Contemporary Phenomenology and the Problem of Existence

Contemporary Phenomenology and the Problem of Existence 1IIiiiiil. .1IiiiII@

John Wild

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, VoL 20, No. 2 (Dec., 1959), 166-180. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205%28195912%2920%3A2%3CI66%3ACPATPO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

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CONTEMPORARY PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE In classical thought essence refers to that clear structure or whatness which can be brought before the mind in a definition, and which distinguishes one thing from another. Existence refers to that act which is shared bYI all actual entities and which separates them from nothing. In this tradition consciousness is outwardly directed toward an object. It is true that the mind is dimly aware of its own act as it proceeds, but this awareness is hazy and peripheral, and incapable of yielding definite knowledge. To get a clear view of a mental operation, one must view it from the standpoint of another act of second intention and so on. No disciplined effort is made to describe human life as it is lived from the inside. This is purely individual, subjective, and in a sense ineffable, for, as Aristotle said, there is no science of the individual. Hence the De Anima and Aquinas' Treatise on Man are written from an external point of view. Man is an object, and his various properties and faculties are described and analyzed as they appear to an outside observer. At the same time, one who delves into traditional realistic epistemology is struck by the emphasis on essence as over against existence. We are presented with elaborate explanations of how the form or nature of an external thing can be abstracted and assimilated by the mind, where it gains a universal status, and can be predicated. But as to how we know existence little is said. Being is regarded as the first concept (if it is a concept) which is abstracted from experience (if this process can rightly be called abstraction). Both these assertions have been questioned, and the answers are by no means clear. How we know the act of existing is plunged in the darkest obscurity, and after studying the very voluminous literature on this subject our confusion is not mitigated. This classical objectivism with its attendent neglect of self-consciousness and existence left a permanent mark on the history of Western thought. This is not the "time to trace it in any detail. I shall only refer to the way in which self-consciousness and existence are brought together in the Cartesian cogito and to the epoch-making developments to which this discovery gave rise in modern times. But as Husserl has pointed out, after this epoch-making discovery of the inner life of the mind Descartes let it slip away, and relapsed into objectivist modes of thought which regarded the mind as a thinking thing or substance. The British empiricists reduced the mind to a set of objective impressions within a substantial container, until Hume finally confessed his difficulty

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in conceiving of the mind at all, on the ground that it was obviously not an objective impression. At the same time, Hume also asks: "Where am I or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these (existential) questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable conditio~ imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty." 1 , That traditional idealism is confronted with similar difficulties is shown in the middle writings of Husser!. He clearly sees the intentional structure of' consciousness, which involves a subjective and an objective pole. But following the classical tradition, this leads him to deny any self-consciousness in the very act. The only way in which we can become aware of our intentions is by another act. Hence our awareness is always divided, and doubled against itself. It is lost in its objects, and can never catch up with itself, always arriving a little too late for the fair. Correlated with this, a has been noted, there is a failure in these writings of Husserl to focus the act of existing. Russerl never arrived at an ontology. What he gives us is an analysis of consciousness and its objects not from the inside, but from the point of view of another consciousness. On the continent of Europe phenomenologists now claim to have shed some light on the act of existing in the world. I am prepared to accept this claim, at least to some degree. But they say little or nothing about how existence is known. Heidegger tells us in Sein und Zeit that it is possible to interpret human existence from the standpoint of being itself which one already understands dimly and pre-thematically. Presumably this is what he is doing. But is he simply regarding his own consciousness? If so, what is the ground for the general statements that fill the book? Is this knowledge certain and immediate? Is it interested or disinterested? These questions are not clearly faced or clearly answered. In his illuminating work La Phenomenologie de la Perception, Merleau-Ponty tells us many things about the primordial preconceptual constitution of the world. But how can the preconceptual be expressed in concepts? What kind of consciousness is this? Does it coincide with or is it detached from being? About these matters littl~ is said. Of course one may hold that these are pioneering works devoted to discovery, and that methodological questions are rightly postponed until later. But sooner or later they must be raised. So in this paper I wish to raise one. How do we know existence? It is of course very basic and connected 1 Green and Grose, A Treatise on Human Nature, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1874, p. 548.

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with many other issues. Nevertheless in the time at my disposal, I hope that I may make certain suggestions concerning an answer which grows out of phenomenology itself, and which I think are worthy of discussion. I shall divide it into three parts: I. How I know my own existence; 11. How I distinguish real from fictive existence; and Ill. The nature of this existential knowledge. I. HO'\V I KNOW MY OWN EXISTENCE.

I do not believe that traditional thought has been correct in supposing that I gain a clear awareness of my own act only by a second reflexive act, or in idealistic language, that I can know one consciousness only by another consciousness intending it from the outside. My existing awareness, in its first act, opens into a world horizon which is ever present as encompassing any specific object that I intend. But this horizon belongs to my existence, and can never be objectified. Hence when I look at an original awareness as an object, from the standpoint of a second act, it is torn from its world context, and is reduced to the level of a peculiar subjective object, or subject, within a world that is not its own. In this way, we get a clear and distinct view of objects and traits within the world which is useful for many purposes. But this view is de-existentialized. The original act of existing, and the original horizon have slipped through its fingers. They are present but never sharply focused. We are not aware of ourselves and the world which we inhabit, but rather of a certain objective perspective on things within the world. This perspective is always partial, abstract, and indifferent to existence. What has happened in recent phenomenology is the intensive development of that germ of self-consciousness which we exercise not after the act, but in the very act as it proceeds. It is only by dwelling on this self-consciousness, and by bringing it to expression that we may come to know existence as it is in the act. Within ourselves we have direct access to existing tendencies. We gain access to them not by any detached observation, but by a disinterested manifestation which belongs to the act itself. Thus I can explain my meaning only by an expressive act of intention that reveals itself. This development of my meaning is an act of concentration that manifests itself to me and to others as it proceeds, not by other observing intentions, but by an intentional act. My auditor cannot grasp it passively. He must, as we say, follow me, and go throught the explanation in his own mind actively. Any understanding that he may come to share will not arise from other objective intentions, but from the act itself as he repeats it. Here the purest form of activity coincides with the purest form of revealing.

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Nonliving things have no intrinsic center of meaning. Hence with respect to them, detached observation for the sake of control is justifiable. Such things I can only master from the outside. But to stand outside of my own act in this way, and to watch it, is always a sign of uncertainty and doubt. Since my acts are always in need of correction, such doubt is good for me, and may lead to growth. In moments of crisis and deliberation, it is well to become objective toward myself for awhile. But if this attitude becomes habitual, I am threatened with disintegration and meaninglessness. To sit back and simply watch another person speak and act is a sign of misunderstanding and division. To watch myself habitually as an object and to wait for myself to happen is to fall into that divided and sterile self-consciousness which has brought this term into justifiable suspicion from a moral point of view. The question concerning meaning is the phenomenological question. Our awareness normally moves away from the center of meaning to lose itself in objective facts. But if it is led to dwell on such a fact, asking about its meaning, then the centrifugal direction of our awareness is reversed, and we are led back to the self-conscious center which is presupposed by all objective fact. Phenomenology is precisely this deepening of selfconsciousness, this restless search for what lies back of the objects in which we ordinarily and scientifically lose our attention, or as we now call it our intention. The phenomenologist is simply one who is not content with the object alone or the subject alone, but who is concerned with the two in their intentional integrity, as they always are actually found. Phenomenology is not merely the theory that this is so, but the putting it into practice, the urge to explore its interminable vistas. If one can speak of modern philosophy as the first focusing of human self-consciousness, one can speak of phenomenology as its active exploration. For many years we have been living under the objectivist prejudice that language is exclusively referential in its function or that all meaning is objective. The linguistic analysts of Britain have recently performed an important service in undermining this prejudice and in calling our attention to the many other functions that language performs. Ordinary language, for example, is often used for the active expression of selfconscious choices and meanings. The words 1 do in a marriage ceremony are the immediate expression or revealing of an act (of marriage) that the words themselves perform. Similarly the words 1 promise when seriously uttered, refer only secondarily to the act that will be carried out. Basically they are not referential at all, but rather expressive. They directly express an act or decision that is actually made and revealed at the very ~ame time by the words. Phrases like 1 choose and 1 decide in the proper contexts are not about anything else to which they refer, nor do they refer to

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themselves. They are rather self-manifesting acts in which the genuine saying of the words and the self-consciousness coincide. 2 There are many ways of expressing self-consciousness in purely theoretical contexts, though the opinion is widely held that all theoretical meanings are intentional or referential. This opinion, however, is not borne out by the facts. A single statement may be used not referentially but expressively to manifest an awareness, as when I say: this statement I am now making is temporal, or this statement I am now-making is selfconscious. The statement here does not refer to itself. It does not refer to anything. It is used expressively to manifest its own self-consciousness. We may call it an act of pure revelation. Indeed the first personal pronoun 1 in any such phrase as 1 feel, 1 think, 1 mean, is not referential, certainly not self-referential. It is rather the direct expression and radiation of an act of self-consciousness. Such self-awareness normally attends all meaningful speech. Meaning itself is necessarily self-conscious, though it is apt to become implicit and peripheral by losing itself in the objects to which it is referring. Hence any statement of any type that I make may be challenged by the question, What do you mean?, which doubts the very existence of such a self-conscious intention. The answer to such questions in the form, I mean such and such, is the intensification and concentration of a selfconscious element that is presumably always present in intelligible discourse. The statement 1 mean x is not an intentional reference to something distinct from itself x, on which attention alone is to be focused. When I say 1 mean x, I am not saying that I am conscious of x. The whole meaning, intention of x, is taken here as a unit. No other intention is referring to it, neither is it referring to itself. I am rather performing an expressive act which, to me and to others, reveals its own intrinsic meaning, which is neither exclusively subjective nor exclusively ob; jective, but both together. Such a subjective-objective meaning, if really held, must be selfconscious. I canno.t be wholly unconscious of my basic meanings. The word my here indicates a mode of being, not having. These meanings belong to me. We do not speak of facts in this way. They are impersonal and belong to no one. We do not speak of my facts or your facts. I may, however, naturally be asked to explain my meaning. This is because my meanings belong to me in a pecularily close sense. In rare instances, I may have created them myself; many more I have freely chosen. All of them I have adopted and made my own. I cannot get outside of them objectively to gaze at them as facts. They are part of my being, and would, therefore, be involved already in any such gazing. They constitute the basic structure of my being-in-the-world. 2

Cf. J. R. Jones, "Self-Knowledge", Arist. Soc. Suppl., Vol. XXX, 1956.

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This does not mean, of course, that I cannot examine my meanings. But when I do this, it is an essential part of the most fundamental kind of examination I can~ make, the examination of myself. If as a result of this, I decide to change my meanings and really change them, this is the . most fundamental change of which I am capable, a change in my whole way of being-in-the-world. My meanings do not merely belong to me as something I have. They are a constitutive part of me over which I exercise a degree of free control. I am the meanings that I really hold. Such a meaning is an act of my being. It is also conscious. Here being and awareness are one. The ratio essendi and the ratio cognoscendi coincide. This awareness, we may say, is existential. 11. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REAL AND FICTIVE EXISTENCE

My own intentions and their objects are self-revealing. Reports on them after the fact may be questioned. But as the acts are performed in the present, their self-revelations cannot be "mistaken." Concerning the actual expression of my meaning here and now, it is absurd to ask for criteria and to raise the question: How do you know? Such questions apply only to hypothetical objects whose existential status is in doubt. But in this case knowing and existence coincide. (Cf. S. Hampshire, Phil. Review, Jan., 1956, "On Referring and Intending.") This intentional act, together with its object, is immediately self"'revealing to me, and there is a clear sense in which I have a privileged access to such intentions. But this does not mean an exclusive access. I may verbally express this intention to a listening friend who may then gain direct access to it by following me. He runs through the act himself, and thereby it directly reveals itself to him as it does to me. In such a direct communication he will not say: I understand that you mean X. Such a mode of speech applies rather to things whose existence I know indirectly through the mediation of influences they send to me, as I know that the nebula in Orion exists through the mediation of light. In this case, however, I grasp the actual meaning as it is expressed to me. So I say when I am the listener: 1 see what you mean, or simply 1 understand what you say_ The human act and its object are held together in a single intention, as it is called. Each of these can be expressively revealed in relation to the other, and with equal directness. If I am thinking of a centaur, both the act of thinking and its object (centaur) can be directly understood as they occur in relation to each other. These intentional acts are different in kind, but they are always existent. The objects, however, may be purely possible and lacking in existence. Such objects are often called imaginary. Thus I can imagine a friend to be present in my room. Such an object is quite different from the actual presence of my friend, though my thought of

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the .former is just as actual, when it occurs, as my greeting of Harry when he comes in the door. Now this has given rise to the question as to the difference between the real and imaginary objects of actual intentions. Here the question concerning criteria is legitimate, for mistakes can certainly be made and also corrected. If so, it is reasonable to ask for a clarification of the difference between these two kinds of objects. It is clear that the traditional explanation which identifies the real with the coherent, and the fictive with the unassimilated and fragmentary will not do. This rationalistic theory fails to fit the evidence in many ways. For example, there are delusions which are thoroughly systematic and coherent. Also what is evidently real and unquestionably existent, like sudden death by accident, is often unexpected and quite opaque to coherent understanding. This theory," and others like it, have been thoroughly criticized in the phenomenological literature. Many hints have been given as to the meaning of this prerational distinction which is directly felt rather than judged. But I know of no attempt to bring these hints together into an intelligible interpretation which does justice to the facts. Let -us now try to suggest such an interpretation. What is the difference between the imaginary and the real, between what has been called essence and existence, or to use the famous example discussed by Kant, between the 100 imaginary dollars and the real ones jingling in his pocket? Hume was right in thinking of faintness as a possible sign of unreality, but he was wrong in thinking of this, and its opposite (vividness), as impressions or qualities of sensation. Being is rather given to us in what we may call an intensity of sensation which belongs to another order altogether, the order of act. The sound which grows actually louder as it approaches me and then, as it teaches the limit of what I can hear, forces me to vital reactions of flight and defense is real. It is this intensity that tells me not what it is, but that something is really present. It is not a quality of any kind, but the primitive core of sensation which to some degree underlies every object that is clearly perceived. It is easy for us to abstract the objective aspects of sensation and to hold them in memory, especially those of sight and hearing which lie at a distance from us, often too remote to affect our action. In an attitude of detachment, we can then bring these qualities, or sense data, before us, fit them into such patterns as we desire, and reflect upon them at leisure. This attitude, closely related to what we call daydreaming, is radically different from the active engagement which governs our daily life. The images we present to ourselves when, as we say, we are thinking, are characterized by a uniform lack of intensity without any makred variations of degree. Thus my image of a piercing shriek will differ from that of a distant cry. I can conjure up the nearness of the former, its

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higher pitch, and other characteristics. I may imagine that these are the equivalent of a piercing intensity actually sensed. But this is not true, as I may readily discover by attending more closely to my imaginings, all of which fall·into an even plane of indifferent intensity. Thus in trying to imagine the difference between a brilliant flash of lightning in the near vicinity, and a faint flash in the distance, I will conjure up the former as directly overhead, as yellow rather than orange, or perhaps as zigzagging at more acute angles. But all this is actually no more intense than my image -of the more oblique pattern of orange light in a different location. These crucial differences in intensity can be indirectly suggested by 'words like "intensity," or immediately conveyed by an intense tone of voice, or by internal motions. They cannot be imagined as objective qualities. And yet thi~ intensity is one of the critical factors in our immediate grasp of being whether it be within ourselves or in external things. So it is no wonder that existence becomes a problem for modern epistemologists who philosophize in the attitude of imaginative reflection, and use it as a standard for judging the whole of life. Thus it is interesting to note how their favorite examples of what they call sensation are pure qualities, like red patches and middle C sounds, selected from the distance senses. Such objects are often so remote that they leave our action untouched, and show little variation in intensity. Being open to a pure observation, they are already incipient images which are easily absorbed into the context of a supposedly bodiless stream of consciousness without depth and reality. They can be brought into this stream by all act of will, and once there they can be clearly focused as pure qualia, remote from real commitment and from the lived body which is merged with every real act. The images of touch, taste, and smell, on the other hand, are less adapted to the needs of an objectivist epistemology. This is because they are harder to evoke voluntarily, far more closely merged with bodily action and existence, and thus less clear. In such experiences, the things are so close to the body and so fused with action, that there is little opportunity for detachment. In o:r:der to imagine such an existing thing, we must begin to recapture the original experience itself. Thus it is difficult, if not impossible, to conjure up a motor image without the beginning of a real movement. Such images are no longer clear and objective, for we are subjectively and physically involved in them. Feeling also is too closely linked with our everchanging present situation to give birth to memories and images. I feel my whole global situation as it is now centered in my body, and as it is now responding to my desires. It is, therefore, difficult for me to get outside my feelings to attain a detached "view." They belong to my being. Hence I must be them, rather than gaze upon them as a spectator. There are always closely connected with my action, the self-

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conscious-feeling of which, as it goes on, is no doubt a chief source of my knowledge of being. This conscious action holds to its past, and projects itself into the future. It also reaches out to other things and persons in the world. Many thinkers have pointed out that resistance to my action distinguishes real beings from the passive objects I can control by imagination and thought. The chair which I bump into in the dark, the space which keeps me from being elsewhere at a moment's notice, and the time which separates -me from the past and future are real. I am immediately aware of my own conscious acts. I am this awareness. Here, as we have seen, being and consciousness coincide, the ratio essendi being equivalent to the ratio cognoscendi. This is the center of my vital field. With other being, both internal and external, my awareness may come to coincide, depending on my capacity to find out that it is, and what it is. I find out that it is primarily by my action and the feeling which attends it. 'Active resistance is no doubt a constitutive character of real being that distinguishes it from what is merely possible. But this is only part of the story which needs to be expanded. A real being not only resists my overt acts and manipulations; it resists my acts of awareness as well. It reveals only a partial phase of itself in a perspective that constantly changes with my movements. Thus real things constantly change, and reveal new aspects of themselves as I move through the world. Each perspective manifests itself as only a perspective, and also points to a global being that is inexhaustible to any set of per-spectives, no matter how great. An imagined object, on the other hand, is fixed, and lacks this openness to further points of view. Thus a piece of painted scenery does not continue to reveal itself as I move around it, but simply disappears. It is open only to a restricted set of perspectives, and within these, undergoes no significant change. Such fixity is characteristic of the imaginary. The audience of a play must remain fixed in their seats. The fabrication offers little resistance to our awareness. It can be viewed from one point of view only, and is relative to this point of view. To move in behind the scenes is to destroy the illusion. The picture is enclosed within a frame which defines a re-stricted set of perspectives. Only from such an immobile point of view can it be apprehended. From this point of view, and within its frame, it is complete and requires nothing further. This is all there is. It has nothing more to be manifested. This lack of openness, which we have called resistance to awareness, is characteristic of all imaginary objects, whether they concern me, or alien things and persons. It can be broken down into two component factors: first, a fixed content that is wholly revealed to an immobile perspective, and, second, an atomic isolation that closes it to other perspectives. The former has been

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called clarity, the second distinctness; and under' these titles they have been defended as the definitive criteria for all genuine knowledge. As a matter of fact they do define a certain kind of knowledge, that by which we know imaginary objects of our own fabrication. Real being is resistant to our awareness. Its content is never fixed, but always open to further perspectives. What is revealed in a single perspective is never atomically isolated, but always part of a global background that is also di:Ql1y manifested. Hence our awareness of real beings is neither clear nor distinct. What is known always merges with a hazy and inexhaustible background. This openness to further views is the most conclusive evidence for the existence of being independent of our fabrication, whether it be internal or external. Imagination and reason can tell us about qualities and essences, that mayor may not exist, with a high degree of clarity and distinctness. By themselves alone they can tell us nothing about existence. They can inform us about objects lying before us. They cannot tell us whether these objects exist or not. Such knowledge comes from selfconscious action in the Lebenswelt of man. It comes from the sensing of variations in intensity, from the feeling of friendly forces which support our intentions, or from the shock of alien forces which resist them, and finally from the inexhaustible richness of the things and persons around us which constantly blocks our attempts to understand. It is important to realize that what is imaginary lacks intensity and fails to resist our action and understanding. Reality, on the other hand, shows variations in intensity, resists our action, and reveals depths which are opaque to insight. The terms of this distinction do not refer to objects or properties that lie before the mind. They are used expressively to reveal certain lived activities which must be actually exercised or remembered, if the verbal meanings are to be understood. Without such exercise, the terms are meaningless. The meaning inhabits the act itself and is directly felt. Our ordinary language does not refer to such meaning, but expresses it directly, as when I say 1 am on my way. It is important to realize that the expressive characters we have identified with existence are not restricted to objects encountered in the world, but pervade every phase of our experience whether it be objective or subjective. Thus I find different degrees of intensity in my "inner" feelings. "Inner" habits resist my purposes, and I discover hidden depths within myself which are opaque .to any partial analysis. Hence I feel my own existence to be as real as the objects which show these traits. In spite of my privileged access to the lived intentions which originate in me, I may conjure up delusions about myself as well as about other persons and things around me. When examined carefully they lack the intensity and depth that radiate from reality. We must also note that in normal waking experience they never occur alone, but always in a horizon of lived ex-

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istence, the real world, whose depth and intensity are immediately felt. Every specific object to which we attend, whether real or imaginary, is at once placed in some region of this world horizon. Thus -though the play I witness is a fiction lacking perspectival depth, it occurs on a real stage with a real geographic location, and my acts of attention and appreciation are intense and opaque. Even though I may lose myself in the fictive world of the play, this world is limited by the frame of a fixed perspective. Beyond this are real body feelings, the walls of the building, and noises from the street outside, of which I am dimly aware. These belong to a world horizon, that is open to further perspectives, not enclosed within any fixed frame; and therefore encompassing the world of the_ play. This limited world I can leave at any time by shifting my attention or departing from the building. But whatever I do or think, the real world still encompasses me. From this world there is only one way .of exit, - death. To be awake means to be exercising this distinction though not necessarily with results that are wholly true. Not to be aware of this distinction is what is meant by dreaming or being sound asleep. To dream occurs in a radically different horizon from which the expressive awareness of existence, and its absence, are equally lacking. As soon as this awareness begins to dawn, we are beginning to wake up. Thus as Malcolm points out in his interesting article on "Dreaming and Scepticism." (Phil. Review, Jan., 1956, pp. 14 ff.), for a person to assert: 1 am sound asleep, or even to ask Am 1 sound asleep?, entails that he is not sound asleep, and is, therefore, a contradiction. The dream is below the level of this distinction. Hence it is equally absurd either to suggest that a person ma.y be deceived by his dream, or that he may not be deceived. This whole category belongs only to the world of lived existence and its expressive awareness. We may be deceived with respect to the insertion of this or that in its real position, but a real background is required. To ask whether I may not be deceived with respect to the world as a whole, and my existence in it, is incompatible with what we mean by the world, and is, therefore, absurd. Recent studies of hallucination show that even here there is an awareness of the distinction between imagination and reality. The world, or at least its fragments, still remain. But a strange Cartesian chasm seems to have yawned between the hallucinated person and his world. He is unable to insert himself and his images into reality. Like the Cartesian subject, he stan'ds isolated with his own ideas confronting an "external" world that is only dimly and objectively glimpsed through his phantasms. But this is only a suggestion which we have no time here to pursue any further.

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Ill. THREE DISTINCTIVE MARKS OF EXISTENTIAL KNOWLEDGE

Self-knowledge is not intentional in structure. It is not the awareness of some object before the mind. It is rather a direct awareness that reveals my act in the very act. In contrast to imaginary fictions, we have seen that it shows variations in intensity, resistance, and depths of opaqueness. These are not thematic "criteria" which can be applied to abstract objects. They are rather pre-thematic disclosures which must be lived and felt. But it is in terms of them that we distinguish the imaginary from the realities of our lived experience in the world. Now, however, we must turn to another question. What is the nature of this lived awareness which we have been examining both in its positive mode (selfawareness) and in its privative modes (the imaginary and the delusive)? Can we discern in this original awareness any traits that clearly distinguish it from other levels of knowledge, for example, the detached awareness of objects that is found in scientific thought? We can notice certain traits of this kind. The first is what we may call existential certainty. Thus I can be sure of this solid arm of the chair (not objectively analyzed) as I exercise the act of pressing against it which is also self-revealing in the sense already explained in I. When I regard this object abstractly, apart from my own act, I may become clearer as to what it is, say its size or shape, but the original existential certainty is lost. The clearer I get as to objective traits by abstract analysis, the less certain I am as to its existence. What I am existentially sure of is always rather vague, and it would seem to be generally true that clarity and certainty of this kind vary inversely. As I work out a clearer interpretation of some object, I become less certain concerning its existence. As ·Descartes pointed out, such certainty will depend on meaningful acts (in this case acts of doubt) that must be actually performed, not merely observed. Such acts do not have to be illumined from the outside. They shine with their own light. Descartes was wrong in thinking that these acts were enclosed within a thinking substance. I cannot doubt without doubting something. As a matter of fact, they pervade the whole world field. But he was right in recognizing them as the center of our existential certainty. The aim of phenomenology is to intensify and deepen this certainty, and then to spread it throughout all those intentional structures that constitute the human world. This knowledge is not only existential. It is also certain, though indeterminate, and open to further perspectives of interpretation. The preconceptual, pre-thematic, and immediate is consciousness as it originally happens before it is fitted into an objective framework which imposes alien interpretations upon it. In this sense, my exposition of my own meanings is certainly immediate, though in itself hermeneutic, for

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man is a meaningful being. There is always a sense, therefore, in any act of man, and always at least an implicit awareness of this sense in the man himself. Even the most detached thought is never so lost in its object as to be completely unaware of itself. Without this, the notion of object would lose all meaning. Even a choice that is most exclusively concentrated on a distant goal, is still aware of its own choosing. When we are anxious about our whole being-in-the-world, it is also for our anxiety that we are anxious. Even preconceptual feelings of this kind have a germ of self-awareness in their own peculiar mode. The aim of phenomenology is to develop this germ of self-consciousness so that it may reveal my feelings, decisions, and thoughts exactly as they aJ;e meant, without any intrusion of alien frames of references or reductive explanatory theories. In this sense, it is a return to the things themselves in their original immediacy. Our preconceptual as well as our conceptual experiences must be expressed and understood exactly as they are. Such knowledge is existential, certain, and immediate. Understanding is the revealing of being. From the Greeks we have inherited the interpretation of being as an object lying there before the mind; and of revealing as theoria, the seeing of such an object frum a detached point of view. Hence for us also, at least officially, to understand is to gain from a distance a sweeping view of things. In the case of subhuman entities such a distant view is perhaps all that we can attain. Though it gives us no insight into their existence, it does give us an impression of their external forms and relations which is sufficient for the mastery we need. But to master the free being of man is to enslave and to debase him. Here we need something more than mastery. This being we need to understand, not merely from a distant external point of view, but from the inside, from the inner springs of the meanings which constitute his world. Objective theoria cannot give us an inner understanding of existence in the world. This knowledge is disinterested but it turns man into an object, and then fits him into a universe that is closed. Is there any alternative mode of approach? To the objective theorist there is only one possible alternative to disinterested theoria. This is the bias it calls subjective, which reveals nothing as it is, but simply makes up a theory of its own according to its wishes. This of course is inadequate, for we need to reveal the inner being of man as he is. What other alternative is to be found that is neither objectively disinterested nor subjectively biased? Phenomenology, as it is now being practised, has resulted from a long grappling with this problem that goes back to the sources of modern philosophy in Descartes and Kant. It takes as its point of departure the act of self-consciousness that is present not only in rational thought but in perception, feeling, and acting, in the whole of the human person. Then

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it allows this act to develop and to express its own meaning, revealing itself as it goes along, for in this case the revealing is an act of existing, and the act is a revealing. Here the mind must provide itself with its own data as it proceeds. This requires extreme patience and care, the bracketing of alien conceptions that are constantly intruding, and an active unfolding of meanings that are never just passively received. The goal is only seldom achieved. Very often there is a lapse into mere obje~tive theory, as in the middle works of Husserl. Sometimes there is an opposite lapse into the mere expression of personal idiosyncra3y, though often of a significant kind, as in many of the dialectical exercises of Sartre. But sometimes, as in the work of Merleau-Ponty and in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit, we find the sheer self-revelation of an essential human meaning, a necessary structure in the Lebenswelt. Of course there is always a bias, for man is himself a bias. These phenomena are all finite, historical, and relative to man. But this bias, while actively existent, does not construct theories about itself. It reveals itself in its own creative development, precisely as it is. In this sense, it is disinterested and unbiased, but this is not the disinterest of a detached point of view from the outside. It is rather the self-revelation of an interest from the inside. Such knowledge is not only existential, certain, immediate, and self-revealing. It is also the sheer revelation of finite, relative being as it is. It is existential, certain, immediate, and selfrevealing. This method has nothing in common with what is commonly called introspection, for the basic intentions that center in personal existence open into a world horizon. Hence no sooner do we turn our gaze inward th!tn we are at once projected out again to the ultimate limits of the human world. What we find is an integral intention that is neither subjective nor objective, but both together in one. The phenomenological method tries to penetrate to the self-conscious origin of such an intention, and then to express the meaning it bears in relation to its terminating objects. The investigator's analysis of his own existence must play a central role in this procedure. But this must be constantly supplemented by a sympathetic reliving and reinterpretation of the similar intentions of others, which are available through literature and communication. It is only in this way that the phenomenologist may eliminate individual idiosyncracies and penetrate to what is essential and universal. As yet only a bare beginning has been made. But some light has been shed on the essential character of human space, human time, anxiety, conscience, human integrity, freedom, and other primordial structures of the life-world, which are presupposed by any objective conceptual analysis. It is thus by intensifying and developing his self-consciousness that the person may deepen that certain, immediate, and self-revealing

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knowledge of his own existence which is not an objective theory about himself, but a necessary part of his being. We have tried to show in this paper that man is originally joined to his human world, and that this world existence cannot be understood by a detached and objective mode of reflection. It is understood rather by an awareness inhabiting ,our intentional acts which is existentially certain, immediate, and self-revealing. This awareness cannot be described from the outside. It can, however, be expressed by the methods of phenomenology. It is through this pre..thematic awareness that we can feel the distinction between imagination and what we call reality. This distinction may be expressed in terms of certain traits that must be lived to be understood. The imaginary exhibits a dim and even intensity, lacks resistance, and is restricted. to a single, fixed perspective. The real, on the other hand, shows variations of intensity, resists our action, and belongs to an expanding world horizon of unlimited depth. This primordial type of awareness and the life-world which it directly reveals have been neglected in our traditional philosophy for the sake of that clarity and distinctness which comes only with objective reflection. From this it was hoped that existential certainty might be achieved. But this hope has been disappointed. The rationalist attempt to base all knowledge on clear and distinct ideas and principles has ended only in chaos and doubt. Perhaps the time has come at last when we shall reverse this procedure, returning to our lived existence which reveals itself only vaguely, but with directness and certainty. From this concrete starting point we may then proceed to achieve a certain clarity without losing certainty. This is the goal of what is now called phenomenology. JOHN WILD. HARVARD

tJ NIVERSITY.