 300 Kant, ImmanueL 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 35, 42,50,51,60,61,62,63,64,72, 81,98,100,123-136,139,150, 151,153,155,158,161,175,177, 178,204,205,209,210,214,223, 224,225,226,227,228,231,233, 235.238.239.252.265.278.293. 294.295.296.299,305.306.307. 315,322,330,334,335,336,337, 339,340,345,347,348,349 Kantian, 335 Kerns, Iso, 348 Kersten, F,,328 Kierkegaard,S~ren, 71,160,256, 278,300,342 Kleist. Heinrich von, 8,59,204 knowing, 182 knowledge, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 70, 145,173-4,189,194,195,213, 215,227,230,245,271,282,292, 299,318,319,320,328.338; absolute knowledge, 272; apodictic, 140, 163,341; certain, 261; deductive, 117; eidetic, 88, 109,112,140; evident, 339; incomplete, 46; indirect, 65: indubitable, 162, 180, 180--215, 267,303-24,341; indubitably certain, 279; infallible, 303-24; in

the narrower sense, 235: in the wider sense, 235: mediation of. 228; neutraL 268, 270: objective, 260,261,262-5,265-8,268,26970,270--1,271-2: of things in themselves, 252-":81,303: of timeless essences, 172: of unconstituted being, 312, 318: philosophical. 45, 47,187,341: positive, 61: private, 262: rationaL 321: rationally grounded, 265: self. 184, 186, 187,190,274:sense,139: speculative, 45, 66, 69: subject of. 271: subjective, 187,261. 266: transcendence of. 137,138,329, 330.348: voluntaristic conception of. 269 Kockelmans, Joseph J" 87,89,331. 348,349 Kuhn, Thomas, 17 Landmann, MichaeL 14 language,37,38,39,41,42,70--6, 175,228,345: games, 38, 72 laterally given, 272-5 Lauer, Quentin, 341,348 Laun, Andreas, 326 laws of nature, 105,200,201. 209, 297 learn. 40 learning, 227,228 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 32, 62, 95,98,182,183,349 Lenin, Vladimir IIIyich, 32 life, 186, 190, 191. 293: 288, 339 lifeless substances, 292 linguistic, 57: analysis, 33-42, 37, 38,41. 42: habit. 57: necessity, 196 literary: critic, 29: work, 297: work of art, 287, 290 literature, 296, 297 logic, 7,24,60,62,124,171.280, 338,340; of experience, 298 logical: principles, 333: validity, 280 logos, 58 love,156,192,278,293,341

357

Index Low. Reinhard. 326 luciferic.229 man. 129.162.336.340 Mannheim. Karl. 329 Marcel. Gabriel. 258. 273.331.346. 347 Maritain. Jacques. 8. 326 Maritain. Raissa. 8 Marra. William. Jr. 36 Marx. Karl. 21. 71 Marxism. 72: Leninism. 285 Marxist. 21 material beings. 292 mathematics. 17. 124 McKenna. Stephen. 182. 190 meaning/so 165. 166. 168; fulfilling, 141. 168-9: giving. 141. 168-9; unit/so 167.290.297; unities, 166; unities of higher order, 344 mediation of knowledge, 228 Meinong. Alexius, 65, 344 mere appearances, 242 metaphor/s.45 metaphysics/ical, 3, 25, 60, 65, 69, 70.72.331,337; thesis, 90 method/so 20. 52--6, 55, 62, 78, 90, 91.277-9,280--1; (see also 'phenomenological method') methodic doubt, 159 ,methodological. 90; bracketing, 162:epoche, 162-5 mind,185,186.187;dependence, 244;dependent,237,246,247; independent, 247; independent autonomy, 289-90 miracle/s, 297 misconception/s,56 misleading appearances, 242 mistaken paradigms, 31-2 mode of giveness, 287,288,296 model/s, 16,31-2,44,45 Mohanty, J.N., 175,345,349 Moore, G.E., 14,326 moral attitudes, 47 moral disvalue, 196 morality, 20, 23, 25,124,125,126, 129,134,135,136

358

More, Thomas. 75 morphic. 84 Morscher. Edgar, 344.347 motive/s, 123-30 Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus, 259 Mulligan. Kevin,333 mundane experience, 179 Murphy, Richard T.. 337,345 music, 241 mystical. 65-70 myth/s, 45 naive, 70--6, 92 Nakhnikian, George, 326, 331 natural: attitude, 86, 87, 92,107, 108,110,159,162,163,164,286; experience, 110; standpoint, 169 Nazi,54 necessary, 10, 107, 190; autonomous being, 301; essences,49,50,S2.61,62,106, 107,109,109-13,110,113-17, 131,147,160,165,166,167,171, 179-80,181-215,182,198,292, 322; intelligible essences, 324; laws, 338; propositions, 51; structure of knowledge, 319-21; truths,Sl, 148,190--98,308,331 necessitylies, 49,106, 107, 108,115, 130,132,203,204; a priori, lOS; absolute essential, 200--2; analytic, 57,208; eidetic, 292; empirical, 204; essential, 51, 57, 105,106,114,116,166,173,179, 198-205,204-S, 209,312,338; ideal essential, 338; intelligible, 50; linguistic, 196; objective, 196; of nature, 200--2; of thinking, 209; psychological, 203; statistical, 201; subjective, 196, 209; subjective transcendental, 204-5; transcendental, 209 negative states of affairs, 283 neo-Platonic, 112 network of experience, 298, 299 neutral, 275; attitude, 277, 278; knowledge, 268, 270; objectivism, 277

Index 275,278,279,280,280-1,281, 334; of being, 311; of method, 266; of subjective being, 311; of truth,311 obvious, 56 Olson, Kenneth R., 340 omnipotence, 201 omniscient, 229 ontic: autonomy, 236, 240, 244-7, 247,292; claim, 295; condition of the possibility, 179; heteronomy, 236,244-7 ontically heteronomous, 248 ontologicaL 48; argument, 302; autonomy, 301; dependence, 164; principles, 333 onfology,65 open system, 46 opinion, 17, 214, 268 Otto, Rudolph, 288,331,347

Newman, John Henry, 47 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 8, 20, 23, 70, 75,136,295,305,349 nihilism, 292 noema, noemata, 9,26,44,62,63, 70,87,113,116,138,139,150, 161,162,163,192,220,221,224, 235,255,291,292,294,295,314, 342 noesis, 26,31,44.49,53,61,63,70, 77,113,117,138,139,255,261, 285,291,292,300,340 non-constituted, 63,174,192,294; being,3,150,219,220,318,321; facts, 316; SUbject, 307-8 nonsense, 253 not-constituted, 316, 317-19 nothing, II, 182, 183,197,233,248 'nothing-but' method, 22 noumenal phenomenology, 312, 313,331 noumenology, 322 noumenon/a, 2,3,9,10,34,51,64, 150,177,219,231,238,239,241, 251. 313, 322,339 nous,31,49 number, 189 object/s, 123, 166,186, 187, 190, 192, 194,252,262, 273,307; of consciousness, 245; of human thought, 295; position, 271,274 objective, 51,187,252-81,260, 272-6,277-9,279-81,282-5; accessibility, 268; and 'subjective' as ontological categories, 255-60; as 'objectively meant to be,' 258-59; as 'real', 256--7; being, 259; being as 'being in itself,' 257; claim, 286; essence, 191; givenness, 275-6; knowledge, 260,261,2625,265-8,269-70,270-1,271-2; necessity, 196; truth, 280; validity, 289 objectivism, 113,323,324,332 objectivist, 51; realism, 308-12 objectivity, 71,228,254,256,266,

Palacios, Juan-Miguel, 337 pan-identity, 274 paradigms, 32, 264 paradox, 342 paralogism of pure reason, 349 Parmenides, 234, 283, 302, 349 particular, 200 Pascal, Blaise, 73,331 passive, 169; synthesis, 141,166, 344 Paul, St,33] perception, 138, 139, 141,143,150, 158,161,163,175 perfection,333,335 permission, 36 person/s,96,132,244,245,255, 256,289,292,293,296,300 personalistic metaphysics, 323 Pfiinder, Alexander, 24, 34, 36, 54, 61,82,165,194,279,331,333, 344,347 phaenomena, 238 phantasm/s,191 phenomenological, 7, 9,11,101, 165-8; maxim, 55; metaphysics, 67; method, 1,2,9,10,11,19,50, 51,52,56,88,121,292,324,330;

359

Index philosophy, 9, 45, 49, 68, 92; realism, 60, 61, 62-5, 69, 70-76, 96,137-80,219,220,221,320; reduction, 79,80-8,86-7,87,88113,94,96,100,101,102,140 phenomenology, 1,2,3,7,9,10,15. 22-5,25-8,28-31,31-2,45,5660,60-2,65-70,66,67,69,90, 108,109,156,253,254,258,322, 333,348; realist, 62; (see also 'transcendental phenomenology') phenomenon/a, 11,64, 176,231, 322,339 philosophical: errors, 33; knowledge, 45, 47,187,341; method, 12 philosophizing, 56 philosopher, 41 philosophy, 9,10,11,21,28-31,38, 45,60-2,115,158,163,169-170, 232,265,266,279,341 Philosophy as a Rigorous Science, 278 physics, 124 Pieper, Josef, 270 pistis,340 plant/s,292 Plato,1,2,14, 15,16,30,31,32,45, 47,50,53,56,57,60,61,72,75, 81,99,110,112,114,123,156, 180,206,232,261,266,270,300, 302,333,340,346,347,349 Platonic, 50, 57,58, 112; Augustinian, 11 Platonism, 50, 71 plausibility, 301 Plotinus, 31,68,148,184,346 Poltawski, Andrzej, 325 Popper, Karl, 17,82,84,263,279, 326,347 positive knowledge, 61 positivism, 69, 260. positivist, 17 possibility/ies, 83, 98, 283 possibleworld/s, 85, 130, 199 postulate, 336; of practical reason, 295

Potocki, A., 325 pragmatic, 16, 18 pragmaticist theory of truth, 280 pragmatist theory of truth, 264, 280 prejudice/s, 56, 57 premature systematization, 10-12, 42-7,44 pre-philosophical,56 pre-SocratiC/s, 72, 99 presupposition, 55 presuppositionless, 52-62,341 primacy of the intellect over the will,269 principle/s, 43, 60, 61; of causality, 132,133; of contradiction, 179, 193,194,305; of excluded middle, 283; of principles , 54, 78, 111,112,116 private knowledge, 262 privation/s, 234 probability, 156,157 Procrustes, 42 productivity, 312 progress, 16, 18 promise, 202 proof/s, 107.212 proposition/s, 36, 54,166,344 protention.150 psychological necessity, 203 psychologism.7.36,47.48,62.171, 309.310 psychology. 30.338 pure: appearance, 240-2; consciousness, 87,142,164; ego. 142,176;essences,333; perfections. 333,346; phenomenon/a, 86.140; reason. 128,334,335,336; transcendental thought, 293 purely intentional objects. 247.290 purification, 270 quasi-judgment. 246. 287.297 question, 195 radical, 158; constitution. 304 ratio,lnes, 292 rational. 51. 60-2; knowledge. 321

360

Index rationalism, 129, 158,278 rationalistic, 278 rationality, 211,212,253.305.347 rationally grounded knowledge, 265 reaL 171, 172. 191, 192.338.339; acts. 339; being. 142. 181-215. 182. 190. 192,247;ego. 147; existence. 80.154.156. 170. 17980. 301-2; subject. 191; transcendence. 138; world, 171-3 Reale. Giovanni, 72. 325.331.346 realism, 2, 3. 66, 314. 322. 324. 348; idealism. 348 realist. 51, 165.304,320; phenomenologist/s, 9,10; phenomenology. 62 reality. 347; of material objects. 299 really existing: being, 155; person, 154; world. 153 realm of ideas, 311 Realwissenschaften.82 reason.72,129,134,301 receptive, 54. 169; discovering, 195; transcendence, 53, 55,329 receptivity, 53,173.320 reduction. 22. 23. 24 reductionism. 10-12.22-5 reflection, 184, 186, 187, 194, 195, 274 Reinach, Adolf. 1, 2, 50, 61, 106, 108,114.130,131,170,283,325.

330.331.336.337.342.344.347 relatedness, 230 relative, 272; being, 249 relativism, 7, 8, 9,17,36,61, 62,]1, 114,171,198,220,227,260,310, 311,323,346 relativity, 74, 230. 270, 310 relativization of truth, 311 religion, 135, 136 remembering. 192 remembrance of itself to itself, 186 reminiscence. 57,81,333 Rep/lblic, 53 Rescher, Nicholas, 54 resistance, 161,299,347: of reality , 299

responsibility, 293 ressentiment, 20, 23 retention, ISO Revers, Wilhelm Josef. 227 rigorous, 265: science, 139, 15362,163,164,265,341 Ross, G.R.T., 183, 197 scandal of pure reason, 126,334 Scheler, Maria, 325 Scheler,Max.20,23,45,47,61,75, 76,95,106,136,161,270,273, 299,325.329.331.333.337.347 Schelling, Friedrich, 20 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 8, 98 Schrag, Calvin 0.,340 Schuhmann, KarL 326 Schwarz, Balduin, 33, 284,329.347 science, 16, 17, 124, 169-70,265, 279 Scotists, 333 Sedlmayr, Hans, 29, 52,326 seeming, 11, 179, 191, 192,293, 304,307,318 Seifert, Josef. 325.329.330.331.

332.333.334.337.339.340.344. 345.346.347.349 self: -constituted, 155: -constituting, 155: -constitution, 155,178-9,220,304,308,313, 349: -contradiction, 21,310: -creation, 305: -given,S 1, 66, 67, 308: -given ness of transcendent being, 164: -knowledge, 184, 186, 187,190,274: -positing, 43: -transcendence, 116 sense: knowledge, 139: perception, 149-53,151,156,162,170,323 Shaftesbury, Earl of. 326 Shakespeare, William, 29, 317 Shankara, 176,177 sight, 185, 186 Sigwart, C. 310 skeptic, 194,226 skepticism, 7, 8, 35, 61, 62,127, 193,323,346 Smith, Barrv, 50. 66.102.103.104. 105.328.j29. 331. 333.343. 347

361

Index Smith. Norman Kemp. 334 social. 7tH) sociology. 30 Socrates. 13. 14.30.53.58.61.72. 75.76.158.199.200.203.261 Socratic. 157 Sokolowski. Robert. 338, 348 solipsi~m. 293 solipsistic. 293 something. 183 soul. 129.295.306.339 Southern Critics of Literature. 52 space/so 128. 188 Spaemann. Robert. 326 species. 141. 165-8.200.309.311. 343; homo. 310 speculation/s. 66. 67 speculative: knowledge. 45. 66. 69; phenomenology. 68; thought. 65 Spinoza. Benedict (Baruch). 211 spiri t/s. 231 Springer. Herbert. 325 'state of affairs.' 193 statistic-al necessity. 201 Stegmiiller. Wolfgang. 213 Stein. Edith. 207. 244.331. 333, 337 structure of subjectivity. 315 Styczen. Tadeusz. 326 subject/s. 103. 129. 137. 149.182. 183.192.193.194.226.227.238. 252.254.255.259.262.303.305. 306.307.316.317.322.339; object. 255. 274; of knowledge. 271 subjective. 260. 272. 272-6. 277-9. 279-81.282-5; as merely imagined. 256; as opposed to the true meaning of something. 258; being as heteronomous being. 257; givenness. 275; idealism. 35; knowledge. 187. 261. 266; necessity/ies. 196.209; significance. 276; transcendental necessity. 204-5 subjectivism. 2. 8.114.260.323 subjectivist. 348 subjectivity. 7. 9.128.150.174.175. 177.178.256.273.276.277.278.

279.281.288.304.308 substance/so 67.245.256.306 substantiation. 302 sufficient reason. 132 suicide. 8 suprastructure. 21 Susanna. 297 syllogism/so 183.344 synthesis. 107. 113.150. 151.167. 306.320 synthesizing. 309 synthetic. 105.337; a priori. 43. 50. 51.61.112.131.191; propositions a priori. 337; transcendental apperception. 322 system. 10.43.46.53 systematic. 45 systematization. 43. 44 Tate.A .. 326 temporal. 142 Thales of Miletus. 134 theology. 68. 300. 335.336 theory. 44. 46 theory of truth. 264; coherence theory. 54. 55. 264. 280; consensus. 280; pragmaticist. 280; pragmatist. 264. 280; vitalistic. 280 thing. 255 thing in itself. 3. 8. 62-5. 220. 223-9. 247-9.250.281.285.299.308 things in themselves. 2.3.9. 10. 116.131.140.143.148.178.22347.254.282.294.299.300.30324.303-12.321-4.330.332,346, 348 things themselves. 1.2. 12. 13. 15. 31-2.33-42.38.39.41.42-52.44. 47.51.52-62.60.101.300 thinking. 172. 184.340 Thomism. 323 Thomist/s. 64. 333 thou. 288; aspect. 244; character. 243 thought. 36. 151. 185. 187. 190 Tiefengrammatik, 37 time. 128. 196

362

Index timeless, 141, 142,292,311 timelessness, 166,206 to be, 92 tone, 241 transcendence, 32, 51, 71,76,89, 90,113,116,117,138,144,145, 147,148,149,173,214,220,252, 333,334,349; of knowledge, 137, 138,329,330,348; of man in knowledge, 322,339; ofthe person, 324 transcendent, 63, 78, 79, 91,93, 145,146,147,163,174;existence, 86,295; objects, 166; perception, 163; transcendence, 114, 138, 144,342 transcendental,26, 76,101, 131, 147,292,339; consciousness, 134, 162,192,295,307; constitution, 152,173-4,174-6,321;ego,147, 170,176,313,314,338;ideaof reason, 295; ideal, 336; idealism, 9,121,124,125,127,128,129, 130-6,131,132,146,153,154, 155,158,165,168,169,171-3, 174,175,177,178,210,220,252, 254,303-12,304,307-8,308,310, 312,316,319-21,321,331,339, 340; idealist, 293; ideas of reason, 129; illusion, 294; necessity, 209; object, 335; phenomenologist, 316; phenomenology, 2, 9, 77, 96, 121,137-80,139,142-9,154,173, 174,175,176,176-8,179-80,219,

220,224,252,312,314,324,330, 334,348; philosophy, 123-36, 334; reduction, 88, 100, 101, 11317; reductionism, 321; relativism, 114; structures, 316; subject, 177, 307,345; subject of constitution, 314; subjectivism, 145,322,329; subjectivity, 162,253,317; synthetic apperception, 305,307, 345 transcendentally transcendent, 147 transmundane, 315, 316 trials, 45 Troisfontaines, Roger, 346

true, 192; proposition, 282 trust, 341 trustworthiness, 302 truth/s, 7,8, 10, 11,13, 17,21,38, 41,54,55,58,104,158,182,186, 187,188,190,191,195,196,197, 271,279,298,299,301,307,310, 311,341,345,347;assuch,166; claim, 55; claim to, 280; eternal, 192,333; factual, 190; immediate, 184; indubitable, 194; infinitely many, 190; inner, 300,301;necessary,51,148,1908,308,331; objective 280; of judgment, 279-80; theory of, 264; universal, 197 Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa, 325, 337,348 ultimate certainty, 149 unconscious,255,314,315,316 unconstitutable, 167, 179,292,307, 318; nature, 305,307 unconstituted, 160, 179,237,305-7; activity of constitution, 303-5; being,303-12,308,309,312,314, 317;constituens, 314 uncreatable, 292 unification, 150, 151 uninventable,292 universaL 190-8, 195, 198; causal law, 133; constitution, 178-9, 310,345; essence, 199; facts, 190; transcendental constitution, 313; truths, 197 univocity, 333 unknowable, 339 utilitarian, 55 Vaihinger, Hans, 296 validity, 280 value, 195 vantage points, 139,288 veracity of God, 161, 197 verification, 212, 323 veritatesaeternae, 190,196 vicious circle, 320 Vienna circle, 65, 82

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Index view/s, 139,288 virtue, 292 vitalistic theory of truth, 280 voluntaristic conception of knowledge, 269 Wagner, Richard, 84 Weiss, Paul ,325 Wenisch, Fritz, 10,333,337,344, 346 Wesensgesetze, 62 whole of our experience, 298 Wilder, Thornton, 246 will, 195,270 Willard, Dallas, 137, 138,325, 333. 334,337

Willetts, H.T.,326 willing, 182, 190 wisdom, 157; of language, 37 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 37,38 Wojtyla, Karol CardinaL 22,152,

186,275,314,325,326,339,340. 349 Wolff, Robert P., 330 word/s, 40 word meaning/s, 37, 167 world, 129, 160,161. 162-5,177, 295,310; belief. 51 Zen Buddhism, 273, 288

364